Definition:
Adults who provide children a permanent home through a court process that once once final in court names the adoptive parents as the child's legal parents. The adoptive parents are then completely responsible for the child in all ways: legally, financially, emotionally, physically, and spiritually as if the child was born to them.
Controversy often surrounds adoption as the child's birth certificate is amended with the names of the adoptive parents replacing the birth parent's names on the birth certificate. The original or unamended birth certificate is then sealed away. Most states in the U.S. do not allow adoptees to own or even see their original birth certificates.
