Adoption Matters

by Haslanger, Sally; Witt, Charlotte

• ISBN13: 9780801489631
• ISBN10: 0801489636
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-01-31
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr

Summary

As a social and legal institution of family formation, and as a personal experience of members of the adoption triad, adoption provides a fresh vantage point on an important set of philosophical and feminist issues. The family is often thought to be the basic and natural form of social life for human beings; adoption, however, highlights the powerful role that law and politics play in shaping families and our ideas about families. As a result, attention to the practices of adoption sheds light upon deeply held, but often tacit assumptions about what is natural and what is social in human life.-from the Introduction The institution of adoption has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years as the adoption world has undergone seismic shifts: the rise in international and transracial adoptions and the effects of global economics; adoption by gays and lesbians; increasing openness in the adoption process; and changes in domestic welfare policy on adoption. Adoption Matters adds to our understanding of reproduction, parenting, familial bonds, personal identity, self-knowledge, and contemporary social policy. The contributors to Adoption Matters explore a range of related topics, such as the manner in which interracial or international adoption affects the way we perceive the relationships among race, ethnicity, and culture and how class affects one's life prospects and choices.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Notes on Contributors	xi
Introduction: Kith, Kin, and Family	1	(18)
Sally Haslanger
Charlotte Witt
Part I. ``Natural'' and ``Unnatural'' Families
Adoption and Its Progeny: Rethinking Family Law, Gender, and Sexual Difference	19	(28)
Drucilla Cornell
Open Adoption Is Not for Everyone	47	(21)
Anita L. Allen
Methods of Adoption: Eliminating Genetic Privilege	68	(27)
Jacqueline Stevens
Several Steps Behind: Gay and Lesbian Adoption	95	(17)
Sarah Tobias
A Child of One's Own: A Moral Assessment of Property Concepts in Adoption	112	(23)
Janet Farrell Smith
Part II. Familial Relationships and Personal Identities
Family Resemblances: Adoption, Personal Identity, and Genetic Essentialism	135	(11)
Charlotte Witt
Being Adopted and Being a Philosopher: Exploring Identity and the ``Desire to Know'' Differently	146	(25)
Kimberly Leighton
Real (M) othering: The Metaphysics of Maternity in Children's Literature	171	(24)
Shelley Park
Accidents and Contingencies of Love	195	(28)
Songsuk Hahn
Response	219	(4)
Harry Frankfurt
Part III. Constructions of Race and Constructions of Family
Abuse and Neglect, Foster Drift, and the Adoption Alternative	223	(11)
Elizabeth Bartholet
Feminism, Race, and Adoption Policy	234	(13)
Dorothy Roberts
Racial Randomization: Imagining Nondiscrimination in Adoption	247	(18)
Hawley Fogg-Davis
You Mixed? Racial Identity without Racial Biology	265	(26)
Sally Haslanger
References	291	(20)
Index	311