Reframing Adoption as Reproductive (In)Justice
By Liz DeBetta
This piece is a part of our Spark Series Reproductive Justice as a Human Right
As I begin to draft this article it is the month of my birth, the month that I shouldn’t have been born in, the month when my first mother experienced pain that will never leave her no matter how many years have passed. It is pain that lives in my body too, pain that surfaces in waves of incredible sadness that come from deep within and overwhelm me. For two weeks, at least, I have been besieged by tears that I cannot account for and the old familiar grip of fear and anxiety that makes me feel like I’m wearing my skin inside out. My body, although detached from hers for more than four decades, remembers the moment when we became strangers. My body remembers and still feels the sadness of our separation.
The Dark History of Adoption: Pre-Roe v. Wade
Many people are unaware of the dark history of adoption in the U.S., a history that predominantly affected white women because of eugenics-based standards that persisted to support the “selective reproduction of the ‘right’ people.” What began in the 19th century as a racist agenda of reproductive control extended into the period known as the “Baby Scoop Era.” During this time an estimated 1.5 million white women were sent to maternity homes to avoid the shame and stigma of unwed motherhood, forced to surrender their babies by cold and callous social workers, and told to forget it and move on with their lives. As if one could ever forget a child carried within her body and pretend it never existed. This painful history of the women exploited during this time period is exposed by adoptee author Ann Fessler in The Girls Who Went Away and adoptee ally Gabrielle Glaser in her recent book American Baby. These women, many of whom had had sex for the first time, were uneducated about their bodies and pregnancy and had no access to birth control due to restrictive laws and social codes. Their ignorance, combined with post-WWII era ideologies about nuclear families and marriage, created what is now a multi-billion dollar, for-profit industry in the U.S. that continues to prey on women who lack support, and who often only need between $2,000 and $5,000 to be able to keep and parent their children and avoid making a permanent decision over a temporary crisis.
Adoption: A Loving Option?
I only need to walk around my neighborhood to see the evidence of so-called pro-life supporters. At last count there were three lawn signs all on one block saying “Adoption is the Loving Choice.” This kind of propaganda also exists on Facebook and other social media platforms, on television, in film, and goes largely unquestioned by the public. People like a “feel-good” story, as a culture we like happy endings. But to continue to believe the one-sided argument that says adoption is the logical alternative to abortion or infertility, discounts the painful experience of maternal separation and its lifelong effects on adoptees and the mothers who surrender them.
There is a tremendous amount of cognitive dissonance about adoption; people do not want to let go of the firmly held beliefs that the Christian right, and now the conservative Supreme Court — bolstered by Amy Coney Barrett’s reductive argument that adoption is a solution to abortion, despite statistics that show that less abortion does not lead to more adoption — uphold and support. The default narrative in the U.S. is that adoption is a “win-win.” In one fell swoop, we are saving a person from the lifelong consequences of an unwanted or unplanned pregnancy and allowing someone who deserves to parent do so because the long-held viewpoint is that all children are precious and these women are in need of saving — and who better to do it than God-fearing Christians?
These beliefs are then played out in so-called “Crisis Pregnancy Centers’’ which Karissa Haugeberg defines as a broad category of non-profits that are committed to persuading women not to have abortions in order to carry pregnancies to full term to support adoption as the only option. CPC’s do this by only providing information about the negative physical and psychological consequences of abortion which are, according to research, less detrimental than the long term emotional, physical, and psychological effects of maternal separation. CPC’s are one of the most prevalent forms of anti-choice activism in the twenty-first century and they are well known for lying to those seeking help about how far along they are and providing false-information that puts lives in danger.
Adoptees for Choice
Adoptees, like me, have taken to speaking up to dispel myths about adoption using TikTok and other social media platforms, to engage with the public about the truth of our lived experiences. When asked what is the one thing we would like people to understand, many of us will willingly assert that adoption is trauma. This assertion does not essentialize any one experience; instead, it allows conversation to occur. A conversation that shows that telling only one side of a story endangers the wellbeing of all those who have been silenced in the interest of anti-choice discourse that is hyper-focused on politics, rather than people. Another reason that this type of one-sided rhetoric is dangerous, is because it erases the experience of adoptees whose lives begin with trauma and those pregnant and birthing for the first time and their experience of trauma, upholding a status quo that privileges one kind of family. This ignores the impact of racism, classism, sexism, and misogyny on the mainstream conversation about adoption as a solution to abortion. Sarah Hae-In Idzik agrees, “Popular discourse around adoption in the US has long deployed adoption as a simple solution to a range of pressing social, political, and economic problems.”
Reframing Adoption as Reproductive (In)Justice
From a reproductive justice standpoint we need only look to Dorothy Roberts for confirmation that adoption is an essential part of the conversation about why choice matters, and why this conversation needs to shift. The language of choice has long been associated with privilege, and types of people and families who get to parent in a culture that is racist, white supremacist, and supports traditional family structures (e.g. two married, heterosexual parents, and their biological children — or adopted, as the case may be, to maintain the adherence to the nuclear family ideal). While I believe choice is important for ALL of us, I recognize the need for more expansive thinking. A new approach, which moves us out of a colonized mindset of equality, and into a liberatory mindset, could reframe the concept of “choice” into one of access and autonomy for bodily integrity as a human right.
This is why we need to listen to those who have been most affected by what scholars like Kimberly D. McKee call the “adoption industrial complex.” As previously stated, adoption is a multi-billion dollar industry with many agencies pulling in dollar amounts in excess of fifteen million per year. The resources, in terms of dollars spent by hopeful adoptive parents, would be better allocated for helping people who wish to parent, actually parent; reforming and/or better institutionalizing comprehensive sex education; and, providing full access to birth control. A choice made in the absence of choice is not a choice. I need only look to my own life, to see the rippling after-effects of this lack of autonomy. According to my first mom, it is my “6th” birthday — at least, that is what she wrote in the card that arrived in the mail. We both live with the task of filling in the other forty years over text messages, phone calls, and the rare in-person meetings that only happen with significant planning. And always, she is sorry for the pain we both carry. The sadness and strangeness of this reality haunts us both.
Dr. Liz DeBetta is an interdisciplinary scholar-artist-activist working at the intersections of adoption, reproductive justice, and gender-based violence. Currently, she is the Advocacy Program Manager for CEW+ at the University of Michigan. Dr. Debetta is committed to changing systems and helping people navigate trauma through creative processes.
