“Less Abortion, More Adoption”: A Brief Discursive History of Adoption as Solution

Abstract

Popular discourse around the Dobbs v. Jackson’s Women’s Health Organization decision framed adoption as an equivalent solution to abortion for the problem of unwanted pregnancies. Proposing adoption as a simple solution to a complex social or political problem is not new, and this article traces a lineage of such arguments, noting the ways that they marginalize both adoptees and birth families.