FACT: The word "birthmother" was invented about 25 years ago by the North American adoption industry to refer to women who have surrendered their babies. Before that time, we were referred to as natural mothers or real mothers.

See the article "Why Birthmother Means Breeder,"
by Diane Turski

Why? The term "birthmother" was invented to limit our role in our children's lives to 1) being production units ("breeders" as social workers also called us) whose sole purpose was to serve a genital function, and 2) to having only been parents at the time of birth, but not afterwards. To call a woman a "birthmother" is another way to call her an incubator.

Many women who have lost their children to adoption are now rejecting the label of  "birthmother" which was imposed on them. As one natural mother stated:

"I am Jill's mother.  I am her real mother.  I gave birth to her.  If I had been married to her father and killed in an accident or died in childbirth, would I no longer be considered her mother?  How would people refer to me?  Would I now be called her birthmother?  I doubt that.  If I had been killed in an accident or died in childbirth and my husband remarried, his wife would be my child's stepmother not her mother.  No matter how loving and nurturing the relationship, no matter if my child called her stepmom, mom, I would still be her mother. And people would respect that."

The adoption industry is currently trying to place the "birthmother" label on expectant mothers, to get them to "buy-into" the idea of relinquishing before they have even given birth!  When she is still the legal mother of her child, to convince her that she is a "birthmother" primes her to believe that her sole function is to produce the baby. To label her a "birthmother" is to deny her any respect as the mother (not incubator) of her child. 

TRUTH: Infant adoption is an industry in which young unwed (and thus powerless) parents are persuaded - through force, coercion or outright lies - to transfer parental rights of their children to older, more affluent couples (and sometimes also single people), and usually strangers.

Adoption exists for several reasons: to keep down the number of welfare recipients (i.e. single parents on welfare), for the North American adoption industry to profit (to the tune of $1.4 billion in 1999 alone) from the spending-power of the affluent, and (formerly) as a way of punishing young unwed mothers for their "loose and immoral" behaviour.

The adoption system is now virtually a North American phenomena - most other countries realize how barbaric it is toward mothers and children. However the North American adoption industry and pro-adoption lobby is well-financed and out-spoken. Young women and their children are easy prey for the expert marketing tactics that agencies and facilitators now use.

TRUTH: no woman can make a decision about her baby until she actually holds it in her arms, has it in her life - even then, the transition from pregnancy into motherhood must be smoothed by wise counsel and the support for all new mothers.  A baby isn't just born to her mother: She is born to her mother, AND to her family, to her community and to her country - stripped of the first, she can form no connection and no identity. 

No woman chooses to "GIVE" away her own flesh and blood anymore than she chooses to give away her soul. Rather, she has been convinced that she cannot be a mother, especially not a good one and does not deserve to be one. 

No one WANTS to be an adoptee. No mother who has lost a child ever fully recovers.  

For a decision to be made freely, there must be two or more choices to choose between. The choice must also be made with 1) a lack of coercion, and 2) the chooser fully informed of the consequences of each choice.

If a decision forced through coercion or fraud, how can anyone say it was a decision? These are common tactics used:

COERCION:

• Doing all they can during the pregnancy to ensure that she commits to adoption, while her child is still a theoretical concept to her. BIRTH IS A LIFE-CHANGING PROCESS -- SHE'LL BE A DIFFERENT PERSON (EMOTIONALLY, PSYCHOLOGICALY AND PHYSICALLY) POST-BIRTH AND THUS SHOULD MAKE NO DECISIONS REGARDING ADOPTION PRE-BIRTH.
• Ensuring that the mother develops a close relationship with the adopters during her pregnancy, so that she'll see their hurt and disappointment if she changes her mind, thus pressuring her not to change her mind.
• Making certain the adoptive parents are with her during the birth, even cutting the umbilical cord and holding "their" baby.
• Ensuring that she accepts financial help (living expenses, medical bills paid, etc.) by the adopters such that she feels she owes them the baby.
• Encouraging her to make an adoption plan,
• Neglecting to tell her that she has forever after the birth to "choose adoption" - that the state period before she can legally sign consent form isn't a deadline that she must decide by.
• Limiting her contact with her child after the birth, in order to "prevent bonding" and thus increase her chance of signing the papers.
• Forcing her to sign the papers with the adoptive parents in the same room, watching her.
• Forcing her to her sign the papers while still medicated from childbirth.
• Telling her that the only way she can see her child is if she signs first.
• Suddenly telling her after the birth that if she doesn't sign, she'll be liable for several thousand dollars in medical expenses that otherwise the adoption agency, facilitator, or adoptive parents will cover.
• Telling her that

