Coercion vs. Choice?

Question

I still don't understand how so many people feel that bmoms were coerced into giving their child up for adoption(not 'lost' to adoption -- lost is what you do with your keys); didn't the bmom's have ANY choices?

i.e. What about the choice to marry the bdad and raise the child on their own?

what about the choice to turn their backs on those mean family members trying to pressure them into giving up their child for adoption? didn't they have that choice - move to another city and raise the child?

it seems to me that most bmoms made a conscious decision because they knew they couldn't afford a child; or the impact it would have on her life. It takes more than just plain love to raise a child -- they are expensive.

so if a bmom made a CHOICE that lead to the pregnancy and a CHOICE that led to the legal relinquishment, why do they keep saying they were coerced or 'lost' a child? My bmom has never used the term coercion - only that it was her choice to do so

Answer 1

I hear what you are saying, and do agree with some of the points you made, however, as an adoptive mom, I experienced an attempt at coercion first hand with the bio family.

When our son was born, the state stepped in and removed the child from the bio parents for valid reasons.  Because our son has a rare genetic disorder that can be life-threatening, the state placed the child into kinship care with the bio grandparents rather than foster care.  The bio parents made it clear that they did not want to parent this child and had no intention to follow the guidelines set up by the state.  The state suggested to the bio family that they try to proceed with a private adoption rather than placing the child into foster care because of his medical condition.

The bio family found us through friends and we began a private adoption process.  The state "changed their mind" and tried to stop the private adoption and place the child in foster care.  I was told point blank by the NJ social worker that since our son was a "white caucasian infant, he was a hot commodity".  I was shocked!  Fortunately for the bio family & our son, a family court judge sided with the bio family and agreed to allow everyone to proceed with the private adoption.  

Did I believe coercion existed prior to that?  No.  Did I understand the coercion tactic at the time?  I don't think I did.  I know that I was appalled by the comment but it wasn't until after we realized the state was given money for all of the foster kids they placed in permanent adoption that we realized the magnitude of what was happening.  And then when I came here, I realized that it was truly coercion.

Answer 2

I think most bmoms DO make a conscious choice, as you said.  But the word choice is a funny thing because alot of factors can go into the decision.  Some women make the conscious choice but only because they feel they have no other choice.  I think people do throw the word "coercion" around a bit too much on this forum.  To me, there's a difference between an adoption counselor merely counseling a bmom and coercion which in my mind is like arm twisting & making the bmom feel like they have no other choice.

Answer 3

I think what people don't understand is the difference between pressure and coercion.  

Coercion occurs when someone threatens to harm you (or another person) if you do not behave in the way they want you to behave.  "Give up your baby or I will kill you" would be coercion.  So would, "Give the baby to ME or I will tell your boyfriend that the child isn't really his".  

However, pressure is not the same as coercion.  Things like, if you keep the baby you'll have to live in a one room apartment in the projects and work two jobs as a watiress are not coercion.  They may very well be true since raising a child when you have no support and no education isn't a very easy thing to do at all.  These are the pressures that parents face.  

Other pressures might be the fact that if you have a baby, your friends won't be your friends anymore because you can no longer go out and have fun.  Similarly, if your family is very against pre-marital s*x, and you having a baby makes them view you as a s**t - then obviously keeping your baby around will be extra pressure.  Your parents could even pressure you by cutting you off financially because they are shamed by your actions.  These might all be very very indecent things to do, but they're not coercion, just pressure.  

Showing peopl pictures of happy adoptees is also not coercive, it's just providing one side of an argument.  There are no threats in the air aside from the real ones that life, time, love, and money put on things.  Aside from the random adoptee who may be bitter about not getting to grow up as a trust fund baby because of "old money" shame - most of the time adoptive families can provide more material resorces to children.  That's just a fact.  

