Relinquished

November 1, 2023

Every year, nearly 20,000 women place their children for adoption. Sociologist Sisson (Univ. of California, San Francisco), whose research was cited in the U.S. Supreme Court's dissent in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, seeks to share a new perspective on this subject. Adoption is embraced by both sides of the political aisle, but Sisson believes that TV shows such as 16 and Pregnant feature narratives about pregnancy and adoption that don't mesh with reality or the true experiences of parents. Utilizing more than 100 interviews with birth mothers of various professions, religions, and socioeconomic statuses, the book, academic in tone, explores how they made the challenging decision to place their child for adoption and what consequences this had on their lives. The adoptions mentioned in this book took place between the years 2000 and 2020 in all regions of the U.S. Sisson also looks back at times in history when people--enslaved, Indigenous peoples, and others who were oppressed--were forced to have babies, who were then sold or yanked away. Birth fathers are not included in Sisson's survey; the author opted to have a conversation about adoption with a single focus. VERDICT Provocative, in-depth, and scholarly. For readers interested in the history of adoption.--Julia M. Reffner

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November 1, 2023
Sisson, a PhD scholar of U.S. abortion and adoption, spent a decade interviewing hundreds of American mothers who relinquished their children to private domestic adoption. Adoption appeals to the political right and left, but prioritizes the ideals of adoptive families, writes Sisson, ""If we wish to understand what adoption means today, we must listen to relinquishing mothers now."" Among research-based chapters are first-person narratives from birth mothers, some of whom spoke to Sisson in 2010 and again in 2020. These fascinating and often heartrending accounts are both varied and echoing, resoundingly so. Relinquishing mothers come to their decision from both a dearth of options and an abundance of love--with some subjects, out of their trauma, offering well-reasoned improvements to the system. This isn't an all-sides view and doesn't claim to be, as Sisson includes the work of adoption abolition groups and doesn't propose alternatives to adoption as it exists for people trying to build much-desired families. Rather, it is a crucial piece in understanding reproductive justice and the unequal ways we create and care for families in this country.

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Starred review from December 4, 2023
Sociologist Sisson’s comprehensive and harrowing debut draws on a decade of interviews and archival research to argue that America’s current discourse around adoption belies its insidious history of targeting vulnerable mothers and children. As Sisson points out, adoption remains one of the few bipartisan areas of political agreement: the left supports it as a means of building chosen families, while the right views it as a means of maintaining the nuclear family and curtailing abortion rates. Yet the reality, Sisson argues, is that the adoption industry has historically been predicated on state-sanctioned family separation. She traces America’s long history of child removal, including the sale of children born into slavery, the forced assimilation of Native American children, and the conscription as farm laborers of children born to poor white mothers in the 19th century. She pinpoints the emergence of the modern adoption industry in the post-WWII “baby scoop” era, when unmarried women were coerced into relinquishing their children, and shows that today’s private adoption industry continues in the tradition of separating disadvantaged families. Throughout, Sisson foregrounds the stories of mothers who gave up their children for adoption, juxtaposing their personal monologues with sociological and historical research that highlights broader patterns in their testimonies. The result is a devastating and urgent condemnation of America’s adoption industry.

February 15, 2024
A sociological study on the contemporary practice of adoption. As a researcher at Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, Sisson has spent years studying reproductive health, abortion, and adoption. In an opening case study, the author describes a young woman who was physically abused by her boyfriend and had no familial support, requiring her to join "a cohort of American women that is remarkably small," numbering only about 19,000, forced to "relinquish" their newborns. Most adoptive parents are white and prosperous enough to devote time and resources to raising families, which poor mothers do not have. The number is small because, in many cases, abortion is preferential to carrying a child through to birth. Not all of Sisson's many subjects are poor: The 100 women in her sample sets "represented the full range of American life--their paths had all led them to adoption at one point, one way or another, but they were often on different trajectories." Interestingly, she notes, poor families are not less capable of raising children, contrary to conservative arguments; it is access to resources that makes for differentials of outcome. The author also shows how adoption is a big business. More than half of the adoption centers in the U.S. are affiliated with evangelical churches, and they receive millions of dollars in public funding in many states. A built-in contradiction exists in the ideology of adoption: The women who keep their children are often considered inadequate to be mothers, but by giving up their babies, "they are better parents because they do not parent their child; the permanent separation rendered by adoption redeems them of their deviations and deficiencies." Sisson concludes by deeming adoption the product of inequalities that speak to "social and systemic failure." A provocative, urgent look at a severely dysfunctional system, with children as the victims.

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