FRAUD AND INTENTIONALLY WITHHOLDING INFORMATION:

• Mothers are NOT told about the unresolvable grief and loss that will plague them for years.
• Mothers are promised open adoptions when few adopters ever intend to keep these promises.
• Mothers are NOT told that open adoption agreements are not legally enforcable in any state or province (adopters can be forced to go to mediation, but do NOT have to agree to any access or visitation).
• Mothers are not told that they will have a 40-60% chance of secondary infertility.
• Mothers are not told about adoptee anger and the damage that adoption may do to a child.
• Mothers are promised that the adoptee will be given enough information to be able to contact them when an adult (in closed-records states and provinces, either difficult or impossible).
• Telling the mother after the birth that the supposedly "non-binding pre-birth consent forms" she signed while pregnant are actually binding

  "The young woman with poor self-esteem and low assertiveness might take decades or forever to drop her denial and collusion with the beliefs pedalled by the agency."  - Excerpts From Dr Geoff Rickarby's Submission TO The New South Wales Parliament. Standing Committee on Social Issues Inquiry into Past Adoption Practices

TRUTH: The loss of our children to adoption colors our lives from the moment of surrender. If we are successful at suppressing our grief and blocking our memories of details, the emotional damage just surfaces in other, even more destructive ways. This particular myth is most harmful as it denies the grief of the first Mother.  One support list many of us belong to is over 800 women strong, either searching or reunited. This is hardly a picture of women who have "forgotten" and are "going on with their lives."  Something stops in the clockwork of the surrendering Mother's emotions and is never restarted. 

Many of us have suffered from secondary infertility as a result of the surrender we were told we would "forget." Others have difficulty with relationships and trust issues.  Our hearts REMEMBER.

TRUTH:  Losing a child to adoption involves the same type of grief as losing a child to death or miscarriage.  The difference is that it is FAR worse.  There is no closure.

A child lost to miscarriage or death is not taken against the mother's wishes and given to strangers to raise with the deliberate plan that the mother would never see her own child again.  Joe Soll in his book Adoption Healing likens adoption grief to psychological death, which is a very different reality from a physical death because there is no closure - no support for the feelings of loss, no grieving and mourning period.  With adoption, there is no closure.  With miscarriage or death, there is no coercion. 

A professional counsellor states: "I know two women who lost children to adoption, later had another child who they raised and then the child died. Both of them respond the same to the question 'Which was worse?' They have no trouble stating that losing the child to adoption was worse, because there is no closure and no end to the grief." 

TRUTH:  As anyone who has given birth knows, with the biological changes a woman goes through during pregnancy and post-partum it can take time for the new mother to normalize.  This natural process makes her especially vulnerable to those who tell her she is unfit to be a mother, such as adoption facilitators and prospective adoptive parents as they hover over her, waiting to “get” her baby. 

No matter what “decision” the new mother made while carrying her child, it is a whole new ball game once her child is in her arms as a real live little human being.  Relinquishing her child for adoption will be the most important decision she ever makes in her life and the life of her child.  Cutting the time she has to think about this enormous life-changing decision from 90 days to 24 hours, not only devalues her as a human being but also devalues her child.  Surely a newborn deserves more consideration!

Shortening revocation periods for adoption only benefits the adoption industry, including internet and private adoption facilitators.  If they can keep a new mother drugged and keep her away from support of her family and friends for a mere 24 hours they can snatch her baby and sell it to the highest bidder. This has happened to many of us, and still happens in many cases.

TRUTH:  The waiting period was designed for adopters. In truth, once her child is out of her hands, the mother will probably need to fight a horrendous legal battle to get her child back, even if the law says that she is allowed to change her mind. Once the adopters have the child and the lawsuit continues, the courts almost always rule in favor of the adopters. The longer the child stays with the adopters the most likely the court is to rule against the natural parent. Time works against natural parents. And "possession is nine-tenths of the law."

