Choice is largely a myth when it comes to relinquishing a child

Jane

SURRENDERS BASED ON MISINFORMATION ARE NOT CHOICES

"Julia,"* a 30-year-old married professional woman who learned her husband was having an affair gave up her new born son for adoption, a story that we have been writing about in the last two posts.  We wrote critically of her decision, but back tracked somewhat, recognizing that Julia was more sinned against than sinning. “Anonymous” commented that Julia was “a woman who has freely chosen to surrender, evidently was not forced to this choice. … Whatever happened to the concept of informed choice, even when another person's choice is not the one you wish you had made?” (Emphasis added.)

Since the infant adoption system in the U.S. does little to assure that mothers surrendering their babies are informed about the consequences, it's almost certain that Julia did not make an informed choice as Barbara Thavis, one of First Mother Forum readers, commented:

“But what I never read in Julia's story is where she acknowledged that what she was doing would be harmful to her child. If she said, "I read all the literature and know that my child will forever feel abandoned at a gut level. That my son will feel that there is something inherently wrong with him because his mother gave him to strangers to raise. That most likely he will have trouble with relationships, always waiting for the other shoe to drop. That I most likely will be a wreck, grief stricken beyond repair. And knowing all of this I don't want to parent that bastard's child." Okay, then I can see that's her choice.”

One a personal note, I was given no information on the impact of adoption when I have up my daughter Rebecca in 1966. If I had known, I would have done anything to keep her.

THE PERVERSE POWER OF ADVERTISING IN ADOPTION

Politicians, businesses, non-profits, indeed every institution spend zillions of dollars each year to influence our choices—and it works. In fact, promoting an act as a choice can in of itself influence a decision. The tobacco industry induced many teens to start smoking when it advertised smoking as “an adult choice.” Segments of the adoption industry use similar tactics; there’s even an agency called “Adoption by Choice.”

Today the adoption industry uses slick ads designed to overpower expectant mothers' natural desire to nurture their child. They also arrange for adoption promo pieces in the media, particular by popular charlatans Drs. Drew, Phil, and Laura who pass themselves off as experts on everything connected to human well-being. Using perverse logic, the adoption industry convinces mothers that relinquishing their infants is a mature, responsible decision, Buying into this logic, mothers who keep their babies are immature and irresponsible.  As we wrote in 2009, "Through aggressive advertising in the media, on the internet, on college campuses and anywhere young women are likely to be, the adoption industry recruits them to give up their babies. Physicians, clergy, even family planning clinics, promote adoption."**

Expectant mothers are urged “to think with your head, not your heart." Richard Pearlman, who runs the adoption agency that Julia used, says as much in Elle:  “'Even though the perception is that it's teenagers who place children for adoption, they usually don’t,' he says. 'That’s because the decision is a thoughtful decision. If it was just based on emotion, nobody would ever place a child.’”  Emphasis emphatically added as what he is ironically saying is that agencies promote a system where the women who best can nurture their babies give them up; those least equipped, or least loving, keep them and thus deny them the benefits that the adoptive parents, or parent, can give.

The perverse logic lulls mothers into thinking that making “an adoption plan” allows them to direct their child’s future. I am reminded of a conversation with an unmarried pregnant friend many years ago. She was considering placing her child for adoption because “adoption would assure he would be well cared for.” I looked at her with my experienced birth mother eye and said: “If you place him, you can’t even be sure he’ll have enough to eat.” She kept her son and today he, at 36, is her pride and joy.

STATE LAWS DON’T PROTECT VULNERABLE MOTHERS-TO-BE

States laws typically don’t require adoption practitioners to give women considering adoption sufficient information so that they can make a truly informed choice. We wrote about the Oregon law in a letter published in the Oregon State Bar Bulletin. Mothers-to-be may not given counseling or even literature about the after-effects of relinquishment on their psyche, or the ill effects of being adopted, though this is easy to come by. It's like being asked to sign a contract without even being told there is fine print they ought to read. (are there any states where they have to give any negative info to the women?) Realtors, used car salesmen, securities salespersons all have to tell prospective purchasers of the down side of the product they’re considering purchasing. But not so with those in the adoption business. In fact Utah statutes specifically permit fraud in adoptions, as we have written about several times. The adoption industry resists attempts to require mothers be informed. The adoption industry opposed a 2011 bill in Oregon that would have required informative counseling for women considering adoption mothers. The bill did not pass.

Women have little to guide them in selecting agencies, often relying on slick ads or their clergy. In Shedding Light on the Dark Side of Adoption, author Mirah Riben summarizes studies which show that how the information about adoption is presented greatly influences mothers’ decisions. “At agencies such as the Edna Gladney Home of Texas, ninety percent of the residents surrender; while in charitable residences for unwed mothers, like Kathy DiFiore’s Several Sources Foundation, Ramsey, New Jersey, ninety percent of the unpressured women choose to keep their babies.” That's an totally inverse proportion of women who chose to keep their babies, and women who relinquish them. 

