What is the ratio of abortions to adoptions?

Question

I was just wondering if there would be enough adoptive parents available to take care of all of the unwanted children if abortion was suddenly made illegal. Does anyone have any statistics as to how many abortions and adoptions take place in a typical year?

Answer 1

*sigh*

Abortion is a way to get out of being pregnant and adoption is a way to get out of parenting. Plain and simple.

The chances of abortion being made illegal now are slim to none. Trust me if it was that easy to do Stephen Harper would have sent Canadian women back to the dark ages the second the ballots were counted.

Embryo adoption is basically the same as adoption only about a thousand times creepier in my opinion. Takes the whole "as if born to" pipe dream and makes it reality but sorry the kid is still an adoptee.

What you are suggesting here is that unwilling women become living, breathing incubators for childless people. Now I ask you this. How would you feel if you were forced to hand over your genetic material against your will and had your body held hostage for months on end?

Answer 2

I don't think the two things should be spoken of in the same sentence.

Women have abortions for reasons other than not wanting their child.

Answer 3

Too many abortions

Not enough adoptions

Answer 4

There are not enough adoptive parents to safely say that every aborted fetus would have a home if it wasn't aborted and instead placed for adoption.

However.  Adoption and Abortion are two SEPARATE issues and need to be treated as two SEPARATE issues.  They are two separate decisions made at two different times in a pregnancy.  One decision is to carry a pregnancy to term or not, the other decision is to parent or place the child for adoption.  People who have abortions would not automatically place their child for adoption if they were forced to carry the pregnancy to term because abortion is made illegal.  

If the US banned abortions and even if only have of the women who would have had an abortion instead placed their child for adoption we would have an even more over abundance of needy children needing homes.  Adoptive parents, who all ready have a gimme gimme attitude when it comes to other people's babies, would have MORE power, and be able to pick and choose only the most desirable babies to adopt, while the less desirable babies wallow away  in foster care or worse, orphanages.  Orphanages would come back because there would not be enough homes for all of the foster children, and many children would age out of the foster care system because there just won't be enough homes for all of the less desirable children.  

Banning abortion is not the answer to the "lack" of adoptable babies.  Taking the time to educate prospective adoptive parents is part of what needs to be done now, since there are many children in foster care, who for whatever reason (too old, the wrong color skin...disabilities) need homes but will never find homes because they are not cute little brand new blue eyed babies.  

Part of the problem is PAPs and APs have this fast food mentality when it comes to every aspect of their lives, including adoption.  You cannot drive through an adoption agency and pick out your child,.and people need to understand that.

I worry deeply what will happen if abortion is ever made illegal in this country, because there will be major repercussions, and no one even seems to look past the fact that "innocent babies" are being killed.   I sincerely do not want to go back to the time before Roe vs. Wade when women were not in control of their own bodies and some women were forced to place their children for adoption.

Answer 5

The adoption rate related to infants has gone down, not because of abortion but because more mothers are keeping their children.

The waiting list for healthy white infants is long while older children, mixed race or non-white children, children with medical, physical or emotional problems wait in foster care.  The low rate of adoptions can be traced to the scarcity of healthy white infants - not to any abortion rate.

Abortion is the decision not to be pregnant.  Adoption is the decision not to parent.  Two completely different issues.

Answer 6

I agree with Nurse, Sunny, Tish, Morgaine,Andraya, etc.

Answer 7

Nice of you to call adoptees "unwanted children".  

For the record, I would have NEVER been aborted, and my n-mother wanted to keep me VERY MUCH.

But if you really think women should go out and have babies to fulfill someone else's parenting desires, perhaps you and your woman had better get busy...you have a lot of orders to fill!

Answer 8

I know for a fact that there are 4,000 abortions a day in America alone- and there are FAR TOO MANY, like 4,000 a day to many. And not enough adoptions, and with this site as negative as most people are about adoptions there will be less. However, did you know that there is sometimes 7-9 year wait for an infant- if more of those girls/women that have chosen to place their children for adoption instead of aborting , the adoptive parents would not have that long of a wait.  I am SO SO SO thankful that my mom chose life and placed me for adoption, and then the birth moms of my 2 adopted children chose life as well.   However, the question really should be asked in the same breath because taking a life should not even be an option, even if there were not enough adoptive parents to go around.

Answer 9

So, it's all about supply and demand, is it?  Let's find a way to make sure enough babies are born to provide everyone who wants to adopt with one.  Yep, that's ethical.

Adoption is NOT the opposite of abortion.  If a woman just doesn't want to be in a "gestative" state for 9 months, she'll perhaps choose to abort the pregnancy.  However, if a woman carries to term, then she has 2 choices -- relinquishment and parenting.

