ADOPTION

A two-step judicial process in conformance to state statutory provisions in which the legal obligations and rights of a child toward the biological parentsare terminated and new rights and obligations are created between the child and the adoptive parents.

Adoption involves the creation of the parent-child relationship between individuals who are not naturally so related. The adopted child is given the rights, privileges, and duties of a child and heir by the adoptive family.

Since adoption was not recognized at common law, all adoption procedures in the United States are regulated by statute. Adoption statutes prescribe the conditions, manner, means, and consequences of adoption. In addition, they specify the rights and responsibilities of all parties involved.

De facto adoption is a voidable agreement to adopt a child, based on a statutory proceeding in a particular state, which becomes lawful when the petition to adopt is properly presented.

Equitable adoption, sometimes referred to as virtual adoption, is treated by the law as final for certain purposes in spite of the fact that it has not been formally executed. When adoption appears to comply with standards of fairness and justice, some states will grant a child the rights of one who has been adopted even though the adoption procedure is incomplete. An equitable adoption might be enforced by the court for the benefit of a child in order to determine inheritance rights, for example. Similarly, adoption by estoppel is the equitable adoption of a child by promises and acts that prevent the adoptive parents and their estates from denying the child adoptive status.

Who May Adopt

To be entitled to adopt a child, an individual must meet the qualifications under the laws of his or her state, since the state has sole power to determine who may become an adoptive parent. Unless otherwise provided by state statute, U.S. citizenship is not a prerequisite for adoption.

A child may be jointly adopted by a husband and wife. If not contrary to statutory provision, either may adopt without being joined by the other. Unmarried people may adopt unless prohibited by law.

A growing area of controversy by the courts is whether adoption by a child's grandparents is a viable alternative. Such adoption might be considered in the child's best interests if the natural parents die or if the custodial parent is found unfit. A legal guardian may adopt a child but is not ordinarily given preference in the court proceedings.

The best interests of the child are of paramount importance in policy considerations toward adoption. Although legislative policy prefers such conditions as adoption by people of the same religion as the prospective adoptee, an interfaith adoption is allowed when it does not adversely affect the welfare of the child.

Elements in determining who will be suitable adoptive parents include race, religion, economic status, home environment, age, and health. Most of these criteria are taken into consideration in placements by agencies or in private placements where state law requires that adoptive parents be investigated.

Who May Be Adopted

Since the status of an adopted person is regulated by state statutes that authorize the adoption, state law determines whether an individual is a proper candidate for adoption. In addition, to be subject to adoption in a particular state, the individual must be living within that state.

Children may be adopted in situations where their natural parents are living, dead, or unknown, or where they have been abandoned. An adoption will not be prevented by the fact that a child has a legal guardian.

Some statutes expressly limit adoption to minors, and others expressly provide for adoption of adults. The adoption of adults is regarded by statutes and the courts in a manner similar to the adoption of children. Practically, however, the adoption of adults differs greatly, since it serves different purposes and creates few of the difficulties arising out of the adoption of children. In most cases, the purpose of adult adoption is to facilitate a device for inheritance. One may designate an heir by adopting an adult. Generally, the adoptee would not otherwise be entitled to inherit but for the adoption.

Social Considerations

In the past, adoption was viewed primarily as a means for a childless married couple to "normalize" their relationship. The focus has switched, however; now, adoption is ordinarily seen as an institution that exists to help place children into improved environments.

A number of states have, in recent years, enacted statutes that permit subsidization of adoptions. The adoption procedure thereby became a social instrument for the improvement of the lives of underprivileged children. Subsidized adoption tends to encourage adoption of children by suitable individuals who would otherwise be unable to afford it. This type of adoption has a significant effect upon placement of children labeled hard-to-place. Such children, who are frequently either physically or mentally handicapped, might have no other alternative except protracted institutionalization.

State law may require that the adopting parent have custody of a child for a certain period before obtaining an adoption decree. This requirement is designed to prevent premature action and to establish whether the best interests of the child will be furthered by the adoption.

Transracial Adoption The issue of transracial adoption (adoption of children who are not the same race as the adoptive parents) has come under close scrutiny by courts, legislatures, and the public. Americans are sharply divided on this issue. Is it a positive way to create stable families for needy children and well-meaning adults? Or is it an insidious means of co-opting members of racial minorities and confusing their sense of identity?

In 1972, when the number of African American children adopted annually by white families rose to fifteen thousand, the National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW) issued its opinion on the subject. Igniting a furious national debate that continued in the mid-1990s, the association equated transracial adoption with cultural genocide for African Americans.

The NABSW and other minority groups opposed to the adoption of African American children by whites claim that the children are deprived of a true appreciation and understanding of their culture. Their childhood is skewed toward white values and assimilation. Without a sense of racial identity and pride, these children cannot truly belong to the African American community; yet, by the same token, racism prevents their full inclusion in the white world.

Despite these arguments, some African Americans applaud the unconditional love and permanence offered by transracial adoptions. Transracial adoption supporters argue that it is much worse to grow up without any family at all than to be placed with parents of a different race. Because a disproportionate number of African American children are placed in foster care, mixed-race adoptions may be necessary to ensure permanent homes for some African American children. Transracial adoption may also be viewed as an opportunity to achieve integration on the most basic level.

Controversies involving transracial adoption soon found their way to the courts. In 1992, the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld a district court's order to transfer a three-year-old African American girl from her suburban Minneapolis foster home to her maternal grandparents' home in Virginia (In re Welfare of D. L., 486 N.W.2d 375 [Minn. 1992]). Referred to as Baby D in court records, the child had been raised since birth by white foster parents who had been married for twenty-four years and had already raised three grown children. Baby D's birth mother placed her in foster care almost immediately after delivery and had not seen the child since. When no relatives could be found to claim the child, the foster parents decided to adopt the girl, whom they had grown to love.

When Baby D's grandparents learned that their daughter had delivered a baby, they set out to find their grandchild and to obtain custody. (The couple was already raising their daughter's three other children.) When the foster parents' petition to adopt Baby D surfaced, the grandparents vigorously opposed it.

The Minnesota Minority Heritage Preservation Act mandated a preference for placing children with relatives and adoptive parents of the same race (Minn. Stat. Ann. § 259.57(2)). An intermediate appeals court and the Minnesota Supreme Court agreed with the lower court that under the law, the Virginia grandparents must be granted custody. Despite the white foster parents' argument that they had provided security and loving care for the child, the grandparents' claim to Baby D was superior. Although many African Americans applauded the decision, some critics questioned the constitutionality of a law favoring same-race adoption.

A similar case in Lexington, Texas, produced a different result in 1995. Two foster parents, Scott Mullen and Lou Ann Mullen, who are white and Native American, respectively, applied to adopt two African American boys in their care. Initially, social workers for the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services denied the Mullens' request, stating that departmental policy required them to seek adoptive parents of the same race as the children.

A civil liberties group called the Institute for Justice filed suit against the department on behalf of the Mullens. The institute also filed suits in other states, arguing that adoption decisions based on race are unconstitutional. The Texas department reconsidered and allowed the Mullens to adopt the boys despite race differences.

Another statute affecting transracial adoptions is the indian child welfare act of 1978 (25 U.S.C.A. § 1901 et seq.) (ICWA), a federal law giving special preference to family and tribal adoptions of Native American children. Prior to its enactment, nearly one quarter of all Native American children were removed from their parents' care and placed in foster care, through which some were adopted. ICWA's sponsors argued that the adoption of Native American children by white parents was not necessarily in the children's best interests and was unquestionably harmful to tribal membership. The law was intended to preserve Native American culture and to support an Indian child-rearing philosophy that relies heavily upon the extended family.

Under the 1978 law, tribes have jurisdiction over the proposed adoption of any Native American child living on a reservation. Extended families or tribal placements are given automatic priority over all other applicants.

Another law covering transracial adoptions is the Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994 (42U.S.C.A. §§ 622, 5115a, 5115a note). Sponsored by Senator Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), the law prevents federally assisted child welfare agencies from screening prospective adoptive parents on the basis of race, color, or national origin. Although agencies may still consider the cultural or racial identity of children when making permanent placements, the law is intended to prevent discrimination and to speed the adoption process. The intention of the law is to give thousands of minority foster children who are eligible for adoption a greater chance of finding permanent homes.

Same Sex Adoption Several states have laws on the books that permit second-parent adoptions by same-sex couples, including Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and Vermont. In 18 other states, trial courts have granted second-parent adoptions to same-sex couples. In other words, these states do not have laws permitting adoptions statewide, but adoptions may be granted in county family courts on a case-by-case basis. These states are Alabama, Alaska, California, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, and Washington. In states where there is no statewide law permitting second-parent adoptions, the odds of a trial court granting an adoption vary from county to county. Many of the courts that approve these adoptions are located in metropolitan areas where judges may be more liberal than their rural counterparts.

While the majority of states do not specifically prohibit gays and lesbians from adopting children, three states prohibit the practice. Florida's law is considered the nation's toughest, because it prohibits adoptions not only by gay couples, but also by gay individuals. In 2000, an Arkansas law was passed which prohibited gays and lesbians from becoming foster parents. Mississippi also has legislation barring gay couples from adopting children. The ACLU is challenging that law.

