Encouraging the 'Adoption Option' as public policy

Lorraine

Is enticing more American women to reject raising their own child in favor of “the adoption option” for their newborns a worthy goal? A liberal think tank in Washington DC thinks so.Yes, Dear Reader, it is true:

 

Jane

The Center for American Progress recently released a report ingloriously called The Adoption Option, and in doing so has added its glowing support to the crusade to promote adoption under the guise of protecting"reproductive choice." Now how many mothers who are unable to raise their child are not given the "reproductive choice" of relinquishing their child? How many women say, Oh, if only I had the "choice" of adoption--if only surrendering my child so that it could be raised by two other better-off people than me and have all those advantages, was more available, I would surely choose it?

Absurd, right? But that is the tacit message of The Adoption Option, which reads as if it had been written as promotional material for the Adoption Access Network's* crusade to promote adoption.

 

By noting that the number of women who are choosing to relinquish their children is at an all time low, the report not so subtly is tsk-tsking over this unfortunate state of affairs. And the big religious guns are at a loss as to how to rectify this: 

"Even the National Council For Adoption—a prominent, federally funded [note:federally funded?!] adoption lobbying group with ties to conservative Christian adoption networks—acknowledges that “[b]irths to unmarried women increased from 1996, while the rate of infant adoption placements by unmarried women decreased.”

To which, we say, great! More women of all ages now understand that relinquishing a child to be adopted by others leads most such women to a life of grief and sorrow and never forgetting. That for most, being adopted leads to a life with issues of abandonment, genetic dislocation, and internal curiosity about one's true family, whether or not this is acted upon.

Although the anti-abortion crowd has long championed adoption as a way to reduce abortions, the report points out that having more women choose the adoption option won’t make a dent in the number of abortions each year, about 1.2 million. “Even so,” we are soothingly assured, “ensuring that adoption remains an ethical and effective option for women facing an unintended pregnancy is a worthwhile goal independent of it potential influence on the abortion rate.” 

WTF?  Increasing adoptions a worthwhile goal for whom? Are women storming the doors of adoption agencies, protesting the lack of opportunity to give their babies to strangers? Although we are on every liberal sucker list in the US, we haven’t been hit up by the National Adoption Reform Action League for funds to lobby Congress to assure that adoption remains safe and legal. 

The report recognizes the difficulty in determining the exact number of adoptions each year, as estimates of unrelated domestic adoptions range from 6,800 to 22,291 (that's an estimate?) but the official accounting from the Department of Health and Human Services is approximately 14,000, meaning no one really knows how many there are. Whether the number of 6,800 or 22,500, that's small potatoes against the number of abortions, which are mostly sought by women who already have children, and understand full well how it will be to give away a child. What’s really going on is that CAP is pimping for the adoption industry struggling to meet the demand for adoptable babies of its well-healed clients, given the pitiable number of available babies.

If that sounds offensive to you, sorry, but that's as clear a message that we can draw from the report that includes this suggestion:

"Awareness about the modern adoption system. More information about what adoption entails today and the women who typically choose adoption would help to educate the public and demystify the process so that we can dispense with outdated stereotypes about birth mothers and the adoption process. Congress should provide grants to establish national public education campaigns to accurately inform the public about adoption and its potential benefits for all involved."

We want to know what the public benefit is to increasing adoptions? Fewer children abused? A downturn in crime? A rise in the number of first/birth mothers seeking psychological counseling and demanding anti-depressive drugs, and thereby pumping money into the depressed economy? A rise in psychological services for adopted people, also a boost to the psychiatric and psychological profession? An increase in books dealing with the issues involved? (Now as one of us is just completing a memoir about the sorrow of relinquishing a child, that a benefit we can get behind.) The report, written by Jessica Arons, is silent on this matter. (We would encourage Ms. Arons to do some hands-on research and donate a child of her own to fully understand the benefits to all in adoption.)

Do these people know anything about what giving up a child entails? The emotional trauma and pain of birth mothers who feel they lack the means to raise the child? Has Ms. Arons, or her boss, John Podesta, President Clinton's chief of staff, read anything about what being adopted means to the adopted person? We think not. We think their minds are addled by the need to supply the American market with babies, and as often the case, reports like this, as well as the position of the New Jersey American Civil Liberties Union (as well as others) which opposes giving adoptees their original birth certificates are written by the very people who would benefit from this attitude: The well educated and well heeled adopting class.

The Center for American Progress claims it is “dedicated to improving the lives of Americans through progressive ideas and actions” is in fact advancing ideas far more regressive than Newt Gringrich’s plan to put poor children in orphanages. At least those families could get their kids back.--Jane and lorraine
--------------------------

*Adoption Access Network is a coalition of pro-choice adoption agencies and abortion providers directed by Spence-Chapin of New York.