AUTHOR: M. DATE: 3:02:00 PM ----- BODY:

This issue has been cooking in my head for quite a while, and by draft number 8,000 I think maybe it's time to get this baby onto the screen and get some input. I've been thinking about coercion and adoption. And of course there have been some great posts out there about this recently. I've been thinking about what it means to set out to become an adoptive parent when you have no reason to think you can't have a baby biologically, and what it means to choose an agency adoption over a foster care adoption, and how people choose between adoption and termination or infertility treatment and adoption. I'm much more confused than I was when we started. Here's where I'm coming from: I'm pro-choice. The pro-choice movement even paid my salary for a handful of years. "Pro-choice" tends be a euphemism for abortion rights, and I won't pretend that that's not important to me. But it has always includes way more than that for me, and recently my definition has expanded even further. I spent a bunch of years involved with this amazing organization, which works to make sure that no woman has to decide to continue a pregnancy that she'd rather terminate because she's lacking a few hundred dollars or a ride to a doctor who will honor her decision. The aspects of coercion were clear from many perspectives: women who were coerced by a lack of support from our culture into having a baby they didn't want or couldn't support. Women who made a decision to terminate instead of to parent because they were told they were too young/too poor/too unstable/too whatever to be competent parents. And, of course, women who genuinely didn't want to parent but never heard anyone discuss making an adoption plan as a real viable alternative. I didn't come to my decision to adopt because of my politics, but for me it fits beautifully. So many adoptive parents and birth parents have rightfully chafed at people's tendency to assume that adoptive parents are unselfish, giving people providing a home and a loving family to a baby in need. I don't think I even need to bother getting into that one: it's been pretty thoroughly deconstructed already. But I will say: we want a kid, and a kid somewhere wants us. And, since Isadora and I have not a single sperm-producing organ between us, we'd have to work pretty hard to get pregnant anyway. Adoption makes sense. When we decided to move forward with our adoption plans, we looked into both agency and foster care adoption. International adoption is out for us, because we're queer and, well, the stupid homophobic INS says no. (As an aside: don't tell us we could have lied, and that many people have done it successfully. We know they have, and more power to them. But we were unwilling to lie our way through our home study. And, we're legally married - having a legal document that says you're gay can sure fuck up an adoption application that says you're single, even if the federal government still tries to tell us we're single. Nice double standard, right? But THAT is a post for another day.) Foster care adoption has its' obvious advantages. But, though I hate to admit it, I can't get over my bias about the system. In my professional capacity I've trained a whole bunch of foster care workers, and, though there are many incredible people working in the system, I see the lack of support and the insane priorities in the system that lead to kids languishing in foster care while potential adoptive families wait and wait and wait and are in some cases outright abused by the system (especially same-sex couples... but I'm trying not to go there today). I just felt like the first time out, I couldn't do it. That decision was all about me (Isadora may have decided differently on her own, but supported me in this). I wish I could have gotten past it, but there it was. So: agency domestic adoption it is. And as I was mulling through all of this, Dawn posted this the other day about the politics of it:

Ideally domestic infant adoption is not about bringing children to wannabe parents or even giving families to children; ideally domestic infant adoption through agencies or lawyers is about giving women choices when faced with a crisis pregnancy.

But a few months back, Amber wrote something that stuck with me about her plan to adopt a child from China :

...when you are adopting by choice as we are, it is a fine line to walk: offering a family to a child who needs one but benefiting from the very system that most likely caused them to lose their family in the first place.

