Washington Times Examines Decline In Domestic Adoptions

Main Category: Women's Health / Gynecology
Also Included In: Pregnancy / Obstetrics;  Abortion;  Sexual Health / STDs
Article Date: 15 Apr 2009 - 7:00 PDT

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The Washington Times on Sunday examined why fewer unmarried women in the U.S. are putting their infants up for adoption following unplanned pregnancies. According to the latest federal data, about 6,800 infants are relinquished at birth for adoption annually, a "miniscule number" compared with the approximately three million pregnancies that occur among unmarried women, the Times reports. Access to legal abortion and more positive attitudes toward single parenting have contributed to the decline, the Times reports.

Peggy Hartshorn -- president of Heartbeat International, a network of 1,200 crisis pregnancy centers -- said that 35% of pregnancies to unmarried women end in abortion, adding the decision of whether to have an abortion usually is the first that a single woman will make when faced with an unintended pregnancy. Hartshorn said that some women choose abortion because the infant "doesn't seem that real," and many women "still think that it would be worse to have the baby, see the baby, know they have a baby and then give it away."

In addition, new attitudes toward single motherhood are contributing to declines in adoption. Federal data show that about 9% of never-married women placed their infants up for adoption before 1973. However, the number of adoptions declined after 1973 to about 1%. Data from the most recent time period -- 1996 to 2002 -- show that a total of 48,000 infants were placed for adoption, Jo Jones, a researcher at the National Center for Health Statistics, said. Jones, who examined infant adoption data at the request of the Times, said that domestic infant relinquishments have become so rare that they may no longer be studied. She said that "with sample surveys, we just don't have enough numbers to produce reliable and stable statistics."

Jones also said that almost all infants placed up for adoption since 1989 have been born to white women and that the number of black infants placed up for adoption "is so few we can't say anything about it." Although NCHS does not try to explain possible reasons behind the data, the Times reports that other research has shown that black families "have a strong tradition of using family members and 'informal' adoptions to care" for infants.

Despite the declining numbers of domestic adoptions, about 50,000 children are adopted from U.S. foster care and about 20,000 through international adoptions occur each year. In addition, millions of people in the U.S. are willing to adopt, and the number of couples looking to adoption likely will increase due to several factors. According to the Times, abortion-rights opponents are "determined to keep the 'adoption option' alive and well." For example, Feminists for Life is calling on Congress to urge colleges to offer services for pregnant and parenting students, the Times reports (Wetzstein, Washington Times, 4/12).

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