A letter to the agency linked below
Below the cut!
Dear Plan Adoption–
As an adoptive mother I am deeply deeply offended by the coercive nature of your site, most notably this page:
http://www.planadoption.com/pregnant/questions/single_parenting/
Some of these are questions that would be well put to any parent — adoptive parents who are working with your agency included — yet I didn’t see a similar questionnaire for potential adoptive parents considering your program. Other questions are perpetuating damaging stereotypes (”Is the neighborhood I live in now a place where I would want to raise a child?” — as if families in bad neighborhoods always raise bad kids) and still others are just down-right ridiculous (”Never ending loveâ€â€do I have it to give?” — well, really, what does that mean? and this one “Asking for help and telling people how I feelâ€â€does that come naturally to me? Is that what I want for my baby?” — is this a prerequisite for parenthood?).
Your site is painting a picture that is anti-single motherhood, anti-young motherhood, and anti-poor motherhood. In truth, young single and poor women can and do make good mothers especially with appropriate support and encouragement. How sad that your site could give women a step up to positive parenting and instead knocks them down in the name of getting your paying clients babies more quickly.
I also do not see any information that makes clear that a woman is absolutely NOT obligated to follow through with her adoption plan until she signs the permanent surrender. That any expenses paid by you or the hopeful parents, that any form she signs while pregnant, that any plans she may have made — none of these obligate her to give her baby up if she changes her mind; it’s an important that any woman who avails herself of your agency’s services KNOWS this. Only then can she be free to make an empowered, positive decision for herself AND her baby.
Your front page ends with “Many women have already taken this journey and made an unselfish, loving decision to place their baby for adoption. We think these young women are courageous.” I think that young women who choose to parent are also courageous. I think that choosing to parent is also an unselfish, loving decision. I am offended that your site insinuates otherwise. I hope that you will reconsider your site with the guidelines recommended by Bill Betzen
http://www.openadoption.org/bbetzen/checklst.htm
You also might consider sharing a pamphlet like this:
http://www.cubirthparents.org/booklet.pdf
Or following this agency’s lead and posting a similar bill of rights:
http://www.f-r-c.org/bill_of_rights.php
Please rethink your site. You will be providing a true, ethical service if you can embrace some of these ideas.
Sincerely,
Dawn Friedman
WOOT. Right on sister. You hit it on the head!
You go! Great letter! Even better links!
Absolutely.
Awesome! Yay!
love it. i just wrote a letter to my adoption agency about their use of the term ‘birthmother’. maybe i’ll get around to posting it soon.
Good letter! I just “love” adoption sites like that one.
Okay, second comment to say I just realized who this site is. They are not far from where I live and I called them when we were looking to adopt. Even in my more naive state prior to getting into the adoption process, I felt they were not very reputable, in terms of their process. Needless to say, we did not pursue using them (particularly because they would not give me a definitive answer on cost for an adoptive parent.)
Excellent letter, and great resources! Thanks!
you certainly make some good points.
however, how is it coercive if its on a website.
Great work Dawn. It’s really more powerful when it comes from everyone in the adoption community. I would love to see more activism from adoptive parents because agencies get more scared when their potential clients are not happy.
Thank you for caring about this.
De-lurking to say thanks for writing this letter and talking about this. Yikes, that list was yucky. My husband and I are working with an out-of-state agency because we live in a red state and can’t find a single agency here that doesn’t display these sorts of prejudices.
I also loved your Salon article.
Oh, I’m in love…. Dawn, will you marry me in our next lifetime? =)
I agree with Nicole (but she asked you first.)!! I hope you and afrindie, Lisa, Thirdmom and others are setting a trend! Yay!!!!!!!!
Terri
Amen, sister. Amen.
I hate those kinds of agency websites. They reek of “give us your baby! it’s the right choice, No Matter What!”
Oh, man. I just actually went and read that website. That is terrible! Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite so blatant before.