Further, relinquished children aren't necessarily "unwanted."  Some may be.  Many are wanted, but the parents find themselves lacking in resources and believe that relinquishment will be better for the child.  

You question oversimplifies a very complicated topic.  It also makes assumptions that don't hold water.

States all have statistics regarding abortions and adoptions.  You can easily obtain them from the states.  You can Google those statistics quite easily, as well.  (I have done so many times.)  However, because adoption and abortion are not each others' opposite, drawing any meaningful conclusion by "comparing" the two just ring true.

Answer 10

Here's another question-or two:  

What's the ratio of embryo's destroyed each year (approx. 1 million) vs. babies born from IVF?  

What's the difference between destroying embryo's and abortion?  

Why do people keep asking these types of questions in the adoption section?  Why not in the TTC section, also?

ETA: Ditto to what the "nurse" said...

ETA-2:About 22% of pregnancies end in abortion, or 220 abortions to 1,000 live births.  

http://www.abortionno.org/Resources/fast...

According to a variety of medical sources, about 20% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage.  

http://www.aafp.org/afp/20051001/1243.ht...

20 million abortions/year occur in countries where abortion is illegal.  And 26 million abortions/year occur in countries where abortion is legal.

http://www.abortionno.org/Resources/fast...

In 1970, 80% of unwed mothers relinquished their children for adoption. By 1983, that number dropped to 4%.  This fact is most likely the biggest reason there are far fewer infants available for adoption today than in the past.   (From "The Girls Who Went Away, by Ann Fessler).  

http://www.amazon.com/Girls-Who-Went-Awa...

There are over 100,000 children available for adoption living in foster care.  With so many people who "just want to be parents", why are these children left without a permanent home & family?  

I'm not sure if everyone 'got' my point on embryo destruction.  Basically, no one's screaming at the doors of IVF clinics, demanding that the "parents" of embryos be forced to carry them to term & give them up for adoption or raise them.  Nor are they expected to "donate" them. They can choose to destroy the embryos.  What exactly is the difference? 'Cuz I don't get it!  

Personally, I am ABSOLUTELY against anonymous embryo adoption, donation, etc.  About the only borderline acceptable form would be between biological family members...MAYBE.

I'm just tired of the "abortion or adoption" argument.  It's LAME, it's POINTLESS.  And what do people expect...that women should be FORCED to carry a pregnancy to term then forced/coerced into giving a child up for adoption?  

Sounds like the story, "The Handmaid's Tale".  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmai...

No thank you!

NOTE: I've provided the links for the information I found. I don't know how valid the information is. I do not support making abortion illegal in any form or fashion!  

In a perfect world, birth control would never fail & abortion would never need be considered.

I absolutely agree with TISH!

Answer 11

There won't be enough people - obviously - or there would be zero children waiting in foster care - instead of the over 100,000 currently waiting for adoption.

Why make more babies - when the human race can't even take care of the one's that need help - NOW????

Besides - abortion and adoption have NOTHING to do with each other.

My mother wanted to parent. She never even considered aborting me.

Answer 12

-criminalizing abortion will not increase adoption rates. abortion will continue, it will just be unsafe.

-adoption is not an alternative to abortion.  it is an alternative to parenting.  

-forcing women to gestate to fix someone's infertility is stank. i don't care how long someone has to wait. it's not the job of a woman facing an unwanted/unplanned pregnancy to simply "stay pregnant" so that "mr. and mrs. can't have a baby" can score a kid.   nobody should attempt to dictate another's reproductive autonomy.

-the fetus-philes are humorous.  we currently have millions of children without health insurance, being educated in underperforming schools and lingering away in foster care; yet everyone is soooo emotional about "all the fetuses killed" by abortion... give me a break!  let's try giving a d**n about the children (and not the perfect adoptable infants) who are already here.

-a better question would be "what is the ratio of unplanned pregnancies that end in adoption [compared to] parenting?"

-ditto on the embryos in infertility facilities...

ETA: "At any given time, there are roughly 1.5 million perspective families looking to adopt. Interestingly enough, there are right around the same number of abortions performed each year IN THE USA ALONE. Coincidence that there are enough adoptive parents out there to take care of every child who is aborted if they were given the chance?"

--that's would be called a "logical fallacy."  and here's why:

-not all abortions are elective.  that means terminations occur for "therapeutic reasons."

-not all women who terminate pregnancies will give birth to white babies. the stats quoted  are primarily from paps who want to adopt white babies.

-women simply can't be forced to gestate for the sake of giving infertile people a kid. sorry.

Answer 13

At any given time, there are roughly 1.5 million perspective families looking to adopt. Interestingly enough, there are right around the same number of abortions performed each year IN THE USA ALONE. Coincidence that there are enough adoptive parents out there to take care of every child who is aborted if they were given the chance?