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Jennifer L
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I've wondered about this quite a bit. I do believe that coercion exists in domestic infant adoptions. But I also think that on this forum, sometimes the definition of coercion is so broad that it borders on absurd.
I have read questions/answers regarding the body language of the PAPs and adoption counselors, as to whether that can be grounds to prove cocercion in a court of law.
I mean seriously, if a pregnant woman is so fragile that someone crossing their arms is enough to coerce her into relinquishing her child, do you really think she's in any state to parent?
I think that a woman considering adoption needs to be educated on all their options. I do think that if a woman decides to place her child for adoption that she should have the right to choose the adoptive family for her child, based upon whatever criteria she deems important. I do not agree with a system where the government randomly assigns babies to families.
So, if a woman is aware that she does not have to make any decision until after the child is born, is fully informed on her rights to change her mind. fully informed on the fact that she doesn't HAVE to meet any PAPs, and yet still wants to meet a potiential adoptive family before birth, I think the rest of us should stand back and allow that to happen.
After all, we're trusting her to be a good parent, if that's what she chooses. Can't we trust her to make this decision, too? |
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Laurel J
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I don't think they are "helpless victims." They're autonomous human beings.
But I'll admit, I do wonder why anyone would CHOOSE to put herself through nine months of bonding with a growing life she plans not to raise. To break her own heart a little bit every day. I wouldn't choose that, and I don't know anyone who would. I'm sure there are often factors--poverty, family members, church, lack of support system, whatever--that heavily influence the choice.
Adoptions dropped sharply after the Pill became widely available and it became acceptable for single women to raise their own children. Once they were given a real choice, most women stopped "choosing" relinquishment. So yes, these women exist, but they are the vast minority. |
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DevonChaos
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What about those of us who had our children and chose to raise them? I wasn't a helpless victim! I didn't relinquish my child either.
Credit should be due when someone does the right thing. Coercing a young mother isn't something that should be applauded. The mothers need an advocate to help them read between the lines when they are searching for what direction to take with their pregnancies. There are so many people out there willing to tell women that if they aren't properly schooled or don't have enough money that it is best for the child for them to be taken from the "have nots" and given to the "haves". It's not right.
Some APs prey on women who are in a fragile state of mind. Agencies do the same thing. These women need someone to tell them the truth about all their options. Not lead them down a certain path because of their own $agenda$. Pre-birth planning, in my opinion, is not the best route to take. You never know how you are going to fell once you see and hold your baby. All the problems and worries that you had before might suddenly seem like nothing. Women should be left to ponder this on their own, rather than worrying about the couple or family who is taking their child. The pressure to not let them down might be enough to make an otherwise changed mind revert back to thinking that they now HAVE to give up the baby, since someone was already promised to them.
I think pre-birth matching is wrong. The expectations on both ends are just too much.
ETA: I'm sorry that I went off on a tangent...
My answer is that not all women are victims. I know that women out there make an educated choice in choosing adoption. I'm just hoping that more people stand up for those who aren't.
(sorry, on big time medicine right now... not making much sense...) |
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magic pointe shoes
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What you are asking is semantics. I'm having a tough time with attempting to clearly and simply state an answer here and it's not for a lack of answer.
While ordinarily I believe fully in a person owning their own choices and being of compatent mind to decide for themselves whether what they are choosing is a good choice or a poor choice, I also see the amount of history domestic infant relinquishment has done damage wise to the women who have to choose relinquishment.
What I personally believe is that women have within them the opportunity and ability to make their own choices, that at the same time society and the adoption industry exploits women in crisis. There really isn't informed consent, nor is there a whole of treating the expectant mother as mother of her child. It's a systematic attempt in small ways to efficiently stack the odds in favor of relinquishment, with no regard to the families involved both adoptive or expecting.
One can look at each way that the adoption system stacks the odds towards relinquishment and think that specific thing isn't terribly flawed, but when you add up all the small ways it turns into one big systematic attempt and that is wrong.
Sure I willingly said that adoption was what I wanted for my child. I also said that with no real information on what effects there were to my child nor my family let alone myself. That simple statement of that I was seriously considering adoption for my child was then exploited over and over again until ultimately my son was relinquished into another family's waiting arms... and it was done in a way that I felt grateful for many many years denying how wrongly I had been treated.
And to see that those same tactics are still used is infuriating. A willing victim is still a victim. |
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maybe
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The problem with pre-birth matching is that it is a deliberate, well-orchestrated tactic to keep mothers on the adoption track.
