Pro-choice
advocates are taking exception to "Choose Life" license
plates because the opposing political viewpoint "Pro-Choice"
is being disallowed. But even from the pro-life standpoint, the
proceeds from these tags are being misspent.
Marion, IA (PRWEB) May 25, 2004 -- In Manatee County, Florida
county commissioners argued whether the funds raised from the
sale of "Choose Life" license plates could be used by
agencies that did not provide adoption services exclusively. The
issue was not that the agencies provided abortion services of
any kind but only that these agencies included services to help
mothers and families who want to keep their babies. The end result
of the discussions was that no funding was allocated to help keep
families together. The message to women who fear they may not
receive moral or other support as a mother is this: Get an abortion
or you may have to watch your own son or daughter being raised
by someone else.
The lifelong effects on adoptees and on mothers who have lost
their sons and daughters to adoption are known, but not well advertised.
Perhaps the most telling evidence of the suffering a family that
loses a child to adoption is that these families tend to keep
any subsequent children. According to statistics compiled on the
National Adoption Information Clearinghouse website, most of the
mothers whose children are adopted-out "… come from
intact families…which have not experienced teenage pregnancies
by other family members." (Stolley, 1993)
In her paper "Adoption and Loss: The Hidden Grief"
available on line, social worker Evelyn Burns Robinson compares
adoption grief to Kenneth Doka's concept of disenfranchised grief
which occurs when a loss is not recognized or socially supported:
"Doka says that people who have experienced any type of loss
often feel anger, guilt, sadness, depression, hopelessness and
numbness and that in cases of disenfranchised grief, these feelings
can persist for a very long time… mourners whose grief is
disenfranchised are by virtue of this cut off from social supports
and so have few opportunities to express and resolve their grief
and the result can be that they feel alienated from their community."
Robinson states: "Mothers who have lost children through
adoption … tend, in the main, to report that their sadness
and anger have increased with time."
Many people may not know that in adoption, loss is experienced
by the natural parents, the adopters and by the adoptee. In an
address for Catholic Charities USA's 1996 National Maternity and
Adoption Conference in San Antonio, Texas, Catholic Priest and
adoptee Rev. Thomas F. Brosnan discussed these losses and stated:
"In my biased opinion the greatest Loss is suffered by the
adopted person."
Don't children deserve a chance to remain with their mothers
and their natural families? Using the "child needs two married
parents" argument is a bit weak in this era. Couples divorce
and that certainly includes those who adopt, who frequently have
issues in their relationship related to their infertility problems.
At the same time unmarried mothers often marry within a few years
after their child is born, sometimes to their child's real father.
That's true whether the child is kept or adopted-out. Even if
they never marry, a child's mother and father are still his/her
mother and father. The kept child will have not only his/her own
mother, but will most likely have his/her father, grandparents
and plenty of other family to love him/her.
With people who are past retirement age and single people adopting,
who can blindly assert that children will be "better off"
with strangers than with their own family?
Some of the funds from the license plate sales are going towards
maternity homes, which the supporters call a "safe haven"
for women. Evidently a "safe haven" for women is a lot
like a cage for a chicken where the eggs all roll to the front
where they can be easily collected and neither the chicken nor
the egg gets a choice. Yes, there are maternity homes that promote
choices: The choices they provide are the selection of prospective
adopters from a listing of advertisements provided to a frightened
mother and possibly also to her child's father. Like most ads,
there's lots of sales pitch and very little reality involved.
Most other parents get more real information in advance about
a baby-sitter than these naïve parents are allowed to have
about someone who may become a permanent caregiver for their child.
A temporary situation can be overcome and should never become
an excuse for an agency or anyone else to jump in and take someone's
child. There is ample evidence that indicates a very high emotional
risk for mothers and their children separated by adoption.
I hope those who contribute to these license plates will discontinue
their support unless the money starts going towards something
other than separating family members to obtain babies. No one
owes his or her child to anyone.
Note
regarding "respectful" adoption language:
The terms
"unwed" mother, "birthparent", "biological" parent dehumanize
and make parents appear to be nothing but a source of babies for
adoption. Using the honest terms "mother", "single
parent" or "natural family" help the public to
understand why real family members must not be separated to obtain
babies.
What does the Bible say about "Choose Life" adoption-aid
license plates?
"THE WICKED SNATCH FATHERLESS CHILDREN FROM THEIR MOTHER'S
BREASTS, AND TAKE A POOR MAN'S BABY AS A PLEDGE BEFORE THEY WILL
LOAN HIM ANY MONEY OR GRAIN" --Job 24:9--
