This book analyses the social and legal functions of adoption in selected societies worldwide, and reviews the current global wave of adoption law reform. The author explores trends such as inter-country adoption, and examines similarities and differences in the experience of many nations. The book also provides a window for testing the presumption that within and between cultures there exists a common understanding of what is meant by adoption.

The passage of Measure 58 in Oregon in 1998 was a milestone in adoption reform. E. Wayne Carp here reveals the efforts of the radical adoptee rights organization Bastard Nation to pass this milestone initiative.

This book explains, compares and evaluates the social and legal functions of adoption within a range of selected jurisdictions and on an international basis. It updates and extends the second edition published by Springer in 2009. From a standpoint of the development of adoption in England & Wales and the changes currently taking place there, it considers the process as it has evolved in other countries. It identifies themes of commonality and difference in the experience of adoption in a common law context as compared and contrasted with that of other countries. It looks at adoption in France, Sweden and other civil law countries, as well as Japan and elsewhere in Asia, including a focus on Islamic adoption. It examines the experience of indigenous people in New Zealand and Australia, contrasting the highly regulated legal process of modern western society with the traditional practice of indigenous communities such as the Maori. A new chapter studies adoption in China. The book uses the international Conventions and associated ECtHR case law to benchmark developments in national law, policy and practice and to facilitate a cross-cultural comparative analysis.

A feminist historian and an adoptive parent, Laura Briggs gives an account of transracial and transnational adoption from the point of view of the mothers and communities that lose their children.

"In Beggars and Choosers, Rickie Solinger shows that historical distinctions between women of color and white women, between poor and middle-class women, persisted and were used in new ways during the era of "choice." Politicians and policy makers excluded certain women from the class of "deserving mothers" by using the language of choice to create public policies concerning everything from Medicaid funding for abortions to family tax credits, infertility treatments, international adoption, teen pregnancy, and welfare. Solinger argues that a guarantee of "choice," when the word is imbued with the old prejudices of class and race, is a shaky foundation on which to build our concept of reproductive freedom."--BOOK JACKET.

Original essays bring together the entangled reproductive politics of abortion, adoption, and commercial surrogacy in a global context and neoliberal age.