Interesting statistic I just found on Wikipedia. I have done a bit of googling to see if my assumptions are correct but cannot find out for sure, but I’m almost certainly right.
The statistic is that in 2002, there were 1044 adoptions in Sweden. Of these, ONLY BETWEEN TEN AND TWENTY were Swedish kids. The rest were adoptions from outside the country.
This leads me to the following findings/assumptions:
There are very few unwanted children born in Sweden indeed
This is almost certainly down to excellent contraception, and a rational approach to abortion when it fails. It is furthermore also down to no slut shaming and other rubbish - single mother families are supported by both the state and society
This means that there are loads of infertile and/or extremely charitable couples in Sweden who can adopt foreign kids in need
Not saying you’re wrong (I have no idea), but that’s a lot of “ifs” or contingencies. Not very parsimonious. And a cite that most mothers give up their children for adoption because they don’t want to fell shame, and not because children are damn expensive and maybe they can’t afford that at that point in their life? If a pro-life attitude means they won’t abort, does it also imply that they are against adoption for some reason?
Um, yeah. You’re jumping to a lot of conclusions based on what you want to believe and hope is true, based on one statistic.
Just to throw out some other possibilities: It could be that there is a cultural stigma against placing children for adoption in Sweden. Perhaps there aren’t many resources to support women who might otherwise be interested in domestic adoption there. Perhaps the legalities of domestic adoption are onerous (for example, many birthmothers here in the US want an open adoption - does Swedish law even allow for that? Is the process of being approved to adopt a Swedish infant complex?). Perhaps there is such a high rate of homosexuality in Sweden that almost nobody is in a position to have an unplanned pregnancy in the first place.
Okay, so maybe that last theory isn’t the most likely one, but you really can’t say much meaningfully about why things are that way in Sweden without any evidence or research.
All valid points - Simple Linctus, you should be doing more thorough research instead of throwing about this sort of conicio ab rectum.
On the other hand, speaking in a purely anecdotal sense, as a near geographical neighbour to Sweden, you’re spot on. Not just about Sweden, but about Scandinavia in general. No slut-shaming, effective contraception and (by american standards, that is) immense amounts of economic support for mothers, single or otherwise - “child stipends” of roundabouts 800$ a month are the norm.
By my highly not-scientific method using the price of a beer as a conversion price, $800 US to spend in Scandinavia is about the equivalent of a hair over $300 here. But if so, would that be in addition to any welfare?
At the risk of sounding like I’m stereotyping and painting with a broad brush, it seems that the main mothers who put their children up for adoption are either very young or more educated and don’t want a child. The ones who don’t use contraception and are very poor keep having them and keeping them, if not always taking the best care of them.
That sounds approximately right, although the accuracy of your conversion depends on the country you’re sampling beer prices from - Norway has almost twice as high liquor prices as the other scandinavian countries.
To answer your question about the child stipend, it is, yes, given on top of other forms of welfare. Here in Denmark, a young, unemployed, single mother might easily qualify for roundabouts another 3.5-4k in welfare payments, usually in the form of housing support and general welfare; she would, however, be paying 45-50% of that right back to the state in various sorts of taxes.
In Scandinavia, in my experience, most unwanted children are the sole result of SWS*, and while the majority of pregnancies to older low-income women are aborted, many younger women chose to keep the babies on the basis of sentiment and actual economic viability.
But if so, would that be in addition to any welfare?