From: wdo@TEFS1.acd.com (Bill Overpeck)
Subject: Re: rights and responsibilities
Organization: Applied Computing Devices, Inc., Terre Haute IN
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 16:27:20 GMT

In <1992Oct2.002354.4378@jetsun.weitek.COM> nadja@jetsun.weitek.COM 
   (Nadja Adolf) writes: >
In article <1992Oct1.142920.1767@acd4.acd.com> wdo@TEFS1.acd.com 
   (Bill Overpeck) writes: >>
In <1992Sep29.230649.4628@jetsun.weitek.COM> nadja@jetsun.weitek.COM 
   (Nadja Adolf) writes: >>>
In article <4588@tivoli.UUCP> dfavor@logan.tivoli.com 
   (David Favor) writes: >>>>

>>>> [deleted] My aunt and uncle have
>>>> been waiting 2 years to adopt and the list gets longer behind them.  
>>>> Surely they can wait a little longer while the pro-aborts continue 
>>>> to take the easy way out.

[...] 

>>> I am so happy that your aunt and uncle wish misery on someone else 
>>> so that they can attain their version of happy. Personally, such an 
>>> attitude doesn't strike me as one desirable in parental units.
>
>> How is it that you're able to infer the attitudes of people you've 
>> never met or spoken with?  Such presumption seems incredibly judge-
>> mental.
>
> If they are busy complaining about others taking the 'easy way out' 
> and not bearing children for them, then I think it is very easy to 
> infer their attitudes from their stated values.

It might be, if their values had been stated.  David merely indicated
that they've been waiting a long time and that the line is getting  
longer behind them.  The "easy way out" comment seemed to be a re-
flection of his values, not theirs.

> Children are not a toy for adults. Even Dan Quayle agrees with me 
> on this one.

Who suggested that they were?
 
>>> They are waiting for a blue eyed unhandicapped white child, preferably 
>>> male.  Ask any social worker.
>
>> Ask this one.  The most recent adoptive home study I conducted 
>> involves a couple who are more than willing to consider a non-
>> white, handicapped (especially hearing or speech impaired, as 
>> the woman is a Speech and Language Pathologist) child.  Gender
>> is irrelevant also.  Perhaps it is Nadja who should be checking
>> with social workers.  Such families are not as rare as she has
>> been led to believe.
>
> My cousin is a social worker. She finds that many families have very
> definite requirements on the sort of child they want. The usual were
> listed in my earlier post. 

Many families do have such requirements, though I believe it to be
less than your cousin's 70-90%.  My experience is that the tiresome
characterization of adoptive parents as provincial bigots is quite
inaccurate.  

> She has found that the people most able and interested in taking 
> handicapped children were usually people with training in the 
> socio-medical fields, or people who had someone with such a handicap
> in their family or among their friends. She also says that at least 
> 70-90% of the people who express interest in adoption are not willing 
> to accept handicapped or other race children. This is more true for 
> minorities than it is for caucasians, BTW.

I'd be interested in her source for the 70-90% figure; I really 
don't buy it.  I currently know of another (middle-upper class, 
caucasian) family who is attempting to adopt two Ethiopian boys 
and can cite numerous others who've adopted minority or handi-
capped children or have been/are willing to do so.

Bill