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The Adoption and Donor Conception Factbook. The Only Comprehensive Source of U.S. & Global Data on tThe Adoption and Donor Conception Factbook. The Only Comprehensive Source of U.S. & Global Data on the Invisible Families of Adoption, Foster Care & Donor Conception. Lori Carangelo. Paperback, 2014, Biblio., Illus., Index, 210 pp.
Adoption expert Lori Carangelo, the founder of Americans for Open Records (AmFOR), has compiled an up-to-date collection of findings pertaining to all aspects of adoption and donor conception. Her book The Adoption and Donor Conception Factbook is an "at a glance" resource for researchers, helping professionals, activists, lawmakers, journalists, genealogists, and other researchers seeking the facts about America's multi-billion dollar Adoption, Assisted Reproduction, and Foster Care industries. The only comprehensive book of its kind, The Adoption and Donor Conception Factbook defines and explains the differences between Adoptees, "Birth" Parents, Parents by Estoppel, Defacto Parents, Adoptive Parents or Adopters, Donors, Donor Offspring, Intended Parents, Foster Parents, Psychological Parents, Carriers, Gestational Surrogates, Altruistic Surrogates, Custody Evaluators, and so on. Readers will find chapters devoted to each of these constituencies in the adoption and donor conception industries. Ms. Carangelo explains each stakeholder’s legal or political status and then accounts for their numbers, origins or whereabouts, and the pros and cons of their points of view. Here is a mere handful of what readers can take away from this unique book:
Lori Carangelo, the author of The Ultimate Search Book, lets the numbers speak for themselves but also pulls no punches. For instance, "Chapter 3: Adoptees--Outcomes" discusses adoptees’ denied access to medical information and criminal activity among adopted children. In the second part of the book, "Statistics of Assisted Reproduction," the author cites the available statistics on the number of sperm and egg donors, evaluates the privacy issues surrounding assisted reproduction, surveys the legislative history of assisted reproduction throughout the U.S., and identifies key lobbying organizations in the battle over assisted reproduction, including the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. In “Part 3: Foster Care, CPS, Family Courts,” Lori puts her microscope over foster care outcomes, examines the impact of the Child Protective Services Act, and asks the reader to consider the alternatives to adoption, foster care, and fertility treatments--as borne out by the statistics. In all cases, readers and researchers will be amazed by the plethora of facts amassed by Ms. Carangelo and will want to browse the back stories, consider the sources, follow the dollars, and judge for themselves. The Adoption and Donor Conception Factbook concludes with an up-to-date list of websites pertaining to this topic and a comprehensive bibliography of books and articles. The book contains a detailed subject index for ease of browsing. 8812-C |