Consent

Virtually all statutes make parental consent to adoption an indispensable condition. Most statutes set forth detailed requirements for the form and procedure of such consent. Ordinarily, statutes dispense with the parental consent requirement only when a parent has reached a serious level of unfitness that would be so significant as to terminate parental rights, or when such rights have already been judicially terminated.

In addition to parental consent, most states require a child to consent to the adoption if the child has reached a certain age, generally between ten and fourteen years.

The increasing number of divorces has resulted in deemphasis of the necessity of consent to adoption by noncustodial parents, the purpose being to ease integration of children of a former marriage into the family created by a subsequent marriage. Some statutes allow adoption without the consent of the noncustodial parent if that parent has been unable to or has failed to contribute to the support of a child for a certain period of time. Courts are more inclined to find abandonment—a common ground for termination of parental rights—in cases involving noncustodial divorced parents.

Unmarried Father's Consent Historically, if a child was illegitimate, most jurisdictions required only the consent of the child's natural mother to the adoption of the child. The right to grant or withhold such consent was not extended to the fathers of illegitimate offspring, since they were not considered to have sufficient interest in the benefits and obligations of raising a child to determine whether the child should be released for adoption.

In 1979, this trend was reversed in Caban v. Mohammed, 441 U.S. 380, 99 S. Ct. 1760, 60 L. Ed. 2d 297 (1979). The key issue was whether the consent of an unwed biological father need be obtained before an adoption could be finalized.

In Caban, a mother of illegitimate children and her husband filed a petition for adoption. The children's natural father filed a cross petition to adopt. The New York Surrogate's Court granted the mother's petition, and the natural father appealed. The decision was affirmed by the Supreme Court, Appellate Division, and subsequently affirmed by the New York Court of Appeals.

On appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a law depriving all unwed fathers of the right to decide against adoption, whether or not they actually took care of the children in question, was unconstitutional and a form of sex discrimination. The unwed father in Caban had lived with the mother of the children for five years prior to the birth of the children. The Court held that he had the right to block their adoption by a man who subsequently married the mother.

Consents that are signed by the parents either immediately before or after the birth of the child may be particularly subject to challenge by the natural mother. Owing to the mother's weakened physical and mental condition, findings of involuntary consent frequently have been handed down in such cases.

A parent can forfeit the right to give or deny consent for the adoption of his or her child in certain instances. Abandonment, the nonperformance of the natural obligations of caring for the child, including support, is one such case. The parent and child will ordinarily be kept together by the courts when the parent exhibits a continuing interest in the child's welfare.

A finding of abandonment may terminate a parent's rights and free the child for adoption with or without parental consent. A parent's rights may also be severed in cases of serious child abuse or neglect. Some statutes provide that a noncustodial parent cannot veto an adoption; however, that parent is generally entitled to be heard when a court considers the case. This is particularly true when the parent has established some kind of family tie with the child, either by having been married to, or having lived with, the custodial parent or by taking the child into his or her home.

State law may require that if a child has been placed in the custody of an agency, the agency's consent is a prerequisite for an adoption. Similarly, consent of a guardian having custody of a child is necessary. The consent of the natural mother's parents may also be required if she is under eighteen years of age and unwed.

Invalid Consent If coercion or deception plays any part in the decision to terminate parental rights, the birth parent's consent may be ruled invalid. In the wake of the highly publicized battle over "Baby Jessica," it appears that regardless of the length of time or quality of a child's placement, the consent rights of the birth parents outweigh the best interests of the child.

In an agonizing case that divided the adoption community, Michigan couple Roberta DeBoers and Jan DeBoers lost custody in 1993 of Jessica, the two-and-a-half-year-old child they had raised from birth (In re Clausen, 442 Mich. 648, 502 N.W.2d 649 [1993]). Courts in both Iowa and Michigan concluded that the necessary consent by Iowa birth parents Cara Schmidt and Daniel Schmidt was flawed. After a protracted legal battle, Jessica was ordered to return to Iowa to live with her biological parents.

Shortly after Jessica's birth on February 8, 1991, the DeBoers filed a petition in Iowa juvenile court to adopt her. The couple, who for ten years had tried to conceive or adopt a child, were named her temporary guardians and custodians. When Jessica was less than four weeks old, however, birth mother Cara Clausen sued to have her maternal rights restored. The birth father, Dan Schmidt, also sought custody.

Unmarried at the time, Clausen had signed a release-custody form, terminating her parental rights, approximately forty hours after giving birth to Jessica. (Iowa law requires a seventy- two-hour waiting period before waiving parental rights.) The man Clausen identified as the child's father—not Schmidt—also signed a release form. Seventeen days later, Clausen informed Schmidt that she had lied on the release form and that Schmidt was actually the father.

On March 6, 1991, Clausen sought to revoke the custody agreement, naming Schmidt as the child's father. Upon learning that he was the baby's father, Schmidt filed an affidavit of paternity and asked for a court intervention to prevent the adoption proceedings. Clausen and Schmidt were married shortly thereafter.

The district court and subsequent courts determined that Dan Schmidt was indeed the biological father and that he had not agreed to have his parental rights terminated. Because he had not abandoned the baby, it was not clearly in the best interests of Jessica to remain with the DeBoers. Also, the parental rights waiver signed by Cara Schmidt was invalid because the statutorily imposed waiting period had not been observed. Therefore, early in the legal skirmish, the court ordered the baby returned to the Schmidts.

The DeBoers continued to fight Jessica's removal from their custody. With the legal maneuvering and delays, the case stretched out over a twenty-nine-month period. By the end, the DeBoers had developed a close bond with Jessica, even though they knew from the time Jessica was an infant that their claim to her might not hold up in court. But with the passage of time, the DeBoers could make a powerful claim that Jessica needed them more than the Schmidts. After all, they were the only parents she knew. The DeBoers argued that it was in Jessica's best interests to remain with them, or she could face possible emotional and psychological damage.

After Iowa courts refused to change position on the custody, the DeBoers took their case to Michigan, hoping that the best-interests-of-the-child argument would be persuasive. However, Michigan courts also agreed that Jessica should be returned to her Iowa birth parents. She was delivered to the Schmidts on August 2, 1993, and renamed Anna.

Methods of Adoption

There are several types of adoption placement procedures. Foreign adoptions are affected by the policies and procedures of the adoptees' countries. Agency placement and independent placement are governed by statute, as is adoption by contract or by deed. Some people adopt through illegal purchase of a child or arrange to have a child by a surrogate mother.

Foreign Adoption Because of the scarcity of healthy babies for adoption in the United States, many U.S. citizens are pursuing adoption of orphaned and abandoned babies from foreign countries.

Most U.S. parents with children in foster care do not relinquish their parental rights. Foster children in the U.S. may also be difficult to place because many are older and carry the emotional scars of physical or sexual abuse.

Since the 1950s, U.S. couples have adopted thousands of Korean children. The number of Korean adoptions is declining, however, reportedly because the Korean government is uncomfortable with its reputation as a baby exporter. On the other hand, children from South America are being adopted in greater numbers by U.S. citizens, as are children from China, Romania, and Russia. In these countries, poverty, natural disasters, abandonment, war, and collapsed governments have resulted in an increased population of needy children.

Each country has different adoption policies regarding the age, income level, and marital status of prospective parents. Often, foreign adoptions are handled privately. Countries may allow children to be escorted to the United States or may require adoptive parents to come and stay for days or even months to complete the adoption paperwork. The costs of adoption also vary from nation to nation.

Agency Placement In agency placement of a child, the arrangements are made by a licensed public or private agency. Such agencies exist solely for the placement of children, and part of their responsibility involves a thorough investigation of the suitability of the potential adoptive parents. Such an investigation is ordinarily quite detailed and takes into consideration the background of both child and prospective parents.

Statutes generally provide for agencies that are operated or licensed by the government to act in an intermediary role between natural and adoptive parents. The method by which a child is transferred to an adoption or placement agency is by the execution of a formal surrender agreement that the natural parents sign. By surrendering a child to an agency, the parent relinquishes all rights to the child. The agency is then given complete authority to arrange for adoption. In arranging for an adoption, agencies must take into consideration such issues as whether a particular child is a proper subject for adoption, whether the proposed home is a suitable one, and whether the adoption is in the child's best interests.

Agency placement has three basic advantages: (1) It minimizes such risks as the adoption of nonhealthy children, the discovery of the adoptive parents' identity by the natural mother, and the natural mother's changing her mind about the adoption. (2) The suitability of adoptive parents is determined by a stringent investigation, which minimizes the risk that a child will be adopted by unfit parents. (3) Adoption through an agency minimizes fees incidental to the adoption.

One essential disadvantage of agency placement is that it involves a long, detailed process. The adoptive parents might be forced to wait for many months while they are being investigated as to their suitability. A second disadvantage of agency placement is that only a limited number of children are available for adoption through agencies.

