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"Abortion Rates affected by Adoption?" Response to a
Guestbook Question
A Reader Asked: "Even though people say that there are
alternatives to putting a child up for adoption/or abortion, these
alternatives are usually not widely spread, underfunded and sometimes
quite temporary. (with Republicans in the White House I don't
see that changing). IF adoption is made completely illegal don't
you surmise abortion rates to soar?" - Sheila
Dear Sheila,
I read your message on the BEBA guest book to adoptees and your
question: If adoption were made illegal, wouldn't the abortion
rates soar?
I think there's an important option you may not have considered.
If adoption were made illegal, then SOMETHING would have to be
done to enable mothers to care for their own babies. Women who
want abortions get them. Women who go to term with a baby are
women who value their baby and want to keep him, they don't have
a baby just to supply babies for adoption brokers and strangers
off the street.
Perhaps if you had not been coerced into getting an abortion you
might have gone to term with your baby. If you felt coerced into
the abortion, perhaps it's because you really wanted your baby.
It's like that with motherhood. We grow them for nine months inside
us, and we come to love them, even if we are unmarried, and even
if we are young and don't have any money. We love our babies.
We don't think of them as commodities to be sold or gifts to be
given to strangers. We want to raise our own babies.
If adoption were illegal, then society might begin thinking of
clever ways to help mothers keep their babies. It might dawn on
somebody that, instead of paying millions of dollars to foster
care, the dollars could be used to help mothers keep their babies.
You might protest that these mothers are low-life misfits who
don't deserve to keep their babies. But most of the babies that
are adopted are "desirable" babies -- the babies of
white, middle-class, college girls or potential college girls,
who were raised to be nice and accommodating -- and that's why
they got pressured into unsafe sex, or were raped, in the first
place. They don't deserve to have their babies taken away from
them.
And you didn't deserve to be coerced into having an abortion and
losing your first child. Just think about that. You, too, deserved
some help to keep your child.
Sincerely,
Bobbie W.
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