By Adam Pertman, edited by Jim Luce.
Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, I wrote a column about the needs of children in our country. Yesterday, I re-read it in light of the cuts being proposed at the federal and state levels as a result of budget shortfalls, and realized how little progress we’ve made in the last decade. So here are some thoughts which, alas, didn’t need much changing to bring them up to date. - AP
We humans are irresistibly drawn to subjects that deal with the core issue of our existence: creating life.
So, in the past, we have engaged in raging debates about and devoted endless newsprint to such revolutionary inventions as birth control pills and in vitro fertilization. Today, our collective attention is turning to even more complex and controversial technologies – most notably cloning, stem cell harvesting and reproductive techniques such as frozen embryo transfers.
It is not just fascinating to examine these mind-boggling developments, of course; it’s essential. Because they raise profound moral, ethical, cultural and legal questions, and because they challenge us all to define, or redefine, nothing less than who we are and want to be.
As I read fanciful stories about how we might one day create children, however, I can’t help but wonder when we will begin showing as much concern about the children we have already created.
The answer, unfortunately, appears to be “not anytime soon.”
Our country has never provided sufficient attention or resources to poor children, sick children, children in need of new families, and children who are abused or neglected. Not long ago, when state and federal officials could barely find enough ways to spend their unprecedented budget surpluses, nary a one of them suggested devoting a penny to hire more social workers, provide better health care, or otherwise improve these children’s prospects.
And now, as many of those same officials cope with treasuries depleted by a recession, wars and tax cuts, guess which Americans are among the hardest-hit by the resulting budget reductions in state after state? Yes, the very same ones who have never been a high priority – in or own country or most others – especially as both hard-pressed governments and individuals have focused on other admittedly important concerns.
Many children’s advocates believe the primary reasons are class and race; that is, most of the boys and girls in need of help aren’t affluent or white. While those are certainly major factors, however, the open hearts of some families – the number of adoptions from foster care, for example, have risen dramatically in recent years despite the poor economy – amply demonstrate just how color-blind and generous Americans can be. So there clearly must be other forces at work, too.
Ours is a culture, for instance, that promotes individual action over collective responsibility. It’s therefore no wonder many parents assume, since they adore and advocate for their own children, that there must be adults doing the same for other children – but they are simply wrong. Similarly, many of us assume the politicians and policy-makers who love to say things like “children are our most valuable resource” must be taking reasonably good care of that treasure – but, again, they are simply wrong.
Another cruel reality that undermines children’s prospects is their age. They aren’t old enough to vote, to lobby, to make their own voices heard, or to hire publicists to get their stories into the news; they must depend, instead, on the well-intentioned but only sporadically effective efforts of overworked social workers, stressed-out guardians, volunteer-driven advocacy organizations and other surrogates.
All of which brings me back (circuitously) to the ongoing but too-quiet national dialogue about potentially life-creating scientific marvels.
Yes, we must figure out what to do and how to do it for each new technology, based on its particular merits and challenges. But it is equally vital that we frame the discussion in a way that facilitates judgments based on a view of the entire picture rather than just isolated fragments of it.
So, when congressional committees and journalists and academics elicit information from experts about the social or financial implications of cloning or stem cells, for example, they should also include child welfare specialists in the conversation so that Americans can gain a full understanding of the context in which we – as individuals and as a nation – are plotting our future.
That not only would seem a reasonable approach for making sound decisions, but also would place millions of our country’s youngest, neediest citizens in a spotlight that has never shined on them before. Perhaps, once we finally see them clearly, we will begin caring as much about their future as we do about the fate of the cells that compose their bodies.
Adam Pertman is the Executive Director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, the pre-eminent research, policy and education organization in its field. He also is the author of Adoption Nation, which has been reviewed as "the most important book ever written on the subject." A new, updated and revised edition of the book will be published in March 2011 by Harvard Common Press.
See also by Adam Pertman:
Helping All Families Succeed: National Adoption Mont h
See also by Jim Luce on:
Children | Health | Orphans | Social Responsibility