Independent Placement In independent placement, or private adoption, a child is directly transferred from the natural mother, or her representative, to the parents seeking to adopt. This type of placement is ordinarily arranged by the natural mother's family or doctor. Generally, neither the natural nor the adoptive parents are thoroughly investigated. The adoptive parents often arrange to pay all medical bills incidental to the pregnancy and birth, in addition to legal expenses. Private adoptions are lawful in most states.

Like agency placement, independent placement has both advantages and disadvantages. Private placement facilitates the adoption of a child by parents who might otherwise be forced to endure an extended waiting period or who might be unable to find a child through agency channels because of stringent requirements or mere nonavailability of adoptable children. As with all adoptions, there is an inherent risk that the natural mother might change her mind and never complete the adoption procedure. With some private adoptions, the natural mother remains anonymous. With others, her identity is known to the adoptive parents at the outset.

Independent placement aids mothers who do not have financial resources, by arranging for the payment of medical expenses by the adoptive parents. Such a procedure can, however, lead to a black market if not carefully monitored.

Other disadvantages of private placements are the risks of adoption of an unhealthy child or of nonsuitability of the adoptive parents.

Some states prohibit lawyers from obtaining babies for adoption by clients under any circumstances. Attorneys, however, are ordinarily permitted to accept fees for handling the legal aspects of adoption.

Surrogate Motherhood During the 1980s, many infertile couples turned to surrogate motherhood as an alternative to traditional adoption. A surrogate mother was paid a fee to bear a child conceived through artificial insemination. Once the child was born, the surrogate mother agreed to terminate her parental rights in favor of the sperm donor, typically the husband of the woman unable to have children. For public policy reasons, paid surrogate motherhood has been denounced as an unacceptable means of buying and selling babies.

The wrenching "Baby M" case proved to be the ultimate downfall of surrogate motherhood contracts. In in re baby m, 109 N.J. 396, 537A.2d 1227 (1988), Mary Beth Whitehead entered a written agreement to bear the child of William Stern, whose wife, Elizabeth Stern, was unable to have children. Whitehead was to be paid $10,000 for her services. When the baby girl was born in 1985, Whitehead refused to give her up and fled with the infant to Florida. Four months later, she was apprehended by authorities, who gave the baby over to the Sterns.

Despite Whitehead's efforts to regain the child, the New Jersey Superior Court stripped her of parental and visitation rights and allowed the Sterns to adopt the baby, whom they had named Melissa. The decision had little to do with adoption policy but centered primarily on contract enforcement. The court ruled that Whitehead was obligated to honor her contract with the Sterns.

The New Jersey Supreme Court reversed the lower-court decision, declaring that surrogate motherhood contracts are unenforceable because they violate public policy. The Sterns were allowed to maintain custody of Baby M, although the adoption was voided and some of Whitehead's parental and visitation rights were restored. After the decision, most states passed legislation to prohibit surrogate motherhood contracts altogether.

Adoption by Contract or Agreement Generally, an adoptive relationship cannot be formed by private contract, either express or implied. Although adoption contracts are not usually considered to be injurious to public welfare, they are discouraged on the basis of the principle that a parent should not be permitted to trade away his or her child.

A court may, however, choose to treat a contract of adoption as an agreement to be enforced, with the outcome being equivalent to a formal adoption. The courts have upheld contracts between parents and institutions. In addition, in a number of states, an adoption contract between a natural parent and an institution that provides that the parent is not to be informed of the child's location is enforceable.

Since courts are not eager to deprive natural parents of the right to care for a child, adoption contracts are not enforced when they are in conflict with the welfare of the child. Some states provide that a contract made by one parent alone, absent a showing of clear consent by the other, is not valid. The procedure for adoption by a written declaration or deed is permitted in some states. Ordinarily, it must be properly recorded before the adoption will be valid.

Revocation A court will allow an agreement for the adoption of a child to be broken by a natural parent if the circumstances warrant it, such as when a parent was forced into an adoption agreement.

The court has discretion over whether to permit revocation of an adoption agreement. In such cases, the court will scrutinize the circumstances under which the parent gave consent as well as the parent's reasons for revoking the contract.

Consequences of Adoption

Adoption ordinarily terminates the rights and responsibilities of the natural parents to the child. The death of an adoptive parent does not restore the rights of the natural parents.

Adoption creates the same rights and responsibilities between a child and adoptive parents as existed between natural parent and child. An adopted child is entitled to the same rights as a natural child. When an adult is adopted, however, the adoptive parent does not assume the usual duty of support.

State law governs whether or not the name of a child will be affected by adoption. When a minor child is adopted, his or her legal residence is changed from that of the natural parent to that of the adoptive parent.

Inheritance A state legislature has the authority to impart or remove inheritance rights of adopted children or adoptive parents. Statutes usually provide that adopted children can inherit from adoptive parents in the same capacity as natural children and, conversely, adoptive parents can inherit the property of an adopted child who predeceases them.

Revocation of Adoption

If an adoption decree is acquired by fraud, it may be revoked. In addition, in the absence of the requisite consent of all concerned parties, an order of adoption is void. After a decree is revoked, a child assumes the status she or he had prior to the adoption proceedings.

Summary of Adoption Procedure

The formal steps in adoption of a child are generally uniform in all states.

Notice Notice of adoption proceedings is given to all parties who have a legal interest in the case except the child. In the case of illegitimacy, both natural parents should be given notice if they can be located.

Some statutes provide that a parent who has failed to support a child is not entitled to notice. Ordinarily, a parent who has lost custody of a child in a divorce or separation case is, however, entitled to notice. Similarly, an adoption agency that has custody of the child is entitled to notice.

Petition The parents seeking to adopt must file a petition in court that supplies information about their situation as well as the situation of the child. The filing of a proper petition is ordinarily a prerequisite to the court's jurisdiction.

The petition indicates the names of the adoptive parents, the child, and the natural parents, if known. In addition, the child's gender and age are stated, and some states mandate that a medical report on the child must also accompany the petition. An example of such a petition is found on page 98.

Consent Written consent of the adoption agency or the child's natural parents accompanies the petition for adoption. Consent of the natural parents is not required if their parental rights have been involuntarily terminated as a result, for example, of abandonment or abuse of the child.

Hearing A hearing is held so that the court may examine the qualifications of the prospective parents and either grant or deny the petition. There must be an opportunity for the parties to present testimony and to examine witnesses at such a hearing.

Adoption proceedings are confidential, so the hearing is conducted in a closed courtroom.

Ordinarily, the records of an adoption hearing are available for inspection only by court order. Confidentiality is thought to promote a sense of security for the child with his or her new family.

Probation Most states require a period of probation in adoption proceedings. During this period, the child lives with the adoptive parents, and the appropriate state agency monitors the development of the relationship. The agency's prime concern is the ability of the adoptive parents to properly care for the child. If the relationship is working well for all concerned parties, the state agency will request that the court issue a permanent decree of adoption.

If the relationship is unsatisfactory, the child is either returned to his or her previous home or is taken care of by the state.

Decree An adoption decree is a judgment of the court and is given the same force and effect as any other judgment.

Birth Certificate Following the adoption proceedings, a certificate of adoption is issued for the adopted child, to replace the birth certificate. It lists the new family name, the date and place of the child's birth, and the ages of the adoptive parents at the time the child was born.

Generally, the certificate of adoption does not indicate the names of the child's natural parents or the date and place of adoption. A child may never know that he or she was adopted unless the adoptive parents reveal the information, since the old birth certificate is sealed away and may be opened only by court order.

Right to Information on Natural Parents

Ordinarily, all information concerning an adopted child's origins is sealed, in compliance with the court adoption proceedings, to facilitate development of a relationship between the adoptive parents and child free from the natural parents' influence.

Most state statutes deny adoptees access to records that disclose information about the natural parents. Often, the natural parents make their consent to the adoption contingent upon the condition that no information about them should ever be revealed.

In recent times, because of a growing public interest in tracing ethnic and family backgrounds, many adoptees, as adults, have been calling for the right to obtain access to sealed adoption records.

The adult adoptees recognize that a disclosure of this kind of information could be traumatic to minor adoptees, but they contend that lack of access could cause serious psychological trauma to them as adults. In addition, they cite medical problems or misdiagnoses that could be caused by absence of genetic history, lack of religious identity, and fear of unwitting incest.

Adult adoptees contend that most adoption statutes do not make a distinction between adoptees as minors and later as adults, which causes the adults to be deprived of the right to trace their background. In addition, the adults allege that they have been denied equal protection of law because their status precludes them from receiving medical information readily available to nonadoptees.

Various approaches are being used to resolve this problem. One approach involves the enactment of a legislative requirement that public and private adoption agencies be required to open their records upon request to adults who were adopted as children, with certain limitations. For example, if the child had been placed by the natural parents prior to the effective date of the legislation, the natural parents could prevent the adoptee from seeing the records.

The issue of right to access to adoption records by adoptees when they reach adulthood also encompasses the legal consideration of the natural parents' right to privacy, which could be violated if free access to sealed court records were given to adult adoptees. The adult adoptees' right to know must be balanced against their natural parents' right to privacy. The way to achieve such a balance, however, has never been clearly determined.

