By Cassi
So, between taking my sweet Granddaughter to Disney World and getting into our family place at the lake, I’ve spent most of September barely on social media. I’d pick up a little bit here and there when I’d log in but not enough to know what was going on.
Seeing the tags for#shoutyouradoption here and there had me curious, but not enough, I admit, to do further research into their meaning while I was away. It wasn’t until yesterday, when I finally got my computer all set back up and ventured back into social media that I realized the disgusting reality behind why the #shoutyouradoption tags came into existence.
And my first thought was how heartbreaking and sad it was that our society so easily accepts, shares, and makes viral the clear message that a pregnant woman should be encouraged to keep her pregnancy so that she can carry a baby for nine months and then it give it up to someone else. This is seen as okay. A good solution to abortion. Just carry your pregnancy through, go through birth and then give your own child away to the many couples out there desperate to claim it as their own.
This is what we are. What we have been for so long. We don’t really want to help vulnerable, pregnant mothers or their unborn children. What we want is to force pregnancies so those couples willing and able to pay tens of thousands of dollars can claim the child they want. It’s about them. Their desires. It has nothing to do with any kind of true care or concern for the two other lives involved . . . the innocent baby and the mother.
Trying to protest otherwise. Attempting to make the claim about protecting “unborn babies” is nothing but a vague lie to cover the truth. Because if it truly had anything to do with caring about mothers and their babies, the solution would not be to force a pregnancy and then force a separation between them after birth.
And don’t fool yourself into believing it isn’t a forced separation. Don’t try quoting the same old, worn out and tired adoption industry script about how it’s about love and how so many selfless mothers out there “choose” to give up their babies to someone deemed “better” than them.
The fact of the matter is, it is VERY rare to find a mother who truly doesn’t want her own child. Doesn’t want to be bothered with raising and loving her own son or daughter. They aren’t choosing to give their babies away. Instead they are left feeling as if they have no other choice but to give their babies away.
Because it’s the same circle, the same old excuses that keep this ridiculous argument about abortion . . . the desperate attempt to link it with adoption . . . going on year after year, decade after decade. It’s much easier for people to climb on their pedestals, shame and condemn women for unplanned pregnancies, throw adoption around as some kind of solution against abortion, than it is to actually be a part of offering of yourself in the form of help and support for mother and child.
As a society, we are more prone to want to wash our hands of any responsibility to actually helping those in need. When it comes to threatening our time, our pocketbook, we don’t want to be bothered. So when it comes to the perceived solution to abortion the simple answer is . . . force a woman to carry a pregnancy and then give her baby away after birth. That way, those who fought so hard against her choice of abortion don’t have to be burdened with any kind of responsibility to actually help mother and child once the baby is born. Instead they can just support a baby taken away from his mother, his father, his family, heritage, identity and not have to worry about another expectation of any kind of help and support.
And then we throw up our hands, shake our heads and try to figure out why all the judgment and shame, the expectation of a vulnerable mother to simply give away her baby, isn’t doing anything to make a difference. Why are women still terminating their pregnancies. Why won’t they listen to the same old drone. The same pretense of how abortion is supposedly “killing” babies while taking them away from their families and giving them away to strangers at birth is somehow “saving” them.
The fact is, there will never be change. Never any kind of good to come as long as we continue to see an unplanned pregnancy as a crisis and take the easiest route we can to “solve” such crisis.
The fact is, half of all pregnancies are unplanned. That IS NOT the crisis. It is the situations faced at the time of the unplanned pregnancy. For so many, it is a financial crisis. Whether it be having no means to provide a safe place to live. A way to afford even the simplest basics to survive.
For others it’s a lack of insurance. A solution to the medical bills that come with carrying a pregnancy to full term, giving birth – always with the risk of complications along the way which can take already outrageous bills into even higher levels.
And still for others, there is the fear of not being able to finish their education. Create any kind of solid future for their child. Or facing the reality that there is no way to raise a baby without having to work and having no clue how to afford good day care.