In an 2000 piece in Self magazine that I happened to keep, readers learned that Gladney at the time operated a facility for 18 single, pregnant women. According to its website, it is still a deluxe home in a park like setting with a beautiful pool – much like a sorority house with a fireplace in the living room. in 2000, the cost of an average stay for a pregnant women was $33,000 apiece, most of which was paid by adoptive parents. The home resounded with the message “adoption is the best option.” On the wall in the dining room is a prayer “God isn’t taking something away from you. He’s giving you a gift. The chance to start over. Let Him show you how.” How, of course, entails giving up your baby to a deserving, oh so pleasant couple who want an infant. 

Gladney offers semi-open adoptions where women could choose the adoptive parents, but there is no iron-clad promise of post-adoption contact. Today there is a voluntary registry for adoptees over 18. The magazine article said that Gladney’s promotional video tape called those who gave up their babies “’young heroes.’” Its literature estimated the cost of raising a child was skewed so high (up to $3,265 a month) that even a married couple might get sticker shock. We don't have contact with anyone who has been at Gladney recently, to learn how much, if anything, has changed.

Women who changed their minds and kept their babies were required to leave the day after they decided to keep their babies to avoid “’contaminating’” other residents into keeping their babies. Those who surrender were allowed to stay for a few weeks.  “’Usually when one decides to do this [keep her baby], we lose three,’ said Linda Figgs, the head houseparent.” Thus their not letting the girls keeping their babies stay is a sound business decision. Interestingly, a check of their website today indicates that Gladney has no U.S.-born adoptable children of any age available at this time.

In contrast, Pregnancy Support and Adoption Services here in Portland begins counseling sessions with women in unplanned pregnancies by discussing the value of nurturing their child. Pregnancy Support offers financial support and assistance in finding housing, medical care, baby supplies and the like. If it still appears that the mother cannot raise her child, then the agency presents adoption. It requires that all adoptions be fully open. In 2011, Pregnancy Support, which is affiliated with Catholic Charities, arranged nine adoptions. 

Yet Oregon agencies which present adoption as one of three co-equal choices,  along with abortion and nurturing, oversaw three times as many adoptions. FMF reader “Maybe” points out the fallacy of laying out options as though they were co-equals. 

“The problem with focusing so much on "choice" is that it negates the serious responsibility associated with carrying and giving birth to a human being."Choice" is more appropriately used in consumer settings in which an individual is deciding on where to shop, bank, or get a haircut. To reduce human relationships to a consumerist mindset devalues our worth as sentient beings.

 "When a woman gives birth she is a mother whether she raises that child or not. A mother's connection to her child should be acknowledged and revered rather than reduced to a "choice."

 …”There is also the problem of the child's choice which is completely ignored in adoption. Do babies really want to be separated from their mothers after birth and placed with strangers? Does this seem like a natural state that a baby would choose if she could?”

LACK OF RESOURCES: THE DETERMINING FACTOR

Adoption agency operator Pearlman notes that “what often drives a decision to place a child is a sense of lack of resources, usually financial. (Emphasis added.)  Yet, as sociologist Rickie Solinger wrote in Beggars and Choosers: “Adoption is rarely about mothers’ choices; it is, instead, about the abject choicelessness of some resourceless women.”  

The new face of pro-adoption shills

”Lack of resources” of course is a relative term. Pearlman notes that “we recently placed a child from a couple who were students at a university who felt they weren’t in a position to raise a child. One was a doctoral student.”

In Adoption Nation Adam Pertman, Executive Director of the Donaldson Adoption Institute, profiles birth mother Charlene who explains her decision to give up her son: “’I knew they [the adoptive parents] … could give him the moon and the stars, which is what I wanted for him to have but what I know I couldn’t give him at this stage of my life.’”

And then there’s Catelynn and Tyler of 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom fame who gave up their daughter so she could have, as Catelynn says, “more.” Now they're doing commercials for their adoption agency Bethany Christian Services, seeking to convince other young couples that "more" is better than blood-family. For two dollars you can get their video; we're ordering it today.

I just shake my head at parents like Catelynn and Tyler, and all the recruits they get for Bethany. One wonders how much they were paid for shilling for the agency, and turning their private catastrophe into a business. How sad that they are led to believe that their child's birthright is less valuable than a mess of pottage.

* Name changed for anonymity.

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Previous posts on "Julia's" choice:
The saddest story of all: Opting for adoption today
Mea Culpa to Julia and others who give up their babies today
See Also:** Are Laws Tilted Towards Adopting Parents? Well, yes, even in Oregon 
(Pro) Adoption Special: Dr. Drew encourages teen moms to give up their babies 

Sources: I'm Not What's Best for My Baby

Are You Helping the Tobacco Industry?
Oregon State Bar Bulletin, Birth Mothers Respond

"Birth Moms on Top," Self  September, 2000. This appears not to be on line. 

Both of these books are excellent analysis of how the adoption industry and society works against mothers keeping their children. Mirah Riben blogs at Family Preservation, listed on our sidebar.