Karissa36

The foster care system has a duty to try to reunite families. Don't you think it is a conflict of interest for them to be placing children with foster parents who desperately want to adopt? Those foster parents obviously have no reason to support reunification and every reason to try to subvert it. The bio-parents also face an additional up hill battle when experts come in and testify that the child will be harmed by removal from the foster parents with whom they have bonded. The decision then naturally, (even if no one admits it), turns on which is the better parent, not whether or not the bio-parents are fit parents.

But in order for foster parents to adopt, you need to prove that there are current parental deficiencies and they haven't been fixed.

Legally this is true, but I have seen some astoundingly liberal interpretations of that, especially when healthy infants and toddlers are involved. What about the experts testifying about bonding with the foster parents? I have seen that referenced in many decisions. This is totally irrelevant to whether or not the bio-parents are fit, which should be the only issue. Have you ever tried to exclude that testimony on relevancy grounds? What was the result?

How do feel about plastic surgery to reduce or eliminate the facial features of Down Syndrome? I have heard that some parents do this when their kids are in their teens.

Exactly. I support foster parents caring for children during a time of need. What I object to is that foster care has been turned into the nation's largest adoption mill. It is now the cheapest way to adopt a healthy American infant or toddler. I think that people becoming a foster parent in order to adopt subverts the system, which should be focused on reuniting families whenever possible.