Dear Pro-Lifers: Let's Stop Romanticizing Adoption

Last week I trudged to the mailbox to discover a letter from our landlord. I knew what it was before opening it. Our family lives in a manufactured home. We own the house, but we rent the land upon which it rests. This letter was the annual rent increase notification.

I tore open the envelope to see how bad the damage was going to be and immediately rolled my eyes as I read the words: “Dear tenant. I am so excited to tell you that I have some GREAT news for you!” (Note the enthusiasm.) “I am delighted to inform you that this year your rent is ONLY going to increase by $15!”

It wasn’t the rate increase that irritated me. I already knew that was coming; I expected it. What got under my skin was the framing, which I found both condescending and manipulative. She was trying to puppeteer my response, and we all know how much I enjoy being controlled.

Of course it’s also true that my reaction was pretty hypocritical. I used to write a very similar every January for the YMCA when we increased the cost of membership dues, and I always felt a bit slimy doing it. I often wondered how people would respond if the letter I wrote said something like, “Your rate is going up so we can continue to finance our CEO’s golf habit” or “Your rate is going up because you chose to live on the left coast where we enact legislation that requires us to pay our 15-year-old kickball instructors more than you made your first year out of college.” But I digress…

The point is that the messaging is a bit insulting. It assumes the audience just isn’t that smart, and it communicates a somewhat poor understanding of what they actually deserve to hear.

We can inadvertently do this in a number of scenarios and life experiences, and in the pro-life community, I think this is especially prevalent when we respond to news of an unplanned pregnancy with well-intended sound bytes like, “If you don’t want the baby, just put it up for adoption.”

Guys, there is no “just” in this conversation.

Let’s replace the word “adoption” in that last sentence. Instead of saying, “Just put it up for adoption,” say “Just rip your flesh and blood (with whom you have chemically bonded over the last nine months and whose cries and needs you are literally hardwired to respond to) out of your arms and place her in the care of complete strangers.”

Limited research exists on the psychology of what makes women choose abortion over adoption, but what research does exist in this area suggests that these women view adoption as infinitely more painful than abortion. In abortion, they had to process a feeling of loss once. In adoption, they had to experience nine months of physical identity as a mother only to have that identity suddenly cut off and the emotional bond abruptly severed. In abortion, they can convince themselves to believe its a faceless blob. It’s easier to dissociate. Giving birth does not make that cognitive pathway available to them.

We don’t have to validate or agree with that mentality, we can categorize is at selfish or respond with reasonable whataboutism, but the fact of the matter is that our feelings about it are irrelevant. The truth is that this is how they felt and why they chose their course of action, and we would be foolish not to learn from the information these women are providing for us.

And here’s some additional unpopular truth: studies also indicate that babies given up for adoption experience a primal wound when the bond with their mothers is severed. This can manifest in a number of ways but is often most visible in the teen years as these children wrestle with issues of identity and abandonment. Hear me when I say this: Ripping a baby away from it's mother is ALWAYS traumatic. You can do what you can to reduce the harm, but it’s impossible to fully remove it.

I can feel some of your collective blood pressure rising as I type this. “But adoption so much better than abortion!” “But I was adopted, and I don’t feel traumatized.” “But sometimes adoption is necessary.” “But primal wounds are better than death blows.”

Also hear me give an emphatic “YES!” to all of the above.

Adoption can be a beautiful thing that seeks to mend the wound inflicted by the severing and offer children the love, support, and sense of belonging they so desperately need. I personally know an amazing family that has adopted a number of kids with unique medical needs. One of the precious little ones was abandoned at birth and left in a hospital for months with only the hospital staff to care for him. This family brought him in and loved him like their own. They’ve shown him he’s wanted and loved and that he has a purpose. This is adoption done right. Where would this little boy be without these selfless, loving people who opened their hearts and their home to him?

If you’re reading my words as a condemnation of adoption, you’re reading them wrong. I would encourage you not to allow your defensiveness to eclipse the truth that’s struggling to break through here.

And the truth is this: If we care about helping women and reducing/eliminating abortion and building a healthy, flourishing society, then I think we need to be incredibly measured and thoughtful in the way we talk about complicated issues. We need to understand the minds and hearts of the people we’re trying to reach. And if they tell us, “Adoption is really too painful for me to even think about,” then we need to think long and hard about this and respond accordingly.

Are we asking the right questions? Are we countering the right messaging? The abortion lobby’s message to women in crisis pregnancies is “Your life, career, and future will be ruined if you go through with this. It’s too hard. Just abort.” What’s our messaging? Are we telling these women they can do hard things? Are we telling them we’ll support them and that they won’t be alone? Or are we silently agreeing with the abortion lobby by subconsciously reiterating the “Yeah, it’s too hard for you- better give your baby away” message?

What if, instead of forking over $40k to adopt someone’s baby, you used that money to adopt the mom, to bring her into your home, to nurse her into health and surround her with family so that she could flourish and actually keep her baby?

That’s exactly what happened for me during my crisis pregnancy. My son turned 14 last month. He’s one of the greatest blessings I will know this side of heaven, and I cannot imagine life without him. I get to be his mom because good people helped me believe it was possible, and they brought me into their home until I could stand on my own two feet. How many countless women would have chosen that route if it had been available to them?

Are we willing to invest at this kind of depth? Where are the long term studies on the emotional health of women who gave their babies up for adoption? Do we even care to know? (And again, yes, I know abortion is worse in all these categories, but I don’t operate in false dichotomies. I can, and do, care about both.)

I know these are unpopular questions, and they always get me in a lot of trouble with people I care about, but someone needs to be asking them. There are countless threads of women who grieve the choice to give their babies up for adoption. I think we can learn from them. I think we should. We need to be thoughtful. We need to be measured. We need to understand what motivates the people we are trying to reach.

I fully acknowledge that there are many circumstances where adoption is legitimately the best or only solution. But I do think it should be a last resort rather than a first instinct. I think we should be VERY reluctant to separate babies from their mothers, and I think we should be a lot more aggressive about pursuing every path we can to keep mothers and their babies together.