Reinforcing Loss and Rendering Invisible: Adoptee Experience and the Structural Failings of Biomedicine

This commentary discusses the challenge of health care interactions for people who are adopted. These narratives describing how adoptees approach and are approached by biomedicine make it clear that their needs are not being met and that many feel ostracized in clinical encounters. I argue that adoptee identity should be included along with categories such as race, class and gender when we consider intersectional approaches to health and healthcare. We cannot consider a one-size fits all approach to health care for adoptees, as these stories make clear that a lack of known family history should neither preclude adoptees from accessing tests and services, nor serve as an automatic indication for heightened screening. There is a need for structural changes to biomedicine that would allow for alternatives to family history in considering the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease.