Adoption agencies around the country are reporting a rise of between 10 and 30% in pregnant women and new mothers inquiring about placing their infants with new families, since the recession began.
The story of one such woman, a single mother to three teens who found herself unexpectedly pregnant again with no support from her baby's father, is outlined in a report at USATODAY.com.
As an adoptive mother, I understand the joy of adoptive parents. As an advocate of reproductive choice, I believe strongly in ethical adoption as an option for women who need it and choose it freely from other options. But I am saddened by this rise in adoptions due to economic crisis.
When adoptions happen strictly because a mother can't afford--financially--to raise her baby, society has failed both mother and child. When the cost of food, shelter, clothing, healthcare and education can only be met by some, all families are devalued. The only solution to a mother's financial desperation should not be sending her child to live with wealthier parents. When that is the case, it suggests that only people with a certain income deserve or are capable of raising children.
I can already hear the protests that people without the means to support their children shouldn't have children in the first place. But even if I believed that (which I don't), pregnancy is not 100% preventable by any means at all. I include abstinence, because sex is not always a woman's choice.
But I simply don't believe that the care and raising of children ought to be an exclusively private enterprise. In fact, neither do those involved in adoption. Adoption is all about the communal care of children. It is about people outside a family working with that family--becoming additional family--for the support of children who need more than just their birth parents' support.
But adoption has enormous consequences for all parties involved--adopted people, first parents, adoptive parents--and should be a last resort option when other alternatives are exhausted. Mere inability to pay a hospital bill should not lead to adoption.
If I thought my children were with me just because their first mothers were too poor to raise them, I couldn't sleep at night. I've been poor in the past, myself. Poverty does not make a person unfit to be a parent. And circumstances change. My family could find itself in financial trouble in the future. I would hope that under those circumstances, I wouldn't be told my only option were giving my children to others.
Before we celebrate a rise in adoptions, we need to rethink what society could be doing to help original families stay together. Universal healthcare, quality public education, fair housing costs and other supports are a few modest proposals to get us started.
See also:
Adoption Tide Turns in Florida?
Pregnancy, Birth and HIV: The Good News
image: Brett T. Roseman, USA Today
