Saturday, the day before Mother's Day, is Birth Mother's Day. It was started in 1990 by a group of birth mothers who had suffered through each Mother's Day feeling an agonizing need to recognize that they, too, had mothered a child even if they did not go on to parent it.
Many people assume, and anti-abortion groups insist, that giving up a baby for adoption is not only an easy choice, but a righteous alternative to abortion. It's not. First of all, it's unusual: less than 1% of women confronting unintended pregnancy today choose adoption. And for the birth mother adoption is difficult, often much more emotionally painful than abortion, according to many studies. With abortion, a woman almost always puts the decision behind her, and moves on; with adoption that can be considerably more challenging.
Yet abortion and adoption have a lot in common too. Just like women who choose abortion, women who make an adoption plan are subject to shame, coercion, misinformation, unfavorable laws, and the politicization of their choice. It is here that the reproductive rights movement may recognize a role for itself.
The pro-choice movement has already helped usher in a new era in adoption. Contraception, legalized abortion and the de-stigmatizing of unwed mothers helped create the environment in which birth mother rights could flourish. Birth mothers could take control of their pregnancy and its outcome. It allowed them to shape the way that their babies go into the world. As Sharon Kaplan Roszia, an open adoption practice pioneer, explains,
"Birth mothers gradually learned that babies for adoption were needed so desperately that they could have more control than ever before over the adoption process. And what many birth mothers wanted was to choose the people who would be raising their children, to meet them, and to stay in touch with them. Agencies realized that if they were to continue to offer adoption services, they would have to offer the same control and openness to birth mothers that other agencies were offering."
Adoption can be a painful choice but much of the difficulty is unnecessary. First, we should get rid of the misperceptions. It's safe to say every woman facing unintended pregnancy these days was born after the 1950s yet these women typically think of adoption in its vintage 50s form instead of its modern, kinder version. In a 2008 study, the Guttmacher Institute reported, "Without being asked directly, several of the women [who chose abortion] indicated that adoption is not a realistic option for them. They reported that the thought of one's child being out in the world without knowing if it was being taken care of or by whom would induce more guilt than having an abortion."
These women clearly had no knowledge of how open adoption works. In an open adoption the birth mother chooses the family with which she places her child, and stays in touch with the child. If a patient were deciding against abortion because of false information, as pro-choice advocates we would see it as our responsibility to give her the facts. We have a chance to do the same with adoption.
There are other areas in which pro-choice groups can lend political power on behalf birth mothers. For example, "Safe Haven" laws, now in effect in 49 states, have been tremendously harmful to birth mothers. Safe Haven laws were intended to prevent situations where birth mothers, at the moment of giving birth, feel so desperate without the financial, physical or emotional means to parent a child, that they inflict harm or cause death to their newborn baby. In practice, however, the law serves to deny women, the vast majority of whom would never consider harming the infant, important information about their options. Instead, women who have not yet given birth to a child and/or who have safely given birth to a child within a hospital setting and have indicated that they do not wish to parent their child are inappropriately encouraged to relinquish their baby to "safe haven" in lieu of being offered options counseling so that they may formulate a plan for their baby. This practice has the unintentional and unacceptable consequence of undermining a birth mother when she is at her most vulnerable by depriving her of information about her options, such as open adoption, and the right to reconsider relinquishing her child should she soon after regret her decision to do so. Alterations to these laws are necessary to address these violations.
Birth mothers are often unknowingly dis-empowered at the most important point of the adoption process. When have you heard of one lawyer representing both sides in a legal agreement? Pretty much never, right? Well, it happens all the time in adoption and birth mothers are always the vulnerable party. The practice has been so widespread that the American Bar Association publicly condemned it. A birth mother typically does not have the resources to retain her own counsel and often wants the adoption to commence as soon as possible but, at the very least, laws should be passed requiring lawyers to disclose to birth mothers this conflict on interest and the inherent risk to her. Reproductive rights groups would provide a valuable service to women by including them in the pro-bono legal work they already do.
The birth mothers who are most victimized are those who placed their children with the understanding that they would have ongoing information and/or contact, but the arrangement was cut off. Such contact and information is the most important factor in facilitating birth parents' adjustment. Only 24 states enforce open adoption agreements. So, in the remaining 26 states, the birth mother has no legal recourse if the day after the adoption is finalized the agreement is completely ignored.
Having a diverse pool of waiting families to choose from should also be considered a pro-choice value in adoption. Many women don't know that the candidate families have been pre-screened based on an agency's ideology or prejudice. Parentprofiles.com, a website that features profiles of waiting families, has been banned from doing business in two states because of discriminatory business practice - it refuses to publish profiles of gay waiting families. Some agencies won't accept single parents or require parents pledge to raise the child in the religion the agency approves.
There is tremendous need for more ethical standards in the field of adoption, just the kind long embraced by the pro-choice movement.
Cristina Page is Co-Director of Spence Chapin's Adoption Access Network. Follow @probirthmom
Follow Cristina Page on Twitter: www.twitter.com/cristinapage
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As *adoption* is practiced today and in the past, it is rarely a voluntary choice made by the Natural Mother. It is the Surrender of a child because of some personal tragedy – be it domestic abuse, parental and/or birth-father abandonment, or social/religious bigoted pressure.
If Someone EXPECTS babies to be born to be given up for adoption then those babies should be born from “mothers” who have made a plan to become pregnant with the intent of giving the child away to someone else… that “mother” should be a Surrogate making that specific reproductive choice.
No Mother should ever be coerced in any way to surrender her child when all she needs is a little help and support to be the Mommy she has wanted to be. It cost more to subsidize a child that is in foster care than it would to give the Natural Mother the she needs to finish school or get job training or pay for day care.
There is no evidence at all in the article to support Page's implication that the pro-choice movement is failing to support adoptive mothers. My experience as a clinic employee and a member of professional organizations for abortion care workers demonstrates that we do support them. Why, then, did Page feel it necessary to implicate the pro-choice movement while critiquing our society's failure to respect adoption? Is this the new way we get attention for a women's issue--to link it to abortion negativity?
Abortion may seem like the easy way out to some. Adoption may seem that way to others. But what matters most is what we do for the pre-born baby.
Therefore the parents are not a member of a triad or any other geometric organized arrangement.
I think almost all children who were placed for adoption remain in the hearts of at least the birthmother. That in itself creates a connection even if it is unique or uncommon.
And what of the adoptive parents? Nowadays most spend a great amount of time talking to their child about their adoption and the people who placed them. Some even pray for the birthparents. That in itself creates an emotional bond to the people who conceived the child.
The triad is used so that we can picture how the child, adoptive parents and birthparents are in community.
adoption is loss.
When comparing adoption to abortion as "kinder", I understand from your perspective as a birth mother how you might not consider it "kinder", but from the perspective of the child, who is living instead of dead, I can tell you that those of us whose mother's choice the adoption route versus the abortion route, we are certainly happy about that choice.
adoption is not kind. adoption is built upon a loss. its foundation is loss. all of the adoptors' joy is built upon the natural family's loss. adoption is not kind, therefore it can not be "kinder."
Is patently wrong. I do not favor limiting women's choices, I do not favor limiting mother's choices. I see 'open' adoption as a marketing ploy to further coerce a mother into relinquishing her infant. Allowing a condemned mother a false choice does not change infant adoption in it's truest form. Infant adoption requires a mother to abandon the care of her child to other's who only stand to gain from the pain both she and the infant will experience.
In addition, you are generalizing. Most infants don't expenience any pain when adopted at birth and many birth mother's are very happy with their decision. I believe you are letting your personal feelings compromise your objectivity.
