Gender Selection Abortion
So it seems that gender selection abortion is here in Australia. Or more specifically in Victoria, where the Abortion Law Reform Bill was passed in 2008, allowing abortion to be practiced at any stage of pregnancy.
It was reported in one of our major newspapers this morning that a couple who found themselves desperately wanting a daughter, terminated their twin sons – because they were sons. That’s right, they were aborted because they weren’t girls. This is nothing short of tragic.
You can read the full article here.
The article is actually about whether we should allow gender selection as a part of IVF here in Australia. That’s a whole other conversation, but not the one I want to address today. Some are saying that it is the sensationalists who look instead to the abortion part of this issue. It is true that I want to talk about the fact that these twins were aborted. Not so much because I am a sensationalist, but because this is a horrific outcome. For the babies, for the parents and for us as a society.
The great tragedy is that this is even possible.
I haven’t seen much positive media supporting this couple’s decision to abort. In fact the article also includes a poll on whether they should be allowed to choose the gender of their next child by way of IVF, in which the “NO” camp currently leads at 90.5%. This seems ironic after there was much push for the abortion laws to change in 2008 – perhaps we as a community stand for an individuals right to choose, but only if they make the right choice?
When those laws were changed it was done so with no amendments, leaving us with an abortion legislation which has been referred to by its detractors as “open slather abortion”. A highly provocative term you might think but perhaps an appropriate one. There are no boundaries, no watchdogs checking abortion clinics, no procedures in place to protect the women. It shouldn’t really surprise us that abortion is being used in gender selection. It is exactly what was fought for.
The nation thought women had won the debate when the legislation was passed. Choice was the hero, a victory for modern attitudes which celebrates the individual. So now a women who is aware of her own fragile mental state, even going so far as to say she has become “obsessed with having a daughter”, an outcome that is “vital to her psychological health”, makes a choice to abort healthy twin boys. As a society we have failed to protect not only the unborn, but also the parents.
Many have commented on various Facebook pages, forums and blogs that clearly the mental health of the mother is crucial to this issue. I would agree. Abortion is not something which will improve her already unstable mental well being.
Adoption is mentioned briefly at the end of the article with Gene Ethics director Bob Phelps saying the couple should “look for another way of getting a daughter into their family… they could offer a home to a child who needs one.” He suggested they could adopt from overseas.
Yes, they could theoretically adopt a child from overseas. Though it is highly unlikely that our rigid process would allow them to do this. Adoption is known to be an extremely difficult and lengthy process in Australia stemming from a long-standing negative adoption culture.
This couple might also have chosen to proceed to with the pregnancy of their twin boys, carrying them to full term and then place them with an adoptive family. An option which could have been positive not only for them, but also for their boys and a family willing to provide a loving home for them. Who was there to suggest this, to stand alongside them and to support them through this process? There is very little promotion of adoption in Australia and when there is, there is little support.
So instead we abort. Our adoption numbers decline. The anti-adopts shout the negatives of adoption. The pro-aborts shout about women’s choice, yet I see neither party expressing a willingness to walk alongside these families over the longer term.
And then at the end of the day I can’t help but ask myself… “How have we come to a place where entitlement rules? Where we will do anything just to get what we want? Where our laws are changing to promote the notion that we should be allowed to get exactly what we want… whatever the cost?”
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Promoting an increase in adoption is not the way to go as adult adoptees will tell you.The trauma is life-long for mother and adoptee.Why not campaign for better contraception and education of the young? Why not make sure no abortions are needed? American style adoption is a hideous, lucrative exploitative business, there will be many who will oppose the introduction of that!
It’s a good point you make, certainly the adoptive experiences you refer to seem to have added to the trauma for those involved.
Fortunately there are many other examples where lives have been enriched and allowed to thrive because someone has chosen to open up the space in their life to both give and receive into the life of another.
Take encouragement from the fact that these examples are out there.
Research into the brain development of children also informs us that under the right nurturing environment trauma does not have to be a life long sentence. Someones journey through that experience can actually be used to enrich the lives of others around them just as yours may be to those around you.
Like all preventative or reactive interventions there will be successes, at other times that success will not be so clear for us to see.
Education and support services for individuals or families that find themselves facing these circumstances is absolutely vital.
I agree that more can and should be done in this area.
Our aim is not to blindly follow any particular model of adoption but to seek the use of best practice principles that would fit most appropriately into an Australian context.
Adoption is not a complete solution in and of itself. But I do believe it holds a significant place in the bigger picture.
Undoubtedly adoption is on a few occasions necessary.In every instance loss of attachment damages, adoption is traumatic no matter how well done.
