Adoption

“ How could the Revisers choose this last reading, 'an heir through God,' and keep the word adoption? From the passage it is as plain as St. Paul could make it, that, by the word translated adoption, he means the raising of a father's own child from the condition of tutelage and subjection to others, a state which, he says, is no better than that of a slave, to the position and rights of a son. None but a child could become a son; the idea is—a spiritual coming of age; only when the child is a man is he really and fully a son. ”

“ My Administration recognizes the profound importance of adoption for the American family. Adoption is a life-changing and life-affirming act that signals that no child in America -- born or unborn -- is unwanted or unloved. Adoptive parents are a selfless and loving part of God's plan for their future children. As a Nation, we extend sincere appreciation and gratitude to those families who have welcomed a young person into their hearts and homes, sharing the precious gift of family and a lifetime of support. ”

“ As regards adoption, the new law maintains the spirit of the old, with fresh provision for the conservation of the family religion,—permitting any person of legal age to adopt a son, on the simple condition that the person adopted shall be younger than the adopter. ”

“ ADOPTION. An act by which one takes another into his family, owns him for his son, and appoints him his heir. The Greeks and Romans had many regulations concerning adoption. It does not appear that adoption, properly so called, was formerly in use among the Jews. Moses makes no mention of it in his laws; and the case of Jacob’s two grandsons, Gen. xlviii, 14, seems rather a substitution.
2. Adoption in a theological sense is that act of God’s free grace by which, upon our being justified by faith in Christ, we are received into the family of God, and entitled to the inheritance of heaven. ”

“ For many people across the United States, adoption provides a means for building and strengthening families. It places children into loving, permanent homes where they can flourish and grow up to become happy, healthy, productive members of our national community. Adoption also enables adults to experience the unique joys of parenthood. ”

“ Both a Will and an Adoption threaten a distortion of the ordinary course of Family descent, but they are obviously contrivances for preventing the descent being wholly interrupted, when there is no succession of kindred to carry it on. Of the two expedients Adoption, the factitious creation of blood-relationship, is the only one which has suggested itself to the greater part of archaic societies. ”

“ There is such a mythology about adoption, and if we could just get the word out and just get people to go and see and talk to these beautiful children, we could find them all homes, and have stable, loving parents who care about them and will raise them as strong citizens. ”

“ Although the actual process may include moments of anticipation, frustration, and worry, adoption benefits each of the parties involved—including the biological mother who, for whatever reason, cannot keep her child and courageously decides to give him or her the chance to enjoy life in a secure, loving environment. ”

“ He might get an adoption deed drawn up without consulting any one, but if it were not properly attested by his relatives it would be treated by them as null and void. Adoption, no less than the sale of land, is an affair not of the individual but of the family. ”

“ Adoption, Supernatural.— (Lat. adoptare, to choose.) Adoption is the gratuitous taking of a stranger as one's own child and heir. According as the adopter is man or God, the adoption is styled human or divine, natural or supernatural. ”

“ Goldie said a word which I thought meant that, something about your ad—I cannot just remember the word."
"Adopting, I suppose."
"Yes, that was it exactly! I think," added Nelly, with a graver air, "that there is some word like that in the Bible."
"There is, my Nelly, and a blessed word it is! All Christians are the adopted children of God; it is from His gracious adoption alone that we dare to address Him as 'Our Father, which art in heaven.'"
"To adopt is to take some other person's child, and call it your own, and love it as your own, end feed it, and care for it, as you will for Walter. ”

“ For we obtain children either by nature or adoption; in nature it is a matter of chance; in adoption, of judgment; and we are more liable to blame in the case of our adopted than of our natural offspring; because it is ascribed to nature if our children by birth should happen to be degenerate, but that those who become ours by adoption or other such tie should prove unworthy of it is ascribed to our own mistake. ”

“ Adoption treats a man as if he were the son of a certain father; it cannot really make him the son of that father. If a brachycephalic father adopts a dolichocephalic son, the legal act cannot change the shape of the adopted son's skull. I will not undertake to say whether, not indeed the rite of adoption, but the influences and circumstances which would spring from it, might not, in the course of generations, affect even the skull of the man who entered a certain gens, tribe, or nation by artificial adoption only. ”

“ One may lose one's grandchildren and so forth even as one may lose one's children. Wherefore since adoption was introduced as a solace for children lost, just as someone may be adopted in place of a child, so may someone be adopted in place of a grandchild and so on. ”

“ The adoption is usually accomplished by the woman claiming the individual as her youngest son or daughter, and such adopted person has thereupon the status belonging to such a natural child; and, though he be an adult, he calls the child born into the clan before his advent, though it be but a year old, his elder brother or his elder sister. ”

“ During National Adoption Month, let us recommit ourselves to the goal of finding a safe, permanent, and loving home for every child in need. Let us also honor the many caring families across our Nation who have opened their arms and their hearts to a child through adoption. By making such a profound and loving commitment to our Nation's most vulnerable children, they are also making a lasting investment in America's future. ”

“ Adoption is made by the simple procedure of mounting a block of stone in the market-place and making a public announcement at a time when the citizens are assembled. The adopted son does not inherit any larger share than that of a daughter. ”

“ The adopted son gets all the property and shall fulfil the divine and human duties of his adoptive father88 and shall inherit as in the law for true-born sons. But if he does not fulfil them according to law, the next of kin shall take the property. He can only renounce his adoption by paying a fine. ”

