On 19 மே, 2015, at 11:03 PM, avinash shahi <[email protected]>
wrote:
Radha,I've googled your queries and pasting below an article based on
questions and answers on the issue.
http://www.sexualityanddisability.org/reproduction/adopting-a-child.aspx
'The law speaks about the "welfare of the child" and the
interpretation by the administrators is that the welfare of the child
would not be served if there is a disabled person adopting...I know at
least two recent cases where one of the disabled parents is visually
challenged. They were first discouraged by adoption agencies and then
when force and influence was used, relented.'
Kanchan Pamnani, Visually Impaired Lawyer and Solicitor, Mumbai
Question1 Can any woman adopt a child in India? Will my age (I am 41)
or disability be considered negative factors?
According to the law External Website that opens in a new window,
prospective adoptive parents who have a composite age (your age and
your spouse's age added together) of 90 years or less can adopt
infants or young children. A single parent who is not older than 45
years is also eligible to adopt infants or young children. In case of
older and special needs children, the upper age limit can be relaxed
based on the merits of the case. In any case, you need to be an adult,
and the age difference between you and your child has to be atleast
twenty one years.
If your concerns aren't about the law, then there is no 'ideal' age to
become a mother. Maybe in your community it is more common to see
someone with their first baby in their late twenties, and with a
complete family by their mid-thirties. However, it doesn't mean
anything that differs from this norm is incorrect. In fact, the norms
around marriage and children are themselves changing a lot, and what
held true five, ten or fifteen years ago is often no longer the case.
Women are getting married when they think it's the right age, and
having kids only when they are ready - whether it is giving birth to
them or adopting them.
Similarly, while there is no legal barrier preventing someone with a
disability from adopting, you may still face stigma. Adoption agencies
may try to give you a negative mark stating you won't be able to look
after the child and his or her welfare, but don't get daunted by this.
A disabled woman who is a biological mother takes care of her child,
doesn't she? Some may argue that since you are disabled and need
assistance yourself, how will you raise a baby? Again, nondisabled
mothers often hire help to assist them in looking after their
children.
Given your disability - and your partner's, if he or she is also
disabled - people may also make cruel remarks about how you are
ruining the child's life by adding unwanted 'burdens' and
'responsibilities' to his or her life. This is not true! Every mother
is different External Website that opens in a new window in ways that
impact upon a child - some are intelligent, some are argumentative,
some are working professionals with little free time, and others like
you, may be impaired. You may not have the unconditional support of
family, friends and the larger community in the same way that other
couples do.
Single women, lesbian women, and other women who are seen as not
conforming to the societal ideal of womanhood - including working
women - face similar issues. Even when there is an outward show of
support, the decision is often questioned. 'Do you really think you
can handle this?' 'Are you being fair to the child you will adopt?'
'What will people think if an unmarried woman has a child?' Society
often frowns upon single women who choose to bring up children, under
the mistaken belief that without a man and a woman, the family unit
cannot be complete. In reality, there are many different types of
families - joint families, single parents, gay parents - and the
happiness of a child does not depend on the family structure alone.
By choosing to adopt a child, you are giving him or her a loving and
caring mother and family - you as a mother are more than your
impairment, and no one should make you feel otherwise. Many women with
disabilities have successfully adopted and raised children, and so can
you.
Question2 My disability is genetic. Should I adopt a baby to avoid
giving birth to a disabled child?
You can adopt a non-disabled child if you want to, but here's a few
things to consider. Even if you have a genetic disability, it is not
necessary that your impairment will be passed on External Website that
opens in a new window to your baby. Genetic disabilities do skip
generations. For example, if you and your husband are visually
impaired, your children may still be sighted. It's a popular myth that
'disability breeds disability', but that's often not the case.
Also consider that your adopted child may have her own set of genetic
issues, which may or may not manifest in her lifetime. Or your adopted
child may acquire an impairment later on in life. So if you want to
adopt to ensure you will have a non-disabled child, there is no
guarantee of that. And remember, you have lived your life up to this
point with an impairment - who or what's to say that your child won't
manage fine too?
(Source: 'Eugenics' on Wikipedia External Website that opens in a new
window)
Question3 Can I adopt a child with a disability? If yes, then what
should I think about before taking the decision?
Here's a few things to consider when adopting a disabled child. There
are varied impairments External Website that opens in a new window and
each has its own challenges. So it is important to think carefully
about the type of child you can best parent, and to be honest with
yourself in making this decision. For example, you may be comfortable
with a physically impaired child, but be unsure about adopting a child
with a mental disability. If you are considering adopting a child who
will have special needs, it is vital to get as much information on the
nature and limitations of the impairment. Spending time with parents
who have children with similar impairments can immensely help. Try to
realistically assess what you can handle - emotionally, physically,
financially and in every other way.
If you are considering adopting a disabled child, please don't do so
out of charity or pity - a child with an impairment is equally capable
of navigating life and adding joy to your life as any other child,
given a loving and supportive environment.
And got to know few tips,One of the member here Ka
On 5/19/15, Radha <[email protected]> wrote:
Avinash byeia,
or anyone else, can please shed information on, if a blind married
couple/ single can adopt a disable child from NGO/ state owned
organisation? Do we have such privilege? I'm unaware of the real
fact/ law pertaining to it. When I aspire to adopt a child when I
was without disability, I was denied on the grounds that I was at my
early 20's( exactly my age was 21 during ) and single.
