Discuss the major issues associated with adoption, teenage pregnancies, single-parent households, and two-parent households

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Adoption is a legal process through which the rights and duties of parenting are transferred from a child's biological and/or legal parents to new legal parents. This procedure gives the adopted child all the rights of a biological child. Some states have "right-to-know" laws under which adoptive parents must grant the biological parents visitation rights. Although thousands of children are available for adoption each year in the United States, many prospective parents seek out children in developing nations like South Korea and India. The primary reason is that the available children in the United States are thought to be "unsuitable." They may have disabilities, or they may be sick, nonwhite, or too old. In addition, fewer infants are available for adoption today than in the past because better means of contraception exist, abortion is more readily available, and more unmarried teenage parents decide to keep their babies. Teenage pregnancies are a popular topic in the media and political discourse, and the United States has the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the Western industrialized world.

Teenage pregnancies have also been of concern to analysts who suggest that teenage mothers may be less skilled at parenting, are less likely to complete high school than their counterparts without children, and possess few economic and social supports other than their relatives. In addition, the increase in births among unmarried teenagers may have negative long-term consequences for mothers and their children, who have severely limited educational and employment opportunities and a high likelihood of living in poverty. In recent years, there has been a significant increase in single- or, one-parent households, due to divorce and to births outside of marriage. Children in two-parent families are not guaranteed a happy childhood simply because both parents reside in the same household.