Within the abortion debate, many claim women should not have to sacrifice their livelihood in order to raise a child for which they are not ready. They believe abortion provides an easy escape from parenthood. It allows a woman to continue her education, career, and life where she left off before she became pregnant.
However, as we witness cases of depression, suicide ideation, physical harm, and even death that can result from abortion, we all-too-often overlook a safe, life-giving alternative to unready parenthood or abortion: adoption.
Adoption is a viable and more than often very successful and fulfilling opportunity in crisis pregnancy. Research suggests that an estimated 1 to 2 million couples seek to adopt each year in the U.S. Many of these couples must wait for years before a child is available for them to welcome into their family. According to the Guttmacher Institute, about 1.2 million abortions occurred in the U.S. in 2008 alone. Imagine how many families would be able to adopt, how many women would not have to suffer through an abortion, and how many unborn lives would be saved if women decided to forgo abortion and give their “unwanted” children a fighting chance.
But why the stigma about adoption? Some believe adoptive children will not be as loved by their adopted parents or that they will feel abandoned by their birth parents. Yet, a 1994 study by the Search Institute indicates that, in fact, “adopted children do as well as or better than their non-adopted counterparts.”
Also, contrary to what many pregnant women think, adoption is free to the birth mother. Many adoption services even pay for the woman’s medical (prenatal care), legal, and counseling expenses, as well as scholarships to birth mothers who want to continue their education.
Abortion advocates ride on the idea of “choice.” Yet, as we have seen in China, and even in America with coercive abortions, the availability of abortion does not always allow women to choose. Adoption provides an alternative to the brutality of abortion. It gives a woman the chance to allow her child to live, but also to continue to pursue her life goals. Most of all, it brings joy to a couple eagerly waiting for a child to love.
Simply put by a spokesperson for the National Adoption Center in Philadelphia, “there are no unwanted children, only unfound parents.”
Give your child, and yourself, that option.
The SBA Pro-Life America National Pro-life Scorecard is a tool that helps hold members of Congress accountable for their legislative records on life and that highlights leadership in the fight to serve women and save babies.
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