Abortion rights advocates have been de-stigmatizing abortion
for 200 of the past 4000 years the procedure has been available. In the
beginning of history abortion was a widely sought after procedure, normalized
in society and readily available for women experiencing an unplanned pregnancy.
It was not until the late 1800s that abortion began to be regulated,
criminalized and policed.
Today, statistics will tell us that half a million abortions
occur per year. These procedures are done in the safety of private, certified
medical facilities by practicing physicians. Abortion as a civil right has been
attacked so viciously in the past 200 years that coalitions have been created
to defend the rights of women who have chosen or are choosing elective
abortions.
Campaigns such as “1 in 3,” “Stop the War on Women” and
“March for Women’s Lives,” have incited action and factions of women and men
motivated to advocate for abortion rights.
In the mean time the history of adoption has been less guided
as a reproductive right for women and more as a social welfare issue. The focus
for the government and the populace has always on the product of the pregnancy;
the child- not the families making the decision to place the child.
In the early 1900s the eugenics movement was in full force
in Europe and the United States. Infants available for adoption were seen as having
poor prospects in life as they came from “poor genetic endowment,” due to the
fact they came from unwed or abandoned birth mothers according to the
literature of the time.
Henry Herbert Goddard began a popular movement at the same
time in America in which he “proved” criminality and immorality were
genetically inherited. Available, adoptable infants were subsequently placed in
group homes, and eventually institutionalized instead of being placed with
loving available families.
A few wealthy philanthropic women of the time however felt
differently about these women and infants. In 1910 the first private child
placing agencies were being developed by women interested in finding homes for
infants with childless families. Louise Waterman Wise, one of the founding
women of the movement wrote at the time:
“It is a very serious matter for the
state and society to insist that a child shall remain with its natural mother
merely because of its birth and that it shall be denied a thousand
opportunities which adoption under the new order of life brings.”
Adoption as a social movement was on the rise!
Today, however, adoption agencies are reporting that
adoptions have decreased in 2012 by 50%. Older, established independent child
placing agencies are closing and statistics tell us only 125,000 women per year
actually end up choosing to place their child through a court process with a
family different from their own.
How, in a century, did we go from waiting infants, to
waiting families? The 1973 ruling of Roe vs Wade legislation certainly made
adoption a less necessary social service. You can imagine considering the
stigma and negativity surrounding unplanned pregnancy why women would opt to
have a safe, legal, private procedure in the comfort of their doctor’s office
versus facing the scrutiny and stigma of not only carrying an unplanned
pregnancy but also telling people the pregnancy would result in adoption.
When our culture has come from a century of negativity
around birth parents, going so far as to suggest their genetics were
“unfavorable” why or how could a modern woman possibly make the choice to place
her pregnancy for adoption?
On TV we see Caitlyn and Tyler, two young teens featured on
a popular MTV docudrama, struggling to process their adoption with the daughter
they placed. Their episodes are filled with tears and emotional discussions
reliving the day of placement. Society has told us if you choose not to parent
a child you should be sufficiently devastated.
On a similar token, we see decades of legislation to
restrict women’s access to abortion. When women are denied abortion they are
given two stark choices; parenting or adoption.
One option leaves the responsibility of raising a child she
may not be able to responsibly raise squarely on her shoulders. The other
option we have been taught to see as the weaker, less favorable option. This
belief goes all the way back to the eugenics movement discussed earlier in this
post. What woman could possibly find herself in this position and how could she
be able to make this choice? She is either pitied, counseled, or shunned even
by our modern society.
Today, women still make 82% of what men in similar positions
earn. Women who earn only a high school degree typically earn around $2000 per
month before taxes, whereas women with bachelor’s and master’s degrees
typically earn between $3800-4400 per month. Women with children spend approximately
40% more time out of the workforce than men, providing care to children. This
factor can also be economically devastating to a single mother, especially one
making minimum wages with inflexible hourly employment. Women who are asked or
forced by society to parent a child before they are prepared are at a
disadvantage time after time when it comes to economic advancement.
The abortion movement proves that women have been making
hard decisions about their personal futures for 4000 years. When will our
society and community be able to accept adoption as a hard but important
decision unprepared families may sometimes need to make.