In September, 1999, Tennessee's Supreme Court overturned the Tennessee Court of Appeals ruling in Doe v. Sundquist, 2 S.W.3d 919 (Tenn., Sep 27, 1999) (NO. 01-S-01-9901-CV00006), which challenged a law passed in 1995 that unsealed both adoption records and original birth certificates to adult adoptees. Earlier, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled in favor of the state and opined, much to the dismay of sealed records advocates: "A birth is simultaneously an intimate occasion and a public event—the government has long kept records of when, where, and by whom babies are born. Such records have myriad purposes, such as furthering the interest of children in knowing the circumstances of their birth," Doe v. Sundquist, 106 F.3d 702, 65 USLW 2527, 1997 Fed.App. 0051P (6th Cir.(Tenn.) Feb 11, 1997) (NO. 96-6197). The U.S. Supreme Court, however, elected not to hear the Tennessee case.

further readings

Carp, E. Wayne, ed. 2002. Adoption in America: Historical Perspectives. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.

DuPrau, Jeanne. 1990. Adoption. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Messner.

Marshner, Connaught, ed. 1999. Adoption Factbook III. Washington, D.C.: National Council for Adoption.

Melosh, Barbara. 2002. Strangers and Kin: The American Way of Adoption. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press.

Rundberg, Gayle D. 1988. How to Get Babies through Private Adoption. Bend, Ore.: Maverick.

Sloan, Irving J. 1988. The Law of Adoption and Surrogate Parenting. London: Oceana.

cross-references

Child Custody; Child Support; Children's Rights; Family Law; Illegitimacy; Infants; Parent and Child; Surrogate Motherhood.

Adoption

Adoption is a process in which a person (the adoptee) acquires the rights and duties of a biological child with respect to an individual who is not the adoptee's biological parent. The process is usually legal in character, but in some cultures adoption occurs by social ritual. As part of the process of adoption, the adoptee's legal relationship with his or her biological parents may be terminated.

Common events triggering the possibility of adoption are the death of a biological parent; the termination of a biological parent's rights following the abuse, neglect or abandonment of the adoptee; or the divorce of the biological parents followed by the remarriage of the custodial parent and a loss of contact with the noncustodial biological parent.

Legal Consequences and Availability

Two standard models of adoption exist. In one model, found in Anglo-American jurisprudence and other legal systems, the effect of adoption is that the biological parent's rights and duties end with respect to the adoptee (Cretney and Masson 1997). These rights and duties are acquired by the adoptive parents (Hampton 2000). Thus, the biological parents cease to owe the adoptee a duty of support, and this duty is imposed on the adoptive parents. Similarly, normally the adoptee loses the right to inherit from a biological parent who dies leaving no will, but acquires such a right to inherit from the adoptive parent. In the second model, a complete severance of the legal relationship between the adoptee and his or her biological parent does not occur. Instead, as in Turkey (Örücü 1999), the adoptee acquires some rights and duties with respect to the adoptive parent, but retains others with respect to a biological parent.

In some countries, both models may co-exist. This occurs notably in Europe, as in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bubic 1998) and Portugal (De Oliveira and Cid 1998), and in those countries whose legal traditions flow from Europe, as in Argentina (Grosman 1998), Colombia, and other countries in Central and South America (Monroy 1998). The model used in any given adoption may depend on the purpose behind the adoption or the circumstances of the adoptive and biological parents and the adoptee. For example, in Scotland (Sutherland 1997), when a biological parent remarries and the adoption is by the stepparent, the legal relationship with the other biological parent may not terminate completely even though a legal relationship with the adoptive parent is established. This approach is often followed in the United States (Hampton 2000). Thus, the adoptee may be entitled to support from both the biological parents and the adoptive parent. Similarly, the adoptee may be entitled to inherit from both the adoptive parent and perhaps his or her relatives, as well as from the biological parents and their relatives.

Islamic jurisprudence generally does not permit formal adoption. However, some Islamic countries such as Somalia and Tunisia permit adoption. Adoption is also possible in some circumstances among Muslims in South Asia (Pearl and Menski 1998).

In some countries, the applicable family law rules may be determined by factors such as the individual's citizenship, clan membership, or religion. Accordingly, in a given country, adoption rules may vary with the individuals involved, and indeed, may not be available to some individuals at all. Thus, in India, the availability of adoption is controlled by an individual's religion. Statute permits adoption among a broadly defined group of Hindus. The law, however, does not apply to those who are Muslim, Christian, Parsi, or Jew by religion (Pant 1994). Ordinarily, these individuals cannot formally adopt a child, although some of the objectives of adoption can be achieved using the laws of guardianship or the rules regulating the distribution of property by will (Manooja 1993).

History and Purpose

Adoption has been known from biblical times and in many cultures (Goody 1969). In Europe, the roots of modern law lie with the Greeks and Romans. Similarly, in the East, adoption has a long tradition. In Hindu literature, discussions of adoption go back more than 5,500 years (Pant 1994). Common themes dominate the purposes behind adoption in ancient times. Some of these themes are still relevant today.

To the early Greeks and Romans, the goal of adoption was to perpetuate the family based on the male line of descent and to ensure the continuation of the family's religious practices. Thus, the adopter originally had to be a male without a legitimate son (Harrison 1968; Hornblower and Spanforth 1996). Adoption also served the purpose of cementing political alliances between families and continuing political dynasties (Gager 1996). Later Roman emperors, however, did permit adoption by women to "console them for the loss of children" (Moyle 1912). Similarly, early Chinese tradition was primarily concerned with the goals of family continuity and preserving the cult of the ancestors. The object of adoption was to produce a legal successor, and the process was governed by strict rules. For example, the adoptee had to be from the same clan as the adopter, or at least have the same surname and be younger than the adopter so as to maintain order in the family genealogy (Bodde and Morris 1967). However, Chinese tradition also permitted the adoption of a charity son who was supported by the family but acquired no rights in it and did not participate in family religious rituals.

With time, the Roman concept of adoption migrated through Europe where it encountered local customs and codes, such as those found among the Germanic peoples. The use of formal adoption floundered in Europe, and notably in France, during the seventeenth century, chiefly as a result of the disapproval of the church (Gager 1996). Adoption survived, however, due to existing practices of custom, coupled with the needs of the elderly who, after depopulation following the plague epidemic, were willing to trade inheritances for security in old age—as the elderly still do in Turkey (Örücü 1999). One form of adoption practice employed during the seventeenth century involved the use of notarized contracts of adoption. This form is still found in some countries. Postrevolutionary France saw adoption as a means to break down class barriers and redistribute wealth, as well as being a remedy for childless households and children without families. Even so, the Napoleonic Code imposed strict limitations aimed at protecting legitimate biological heirs and the institution of marriage. As a result, ordinarily, only married couples could adopt (Gager 1996).

In contrast, Roman adoption practices never took hold in England. Statute law first introduced adoption to England in 1926 (Cretney and Masson 1997). English concerns with the integrity of blood lines and the desire to ensure that property was inherited by legitimate biological descendants meant that there was no adoption law to be received in postrevolutionary America. In the United States, adoption laws developed in response to the needs of dependent children, not infrequently poor, orphaned, or handicapped. Statutory schemes regulating adoption were first enacted by the states after the middle of the nineteenth century, the earliest probably being in Massachusetts in 1851.

The English and their European neighbors took their adoption practices to their colonies. For example, French and Spanish principles found their way to Central and South America (Monroy 1998). Imperial rules often encountered customary practices. Accordingly, current adoption law sometimes reflects a blend of the European roots and local tradition, as in New Zealand (Atkin 1997), Uganda (Okumu Wengi 1997), and Zambia (Munalula 1999).

In relatively recent times there has been a significant worldwide shift to recognizing the role adoption should play in advancing the interest of the individual adoptee, rather than the goals of broader elements of society or the interests of would-be adopters. This process has been enhanced by the evolution of global standards as reflected, for example, in the United Nations Convention on Rights of the Child. In some countries, for example, Argentina (Grosman 1998) and Uganda (Okumu Wengi 1997), this Convention is an integral part of the country's adoption law. In others, as in Scotland (Sutherland 1997), the Convention is highly influential.

Process

There are three basic types of adoption processes: direct placement by the biological parent or parents, placement through a state agency, or placement through a private agency licensed by the state. Direct placement is often found where the adopter is a stepparent or close relative, as in Germany (Deliyannis 1997). Where direct placement by a biological parent is permitted, there is increasing concern to ensure that the adoptive parents are subjected to a screening process if they are not related to the adoptee (Boskey and Hollinger 2000). Any such screening is usually conducted by a state agency or an entity or individual approved by the state. However, screening does not occur in all countries (Manooja 1993).

