ADOPTED, NOT ABORTED
by Maria Penkal
"Adoption, not abortion" is a sign often seen at abortuary
pickets. Do we, as prolifers, understand adoption? Are we aware
of all that pro-abortionists are doing to undermine the
institution of adoption?
In its most simplistic sense, adoption is the process whereby a
couple (or single person) agree to take and raise a child who is
not their biological child, and become the legal parents of that
child. Another way of putting it, as a U.S. government
publication states, is that adoption "is a process through which
parental ties between biological parents and child are severed
and a new family unit is created."
LOVE VS. VIOLENCE
Adoption is the antithesis of abortion. Both an adopted child
and an aborted child are, supposedly, unwanted or inconvenient.
The difference is that in adoption the solution offered to deal
with the unplanned child is one based on love; abortion is based
on violence.
Despite the positive aspects of adoption as a solution to the
unplanned pregnancy, the solution of adoption is rarely seen or
offered as an option. Witness this: for a sample year of 1982,
the Centers for Disease Control reported that there were
1,303,980 abortions during the various stages of pregnancy.
During that same year, the National Committee for Adoption tells
us that there were only 17,202 adoptions of healthy infants.
With less than 1 percent of abortions owing to fetal defects,
there is a gamut of other "reasons" for adoption to have a
prominent place as a positive solution to an untimely pregnancy.
Unfortunately, there is a bias against adoption. The main line
of anti-adoption thinking is brought to us courtesy of the
pro-aborts. Kristin Luker, in her book ABORTION AND THE POLITICS
OF MOTHERHOOD, states that "having a baby and giving it up for
adoption, as pro-life people advocate, is not seen by most
pro-choice people as a moral solution to the abortion problem.
To transform a [fetus] into a baby and then send it out into a
world where the parents can have no assurance that it will be
well-loved and cared for is, for pro-choice people, the height of
moral irresponsibility." That rationale certainly explains why
Kate Michelman of NARAL [National Abortion Rights Action League]
proclaims the abortion of her fourth, and most inconvenient,
child as the most "moral" decision she has ever made!
Norma McCorvey, alias Jane Roe of ROE V. WADE, whose legal
victory came too late to facilitate an abortion for her, has
searched for the child she relinquished for adoption. According
to the June 20 article in the NATIONAL ENQUIRER, her 19-year-old
biological daughter was located. (Allegedly, she is pro-life,
but prefers not to reveal her identity.) One can only imagine
how devastated that child was when she discovered not only that
her mother wanted to abort her, but that some 20 years later she
is still sorry she didn't have the choice to abort her. McCorvey
stated in a NEW YORK TIMES interview that just as it was her
right to abort her child, it was also her right to search for
her. As Olivia Gans, director of American Victims of Abortion so
poignantly put it, "I can never search for my child. My child is
dead." Ms. Gans can thank "Jane Roe," her lawyers and her many
feminist supporters for that state of affairs. True choice would
have meant that Ms. Gans would have been given information about
adoption. But, as we can see, information about adoption is in
short supply in the abortion industry.
In a Planned Parenthood newsletter, a column written by the
editor stated that "in our childbirth preparation classes, there
have only been two instances in which the babies were put up for
adoption." This is hardly surprising! There's plenty of money
to be made for their organization via abortion, but none for
adoption. The editor goes on to say: "In fact, it is adoption
which is now often perceived as cruel and unnatural." One can
safely assume that the editor of the newsletter feels that
abortion is the "natural" solution for a young woman in a crisis
pregnancy.
TWISTED LOGIC
Feminist psychotherapist and pro-abortionist Phyllis Chesler
believes that most adoptions are entered into under duress and
most should therefore be considered illegal. (Chesler ignores
the fact that most abortions are entered into under duress. The
only difference is that with adoption there is a live child; with
abortion there is a dead child that doesn't have to be dealt with
anymore.) Chesler states in her book SACRED BOND: THE LEGACY OF
BABY M (where she takes on not just the subject of surrogate
motherhood, but adoption as well) that "a child's own birth
mother is meant for that child; [and] that premature physical
separation from that mother ... will cause trauma and injury that
should be avoided." Interestingly, but not surprisingly,
Chesler's dreaded "premature physical separation" applies only to
the issue of adoption, but not to abortion. Such is the twisted
logic of feminists, who feel that their sacred bond to the
children they conceive entitles them to murder their children
before they are born.
Chesler feels adopters are immediately suspect in their motives
to seek adoption of a child because it is THEIR need to have a
child that is their catalyst to search for an adoptable child (a
formidable task these days). That logic is as bizarre as stating
that the motives of pregnant women who eat are suspect, because
it is their search for the food that nourishes both them and
their babies. The feminists have taken a solution to the problem
of abortion and twisted it into a problem! Interestingly,
Chesler calls for an end to surrogacy as a "safe, sure,
respectable industry." Her criticism of surrogacy would be a lot
easier to swallow were she not among the many women who call for
the continuation of abortion as a "safe, sure respectable
industry."
GOOD NEWS IS NO NEWS
Contrary to the popularly held feminist belief, happy adoptive
placements do abound. We just never hear about them, because
they don't make "good copy." Rather we hear about
pseudo-adoptions, such as Baby M's, child-abuse adoptions (such
as Lisa Steinberg, who was not even legally adopted) and the
local axe-murderer who kills his adoptive parents. We never hear
about women who come back to their social worker a year or two
after placement of their children "to let me see how well she is
doing, that her self-worth is intact, and that she is becoming
self-fulfilled," as a social worker for Children's Home Society
so wonderfully put it. We never hear about happy, healthy,
well-adjusted adoptees, making their way through life, simply
glad to have had their chance at life. We know better than
anyone the precariousness of life in an era where no child is
safe, particularly in his mother's womb. I know whereof I speak,
for I am an adoptee.
I was conceived, carried and born an unwanted child. Unwanted by
my birth parents, that is, but very much wanted by my adoptive
parents (I didn't know that I should have experienced trauma and
injury until Phyllis Chesler told me so!). I was lucky to have
made my appearance in the year 1955, long before the travesty of
ROE V. WADE took its toll on 25 million others like me. It tends
to cut one to the quick to realize that there are so many people
out in the world who believe it would have been "more merciful"
had I never been born. If I had been conceived in the 1970's
instead of the 1950's, I might have been just one of the many
sacrificial lambs offered up in the name of reproductive freedom.
I, for one, can say wholly and without reservation, that I am
glad that I was adopted and not aborted.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Maria Penkal is a homemaker and freelance writer living in Lake
Worth, Florida, with her husband and two children. This article
copied by permission from the November/December 1989 issue of ALL
About Issues, copyright 1989 American Life League, P.O. Box 1350
Stafford, VA 22554. American Life League gives permission for
reproduction of this article providing that all of the above
information is stated, and a copy of the publication is sent to
the above address.
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