This technique is used to make sure the mother does not change her mind about the adoption. It is NOT an altruistic act on the behalf of the PAPs. It used to meet the needs of the PAPs (a baby), not to make sure the mother is making a well-informed decision.
Are there some mothers who did this and feel no remorse? I'm sure there are, but I suspect they are the smallest of minorities. Keep in mind that it may take many years for a mother to come to grips with how adoption has affected her life, so when you hear those women singing the praises of giving up a baby, take it with a grain of salt. Their grief will catch up with them eventually. |
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Heather B
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Of course they exist.
But there's no denying the industry markets and sells adoption to the desperate and the vulnerable in order to exploit their desparation and vulnerablility.
Again, not all APs prey on expectant mothers. But there's no denying some are just predatory! If you haven't seen or experienced that you must be blind. |
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Persnickety Snack
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You got your kid through pre-birth matching, right?
Gee. I wonder what your motivation is for asking this question. You're not going to see this from anyone else's point of view, why should we bother to explain it to you? You got what you wanted. Go be happy with your kid. And go congratulate her mother on her loving, selfless choice to give her kid away so that YOU could be happy.
Yeah. Adoption is just f***ing grand. |
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Kate
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I am an adoptee and my mother has always acknowledged my biological mother and father. Although not much information was known at the time my biological mother and father were amazing people for giving me the gift of life and I never saw them in a horrible light, more so in a loving light.
They are not all unplanned helpless victims. I was unplanned, but my biological mother was indeed not helpless. |
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grapesgum
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A pre-birth plan presumes that the mother will not want her baby after he/she is born. Just as prenuptial agreements presume the failure of a marriage, a pre-birth adoption plan, presumes the failure of the natural, very powerful mother-father-child bond at birth.
I do not believe that those natural mothers exist. They are created by adoption myths and adoption agency propaganda. |
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monkeykitty83
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Is she a helpless victim? No.
Is she in a vulnerable situation, though? Yes, and unfortunately it's the ideal time for people to either intentionally or unintentionally prey on her.
A mother can't legally make a decision final about adoption till after the baby is born. And from an emotional standpoint, she may feel a lot differently once she's given birth and sees her baby. At that point, she needs to be free to choose the option of parenting.
Pre-birth matching interferes with her ability to choose freely after the baby is born. She may feel indebted to the prospective adoptive parents, either financially or emotionally. She may fear letting them down or hurting them if she keeps her own baby, especially if she has become close to them and cares about their feelings. A woman shouldn't be put in a position where she has to struggle with feelings that she's letting someone down by parenting her baby.
Will all mothers who match pre-birth feel pressured into placing, when they wanted to parent? Of course not. But some will, and some is too many. Why even put people in that situation? A woman is free to place her child after she's given birth and recovered. There's no benefit to binding herself to a choice made before she's even given birth.
Pre-birth matching won't necessarily harm everyone, but it has enough POTENTIAL for harm to make me seriously question the practice. |
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Lisa Marie
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While doing genealogy on my family tree I found 5 women in my family that had a child out of wedlock. 4 of them were during the 1800's! Shocking, huh? Not really. Three of my great grandparents where alive at the time I discovered this. (we tend to marry young in my family) I went to them to ask how does this happen and how was it dealt with. All of them said the families made the best of the situation. There were no organizations or clinics to turn to. My grandma added that a stranger wouldn't know what was best for your child and didn't think it was wise to go to them. Some women married before the birth or shortly after, some lived with parents and raised the child together unless they later married and some gave the child to a relative to raise but remained part of the child's life.
None of my grandparents said there was any shame in having a baby before marriage until the 1950's. A little surprise maybe but no one would put you infront of a firing squad like they do today.
I like the options unwed mothers had during my grandparents day. I like that families stood by each other during hard times. I think we could learn something from them. Of course the adoption agencies and abortion clinics aren't going to tell you this 'cause it would be bad for business. |
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kitta
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Pre-birth matching is coercive. Period.
And I have received phone calls from pre-adopters who made no secret of the fact that they had been pre-birth "matched" and they wanted to make sure the relinquishment went through as planned.
Because I work in legislation, they assumed I was on their side. I work on the natural family side.
They asked me how they could ensure that the "birthmother" would sign the relinquishment papers. I told them they were asking me to break the law and they were breaking it too.
I am a natural mother who was illegally forced to surrender my son. The last thing I would do is participate in another mother's coercion.
There should be NO pre-birth matching. |
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sunny
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Are all people who are having their house foreclosed on helpless victims?
No, but there are people who get into trouble and have no where to turn.
