Does coercion ever happen in adoption?

Question

Do you know of any cases in which people have been coerced into relinquishing their children?

And is it true that coercion is a thing of the past or is it still happening today?

Answer 1

I personally do not know of any.

In response to the answer of Heather H. Our birth mother had her own attorney and seperate counselling.

Oh, and she is our birth mother and very much a part of our family.

Answer 2

Sadly, I do believe it happens.  I asked a similar question recently because I too wanted to know if this was still happening today or if it was in year's past.  Unfortunately, it sounds like it still is happening.

We feel that our bio family was "almost" coerced into changing their adoption plan for their son.  While it is a bit of a different story, the bio family had chosen us to adopt their child but the state tried to stop them.  The state caseworker told me that our son was a "caucasian infant which made him a hot commodity" and they were doing everything in their power to terminate the parents rights so that they could put the child in foster care for the purpose of adoption.  None of us knew or understood at the time that the state made money for every child they successfully placed from foster care to adoption so our son was considered "easy money" for them.  

Fortunately, we had a bio family who knew what they wanted and fought the state along with us.  A family court judge finally sided with the bio family and allowed our adoption to occur.  However, we did choose to go through an agency to do an "identified" adoption rather than going through a lawyer because we were worried the state might try to interfere again and the agency had more resources available to them to help both the bio family and us.  

So yes, I do believe coercion is unfortunately still in existence.  Our son was placed with us in 2003 so it wasn't that long ago that we were going through what we considered to be a very "shady" NJ DYFS program.

Answer 3

If I had been asked this in the few years after placing my son for adoption, I would have told that no, I was not coerced.  But, now that it's been 11.5 years I look back at that time and see quite a bit of coercion that took place.  Was it blatant?  Not individually no... but when you add up the things that subtly coerced towards relinquishment, it becomes ethically questionable in how I was treated.

Someday when I am braver, I will write the list of how I was coerced.  That day is not today though.  There are too many who love to flame someone in my shoes speaking up.  I've read too many times the phrase "own your role and your choice" when it comes to birthmothers examining the time of relinquishment in order to dismiss the point that was trying to be made.  Yes, I chose adoption, but that choice was systamatically reinforced by deliberate coercion techniques.

Edit to add:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

I gave my coercion story there.  As much as I wrote, I still don't think I really touched on the whole picture though.

Answer 4

http://erika-klein.blogspot.com/

http://aislin13.wordpress.com/

these two mothers were coerced from their children. and I just posted a long post on coersion on the other thread about it.

Answer 5

allison quets .... not sure of the spelling... the worse case ever

Answer 6

ha ha ha  -  Of Course it does!  Denying it happens is like trying to deny that the Pope is Catholic

Of course, people will try to justify that THEIR birthmother (yes that's how they are referred to - ick) was never coerced

The structure and nature of the American Infant Adoption system is coercive by it's very nature with pre-birth agreements, paps paying costs, paps in the delivery room, agencies 'counselling', the same lawyer representing both parties!  Carefully constructed 'dear birthmother' letters designed to make anyone compare themselves unfavorably with what the paps have on offer, the list is endless.  Anyone who can't see that must need a guide dog.

Edit:  Dear Cam - I'm glad to hear that

Answer 7

There is some form of coercion in almost every decision made by adults.  Whether it be adoption, abortion, keeping a child, raising a child, etc.  It could be blatant coercion or mild cases of coercion.

Point- Mother in laws are known for their "mild" coercion.

The people answering questions on here pushing a mother to one side of a decision is another form of coercion.  Condemning options is another form.

Answer 8

Internationally, there are unscrupulous agencies overseas who use awful tactics to coerce mothers to give up their children.  There are also terrible horror stories of babies being stolen in some countries where the parents have little recourse and the babies are valuable to earn big bucks.

In the US, there are agencies that coerce.  I have heard more about coercion coming from birthmom families than agencies though.  Reputable agencies in the US require birthmoms to have extensive counselling and make sure they know all their options and support available to them.  They also encourage open adoption so there is still some level of contact that both sets of parents are comfortable with, to ensure the best possible environment for the child.