If the humans don't own the security of certain futures of choice, as a common morality, is morality true to the quality of freedom the freedom of choice defines in the notion of liberty. Is liberty a shared morality or a control cistern that justifies priority based upon the passing of wealth from death as power into life. Is death controlling morality between the material significance of order and the human significance of order?
The human heads (conscious id) and tails (sub-conscious history of knowledge) are the quality of life to the meaning of freedom in choice, to the individual and collective status of independence in the meaning of ownership, compatible with the awareness of the common good. People are the common good, since, the people are history, law, economy, philosophy to the meaning of fusion as existential presence of oneness in motion, between the duality of life futures and death pasts in everything knowledge in quality of space as public ownership motion.
As the adoption of Irish children by U.S. citizens is rare, and potential adoptive parents must have primary residence for at least one year in Ireland, these adoptions seem, to say the least, to be somewhat suspect in terms of possible efforts to skirt Irish law.
Adoption can be HIGHLY damaging, and those adopted are hurt deeply by losing their birth parents. While I have no wish to add to the burden of birth mothers... and love my own dearly (I am in loving contact fully with both my families), the idea that you can separate a child from their mother and that it's no big deal is truly a lie. When I was faced with the same decision I had an abortion and never regretted it... because I saved that unborn child from coming into a world marginalized and "different", never quite fitting in anywhere, which is a living hell. Do I forgive? Absolutely! But let's be honest...
today is a difficult day for many.
I am honestly sorry for you and whatever happened to you which led you to make a statement such as this, but I'm glad you made your position clear, as I now feel free to ignore you.
i am glad you kept your baby, though.
The court decisions are very clear. The birth mother and birth father have all the rights, however, once they give up the rights and once whatever "cooling off / waiting" period has passed and the child is adopted, then the new parents have 100% of all the rights and the birth parents have no rights with the possible exception in some states of following the terms of the open adoption contract. That's pretty much it. It's well settled law.
Though I agree with the general tone and tenor of your argument, I know and am sure you know that open adoptions, at times, in the best interests of the child, may have to be become closed. Though I suspect someone at HuffPost set a headline you did not choose, the idea of an open adoption becoming a 'birth mother' right (a.k.a., reproductive right) needs balancing. In many situations, open adoptions would favour both the mother and her child/ren; but, other factors than simply being the birth mother must come into consideration, ruling out a 'right' as such.
Sincerely, and keep up the good work,
Larry
i take issue with your wording that open adoption may have to be closed. closing an adoption is often not a matter of "must" but a matter of "want to and can." by failing to recognize "want to and can" you are not presenting a fair or balanced assessment of why adoptions sometimes close.
if a family is not sure they can handle contact with the child's natural family, for 18 years, they probably should not enter into an open adoption contract.
I was not talking about those who 'want to and can'. I find that attitude somewhat deplorable. However, some birth mothers DO have serious issues with drugs and alcohol, or narcissistic disorder, in ways that can be damaging to their birth child or children. I have also known of 'closed' adoptions that 'opened' later.
Nor am I saying that every child 'seizure' by social services is warranted, albeit most often that's provable.
Nor do I think every adoptive mother is some kind of saint. I have known a few who are well worthy of such a title, many who were certainly worthy of becoming mothers and were, and a few very rotten apples.
Please clarify if you disagree, since, after reading your other posts, you may very well be correct.
Everybodys okay. There's no such thing a disasterous accidents, misfortune, bad luck, or bad choices. In America all the women are stong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.
Be careful of unintended consequences of 'adoption = reproductive rights'. Already China has had clamp down on foreign adoptions due to an epidemic of pretty/healthly looking children being kidnapped from their parents to sell to narssissist American couples looking for a 'designer baby'.
times are hard for american adoptionists, since less than 1% of women want anything to do with adoption. shock doctrine is the industry's most useful strategy.
We have made keeping your baby the 'in' thing to do in this country due to shows like 16 and pregnant. That is why the adoption statistic is so low.