Countries such as Argentina (Grosman 1998), China (Palmer 2000), and Latvia (Vebers 1999), or sometimes adoption agencies themselves, often impose extensive conditions on the eligibility of people to adopt and the children who may be placed with particular adoptive parents. As far as adoptive parents are concerned, conditions may include requirements relating to their ages and the age difference between them and the adoptee, their physical and mental health, their financial resources, and their community reputation. Adoption by unmarried couples, couples of the same sex, single individuals, and couples whose infertility is not established, may also be precluded (Forder 2000; Cretney and Masson 1997; Kounougeri-Manoledaki 1995). Traditionally, attention was paid to matching the physical characteristics of adoptive parents and the adoptee, as well as their socioeconomic backgrounds, religion, and race. Eligibility for adoption also might be affected by clan, tribal, or caste membership (Okumu Wengi 1997). Sometimes, as in Colombia (Monroy 1998), the concern is that neglecting race or tribal membership, for example, will adversely affect the adoptee and lead to the erosion of the relevant group and its culture. For these reasons, in the United States, the federal Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 places control of the adoption of children eligible for tribal membership in the hands of the tribe and the tribal courts (Hollinger 2000a). In contrast, although a child's race may be taken into account for placement purposes, federal law does not permit the adoption placement to be delayed unduly while a same-race placement is sought.

In some countries, adoption can occur in a relatively informal way by mere agreement between the adoptive parents and the biological parents. This agreement may be reflected in some symbolic way in the form of a more or less public ceremony or ritual, as in India (Manooja 1993; Pant 1994), or by written contract, or by registration, as in China (Zhang 1997) and Rwanda (Ntampaka 1997). In other countries, adoption requires a decree by a court, as in Argentina (Grosman 1998), the United States (Hollinger 2000b), and Russia (Khazova 2000), or a decision by an administrative agency, as in Hungary (Dóczi 1997).

In many countries, the adoption process involves three phases: termination of parental rights; placement of the adoptee with an adoptive family; and finalization of the adoption. Sometimes, as in England (Cretney and Masson 1997), the state obtains the termination of the rights of a biological parent over the opposition of that parent. This may be due to the parent's abuse, neglect, or abandonment of the child, or due to a failure to support the child, or because the parent is mentally or physically ill, or imprisoned, or otherwise unfit. Where the biological parent favors the adoption, parental rights usually are relinquished either by surrender of the adoptee to an agency, or by the formal consent of the parent to the adoption. To help ensure that the biological parent is willing to surrender the child for adoption, many countries, as in Poland (Stojanowska 1997), specify that consent to the adoption cannot be given before the birth of the child. Also, formal procedures are employed to reduce the risk that the biological parent will be pressured into giving consent (Melli 1996). In this regard, generally, a biological parent cannot be paid for consenting to adoption. However, adoptive parents routinely pay for expenses associated with birth, as well as paying agencies and other intermediaries for their services (Melli 1996; Somit 2000). Despite these rules, there is concern that economic circumstances in some countries drive parents to give up their children, sometimes for compensation. Many countries require that children above a certain age must consent to their adoption, or, at least, be consulted regarding it.

Some countries, for example Argentina (Grosman 1998), Japan (Oda 1999), and the United States (Melli 1996), often impose a delay between the time when the adoptee is placed with the adoptive parents and the point where the adoption becomes final. This delay, as in Switzerland (Graham-Siegenthaler 1995), is to enable an investigator to conduct a home study and report to the relevant court or administrative agency on the success of the placement before the court or agency grants the final order of adoption.

Procedurally, difficulties can arise with respect to the biological father of the adoptee. His identity or location may be unknown, or may be known to the adoptee's mother, who conceals the information from the adoption authorities. Moreover, the father may be unaware of the mother's pregnancy, or he may know of the birth but have played no active role in either supporting the child or developing a social relationship with it. In such contexts, countries are reluctant to put the father in a position to block the adoption or delay it. To address these concerns, modern law tends to require that a biological father who has acknowledged his paternity or had it determined (Frank 1997) or who has been socially or financially active in the adoptee's life must give his consent to the adoption, or, if grounds exist, have his rights terminated on an involuntary basis (Cretney and Masson 1997). Where the father's identity is unknown or where he played a passive role in the adoptee's life, his consent to adoption is not required. At best, as in the Republic of Ireland (Ward 2000), an effort will be made to find the father and notify him of the proposed adoption and receive his input without giving him the ability to control the process.

In some cultures, adoption is a public event. Both the fact of adoption and the identity of the birth parents are known. In other traditions, the fact of adoption and related issues are kept secret. This might be because adoption is a means of dealing with children born out of wedlock or because secrecy and anonymity are seen as devices producing greater integration of the adoptee into the adoptive family, while shielding the biological parents. This approach requires adoption records to be sealed and placements to occur through intermediaries. Increasingly, health concerns and other considerations have led to requirements, as for example in the United States (Melli 1996), that nonidentifying background information be made available to adoptive parents. Beyond this, some countries, such as Argentina (Grosman 1998), are willing to allow access to background information, even if the effect is to reveal the fact of the adoption and the identities of the biological and adoptive families. In England, an adoptee, upon adulthood, may obtain a copy of the original birth certificate (Cretney and Masson 1997). In some countries, this access is possible only if good cause can be shown for disclosing the information. In other instances, a register is maintained of biological and adoptive parents who are willing to have their identities revealed if an inquiry is made. Even in countries where secret adoptions were the norm, there is increasing interest, as in New Zealand (Atkin 1997), in open adoptions, that is adoptions where contact is maintained between the biological parents and the adoptive family. These contacts may range from limited written communication to formal arrangements for physical contact. Such arrangements may even extend to more remote family members such as biological grandparents. The maintenance of contacts is seen as a way of helping biological parents deal with a sense of grief while facilitating the adoption process. However, concerns exist that open adoptions risk disrupting the adoptive family (Cretney and Masson 1997). Open adoptions are particularly favored in the context of adoptions by stepparents or adoptions of older children, that is, in circumstances where the adoptee already has an established relationship with the biological parents.

International Adoptions

Concern with an increasing incidence of children from one country being adopted in another led, in 1993, to the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Inter-country Adoption (Pfund 1993). The increase in international adoptions in recent times is due to a decline in the birth rate in certain countries, coupled with relatively high fertility rates in other countries, possibly accompanied by social disruption because of war, disease, famine, and poverty. The Convention attempts to address a number of concerns. First, it seeks to ensure that the children are legitimately available for adoption. Second, the Convention requires reasonable efforts to find a permanent placement in the child's country of origin. Finally, the Convention aims to ensure that the placement in the receiving country is one that will benefit the child, and, in particular, that the adoptive parents are suitable (Bartholet 2000; Rosettenstein 1995). Many countries have ratified the Convention and modified their laws to meet its requirements.

See also:Adolescent Parenthood; Children's Rights; Family Law; Gay Parents; Lesbian Parents; Orphans; Single-Parent Families

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DAVID S. ROSETTENSTEIN

Adoption

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adoption is the institutionalized practice through which an individual belonging by birth to one kinship group acquires new kinship ties that are socially defined as equivalent to the congenital ties. These new ties supersede the old ones either wholly or in part. Belonging by birth to a particular kinship group does not imply that all the ties are necessarily biological. For example, in many nonliterate societies biological paternity is of minimal social significance; both paternal status and responsibilities are assumed by other male adults, such as a maternal uncle in matrilineal societies. Such arrangements fall outside the scope of the above definition. However, the drawing of hard and fast lines between what does and does not constitute adoption is an extremely difficult task. Some formal arrangements that are legally defined as adoption establish kinship ties only in relation to the transmission of property. On the other hand, some informal arrangements involve a child intensively in a new family of orientation, while at the same time legally maintaining the separateness of his identity.

Although adoption practices vary widely around the world and through time, in one form or another they appear to approach cultural universality. A number of motives for adoption have been discussed by Lowie, who ascribed its commonness in primitive societies to a “generic love of children that is in no way dependent on a sense of consanguinity” (1930, p. 460). However, both the universality and the variability of adoption practices can be explained in terms of their social functions.

Promotion of child welfare. In contemporary Western societies the chief function served by adoption is to provide for the care and welfare of children within a permanent family group. The child-centeredness of Western adoption practices is reflected in statutory law. A comparative review of the adoption statutes of 15 Western nations (United Nations 1956) found that they all made some kind of provision for prohibiting any adoption that would not be in the adopted person’s interest. In a review of the origin and development of American adoption laws, Witmer and others noted: “. . . most laws (at least as interpreted judicially) have had the welfare of children as their main purpose. As a means of promoting the children’s well-being, the laws seek to assure that adoption is in the children’s interest and that they are adopted by persons who are able and willing to provide adequately for their care” (Witmer et al. 1963, p. 43).

There are two major ways in which these values are implemented in American practice. In the first, the placement of the child is arranged through the services of a state-licensed child placement agency. The agency assumes guardianship of the child and may place the child in a temporary foster home until adoptive parents meeting agency standards (often more stringent than those of the courts) are found. In recent years temporary foster placement has been dispensed with more frequently, and the child is placed with adoptive parents as soon as it leaves the hospital where it was born. This trend reflects a change in how important adoption agencies regard an assessment of the child’s physical status, temperament, and especially his intellectual capacity in finding the proper home for him; there is less emphasis in recent years on “perfect matching.”

