Cassidy Peterson
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- Posted: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 06:02:03 +0000
This thread was originally written in 2010. Some of the sources I had at the time have been reduced to dead links since then. Wikipedia links have been added for general reference, not absolute truth.
tl;dr - Adoption only solves the issue of who raises the child once it's born, which is far from the only reason women get abortions.
Abortion is a touchy subject, and with good cause. Somebody's future is being determined with each choice. A popular suggestion as an alternative to abortion is giving the baby up for adoption. This is a noble and generous motion; unfortunately, it is not always relevant. Adoption is not the question of what to do with a child that has not been born; it is the question of what to do with a child that has been born. If the mother cannot be convinced to carry the child to term, or simply cannot carry the child to term at all, adoption becomes a moot point. Adoption is a feel-good alternative to abortion that does little to address the specific reasons a mother may choose to abort.
There are many reasons a mother may choose to abort that adoption cannot fix. Pregnancy and childbirth can put a serious financial strain on low-income women. Pregnancy can also lessen the mother’s ability to meet the demands of her job, or to work at all. The mother’s health is a major factor in bringing a healthy child into the world, and psychological complications are just as serious as physical ones. Sadly, one of the issues that adoption cannot solve in time to prevent an abortion is misinformation about foster care and the adoption system.
Pregnancy and childbirth are expensive. A healthy, regular birth can cost over five thousand dollars [March of Dimes, appx 2010]. Premature births or emergency procedures can near double that cost, and the child involved in an irregular birth will likely require emergency care, which will also cost money. For some people the birth alone may cost more money they make in a year, especially those who work minimum wage jobs with erratic hours, if they have a job at all. Giving the child up for adoption will prevent them from falling further into debt, but it will do nothing to alleviate the debt of bringing the child into the world. While this may seem a petty reason to have an abortion, the choice to spend a year or more in debt is not an easy one to make, and it can be hard to convince somebody to do this for a child they won’t be keeping.
Assuming the mother is employed, the pregnancy might change that. Hourly positions such as retail jobs in a mall do not offer paid maternity leave for their employees, and the closest some positions may have to maternity leave is hiring the mother back when she’s able to work again. There is no guarantee that this will happen, and many retail jobs require physical labor that a pregnant woman may be advised against for longer than the eight-week period granted under the Massachusetts Maternity Leave Act or similar non-discrimination acts. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 states that expectant mothers “must be given modified tasks, alternate assignments, disability leave, or leave without pay (depending on company policy),” but modified tasks or alternate assignments are not always a reasonable expectation of a small business or business outlet. If the expectant mother is the only one on shift in a retail environment, vital functions of the store’s upkeep and customer service may go unfulfilled, which is unacceptable of any employee. Pregnancy does not lessen the responsibility of an employee, but can significantly lessen their ability to perform the tasks required of them, weeks or months before the due date approaches. Retail is fickle, and a mother who has to leave her job in the fall may not find herself employed until the next holiday season. Laws against discrimination protect expectant mothers who are still capable of performing the tasks required of them; there is no law to protect employees who are outright incapable of doing their jobs, pregnant or not.
The mother’s health is also a concern when bringing a child into the world. There are many conditions — including psychological ones — that can impede a healthy pregnancy. There is even a phobia, tokophobia, which is a fear of pregnancy itself; while it often refers to the fear of becoming pregnant, in some women it is a fear of giving birth or being pregnant at all. To spend nine months continually and inescapably subjected to high-stress conditions is unhealthy for anyone; to have another living creature entirely dependent on that person means that they will suffer as their host suffers. While the fear of becoming pregnant is most likely to occur in women who are unready or unable to deal with a pregnancy or child, fear of birth or general pregnancy can still happen to women who are in fact willing to raise children, making adoption not only an unhelpful suggestion but a completely unrelated issue entirely. If tokophobia can be overcome, the child could very well be raised by their natural mother.
