Baby out of lap
Baby sitting in highchair eating frozen blueberries.
My favorite comment was the incomparable Lisa’s:
I have read the comments here and thought everyone was doing a great job of explaining why this is offensive to families built through adoption. However, Kim you must realize this is also deeply offensive to birth parents. Birth parents do not profit in any monetary way from the adoption of their child. To compare a birth parent to someone offering their child for money is insulting.
J received hardly any material support from the agency (and thus from us) during either the pre-adoption or post-adoption period. I won’t list what support she did receive here but trust me when I tell you that it was less than $100. The idea that anyone could think she made money off of the loss of her daughter makes her sick and it makes me sick, too. She made specific choices to be as independent as possible.
I do think that Kim’s story as an almost-birth-mom is an important one as part of the discussion about the ethics of domesetic adoption. Personally, I think programs that “house” potential birth moms are some of the most coercive programs that there are. I won’t say that they are never good but I will say that I’ve never heard of a good one. Unfortunately, most homes for unwed mothers aren’t about support mothering at all; they’re about pushing adoption.
I’d love to hear about places that don’t pressure young women because there’s a need for some women to have a place to go away from friends and family who may not support them in their crisis. The most organized programs I’ve seen that are there to help women parent are those run by anti-choice organizations like Birthright.
We used Birthright as a resource to recommend when we worked at shelter even though the YWCA is a pro-choice organization. The reason we used Birthright is that we got pretty limited donations and we knew that if a woman came to us and needed baby supplies, Birthright would set her up. She’d get a layette, a car seat, whatever they could give. I mean, if you’re going to be anti-abortion, it’s good to do things to help women choose not to have an abortion.
Now the problem with Birthright (and we’d tell women this when we gave them the referral) is that they’re one of those pro-life agencies that will lie to their clients about abortion — or at least give them a very biased view. And if a woman chooses to have an abortion, obviously she will not get support from Birthright.
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a national organization that would see women through a reproductive crisis with objective support? Who could give her solid, unbaised information and practical help (rides to the clinic, a place to stay, baby clothes, etc.), whatever her choice?
Yeah, that’d be nice.
I don’t think it’s possible, frankly. But there are so many different kinds of health services agencies out there that a woman can find somewhere to go that will support her choices. For instance, if a woman comes to her experience with a pro-choice orientation, she can go to Planned Parenthood. If she is strongly against abortion, she can go to Birthright. I think sometimes we speak as if women in crisis pregnancy situations are tabula rasa upon which ideologues prey, and not women of reason who probably already have strong feelings about abortion, parenting, and adoption. I’m NOT saying coercion is justifiable, either. For instance, we are anti-abortion. We chose a health organization for our adoption that doesn’t perform or push for abortions. It will, however, let women know that abortion is an option and will provide a list of agencies (like Planned Parenthood, which is literally four blocks away from our agency) that will discuss abortion at length with women. Our agency also provides ample resources for women who decided to parent. In other words, women who face unplanned pregnancies can choose to work with organizations that reflect their own beliefs about abortion, parenting, and adoption. As long as these organizations are upfront about their orientations and do not resort to dishonesty or coercion, I think it’s alright for them to be biased.
hmmm… you mean universal health care and a basic social safety net?
Ah, yes, too bad this isn’t Sweden!
Universal health care and a good social safety net. Canada is not perfect and there are forces working at eroding these things that we have all the time but when it works, it seems to work fairly well.
In what way does Birthright lie to their clients?
I volunteer for Birthright and I like the non-judgemental and respectful way in which we are coached to handle our clients. Obviously we are pro-life, but it is ultimately the woman’s choice. We do not pretend to know what is best for her. The only thing I do not like about Birthright is that they do not encourage contraception, but rather they encourage abstinence. I think that is a little naive and I try to have an open dialogue with my clients about contraception if they are not interested in getting pregnant.
I know Birthright has some gaps in their services, but I think that their intentions are pure (I know that you weren’t attacking their intentions, I just wanted to throw that in there)
Anyway, I enjoy reading your blog and look forward to more!
Yep: before she even got to the roast beef analogy, what astounded me was the implication that selling your child for money was in any way analogous to making a birth/adoption plan. I didn’t read the comments, but I thought the original post was so astoundingly idiotic about what’s involved in placing a child for adoption, there was no reason to go further (i.e., into the insulting of adoptive parents). She’d already dug her grave.
I mean, really! “If the mom was young, and feeling overwhelmed by her responsibilities, there are worse things she could have done than try to find a better home for her.” Uh, right. And that’s what she was doing here: selling her baby for bucks equals finding her a better home. Because there aren’t state and private agencies set up to do that, or laws, or anything. She’s just one more birth mother, doing what birth mothers do.
Gah.
What An Idiot.