Placement through a licensed agency is legally mandatory in only two states. Thus, roughly half of all nonrelative adoptions are arranged without the intermediary services of licensed agencies (“independent adoptions”). In such cases, however, the adoptive home is investigated by the court (or some agency designated by the court) having the responsibility of determining whether the adoption is in the best interests of the parties concerned. The focus is on prospects for the child’s social and psychological development, and the suitability of the adoptive parents is usually the chief concern in the investigation.

Concern for child welfare is also evident in the adoption practices of nonliterate societies; however, there is less emphasis on psychological development and more on the physical survival of the child. Lowie (1930) described cases of maternal mortality in which the surviving infant died of starvation unless a tribeswoman capable of nursing was willing to adopt and suckle the child. He also noted that the high incidence of orphanage among Plains Indians, as a result of war raids, was alleviated by adoption. Usually close relatives adopted the child, but it was not uncommon for a stranger who had lost a child resembling the orphan to adopt it as a substitute.

Legitimization. Birth into a family serves the function of conferring upon the child a set of ascribed social positions that define his relationship to other members of the society. When a child is born outside the family, a problem exists as to where to locate the child within the society’s network of social positions (Winch 1952). While it is usually easy to identify the child’s biological relationship to its mother, there may be a question as to the child’s paternity. According to Malinowski (1929), in all societies a father (although not necessarily the biological one) is considered to be indispensable to the child as a guardian and as a male link between the child and the rest of society. This “principle of legitimacy” appears to be culturally universal.

For the child without parents or the child born outside the family adoption establishes the links to the larger society by placing him within a family setting. With few exceptions, statuses that would be ascribed to any natural child of the adopting family are assumed by the adoptee. The adoptee is granted legitimacy by being linked to a male adult. In most societies in which birth out of wed-lock is stigmatizing to the child, the stigma is removed through adoption. The adopted child is treated as if he had belonged to the family all along. Although there may be some surreptitious gossip about the specialness of the child’s status (as in the contemporary United States), the fact of adopted status is rarely concealed by the adoptive parents from either the child or their social acquaintances (Kirk 1964).

The existence of the biological parents may affect both adoptive parents and adoptive children in a variety of ways. In almost all agency adoptions, as well as in most independent arrangements, the identity of the biological parents is unknown to the adopters. A few relevant facts, such as educational level and condition of health, may be all the adoptive parents know. There is a broad range of reactions to this situation, both in the attitudes held by the adoptive parents and in the mode of their describing the natural parents to the child. The adoptive parents may be relatively unconcerned about the child’s background, which is most commonly the case, or may seek further and more detailed information. Themes used in telling the child about his adoption may range from presenting his natural parents as “bad” and rejecting to simply indicating that they were unable to take care of him and wanted him to have a good home (Witmer et al. 1963). The degree to which the adoptive parents are able to accept the existence of the child’s natural parents without developing rejecting attitudes toward them appears to be positively associated with their satisfaction with the adoption (Kirk 1964). It should be noted that the complete separation of natural and adoptive parents that is common in American society is not universally the case. In some Polynesian groups, although the child is given full kinship status in his adoptive family, he knows and maintains a relationship with his natural parents; this is also the case, of course, in the many societies in which children—or even adults—are adopted in order to secure an inheritance (see below).

Parental status. While it is common to think of adoption as serving to confer certain statuses on the child, it also confers the status of parenthood on adults. In societies in which nonparenthood is somewhat stigmatized and the desire for children is great, there may even be competition for adoptable children. Currently this is the case in the United States; over the last two decades applicants for adoption have outnumbered available children by an approximate ratio of seven to one (nonrelative adoptions only). This shortage in the supply of infants has led to the development of a lively black market in adoptable children. High fees are paid by prospective adopters to persons who can arrange for the placement of a child.

Similar tendencies are found in nonliterate societies, especially in Oceania. Among some East Torres Islanders, children are adopted even prior to birth and often grow up without learning the identity of their natural parents. In the Banks Islands payment of the midwife’s fee is sufficient to establish adoptive claim to a child. If the husband of the natural mother cannot afford the fee or happens to be away at the time, another man is likely to arrogate paternity (Lowie 1948, p. 57). This practice of paying the medical expenses of the natural mother in return for custody of the child is remarkably similar to practice in non-agency adoptions in the United States.

In addition to satisfying the desire for children or providing adults with an honorific status, adoption may convey the prerogatives of parental authority to the adopter, thus providing a means of social control. Such is the case in the Japanese system of oyabun-kobun (Ishino 1953): a leader, such as a work-gang foreman, becomes a symbolic parent, “adopting” his adult followers ritually.

The transmission of property. Systems of descent and the institution of private property are closely intertwined. In many societies the principal function of the family is to provide lines for the transmission of property. When natural heirs are not available, this function may be served by means of adoption. For example, among upper-class Chinese who lacked male heirs legal rules specified which boys were to be adopted in order to fill the male line of descent, the boys usually being sought first from the closest collateral kin (Freedman 1958). The yoshi system in Japan provides for the acquisition, by a person having an economic relationship to a family, such as a tenant, of kinship status through adoption, with the adoptee’s descendants forming a branch of the adoptive family [seeKinship, article onpseudo-kinship].

Similar patterns are found in Western society. Both the Greeks and Romans utilized adoption to insure continuation of the family line. Similarly, the Napoleonic Code was concerned primarily with the inheritance aspects of adoption and provided only for the adoption of adults. Up until the early twentieth century the transmission of property by acquiring legal descendants when none were available was probably the principal function of adoption. Thus, adoption was largely an upper-class phenomenon. In the lower classes, when adoption occurred, it served as a form of indenture; the “property” that was acquired was the right to the labor of the adoptive child.

Most societies that practice adoption to any considerable extent have well-articulated norms specifying the property rights involved. There are four sets of relationships to be considered. In many Western societies, the inheritance rights of the adopted child are equivalent to those of a legitimate natural child of the adoptive parents. In some countries, however, restrictions safeguard the inheritance rights of specific relatives. Since adoption may involve sharing an estate with natural children, some societies prohibit adoption by those who have natural heirs except in special cases where the adoptee has saved the life of the adopter. In most jurisdictions the adopters have little, if any, right to inherit from the adoptee. And while adoption theoretically creates a binding substitute for the biological relationship, in most cases the adopted child retains his rights of inheritance from his natural parents, and they from him (United Nations 1956). These patterns probably reflect the high value attributed to blood relationships in Western culture.

Much of the early legal concern over adoption focused on property transmission. However, in the early 1900s, and particularly during the period following World War I, many Western nations passed their first adoption laws or revised existing laws. The new laws sought to regularize numerous de facto situations and to protect the adopted child. Analysis of their content indicates a clear ascendancy of the child-welfare function over the heir-providing function.

Adoption research. Research in adoption can be divided into two areas. The first consists of studies of the adoption process and the practices of adoption agencies. For example, Maas and Engler (1959) explored the barriers to the adoption of the large numbers of children in foster homes and institutions (particularly older children) who could benefit from permanent adoptive homes (see also Child Welfare League 1958). Other studies have focused on the criteria used in the selection of adoptive parents (Child Welfare League 1956– 1957).

The second principal area of adoption research is the study of adoption outcome, particularly the outcome for the child. Of special concern has been the evaluation of the chief modes of arranging adoptive placements: independently or through a child welfare agency (Amatruda & Baldwin 1951; Child Welfare League 1951; Simon 1953; Theis 1924; Witmer et al. 1963). Most of the studies use some measure or judgment of the “quality” of the adoptive home as the criterion of success or failure; home quality is conceived in terms of those social and psychological characteristics thought to be most conducive to the child’s physical and emotional development. These studies show that a substantial majority of adopted children are placed in acceptable homes through either placement system, with the percentage of highly evaluated homes running somewhat higher in favor of agency placement.

It must be noted, however, that the characteristics of adoptive homes thought to be related to children’s adjustment by professional practitioners have shown only low correlation with actual measures of adjustment in follow-up studies. For example, studies have shown that the age of the adoptive parents is not significantly related to either measures of the child’s adjustment or evaluations of the quality of parental care; moreover, there is no evidence that postadoptive fertility is detrimental to the adoption outcome. The more subtle and elusive assessments of the personalities of adoptive parents made by agencies in the course of selection have yet to be correlated with systematic measures of child adjustment made after a substantial follow-up interval. Thus, the results of the scattered research evaluating adoption outcome in terms of home quality are far from definitive at this point.

The adjustment of the respective parties to adoption has been the focus of another research strategy in the study of outcome. It has been found that children adopted independently score lower, on the average, on a battery of adjustment measures than a matched sample of natural children. The differences, while small, are statistically significant; however, they tend to disappear altogether when the comparison is limited to children placed in early infancy (Weinstein 1965). The adjustment of the adoptive parents has been the concern of an extended series of studies by Kirk (1964). His central thesis is that adoptive parents suffer from “role handicap” stemming from the romanticization of natural parenthood and the view of adoption as an acceptable but inferior alternative; he concluded that acknowledgment of, and coping with, the differences involved in being an adoptive parent are adjustive, both in terms of parental satisfaction and relations with the adoptive child.