The courts WANT the babies to stay with the adopters and use this against natural parents. They say the child will be traumatized by being moved from "the only parents they have ever known." This is patently false, and most adoptees state that they would have preferred NOT to have been an adoptee. The child normally WANTS to be with its natural mother and father, and within a short readjustment period would be just fine.

As well, the adopters could move any time during this period and the mother would never be able to find them. This is a frequent tactic, and agencies have been known to advise adopters to do it. 

TRUTH:  Adoption is not a choice, it is what happens when there is no hope and no help. When a mother feels that there is no support to allow her to keep her child, or when she has been convinced that she could not be a good parent. Only abandoned mothers abandon babies. What befalls the mother befalls her child. Mother and child are forever linked - we cannot damage one without damaging the other. Society cannot damn Mother without damning the Baby. The mother may think she can have her old life back, the way things were before she became a mother - but she cannot. She will discover that in losing her child to adoption, she has also lost her heart and soul. 

The difference between adoption and abortion is that the grief from abortion is resolvable. There is closure. With adoption the grief intensifies over time. Post-traumatic stress syndrome is frequently experienced by mothers who have lost their babies to adoption. 

The difference between raising a child is losing that child to adoption is that a woman who loses a child to adoption still has all the mothering instincts and feelings. She is a mother without her child. Raising a child is a responsibility and a joy, but losing a child to adoption is a never-ending loss.

TRUTH:  It is true that adoptions of newborn white babies have drastically reduced in 2001 from what it was in the 50’s. 60’s, 70’s and even 80’s.   But it IS still happening today.  And, today the young mothers are told they are “making an adoption plan” for their baby.  The burden is now  ALL on them!  Many of these young mothers are being forced into this by their families, just as so many of us were.  They are being forced to “choose” the adopters of their children, get to know them, etc, sometimes even live with them while they wait for their children to be born.  This of course puts even more pressure on them:  how could they possibly disappoint the adopters by changing their minds?  And there is little support from the public for the mother who has changed her mind … the public is on the side of “what about the adopters”?  So, things haven’t changed for the better except that it is more socially-acceptable for young mothers to keep their babies if they have the help of those around them.

The basic truth is the same now for young Moms as it was for us "way back when."  Adoption has not really changed. It's the same old product in a new wrapper. Moms are still given subtle and constant messages about how much more fit the older, affluent, married couple is than they to raise their child. They are promised "open" adoptions which are unenforcable, and no one urges keeping their baby.  What used to be called relinquishment and surrender is now called "making an adoption plan for your baby."  Same stuff, different day!  Babies are still listed as abandoned after the Mom signs the papers.  States are trying to enforce shorter revocation periods which leaves the new Mom without any recourse should she come to her senses and realize what has been taken from her.  Things are not moving forward, but backwards and we are going to see a whole new generation of women who are living lives of quiet tragedy and young people who are forced into trying to fit into a family that is not like them. 

TRUTH: Asking an adoption agency for information about adoption will NOT give you unbiased information -- they will only tell you the "good" aspects of adoption, and most of those have been disproved by science.

Asking them for advice on whether or not you should surrender your baby for adoption is the same as going to a car dealership and asking the dealer whether or not you should buy a car - of course they will say "Yes!" Agencies cannot give you unbiased information because they will make from $25,000 to $60,000 from customers if your baby is healthy and white.  

Nor is there any counselling available to the mother regarding the consequences of losing her firstborn child. Agency counsellors are there to convince the young woman to surrender (now called "making an adoption plan"). There is profit to be made because infertile couples may often do anything and pay anything to obtain a child (look at the case of the "Internet Twins"). They've been convinced that adoption will cure their infertility. It will not.

TRUTH: Any relationship is up to the adoptive parents, who have total say and total control over who sees the child.

"Open adoption" is not a legally enforcable contract in any state or province. The worst penalty that can be incurred by adopters if they reneg on an "openness agreement" is to pay a fine in some states. However, they are still under no obligation to honour the agreement after paying the fine. As well, they could easily move to a different state.

