Protecting a child - Essay Example

Protecting the Child In order to ensure a healthy and proper childhood, parents should ensure that their children are in a loving and safe environment. This should be the case for any child regardless of whether they live with their real parents or are adopted. The safety of the minor is of utmost importance in any family because it ensures proper social and physical development thus general healthy growth in a child.
In case one there are a number of issues that need to be addressed regarding John and Sheila Baldinucci and the surrogate mother of the child they claimed. First of all, it was not ethically right that there was no careful screening of the commissioning couple to ascertain their suitability over custody of the child. Even though John and Sheila Baldinucci have been married for ten years are comfortable in their relationship in addition to being well educated professionals that are respected by the community, they should have been thoroughly questioned. Issues such as unnoticed psychotic tendencies in one of the partners may affect the safety of the child in its new family. According to Dresser (2009), ‘the best way to prevent harm to children, prospective and surrogate parents is to require screening before the pregnancy begins. The intended social parent, as well as the surrogate and anyone else who might be assigned a parental role should meet standards for parental fitness.’ Even though the surrogate mother may be willing to carry the child, she may be having some problems that would affect the health of the child. As such, proper screening should be ensured.
After the court grants the Baldinucci family the custody of the child, they return to the United States with the child whom they have not legally adopted. This way, the rights of the child are not ensured since it does not have proper citizenship of the country where it is being taken. In case of any problem, the safety of the child would be at stake since it is not a citizen of the states. According to the Child Welfare Information Gateway (2012), ‘an adopted child is treated by law as if he or she had been born to the adopting parents upon the entry of the final adopting decree. Therefore, the adopted child gains the right to inherit from the adoptive parents and the adoptive parents’ relatives’ (1). With regard to these sentiments, the future comfortability of the child is at stake when it comes to inheritance of property. There being no legal documents to prove the adoption, the child may be locked out of inheritance in case there was no will upon demise. As such, it was unethical for the Baldinucci’s to overlook the correct adoption procedure.
According to the International Social Service, 1999, professionals engaged in adoption proceedings should be guided as a priority, in the perception of their work and in their practice by the needs of the child (3). The agency did not consider the privacy thus wellbeing of the child when it refused to pay the surrogate mother because she made money from her story. This only worked to expose the child even more. It means that there was uproar of the case and the child may have been affected if he or she got wind of it. However, it there was a breach of contract by her selling the story and it was explicitly stated within the contract then I agree with the agencies’ decision. In addition to this, the surrogate was completely unethical with her decision to use the photo; this may have even resulted to bullying of the child in school something that could affect her physically and mentally.
Adoption and surrogacy are sensitive issues in the society and all the parties involved must ensure utmost confidentially while putting the safety of the child in place. Proper screening should be done to ensure that the adopting as well as surrogate parents are fit to be given the parenting role. In this case, the good of the child was not exceptionally protected a factor that was not ethically right.
Works Cited
Child Welfare Information Gateway. Intestate Inheritance Rights for Adopted Persons, (2012) Retrieved on 30th November 2012 from http://www.childwelfare.gov/systemwide/laws_policies/statutes/inheritance.cfm
Dresser, Rebecca. Screen the Parents, (2009) Retrieved on 30th November, 2012 from http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/29/the-baby-market/
International Social Service. The Rights of the Child in Internal and Inter Country Adoption, (1999) Retrieved on 30th November 2012 from http://www.iss- ssi.org/2009/assets/files/ethical-document/Ethical- Guide/Ethical%20Guide%2004%20ENG.pdf Read More