Adoption
...is over two percent of all children. About five million people in the US, both children and adults, were adopted, at a contemporary rate of about 100,000 adoptions a year. 60 percent of all Americans know an adopted person, know someone who has adopted a child or know a mother who has relinquished her child to adoption. This substantial sized group of the American public has unique and personal needs and desires in both private and political realms. These political opinions include both sides of the debate on confidentiality of birth records, a desire to further educate the American public on the option of adoption, and the struggle to uniform state regulations regarding adoption.
Adoption is "the legal process which creates the status of parent and child between individuals who are not each other's biological parent or child" (Hollinger 1993). This legal process, however, can occur in many different forms. There are five main subgroups of adoptions as recognized by law: intrafamily adoptions, or adoptions by a stepparent, adoptions of foreign born children, adoptions of older children, adoptions of Native American children, and finally the adoption of infants by unrelated adults. Another differentiation made in adoption is whether it is public or private. A private adoption is regulated by a state licensed company and completely separates the birthparents from the adoptive parents. A public adoption involves participation by the birthmother in choosing the adoptive parents, as well as continued communication after the adoption. This paper focuses on the private adoption of domestic infants by unrelated adults (Hollinger 1993).
One of the main problems with studying adoption in America is the unreliability and sporadic nature of statistics. Because adoption is mandated through state laws, not federal, the national government cannot demand reports on adoption....
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