Adoption agencies have been known to advise adopters to "close" the adoption once they get the child. Even "Dr. Laura" has advised this in her radio broadcasts, telling a caller to promise the natural mother anything but give her nothing.

The promise of "open adoption" is used to bait naive, poor pregnant girls into thinking they'll be getting help to raise their child. The adopters can up-and-leave the state or country (and may well disappear before the ink is dry on the adoption document). Likely the mother will never have any true information, but she is led to believe she will be able to see her child grow up. She will learn too late that she has been duped. 

Once you have signed the relinquishment papers, you are a legal stranger to your child, and have no more right to see your child than any other stranger does. 

TRUTH:  If this is true, then why are so many adopters single?  What about a widow or widower or divorced person who never remarries, yet manages to raise emotionally healthy, achieving children?  How many of you were raised in a single parent family and managed to turn out OK?  Case closed!

Besides, what is your guarantee that the adopters will not divorced or that both will live until the child reaches adulthood.  Your child may well end up being raised by a single parent.

NY Attorney Catherine Manrango passes along the following census stats from The Adoption Activism Press: "Less adopted kids have two parents than kids at large! The study points out that only 16% of adopted children are being raised in 2-parent families, as compared to 25% of all children being in 2 parent homes.  The 25% figure hit the papers today - but not the 16% for adopted kids."  

TRUTH: The best thing you can do for your baby is to keep that child in its family of origin. Infants have already bonded with their mothers in-utero. They are traumatized by the loss of the one person they associate with security.

The most recent scientific research show that a fetus bonds with the mother early on in gestation and that, when born, recognizes the scent, voice and heartbeat of its mother. The child's genetic heritage is important. This is not a problem that "open adoption" can solve, since open adoption is unenforceable by law and still separates the infant from the mother during a crucial period. The damage here, is TO THE CHILD.

As well, your child probably will resent you for "doing the best thing": 

" My adopted daughter has views on her birth mother that I never encouraged her to have, she very much resents being given up, and she is very angry with her birthmother, even though I've told her that the woman would probably have kept her if she could. It doesn't matter to my child, she hates hearing about her birthmother and anything related to her." - ad adoptive mother on the "RBM" list.

"I was told that if I loved my child I would surrender her to adoption. I was told that there was a lovely couple who could give her so much that I never could, and that it was selfish of me to even imagine I could keep her. I was made to feel worthless as a person and a mother, and having no options, I signed the adoption papers. The trauma of losing my daughter to adoption has life-long repercussions and has made mothering my other children difficult. The daughter I lost to adoption has had everything that money can buy, but she was never happy and her adoption issues have scarred her deeply. She tells me that if I really loved her I would never have given her up for adoption, and she doesn’t believe there were no other options. It's a no-win situation." - Lina Eve

TRUTH: The fact is that adoption is different and will always be different. The child is usually told at an early age and will feel their difference from other children. Those not told, usually suspect. The very fact of adoption makes parenting a different proposition from natural parenting.  The genetic bond is just not there.

If you "place" your child for adoption, he or she will grow up in a family of strangers, who dont look or act like he or she does. Your child will always wonder why they "weren't good enough" for you to keep. "Open adoption" hasn't been around for long enough for any studies to show that it is less harmful to adopted people than is "closed adoption."

FACT: In closed adoptions, agencies do not give the adopters information on the natural mothers because the adopters paid for a baby to call their own.  They did not pay for someone else's baby, they paid for their own baby.  

To acknowledge the details about you, the mother, would have made you a real person with real feelings.  How could adopters be happy if they knew that taking your baby from you caused you pain?  We mothers are easy to ignore if we are just a ghost, not a real, thinking, feeling, hurting human being. 

FALSE: The grief a mother feels upon losing her child to adoption, once the "shock" has worn off, is just as profound as losing a beloved family member to death. The difference is that, unlike death, the grief is unresolvable. THE PAIN NEVER GOES AWAY. Mothers who are lucky can bury it deep inside, but it will come back if she's lucky enough to reunited with her child.

As well, finding a counsellor, even an "adoption professional" who understands, is next to impossible. You'll hear:

        "Forget your child and move on." 
        "You can have other children." 
        "Your child is in a good loving home." 

