Albee's play is a telling account of north American society's view of adoption as SECOND BEST as compared with the traditional nuclear biological family. Relationship defined by blood ties take precedence over affinal ties: that is, people who choose to live together in family groupings through affinity.

"This perspective has led all other families, including adoptive families, to be defined at best as substitute and at worst as deviant or deficient." 1

Though the play was written in 1962, it still has relevance today with science looming over family planning with the advent of human cloning and increasingly sophisticated assisted reproduction experiments. Will this century's infertile couples, obsessed with having a 'child of their own' (read: linked by blood) see cloning as the only viable solution? Will a clone market grow to feed that desire?

"The full psychological repercussions in children and adults are yet to be studied for those born of the revolution in reproductive technologies. Included in this cohort would be those conceived through artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, the use of surrogate, and embryo transfer. These serve as examples where knowledge of the genealogical background is often unknown in at least one of the donors (e.g., ovum or sperm) or entirely irretrievable because of the use of pooled samples, frozen zygotes, etc. More to the point, they serve as examples wherein a product-oriented society sacrifices vital aspects of human psychology, many of which are directly relevant to the adopted person (...) ". 2

The adoption law reform movement, which advocates for open birth records and the rights of adoptees to know of their genealogical background, will serve as a framework for further questioning on the ethics and rights of children in the age of scientific reproduction.

 

 

 

 

1 FAMILY TREATMENT AFTER ADOPTION: COMMON THEMES, An Hartman & Joan Laird in Psychology of Adoption, Edited by David. M. Brodzinky & Marshall D. Schechter, Oxford University Press: New York, 1990 (p.221)

2 THE MEANING OF THE SEARCH, Marshall D. Schechter and Doris Bertocci in Psychology of Adoption, Edited by David. M. Brodzinky & Marshall D. Schechter, Oxford University Press: New York, 1990 (p. 89 )

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