Prospective Parents' Health Status: What Effect on Chances of Adoption?

by Pam Connell | More from this Blogger

08 Jan 2009 03:04 AM

A reader recently asked two excellent questions about persons with serious health conditions adopting. I am paraphrasing the essence of her questions here, as I understand them.

1) Are agencies really allowed to ask about all this? What about health privacy laws?

Most, if not all, of the forms I've seen will ask this question. (As well as questions about your debts, your marital communication, amount in your bank account, how you get along with your parents and many other things that wouldn't be legal in a job interview, at least not in the U.S.)

2)Does having a serious medical condition automatically disqualify a person from adopting?

I do not believe a serious medical condition would automatically disqualify one for adoption. It may affect your prospects of doing a certain type of adoption.

In domestic infant adoption, the relinquishing birthmother usually participates in choosing the parents. I can imagine health issues being a problem for some of them. Many people don't know much about conditions such as cancer--that some types of cancer are much more curable and less likely to recur than others, for example-or chronic but non-life-threatening illness, or depression. This doesn't mean a person with such a condition won't be chosen by someone to parent her child. Some mothers have been comfortable placing their infants with a single parent, a gay couple, an older couple, a couple who already has several children. However, these adoptive parents tend to wait longer for a child because not all mothers will be open to considering these placements.

Children who are or may be eligible for adoption from the child welfare system may have often experienced disruptions (although there are babies placed at birth in a foster-adoptive placement, in which the foster parents agree to adopt the baby if the birth family cannot get their life together in the next 12-18 months.) Nevertheless, foster care agencies are public agencies and so cannot discriminate against adoptive parents merely based on age, weight, or health factors which don't prevent them from caring for the child. There is a great need for foster-adoptive parents and often agencies may be more willing to consider parents with special circumstances than private infant or international agencies might be.

My next blog will address the possible impact of health issues for parents looking to adopt from other countries.

Learn more about Pam Connell

Pam Connell is a mother of three by both birth and adoption. She has worked in education, child care, social services, ministry and journalism.

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Samual (11722) 08 Jan 2009 04:01 AM

Here if you are adopting as a couple you both have to be physically and mentally healthy, so you cannot be suffering from a mental illness at the time and you have to have 2 years of a healthy mind. As far as physical illness are concerned there are loads, if it is something like very high blood pressure you have to wait until you lower it to a healthy level. If you have an on going serious illness such as cancer, C.F, MS, being obese, warfin dependancy etc. Then the mobility of the parents are taken into account, something like using crutches or being in a wheelchair doesn't matter, it is your ability to care for yourself and someone else. Like we had to wait to adopt because I was having operations on my knee and I wasn't allowed to stand with crutches or anything, so I was useless, so we had to wait until my knee's were cleared by my doctor. Obviously what ever illness you may have each case is handled seperately, you wont just be thrown away due to something like warfin dependancy, they have to take into consideration how much your current usage would be, is it likely to improve or worsen as you become older etc.

Pam Connell (2658) 08 Jan 2009 10:34 PM

I'm not familiar with warfin dependency. I've heard of a blood thinner (anti-clotting) medicine with a similar name, but I didn't think it was the kind of drug that people could develop a dependency/addiction to.

Samual (11722) 10 Jan 2009 07:46 AM

Dependency doesn't mean an addiction, it means without the medication you have a high chance of death, insulin for example.

Samual (11722) 10 Jan 2009 08:24 AM

Google says Warfin and Wafarin are the same drug, so maybe thats what it is called over there.

Pam Connell (2658) 23 Jan 2009 03:27 AM

Thanks for the input. It does sound like those two medications may be the same.

Here, doctors often use the word "dependency" when a person gets withdrawal symptoms if they don't take a drug, because their body has grown used to it. It's not precisely the same as addiction, but often not great either...

But I understand now that you meant the simpler, logical use of dependency as in, you depend on something (like the medication) to keep you healthy.

Thanks for reading.