Long veiled in secrecy and closed records, adoption affects the lives of scores of American families. Stories of celebrity adoptions, birthparents claiming they never agreed to adoption, gay adoption rights, adoptee searches for birthparents, and the question of open records access continues to make headlines. Infertility and later marriages have resulted in rising adoption rates and adoption also touches on matters of life and death, as it has added to the abortion debate.

A SEALED AND SECRET KINSHIP focuses on the increasing debate about adoption—not just as reported in the media—but also among parents, children, kin and non-kin to adoptive families. Case examples are cited throughout and the book covers such topics as adoption reform, adoptee experiences of searching, the new birthparent, independent adoption, and modern modes for placing children as well as changes in the political climate and in welfare policy.