The health of mother and child are also significant factors in whether or not the child will survive long enough for adoption to be a valid option. Adoption simply cannot solve health complications that will kill a child in the womb or infancy, nor illnesses or treatments thereof that interfere with the mother’s capability of carrying to term successfully. A mother with a history of spontaneous miscarriage at five months will not find her situation improved by the suggestion to give up a child that survives.
Perhaps the most tragic reason that a mother may abort instead of giving a child up for adoption is misinformation about the adoption system. Presented with the question of adoption versus abortion in casual conversation, answers from the uninformed may range from “I don’t want my kids going to some filthy, overcrowded orphanage” to “child services will just place my child with a family that will abuse them” and/or “child services won’t do anything if my child is placed with an abusive family.” A seemingly pro-abortion/anti-Christian chain letter circulating the internet narrates the tale of an unwanted child witnessing her mother’s murder at the hands of her father and being sent into foster care, where her new parents attempt to brainwash her into accepting their religion and are unaware that their son sexually abuses her, until she presumably commits suicide; the letter ends with the girl announcing that she has a knife which “feels good” on her skin. The possibility of the child or her mother receiving help from any source is completely ignored, giving the impression that their treatment was inevitable. Tales of child abuse haunt newspaper columns and late-night television reports, and families who feel their children were taken from them wrongfully have no lack of complaints about the treatment they receive in foster care. The people who have no cause to complain, however, are ignored for that very reason. Without a motive to speak up, they aren’t heard, and so their contentment makes no mark on the public opinion of the circumstances that led them there.
Adoption is a wonderful alternative to raising an unwanted child, but in most cases it has little relevance to the question of whether that child will actually be born. Money and steady employment are sad but significant factors in the choice to abort, and giving the child up for adoption comes too late to prevent the consequences that stem from the pregnancy itself. A woman whose finances and employment are secure still needs to worry about hers and her child’s health. And, sadly, false notions about the adoption system lead to a chain of circular logic: misconceptions about the adoption system can only be overcome by giving the child up, but willingness to give the child up is hampered by misconceptions about the system.
And so, to summarize, adoption is a solution to "who will raise the child," not to "will/should the child be born."
tl;dr - Adoption only solves the issue of who raises the child once it's born, which is far from the only reason women get abortions.
Abortion is a touchy subject, and with good cause. Somebody's future is being determined with each choice. A popular suggestion as an alternative to abortion is giving the baby up for adoption. This is a noble and generous motion; unfortunately, it is not always relevant. Adoption is not the question of what to do with a child that has not been born; it is the question of what to do with a child that has been born. If the mother cannot be convinced to carry the child to term, or simply cannot carry the child to term at all, adoption becomes a moot point. Adoption is a feel-good alternative to abortion that does little to address the specific reasons a mother may choose to abort.
There are many reasons a mother may choose to abort that adoption cannot fix. Pregnancy and childbirth can put a serious financial strain on low-income women. Pregnancy can also lessen the mother’s ability to meet the demands of her job, or to work at all. The mother’s health is a major factor in bringing a healthy child into the world, and psychological complications are just as serious as physical ones. Sadly, one of the issues that adoption cannot solve in time to prevent an abortion is misinformation about foster care and the adoption system.
Pregnancy and childbirth are expensive. A healthy, regular birth can cost over five thousand dollars [March of Dimes, appx 2010]. Premature births or emergency procedures can near double that cost, and the child involved in an irregular birth will likely require emergency care, which will also cost money. For some people the birth alone may cost more money they make in a year, especially those who work minimum wage jobs with erratic hours, if they have a job at all. Giving the child up for adoption will prevent them from falling further into debt, but it will do nothing to alleviate the debt of bringing the child into the world. While this may seem a petty reason to have an abortion, the choice to spend a year or more in debt is not an easy one to make, and it can be hard to convince somebody to do this for a child they won’t be keeping.
