Adoption and Abortion: It's Not as Simple as Many Pro-lifers Think

Recently, I received a comment on a post I had written some time ago on what drives state bar associations to oppose equal rights for adult adoptees.  Those of you who have been involved in the adoptee rights movement will recognize the anecdotal argument right away -- it is the argument that sends legislators who are thinking about supporting an adoptee rights bill running for the hills.  It is also the argument that prompts the question some of us adoptees have heard from time to time: "Why can't you just be happy you have your life and weren't aborted?"

Here's the comment:

"My sister was a birth mother years ago. She chose adoption over abortion thinking a chance at life with a loving family was better than no chance at life or life with a teen mom. She wanted it done and over with so she could move on. She was willing to do the 9 months, willing to get the glares and stares and willing to hear the not nice comments. Our parents supported her although they thought an abortion would have been much easier for my sister.
Now the state she lives in trying to get birth certificates opened. She feels it was a two way street she got to move on with life and the child got a life. She was young did not have the means to raise a child. If she had to do it over she said she would have had the abortion. There is a reason why woman choose a closed adoption. They should be allowed to keep their privacy. I'm sympathetic to the adoptee who wants information. Mutual consent open the birth certificates for all birth mothers and adoptee families who want an open adoption. Life is not fair not everything is equal. My birth certificate does not have a father's name on it. He took off before I was born. My mother refused to put his name on the birth certificate and refuses to talk about him. Should the gov't force woman to put the father's name on all birth certificates and force my mother to give information about my father. Obviously, he didn't want to be involved in my life, I accept that."

On the surface, this argument sounds compelling, and it is a difficult one to refute in the legislative arena, because it is driven by emotion and ideology.  Here was my brief reply:

"According to the data, your sister is in a distinct minority of birth parents, and public policy should never be formulated to serve a distinct minority. What makes you think the adoptee would be disrespectful of her feelings? All we're saying is that the adoptee is entitled to the truth about her own personhood, whatever that truth might be. Many adoptees are only looking for genetic information about themselves, and it is disrespectful to imply that the adoptee will continue efforts at contact if the mother says no. Your sister did a good thing, but people should not assume that adoptees want their original birth certificates so that they can take inappropriate actions. I had one phone conversation with my original mother after I had suffered a serious medical problem and gained valuable information that has helped me physically and emotionally. I have respected her wishes and have not contacted her again. Are you saying that one conversation is too much to ask? You may not realize it, but such an attitude shows a profound disrespect for the adoptee and his or her motives. My original mother is not my enemy and never has been. She is an adult forging her way through life the best she can, as am I. She is entitled to her privacy but not lifetime anonymity from her own child, and the law is very clear on this point."

I could add many facts and statistics here to show that there is no link between adult adoptee access and abortion rates, and that mutual consent registries just don't work, but I have done that often in other articles -- I'll include the links below this post.  I will repeat the fact that in Oregon, which enacted adult adoptee access legislation in 2000, fewer than a quarter of one percent of birth mothers have filed "no contact" preferences, while more than 10,000 adoptees have applied for and received their original birth certificates.  Would not this statistic alone indicate that the vast majority of original parents do not live in mortal fear that their offspring might someday find them?  Statistics from the other open-access states reinforce the fact that the number of original parents who prefer no contact is very, very small.  The writer's sister in the comment above is actually an anomaly.

Another important point is that the writer assumes adoption has always operated in absolute secrecy, when estimates indicate some 40 percent of adoptees have some identifying information on their adoption decrees.  Both my adoptive brother and I, for example, have always had our original birth names.  Adoptees find their original families everyday in this country, in spite of sealed birth certificates;  however, under the current archaic system, original parents have no way to indicate whether they would prefer direct contact, contact through an intermediary, or no contact at all.  Clean adoptee access bills would give original parents the opportunity to express their preferences.  When people oppose such bills, they are assuming adoptees would do inappropriate things no matter what the original parents have indicated in preference forms.  As an adoptee, I find such attitudes incredibly insulting.

Too many people in the pro-life movement see adoption as the simple, win-win solution to abortion, when they actually know little about the subject's complexities.  Those who actually work in the field are well aware that closed-for-life adoptions have served neither original mothers nor adoptees well.  Consider carefully what Paul Swope, then president of Life Net Services, wrote more than 10 years ago in 1998:  "A pressure to end a pregnancy with an adoption does not save a child from abortion, but may in fact, be a determining factor in a woman choosing to terminate the pregnancy ... ."  Swope's point was that a woman facing an unwanted pregnancy is desperate for a sense of resolution to her crisis, and in her mind, "adoption leaves the situation the most unresolved."

Open adoptions have risen in popularity because adoption facilitators know that very few women are willing to relinquish their babies unless they can have some knowledge about how those babies are doing.  However, open adoption agreements are not legally enforceable in most states, a fact that many surrendering mothers have learned the hard way.

