Adoption in New Zealand

The Press has an article today which looks at adoption in New Zealand…

It is the curious thought that strikes most adolescents at some point. What a fluke to find myself born and alive.

Mum and dad. A different day, a different mood and, well, a different tale. You have to be grateful for the haphazard chain of events that means you even exist in this world.

Hannah Duckmanton, 22, a newly trained primary school teacher, says she feels it more than most. Not hard when by another fluke you end up living streets from the clinic where you were once so nearly aborted.

The story goes that her biological mother had a final meeting with her biological father in Hamilton, then stopped off at Taradale in Napier on the drive back to Blenheim. “She had an abortion booked, went to the appointment and everything, and just found she couldn’t do it,” Ms Duckmanton says.

But what were the other options? Her mother was already struggling with bringing up one child on her own. Adoption? What mother could bring herself to give her baby away? Abortion remained the obvious choice. However, recent law changes meant New Zealand was pioneering a new way of adopting open rather than closed. Adoption with parental contact.

A Christchurch couple came forward who frankly “would have agreed to anything” to have a child. So on a frosty morning in July 1986, Ms Duckmanton dropped into the world the birth took just 15 minutes and became a test case for the open-adoption philosophy.

Great article. It goes on to explain how difficult adoption is in New Zealand, and mentions that there were only 77 children adopted out to non-family members in 2008.Trevor knows more about this than I do, so I’m going to have to talk to him about it and write more on adoption in New Zealand.