This post originally appeared at https://wifamilycouncil.org/radio/adoption-v-intent-based-parentage/
2025 | Week of November 3 | Radio Transcript #1643
Few natural occurrences rival the beauty of family growth. A husband and wife welcome children into their family who then in turn grow up and have children of their own. The cycle repeats itself from generation to generation.
Tragically, as a result of life in a sin-cursed world, families experience loss and brokenness. But, from the sorrow of orphaned children, broken homes, and tragic circumstances arises an equally beautiful phenomenon: adoption. Through the process of adoption, men and women welcome otherwise homeless children into their families as one of their own. In honor of National Adoption Month, we celebrate and commend families who welcome children into their homes through adoption.
Undoubtably, adoption is a good and admirable thing for both children and society. Yet, since the Obergefell decision legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, LGBTQ activists have sought to subvert the adoption process by passing legislation like the Uniform Parentage Act (or UPA) that legalize intent-based parentage.
What is intent-based parentage, you may ask? Katy Faust, author, speaker, and fearless advocate for children’s rights, explains, “[Intent-based parentage] lets any adult who intends to parent gain legal control of an infant by contract alone. This model ensures ‘equality’ for adults at the cost of inequality for children.”[i] By doing away with traditional background checks and vetting procedures, intent-based parentage reduces parenthood to signing a contract and paying fees.
In a recent article, Faust outlines five rights that intent-based parentage steals from children:
First, the right to the child’s best interests as a primary consideration. In an adoption, the child is considered the client. Screenings and background checks are used to ensure that the child will be placed in a safe loving home. But intent-based parentage flips the equation placing adults as the clients and removing safeguards like screenings. Under the UPA, every adult who wants a child gets one as long as the pay the necessary fees.
Second, the right not to be separated from his or her parents against their will. Although adoption provides a beautiful solution to tragic scenarios, professionals have recognized for decades that parental loss, even at infancy, leaves a lifelong wound. Adoption seeks to bring healing to this wound, but intent-based parenthood creates wounds by intentionally creating children with the knowledge that they will be separated from their parents.
Third, right to a safe placement. By removing the safeguards of screening, oversight, and follow-up, biological strangers can receive children to whom they may cause harm. To be sure, we are not claiming that all children received through intent-based parenthood are neglected or abused or that no children who go through the traditional adoption vetting process are abused. However, research clearly demonstrates that children living with unrelated adults face higher risks of abuse and neglect. Intent-based parentage intentionally creates children with the purpose of being placed in the homes of biological strangers without offering any forms of protection to these children.
Fourth, the right to be born free, not bought and sold. Under the UPA, adults purchase children through the processes of surrogacy and donor conception. If these arrangements were made after birth, they would be called child trafficking. Children should never be treated like commodities, and intent-based parentage is no exception.
Fifth, the right to preserve kinship bonds to their kin. Intent-based parentage intentionally creates children through donor conception who will have no access to their biological families.
Although not without its flaws, the traditional adoption system seeks to rescue hurting children and place them with families who will love and protect them. Adoption seeks to mend the wound of family brokenness, but intent-based parentage intentionally cuts children off from their biological families through IVF and surrogacy and removes protective barriers such as background checks and follow-up procedures. This month, as we celebrate those who expand their families through adoption, we must oppose conventions like intent-based parentage that intentionally place children in vulnerable situations.
[i] https://thembeforeus.substack.com/p/if-you-created-the-orphan-its-not