Disability Is the New Black: The Rise of the ‘Cleft Lip and Palate Program’ in Transracial International Adoption

Abstract

Family is family, however it is formed. As an adoptee, and as an adoptive mother, we come together to write this article absolutely convinced of that. The adoption market tells us no more about the lived experience of family — the relationships between parents and children — than the rise of the medical industry tells us. Brought into being via adoption, via caesarean section, via home births or via high tech embryo transfer, families are families — obviously. But how industries rise to service family formation does tell us much about ourselves as a society and — with the increasing globalization of reproductive technologies and adoption — as a world. In this chapter, we look at the shift in marketing in international adoption over the last decade to see what it can tell us about our changing world.