Eugene A. Weinstein

[See alsoKinship.]

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Amatruda, Catherine s.; and Baldwin, Joseph V. 1951 Current Adoption Practices. Journal of Pediatrics 38: 208–212.

Befu, Harumi 1963 Patrilineal Descent and Personal Kindred in Japan. American Anthropologist 65:1328–1341.

Boehm, Bernice R. 1965 Adoption. Pages 63-68 in Encyclopedia of Social Work. New York: National Association of Social Workers.

Child Welfare Leagueof America 1956–1957 A Study of Adoption Practice. By Michael Shapiro. 3 vols. New York: The League.

Child Welfare Leagueof America 1958 Deterrents to the Adoption of Children in Foster Care. New York: The League.

Child WelfarE Leagueof America, Committeeon Standardsfor Adoption Service 1951 A Followup Study of Adoptive Families. New York: The League.

Child Welfare League of America, Committee on Standards for Adoption Service 1959 Child Welfare League of America Standards for Adoption Service. New York: The League.

Council of State Governments 1954 Summaries of State Laws Pertaining to the Adoption of Children. Chicago: The Council.

Freedman, Maurice (1958) 1965 Lineage Organization in Southeastern China. New York: Humanities Press.

Ishino, Iwao 1953 The oyabun-kobun: A Japanese Ritual Kinship Institution. American Anthropologist New Series 55:695–707.

Kirk, Henry D. 1964 Shared Fate: A Theory of Adoption and Mental Health. New York: Free Press.

Kornitzer, Margaret 1952 Child Adoption in the Modern World. New York: Philosophical Library.

Lowie, Robert H. 1930 Adoption, Primitive. Volume 1, pages 459–460 in Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences. New York: Macmillan.

Lowie, Robert H. (1948) 1960 Social Organization. New York: Holt.

Maas, Henry S.; and Engler, Richard E. 1959 Children in Need of Parents. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.

Malinowski, Bronislaw 1929 Marriage. Volume 14, pages 940–950 in Encyclopaedia Britannica. 14th ed. Chicago: Benton.

Reid, Joseph 1957 Principles, Values, and Assumptions Underlying Adoption Practice. Social Work 2:22–29.

Simon, Abraham 1953 Social Agency Adoption: A Psycho-Sociological Study in Prediction. Ph.D. dissertation, Washington Univ.

Smith, I. Evelyn (editor) 1963 Readings in Adoption. New York: Philosophical Library.

Theis, Sophie 1924 How Foster Children Turn Out. New York: State Charities Aid Association.

United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs 1956 Comparative Analysis of Adoption Laws. New York: United Nations.

Weinstein, Eugene 1965 Adoption and the Social Psychology of Infant Development. Pages 88–108 in Conference on the Research and Teaching of Infant Development, 1964, Papers. Unpublished manuscript, Merrill-Palmer Institute, Detroit.

Winch, Robert F. (1952) 1963 The Modern Family. Rev. ed. New York: Holt.

Witmer, Helen et al. 1963 Independent Adoptions: A Follow-up Study. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

ADOPTION

ADOPTION, the process of legally transferring parental rights and obligations from a child's biological parent or parents to one or more adults, is an age-old practice. The Code of Hammurabi in ancient Babylonia provided for such a transfer. Adoption was also practiced in ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. These adoptions focused on the needs of adults with regard to issues such as inheritance and religion. In 1851, Massachusetts passed the first modern adoption law, signaling a profound change in the meaning of adoption—the needs of the child, not the adult, would be paramount.

The Road to Legalized Adoption

Before 1851, legal adoption in the United States was extremely rare. English common law, on which American laws were based, did not recognize adoption because it jeopardized the inheritance rights of blood relatives. However, informal adoption (raising a child as one's own without any legal tie) was not uncommon. Beginning in the colonial era, dependent children were cared for in the homes of relatives, neighbors, or strangers, with the relationship often being formalized through indenture. Although indenture represented an economic relationship—providing for a child's basic needs in return for his or her labor—these arrangements could also be of a more familial nature. Childless couples often took these children, who were abandoned or orphaned, or whose parents were, for some reason, unable to care for them, sometimes using their wills to provide for their future. In addition, state legislatures occasionally passed private bills that changed a child's name and implicitly acknowledged its adoption.

By the mid-nineteenth century, a number of social and cultural transformations had occurred that set the stage for the passage of the Massachusetts Adoption Act of 1851. As the United States became more industrialized with the accompanying growth in cities and immigration, the number of orphaned, homeless, or neglected children rapidly grew as a result of the dislocations and uncertainties caused by these dramatic changes. Orphanages were opened to care for these children, but by midcentury some reformers began to argue that children needed the natural environment of a family, a setting that, not incidentally, was less expensive. In addition, affectionate child nurture and the belief in childhood innocence became more important, especially among the middle class, as homes lost many of their productive functions and became private havens presided over by a loving wife and mother.

Efforts to find homes for children intensified over the last half of the nineteenth century, with New York City reformer Charles Loring Brace leading the way. In 1853, Brace founded the New York Children's Aid Society, which "placed-out" poor and homeless urban youths into rural homes. In 1854, Brace loaded up 138 children and sent them west to Pennsylvania by train. In the ensuing decades, dozens of similar societies were created, and by 1930, "orphan trains" had relocated as many as 200,000 children to western states. Relatively few of these children were legally adopted, since the majority had at least one living parent or were older than adopters preferred.

Nevertheless, the placing-out movement contributed to the development of adoption laws and the growing acceptance of adoption. As more people took in unrelated children and raised them as their own, the need for a standardized legal means to formalize and protect that relationship grew. Meanwhile, courts had begun in the early nineteenth century to consider "the best interests of the child" when making decisions about custody. Under this doctrine, affection and nurturance could be viewed as equally significant as paternal rights or blood ties. Together, these changes led the Massachusetts legislature to pass the 1851 adoption act. The statute made the adoption procedure clear. The measure required the written consent of the biological parents or of a child's guardian if its parents were dead, severed all legal bonds between the biological parents and the child, created legal ties between the adoptive parents and the child as if it had been born to them, and required the judge to determine that the adoptive parents were "fit and proper" before issuing the adoption decree. By the end of the nineteenth century, most states had passed adoption statutes that, like the Massachusetts law, focused on the welfare of the child.

Social Workers, Stricter Adoption Laws, and Issues of Background

During the Progressive Era, some reformers began to focus specifically on adoption and to develop placement standards that emphasized investigation to ensure that a child's biological family was not unnecessarily broken up. The policy of keeping birth families together, which was widely accepted by 1910, coupled with social workers' efforts to encourage unwed mothers to keep their children, meant that relatively few children were available for adoption. Some of the few who were available were placed through private adoption agencies, which were first opened during this period. Unlike social welfare professionals, these volunteer-staffed agencies did not insist that un-married mothers keep their infants.

Meanwhile, adoption was gradually gaining acceptance. From 1907 to 1911, the Delineator, a popular women's magazine, ran a child-rescue campaign that urged its largely white and middle-class readers to adopt a dependent child as part of their patriotic duty. Since Americans understood all women to be essentially maternal, the magazine even encouraged single women to adopt. The campaign led to the adoption of at least two thousand children. It also contributed to the acceptance of adoption by downplaying the significance of a child's heredity—a primary fear of many prospective adopters—and emphasizing the power of a nurturing, Christian environment to overcome any genetic taint.

Heredity was a controversial issue in adoption, as were questions of race, ethnicity, and religion. Very few child welfare agencies existed to serve the needs of African American children, and blacks continued the tradition of informally adopting needy children in their communities. Concerns about race mixing also meant that any child whose race was not crystal clear would not be placed. The focus on racial matching, however, could conflict with efforts to preserve a dependent child's natal religion. In 1904, whites in Arizona kidnapped forty Irish orphans that Catholic nuns had placed with Mexican Catholic families and placed them in white families. The courts allowed the white families to keep the children over the vigorous objections of the Catholic Church.

In the 1920s, social workers continued to work for stricter adoption laws that stressed investigation and professional oversight. One goal was to revise state adoption statutes along the lines of the Children's Code of Minnesota, passed in 1917. Although the 1851 Massachusetts Adoption Act required a judge to determine an adoptive home's suitability, those investigations were notoriously superficial. By contrast, the Children's Code required a thorough investigation into the adoptive home by a state agency before the adoption could be approved, as well as a six-month probationary period before the adoption could be finalized. The code also closed adoption records to public inspection. By the end of the 1930s, most states had passed new adoption laws or updated old ones, and many contained the principles of the Children's Code. Nevertheless, almost half of all adoption placements were still made without the initial oversight of social welfare professionals. In these independent or private agency adoptions, lawyers, physicians, and volunteers placed children largely based on their intuition.