We need to be looking at better education for our young people, better use of contraception, better contraception and some sense of ethics and morality in the Reproductive Technology Industry.
It is a tragic place we have reached where babies can be made to order.
Thanks for your comments Von, it is always important that we are aware of all the issues concerning adoption.
Von, I would have to disagree, adoption does not guarantee trauma and damage. There are many adoptions in my family (including my two brothers, my niece and two nephews) and not one of them has been a negative experience. We are a family, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, aunts, uncles and cousins. We are all whole, part of each other, we ARE a family. No-one feels deprived, traumatized or has attachment issues, we belong to each other, those born and those chosen.
Adoption can be an amazing, positive experience for all involved.
Adoption laws in Australia must be changed to make adoption a viable choice for both birth mother and adoptive parents.
The only thing wrong with the adoption laws in some States is that they make birth information not as easily obtainable as it might be for adoptees and reunion more difficult than it has to be.
There are ten adoptees in my wider families, none have escaped damage.It sometimes takes decades for that to become apparent and for adoptees to be able to stop playing the role assigned to them and be able to speak out.when viewing adoption you need to look at all the generations and all adoptees, not a select few.
What does ‘viable choice’ mean?
By the way trauma is not necessarily a life long sentence but many adoptees suffer mutiple traumas, Adoption Syndrome, Stockholm Syndrome, abuse, loss of identity, name, country, religion, language, culture as well as parents and families.Importing the American idea of adoption as all unicorns and rainbows will do no one and service particularly adoptees.I notice you mention choices for adopters and mothers, no longer called ‘birth mothers’ in adoption land by the way and refer to ‘viable choice’. Adoptees have no choices, never have had, never will have.
Von, I don’t believe adoption has to be the horrific experience you seem to have experienced or heard of. Von you say that of the ten adoptees in your family that none have escaped damage. I am truly sorry for the trauma they have experienced. My brothers never experienced trauma with respect to their adoptions. Truth be told, I was the one who was traumatised when I found out that they were adopted and I was the only child born into the family. I was the one who felt disconnected and alone. I was the one who felt bereft of family.
My brothers never felt the need to search out their mothers even when they were given the information necessary. They never felt the need to ‘speak out against the role assigned to them’. The only roles they had were those of sons and brothers. We are as close a family today as we have been for over 50 years. One of my brothers has 3 adopted, adult children of his own. Two of those children are biologic brother and sister…their birth parents chose to adopt them out to the same family 18 months apart, when they were born. It would not occur to any of those children that they belong anywhere else than where they are or to anyone other than each other. You need to listen to yourself and ‘look at all the generations and all the adoptees, not a select few’.
When I mention ‘viable choice’ for both mothers and adopting families, I mean that mothers need to have the support and tools they need to make the decision of whether to abort an unplanned pregnancy or to carry the child to term and allow someone else to raise that child. You say that adoptees never have choices, neither does the unborn fetus when a young, desperate woman has to make the most life altering decision of her life. I’m sure that if the fetus had a choice of life or death, it would choose life…even if that life were with an adoptive family.
I find it really interesting that the people who defend adoption always seem to speak on behalf of adoptees. Here you have adoptees who are telling you of the trauma. There is trauma associated with adoption, whether you like it or not, whether your family members have shared it with you or not. I am certain there are those rare gems who are unaffected, or only moderately affected, by their adoption…. but many, many adoptees are damaged through adoption.
Our voices have merit. I am tired of hearing the family members of adoptees talk for them, as though they were perpetual children without a voice. Let us speak. Let us be heard. If your family is so well adjusted, why speak of adoption at all? Where are the voices you claim to represent, and why do you feel the need to defend adoption so heartily?
To be honest I’m not sure of the relevance of “choice”in this discussion. Whilst they have their obvious distinctions, the fact that adoptees have no decision in what circumstance they find themselves makes them exactly the same as everyone else who has set foot on this planet.
The responsibility of a community/society is to uphold it’s values to protect the rights of the vulnerable and the young. Sometimes that may mean making decisions that are both complex in their nature and with longer term ramifications – neither of which should diminish our courage to make such decisions.
To choose one course of action in it’s ideal form over another citing only it’s potential limitations does not contribute constructively to the issue.
I have no personal experience with adoption, my position is more an objective one – proper examination of the issue requires both. You cannot tell me how I felt about my upbringing, but I would be naive to think you couldn’t help me have some insight into my own life.
Adoption is not the only and certainly not always the best solution, but, with the benefit of learned experiences, must be part of the bigger picture.
