The Math Behind “Why Don’t You Just Adopt?”

A great — but limited — family-building option

The logic behind “just adopt” seems self-evident:

Every child deserves a secure and safe home.

Everyone who accepts the responsibility to raise children deserves the opportunity to do so.

Orphans needs parent. And homes.

Why isn’t adoption the answer to addressing infertility?

Because, unfortunately, the math doesn’t work.

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) there are approximately 150 million orphans in the world. But UNICEF defines “orphan” as a child with either one or no parents; the definition that most of us apply to “orphan” (and the meaning that would make a child a good candidate for adoption) is one with no parents.

There are approximately 15 million no-parent orphans worldwide.

How old are these fifteen million children? Newborn to 18? Newborn to 12? If you know the answer please share it with me — I’ve looked.

Even if we limit the number to those ten and under, that accounts for 1.5 million new potentially adoptable children per year.

Even the most conservative research for infertility places defines a prevalence of at least ten percent of the reproductive age population. The 130-140 million births per year implies well over ten million children that are wanted but prevented by infertility. The 1.5 million adoptable children per year does not begin to address that.

And adoption is logistically difficult, very inefficient and very expensive. Even with these difficulties, far more people enter the adoption process than ultimately succeed.

Adoption has been and will always be an effective way to match children and families in need. But it is only a limited part of the solution for infertility. We still have work to do.