Afterhour Article 1: Anyelí Liseth Hernández Rodríguez || Kidnapping
In 2015, the director of a major American adoption agency pleaded guilty to enabling illegal adoptions of Ethiopian children by American families. James Harding, 53, was not alone in this accusation; three other employees of International Adoptions Guides, Inc. were indicted. And while we may wish this brand of corruption is rare, the last two decades have shown us precisely the opposite. One of the more poignant stories revolves around the adoption of Karen Monahan, or Anyelí Liseth Hernández Rodríguez, her birth name.
The short story: As a toddler, Anyelí was kidnapped from her front yard in a middle-class neighborhood in Guatemala. She was shuffled through the adoption system and taken to America in 2008 as the soon-to-be daughter of Jennifer and Timothy Monahan. Her new home was Liberty, Missouri. This “orphan’s” birth parents fought desperately to bring their daughter home, without success. The Guatemalan government’s pressure on the U.S. did nothing, the parents’ begging for some form of contact did nothing. Anyelí was gone.
I was enraged upon hearing the story. This child should never have been taken, never have been put up for adoption. This family should not receive silence from the American adoptive family and the U.S. government as retribution for their tears. And if this is characteristic of the state of international adoption today, it should be consigned to the past. We have horror stories coming out of nearly every country American families adopt from — Uganda, Guatemala, Armenia, Uganda, China, India, Poland, Cambodia. Why are such flagrant abuses allowed, and ignored? It’s not right, and I thought, it needs to stop.
But after investigating the history, abuses, and ethical issues surrounding international adoption, I see things differently. Yes, I still have a heart. But I’ve come to believe the perfect is the enemy of the good here. Let me show you why.
My anger in the face of the U.S. government’s passivity stemmed from empathy for the people who lost. People whose lives were altered forever. This is also a leading reason why families choose to adopt international children — compassion, generosity, and love. Examples of abuse reveal the need for systemic reform, not dissolution. Parents’ ‘misguided’ love in adopting a child is not the problem. It’s that their love does not extend to action in the face of a broken system of which they are now participants. They are loving too little, not too much.
So what does it mean to love more? And how is love a real solution? Frankly, it sounds more like a pop song than a legitimate policy proposal. On the other hand, love is a virtue, and I’d certainly like to think virtue is at the core of policy designed to promote justice. And that’s our working equation. Love expressed is virtue, and virtue ought to drive both our individual and collective behaviors.
For our purposes, we start with the love of a parent. The parent’s love finds expression in the adoption of a child, and this is virtuous. But to stop there would be incomplete and inadequate in a broken world. This love, catalyzed as virtue, must then extend past the individual. And so the parent’s love for the one grows into love for the many. And love for the many means love for the system which shapes the many’s lives.
A brief look at the strengths of the international adoption system as it stands today, and how adoptive parents’ love can drive the solution.
First, there is no evidence to suggest kidnapping and other nefarious activity is the norm when it comes to international adoption. We may have many horror stories, but convictions seem to follow in short order. Second, the guiding star of international adoption is the maximum well-being of the children in question. This means the child comes first. Not governments, or institutions, or even families. It is the child. Third, to say in frustration, “the US government should have stepped in,” or, “the government should have just done this or that” is understandable, but short-sighted. If I ever think to myself, “they should have just done x”, there is a very high likelihood the ‘they’ I’m thinking of would have too. And the reason they didn’t is probably not because they are big and bad and mean. They probably didn’t have the option. When thinking through a global issue, it’s apt to consider the role of governments, the scope of governments, and their relationships with each other. Take the Hague Convention, as a quick example. Helpful? Yes. The solution? Most definitely not. When the issue is international, national, local, familial, and individual, it will not be remedied in large strokes alone.
That brings us back to our solution — the parents’ love. Not only do they have the capacity to effectuate change on the smallest, most central level (the individual and the home), but they possess the passion and firsthand experience to advocate change at the higher levels. They are strategically situated to love and defend their child, and to love and fight for the purification of the system that brought their family together in the first place. They will see the cracks in the walls, and be the first to call them out. They will love much, and the world will be better for it.
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