Adoption, Transracial

Barbara Katz Rothman & Amy Trover

Transracial adoption (also known as inter-racial adoption) refers to adoptions that occur across racial boundaries. At the level of biology, no adoption is transracial because race is a meaningless category; however, because race is socially significant, transra-cial adoption remains a controversial method of family formation. In the United States, much of this controversy centers on the two streams that feed transracial adoption. Adoption itself is one such stream: Why are children placed for adoption? Adoption solves the problem of infertility for so many people, yet it is not just a solution but also an indicator of a larger social problem, for its need results from forces and policies that push women into giving birth to babies that they cannot rear. Consequently, countries with good social services, readily available and culturally accepted contraception means, safe and legal abortion, and support for single mothers have the lowest adoption rates. For example, in ...

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