I am not saying that money is more important than love, or anything like that.  I'm saying that the fact that money is required to raise a child is just a fac of life - not coercion.  Single parents can work realy hard, and do the job just fine.  They can do it even better if they have friends and family around to support them.  However, friends and family are only human - they won't always be perfect.  They have the RIGHT to feel like the girl go herself into the mess, and she should have to solve it.  That's not the loving thing to do, but some of them will feel this way.  

The bottom line is, if a gun is not pointed at her head, the mother has to weigh all the benefits and costs and make a choice.  Even if she hates the choice she has to make, even if she WISHES reality were different, reality is what it is, and the choice is hers to make.  

I know what making a tough choice is.  I raised a little girl that I loved more than life itself for over a year.  I scoured the city to find doctors to diagnose her.  I cried the day she was diagnosed with a tumor.  I waited in the waiting room on pins and needles while they cut her open, and slept on a fold out chair by her hospital bed while she cried because she coudl have nothing to eat or drink.  I spent months helping her through therapy, watching her get some coordination, get closer and closer to being able to walk, and talk, watched her lose ground when she woudl get sick, and helped her gain it back again.  I was there for her smile, for her tears.  I read her bedtime stories, and tried to teach her to swim.  I smiled when she called me "Mama".   Then one day her father decided to tear our family apart.  He didn't even want her - didn't take her with him, but I was still stuck.  I hadn't been able to adopt her yet, and so the law said I wasn't her mother.  

Now I had a choice to make.  I could keep her with me and her brother, keep our family as whole as I could - and yet not be able to get any services for her.  She would not be able to go to the doctor, to go to school, to get therapy.  At any point her father might show up drunk and try to get her, and legally I couldn't stop him.  Maybe I could take her and her brother and run away - cross the border into Mexico where no one would be able to say anything about her not being mine.  But then, what kind of medical care could she get?  Would she be able to have therapy there?  What would happen if the cancer came back?  

None of my options were good.  I didn't LIKE any of them.  However, I knew what I had to do was to call her grandparents to come and get her.  They had power of attourney for her father.  They could get her access to medical care, and therapy, and keep her safe.  The phone call was one of the most difficult things I've ever done, and I cried nonstop for days after she left (literally the tears only stopped when I was too dehydrated to make them).  Still, I've never claimed for one moment that she was STOLEN from me.  I didn't "lose" her - I just lost the ability to raise her.  Our seperation caused both of us intense pain, and it was a hard choice for me to make, but it was still a choice - and the right choice too.  

I just cannot believe women who say someone "tricked" them out of their babies.  Do they not have any more respect for themselves than that?  When you are truly a mother, the most important thing in the world to you is your child - nothing should be able to force you into a decision that you don't think is the best thing for them.  On top of that, you have a responsibility to look long and hard at any choice you make, and ENSURE it is the best thing for them before you make it.   "They told me it would be all smiles and rainbows, but it wasn't" isn't an excuse.  You are talking about the life of your baby here - how can you honestly look in only one place for answers?  I don't even give my son a medication without reading up on it from at least three different sorces.  How can anyone give their child away without at least as much due diligence?

Answer 4

If it was only as simple as you said..then adoption would not have the feelings attached to it as it does. We use those words ecause they are too often true.

Yes, in this day and age moms make a "choice". It is very much projected as a choice by every agency, advertised as a choicen on the kabillions of websites, and obviously, believed to be a choice. Heck, many moms will say that it was indeed thier choice.  The industry knows that they have to make it seem to be a choice or they would be cosidered big bad places and in violation of civil rights and all kinds of bad stuff.

The coercion is very very subtle. And to save some typing, here's how it works: http://musingsofthelame.blogspot.com/200...

The word choice can only be used if there are actually realistic options involved. And none of this really takes into consideration the true mental and emotional vunerable state that one is in. It's like saying to a rape victim "Why didn't you scream? Why didn't you fight? You must have liked it then, you must have wanted it on some level if you didn't scream."

And we know that's not the case! We know that really she feared for her life, or she dissassociated to survive, or she really thought that screaming would not help, or it just happened so fast, she froze.