I believe that the majority of people who give their children away to strangers have a shortage of capital, just like those who lose their houses. |
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Opedial
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i don't think the women are given their true options, and how can they make the biggest decision of their life before they have even met the child they are "giving" away.? |
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Independ"ant"
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Helpless victims? or more like girls/women in need of assistance.
No not all...just the ones that are considering adoption.
Why try to "normalize" the abnormal or unnatural.
Who would that really benefit.
As far as existing......sure they do but if you look beneath the propaganda of adoption you will see a root cause for it. Adoption isn't the solution. |
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cla ro
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i don't consider myself to be a victim.
i also didn't give up my child fo adoption.
in fact, i'm still single, i'm still a mother, but now i'm looking into adoptin another child.
i think there is a perception that it's easy for someone to give up a child. i don't think that's the case at all. i think it's very hard for most women, and i think those women who decide that they are no tthe best person to raise that child shoul dbe respected. that was a tought decdion to make.
also, i think that people who are in that situatio and choose to keep the child should be respected too.
i have heard alot of horror stories about people, usually teens, being pressured into adoption or at least considering adoption, having been made to feel that they won't be a good parent, and that they have nothing to offer. i think this is wrong.
i don't have a lot of money. never have. but we have a roof over our heads and enough food to eat and my daughter doesn't care if we don't have a nice car or designer clothes. those things dont' matter to her. |
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Santa's Lil' Helper
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They were all impregnated against their will by evil aliens who are supported by a secret government agency bent of taking kids away from moms. |
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yeahright
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Finally. Someone who gets what I am saying. Some of the women I've talked to who WANT to relinquish are incredibly sharp I know what I am doing kind of women. They see the pbm as maintaining more control and being able to make sure who they are chosing are the people they say they are in those darned silly birthmother letters that agencies make you write. They know they don't have to move forward. I don't like the victim term and I know the women I've talked to don't either.
Now the part I don't like is the agency part where they use the pre-birth match as a guilt trip on the natural mother. That is wrong. |
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Birthers are NOT mothers
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Absolutely. They go out and get pregnant but the rest of the world is supposed to bend over backwards and hemorrhage money and offer up everything we could possibly have to make their lives easier. Doesn't that seem right to you...they would return the favor right? ROTFLMAO!!!!! |
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cmc
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I agree. I think my daughter's mom made a thoughtful decision. We certainly didn't prey on her. It is very sad that some women are pressured and coerced, however that is not 100% of the cases. She had planned on adoption through out her pregnancy, but contacted us at the end (2 weeks before the birth). I was certainly prepared for her to change her mind, and realized it was her decision to make. |
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Proud
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I don't think I really understand what you are asking. Of course there's tons of credit given to women who give their child up for adoption. I can guarantee that the adoptive parents can begin to thank that woman enough for the gift that she is going to give them. How could there NOT be 'credit' given to the woman who gave the child life?
And does the "first mother" not exist? Um.... are you crazy? Of course she exists. If she didn't exist, then the child wouldn't exist. I mean, what does the "first mother" want? Does she want a big button that says, "I'm the first mother and you're not" and a big parade every Saturday? Sure, first mothers may not get the recognition they deserve in some (or dare I say most) cases, but it doesn't mean that anyone thinks they don't exist. It doesn't mean they've been forgotten.
**This site is a poor place to base opinions of adoptive parents or birth parents. Most things posted on this site are NOT how most adopted children, adoptive parents and birth parents feel about the whole process. There is generally a lot of bitterness and anger in this section that I have never seen or heard anywhere else. I've never known an adoptive parent in the real world (and I've known many) that has ever "preyed" on a biological parent. What goes on in this section is NOT how most people feel about the process of adoption. |
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gibberish
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Do you not think it is insulting to imply that all mothers who give up their babies are helpless???? I Do. I believe most are empowered strong and capable women. |
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Angelica A
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I don't think they are all helpless victims. Sometimes people use poor judgment and get pregnant or are careful and are that 1% when being careful doesn't work. I think it is great when women have the baby because everyone deserves a chance to live. A pre-birth adoption plan is a great option for many because there are so many couples that are unable to have a child. I think that more credit isn't given to them because people would rather talk about negative than positive things. That's why we hear more about bad things on the new than good things. I'm sure there are many women that decide to keep the baby to get the help that the government offer and play the victim. But I do think that credit should be given to the moms that keep their babies and make the most of it. The ones that work very hard to love and provide for their children and raise them to be good people. |
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Britney S
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email i have som info for u thatz_mzchante@yahoo.com |
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