Adoption

The history of adoption in the Deaf community exposes a child welfare system that inadequately serves deaf members of the adoption triad: birth parents, adoptive parents, or adoptees. This history includes long-standing oppressive practices and legal precedents denying deaf parents the right to adopt children, as well as more recent studies and anecdotal evidence that shows the strengths of adoptive families with deaf members.

Adoption is the legal process that transfers the parental rights of the biological parents to nonrelated adults who agree to parent the child until legal age and assume all the rights and responsibilities of parenthood. Deaf people have adopted deaf and hearing children in the United States and in other countries for centuries. Some of these adoptions are informal and involve the raising of a child by relatives without going through a legal process. There are no data on the number of formal or informal adoptions by deaf people, the number of deaf children placed in adoptive homes, or the number of Deaf biological parents who have made an adoption plan. Few studies have investigated this population, and little is known about how deaf people receive support from formal service providers as well as support and acceptance for adoption within the Deaf community itself. Although a social stigma remains about adoption as a way to form a family, adoption practice has come a long way since the time when unintended pregnancies were hidden and adoption was kept a secret, even from the adopted child. Deaf people as well may have grown up under this same shroud of secrecy about their birth families.

In the United States, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 improved opportunities and services and protected the rights of people with disabilities in many cases. However, overt and covert discrimination still exists toward Deaf members of the adoption triad. For example, deaf birth parents may not have easy access to pregnancy counseling centers or the complex legal and adoption systems to help them make an informed decision about the adoption of their child. Prospective deaf adoptive parents may face barriers from adoption agencies that balk at providing sign language interpreters for home studies and information meetings and that harbor stereotypes about the parenting skills of deaf parents. Many smaller agencies find a loophole in the ADA and claim “hardship” at the cost of providing American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters for deaf clients who request them. Prospective deaf adoptive parents may not want to “make waves” by filing a complaint because they perceive it will have a negative impact on their chances of adopting a child. Deaf adoptees, whether as children, teens, or adults, may not have information and access to postadoption counseling services, or they may fail to locate accessible adoptee support groups that may help them understand how adoption affects their lives. Deaf children wait longer in the foster care system and in orphanages than hearing children because they are categorized as special needs children. Despite these barriers to adoption, deaf members of the adoption triad have successfully navigated the adoption and legal systems and are forging ahead with their own networks and support systems to advocate for Deaf-centric adoption practices.

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