Reply to Liberty Lost podcast - the sickening religious underbelly of domestic infant adoption

Forum Index » Entertainment and Pop Culture

Reply to "Liberty Lost podcast - the sickening religious underbelly of domestic infant adoption"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]As an adoptive parent I think your comment about selling babies to the highest bidder is insulting. All situations are not the same. 
Having said that I agree with your overall post. Those homes were a disgrace and I had no idea they were still happening. The way right wing evangelicals treat other humans in the name of Christianity is horrific. [/quote]

I would be so interested in your perspective after you listen to the podcast, if you do that.  Did you adopt an infant domestically?  I know it’s really hard to frame your adoption as something that sounds as crass and commercial as buying a baby, and of course women aren’t allowed to sell their babies, but once an adoption agency procures an infant from its mother, how can you see it as anything but selling to the adoptive parent?  They aggressively market adoption to vulnerable pregnant women, have advocated for draconian laws in most states that give almost no time for women to change their minds about relinquishment once they have signed the papers (most egregiously in Utah where there is no revocation period whatsoever and mothers are pressure to relinquish immediately after delivery when most are still in pain medication), and the vast power imbalance between adopting and relinquishing parents means that the natural mother has almost zero recourse if she has been coerced or made to sign under duress because she would have to pay for legal counsel to challenge both the deep pocketed adoption company and the deep pocketed would-be adopters.  The idea that such a transaction is truly voluntary is almost always a myth.

That said, I don’t believe adopters are evil and I dearly love many friends who have grown their families through adoption.  One adopted from an orphanage in Ethiopia only to find 7 years later that her daughter was not actually an orphan at all and that her father always wanted her and fought to get her back after she was temporarily placed in care when he was ill.  Another adopted from a college student in an open adoption and has been deeply uncomfortable because she struggles to navigate the first mother’s ongoing pain and suffering of the loss of her son.  They never really deeply investigated how much the young mother truly freely chose adoption versus felt pressure led into it by family and her status as a college student, and now that she is successful and older, her grief at having made such a permanent decision to address a very temporary problem only worsens over time.  It’s very complicated because their son deeply loves both of his mothers.  I think if the adoption agency had been more truthful to both of them about what relinquishing mothers face and the true statistics about regret and the trauma of separation, they both might have made different choices.  (What I admire about her is that she has not turned away from her promise of an open adoption even though many other adopters would have restricted access to the first mother because her emotions are so complicated for all of them to navigate.  That may be the worst betrayal of all, the fact that so many mothers are promised open adoptions and don’t realize that that is not in any way legally binding and the adopters can cut off all contact at anytime, with no recourse for the first mother.  That happens to several of the young women in the podcast.)

I am sure you adopted with the best of intentions and would love to hear your perspective.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics