Abortion rights supporters want to honor birth mothers....

Today, the day before Mother's Day is Birth Mother's Day. 


Birth Mothers should be honored and held in high regard. We all would like to think that we are courageous and selfless, putting the needs of our children before our needs. Few of us accomplish that. Birth mothers are head and shoulders above  the rest of us.

I saw a blog post from a pro choice perspective on Mother's Day. I was prepared to be offended as the industry that profits from  offing your offspring  want to honor mothers.....like a sick joke. You want this one...great ...you are a mother.....this one unwanted....we terminate your pregnancy and no more worries. Happy Unmother's Day.  Ugh!  

But this had a different twist. It talked about birth mothers but  concluded  that you suffer more remorse and regret from making an adoption plan than from making an abortion plan. Ask the post abortive women and the birth mothers.  No comparison.....the post abortive women will tell you that the regret and memory never leave them. Their child's life was abruptly ended at their  request and in a manner too awful to think about. My heart breaks for them.  Birth mothers may have a different feeling but because of open and semi open adoption options, they have know their child is alive and thriving. 

From the article:

Many people assume, and anti-abortion groups insist, that giving up a baby for adoption is not only an easy choice, but a righteous alternative to abortion. It's not. First of all, it's unusual: less than 1% of women confronting unintended pregnancy today choose adoption. And for the birth mother adoption is difficult, often much more emotionally painful than abortion, according to many studies. With abortion, a woman almost always puts the decision behind her, and moves on; with adoption that can be considerably more challenging.
Yet abortion and adoption have a lot in common too. Just like women who choose abortion, women who make an adoption plan are subject to shame, coercion, misinformation, unfavorable laws, and the politicization of their choice. It is here that the reproductive rights movement may recognize a role .

The pro-choice movement has already helped usher in a new era in adoption. Contraception, legalized abortion and the de-stigmatizing of unwed mothers helped create the environment in which birth mother rights could flourish. Birth mothers could take control of their pregnancy and its outcome. It allowed them to shape the way that their babies go into the world.

It may be true that birth mothers often are given a bad rap  that is totally unfair but it is disgusting that the abortion rights folks take credit for the introduction and implementation of open and semi open adoption. They  can take credit for the less than 1% choosing adoption as the abortion industry has no vested  interest in adoption,  but they do in selling abortions. I have heard too many times the number of women who were "counseled" out of adoption in favor of abortions at Planned Parenthood, the leading abortion provider. 

Today, I honor a birth mother I call friend. She is helping to end the stigma that has been attached to birth mothers by speaking in favor of adoption and against abortion. Happy Birth Mother's Day .....Christine

Moral Outcry: Intro To Open Adoption

Cross Posted at Moral Outcry

Intro To Open Adoption

By Jess Clark • December 03, 2010 01:59 PM

As we’ve walked through the adoption process, 2 topics tend to weigh heavily on people’s minds, money and openness.

There are a lot of misconceptions about open adoption, helped along by TV and movies, and the occasional horror story given lots of airtime on the news. Think about that for a minute. Would you watch a story about a basic, smooth adoption with no real crises or snags? Most people wouldn’t. Just like you wouldn’t call the Better Business Bureau to report an excellent online transaction. We humans like to complain.

So, open adoption. It can range from semi-open, which usually means cards, letters, or pictures passed through a third party like an attorney or agency, to fully open, where both parties know each others last names, and meet in person on occasion, to any variance in between those.

We initially were more comfortable with the idea of semi open. When Tristan’s birthparents asked to meet us, prior to his birth, we adjusted to that idea, and spent a few hours with them. Once we were face to face, everything changed. These were real people, real parents trying to make the best decision for their child. In reality, we fell in love with them.

I went into that meeting armed with some understanding of a couple of things that matter to women making adoption plans for their children:

1) Post-adoption, they want to know the baby is okay. They want to see he is accepted and loved and safe.

That doesn’t mean they want weekly updates, or they want to watch your house from the street. It means, simply, that the child they kept alive for 9 months+ still matters to them, and it makes them feel like they made the right decision when they see a picture of him in his new family.

2) They want his name, his birthname to be honored, to some degree.

That doesn’t mean they want to be in control of what you call him. It does mean they want to give him the gift of a name; that he matters enough to them to call him by name.

No adoption is the same, and so every one will have different elements that matter, different traditions. For us, we met Tristan’s birthparents and extended family for our initial meeting, and then later on I went to an ultrasound and to lunch with them, and brought my preschoolers. There were awkward moments, and more than once I felt like a predator looming over her womb, but I know for their family, it was healing to see us, to know us and to imagine the future, their child with us.

Next, we met at the hospital, were in the delivery room until the real birthing began, and then spent 2 more days together, meeting in NICU hallways and getting to know their extended family and friends. Our ongoing relationship will develop with time. Currently we email and text infrequently, and I post cute pictures on a blog I’ve set up for them. We plan on meeting again, in person, at some time in the future.

I’ll write more about this, but this is already a long entry. In the meantime, tell me: what are some questions/concerns you have about open adoption?

About the Author

Jess Clark divides her time between writing, breaking up fights over Buzz Lightyear, and traveling with a missionary rock and roll band. She and her husband Richy are the parents of 3 small-ish children and are in the process of adopting a 4th.

November is National Adoption month.....video of mother and son as they meet tells the story

November is National Adoption Month....Jess Clark describes the scene in the hospital as she awaits with the birth family the arrival  of her son in an open adoption experience and video tapes the first time she is allowed to hold him.

" You are mine, and I am yours. In a span of seconds, my heart was captured. I don’t know how, or what or why God put it together this way. I just know they handed me a stranger and he was my flesh."

 

Cyber relationship leads to adoption

Tom and Wendy Curry of Memphis have two sons; Stephen, 21, and Shawn, 15. Although they had been trying for another child for quite some time, they probably could not have imagined what God had planned for them and how He would bring another child into their life.