Dean I agree with you. No one has a choice about coming in to this world. There are families that children should not be brought up in adopted or born. There are families that are wonderful for children adopted or born.
I don’t think that’s the only thing wrong with adoption laws! The first thing wrong is that ethical support for expectant mom’s is not required. An ethical social services worker working with an expectant parent should have a legal responsibility to make sure the mother is aware of all resources available in her area. The worker should be required to identify the parenting obstacles and do everything possible within her job to address the issues that are blocking a mother from feeling like she is able to give her child an enriching wholesome life.
Access to enrichment programs, child development information, research on what single parents can do to have positive outcomes—
The list goes on and on.
The only way an adoption placement is ethical is if the professionals involved were working to help the mother establish positive parenting identity, beliefe in herself, and access to the resources she needs to have positive emotional and mental health, access to the resources she needs to care for her child, and knowledge and support to help her do that in ways that fit research based positive outcomes.
Without that in place, any adoption that happens where a mother says, “Sure I wish I could parent but that wouldn’t be good for my child because of X” and x has not been addressed with resources and counseling— the adoption was NOT ethical.
If appropriate counseling and resources are provided and the mother wishes to give up her child because she doesn’t want the child, that would still be a legal option for the mother.
Here in the states, our abortion rates are high and yet we also have some of the worst, unethical, coercive adoption practices in the world. Adoption is well and thriving here. Hopeful couples are allowed to confront a pregnant woman where ever they want, question her on if she is interested in giving up her child for adoption. Agencies are given no restrictions, no oversights so that they can counsel pregnant women however they must to insure she will lose her child to that hopeful couple so desperately wanting to adopt.
There is nothing in place to protect mother and child for being seperated, infact it is more acceptable to separate them for the gain of adoption than to help them remain together for the best interest of the child.
Is that really a sentence you want placed onto the pregnant women of your country? Do you really wish for so many mothers and children to suffer and grieve as they do here in the states?
I just can’t imagine anyone wanting that for their country, their citizens, or any human being. Adoption isn’t a positive thing for the mother and child who are separated. And I just can’t believe there are those who not only believe this myth but also desire to have any women treated in the inhumane abusive way pregnant women are treated here in the states.
Thank you Pam for your advice to listen to myself and not just select part of adoption to view.For the record I have been an adoptee for over 66 years, my professional life involved work in adoption and reunion and I have studied the effects of adoption on adoptees and others all my adult life.I have been listening to myself and to others ,both adoptees, mothers and the families of adoptees all my adult life.
Those who are not adoptees have a very valuable input to make into any discussion on adoption.Feeling like the odd one out as a non adoptee in a family with adoptees is quite common, it would not be appropriate to go into the complexities of that here.
I understand that you have a barrow to push and I understand what it is.However Australia will be best served by better contraception, education and attempts to reduce the numbers of unplanned pregnancies and abortions, not by an increase in adoptions of domestic babies and of children imported from other countries who are purported to be orphans.The concept of illegitimacy has died out here in Australia, domestic adoption has significantly reduced.Here in South Australia to all but nil.Mothers now feel able to raise their children, do not let’s wind the clock back or adopt the American approach to adoption in which it has become an industry, disempowering mothers and fathers.Any attempts to do so are retrograde and will not be favoured by the Australian public.
Sadly you seem to have missed the point that in all adoption there is loss.When you take the baby of the woman who gave birth and place the baby in the arms of a stranger you commit a cruelty that is not acceptable.There are situations in which adoption is unavoidable, they are very few.Let our society concentrate on making those placements the very best they can be.
In response to your remark Pam on the aborted fetus I know adoptees who when asked if they’d rather have been aborted than suffer adoption reply that yes they would.You have missed the most basic of aspects about adoption.It sometimes takes decades for those who suffer the loss of their mother to understand that loss, to be able to talk about it and try to come to terms with it.Those you see as happy, well adjusted adoptees now have a future as an adoptee, it is a life sentence and as in other forms of abuse and trauma may take decades to emerge.Adoptees live out a script that is given them, they are given a new name, a history and a family they are not related to genetically, those things matter.
Perhaps Pam you would do well to listen to all on adoption and gather the full story not just one side of it, the one that disempowers adoptees, ignores loss and fulfills an agenda.Closed minds help no-one, particularly when the proposal to create of new adoptees is the result.
Thanks all for your comments, we can learn so much from each other, when respectfully hearing each other’s stories and experiences. I won’t publish any more comments on this post from here.
Sorry for setting the cat amongst the pigeons. It was not my intent to unleash a volley of bitterness by mentioning that adoption can be a positive experience.