Why Can't Shakers Adopt?

[constanze]

@Shagnasty

My guess is the reason that they can’t adopt orphans is that it would be considered unethical by most standards. They had a very extreme, and pretty unique lifestyle that was very religious. Orphan children may not have much choice if the Shakers adopted them and their upbringing would be unconventional and maybe coercive. The Shakers were very communal almost like a religious based commune and most people would consider that abusive if children were forced into that odd and strict environment even if they were well cared for.

Then the law would have to explicitly exclude “extreme religious Lifestyle” and “religious communes” which would open a can of Problems, because who gets to define what’s extreme and what’s not? (Given not only the strong influence of religious extremists on laws passed in the past decades in the US, but also that the US has not managed to define church in such a way that excludes Scientology from the tax-benefits of it.)

There’s also a lot of Adoption to very extreme religious couples still going on in the US, so that’s not likely the reason.

I do remember a documentary where they said that originally, Shakers adopted huge numbers because the state could save Money on orphanages, (and the children were cared and fed much better at the Shakers than at the orphanages) but when orphanages changed, Shakers were no longer attractive compared to conventional couples.