Coerced Adoption Should Concern Parents
Pregnant and Parenting Teens Targeted by Adoption Agencies
Stephanie Bennett was a 17 year old mother and student, living at home in Ohio with her supportive mom and step-dad when she revealed concerns about motherhood to guidance counselor Thomas Saltsman. Instead of bolstering her confidence and encouraging her in her role as a parent, he immediately arranged for her to meet with A Child's Waiting adoption agency on school grounds, during school hours.
Days after their first meeting and feeling pressured to "do the right thing" by her daughter, Stephanie took baby Evelyn and ran away from home. Hours later, she signed the paperwork allowing the agency to take her daughter away.
Soon reunited with her mother and step-father, Stephanie and her family began fighting to overturn the adoption. The agency has hidden the identity and whereabouts of baby Evelyn's adopters, and the Bennetts must now prove that Stephanie was coerced before the adoption can be overturned. Justice seems unlikely for Stephanie Bennett and her daughter.
Coercion Common in Adoption
From media messages portraying adoption as a "loving option" to celebrities jumping on the adoption bandwagon at a ridiculously high rate, it's near impossible for the average person to get a clear look at what adoption really entails. Young women who are considering surrendering an infant for adoption have an even harder time sorting truth from propaganda when confronted with empty promises of openness, pleading letters hopeful adopters who appear perfect on paper, and shoddy counsel from legal and psychological professionals whose paycheck comes straight from the adoption agency.
"If you love your baby, you will hand him over to someone more deserving." That's the message every vulnerable mother receives as she contemplates her baby's future.
The coercion doesn't stop there, though that kind of psychological blackmail would certainly be challenging enough to overcome. It continues in the form of isolation, and it is excused by nonsensical legal statutes weighted heavily in favor of the adoption industry.
It is not at all uncommon for an adoption agency to entice an expectant mother (or the mother of a newborn, as in Stephanie Bennett's case) to move away from her home in order to surrender her baby. This works to the agency's advantage in two ways. First, a woman who is isolated from her usual support systems is less apt to feel confident enough to back out of an adoption agreement. Second, the agency can take advantage of the adoption laws which vary by state. Adoption-friendly states allow the mother to consent to the adoption almost immediately after birth and give her no time at all to reclaim her baby once she has signed the needed paperwork.
One of the biggest holes in an already unbalanced system, and the one that hurts young women like Stephanie the most: minors are allowed to surrender their babies for adoption without parental consent or notification in nearly every state. Not allowed to drink, smoke, vote, or sign any other legal document, vulnerable young mothers are encouraged to sign away their most important legal rights -- their parental rights -- with "representation" that ranges from simply inadequate to downright coercive.
Parents Have Valid Concerns
Until activist organizations like Adoption: Legalized Lies and Origins USA, both supporters of the Bennett family, are successful in lobbying for legal changes that will protect parents and children from coerced adoption, parents of teenagers should be concerned. Teens should be educated about the adoption industry as they would be about other dangerous aspects of sexuality and reproduction. Preventing unintended pregnancies is paramount, but an understanding of the deceptive tactics employed by adoption brokers will serve your teens well should they ever face an unplanned pregnancy.
Some points to get you and your teen thinking critically about adoption:
-- Adoption is a big business, earning an estimated $1.4 billion a year in 2000 with a projected growth of 11.5% annually. Though many adoption agencies operate as non-profit organizations, these businesses and their employees are getting rich on their success.
-- Adoption has painful psychological ramifications for surrendering parents and adopted children. Surrendering a child to a secure and loving pair of adopters will not protect him or her from feeling insecure and abandoned, nor will the surrendering parent escape without lasting effects.
-- Adoption is not a necessity. There is not a single child in the world who needs to be adopted. Every adoptable child on the market today could be better served by his or her own family, kinship care, or legal guardianship.
The laws must be changed in order to protect vulnerable parents from exploitation by the adoption industry, but given our society's current love affair with adoption mythology, individuals and especially parents must take matters into their own hands. Do not wait until the adoption industry has its grasp on your family. Take steps now to educate yourselves and your children. You can be certain no one else is going to do it for you.
Published by Jessica DelBalzo
I am a mother, writer and activist from Flemington, New Jersey. My writing has been published by Clamor, Eclectica and many local and not-so-local newspapers. View profile
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14 Comments
Post a CommentREALLY?! There is not a single child in the world who needs to be adopted? I understand that every person seems to have 'baggage.' But how can any thinking person wholeheartedly support this article?
What about the MILLIONS of orphans? Consider the following statistics:
According to 2002 UNICEF report, 11.9% of all children on the CONTINENT OF AFRICA are orphans. They have been decimated by war and AIDS, and hundreds of millions of people have little hope. We personally know a family who left their comfortable suburban lives to go live in Africa to help about 30 of these kids. I can tell you, the stories are tragic!
According to a 2005 survey by the Chinese government, they had 573,000 orphans (which they hate to admit). The China culture values children and they strive to take care of their orphans, but they are still limited in resources. For every 3 months spent in an orphanage in China, they fall behind in growth and development by one month. We are very grateful for the care given to our adopted daughter from China. However, we are told that when she was a baby, the ratio of caretakers to babies was 25:1. She has a large flat spot on the back of her head, from the extensive time spent laying on her back as a baby.
An estimated 650,000 children are in Russian orphanages. Orphans are sent out of of the orphanages at the age of 16. 40% become homeless, 20% turn to crime. 10% commit suicide. These are horrible stats.
We spent time in an Albanian orphanage. Sex slave traders from Greece would hang out outside of the orphanages when they knew orphans were getting ready to be sent out upon coming to age, hoping to recruit them into their 'business'. If they weren't adopted by the time they were 5, their future was bleak.
In the US, there are very good reasons we abandoned the orphanage system 50 years ago. However, the foster system is also fraught with problems. Further, did you know that birthmothers most likely to reverse their decision to adopt and instead keep their babies are teenage mothers? The US has the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the industrialized world, with 1/3rd of teenage girls getting pregnant. Only 1/3rd of teen mothers earn a high school diploma, 2/3rds are on welfare 10 years later, and only 1.5% earn a college degree by age 30. Children born to teens are at higher risk for intellectual, language and emotional delays, score lower on standardized tests, are less likely to graduate, are 22% more likely to become teen parents themselves, and 3 times more likely to serve time in prison. All of these stats improve with adoption.
We've adopted three of our four children, two domestically, and one from China. They are THRIVING, amazing kids, who are going to one day change the world! We are tremendously grateful for the decisions of the birth mothers. Some here apparently disagree, but it is our firm belief that their decisions were based on love, and we make every effort to honor that.
Jessica......thank you for writing what many do NOT want to read or hear. I surrendered my daughter to an agency in 1970 because I was psychologically abused and shamed to feel less than and near criminal for loving someone and conceiving a beautiful and precious little girl. Adoption = lies and secrets!
That's right. Adoption is never necessary anywhere in the world. It is only a legal fiction, a piece of paper. What's needed is for children to be cared for. The foster care system and, where orphanages still exist, a healthy orphanage system that actually takes care of its charges are more than sufficient. There is no reason to ever traffick children, nor to falsify a legal document.
Anyone who thinks otherwise is out to buy a human being, pure and simple, and I think you're sick.
If anyone doubts that this demand for adoptable babies is total insanity, search "adoption corruption CPS UK" on YouTube. Healthy white infants and toddlers are being stolen from older married parents by social workers and judges to meet this sick demand. It's been going on for decades. The late Sen. Nancy Schaefer of Georgia was exposing the horrific corruption in the system. She was inundated with pleas for help from outraged, grief-stricken parents. Parents and children are killing themselves. What in hell are people thinking to imagine they're entitled to buy, sell and own other people's children?
Great article, Jessica. If adoption were ethical and pregnancy and adoption counselors adhered to the guidelines for ethical child welfare practice, hardly any mothers would surrender their babies. After the Australian system was overhauled, mothers kept their babies and the rate of infant adoptions plummeted. Infertile couples can only get healthy white infants when adoption is coercive and corrupt. It's that simple. Teen mothers and their children do not exist to fill this insane, selfish demand for 'adoptable' babies. Americans need to give up the bizarre, destructive notion that unrelated strangers can be the mothers and fathers of other people's children. It's a lie. It's false advertising by the adoption industry. They're raking in billions by deceiving people.
This is a hideous article. Adoption is never neccessary for any child anywhere in the world? If thats not extreme blindness and bias which makes the rest of the rest of teh article suspect-then what is? Pathetic. The author should be ashamed of herself for such hate-mongering.
Hi%2C I am the daughter of a mother coerced into adoption. Her obstetrician%2C who was a friend of the people who adopted me%2C lied to her about my parents%27 professions and made her feel that there was no way she could raise me as well as they could. Having her mother %28my grandmother%29 raise me was definitely an option%2C but she was brainwashed into believing that I%27d be better off with this other family. To be frank%2C I had a wretched childhood%2C and only through luck%2C grace%2C or whatever it is do I still have a shred of sanity and some decent relationships. I now have a daughter%2C the absolute love of my life%2C and I counsel anyone considering giving up a child for adoption to simply not do it. It%27s deepest love you will ever feel for another human being%2C and you will find a way to work it out as long as you make a point of bonding with your child as soon as s%2Fhe is born. I wish my mother had kept me%2C that%27s for sure.
Months late in chiming in here, but this article is dead on! thanks jessica for all you do. Stephanie, your child will have google, and will know the truth one day :( i am so sorry for what you must live with everyday :(
To all who read this,
My son was born in the month of January and my wife and I had a very unhealthy relationship. I had hopes that with our new member of the family I would be treated more like an adult then I child by her and her family. I was only left alone once during the first two months of his life for one hour and she called me three times. I had also hoped that she and I would not have her family always involved in everything that had happened (being able to make my own decisions). This only made things worse. During this time I had befriended some people who talked to me a lot about my life, one of which was a young woman who my wife thought I was having an affair with. She wanted me to quit the job (that this woman was at) in order to work things out and I saw that it made no difference because she wasn't involved. It got to the point where I didn't want to even come home anymore.
I offered my wife to just have her family around less or to move away so that we cou
where do you get your facts that councelors are paid by adoption agencies? just asking, I believe what you write.