The Fertile Woman Who Chooses Adoption Instead of Pregnancy

An Overview of the Preferential Adopter

With an increasing media focus centered, recently, on the process of adoption, many single adults are considering adoption as way to create a family unit without the necessity of procreating, natural pregnancy and birth. Called "preferential adopters", the adoption community classifies single adults, who choose adoption over pregnancy and have never experienced biological parenting, as a growing class of eligible family candidates welcome into the realm of the adoption process.

Adoption agencies, when approached by preferential adopters, will often counsel potential adoptive parents as to their motivation for adoption versus biological parenting. Statistically, it has been the experience of the adoption agencies that preferential adopters will usually present as individuals who witnessed and experienced the positive aspects of adoption at some point in their own lives, and, as a result, want to provide that same experience to their own lives and to a child in need.

While most preferential adopters are fertile women who are unmarried, there are many women who adopt, that are married, who are simply infertile and have chosen to avoid the cost associated with fertility treatments and, instead, adopt a child. Additionally, women with other health complications, which may prohibit natural childbirth, will opt to become preferential adopters in many cases as well.