None of these phrases work, either post-relinquishment or post-reunion.  It can take YEARS post-reunion in this process until the pain goes away, if it EVER does!

TRUTH: Adoption of infants by strangers, as it is normally done in North America, is primarily a North American phenomena. Other nations such as Australia and Britain have realized that this practice verges on barbaric, and have virtually eliminated it. Adoption of step-children after second-marriages, and adoption of adults to guarantee inheritance rights are practiced, but in most other nations, either extended family members help out as temporary foster-parents, or governments provide social assistance (money, housing, etc.) without it being perceived as a personal failure or an undeserved hand-out.

"As an attorney I view the current laws in this country regarding adoption as reprehensible for the most part. Everyone should have the right to know who his or her biological parents are. No one should be subjected to being taken away from one's biological parent due to the biological parent being in a stressful situation when a child is born and pressured by social workers to give up all parental rights to the child. Nor should any child be subjected to being given to an infertile couple who most likely see prospective adoptees as little more than commodities available to meet the adoptive parents' desires. Adoption law reform is long overdue." —  Attorney Frank Ledbetter, Esq., St. Louis, MO #503 on AbolishAdoption Petition, March 3, 2003

In 1948, the United States and Canada signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which includes the following statement promising the right of all young unwed mothers to social assistance that ensures that their children will not starve or suffer from poverty:

"Article 25. (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection."

Other nations take this promise seriously! Why doesn't Canada and the United States? Because citizens have to know their rights and demand them!

MYTH 22: Adoption has happened since Biblical times.

TRUTH: Adoption of adults (normally a man adopting an adult male heir) has occurred since Biblical times, but adoption of infants has not! Fostercare of infants was common, as was legal guardianship. However, the infant's identity was not changed, nor were birth records falsified to indicate that the caregivers gave birth to the infant when they did not -- an integral part of the adoption system which has the goal of enabling adopters to pretend they gave biirth to the adopted child. Parental ties and status were not terminated, nor was contact between parent and child.

Infant adoption is a 20th century social experiment, which was originally designed in-part to reduce the number of "immoral" lower-class citizens by taking their children to be raised in "moral" upper-class households, thus raising the children to be moral, upstanding citizens free of "immoral influences."

It is now promoted by North American governments in order to keep-down the numbers of mothers on welfare and to supply babies to satisfy consumer demand:

"Because there are many more married couples wanting to adopt newborn white babies than there are babies, it may almost be said that they rather than out of wedlock babies are a social problem. (Sometimes social workers in adoption agencies have facetiously suggested setting up social provisions for more 'babybreeding'.)" SOCIAL WORK AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS, National Association of Social Workers, (Out-of-print) copyright 1964

"... the tendency growing out of the demand for babies is to regard unmarried mothers as breeding machines...(by people intent) upon securing babies for quick adoptions." - Leontine Young, "Is Money Our Trouble?" (paper presented at the National Conference of Social Workers, Cleveland, 1953)

TRUTH: The love a mother feels for a baby who has been a part of her for 9 months, a baby whose biochemical signature hits the hindpart of her brain like a bolt of lightning because that baby is OF her, is a love and bond that solidifies like steel as soon as that baby is born. Her entire being, thru 9 months pregnancy and giving birth, is programmed to be 100% dedicated to caring for and loving that baby.

YOu don't "fall in love with" your baby over several days or even several weeks. It happens IMMEDIATELY. To lose your baby at birth is just as traumatic as losing that baby later on. Mother and babe are programmed to need each other at birth. Substitute mothers don't have the biochemistry the baby is programmed to need. They "smell" wrong and sound wrong and taste even worse. Babies know their real mothers - her voice, her scent, her milk. This has been proven over and over in studie of neonates.

Surrender immediately at birth is ONLY in the best interestof adopters who can then pretend they gave birth to the baby, or that the baby was gestated by a breeder "for them." It's not in the best interest of the baby. Nor of the natural mother. Both need each other, especially at birth.

If the mother surrenders at birth, it won't be any easier on her. She'll feel like it's an amputation of part of her self to lose her baby at birth.