Adoption can be defined as a process by which children are brought together with adults who are not their biological parents to form a family. Practiced informally throughout human history, adoption in the United States has evolved into a formalized legal procedure; its primary statutory purpose is to protect the welfare of children in cases where the birth parents are gone or unable to care for their offspring. Through adoption, the legal ties to a child’s birth parents are severed. Adoptees (adopted persons) are seen in the eyes of the law as permanent members of the adoptive family with all the legal rights and privileges of biological children.

Adoption has long been an important part of America’s social landscape. A survey by the Evans B. Donaldson Institute in 1997 found that six out of ten Americans have had a “personal experience” with adoption...