Premieres Tuesday, June 23, 2026 at 10 p.m. on KPBS TV / Stream with KPBS+
The adoption industry in the U.S. is currently a multi-billion-dollar business, with the demand for infants far outpacing the number available for adoption. Many states now have strict laws that govern adoptions. But a new documentary from FRONTLINE and Retro Report investigates a more loosely regulated corner of the industry, where middlemen operate in what’s been described as “adoption tourism.”
“Pregnant women are being lured far from their home states by unlicensed, so-called ‘baby brokers’ offering quick money to them, and quick adoptions to hopeful parents,” says journalist and author Gabrielle Glaser, the documentary’s correspondent. “When we looked into this practice, we found that lax laws can leave the for-profit adoption industry ripe for abuse — and that Utah is an epicenter of the problem.”
The full story unfolds in "Baby Brokers." From a team that includes Glaser and director Sarah Weiser, "Baby Brokers" draws on dozens of interviews with birth mothers, adoptive parents, adoptees, agency owners, and government and law enforcement officials, as well as thousands of pages of adoption-related documents.
The resulting documentary illuminates a patchwork system, where allegations of misconduct have stacked up in states like Utah with historically more permissive laws. “Typically, adoption would be finding families for children who need them. But what private domestic infant adoption has really become is finding children for families who want them, and because that’s been the focus, it’s become incredibly transactional,” says Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard, who works for a nonprofit that tracks agencies and brokers that solicit pregnant women around the country.
The head of an adoption agency in Utah tells FRONTLINE and Retro Report that out-of-state adoptions fulfill an important need: “This population of women are oftentimes extremely vulnerable,” says Donna Pope. “If they need to get up and move, let them get up and move. If they need additional help from someone else that’s not their neighbor, get them additional help from someone else that’s not their neighbor. Empower them to get the services they need, wherever that might be.”
But others the reporting team spoke with expressed concern about how brokers and agencies have used cash and housing offers as incentives for vulnerable women in other states.
“I think when women come from out of state, they don’t always know what their rights are, and could maybe potentially feel like, ‘Well, they’ve paid for my medical expenses, they’ve paid for my housing. I’m going to have to pay that back if I don’t place.’ And that can feel coercive,” says Tara Romney Barber, program director for a child welfare organization in Utah that provides family services, including a small number of adoptions.
In recent months, Utah has moved to tighten some of its laws in response to mounting criticisms from birth mothers, their advocates, and adoptive parents. And at the federal level, lawmakers from a number of states are backing a bipartisan bill aimed at reining in unlicensed brokers who funnel pregnant women and families across state lines for adoptions.
“Any time we see inconsistent state laws that are really operating to the detriment of families, and this is exactly such a case, it’s an opportunity for us to look at whether there’s a role for federal law,” says Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL), who is a House co-sponsor of the bill. “And so while certainly we respect that adoptions fundamentally belong with states, where we see that there are some baseline standards that just aren’t being met, it’s a perfect opportunity for us to step in.”
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Credits: A FRONTLINE production with Retro Report. The correspondent and writer is Gabrielle Glaser. The director, writer and producer is Sarah Weiser. The senior producer is Frank Koughan. The VP of Content Development of Retro Report is Bonnie Bertram. The executive producer of Retro Report is Kyra Darnton. The managing editor of FRONTLINE is Andrew Metz. The editor-in-chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE is Raney Aronson-Rath.
