Gretchen is a sociologist and researcher with work focusing on adoption, abortion, infertility, and young parenthood. Her academic work on reframing teen pregnancy prevention and adopting an approach more focused on social justice has appeared in the Journal of Sexuality Research and Social Policy, and her nonacademic writing on reproductive health and other sociological issues has been featured on Scarleteen, Bitch, and Abortion Gang (where she blogs regularly). Gretchen serves on the Board of Directors of Backline, and has previously worked at the Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy and the Eastern Massachusetts Abortion Fund. She received her doctorate in sociology from Boston College in 2011.
How do the intersections between adoption, poverty, race, and class play out today?
![Juno meets her baby's to-be-adoptive parents. [img src]](http://rhrealitycheck.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/../../files/teaser-images/2011-11-30-sisson-187x125.jpg)
Many of the historical problems with adoption came from the desire to keep it secret, to allow adoptive families to “pass” as traditional, biologically related families. Fully embracing openness is key to our efforts to keep improving adoption and placing further distance between its dark and coercive past and its hopeful future.
