The Adoption Process in the U.S.

The United States of America is a federal jurisdiction of 50 states and the District of Columbia, each of which is a separate geographic jurisdiction with independent responsibility for enacting legislation, providing a judicial system and for managing programmes of service provision. Included within the range of authority of a state administrative system are matters relating to children and the adoption process.

The federal government has responsibilities in relation to funding service programmes across all states and an accompanying oversight role as regards monitoring the effectiveness of such programmes. This power, exercised under the Spending Clause, provides it with considerable authority to shape state policy. The federal government also provides an overarching framework of law that sets out the parameters for state legislation and a federal judicial system that considers issues with a constitutional dimension.

This chapter begins by examining the social and legal contexts that shaped the development of the adoption process in the U.S. and traces the legislative steps that produced the present framework of adoption law. A consideration of the emerging characteristics of adoption practice leads into an overview of contemporary adoption law and policy. The chapter then applies the template created earlier (see, Chap. 3) to track the legal functions of the adoption process and concludes with some comment on the more distinctive aspects of adoption in this jurisdiction.