Adoption - versus abortion!

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A long, long time ago almost 35 years ago, when I was expecting my first baby - I was talking to another would be mother - and we were discussing abortion and adoption issues. (I know I am going to ruffle a lot of feathers here - but these are my thoughts, so please forgive me if they do not jive with yours.)

Anyway, she was mentioning to me that someone she knew had just had an abortion as she felt she was too young to have a baby - she was an unwed mum-in-the-making. Anyway, my friend Nancy, felt that the young girl should not have aborted the baby - instead she should have allowed the baby to be born and adopted it out instead.

Now, let's get this straight - I am totally anti-abortion - I believe if you put yourself in a position where you have conceived; then, you should do what is responsible by that baby and bring it into the world and love it and care for it. All babies should be loved and cared for(to me, personally, it's a baby from the get go - never a fetus).

There are however, sometimes, extenuating circumstances where one is not totally responsible for bringing that baby into the world (as in the case of rape). Or, sometimes, the baby may have to live through an extremely hard life (such as a child whose parents are in jail for murder, rape, etc.) Thus,for no fault of its own - except for the fact that it got placed in the womb or the person concerned, that poor child will have to deal with a unfairly disadvantaged life. To me, under these circumstances, a person should abort the child if they feel it is the best thing.

I think of it from the child's point of view. Would I have liked it if my mother had given birth to me - if my father had been her rapist? No, I would have hated it, I would have hated my father for having done that to my mother and I would have hated living knowing that I was born out of someone's evil lust - with no love between the two people who created me.

Similarly, would I have been happy if my mother had had me knowing that my father or she herself, were criminals - and that I would suffer the consequences of being the child of a criminal? The cruel taunts in school and through life - for something that was no fault of my own. No, I would have hated it (and I actually am one person who does not even like the word hate - it is too strong a word for my liking. Dislike yes.......... but hate no. However, under both these scenarios I am sure that if I was the child in question I would have hated being born.

So that brings us back to the start of my story - Nancy thought that the baby should have been allowed to live and adopted out when it was born. I was appalled at that thought. My thoughts were and still are, that there are millions of children out there already, who have lost their parents in their childhood or their parents are too poor to look after them. They need loving homes to belong to. Why should we not focus on adopting out those children - instead of creating new babies just for the purpose of adopting them out. When a person knows that she is not going to love the baby, she is going to give it away; then, in my humble thinking - I feel that let her live for the rest of her life with the pain, and the anguish and remorse (if she has any) at killing her baby. Why punish the poor baby?

Why should a poor, dear little baby who has a hard life ahead of him/her already (as life is hard for all of us at sometime or the other, why should this poor soul have to go through more hardships just because his/her mother was careless or unlucky enough to get pregnant. Life is hard enough even when you have a stable home background with parents who love you, nurture and care for you and protect you when you need it. Why should this child have to go through the agony of living life knowing that his/her mother did not love her enough to look after her/him, herself.

What guarantee is there that the baby will be adopted and will find a good adoptive home where love will be in abundance? Maybe, it will become the victim of a pedophile in the very adoption home that he/she lives. Is it right to bring a child into the world, just because one is careless enough to let it happen. Why should that poor child pay the price for their parents' indiscretions?

As I said earlier, these are purely my thoughts, but as a Post-Graduate of International Social Work, I have done extensive research into Adoption - which was indeed the topic that I chose to write about. These thoughts, maybe mine - but there is input for them from the thoughts of many of the true stories I have read about adopted children while doing my research for my paper on Adoption.

More on this topic on another day and if anyone out there is an adopted child or adoptive parent and would like to write to me about their thoughts on this issue, please feel free to do so. I welcome your thoughts.