- Headline: "Woman of the Year: Hyunsook Shim, President of CAPOK"
- Subheading: A Decade of Helping 2,000 Adoptions, Advocating for "Excellence Beyond Bloodlines"
- Source: Chosun Ilbo
- Date of Publication: January 23, 1975
- Summary:
"Let’s all become adoptive parents" declares Hyunsook Shim, President of the Christian Adoption Program of Korea (CAPOK), who has devoted the past decade to finding warm, loving homes for 2,000 unfortunate children. Shim’s journey into adoption advocacy began after graduating from Ewha Womans University’s Department of Social Work (now the Department of Social Welfare) in 1962. Shortly after marriage, she gave birth to a daughter and, at her husband’s suggestion, adopted a son, a decision that cemented her lifelong passion for adoption.
Shim passionately highlights the benefits of adoption, asserting that: (1) adoptive parents can choose the gender of the child; (2) they can space their children’s ages as they see fit; and (3) most importantly, a child with good genetic traits can enrich the family atmosphere and elevate the family lineage in a positive direction. "While bloodlines are important," Shim remarks, "the future lies in building families based on love, duty, and responsibility."
CAPOK operates on an annual budget of 40 million won, largely funded by a support network composed mostly of housewives. The organization focuses on preventing hunger, valuing life, counseling unwed mothers, and educating against unwed motherhood. Notably, the youngest unwed mother CAPOK counseled in 1967 was a 14-year-old middle school student. However, Shim reports that in more recent years, cases have included girls as young as 12, still in elementary school. Shim stated, "We plan to carry out enlightenment education to encourage adoptive parenting, with the hope that middle-class families with harmonious marriages and progressive mindsets will step forward to become adoptive parents." In the 20th century, eugenics became intertwined with the birth control movement, integrating itself into the domain of regulating everyday sexuality (see Yeom, Woon-Ok. 2009. Is There a Class in Life?: Politics of Gene and British Eugenics [unofficial translation]). Decades after the initial invention of this older form of eugenics, it re-emerged in South Korean society as a rationale for promoting the adoption of children born to unwed mothers, framed as a means of improving the bloodlines of middle-class families.
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