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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