First Parents: Reconceptualizing Newborn Adoption

Abstract

A significant number of children are removed or relinquished from birth parent custody immediately after birth, and placed with alternative caregivers who ultimately adopt them and become the legal parents. Such children experience the pyschological consequences of being adopted even though they have only ever had one set of parents in a social sense. This symposium article proposes a reconceptualization of parenthood in such cases and corresponding legal reforms.

Keywords: adoption, unfit parents