“Don’t kill your baby.  Just put her up for adoption!”

Any of you who have debated a pro-life person has heard this one before.  They make it sound oh so easy.   Just carry a child for nine months, an unwanted child at that, and at the end of that nine months just hand it over to some agency or to an eager young couple.

Pro-lifers like to talk about how women who have had abortions ultimately come to regret their decision.  I’ve written about that before.  But what they don’t want to hear is how the adoption process is not as optimal as one might think. 

First, there is the simple fact that a woman who wants to put her child up for adoption must first carry that child for nine months.  Let’s say it’s a fifteen year old girl.  That young girl will have to deal with all of the issues that other women deal with during a pregnancy.  Morning sickness or worse, regular doctor visits that she might not be able to afford, going to school every day and having to explain what is going on.  I mean, you women out there know that pregnancy is not always a walk in the park.  But, that’s okay, say the pro-lifers, just go with the flow.   

Then that woman has to give birth.  I hate to remind everyone, but did you know that more women die of childbirth each year than abortion?    The pro-lifers don’t mention that minor statistic. 

But let’s say everything goes well and the woman/girl finally has a baby.  Don’t you think that, despite the fact that it was an unwanted pregnancy, the mother is now going to have very mixed feelings about giving the baby up?  Do you think it is going to be easy to just have the baby and send it off to a foster care situation or to a private adoption agency?  

And speaking of regretting one’s abortion, don’t you think that twenty years later, that woman who gave up her child will have recurrent thoughts about the baby she gave birth to?  In the case of a closed adoption, the birth parent will have no idea where her child is, but she’ll know her baby is out there somewhere.  Think of the pain, the recurrent thoughts about where her child is and what the child looks like.     

Pro-life people like to say that there are “people lined up to adopt a child.”  It’s just not that easy.  

Most couples that want to adopt need to pass some very strict tests.  Clearly, they need to have a stable home and a decent income.  So, picture that couple, living up there in Westchester, New Yord, waiting for a baby.  They’ve already paid the lawyers thousands and thousands of dollars and one day they get a call that a baby is available.  It’s the baby of that young fourteen year old girl.  The couple is Caucasian, in their mid-thirties.  They look at the paperwork and see that the baby is African American and that the mother is a crack addict. 

So, do you think that couple is going to jump all over that one?   Give me a break. 

It’s a harsh world out there and at times I really think the pro-life movement is living in la-la land.  Indeed, on the abortion.com Facebook page, a question was posed to the pro-lifers, asking them how many children they have adopted.  

Not one person has replied yet.