Adoption as the "Perfect Solution"

The 1940s saw significant changes in social workers' views toward illegitimacy and an explosion in the number of adoptions. Social welfare professionals began to argue that unwed mothers did not make the best parents and that their children would forever suffer from the stigma of illegitimacy. Psychological theory buttressed this position, suggesting that unwed mothers were neurotic young women whose pregnancies signaled a more deep-seated problem; by placing her child for adoption, the woman would gain a second chance to solve her problem and live a normal life. This view was especially appealing given that the war had seen a dramatic rise in the number of illegitimate births, including those to white, middle-class teens.

At the same time as the supply of adoptable infants increased, so did the demand. Already by the 1930s, concerns about a dependent child's heredity had lessened and the number of adoptions had grown. During the war and the postwar period, the number of legal adoptions swelled, as childless couples scrambled for a child with whom they could take their place in the postwar baby boom. In the mid-1930s, estimates put the number of adoptions at about 17,000 annually. By 1945, estimates had it at 50,000 a year; by 1965, the number had increased to 142,000. Adoption had became the "perfect solution" for all three parties to it.

Problems with the "Perfect Solution"

Although the numbers of adoptable children had increased, the supply could in no way meet the growing demand. In response, social workers in the late 1940s began to redefine the concept of "adoptability" to include minority, older, disabled, and foreign-born children. Most significantly, professionals began to focus for the first time on the needs of African American children. When efforts to find African American homes fell short, social workers in the 1960s began to place black children in white homes for adoption. By the early 1970s, approximately fifteen thousand transracial adoptions had occurred. In 1972, however, the National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW) issued a statement that rejected transracial adoptions as a form of cultural genocide. In the wake of this pronouncement, many states required same-race placements. In the 1980s, the issue resurfaced because of the large percentage of black children in foster care who needed permanent homes. In the 1990s, a number of white foster parents filed antidiscrimination suits in order to adopt African American children. Despite the NABSW's continued resistance, Congress passed the Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994, which prohibited agencies from delaying or denying the adoption of a child in order to find racially matched parents. Any agency that did so risked the loss of federal aid.

The postwar shortage of white, American-born children also led to an interest in intercountry adoption. Orphaned and abandoned children from Germany and Japan were adopted in the years immediately after World War II. The adoption of Asian children increased dramatically after the Korean War; between 1966 and 1976, Americans adopted 32,000 foreign-born, primarily Korean, children. In 2000, Americans adopted more than 18,000 foreign children, over half from Russia and China. Girls comprised the overwhelming majority of Chinese adoptees, because Chinese families prize male children, whose value has increased since China began its one-family-one-child policy to curb population growth. In 2001, foreign-born children made up about 20 percent of all American adoptions. To combat the confusion and corruption that often marred these adoptions, such as exorbitant last-minute fees and failure to disclose a child's health problems, the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoptions was written in 1993. This multinational treaty, which the United States ratified in 2000, establishes, among other things, accreditation standards for agencies; it remains to be seen if nations will abide by the treaty.

The shortage of white infants intensified in the early 1970s. Feminism and the cultural acceptance of premarital sex created a climate in which unmarried mothers no longer felt compelled to place their children. The legalization of abortion in 1973 also seems to have reduced the number of available children. The result was a rapid decline in the number of unrelated adoptions in the early 1970s, from almost ninety thousand in 1970 to fewer than fifty thousand in 1975. And for many of the mothers who still wished to place their children, a new attitude prevailed. These women now often took a role in choosing their child's parents, sometimes maintaining ongoing contact after placement. Although the trend at the start of the twenty-first century was clearly toward more openness, there was considerable opposition to these "open adoptions," with a concern that children would be confused as to who their "real parents" are.

Meanwhile, birth mothers and adoptees who had been part of the "perfect solution" began to critique the secrecy surrounding adoption. Although laws had closed records from the public, birth parents and adopted persons often had access to their case histories before World War II, since many children had been placed at an age when they could remember their biological families. With more unwed mothers giving up their children after the war, agencies sealed case files to protect all parties from the stigma of illegitimacy. In 1971, an adoptee, Florence Fisher, founded the Adoptees' Liberty Movement Association with the goal of unsealing records once an adoptee reached the age of eighteen. The adoption rights movement also included birth parents, primarily mothers, some of whom founded Concerned United Birthparents in 1976. Unsealing adoption records has proved to be an extremely contentious issue; as a compromise, many states have established state adoption registries and passed "search and consent" laws that assign a confidential intermediary to locate the birth parents to ensure that they desire contact.

More recently, adoptions by gays and lesbians became a hotly contested issue. Although by the end of the twentieth century a number of states routinely accepted gay parents, restrictive legislation still existed. In 2001, a federal judge upheld Florida's 1977 law that automatically disqualified gays and lesbians. Gay activists, in addition to contesting such laws, also challenged legislation that prevented homosexual couples from adopting together.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ashby, Le Roy. Endangered Children: Dependency, Neglect, and Abuse in American History. New York: Twayne, 1997.

Bartholet, Elizabeth. Family Bonds: Adoption and the Politics of Parenting. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993.

Berebitsky, Julie. Like Our Very Own: Adoption and the Changing Culture of Motherhood, 1851–1950. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000.

Carp, E. Wayne. Family Matters: Secrecy and Disclosure in the History of Adoption. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998.

Gordon, Linda. The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999.

Grossberg, Michael. Governing the Hearth: Law and the Family in Nineteenth-Century America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985.

Holt, Marilyn Irvin. The Orphan Trains: Placing Out in America. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992.

Kunzel, Regina. Fallen Women, Problem Girls: Unmarried Mothers and the Professionalization of Social Work, 1890–1945. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1993.

Marsh, Margaret, and Wanda Ronner. The Empty Cradle: Infertility in America from Colonial Times to the Present. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

Rappaport, Bruce M. The Open Adoption Book: A Guide to Adoption Without Tears. New York: Macmillan, 1992.

Wadia-Ells, Susan, ed. The Adoption Reader: Birth Mothers, Adoptive Mothers, and Adopted Daughters Tell Their Stories. Seattle, Wash.: Seal Press, 1995.

JulieBerebitsky

See alsoChildbirth and Reproduction ; Childhood ; Children's Rights ; Foster Care .

adoption Act of a person legally taking as a child one who is not his/her own by birth or law. In Britain, anyone over 21 years of age can legally adopt a child. Married couples must adopt ‘jointly’, unmarried couples may not adopt ‘jointly’. Adoptions are organized either by the social services departments of local authorities or by registered, voluntary agencies such as Barnardo's. An adoption is formally legalized by a High Court (Family Division) order. Usually the child's natural parent/s must consent to the adoption. Once adopted, the child assumes the rights and responsibilities of a natural legitimate offspring. When the adopted child reaches adulthood s/he can apply to obtain a full birth certificate.

adoption. Legal adoption was introduced in England and Wales in 1926 and in Northern Ireland in 1929. In independent Ireland legislation was delayed by the strength of traditional attitudes to the family, deference to Catholic teaching on the rights of natural parents, and fears that Protestant couples might obtain control of Catholic children. An act of 1952 permitted the adoption of orphan and illegitimate children by couples of the same religious denomination. The latter restriction was removed in 1974, having been ruled unconstitutional in excluding adoptive parents of mixed religion, but the ban on adopting legitimate children remains.

Adoption. See Childbirth; Child Rearing; Family.

adoption •ashen, fashion, passion, ration •abstraction, action, attraction, benefaction, compaction, contraction, counteraction, diffraction, enaction, exaction, extraction, faction, fraction, interaction, liquefaction, malefaction, petrifaction, proaction, protraction, putrefaction, redaction, retroaction, satisfaction, stupefaction, subtraction, traction, transaction, tumefaction, vitrifaction •expansion, mansion, scansion, stanchion •sanction •caption, contraption •harshen, Martian •cession, discretion, freshen, session •abjection, affection, circumspection, collection, complexion, confection, connection, convection, correction, defection, deflection, dejection, detection, direction, ejection, election, erection, genuflection, imperfection, infection, inflection, injection, inspection, insurrection, interconnection, interjection, intersection, introspection, lection, misdirection, objection, perfection, predilection, projection, protection, refection, reflection, rejection, 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electrocution, elocution, evolution, execution, institution, interlocution, irresolution, Lilliputian, locution, perlocution, persecution, pollution, prosecution, prostitution, restitution, retribution, Rosicrucian, solution, substitution, volution •cushion • resumption • München •pincushion •Belorussian, Prussian, Russian •abduction, conduction, construction, deduction, destruction, eduction, effluxion, induction, instruction, introduction, misconstruction, obstruction, production, reduction, ruction, seduction, suction, underproduction •avulsion, compulsion, convulsion, emulsion, expulsion, impulsion, propulsion, repulsion, revulsion •assumption, consumption, gumption, presumption •luncheon, scuncheon, truncheon •compunction, conjunction, dysfunction, expunction, function, junction, malfunction, multifunction, unction •abruption, corruption, disruption, eruption, interruption •T-junction • liposuction •animadversion, aspersion, assertion, aversion, Cistercian, coercion, conversion, desertion, disconcertion, dispersion, diversion, emersion, excursion, exertion, extroversion, immersion, incursion, insertion, interspersion, introversion, Persian, perversion, submersion, subversion, tertian, version •excerption