I have some faint hope that people are beginning to realize that adoption in this country is too often run like a business, in which the couples desiring a Caucasian infant to adopt far outnumber the Caucasian babies available.  Prospective adoptive parents are the paying customers, and the best interests of the surrendering parents and the adoptees themselves are too often overlooked in the effort to supply the babies to meet the demand.

The Catholic News Agency recently ran an article describing a nation-wide, pro-adoption ad campaign being conducted jointly by Austin, Texas-based Heroic Media and Michigan-based Bethany Christian Services.  An ad, featuring a pregnant woman explaining why she plans to put her baby up for adoption, aired 45 times over a four-week period on Oxygen Network during the reality TV series "I'm Having Their Baby."

The ad focuses on adoption as a "life-changing blessing for adoptive  parents" and a "gift of love and hope" for adopted children.  Unfortunately, Bethany Christian Services is ranked very poorly by original mothers who have surrendered their children, and Bethany Christian Services continues to oppose adult adoptee access bills, even as they extol the benefits of more openness in adoption.  The TV series and the ad campaign, in my mind, are ethically repugnant.  Even the title, "I'm Having Their Baby," is repugnant, as the expectant mother is obviously not receiving unbiased pregnancy counseling -- she is being groomed to see herself as an inadequate mother and adoption as the noble and uncomplicated answer to all her problems.

What gives me a little hope is that Catholic News Service published six comments about the ad campaign, and five of them focused on adoption truth. You can read the entire article here, and
below are the six comments published on-line.



"I'm not sure why pro-life has to equal pro-adoption. One can still be opposed to abortion, yet encourage families to seek out the resources they need to successfully parent their own children - adoption is not an alternative to abortion, it's an alternative to parenting. Most women who are considering adoption were never seeking abortion in the first place.
As for the agencies themselves, particularly Bethany (I will not add the other two words in the name of their company b/c there is absolutely nothing Christian about their "services")- to quote Job 24:21 "They prey on the barren and childless woman, and to the widow show no kindness"


"Separating a mother from her baby is being promoted by a Christian organization?  Why isn't the Catholic Church helping women in "crisis" pregnancies to keep their children?  Most of these women just need financial help and low-cost child care."


"If Bethany Christian Services would lobby for adult adoptee access to their own birth certificates and for laws that would enforce open adoption agreements, then I would believe that their primary interest is indeed the welfare of the child and the original mother.  Speaking as an adult adoptee who was blessed with loving adoptive parents, I still maintain that adoption is not as simple as the ad portrays.  It is complicated, and it often results in profound feelings of loss for both original mother and adoptee.  I am not anti-adoption, but I am pro adoption reform and for full disclosure of the facts to all parties.  I also believe it is possible to offer a child a loving home without obliterating his or her original identity for life.  Unfortunately, I have found that many agencies routinely whitewash complex adoption realities."


"Some of our energies and prayers might also be well-spent finding ways for mothers to keep and raise their own children. Many women who give up their children for adoption have said they would have kept them if they had the simple support (financial and otherwise) every mother deserves. Without that, how can we say these women's decision to adopt was really their own idea?"


"Perhaps some energy and prayers should be directed towards making contraception allowable. Obviously, the plan to make sex between two loving people within the bonds of matrimony clearly isn't working. Contraception would lower the dilemma women face when deciding on an abortion. Time to admit people are going to have sex (even despite gay marriage) and keep having babies... choose the lesser of two evils, contraception over abortion."


"All of our energies and prayers must be focused on programs like these. Campaigns directed at those who have traditionally killed their children are much more effective than attacking politicians who are constitutionally unable to overturn the Supreme Courts ruling on Roe v. Wade which has unfortunately stood for 40 years now.  Time to get over hating politicians and begin saving children."


I take great comfort in the first five comments, one of which is my own.  They seem to come from people who are well-versed in adoption realities.  The sixth comment seems to come from a true believer who is not so well versed in adoption truth.

Could it be that the times are slowly changing, and that people are starting to recognize that adoption itself is not the painless and problem-free antidote to abortion that some pro-lifers seem to think?  We can only hope so, and keep working for the adoption reforms that are so badly needed.


You might also like:

Adoptive Parents and Pro-lifers who Cannot or Will Not See the Realities of Adoption

Why is Honesty in Adoption Still a Controversial Subject?

Pro-Life Ideology and Adoptee Rights

Adoptee Rights and a Woman's Reproductive Choices

Are Adult Adoptees Worthy of Respect?

Unfortunately, adult adoptees in the United States are still not respected as autonomous human beings capable of making intelligent and appropriate choices.  If they were, how can we possibly explain the fact that in most states, adopted adults are still denied access to their own original birth certificates?

