Food for thought...

This morning I found an interesting follow up to my previous entry:

South Korea strives to reduce overseas adoptions, overcome stigma of adoption at home
By IN-YOUNG BANG
The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Paula Louise O'Loughlin once thought she'd never return to the land where she was abandoned as a baby 34 years ago and adopted by an American couple.

She's now back in South Korea for the first time since 1971 to adopt a baby of her own -- joining the tide of foreign parents who find a child here.

But in a country with falling birth rates, the South Korean government is seeking to stem the flood of children sent abroad, viewed as a national shame.

Since the end of the Korean War in the 1950s, South Korea has sent more than 155,000 children abroad for adoption. Some two-thirds of those have gone to the United States, where children of South Korean origin make up the largest group of foreign adoptees at 56,825, according to the latest U.S. Census conducted in 2000.

The number of domestic adoptions has remained in the 1,500-1,800 range in South Korea for the past five years, while international adoptions were above the 2,200 mark, according to Health and Welfare Ministry statistics.

Health and Welfare Minister Kim Geun-tae has called South Korea's plummeting birth rate "one of the most serious challenges" facing the country and spearheaded efforts to boost domestic adoptions.
"Children, especially single-mother babies, are unwillingly sent overseas to find their home when we, our people, need to raise our children," said Kweon Sang-chil, a ministry official.

Adoption has typically been shunned in Korean society, whose Confucian values place high value on blood relations. Some parents who adopt children even move to different cities to conceal their children's status.
"Korean people tend to keep a distance from someone who doesn't share the same bloodline," said Chung Ick-joong, social welfare professor at Duksung Women's University in Seoul. "Many parents who adopt a child hide the fact that their child was adopted."

Jeong Hye-kyeong, a social worker at Eastern Social Welfare Society, said in order to reduce the number of abandoned babies, the number of single mothers must also be lowered. Single mothers receive little support and are looked upon as having made a mistake, leading many to give up their babies.

Jeong also noted many Koreans won't adopt children with disabilities. Last year, 705 disabled children were sent for adoption overseas while only seven found new homes here.

"If a country can't support raising many orphans in the nation, I think sending those kids abroad ... wouldn't be so horrible," said Chung.

O'Loughlin -- who grew up in Minnesota -- came to Seoul with her husband Sean to adopt a second child, a 7-month-old boy they named Daniel Peter Jeong O'Loughlin.

"I've always felt that it is a good thing that I was adopted," O'Loughlin said.

"Me too," said Jo-Lo.