With scarcely a voice raised in protest, adoption in America has become the Silent Solution. In the last 20 years we’ve witnessed a remarkable statistical turnaround: then 85 to 90 percent of all unwed mothers placed their babies for adoption; now 85 to 90 percent of unmarried teens who give birth choose to keep their babies. Whereas adoption has become the exception to the rule, abortion or “keeping” are standard practice.
We hear of couples eager to have children who must look to foreign countries to adopt babies. Others resort to black markets; many have been painfully exploited by scams, frustrations, and broken promises. Still others place their hope in experimental and often unsuccessful fertilization or surrogate programs. Adoption agencies now advise prospective parents of the number of years which they must wait and the stringent requirements to which they must submit — all due to the limited supply of healthy infants. Long gone are the days when an agency suggested a couple “take two” in order that more little ones have an opportunity for a permanent family.
The primary reason for this dramatic change, of course, is the legalization and convenience of abortion. The unborn child, as a member of the human family with needs, is overshadowed by the mother and her wishes and rights. With almost two million babies being aborted each year, the shortage of infants available for adoption is hardly surprising.
Evidence revealed at recent congressional hearings on the “Barriers to Adopting,” however, suggests that the radical change in U.S. adoption practices occurred not so much because of the negative attitude of the unwed pregnant mother, but because of the purposeful denial of adoption information and/or inadequate counseling.
JoAnn Gasper, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Education for Population Affairs, testified before the Congressional Coalition on Adoption that under guidelines for Title X Family Planning programs — which will receive $142.5 million this year alone ‘adoption counseling is mandated only [my emphasis] when a woman with an unintended pregnancy asks for information on her options.” In that case, Gasper stated, “the guidelines require the counselor to provide non-directive counseling on various options, including adoption.”
In addition, Gasper cited a study done by Dr. Edmund V. Mech, entitled “Orientations of Pregnancy Counselors Toward Adoption,” which probed the counseling attitudes and methods of professionals who counseled 16,565 preg¬nant teens. According to the National Committee for Adoption (NCFA), a Washington-based adoption advocacy organization, the Mech findings will “have serious implications for policymakers in the United States concerned about the effects of teenage childbearing and the declining numbers of young women planning adoption.” According to the Mech Study: “About 50 percent of the 16,565 pregnant women counseled chose to terminate the pregnancy, and 4 percent made an adoption plan. However, for the teens who carried their child to term … 92 percent chose to parent, and 8 percent made an adoption plan.”
Think about it. Only 4 percent of those counseled even considered adoption for their baby. Obviously, there is a very negative perception regarding adoption.
The Mech Study exposes, for the first time, some of the sources of this anti-adoption mindset. The research revealed that “while a majority of counselors expressed positive attitudes toward adoption as an alternative to parenting” (47 percent stated that adoption was their personal preference), adopting actually ranked last or was non-existent in the solutions these same professionals presented to their young clients. The reasons:
- “Few counselors believe pregnant teens want information about adoption.”
- “The accuracy of counselor information about adoption was only about 60 percent. Approximately 40 percent displayed an insufficient and inadequate knowledge of the subject.
- “Only about half (53 percent) of the agencies reported setting any special qualifications for pregnancy counseling. Health facilities in particular were more likely to lack special requirements for counselors, especially those agencies with a high client to counselor ratio (100:1).”
- “Nearly 40 percent of the counseling available to pregnant teens fails to include the adoption option.”
- “Wide variation was noted in agency views regarding who is qualified to be a pregnancy counselor, land regarding] the educational and personal ingredients necessary for counseling, along with policies on offering equal information on all options.
In other words, adoption is never even mentioned in many cases (some 60 percent). Where it is suggested as an alternative by a pregnancy consultant, the information given may be insufficient or inaccurate. To some pregnancy advisers, then, “freedom of choice” is just an empty promise.
We can only surmise how many children would be alive today had their distressed mothers been given a positive and supportive presentation of the adoption alternative.
It comes as no great shock that adoption is not promoted by Planned Parenthood and other groups that comprise the abortion establishment. After all, abortion and contraceptives seem to be their main business. They leave it to social welfare departments or adoption agencies to discuss the options of adoption or single parenting. They offer no pre-natal classes or adoption support programs which might support their claim of “neutrality” on the alternatives available to a pregnant and panicky teen or troubled mother. In fact, most people in the clientele they pursue are unmarried young people, and the message they convey is non-parenthood: NO FAMILY. A case in point is refusal of Planned Parenthood of Minnesota to carry or distribute an adoption brochure (the “Adoption Option”). Hardly surprising now that we learn that under Title X guidelines they are only required to offer this choice upon the client’s request for information.
From abortion providers we can expect pro-abortion counseling. However, when social welfare and adoption agencies themselves fail even to offer — much less promote — adoption, we should be outraged. Clearly, it is an abuse of authority for counselors not to present this choice when advising pregnant and vulnerable women. Those of us who contribute, either through taxes or charitable donations, to adoption agencies or social welfare programs have the right to insist that accurate adoption information be readily available and ungrudgingly proffered.
At present, our government virtually rewards the unwed mother who keeps her baby and chooses single parenting, while the one who makes an adoption plan for her child is in effect punished for her choice. After all, the woman who keeps her child can receive AFDC benefits as well as tax incentives for school and/or job training. The woman who chooses adoption is not only responsible for her own rehabilitation, education, and employment, but is in addition obliged to pay all the child’s foster care and any necessary medical costs until the time of placement with an adoptive family. Thus, for some girls their adoption choice means that they must pay foster or medical care costs long after their baby is born — each monthly time-payment reminding them of their painful separation and loss.
Lawmakers will be persuaded to change the laws and public policies in this country only when citizens demand such a change. Specifically, we can reverse a public policy which favors killing over caring only by putting an end to tax-financed abortion providers and an end to Title X funding of so-called Family Planning programs which perceive adoption as the least attractive alternative to “problem” pregnancies.
In addition, Catholics and other believers must become vocal in demanding some answers from religiously sponsored adoption agencies whose adoption rates differ little from those of institutions that are publically financed.
I am a product of a Catholic Charities adoption. I believe it very probable that I enjoyed the wonderful adoptive family I had, and that my birth mother was able to pursue her own future, because a Catholic Charities counselor refused to shrug her shoulders and ask “Well, what do you think?” when my mother sought advice and my future hung in the balance.
Not so long ago, those of us personally involved in the adoption decision were made to feel that this plan was “in the best interest of the child” and an act of unselfish love. That is what I was told as an adopted child and that is what I now tell my children. But unless we change our attitudes toward, and our policy on, adoption, we will continue to witness the anti-adoption mindset that now pervades America.
Nearly 20 million babies have lost their lives by abortion since the Supreme Court decision of 1973. Of those not aborted, less than 10 percent were placed for adoption.
The time is long overdue where not only the “silent scream” of abortion is no longer promoted, but when adoption is no longer the silent solution.