The National Council for Adoption reported Monday that domestic adoptions increased by 3.17% between 2019 and 2022 as disruptions in China and Ukraine curbed Americans’ access to babies overseas.
The advocacy group counted 25,503 domestic adoptions of babies in 2022, up from 24,720 in 2019 and reversing an early pandemic decline. It’s the only report that tracks the figure nationally and the first released since 2019.
Over the same period, government figures show the number of infants adopted into the U.S. from other countries fell by 57.05% and the tally of children adopted through the foster care system dropped by 18.93%. Most children adopted through foster care are aged 6 or older.
“Notably, China and Ukraine have historically been among the largest sending countries for intercountry adoptions,” researchers Abigail Rose Drumm, Nicole Davi and Ryan Hanlon wrote in the report.
They noted that China suspended international adoptions in 2020 during pandemic health restrictions and formally ended them last year. The report found Americans adopted 819 babies from China in 2019, 202 infants in 2020, zero in 2021 and 2022, and 16 in 2023.
The researchers said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 “severely limited” Ukrainian adoptions into the U.S. They fell by 96.64% from 298 adoptions in 2019 to 10 in 2023.
By contrast, the rate of domestic infant adoptions fell from 6.6 per 1,000 live births in 2019 to 5.8 among pandemic restrictions in 2020, then surged to 7.1 in 2021 and stayed flat at 7 per 1,000 births in 2022.
Some experts not involved in the study said decreased international adoptions likely influenced the post-pandemic surge in domestic adoptions.
“Families that might have adopted internationally a few years ago are now much more likely to consider adopting domestically,” said Daniel K. Williams, a historian at Ashland University in Ohio.
The report suggested that the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which returned jurisdiction over abortion to the states, could also be leading more women to carry their pregnancies to term and give up their babies for adoption.
In late 2021, the Supreme Court allowed Texas to ban most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. The state expanded it to a near-total ban with limited exceptions for rape, incest and maternal health after the June 2022 Dobbs ruling.
The National Council for Adoption found domestic adoptions in Texas fell from 2,654 in 2019 to 2,117 in 2020. They then increased to 2,268 in 2021, 2,500 in 2022 and 2,533 in 2023.
“This is again solid evidence that pro-life policies can increase the number of adoptions,” said Michael New, a professor of social research at The Catholic University of America and affiliated scholar at the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute.
“It’s on-trend with other data we’re seeing in Texas and calls for increased government funding of child tax credits,” said Kristi Hamrick, a vice president with Students for Life of America. “With more states passing pro-life laws since 2022, we have more children to welcome and care for.”
Mark Lee Dickson of Right to Life Across Texas said more women have put their children up for adoption in the state since 2021.
“When abortion is taken off the table, it allows mothers who find themselves in an unexpected pregnancy the ability to look at their real options,” Mr. Dickson said.
Mr. Hanlon, a co-author of Monday’s report, said the national impact of Dobbs remains unclear since the report does not include complete adoption numbers for 2023.
“Dobbs was decided in June 2022 and would have required states to change their laws following that, so I think it’s unlikely to have impacted [adoptions] one way or another within half a year,” he said in an email.
According to scholars, more research will be needed to weigh the importance of Dobbs and international restrictions after 2023 figures become available.
“You’d have to start with the raw numbers and do a larger investigative study where you talk to people about their reasons for adopting,” said Naomi Schaefer Riley, a child welfare expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
Josh Blackman, a constitutional law professor at South Texas College of Law in Houston, pointed to language in the Dobbs decision citing an increased number of “haven” laws that make it easier for women to put up their newborns for adoption anonymously.
“I think the Dobbs decision is having the effect of allowing more children to be carried to term, and mothers can then consider whether to place their children up for adoption,” Mr. Blackman said.
Others expressed skepticism about the impact of Dobbs.
Last month, a federally funded study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found the first 14 states that restricted abortion after the Dobbs ruling delivered 22,181 more babies into the world as a result.
Suzanne Bell, a co-author of that study and professor of population, family and reproductive health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, questioned the idea that more of those women gave up their children for adoption.
She said Monday that it’s “too soon to attribute any patterns in adoption trends to the Dobbs decision.”
