Apparently We Don't Need Abortion Because of Adoption ... "or Whatever"

Apparently We Don’t Need Abortion Because of Adoption … “or Whatever”
12/14/2021 by Shanta Trivedi
Amy Coney Barrett’s suggestion that adoption is a simple alternative to abortion is shocking. To have that suggestion come from a mother of seven children—who has both been pregnant and been through the process of adoption—is dangerous.



Pro-choice and anti-choice activists demonstrate in front of the the US Supreme Court during the 47th annual March for Life on January 24, 2020 in Washington, DC. (OLIVIER DOULIERY / AFP via Getty Images)

During oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Mississippi case seeking overturn Roe v. Wade, Justice Amy Coney Barrett questioned whether abortion was really necessary anymore given the existence of safe haven laws.
For some, this was reminiscent of when, three years ago, during the immigration crisis at the border, then-White House Chief of Staff John Kelly flippantly said of the children ripped from their parents that “the children will be taken care of—put into foster care or whatever” with no concern about what would happen next. During Julie Rickelman’s argument on behalf of the abortion clinics, Barrett explained that:

… both Roe and Casey emphasize the burdens of parenting, and insofar as you and many of your amici focus on the ways in which forced parenting, forced motherhood, would hinder women’s access to the workplace and to equal opportunities, it’s also focused on the consequences of parenting and the obligations of motherhood that flow from pregnancy. Why don’t the safe haven laws take care of that problem?

Safe haven laws were created to allow mothers to safely give up their children without fear of criminal prosecution or child welfare system involvement in response to a purported increase in babies being abandoned in unsafe locations. Mothers who are not able to care of their children are able to drop their babies at fire stations or hospitals where the state can take them into its care. Barrett’s position therefore is that the right to an abortion is unnecessary because mothers don’t have to experience the burdens of motherhood if they don’t want to, because they have the option of abandoning them at a “safe” location.

As many have pointed out, this argument ignores the fact that pregnancy itself has profound impacts on a woman’s life and comes with many risks, especially in a state like Mississippi with an exceptionally high maternal mortality rate. Further, the decision to have an abortion which might be complicated for some and easy for others, may be an entirely different calculus than the decision to give up a child after carrying it to term. Just as people have abortions for a variety of deeply personal reasons, people may choose adoption for other reasons. Adoption is not and will never be, the equivalent of the right to an abortion for a victim of incest or someone who becomes pregnant after being raped.
. . . .



The Trumps with Amy Coney Barrett and her family on Sept. 26, 2020, in the Rose Garden of the White House. (White House / Shealah Craighead)

Crucially, what Barrett’s “pro-life” position also misses is the impact on the living child. Her rose-colored version of safe haven laws being a direct route from abandonment to adoption is simply not based in fact. Last year, as is typical, over 400,000 children were in foster care. Of those, only 4 percent were in-pre adoptive households. Over 100,000 children were awaiting adoption—meaning that their parents legal rights had been terminated or the state’s goal for them was adoption. And only 12 percent of those children were in a pre-adoptive home. For many children, even if eventually adopted, some time will be spent in foster care. And foster care is not always a safe haven.

.. . .

But as is often the case for conservatives, Barrett’s pro-life argument ends at the point of birth. Because of course, if a mother doesn’t want her child, once it is born, she can give it up for adoption or whatever.

https://msmagazine.com/2021/12/14/abortion-adoption-amy-coney-barrett-supreme-court/