{"id":1366,"date":"2025-07-12T06:04:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-12T06:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firearmgiveawayfinder.com\/?p=1366"},"modified":"2025-07-12T06:04:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-12T06:04:12","slug":"a-mothers-journey-through-a-devastating-adoption-system-mother-jones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firearmgiveawayfinder.com\/?p=1366","title":{"rendered":"A Mother\u2019s Journey Through a Devastating Adoption System \u2013 Mother Jones"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<div class=\"hero is-image \">\n\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span class=\"media-caption\">Tia Goins<\/span><span class=\"media-credit\">Courtesy of PBS NewsHour<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"mj-text-cta\">Get your news from a source that\u2019s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/newsletters\/?mj_oac=Article_Top_No_Oligarchs\" data-ga-category=\"TopOfArticle\" data-ga-label=\"NewsletterPromoCovid\" data-ga-action=\"click|https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/newsletters\/?mj_oac=Article_Top_Support\">Sign up for the free <em>Mother Jones Daily<\/em>.<\/a><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"section-lead\">In the fall of 2018,<\/span> Tia Goins was a new mother in crisis, facing eviction, unable to find room in a shelter, and confronting the prospect of homelessness in a Detroit winter\u2014with her three-month-old baby.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was like, what do I do?\u201d Goins said earlier this year. \u201cI just\u2014I just didn\u2019t want her to be homeless with me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a moment of panic, she Googled adoption options and clicked on the first link that came up: a website for Brighter Adoptions, an agency in Layton, Utah. Goins was hesitant\u2014adoption wasn\u2019t something she had ever seriously considered\u2014but the agency representative was persistent.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe lady just kept calling, kept calling,\u201d Goins said. <\/p>\n<p>Within 24 hours of Goins\u2019 first phone call, Brighter Adoptions had flown her from Detroit to Utah to place her child for adoption. Though Goins texted the owner of the agency saying she was having second thoughts, the process moved quickly: Within two days, agency representatives were at Goins\u2019 hotel room door with the final adoption paperwork.<\/p>\n<p>Goins\u2019 story is the subject of an investigation by the Center for Investigative Reporting (which publishes <em>Mother Jones<\/em>) that aired Thursday on\u00a0<em>PBS News Hour.<\/em><\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube\">\n<p><div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"AA5buBWNj3E\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Agencies accused of rushing adoptions before mothers can change their minds\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/AA5buBWNj3E?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>As I wrote in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/politics\/2024\/12\/utah-adoption-agency-brighter-dobbs\/\">January\/February issue<\/a> of <em>Mother Jones<\/em>, Utah has become a hub for domestic adoption, with agencies flying in new or expecting mothers from across the country to place their children. The agencies often offer cash stipends and free lodging to mothers\u2014many of whom, like Goins, are in desperate financial and housing situations.<\/p>\n<p>This cottage industry is enabled by so-called \u201cadoption-friendly\u201d laws in Utah that expedite the process. Many states build in protections for birth parents, allowing birth mothers to change their minds days or even weeks after signing adoption paperwork, and requiring that birth fathers have a chance to contest the adoption. <\/p>\n<p>In Utah, such safeguards don\u2019t exist. Once the papers are signed, the decision is irreversible. In addition, the children of unwed birth fathers can be placed for adoption in Utah without their notification or consent. And finally, Utah is the only state where finalized adoptions can\u2019t be dismissed even if the adoption was fraudulent.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cIn confusion,\u201d says Texas A&amp;M professor Malinda Seymore, \u201cthere is profit.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Agencies like Brighter Adoptions say they\u2019re providing needed services, centering the needs of birth mothers and finding loving homes for their children. In an email, Brighter Adoptions owner Sandi Quick said that the agency ensures that mothers \u201cfully understand the implications of adoption.\u201d But critics argue that moving mothers away from their support systems to a state that expedites adoptions makes mothers more vulnerable. Plus, they say, the adoption industry is fueled by agencies, lawyers, and facilitators that often profit off of the process.<\/p>\n<p> \u201cI think domestic, private, infant action in America toes that line of legalized trafficking,\u201d says Ashley Mitchell, director of Knee to Knee, which runs support groups for birth parents.<\/p>\n<p>Over the past decade, several states, particularly those with restrictive abortion laws, have passed \u201cadoption-friendly\u201d legislation. Georgia, Kentucky, and Indiana have shortened the period during which a birth mother can change her mind; Virginia and South Dakota put limits on the rights of birth fathers; Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas require schools to provide adoption education. Texas also has launched a multimillion-dollar <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/politics\/2024\/05\/inside-the-conservative-movement-to-promote-adoption\/\">campaign<\/a> promoting adoption.<\/p>\n<p>Malinda Seymore, a law professor at Texas A&amp;M University, says that the dramatic state-by-state differences in protections for birth parents benefits the adoption industry. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn confusion, there is profit,\u201d she says. \u201cIf you can move a birth mother to a different state and take advantage of more favorable laws for your client, why wouldn\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/politics\/2025\/07\/utah-brighter-adoptions-pbs-news-hour\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tia GoinsCourtesy of PBS NewsHour Get your news from a source that\u2019s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily. In the fall of 2018, Tia Goins was a new mother in crisis, facing eviction, unable to find room in a shelter, and confronting the prospect of homelessness in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1367,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-usa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmgiveawayfinder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmgiveawayfinder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmgiveawayfinder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmgiveawayfinder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmgiveawayfinder.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/firearmgiveawayfinder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmgiveawayfinder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmgiveawayfinder.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmgiveawayfinder.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmgiveawayfinder.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}