It's that same thing:

She can't force a guy to marry her and be daddy. Not everyone has that option.

What happens when you go to someplace like Gladney (http://www.adoptionsbygladney.com/resour... where they give you lists of the benefits of adoption vs the downfalls of single parenting and you think it true? After all they are the professionals!

Moving away probably doesn't do any good...what now you have no support? No one at all to help? So new place to live, new job, new friends, new baby? That's pretty daunting for anyone. When measured up against adoption as the perfect answer...win win..of course adoption looks better on paper.

And then you have all the people who you trust or that you think care about you telling you that adoption is a better idea,or that you will ruin your life and be a lousy mother?  You are told you are too emotional, you have to think logically, you need to think about what's best for the baby.

No one is telling you how much it's really going to suck..or how you won't ever get over it or that you will cry so hard that you don't think you can go on breathing or that all thoses goals that you thought were so important mean squat now. No one tells you that you still feel like a mother, or that the guilt sucks, or it messes up your parenting style, or your adoptee might not be thrilled as they said, or that the adoptive parents might get divorced.

So how can you choose if you have no idea what you are choosing? No one gives you the real risks and long term ramifications to you and your child.  A blind jump of faith is not a choice..especially when you are given biased information based on other peoples agendas.

Yeah, we are made to look like we choose...but not based on real facts, not based on unbiased information.

Coersion does not mean that moms are stll tied down. "The attempt to enforce desired behavior" is considered aoersion..and if you think that adoption agencies do not desire mothers to relinquish, then you need to do some serious research into agency practices and the NCFA

(http://musingsofthelame.blogspot.com/200... .

As for lost.. that's easy. My baby is gone. He is a 20 year old man. I can never get those years back. The baby is lost, the years are lost, our life together is lost. The natural relationship between my kids as siblings, lost. I didn't know where he was..he was lost to me.

Answer 5

Why don't you read "The Girls Who Went Away".  Maybe then you'll have a little more respect and empathy for what many first moms went through.

Answer 6

Alisia, nobody is saying that ALL first mothers have been coerced, but some mothers STILL are.

Here is an article that was reported to find ways to work with expecting mothers to get them to surrender MORE.

http://antiadoption.files.wordpress.com/...

Coercion can be as simple as calling an expecting mother, a birth mother so that she starts considering herself a birth mother. And what IS a birthmother? Someone who has surrendered her child. So if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, calls herself a duck...is she a duck? Statistics say she has a better chance of being a duck than a goose that she was when she walked into the agencies doors.

This isn't an industry built for the better of children, this is an industry built to make money off of the sales of children. These people are business men and women, who are working in a 3 billion dollar a year industry. They have invested interestes in mothers surrendering their children. They are providing a supply of children to the demand of infertile / childless couples.

Is it ALWAYS this way NO.

Is EVERY mother coerced NO.

But there IS invested interests in telling expecting mothers what they need to be told, to hand over their children.  

I think its hard for you to see through your anger right now. But when you CAN, check out http://www.theadoptionshow.com they have past shows that you can listen to without getting a membership and they address modern day coercion.

There is a book out on the shelves called Fast Track Adoption by Susan Burns, its all about how to manipulate the mother out of her child to get a newborn baby faster than waiting for one to become available in the states.

The Adoption and Safe Families act gave money incentive to agencies and states to place more children. Although originally intended to help place more foster youth into permanent homes, it didn't do that. It increased the number of infants, newborns and private and agency adoptions. When agencies have invested interests in having more adoptions happen so that they can profit $10,000 coercion is going to happen.

More often than not, the "birthmother counseling" is coercive as well. They're not in business due to mothers who keep their children, they make nothing when a mother keeps her baby. They only profit if she surrenders. WHY WOULD THEY HELP HER KEEP HER CHILD? They don't. They don't offer living assistance to mothers KEEPING. This is A BUSINESS.

There are currently.... hmm...a handful of mothers and fathers fighting for their children

Allison Quets: http://www.allisonquets.com/

Carmen McDonald: http://www.shns.com/shns/g_index2.cfm?ac...

Cody O'Dea http://www.babyselling.com

Bryn: http://www.babyselling.com/bryn

Stephanie Bennett: http://sendevelynhome.com/default.aspx

and TONS more!!

Answer 7

Adoption is not a 'choice' most would make if they had more support--financial, family, and from society.  They're desperate.  

I just went to look at mattresses.  I was told that whatever mattress I bought, I could return it within 90 days, no questions asked!  Home Depot, Wal-Mart, and Target have the same policy.  

How long is the longest revocation period any US state,  for an exhausted-from- pregnancy, desperate- for- money,  fully hormonal woman to change her mind about her 'choice'?  No where near 90 days in any state.  Most women aren't capable of making life altering decisions when they're premenstrual!  And for those who have never been pregnant and delivered, it's like PMSing x 1000.  Fuggetabouit!

And kids really aren't that expensive, here are two sites to find great baby stuff cheap and free!

http://www.freecycle.org

http://www.craigslist.com

Answer 8

For many women, they choose adoption due to financial resources as well as support issues.  And many do not have the resources to escape from those who would pressure them into relinquishment.  Adoption is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.  Agencies and lawyers use outdated statistics and outright fear to obtain babies.  Not all of them were coerced.  I wasn't coerced into relinquishing my youngest, but this does not mean it doesn't happen.   There are stories from women even from the mid to late nineties of how they lost their children.  Some even changed their minds within the proper timeframe and were still denied their child.  So, before you go on about how women are not coerced, you should really look into it a bit more.  It does happen.  Only now it is more subtle.

Answer 9

I think this is a very difficult question to answer...

First, I am certain there is, in some cases, coercion.  There is money to be made with adoptions and some unscrupulous adoption agencies, 'adoption counselors', and attorneys know that these mothers are very vulnerable.  The birth mothers are usually poor, poorly educated, and going through a emotional time (childbirth).  Also, there are other social pressures and concerns for their child's and their own future.  It is not a 'healthy' place to make a decision.  So, I would not agree that when you say they "made a choice" that that is strictly correct.  Looking from the outside, in, is a very different thing, and it is easy to see other options.  But, the reality of being in that situation is very different.  Consider when you have had to make a decision under extreme pressure... did you always make the right decision?  Aren't there decisions you regret?

However, I do see another side of this as well.  I sometimes wonder when someone says they were coerced (into anything), if they are just remember it that way to make themselves feel better.  If you read research on memory, you will see that our emotions and expectations severely impact what we remember.  Memory is actually a very poor measure of truth.  It may be that if you regret a decision your entire life, it is easier to justify that decision in your mind by remembering it as coercion.  This is not to say all claims of coercion are false, but it begs the question, how can we be certain?

Finally, what is coercion?  A nurse or counselor may feel that the advice or encouragement to an expectant mother considering adoption is sound advice.  While, others may feel it is coercion.  I get the impression that some would feel that anything contrary to their own point of view is “coercion”, and anything that they agree with is just  ÃƒÂ¢Ã‚€Âœgood advice”.  

I don’t have an answer.  I think every case is different, and any generalization about this topic is impossible.

Answer 10

Why are you insistent on this?  I can show proof of it.

The Texas DFPS reports violations to this nature on its maternity homes.  Smithlawn is one of the worst.  They are now subjected to inspections every 3-5 months because of this.  LDS Social Services was also busted for this in Texas.  They failed to properly inform a father of the impending adoption.  They actually told the adoptive parents that his child was free to be adopted.  Lying, coercion exists.  I know that the Texas Board of Social Workers is cracking down on it big time.  

You really ought to cruise that website.  It would freak you out how they treat both children and mothers.  A majority of the adoption agencies and maternity homes in Texas should very honestly be closed.  They have reports of child abuse, no TB testing, inability to get thorough background checks on adoptive parents, foster parents, and employees, reports of coercion of women, and many other things.