Beyond Hashtags: What the Anti-Adoption Movement Gets Wrong

Spend a few minutes in the social media spaces where adoption is discussed, and you’ll encounter a number of absolutist claims: adoption is always exploitation; adoptees permanently suffer; birth parents are invariably coerced. A widely read Wired feature chronicled how some of these online communities mobilize harassment campaigns against ordinary families, conflating hard cases with the norm and treating the practice of adoption itself as the harm to be eradicated.

That sweeping indictment collapses under engagement with the broader social science literature. National datasets and scholarly analyses paint a much more complex and hopeful picture: most adoptees do well, many flourish, and the gaps that remain are typically explained by pre-adoption adversity (e.g., early neglect, maltreatment, institutionalization) rather than by adoption itself. The paradox, as Dr. Nicholas Zill has pointed out on these pages, is not that adoption dooms children; it’s that even in highly resourced adoptive homes, early adversity can affect learning and behavior. Recognizing that distinction is the difference between critique that improves practice and rhetoric that undermines a life-giving institution.

Adoption and Child Well-Being

Here's what the evidence on adoption shows:

First, adoptees’ well-being is generally comparable to that of the general population, with some elevated needs that are offset by greater support. Using a large national sample, a landmark Pediatrics study found that adopted children were more likely than non-adopted peers to have identified special healthcare needs or learning/behavioral challenges—but they were also more likely to receive preventive care, mental health care, consistent health insurance, and to live in supportive environments. In other words, a higher need was usually accompanied by higher access to help.

Second, national surveys consistently report broadly positive outcomes and family functioning among adoptive families. Findings from the National Survey of Adoptive Parents (NSAP) show high levels of parental satisfaction and warmth; for example, a federal summary reports that parents of the majority of adopted children say their relationship meets or exceeds expectations. 

Third, where gaps persist, pre-adoption experiences explain a great deal. Drawing on teacher reports from a nationally representative longitudinal study, IFS Senior Fellow Nicholas Zill’s “Paradox of Adoption” analysis documented small-to-moderate differences in early classroom conduct and learning approaches between adoptees and non-adoptees. Crucially, the IFS brief frames those differences in terms of attachment disruption, trauma exposure, and other adversity—precisely the pre-adoption risks that adoption is meant to remediate—not as harms caused by adoption itself. The piece concludes by noting that many adoptees “do reasonably well” and fare better than they likely would have outside of permanent families.

Taken together, these findings challenge the anti-adoption narrative on two fronts. First, they attribute observed challenges to the predictable aftermath of early adversity, rather than to adoption itself as the causal agent. Second, they demonstrate that, while some adoptees end up in non-ideal placements, most adoptees thrive with support. 

Crucially, the IFS brief by Dr. Nicholas Zill framed the differences between adoptees and non-adoptees in terms of attachment disruption, trauma exposure, and other adversity—precisely the pre-adoption risks that adoption is meant to remediate—not as harms caused by adoption itself.

Listen to Adoptees 

In a recent report, Profiles in Adoption: Adult Adoptee Experiences, respondents emphasize that adoption involves separation and loss; mental health support and adoption-competent therapy matter; and adoptive parents should approach identity, openness, and culture with humility and skill. None of this implies that adoption is intrinsically harmful; instead, it underscores that adoption is complex—a both/and, not an either/or.

This nuance is omitted by absolutist online rhetoric. The Wired piece describes how a few, but highly vocal individuals in the “anti-adoption” movement elevate the most difficult stories and sometimes harass individuals and families—behavior that does little to improve practice and much to polarize and inaccurately pathologize. Even that reporter acknowledges the movement is diverse: some voices press for reform that most adoption professionals already endorse (open records, ethical safeguards, reunification where possible, culturally-competent parenting), while others in the movement condemn adoption categorically.

Not Just Fine But Flourishing

A notable yet underreported finding in the social science literature is that many adoptive and foster families thrive, often because they are embedded in communities of support and purpose. In his article for IFS, Jedd Medefind highlights survey evidence that families most deeply engaged in foster care and adoption (especially those with strong faith and community ties) are more likely to report flourishing, even while navigating considerable challenges. The point is not that adoption is easy, but that prosocial commitments, faith practices, and meaning-making can coexist with, and sometimes grow through, adversity. This, too, contradicts the simple “adoption equals harm” refrain.

Adoption involves real loss and real love; it responds to prior harm but cannot erase it; and it remains one of the best empirically-supported avenues for giving vulnerable children permanence, belonging, and opportunity.

If adoption is so widely admired and often life-giving, why is it comparatively rare? The answer is that most Americans admire adoption but don’t choose it, in large part because they lack accurate information about how modern adoption works. It is a narrative problem more than an intrinsic moral objection—precisely the sort of problem that simplistic anti-adoption framings exacerbate rather than solve.

Constructive Criticism is Welcome 

That said, we should not be afraid to welcome a more constructive critique of adoption that can make it a better process for everyone involved. A robust, evidence-based critique of adoption should do at least five things:

1. Center on the child’s best interests and actual counterfactuals. The relevant comparison is not an idealized and fictional birth-family scenario, but the likely trajectory without adoption—often prolonged instability or institutional care. Zill makes that point explicitly.
2. Acknowledge pre-adoption history and trauma. Differences in mean outcomes are not necessarily evidence of adoption-caused harm; they frequently reflect prior adversity. That is the consistent implication of both national survey work and clinical theory.
3. Elevate empirically grounded reforms. Adult adoptees in NCFA’s report call for increased access to counseling and post-adoption support, and better preparation for parents on trauma and culture—practical steps that improve lived experience without discarding adoption as a pathway to permanency.
4. Promote informed, non-coercive decision-making for expectant parents. Precise, accurate, non-directive information about adoption (distinguishing it from foster care, explaining openness, and outlining available support) respects birth parent autonomy and leads toward greater satisfaction with adoption decision-making.
5. Discourage online harassment. Antagonistic social media activism can overshadow nuance and harm real families—without implementing adequate ethical safeguards. Instead, we should be able to talk about adoption in meaningful ways with those we’re connected to and respectfully listen to alternative lived experiences. 

A Healthier Conversation About Adoption

The anti-adoption movement is correct to spotlight historical coercion, press for records access, condemn unethical intermediaries, and insist that adoptive parents not erase birth ties or culture. Those concerns align with current best practices and the recommendations of adoptees themselves.

But advocates in this movement are wrong—empirically and ethically—to universalize the most complex and alarming adoption stories, attribute lingering effects of pre-adoption adversity to adoption itself, or treat the existence of any gap as face-value evidence that adoption is harmful. Nationally representative data and careful analyses do not support that conclusion. Most adoptees thrive; where gaps exist, they are often modest, explainable, and addressable; and adoptive families frequently provide the very stability and resources that allow healing to occur.

A healthier public conversation would replace absolutism with accuracy. That means rejecting the false dichotomy where adoption is either a fairy-tale ending or a social ill. It means telling the truth: adoption involves real loss and real love; it responds to prior harm but cannot erase it; and it remains one of the best empirically-supported avenues for giving vulnerable children permanence, belonging, and opportunity. To the extent critics push us toward better practices, they are allies. To the extent they condemn and work to prohibit adoption itself, they lose the thread—and more importantly—risk harming the children who stand to benefit the most.

Ryan Hanlon is the President and CEO of the National Council For Adoption (NCFA) and an Adjunct Instructor in the National Catholic School of Social Services at the Catholic University of America. Leah Sutterlin is an adoptee from China and has worked for a number of organizations in the foster and adoption space, including NCFA and the Christian Alliance for Orphans.