# Pit kerfluffel on adoption **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 27, 2011, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-kerfluffel-on-adoption/579882 "2011-04-27T12:35:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-kerfluffel-on-adoption/579882/21 "2011-04-28T17:14:50Z")
> [@Laudenum](#): > > Because people want their own child, not someone else’s. > They want to look and see the same features, the same quirks, know that at least half the blood in their veins is the same - they want a child that is part of _them_. > > There is a reason that there is an Irish curese that translates roughly as: > “May you raise another man’s son” And that particular curse indicates that your wife fucked another man, not adoption. Big difference. Older societies actually held with fostering other peoples children on a regular basis, not just adoption. Families fairly frequently swapped around children to help their education. Apprenticeship was a form of fostering that was profession based. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-kerfluffel-on-adoption/579882/22 "2011-04-28T17:25:07Z")
The idea that anyone can carry a baby for nine months and then hand it over like a sack of potatoes is an abomination. Surrogate others who carry babies conceived to be adopted have sued to get their children back. How do you think Michelle Landers felt when she found out the child she had given up for adoption had been beaten to death? Even if I were anti-abortion, I wold find this ridiculously cavelier attituted towards the birth mother to be inexcusible and unforgivable. Read the book [The Girls Who Went Away](http://www.amazon.com/Girls-Who-Went-Away-Surrendered/dp/1594200947). These mothers all had one of two reactions after they gave up their babies for adoption: They either went out and had several more children in a row (like Roseanne Barr), or never had another child in their life (like Joni Mitchell). Yes, being forced to give your own child up and lead to abortions when a woman cannot take the chance of having to give up another child. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-kerfluffel-on-adoption/579882/23 "2011-04-28T17:27:47Z")
Wait, where is this idea of _forced_ adoptions coming from? ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-kerfluffel-on-adoption/579882/24 "2011-04-28T17:42:14Z")
Forcing a woman to give birth to a child she can’t be a mother to is a foced adoption. Before legal adoption, when single motherhood was a scandal, many young women were forced to give their babies up for adoption. They suffered enormously. The anti-abortion crowd pushes adoption like it’s some type of la-la land where nobody gets hurt. > [@Homer's original post.](#): > > All 3 win. No aborter’s guilt, the baby gets a life, and the adopter gets a child This is a lie, pure and simple. The birth mother may feel enormous guilt and longing for her child, and the child itself will wonder why their mother didn’t want them. How can that be a “win.” ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-kerfluffel-on-adoption/579882/25 "2011-04-28T17:43:22Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > ☹ If I may–but you _were_ adopted. Your real parents, the ones who raised you, wanted you. Enough to go “out of their way” to have you, right? Seems to me that more than outweighs the biologicals’ lack, whatever the details of that were. I’ve known a few folks who _wished_ their birth parents had put them up for adoption by somebody who cared more. I’ve known plenty of adoptees that wish their adopters a long stay in the worst circle of Hades too. Just because someone is willing to “go out of their way” doesn’t mean they have the best or any good interest in the child. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-kerfluffel-on-adoption/579882/26 "2011-04-28T18:23:45Z")
Abortion is a valid option when birth control fails. It just is. I want to add that I am wholeheartedly in favor of open, heartfelt adoptions, but it is damn hard to give up a child and “feel no guilt”. Quite possible some women can. I’m sure they can. I, however, would never have an end to the guilt. On the contrary, I feel no guilt whatsoever about the one abortion I did have, because to me it’s a child that never was. It’s like an egg in your fridge. Sure the eggs are not fertilized and obviously a fetus is, but it isn’t a child until I bring it to fruition, and it certainly isn’t a child in the first trimester. I am thirty-five years old now and have never ever wavered in my desire not to have a child. I had the abortion when I was around 21, fourteen years ago. If I had had the baby and adopted it out it’d be around fourteen years old now - the exact age where I found out that I had been adopted and unwanted. Maybe things would have been better if I had insisted on an open adoption and gotten to know her…BUT I never wanted children! So how is it better for the child either way? It isn’t like there’s a shortage of babies. My child not being born did not stop millions of other children from being born. Babies are born every day. This idea that every baby must be born (and adopted maybe)…why? What good does that do anyone? ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-kerfluffel-on-adoption/579882/27 "2011-04-28T19:05:00Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Forcing a woman to give birth to a child she can’t be a mother to is a foced adoption. Before legal adoption, when single motherhood was a scandal, many young women were forced to give their babies up for adoption. They suffered enormously. I think you mean “before legal abortion.” And–sure, that’s terrible. No argument. Forced adoption _or_ forced abortion, both are brutality. > [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > The anti-abortion crowd pushes adoption like it’s some type of la-la land where nobody gets hurt. > … > The birth mother may feel enormous guilt and longing for her child, and the child itself will wonder why their mother didn’t want them. How can that be a “win.” What you say here is true. But it is _also_ true that _some_ abortion-rights advocates minimize concerns about the effects of abortion. Women who get abortions _may_ feel enormous guilt and longing for their children-who-never-were, too. We tend to make it hard on women who become pregnant in imperfect circumstances regardless of their choice. It seems to me that a genuine respect for women and the right to choose should support them either way. As for adopted children, the main problem I see is the notion that adoptive parents aren’t _real_ parents. If we truly supported adoption as a legitimate choice for a pregnant woman (and I don’t believe one can be genuinely “pro-choice” otherwise), then we’d also necessarily support adoptive parents and adopted children. And part of _that_ should include the presumption that adoptive parents are real parents. No child should have cause to wonder why their mother (or father) didn’t want them–their parent or parents are _there_. _They’re the ones raising them._ > [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > I’ve known plenty of adoptees that wish their adopters a long stay in the worst circle of Hades too. Just because someone is willing to “go out of their way” doesn’t mean they have the best or any good interest in the child. Yes, parents of all descriptions can be, or become, bad. But given that raising a child is, all in all, a lot more work than making one (meaning no slight to the special burdens of pregnancy and giving birth), and that adoption is necessarily deliberate, I suspect that adoptive parents _tend_ to be a little better on average than biological parents. > [@Anaamika](#): > > Abortion is a valid option when birth control fails. It just is. I want to add that I am wholeheartedly in favor of open, heartfelt adoptions, but it is damn hard to give up a child and “feel no guilt”. Quite possible some women can. I’m sure they can. I, however, would never have an end to the guilt. > > On the contrary, I feel no guilt whatsoever about the one abortion I did have, because to me it’s a child that never was. Right. You made your choice; you recognize that other women could make another choice. I think we should support women whatever their choice… and support parents _as parents_, regardless of the provenance of their children. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-kerfluffel-on-adoption/579882/28 "2011-04-28T19:17:57Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > In school. We got sat down and forced to do home ecch\ that was useless. I learned to make a steak, a baked potato, canned beans boiled in a pot and a cake made from a box mix. I learned how to sew a peasant blouse. I learned how to keep a 5 pound sack of flour and haul it around without dropping it. In health class I got sat down and watched some stupid movie about menstruation by tampax, and then a very dated 50s one about the birds and bees [the boys got sent to a different auditorium and watched whatever they showed them.] You do realize that “Home Ec” has changed in the decades since you were in high school, right? Now it’s “Life Skills” and encompasses a lot more than housewifely skills. That said, I agree with you that there should be more of an emphasis on birth control instruction than the typical sex & health classes encompass. Those are often taught in the early puberty years, and need to be redone in middle school and high school. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-kerfluffel-on-adoption/579882/29 "2011-04-28T19:57:44Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > …To me, having a kid and then not taking care of it myself is worse than abortion…It always amazes me when a man, who will never ever be in that position, tries to tell me to just have the kid and adopt it out. YOU do it. I don’t want to put my body through that. I don’t want the pain or the trouble or anything… Yeah, that’s quite an inconvenience someone thrust upon you, isn’t it. :rolleyes: mmm ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-kerfluffel-on-adoption/579882/30 "2011-04-28T20:37:42Z")
Quoth **Annie-Xmas** : > [@](#): > > The idea that anyone can carry a baby for nine months and then hand it over like a sack of potatoes is an abomination. And how is this in any way different from abortion? If a woman’s pregnant, then she’ll either keep the baby, or she will in some way not keep the baby. That’s not a matter of rights or principles, that’s just the facts. If not keeping the baby is traumatic, and the mother can’t keep the baby, then she’s going to be traumatized. ---