Assuming the mother is employed, the pregnancy might change that. Hourly positions such as retail jobs in a mall do not offer paid maternity leave for their employees, and the closest some positions may have to maternity leave is hiring the mother back when she’s able to work again. There is no guarantee that this will happen, and many retail jobs require physical labor that a pregnant woman may be advised against for longer than the eight-week period granted under the Massachusetts Maternity Leave Act or similar non-discrimination acts. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 states that expectant mothers “must be given modified tasks, alternate assignments, disability leave, or leave without pay (depending on company policy),” but modified tasks or alternate assignments are not always a reasonable expectation of a small business or business outlet. If the expectant mother is the only one on shift in a retail environment, vital functions of the store’s upkeep and customer service may go unfulfilled, which is unacceptable of any employee. Pregnancy does not lessen the responsibility of an employee, but can significantly lessen their ability to perform the tasks required of them, weeks or months before the due date approaches. Retail is fickle, and a mother who has to leave her job in the fall may not find herself employed until the next holiday season. Laws against discrimination protect expectant mothers who are still capable of performing the tasks required of them; there is no law to protect employees who are outright incapable of doing their jobs, pregnant or not.
The mother’s health is also a concern when bringing a child into the world. There are many conditions — including psychological ones — that can impede a healthy pregnancy. There is even a phobia, tokophobia, which is a fear of pregnancy itself; while it often refers to the fear of becoming pregnant, in some women it is a fear of giving birth or being pregnant at all. To spend nine months continually and inescapably subjected to high-stress conditions is unhealthy for anyone; to have another living creature entirely dependent on that person means that they will suffer as their host suffers. While the fear of becoming pregnant is most likely to occur in women who are unready or unable to deal with a pregnancy or child, fear of birth or general pregnancy can still happen to women who are in fact willing to raise children, making adoption not only an unhelpful suggestion but a completely unrelated issue entirely. If tokophobia can be overcome, the child could very well be raised by their natural mother.
The health of mother and child are also significant factors in whether or not the child will survive long enough for adoption to be a valid option. Adoption simply cannot solve health complications that will kill a child in the womb or infancy, nor illnesses or treatments thereof that interfere with the mother’s capability of carrying to term successfully. A mother with a history of spontaneous miscarriage at five months will not find her situation improved by the suggestion to give up a child that survives.
Perhaps the most tragic reason that a mother may abort instead of giving a child up for adoption is misinformation about the adoption system. Presented with the question of adoption versus abortion in casual conversation, answers from the uninformed may range from “I don’t want my kids going to some filthy, overcrowded orphanage” to “child services will just place my child with a family that will abuse them” and/or “child services won’t do anything if my child is placed with an abusive family.” A seemingly pro-abortion/anti-Christian chain letter circulating the internet narrates the tale of an unwanted child witnessing her mother’s murder at the hands of her father and being sent into foster care, where her new parents attempt to brainwash her into accepting their religion and are unaware that their son sexually abuses her, until she presumably commits suicide; the letter ends with the girl announcing that she has a knife which “feels good” on her skin. The possibility of the child or her mother receiving help from any source is completely ignored, giving the impression that their treatment was inevitable. Tales of child abuse haunt newspaper columns and late-night television reports, and families who feel their children were taken from them wrongfully have no lack of complaints about the treatment they receive in foster care. The people who have no cause to complain, however, are ignored for that very reason. Without a motive to speak up, they aren’t heard, and so their contentment makes no mark on the public opinion of the circumstances that led them there.
Adoption is a wonderful alternative to raising an unwanted child, but in most cases it has little relevance to the question of whether that child will actually be born. Money and steady employment are sad but significant factors in the choice to abort, and giving the child up for adoption comes too late to prevent the consequences that stem from the pregnancy itself. A woman whose finances and employment are secure still needs to worry about hers and her child’s health. And, sadly, false notions about the adoption system lead to a chain of circular logic: misconceptions about the adoption system can only be overcome by giving the child up, but willingness to give the child up is hampered by misconceptions about the system.
And so, to summarize, adoption is a solution to "who will raise the child," not to "will/should the child be born."
