Mother Jones - The devastating cost of Utah’s thriving adoption industry.

Utah may be the most extreme version of what it looks like to champion adoption with little oversight, but when it comes to reproductive justice, the extremes have a way of becoming the new normal.

But agencies requiring women to travel to Utah or other “adoption-friendly” states put their clients in compromising positions, says Ashley Mitchell, who runs Knee to Knee, a support program for birth mothers. Isolated from their communities, women can become dependent on an agency that keeps track of the details of their lives. Mothers working with Brighter sign forms allowing the agency to communicate directly with their health care providers, including accessing information discussed in counseling sessions that may be relevant to the adoption. The paperwork adds that adoption is a “highly confidential and protected service,” but “if you chose to air grievances on social media about Brighter Adoptions you are waiving your right to privacy.”

“There is a very thin line between the ethical practice of adoption and a reproductive trafficking situation,” Mitchell says. “I think it’s very easy to cross that line.”