The Adoption Industry: Family Planning Tool or Reproductive Injustice?

In 2022, an estimated 80,598 children were adopted in the U.S. Adoption is often considered a noble endeavor, a life-changing opportunity, and a mutually beneficial family planning tool. And for many happy adoptive families, this may be the simple truth. Unfortunately, beneath the surface of adoption’s often idealized narrative, the industry is plagued by ethical, legal, and social issues that frequently go unaddressed. In order to address these issues, we have to be willing to look beyond individual success stories and examine the systemic complexities that influence the industry worldwide. 

One of the most concerning aspects of the adoption industry is its potential to incentivize both exploitation and outright trafficking of children. Particularly in the case of international adoption, the process can be riddled with corruption and deceit. Under U.S. government policy, intercountry adoptions do not constitute trafficking unless the adoption contains an element of prostitution or forced labor. This means that even when there is ample evidence of international adoption practices that amount to trafficking, there is no ability to pursue trafficking prosecution. When individuals are prosecuted for non-trafficking crimes connected to illegal intercountry adoptions, they are practically guaranteed to receive light sentences with little or no jail time and modest or no fines. 

After the Korean War, approximately 200,000 South Korean children were adopted internationally, with the U.S. being a prime destination. However, investigations over the years have uncovered that many of these adoptions involved fraudulent practices, including the falsification of documents, bribery, and the misrepresentation of both children’s backgrounds and parental consent. Children often had their identities switched, or were inaccurately listed as abandoned. This has disrupted and even prevented many adoptees’ efforts to reconnect with their birth families or uncover their lineage. Less than a fifth of 15,000 adoptees who have asked South Korea for help with family searches since 2012 have managed to reunite with relatives. This is an issue that persists into the modern day. Although the U.S. State Department posted a warning in late 2008 regarding alleged illicit activities within Guatemala related to intercountry adoptions, the United States continued to receive adoptees from Guatemala through 2008, totaling 4,123 adoptees and comprising the top sending country to the U.S. in 2008.

Another complexity we must face is the reality of racial and ethnic disparities between adoptive parents and adoptees/birth families. Transracial adoptions, which occur when a child from one ethnic or racial group is placed with parents of a different race or ethnicity, have been a source of increasing controversy over the years.

Even when placed in loving homes, many transracial adoptees report facing issues such as a lack of diversity in their families or communities, facing racism and discrimination from adoptive family members, feeling a lack of connection to their birthplace or culture of origin, and struggles with racial and cultural self-identity. Furthermore, when we consider the widespread and persistent demand for international adoptions, it becomes clear that this is reflective of deeper global inequalities.

Many international adoptees come from countries facing systemic issues such as poverty, war, or poorly regulated adoption systems. Children in these regions may be placed in orphanages due to poor conditions or parents may be coerced into selling their children into adoption for economic reasons. In these situations, wealthy families in Western nations are able to profit from other countries’ struggles by gaining access to children who may have loving families in their home countries. In these cases, both families are blindsided as adoptees are taken from their birth families while adoptive parents are misled to believe that they have legally and ethically gained guardianship over a child. Rather than addressing or attempting to circumvent these pervasive legal and moral issues, the government chooses to ignore them in favor of continuing to satisfy intense domestic demands for children. 

Even domestically, there are numerous ethical concerns. Particularly in regards to informed consent and parental rights. Birth parents, especially single parents and those with low-income, may feel pressured to place their children into adoption due to financial struggles or social stigma. In cases where parents feel they have no other choice but to utilize adoption, they may be pressured or coerced into signing away their rights or giving up future opportunities for contact by agencies or individuals. In many cases, after the birth certificate has been amended to change the name of the adoptee and replace the names of the birth parents with those of the adoptive parents, the original birth certificate is sealed by the state and made unavailable to the public and, in many states, unavailable to the adopted person, even as an adult. 

The financial burden associated with adoption presents yet another area of major concern. The exorbitant expense of the adoption process leaves it inaccessible for many families, with average adoption costs ranging between $20,000 to even upwards of $70,000 or more per child, depending on factors like whether the adoption is public, private, or independent, domestic or international, or if a licensed agency is involved. This lends itself to the commercialization of the industry and commodification of children, and leaves affluent families to navigate the adoption process with ease while lower-income families may be entirely excluded from the opportunity to adopt despite having equal desire and ability to provide a loving home.

In the end, it’s crystal clear that while we may view adoption as a useful social mechanism, it has developed into a booming industry that is concerningly susceptible to corruption and misconduct. Adoption has a life-changing impact, for better or for worse. These situations hold the power to harm children and exploit birth parents, but they also hold the possibility to connect children in need with loving homes and provide solutions to unready or unwilling parents.

If we as a nation intend to continue utilizing it as a family planning tool, we have a responsibility to instill the oversight, reform, and regulation necessary to ensure the well-being of all parties, and to prioritize equity and transparency. Policymakers, adoption agencies, and society at large must choose to open their eyes to these issues and address them, rather than turning away out of cowardice or convenience.