Bartholet (1993) uses her personal experience with infertility and the adoption process as a powerful means of explaining the failings of the current adoption system and the regulatory policies that accompany it. Accepted adoption worker policy involves not approaching prospective parents during the early stages of infertility. Although Bartholet notes that there is some reasoning behind this as parents should not enter into adoption as a second-best solution, it also leaves the possibility that prospective parents could be completely happy with adoption and not have to travel the often long and arduous road of infertility treatment.
             In addition to this possibly erroneous assumption, there are many barriers to adoption, due to current policies. The high level of regulation for adoption is restrictive to many who would typically consider adopting. With infertility treatments, it is only a matter of physical and financial constraints that will prevent them from moving forward. The parental screening often deters many couples, and from there the process only gets worse, with the seemingly endless bureaucratic red tape that can discourage even the most determined prospective parents. Add to this the often exorbitant expenses, and it becomes clear why adoption is not very popular.
             In the end, it's a disturbing reality that the author has been able to bring to light through her personal story. In one hand, it is important to regulate adoption to ensure that these children are placed in caring and loving homes, and do not return to the adoption system. Yet, in the other hand, if the policies are so prohibitive that they prevent good people from adopting children who need homes, it is like cutting one's nose off to spite their face.
             Critical Response: After Welfare Reform
             Wilson's (n.d.) research regarding families in the Massachusetts welfare system, renamed the Department of Transitional Assistance, demonst...