It's hard for me to resolve these two things, which both feel so true for me. I don't agree with the people out there who say that, since so many adoptions are unethical, adoption should not be permitted. I believe that, since so many adoptions are unethical, it's up to people involved in the system (birth parents, adoptive parents, adoptees, adoption workers, and lawmakers) to support only the most ethical systems. I think that's part of what Dawn was getting at. But it also starts so much earlier than that - with how we look at and treat teen parents, with what we're teaching our kids about sex and sexuality in school, with the support (or lack of support) offered to people living in poverty, with the lack of funded childcare, and so much more. Are my socialist roots showing? Despite all the talk in both the pro-choice and pro-life movements about the need for finding common ground, the blogosphere (oooh, I hate that word!) is one of the first places I've truly felt like there's genuine respect and a willingness to listen and learn from each other on these issues. So maybe I am walking into a hornet's nest, but I really want to hear what people have to say. I value the opinions of so many of you out there who have struggled with difficult questions about pregnancy and parenting. Don't flame me for asking, okay? Trolls are not welcome, but dissenting opinions are. Please do toss in your two (or ten) cents.

-------- COMMENT-AUTHOR:

HeatherRainbow COMMENT-DATE:8:33 PM COMMENT-BODY:Hi. I am a mom, and I lost my daughter to adoption. I am opening my mind, and realizing that not all adoptions are done with bad intentions (big step for me).

I was talking to a friend of mine who is infertile, and she and I come from two different perspectives that you may be able to have some insights from.

Ok, so, I am a white poor woman, and it was actually my doctor who drugged me up to the point that I had no idea what I was signing.

My friend, Wendy, is half Columbian, and half Caucasian. She is considering adopting from Columbia. She had had an abortion, and since then hasn't been able to conceive. (I also haven't been able to 'stay' pregnant since I lost my daughter).

Two things we discovered through our discussions: It seems that society tries to coerce women of color to abort, and white women to have adoptions. Now, this isn't always the case, but we've done some research that leads us both to think this way.

Now, that being said, Wendy was talking about the orphanages in Columbia, and how there are a ton of kids who don't have families. Of course, it's because of things like Plan Columbia which kills people,etc.

Now, while I would have liked to say that she shouldn't adopt a kid from Columbia because she'd only be supporting Plan Columbia, that would hurt the kids, esp since I know Wendy would allow them to have a relationship with their roots in Columbia. So, I am trying to understand.

So, one thing that I wonder if you'd consider, (because most of the time this isn't possible for moms considering adoption) to hire a lawyer for the mom, so she has rights as well? That would show a number of things, a) you respect this person, b) you intend to be honest, c) make her secure in the decision process d) empower everyone involved.

(I'd also suggest doing a lawyer over an agency for a number of reasons).

I hope this isn't too... flamish and is helpful to you. -------- COMMENT-AUTHOR:

M. COMMENT-DATE:9:33 PM COMMENT-BODY:Hi Heather, your comment doesn't feel flamish to me at all. I'm looking forward to reading your blog. We purposely chose agency adoption over lawyer-facilitated adoption with the idea (maybe wrong) that an agency would provide better counseling and support for whatever a woman chose to do. So I'm really interested to hear about why you feel like a lawyer-facilitated adoption would be more ethical - I haven't heard anyone say this before. -------- COMMENT-AUTHOR:

HeatherRainbow COMMENT-DATE:9:10 AM COMMENT-BODY:Hi Marisa,

The reason I think lawyers are a good idea (and I mean a lawyer for both the adopting couple & the mom considering adoption, to have a separate lawyer) is because, esp in making a contract, both lawyers are on the side of the person they represent. They will tell that person all the laws, etc, what their rights are in said state, (maybe even what services are available?) and make the contract reflect what each party agrees to. This sounds the closest thing to fair that I can think of at this time. A lawyer will make money, irregardless of whether a child is placed, so the exchange doesn't directly equal paycheck.

Agencies, on the other hand, exist to make money from the exchange of babies. It's a sad fact, but if no one ever ended up adopting through the said agency, the agency would never make money to sustain itself. Therefore, they will have a special interest in making sure the women considering adoption goes as much down that path as possible. Also, all counseling will be geared towards 'do what's best for the child - adoption', since typically the counseling and agency are hand in hand.