“ My sister and I having made tip our minds years before that we should never marry, had long been desirous of brightening our lives by the adoption of a child, who should grow up with us, and be in everything as though she were really our own, and here seemed the opportunity we were seeking, ready to our hand. ”

“ What is required of people considering adoption is the ability to love and the desire to help children. Adoption of children by their relatives or their step-parents has always been common, but in recent years we have begun to see the benefits of adoption by single, foster, and handicapped parents, as well as by parents with biological children. ”

“ The first is the mode in which we adopt independent persons, and this form of adoption is called adrogation: the second is the mode in which we adopt a person subject to the power of an ascendant, whether a descendant in the first degree, as a son or daughter, or in a remoter degree, as a grandson, granddaughter, great-grandson, or great-granddaughter. ”

“ Any member of the Five Nations who through esteem or other feeling wishes to adopt an individual, a family or number of families may offer adoption to him or them and if accepted the matter shall be brought to the attention of the Lords for confirmation and the Lords must confirm adoption. ”

“ Where there are no children adoption is the universal practice. {133} The one adopted takes the family name and perpetuates it. No greater misfortune can be conceived than for the house to become extinct. ”

“ A son or daughter may be sold, but an adopted child may not; neither may the adopted child be given away in adoption to any one else without the specific consent of his real parents. The general object in adopting children is to leave some one behind at death to look after the duties of ancestral worship. ”

“ Roman.—The Roman relation of parent and child arose either from a lawful marriage or from adoption. Adoptio was the general name which comprehended the two species, adoptio and adrogatio; and as the adopted person passed from his own familia into that of the person adopting, adoptio caused a capitis diminutio, and the lowest of the three kinds. [Caput.] Adoption, in its specific sense, was the ceremony by which a person who was in the power of his parent (in potestate parentum) , whether child or grandchild, male or female, was transferred to the power of the person adopting him. ”

“ During National Adoption Week, it is vitally important for all of us to recognize the joys adoption can bring to the lives of children who are in need. For children who have been deprived of belonging to a secure, loving, and permanent home, an adoptive family can provide the most important ingredient in a child's life—love. ”

“ So I am fitting them for adoption as quickly as possible, and searching for the homes.
You ought to run across a lot of pleasant families in your travels; can't you bully some of them into adopting children? ”

“ The custom of Adoption seems to have arisen with the appearance of the true family. The mode of admission into a totem-kin is by the blood-covenant, and the neophyte becomes a blood-brother. But when the smaller circle of the family emerges, containing only the parents and their descendants either by monogamic or polygynic marriage, adoption by the head of the family of a child from without is found a convenient means of recruiting its numbers. For a long time adoption into the family goes on side by side with admission by blood-covenant into the kin. ”

“ Adoption was an ancient institution, and the rights of the man who adopted the infant were protected in order that he might be paid for the trouble and expense of his charge.139
The adoption of children in the Code of Hammurabi is the subject of much minute regulation. In the Code the endeavour to protect the father who picks up a child, is shown in paragraphs 185, 186, 187 and 188:
“185. If a man take in his name a young child as a son and rear him, one may not bring claim for that adopted son. ”

“ As a rule, when adoption did take place it was not for the benefit of the child. In many instances, those who wished to adopt a son waited and adopted a grown-up one so as not to have the trouble and expense of educating him. ”

“ Nor are we likely to obtain satisfactory evidence on the subject till, in the interests of science, two communities of different blood and different traditions consent to exchange their children at birth by a universal process of reciprocal adoption. ”

“ We also recognize the many social services professionals, attorneys, and counselors who assist in promoting the adoption option, and we salute each of the courageous women who make this unselfish choice for their children. Such works of generosity and compassion are saving lives and, yes, slowly but surely turning hearts—one woman, one couple, one community at a time. ”

“ Angels are called sons of God by adoptive sonship, not that it belongs to them first; but because they were the first to receive the adoption of sons.
Reply to Objection 3: Adoption is a property resulting not from nature, but from grace, of which the rational nature is capable. Therefore it need not belong to every rational nature: but every rational creature must needs be capable of adoption. ”

“ If the old man has chosen a boy or young man for whom he happens to have affection, and if the choice meets with general approval, then every one is happy, and an adoption deed is drawn up and attested by all the near relatives. But if his choice falls on one who is considered to be too distant a connection for adoption, or if the elders of the clan for some other reason object to the proposal, then the old man is in a difficulty, for [286] he is not entirely a free agent in the matter. ”

“ A man married to a female fiction writer has his own side of the story! Nevertheless, I gave the boss the tales as they happened. I could not hope to improve on the truth.
The real effect that I wanted to produce on him was that child adoption as handled by a scientific organization had reduced the gambling element to about fifty-fifty with the own-child hazard. You ordinarily know far less about the eugenic history of your husband's family than you do about the ancestry of the child you have adopted under proper conditions! ”

“ Since we believe that every child has the right to grow up in a secure, loving family and that this experience lays the foundation for a happy, productive adulthood, we commend the growing numbers of Americans who are building families through adoption. ”

“ Every effort should be made to inform the public and prospective parents that there are many thousands of children available for adoption. We must involve the media, private and public agencies, adoptive parents, advocacy groups, civic and church groups, and businesses. ”

“ I can furnish you 1,000 children a month under fourteen years of age, and I am prepared to secure their legal adoption as sons and daughters of the company, so that they can be legally kept until they reach the age of twenty-two! ”