It may sound silly for asking such question, but I feel that it is
the right platform to go with....
1. Can a single disable woman can adopt any disable child?
2. Can a married blind(total) couple can adopt any child with or
without disability?
In both cases, adoption should be made from any orphanage and not from
blood or any other relatives' kid.
One more thing, if abled peers think that it is tough to take care of
a child, there are many old age houses too, Can we adopt any?
Do we have supporting law for us?
In either cases, it should not be like receiving benefit from them. I
meant to say, we should not be pointed that we adopt them for
receiving benefit from their side at any stage.
" you adopt me, since you want your daily chores to be fulfilled
with my help"
aforesaid, line will be applicable for any relationship when we have
our love for them and in return, hear these words...
Many are blessed with understanding / mutual love and cared
relationship .... we really urge for it.
Please enlighten with prevailing law that would support our desire to
adopt .
On 5/19/15, avinash shahi <[email protected]> wrote:
Though very few members have so far aired their views I could infer
those who are not blind by birth have very different standpoints from
those who are blind by birth on the issue. Experiential and
circumstantial accounts are more powerful than anything else. What I
think of the article is that these lesbians didn't adopd an already
born deaf child/children but they managed to get through surrogacy.
that decision to impose one's own decision on unborn child is
debatable and problematic. Author further rightly goes on to discuss
the value of free-will choice which we all yearn for.
Further this article stimulated me to think about those who are blind,
abandoned just their post-birth and languishing in uncaring
institutions. There must be thousands of abandoned blind children
craving for love and care in state-owned or NGO-runned shelter hhomes.
Ideally, privileged and settled blind people should give a thought of
adopting those who have no one to fall upon. But these days very few
people carry such jestures. Perhaps they are so pained and troubled by
their disability that such thought doesn't germinate in their minds.
Hopefully, with growing prosperity and increased social standing, some
of us will adopt abandoned disabled kids and raise them with the best
resources we will have.
On 5/18/15, avinash shahi <[email protected]> wrote:
In the long argument over designer babies, did anyone imagine that
parents might prefer a designer disability? While we were all worrying
about the bionic offspring of the super-rich, two deaf lesbians in
America were going round sperm banks, trying to make a deaf baby.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/apr/09/gender.uk1
It sounds like the start of a bad joke, except that they have now
managed it twice, thanks to a friend with five generations of deafness
in his family. They claim that they are especially well equipped to
look after a deaf child, which I am sure is true, and had they adopted
one such child, or 20, we would all be praising their goodness.
The difference, of course, is that no child should be forced inside
its parents' psychosis - whether they be from a hardline religious
sect or Deaf Lesbians. The truth is that all of us have to contend
with our parents, for good or ill, but at least we can't be committed
at birth to spending the rest of our lives as circus performers or
bank clerks, or missionaries. We have free will, and the great thing
about growing up is personal choice.
What choice is there if your parents have already decided that you are
going to be deaf, and that deafness will be your defining identity,
just as it has been theirs? This is not the beauty of compatibility,
it is genetic imperialism.
Deaf people, they say, have heightened senses, and a relationship to
the world not shared by the hearing population. Fine, I have no
trouble with that. But identity is going to be a big issue for the
kids of the Deaf Lesbians, because both women belong to a radical
group that defines deafness like blackness - not as a disability but
as cultural difference.
My closest friend is black. She married a white man and their eldest
child looks like an English rose - pale skin, blond hair, blue eyes.
Nature does this kind of thing, and it is a celebration of difference
and sameness all mixed up together. Nobody knows what kind of baby any
two people will produce - and surely this is a blessing, not a bore?
Must we control everything? If the answer is yes, we are paranoid. If
either of the Deaf Lesbians in the US had been in a relationship with
a man, deaf or hearing, and if they had decided to have a baby, there
is absolutely no certainty that the baby would have been deaf. You
take a chance with love; you take a chance with nature, but it is
those chances and the unexpected possibilities they bring, that give
life its beauty.
I am always on the side of risk, and always suspicious of control. The
more controls we have, the less free we become. Parents usually try to
control their children, and later their children hate them for it,
while busily repeating the damage themselves.
How would either of the lesbians have felt if their own parents had
said that heterosexuality was such a beautiful thing that they had to
screen out any potential gay gene in their children, just to make sure
they had a good life?
How would any of us feel if the women had both been blind and claimed
the right to a blind baby? Even if we transform the language of
disability into a dialectic of alternative functioning, should the
medical system support parents who want their child to suffer a
serious handicap?
We can make our world as friendly as possible for people with
different physical capacities, but we cannot change the simple fact
that it is better to have five senses than four, however enhanced the
loss of one allows the others to be.
I believe that hearing, like sight, is a blessing, and if we are
prepared to use technology to breed children we have deliberately
disabled, it is not only the language of disability that will have to
be radically reworked, but our entire moral perspective.
What this case suggests is that we can do what we like to our
children, even if the consequences of our actions are irreversible.
As lesbians, the two women should know something about choice and
personal freedom. They both practise as mental health specialists, so
I hope they have a colleague who will be able to talk it through with
two kids who turn up in 20 years, explaining that their mothers
decided that they had to be deaf.
--
Avinash Shahi
Doctoral student at Centre for Law and Governance JNU
--
Avinash Shahi
Doctoral student at Centre for Law and Governance JNU
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Cheers,
Radha
"Everything you want in your life is waiting for you an inch outside
your comfort zone, and an inch inside your effort."
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