Women who adopted would go to great lengths to hide the truth, Sullivan said. There were cases when a woman planning to adopt would go away for five or six months and return with a child chosen to match her physical characteristics. Some of those surveyed say misgivings toward adoption are legitimate. A young man who lives outside Washington recalled how afraid his parents were that his adopted brother would be taken away by the agency that placed him. Diane Edwards, who studies adoption at the University of North Florida, said the American system engenders distrust by keeping birth parents away from their biological children.
Adoption is based on the assumption that kinship can be transferred.
In other societies, you have adoption but you don't get rid of other families.