What's wrong with fertile women adopting?

Jane

For shame, Tina Fey, having your second baby when you could be adopting! So proclaims Treva Bowdoin of “Hollywood Trends Examiner,” an online tabloid.

Bowdoin extols Mariska Hargitay, Katherine Heigl, and Sandra Bullock who have joined a long list of celebrities including Sheryl Crow, Jamie Lee Curtis, Calista Flockhart, Valerie Harper, Diane Keaton, Rosie O’Donnell, Michelle Pfeiffer, Steven Spielberg, Sharon Stone, Barbara Walters, and Liza Minnelli to, in Bowdoin's words, "give unwanted children a better life.”

Besides Fey, Bowdoin also castigates Jewel, Alyssa Milano, Natalie Portman, Kate Hudson, and Pink for “taking part in the celebrity baby boom this year.”

Serial adopter, womb raider Angelina Jolie doesn’t get a pass because she “couldn’t resist having some of her own kids to add to her adopted brood.” Bowdoin confirms what I’ve long suspected: Jolie’s adopted kids are not her own kids but merely props for photo ops. Come to think of it though, Jolie’s bio kids are not her own either if that term means, as many adopters say, that the true mother is the woman who feeds the kids, gets up in the middle of the night when they have a fever, takes them to soccer games. That honor would go to the nannies. 

(If I sound harsh, it's because I think overall Jolie has done more harm to children than good. Before she adopted her first child from Cambodia, others, including her then husband Billy Bob Thornton, voiced concern that the boy was not an orphan but that his mother sold him because she was poor.  Within two years of the adoption, the Seattle-based orphanage was closed because of corruption and its owner pleaded guilty to falsely claiming the children were orphans. When Jolie brought the boy to the US, she said both she and Thornton were adopting him.  Thornton declined, saying he had never agreed to it. If Jolie truly wanted to help children, she would work to end exploitation in adoption and pressure poor nations to care for their children. I also believe the constant media exposure is harmful to the children. She's in People every week, Brad and the brood in tow, allegedly caught by a photographer while on a shopping trip.  What mother takes six kids shopping?  I predict that the children will have the problems celebs kids often have with too much money and attention and not enough discipline resulting in risky behavior, drug use, and so on.  Adoption often exacerbates these problems.)

Bowdon also takes a few swipes at Elizabeth Banks, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Nicole Kidman for going the surrogate route. (Kidman, it should be noted also did the adoption thing.) First Mother Forum is critical of these ladies as well. Surrogacy, “donated” eggs, the whole shebang exploits vulnerable women and, as practiced in the US, denies their offspring the right to learn their genetic identities.

Bowdoin asks “why do so many celebrity women with the money and resources to help kids in need of a home and family opt to have their own children? Perhaps they don’t want to go through the bureaucratic hassles of adopting [terrible the way silly consent laws and home studies get in the way of doing good], or maybe they just want to experience childbirth [so much fun]. Then there’s always the possibility that it’s just good ol’ evolution telling them to pass their genes along.”

We at FMF are happy Tina Fey is passing along her genes. She’s one of the best comedians out there and FMF looks forward to another generation of talented Feys. Ditto for the rest. In fact, Kate Hudson, daughter of actor Goldie Hawn, is on her way to forming a theatrical dynasty.

As for the need for celebs to adopt in order “to give unwanted children a better life,” the line of people wanting to give children a better life stretches from Hollywood to China and is beginning to form in Africa. Those patiently waiting their turn are understandably angry when celebs are able to use their “money and resources” to cut in line.

FMF thinks it’s most likely that celebs adopt for the same non-altruistic reason that others adopt: they want a child. Pregnancy in fantasyland can be a big no-no.

“‘This industry values very young, sexy, slim women’ says veteran Los Angeles lawyer Gloria Allred. ‘Once an actress becomes pregnant, it’s a problem.’

“In the case of established stars ... there’s little reason to believe that producers and directors wouldn’t welcome her back after her hiatus, or ... develop a storyline that incorporates or disguises a pregnancy.... But when an actress is just starting out, the words I want a child are about as welcome as a request for a $20 million contract. ‘If I were doing a pilot for television and I heard that an unknown actress was pregnant, I would try to find somebody else,’ admits L.A casting director Rhonda Young. One top Hollywood talent agent is more blunt: ‘I’m not happy if my client gets pregnant, It means she probably can’t work for a year and a half or longer. ... If I have an actress who can’t work for me, then how is that helping me?’” (“Who Wants a Baby?,” Us Weekly, May 27, 2002).

FMF would be inclined to ignore Bowdon’s mindless rant except that others share her passion for adoption over motherhood au natural. Recently Chicago Tribune columnist Amy Dickinson printed a letter from a young man concerned that the women with whom he was in a long-term relationship did not “want to give birth; she would prefer to adopt.” He had no problem adopting but wanted the experience of having a biological child.

Dickinson encouraged him to discuss with his girl friend her reasons for opting for adoption. Dickinson concluded with comforting words, “regardless of the biological circumstances, once you truly accept a child as yours, you are together for life,” apparently unaware that raising an adopted child is different from raising a bio child.

While we at FMF know fine fertile women who have adopted infants, it’s a proposition that gives us discomfort because it increases the demand for infants which in turn increases the number of women losing their children unnecessarily. To meet the increased demand, the adoption industry lures pregnant women with promises of travel and luxury living during their “confinement” (expenses which they have to repay if they keep their babies) and college scholarships for those who complete “their adoption plan”. The industry uses slick advertising, often with religious overtones framing adoption loss as an unselfish choice, a gift to a loving couple while providing her child with the things she can’t and reminding her of the dire consequences if she keeps her baby.(“You’ll have to drop out of school and work at Wal-Mart.”) The industry also turns to other countries to meet the demand,  resulting in wide-scale kidnapping and baby-selling.

We’ve heard those who plan to forgo childbirth in favor of adoption claim that adoption helps reduce the world’s population, currently bulging with over six billion people. It’s more likely that adoption increases the population. Women who lose children to adoption may have replacement children. Historian Rickie Solinger writes in Wake Up Little Susie that during the Baby Scoop Era the government encouraged single white women to give up their babies in part to increase the white population. Rather than promoting birth control, some countries with high birth rates respond to the inability of impoverished parents to provide for their children by encouraging non-governmental organizations to establish orphanages which become conduits for adoption.

As we’ve said many times, FMF encourages those considering adoption to choose one of the 115,000 children in foster care who truly do not have a family.