Amanda Woolston over at Declassified Adoptee has written a perceptive post on this issue here.  As she explains, opponents to adoptee rights usually frame their argument around three themes: boundary issues, in which the assumption is that adult adoptees cannot manage boundaries or relationships without supervision; secrecy issues, in which the assumption is the original parents are cowering in shame and must therefore be protected; and social issues, in which the assumption is abortions will go up if adoptees are allowed access to their true birth records.

The data disproves all these assumptions, yet they remain prevalent.  To be clear, what adult adoptees are asking for legislatively is the opportunity to secure their true and original birth certificates.  When adoptions are finalized in the United States, the child's original birth certificate is sealed away, and an amended one, listing the adoptive parents as the mother and father, is issued.

This bizarre and outdated practice was initiated during the shame-based era around the mid-twentieth century, and it was never intended to protect the anonymity of original parents -- surrender documents reveal that the intent, rather, was to protect the adopted child from the "shame of illegitimacy," and the adoptive family from "unwarranted interference or intrusion."  The assumption at that time was that the original mother would forget the child and move on with her life, and that the child would forget that she ever had other parents.

Now, many years later, of course, we know better.  The data maintained by those states and countries that have restored adult adoptee access shows that the vast majority of original parents are not paralyzed by shame and are most often happy to hear from their surrendered offspring.  Meanwhile, scores of adoptees search for their original families every year in spite of the legal obstacles because they feel deeply that they are entitled as human beings to know their own personal history.  Whether the adopted adult elects to search or not, she should have the freedom to secure her own birth certificate, just like any other American citizen.  Denying her that right is so discriminatory that it amazes me that it continues to be an accepted practice.

What is the justification for denying the adult adoptee equal rights?  As Amanda points out, it is rooted in a negative view of the adoptee and often the original parents as well.  Some legislators infer that adoptees are "stalkers" who cannot be trusted to respond appropriately, should they use their true birth certificate to search, and should they encounter a negative response.  I  find this viewpoint particularly insulting, since my original mother was one of the few who was not open to a personal meeting.  We had a helpful phone conversation, and that was the end of our contact.  Neither of us was harmed, and we handled our private past -- which we co-own -- like the adults we both are.

Other legislators assume that original parents are so overwhelmed by shame that adult adoptees cannot possibly be allowed to know who they are.  First of all, this scenario ignores the fact that many adoptees find their original families every year -- an estimated 40 percent of them received some identifying information in their adoption decrees.  The idea of guaranteed anonymity for the birth family is truly a myth.

Secondly, this shame-based view treats neither the adult adoptee nor the original parent with any respect.  The assumption is that the adoptee is likely to tread into a place where she is not wanted, and that the original parent will not be able to handle the shock of hearing from her relinquished offspring.  Never mind the fact that legally, courts throughout the United States have always had the right to open adoptee birth records "for good cause." (at the adoptee's time and expense, of course)  Meanwhile, reunion stories in the media have become so commonplace that it boggles the mind to think that any original parent could ever be totally shocked to receive a call or letter.

The assumption that abortions will increase should the adult adoptee be granted access to her true birth record may be the most difficult assumption to refute, even though statistics show that there is no relation between abortion rates and adult adoptee access.  As Amanda points out in her post, adoptees are punished because we cannot figure out as a society how to address women's health issues.  The civil right of the adult adoptee to know her own personal history must take a back seat to the ongoing debates about abortion and women's reproductive choices.

As an adult adoptee, I personally resent being held hostage to this ongoing debate about women's health concerns.  My rights as a human being should not be compromised because of the social views of a minority of citizens.  Human rights are human rights.  Every human being has a right to her own identity and her own genetic make-up.  In what other area of life do we deny a population equal rights to support an ideological argument?

If adoptees and original parents were truly respected, they would be treated like the adults they are -- capable of managing their own personal affairs without agency or state interference.  The argument over adoptee rights, as Amanda points out, would then take on a totally different framework.

Instead of saying or thinking, "Adoptees are likely to have a dreadful effect on an original parent's life," we would say, "Adult adoptees should have the opportunity to have positive relationships with their original families."

Instead of saying, "We must maintain a system of secrecy and lies so that adoption remains a viable option," we would say, "Adult adoptees can often be an asset to their original families, and the truth may very well allow all parties a sense of closure."

Instead of saying, "A woman must be allowed to remain a lifetime secret to her own child," we would say, "This child and every child is worthy of respect and equal treatment under the law, so it is imperative that we address the unjust social policies now in place."

As an adult adoptee, I respect myself.   But unfortunately, my state's laws don't respect me.



 You might also like:

Adoptee Rights and a Woman's Reproductive Choices

Sealed Records Are Wrong. Period.

Why I Oppose Confidential Intermediaries

Pro-life Ideology and Adoptee Rights