This is a little off topic, but also, I am really concerned about the idea that all women who are infertile or for whatever reason are adopting, are strongly encouraged by society to be mothers. Why is this? I believe it is because in America, women simply don't have the same equality as men, and so we need approval, and being a mother gives us that approval / value. Counseling and adoption agencies aren't going to look at whether a couple really wants to adopt for the right reasons, because it is simply the profit motive to have demand (adoptive parents) and supply (birthmoms).

Peace. -------- COMMENT-AUTHOR:

susan COMMENT-DATE:10:21 AM COMMENT-BODY:Marisa, I've had a post bubbling in my head on some related topics for a while. Like you, we decided that adoption was our choice for how to add a child to our family (I love the way you put it about the lack of a sperm-producing organ!). We don't live in a state where we can legally marry, and we chose international adoption, sifting programs and agencies until we found one where we felt comfortable as a family--we didn't want to lie in any of our materials or discussions, although it is always complicated to figure out how to fit our not-legally-recognized-family into legally-recognized-check-boxes. That's another topic.

The more I think about adoption, the more complicated the ethics of it all seem. And the bigger the issues seem. I end up thinking about long-term vs. short-term solutions: whether we adopted Curious Girl or not, the situation of children in her birth country wouldn't have changed. The choices available (or not) to her birth mother wouldn't have changed. We made our choices about how to bring a child into our life in a moment: we wanted to be parents, and we knew there were children in the world who needed parents. CG's mother had relinquished her rights. We were matched. And all our lives are different than they would have been otherwise--better in some respects, worse in others. It doesn't pay to think about better/worse, really. They're just different.

But in the long term, I feel a responsibility to work (politically, charitably) to improve the situation in her country to the extent I can. We look to support programs that help children in orphanages; we look to support economic policies that will enable more parts of the world to stablize. Those are broad and idealistic things, but maybe someday, things will change enough that her country and others won't need to be open to international adoption b/c they'll be better able to take care of their own children. That will be a happy day. -------- COMMENT-AUTHOR:

LilySea COMMENT-DATE:1:49 AM COMMENT-BODY:I mostly want to say that your thinking is an awful lot like mine on this topic.

As for agencies--they are not all out to make money. Ours is nonprofit (the only kind that should be allowed, if you ask me) and they exist to prevent Black children from entering the foster system in the first place (where, as you pointed out, so many get stuck).
That's their M.O.

They don't coerce birth mothers. But they do offer a lot of counselling and strongly encourage as much openness as possible. The openness agreements aren't legally enforceable no matter what (in our state and most others). That's another way I'd change the laws. I'd make them legal contracts.

I think race is a factor often left out of the discussion about birth mothers. I think most birth mothers of color simply don't have access to these conversations and aren't well represented.

But Heatherrainbow's point about white women being encouraged to relinquish and women of color being encouraged to abort (or being steralized, and given birth control against their will) is true, true, true. I am reading a book that talks about that right now, in fact.

Anyway, great post. Good thoughts. We can't legally marry, but didn't want to lie if we didn't have to and since we live in a safe state to adopt, we didn't have to. (Plus we hope to legally marry one of these days.) -------- COMMENT-AUTHOR:

Anonymous COMMENT-DATE:8:30 PM COMMENT-BODY:Just a quick FYI, it is a big misperception that a nonprofit cant make a profit. It CAN. It just can't give that profit to shareholders or individual owners. LOTS of really wealthy organizations are nonprofit (ex. Universities, big foundations, etc.)

I am not saying that for-profit agencies aren't totally icky, they are, but don't believe that just because an agency is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that it is necessarily better. Also, if you are looking at ANY nonprofit whose income is over $20,000 a year, their financial reports (form 990) is public record. You can find a lot of them at guidestar.org.

I have been kicking around some thoughts about adoption lately but can't seem to get them into a coherent post. Maybe when this cold clears I can add to your discussion. Sorry to go so far off topic. --------