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As an adoptive mother, I am deeply grateful to the young woman who entrusted her infant to me. She gave me the opportunity to love and nurture a beautiful baby girl — now a teenager — and shepherd her into what I hope will be a happy and healthy life.
I know the decision wasn’t easy for my daughter’s biological mother. I talked to her enough to know her relief was entwined with guilt; she was pressured by family members who didn’t want her to surrender her child to a stranger.
Sadly, the ultraconservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court who overturned reproductive rights seemed blissfully ignorant of the complexities of adoption. They sang praises to the process and predicted that it would become an easy alternative to abortion.
In the 2022 majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito wrote, “A woman who puts her newborn up for adoption today has little reason to fear that the baby will not find a suitable home.” In fact, from 2011 to 2018, infants accounted for 70% of the increase in foster care placements, according to government data. Alito is widely revered among conservatives as a brilliant jurist, but he has obviously never perused a single headline about the perils and problems of the foster care system.
An adoptive parent herself, Justice Amy Coney Barrett was also certain that adoption would easily become the preferred alternative. In oral arguments in the case, she insisted that women with unplanned pregnancies would not be forced to become mothers because of “safe haven laws,” which allow caregivers to simply abandon newborns at designated locations.
The notion that adoption rates would soar after abortions were widely banned was always a ridiculous one, and recent statistics, as reported by Politico, bear that out. According to one study by the National Institutes of Health, about 90% of women denied abortions chose to keep the child. “Political promotion of adoption as an alternative to abortion is likely not grounded in the reality of women’s decision making,” the study noted.
If Alito did not, Barrett should have known better. As the mother of an adopted child as well as biological children, she ought to be well aware of the stresses and strains of carrying a child to term — not only financial but also physical. Rates of maternal mortality — deaths associated with pregnancy — have increased in the U.S., especially among Black women. Many women simply don’t wish to carry an unplanned pregnancy to term. Those who are forced to do so often choose to keep the baby. They may not have financial resources or support, but they have become emotionally invested.
Then there’s the other side of the equation: parents who wish to adopt. Over the last few decades, there have been a few well-publicized cases in which adoptive parents were suddenly confronted by biological parents who want to reclaim the child, with tears and agony on both sides, but those cases are quite rare. According to the Adoption Network, while one-third of American families have considered adoption, no more than 4% have actually adopted a child. Of further note is the fact that nearly half of all adopted children are white.
While it is increasingly common to see interracial adoptions, many of those feature white parents who have adopted children from China or South Korea. One study from CalTech showed that parents pursuing domestic adoptions have a strong preference for girls who are not Black. Fewer parents are interested in adopting boys, the study found. Given the combination of the aversion to males and to Black children, Black boys have little chance at adoption.
There is still another barrier to adoption: cost. Before I started the process, I had saved tens of thousands of dollars — and I spent every penny. I know other families who have adopted children, and they have done the same. Far fewer Black families than white ones have such financial resources available.
Adoption, of course, can be wonderfully rewarding. Even on my worst days of motherhood, with teen angst and hormones confounding communication between my daughter and me, I am grateful to the woman who birthed her. But the choice belonged to her, not to me. That’s as it should be.
Cynthia Tucker won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 2007. She can be reached at cynthia@cynthiatucker.com.
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