Ethics in domestic infant adoption, Page 2

Strawberry milk

Kids may lose their taste for the sweetness their childhood imposes. Adoring parents, always grateful for the circumstances that brought their little darling to them, may be loved and treasured, but never quite the perfect fit.

Blood links can be missed and … especially in cases where the birth parents are not a constant in a child’s life … questions, worries and doubts can niggle and niggle, and eventually cause a painful wound.

Bittersweet
For as much as adoption is gain, it is also loss. Adoptive parents may choose adoption after years of disappointment. Birth parents leave hospitals empty-handed. Adopted children are minus a genetic connection to their mom and dad.

It may seem an unlikely, perhaps even impossible, mixture, but the bitterness of loss and the sweetness of gain can and do combine. The trick is to keep the proportions right, to never substitute too much of one for another, and to be sure everyone is invited to the table.

Coercion
The bottom line on ethics in US domestic infant adoption is written under one word: coercion.

Coercion of potential birth mothers comes in different forms, but all serve to undermine a expecting mom’s right to make the correct choice for her and her child, and blur the line between what is right and what is wrong about adoption.

Piling it on…
Pressure tactics are probably the most obvious and insidious methods used to convince a pregnant woman that relinquishing her child at birth is the way to go.

Family members, sometimes well meaning but taking the short view, can be the first to start piling on weight after heavy weight of guilt, fear and diminishing expectations, as they postulate a doom and gloom scenario of the future.

It’s not unusual for parents to arrange everything from abortions to homes for unwed mothers to adoption by friends or relatives, without even consulting the expectant mother. By the time she’s informed, other parties can consider whatever action has been thought best a fait accompli.

If a situation is presented as hopeless, often hope isn’t looked for, and if the embers of fear are fanned into full-blown flames at the same time, even relatively simple options can disappear – go up in smoke.

A woman worried about finding a roof over her head will have a hard time imagining a safe and cozy environment for her baby, and if ultimatums have been attached to all threads of security, she won’t have much to hang on to.

Pressure can also come from agencies, facilitators, and even from hopeful adoptive parents.

Couples disappointed by years of unwanted childlessness are perhaps not aware that their generosity and/or their intense desire for a baby can easily be interpreted by a stressed out pregnant woman as a one-way road to relinquishment that allows no u-turns.

Ethica, an organization dedicated to ethical adoption practices, has the following concerns relating to financial assistance from potential adoptive parents to expecting women considering an adoption plan:

“Monetary support of the prospective birthparent before the birth by prospective adoptive parents. This can pose a problem on three fronts:

The prospective birthparent may feel obligated or subtly coerced to place the child for adoption.

The prospective adoptive parents may feel entitled to adopt that particular child and, if they are responsible for fees that will not be reimbursed if the prospective birth parent decides to parent, they may have already spent available funds and be unable to adopt.

The child who is later adopted may perceive that he or she was “bought” or that the birthparent was subtly coerced.”

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Credits: Sandra Hanks Benoiton