The Legacy, Legality and Legitimacy of Adopting Out - Examining the legitimacy of adoption through birth mother experiences.

This thesis investigates the disconnect between the lived experience of birth mothers who adopted out their child recently and the views of members of the public with an interest in adoption, including adoptive parents and adult adoptees. I consider the perceptions of adoption in contemporary Australia from a sociological perspective focusing on the influences and circumstances in which a birth mother might choose to adopt out her newborn. Following Misztal’s (2011a) concept of modern vulnerability, I contend that being pregnant and not wishing to parent is a micro-level experience, paralleling a societal disaster such as a tsunami or war. Either event has the potential to render individuals vulnerable as they experience something they cannot change, which has unknown repercussions, while needing to rely on others for survival. My data from focus groups and in-depth interviews with birth mothers was collected between 2012 and 2013, and illustrates the complexity of influences that impact on birth mothers and public perceptions of adoption in line with the vulnerability framework. My thesis demonstrates that while adopting out is legal in every state and territory in Australia, it has a legacy from past coercive practices that negatively influences public perception of its legitimacy today. The problematic history of adoption practice has resulted in an unsuccessful struggle to separate coercion from choice (Higgins, 2010). The predicament of a pregnant woman who does not aspire to parent is primarily a site of vulnerability in which the ability to execute choice is challenged by unpredictability, irreversibility and dependence. MIsztal’s framework provides mitigation strategies for the vulnerability experienced by a birth mother who makes the choice to adopt out, and presents a basis on which current policies could be addressed to remedy the legacy of past practices and increase interdependency, reconciliation and hope for birth mothers.