#adoption industry

[kenmakaminari]

One thing I really REALLY hate about the current abortion vs adoption debate (I am extremely pro-choice btw) is that people are speaking about adoption like it’s just a solution to minor problems.

Adoption is a HUGE life-altering thing for both the new parent(s) AND the child being adopted. But people seem to only be talking about the adults involved and not the children.

The children who are being stripped away from everything they’ve ever known and being placed with strangers. And I’m not even going to get into what that involves for older kids right now, I’m only speaking about babies.

—

For the first 6 months of their lives babies fully believe that they are an extension of their mother. Their mother walking out of the room can feel like the equivalent of a severed limb.

But people will still prefer for a baby to be born and figuratively amputated, rather than have an unwillingly pregnant person remove a non-sentient clump of cells from their bodies?

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Adoption is a long, hard, and painful process for everybody involved. The newborn can be removed from their bio-parent’s custody before the umbilical cord is even clipped, but still not be in permanent custody of their new parents until they are a year old.

Imagine spending the first year of your life being passed around different strangers houses. How difficult would it be to form attachments? How would that affect learning how to speak? How to walk?

How would you be able to learn the basics of infant and toddler-hood, such as “mama” and “dada” if you don’t even have one? A baby’s entire sense of self is tied to their parents, does this meant that a baby with no parents doesn’t even have that?

But of course, that is still better than removing a clump of non-sentient cells from a person’s body, right?

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No matter how or when it happens, adoption is a TRAUMA, not an answer. It is a wonderful thing for many children, who need better support than they have been dealt from their biological families. But bringing a child into the world for the soul purpose of placing them into foster care is cruel.

Adoption does not exist to ease your religious guilt against abortion.

Adoption does not exist to place a band-aid over another person’s infertility trauma.

Adoption does NOT exist to heal adults.

Adoption is for the CHILDREN.

The children who need help. The children who need a safe home to grow. The children who need THEIR trauma to be top priority. Not yours.

People need to stop using adoption as an alternative to abortion. Adoption involves real living children, not the non-sentient clump of cells that are removed during abortion.

Children, who deserve more out of life than to be used as a ‘gotcha’ in political arguments that shouldn’t even need to exist in the first place.

[jadasakura]

[hauntedxholy]

It should be illegal to withhold medical family history for adoptees.

ANY OTHER CHILD GETS THAT INFORMATION

but adoptees are withheld from vital information, I don’t care if it was a closed adoption like mine, that information is LIFE SAVING, ESPECIALLY if they’re at risk for cancers, heart disease, or anything else!

[onlytiktoks]

[ex-foster]

Children in need of ‘rescuing’: challenging the myths at the heart of the global adoption industry

For decades, intercountry adoptees were told they were ‘abandoned’, ‘rescued’ or ‘unwanted’. But these long-held stories are now under scrut

[ahundredhundredheartbeats]

i remember after my son died and i didn't know if i would get pregnant again, someone asked me about adoption and i said if i had the money to adopt i would just give it to the pregnant person so they could keep their baby. they did not like that. they also did not like me saying that just because I want a child doesn't mean I should get to take someone else's.

adoption is not a tool for building a family because you want a child. adoption will not heal your infertility trauma.

adoption should always be with the consent of the child, and that means that very young children should not be adopted. you can have guardianship and give a child a loving home without severing their ties to their biological family and removing them from the culture they were born into. and if you aren't willing to care for the child unless you get the power that adoption gives you, then you're in it for yourself, not for the child, and you shouldn't be taking that child into your home at all, because you are only going to cause harm.

adoption is trauma.

every person has a right to know who they are and where they come from, and you have no right to break those ties without their full, informed consent.

[magnetothemagnificent]

If you're still okay talking about adoption stuff?

I had a hysterectomy to save my life. Every doctor I spoke to asked if I was going to keep my ovaries and reassured me that even if infertility treatment didn't work out "at least I'd be able to adopt".

It wasn't until after my surgery that I found out how horrible both the adoption and the infertility industry can be even if you do everything "right". I've already seen firsthand how awful the foster system is as well, so it really showed me that there's a lack of proper regulation no matter where the children are coming from or being placed. I already firmly believed that children are one of the most oppressed classes in our society, so this was heartbreaking even without considering my own infertility.

I wish more infertile people would take these issues as something they should be fighting for as well, rather than brushing it under the rug and hoping it just magically works out for them which happens often enough that I want to pull my hair out. But I also wish I didn't have to walk through these circles on eggshells because of how disparaging victims of these industries can be towards infertile people that want children that haven't said or done anything besides be infertile in their vicinity.

I don't mean when people talk about how infertile couples aren't owed kids or that birth parents deserve support to either abort or keep their child, even if that means infertile couples can't adopt. Those are very important conversations that need more light. But some people say truly horrible things - sometimes to infertile people's faces, including those advocating for them - such as that they should accept that they don't deserve to have kids because if they did they'd be able to have them naturally/that they're not allowed to mourn their infertility and if they do they don't care about adoptees/that having kids isn't the only way to have close relationships or a family so them being upset must mean they just wanted to take advantage of their kids so it's good they can't have any/that even being upset about it at all or needing a support group means they haven't "done the work".

Obviously, not everyone is like this and I've seen plenty of advocates call the behaviour out and even more welcome us happily, but it still makes trying to get involved nerve-wracking and makes me feel like I have to hide my infertility or risk being the punching bag for someone's trauma which... I would just like to point out is also traumatic. Infertility can be traumatizing too. It's not the same and I'm not trying to say it is, but acting like all infertile people are entitled rather than grieving doesn't help anybody. It's just the age-old issue of two traumatized groups taking their hurt out on each other and I don't see enough people acknowledging that's what's happening, y'know?

Not to mention that even people that do acknowledge that adoption needs to be reformed quickly still often act (usually without knowing the truth) like infertility treatment is an option with fewer ethical concerns when they both really, truly suck in the vast majority of cases. The utter lack of regulations for fertility treatments haunts me.

All important discussions to be had!

The infertility industry is also horrendously predatory, and there actually are a lot of intersections between the infertility industry and the adoption industry such as:

-Adopted children and donor-conceived children not having access to their medical and familial history, often running the risk of accidentally dating a sibling or being a carrier for a condition they have no idea about.

-Vulnerable people being targeted for their reproductive potential: birthing parents being targeted for their children, and people with ovaries being targeted for their eggs.

-Adopted children and donor-conceived children often facing social isolation and stigma from their peers and family.

-Little to no regulation in both industries, leading to mountains of abuse and malpractice.

I've seen incredible examples of solidarity between donor-conceived children and adoptees, and it's something that really needs to continue.

Both industries prey on childless couples by treating children like products, and cause serious harm to the children involved.

I wish I knew a perfect solution.

Until then, in order to reduce as much harm as possible, we need to:

-Get rid of the societal expectation that in order to be considered a family, a couple must have children of their own.

-Normalize non-Nuclear families. You can still have children in your life without being a legal parent- aunts/uncles, cousins, friends, etc. should all be cherished as being integral parts of a child's life. You shouldn't have to be a parent to love a child.

-Stop treating infertile people like they're failed people, and provide counseling and support for those who are infertile, and allow a space for infertile people to voice all their feelings without shame.

-Family reunification should be the top priority when it comes to foster care. While of course this is not always possible, even when the parents are out of the picture, too often, children are whisked away to foster care when their grandparent, aunt, uncle, sibling, or family friend would be more than suitable and even willing to provide care for them.

-In the cases where adoption or donor conception has already occured, full-transparency must be provided for the child. This means access to their medical records and their familial records at any time.

-And lastly, center adoptees and donor-conceived children in the conversation. I am not an adoptee nor a donor-conceived child (although there are people close to me who are), and I only speak for what's already been said much better by actual adoptees and donor-conceived children.

[thebloodlinestopswithme]