History: The Changing Face of Adoption

Conservative Christians and Support for Transracial Adoption as an Alternative to Abortion

“…Briggs () asserts that conservative Christians promote TRA both as an alternative to abortion and as a referendum on government aid to unwed minority mothers. Additionally, other scholars and commentators have argued that support for TRA among conservative Christians is in large part evangelistic, particularly for evangelical Protestants (Davis, ; Dubinksy ; Joyce, , ; Smolin, ). Unfortunately, the 2005 BRS does not contain measures to test whether conservative Christians’ support for TRA is meaningfully linked with their relative disapproval of government aid for low‐income, child‐bearing women or some desire to proselytize adopted children.…”

“…To be sure, the practice of conservative Christian families adopting across racial and national boundaries is not new (Davis, ; Dubinsky, ). However, in recent years, researchers on TRA in both domestic and international contexts have called attention to the growing movement of conservative Christian families, churches, and nonprofit organizations advocating TRA as a “mission” (Davis, ; Dubinksy, ; Joyce, , ; Smolin, ) or as an alternative to what they consider to be politically unacceptable outcomes (Briggs, ; Joyce, , ; Marre and Briggs, ; Smolin, ). Briggs and her colleagues (Briggs, ; Marre and Briggs, ) argue that the Christian Right—consisting of white evangelicals, Mormons, and conservative Catholics (Briggs, :95)—has championed transracial and transnational adoption for largely political reasons.…”

“…Although religious motives have always been a part of why some persons seek to adopt children (Davis, ; Dubinsky, ), within the past decade, scholars and journalists have begun to recognize a growing movement among conservative Christians to promote adoption across racial and national boundaries (Briggs, ; Davis, ; Joyce, , , ; Schaefer Riley, ; Smith, ; Smolin, ) . Despite this growing attention, little empirical research to date has sought to understand what sociocultural factors are motivating these groups to support transracial adoption (TRA) as a practice .…”