QandAs: Legal

What Is Adoption?

Answer:
Adoption is a process by which someone will assume the parenting of another person who is not their biological child. Unlike

guardianship or other arrangements, an adoption is a permanent change in status and requires a legal proceeding in order to complete.

Comprehensive statutes and regulations govern the process of adoption and its requirements. The process of adoption has a long history, going back to the Roman Empire and throughout the Catholic Church. In the United States, the modern history of adoption goes back to the 1859 Orphan Train movement. Charles Brace, a Protestant minister was appalled at the number of homeless children wandering the streets of New York City and arranged for it as a way of finding homes for the children. The Orphan Train placed homeless children in the cities of the eastern United States onto trains in hopes of finding parents willing them to adopt them in the agricultural areas in the West. This was the largest migration of children in history. Unfortunately, a lot of exploitation occurred, which led to many laws protecting the children and requiring adoptive families to be investigated.

There are two forms of adoption, open and closed. In an open adoption, information and contact is allowed to be communicated between the birth family and the adoptive family. The adoptive family will have full parental rights, but the birth parents will be allowed to visit or maintain other contact with the adoptive family. Closed adoptions are far more common, and have been the norm throughout history. In this form of adoption, all identifying information on the birth family and the adoption is sealed. In some cases, medical or religious information can be communicated, but no identifying information is passed.