Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood. The title is quite powerful as is its author, Gretchen Sisson, PhD. Gretchen has been making waves with her groundbreaking studies on abortion and adoption in the U.S. Her work sheds light on the experiences of women who have relinquished their child for adoption since Roe v. Wade. The Supreme Court’s dissent in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health from Justices Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor cited Gretchen’s research. The stories of relinquishing mothers reveal a larger societal problem of our country’s refusal to care for families at the most basic level.
Gretchen Sisson, PhD, is a sociologist who studies abortion and adoption in the United States. She’s a researcher at Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health. Her research has been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered and Consider This, as well as in New York Magazine, VOX, and other outlets.