Lisa A. Tucker is an associate professor of law at the Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law. She writes about the underdogs in family law. (Courtesy photo)
In the weeks after Dobbs, the topic of adoption has become hot again. After all, according to Justice Amy Coney Barrett, safe haven laws provide a solution to unintended pregnancy. Justice Alito agrees; as Justice Alito wrote in the majority opinion, “a woman who puts her newborn up for adoption today has little reason to fear that the baby will not find a suitable home.” And while it is imperative that we work to protect women’s bodily integrity through every possible legislative and judicial means, it is critical that the widespread conversation around open adoption be well-informed and accurate.
The public perception of open adoption does not necessarily align with what adoption agencies say it does, mostly because of market realities. Yes, adoption is big business. Before adoption, adoptive parents are often desperate for a child; those seeking healthy newborns exponentially exceed the number of infants available for adoption. In order to up their chances that a birth mother will select them to adopt and raise her child, prospective parents are generally advised to enter into a post-adoption contact agreements, or PACA; in fact, about two-thirds of open adoptions involve negotiated agreements between birth and adoptive parents that define the type and frequency of contact that the birth parents will have with the child after the adoption is final.
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