**Author:** ![Lightlystarched](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Lightlystarched](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightlystarched)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-kerfluffel-on-adoption/579882/31 "2011-04-28T20:42:40Z")
> [@Laudenum](#): > > Because people want their own child, not someone else’s. > They want to look and see the same features, the same quirks, know that at least half the blood in their veins is the same - they want a child that is part of _them_. > > There is a reason that there is an Irish curese that translates roughly as: > “May you raise another man’s son” See, I’m adopted too and this is partly why I would never put my own child up for adoption. My adopted family looked nothing like me (other than caucasian) and I always felt _wrong_. And there was never anyone to say, “my, you have my eyes” or “you get your dancing ability from your mother”. And if someone DID say something like that it just felt like a big fat lie and made me MORE aware that I was not genetically related to anyone in my extended family. And I had a great family who gave me a great childhood. It just never erases the not belonging feeling and wondering where your real genetic roots are? What nationality am I? All those questions and feelings of inadequacy. ---
**Author:** ![Trepa\_Mayfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@Trepa\_Mayfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trepa_Mayfield)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-kerfluffel-on-adoption/579882/32 "2011-04-28T20:59:29Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Quoth **Annie-Xmas** :And how is this in any way different from abortion? If a woman’s pregnant, then she’ll either keep the baby, or she will in some way not keep the baby. That’s not a matter of rights or principles, that’s just the facts. If not keeping the baby is traumatic, and the mother can’t keep the baby, then she’s going to be traumatized. The difference is the difference between a full pregnancy and labor vs. a month or two of pregnancy plus abortion. I suspect that that difference is substantial. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-kerfluffel-on-adoption/579882/33 "2011-04-28T21:28:06Z")
> [@Lightlystarched](#): > > See, I’m adopted too and this is partly why I would never put my own child up for adoption. My adopted family looked nothing like me (other than caucasian) and I always felt _wrong_. And there was never anyone to say, “my, you have my eyes” or “you get your dancing ability from your mother”. And if someone DID say something like that it just felt like a big fat lie and made me MORE aware that I was not genetically related to anyone in my extended family. > > And I had a great family who gave me a great childhood. It just never erases the not belonging feeling and wondering where your real genetic roots are? What nationality am I? All those questions and feelings of inadequacy. Believe me, birth children go through the very same thing. And adoptive children pick up many traits and mannerisms from their adoptive parents as well. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-kerfluffel-on-adoption/579882/34 "2011-04-28T22:04:10Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > Yes, parents of all descriptions can be, or become, bad. But given that raising a child is, all in all, a lot more work than making one (meaning no slight to the special burdens of pregnancy and giving birth), and that adoption is necessarily deliberate, I suspect that adoptive parents _tend_ to be a little better on average than biological parents. I suspect that people who can’t be trusted to provide care for a child unless they are allowed to deny that child their original birth certificate and family history to be a lot worse on average than biological parents. Paying money, waiting, and wading through redtape simply shows determination not necessarily that their motives were good. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2011, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-kerfluffel-on-adoption/579882/35 "2011-04-28T22:14:51Z")
> [@Lightlystarched](#): > > See, I’m adopted too and this is partly why I would never put my own child up for adoption. My adopted family looked nothing like me (other than caucasian) and I always felt _wrong_. And there was never anyone to say, “my, you have my eyes” or “you get your dancing ability from your mother”. And if someone DID say something like that it just felt like a big fat lie and made me MORE aware that I was not genetically related to anyone in my extended family. > > And I had a great family who gave me a great childhood. It just never erases the not belonging feeling and wondering where your real genetic roots are? What nationality am I? All those questions and feelings of inadequacy. I’m adopted too and never had feelings of not belonging and inadequacy. Just wanted to even out the anecdotal data, here. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2011, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-kerfluffel-on-adoption/579882/36 "2011-04-29T13:11:51Z")
> [@pedescribe](#): > > The difference is the difference between a full pregnancy and labor vs. a month or two of pregnancy plus abortion. I suspect that that difference is substantial. Birth mothers who give up their babies know they had a baby. Women who have abortions know (or rationalize) that they didn’t have a baby. Huge difference. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2011, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-kerfluffel-on-adoption/579882/37 "2011-04-29T16:20:41Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Birth mothers who give up their babies know they had a baby. Women who have abortions know (or rationalize) that they didn’t have a baby. > > Huge difference. Or in many cases feel that they have done the right thing by sending their baby to a better place rather than condemning them to a short, painful or torturous life in this world. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pit-kerfluffel-on-adoption/579882.md?page=1)