Choice is largely a myth when it comes to relinquishing a child

Jane

SURRENDERS BASED ON MISINFORMATION ARE NOT CHOICES

"Julia,"* a 30-year-old married professional woman who learned her husband was having an affair gave up her new born son for adoption, a story that we have been writing about in the last two posts.  We wrote critically of her decision, but back tracked somewhat, recognizing that Julia was more sinned against than sinning. “Anonymous” commented that Julia was “a woman who has freely chosen to surrender, evidently was not forced to this choice. … Whatever happened to the concept of informed choice, even when another person's choice is not the one you wish you had made?” (Emphasis added.)

Since the infant adoption system in the U.S. does little to assure that mothers surrendering their babies are informed about the consequences, it's almost certain that Julia did not make an informed choice as Barbara Thavis, one of First Mother Forum readers, commented:

Adoption Nation is No Country for Birth Mothers

Jane

Adam Pertman’s Adoption Nation: (second edition) is a grateful adoptive parent’s accolade to adoption disguised as a treatise. Pertman is the often quoted Executive Director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute,
but he doesn’t get it when it comes to birth mothers. As in the first edition, Pertman gives lip service to first/birth mothers’ pain but quickly diverts the readers’ attention to the stories of a handful of women who become “true believers in adoption” with “no regrets.” As a first mother reading this book, I could not forget that Pertman is an adoptive father of two.

Pertman minimizes the pressures and in some cases the outright corruption which cause mothers in the United States and abroad to lose their children. In his zest for all things adoption, he ignores the opinion of recognized child welfare experts--including that of his employer, the Donaldson Institute, that “”Every society, including our own, accepts that it is generally in the best interests of children to be raised by their biological parents unless they cannot or do not wish to.“*