And then there are those who come from abusive relationships. Who face the terrifying reality that they don’t know how, or even if they can, protect their child from such situations.
These examples, and more, create the crisis a woman more than likely is facing at the time she finds herself pregnant. But instead of addressing them, empowering and helping her have the strength and find the solutions to such crisis, so many choose to address only the pregnancy while actually, at the same time, judging and shaming a woman for her pregnancy in such situations. Using that as an excuse why not to give more. Do more. Provide whatever can be provided.
And then you see exactly what has been so clearly shown in this recent battle of the hashtags. No concern, care or even thought to truly helping a woman through her crisis while facing an unplanned pregnancy. Instead, just a solution that leaves little for others to worry about . . . just give your baby away . . . while guaranteeing the woman will continue to be in the exact same crisis after being forced to continue her pregnancy and then give up her baby.
And this is what we call saving. This is what we find acceptable as an answer to the #shoutyourabortion tag. Nothing about help and care. Nothing about empowerment to work through and find solutions to the crisis that exists. Instead just shaming and judgment with the expectation to go through pregnancy, give birth and then give your child away to someone “better.”
But, could you imagine the changes created if we actually cared more about mother and child. If we recognized and understood how important it is to help vulnerable mothers and babies in need.
Think of all the time, money and effort that goes into fighting against abortion, promoting adoption. Imagine what the very same could do if concentrated on actually helping a vulnerable, pregnant mother through whatever crisis she faced. Empowering and supporting her to find the solutions to carry her pregnancy full term, if she so chooses, and be given the comfort to know she can do it. Is the very best for her son or daughter.
Imagine if we cared as much about supporting organizations such asSaving Our Sisters . . . which makes no profit and relies on the kindness, time, money and care of others to help and support vulnerable, pregnant mothers and their unborn children . . . as we do about the continued support for the multi-billion dollar adoption industry that profits off the separation of mother and child.
Imagine the world we could have if we, instead of judging and condemning women for unplanned pregnancies, made the conscious effort to simply support them. To give to them and their babies the love and care they deserve.
This same circle of fighting against abortion, of the ridiculous notion of throwing adoption up as some solution that simply isn’t there, hasn’t made a true difference and it never will. True change will come ONLY when we have a heart for vulnerable, pregnant mothers and their unborn children. When we change our thinking from believing it’s okay to take from those in need and provide children to those able to pay for them and instead realize every baby deserves every chance. Every bit of support and help to remain with their mothers, their fathers, their families.
When we realize it is not the unplanned pregnancy that is the crisis. That, from the very start, we show more compassion and care if we help a woman work through whatever crisis she is facing before ever attempting to throw adoption at her as some solution to abortion. That we realize how wrong and unfair it is to expect a woman to go through a pregnancy, give birth and then turn around and give her baby away because nobody every truly cared enough to first help her through the crisis she faced.
To claim you care is easy. To actually take the time, give the effort, to prove it is something completely different. It takes work. It takes sacrifice. It takes giving and love and a TRUE concern about what is best for a mother and baby. Not what will create the least amount of effort by claiming you care without having to do a damn thing to show it.
If we were a society that wanted to do something better, greater, than arguing, judging and proving our side was right, we wouldn’t have ever accepted #shoutyouradoption as some kind of answer to the#shoutyourabortion tags. Instead we would have been disgusted at such a thing and we would have turned around and fought again with tags that might look something like this . . .
#shoutfortheneedforhelpandsupport
#shoutforbetterresourcesforpregnantwomenfacingcrisis
#shoutforempoweringmothers
#shoutforallbabiesdeservesupportfortheirfamilies
Unfortunately, I don’t see enough love in our society these days for any of these hashtags to ever be true. And so the circle will continue and we will, sadly, remain a society that believes it’s better to force a woman to continue a pregnancy with the expectation to give her baby away than it could ever be to actually help and support her to keep and raise her child.
Because it’s not the mother and child who really matters.
Read at the Source: : Adoption Truths
