I wanted to touch briefly on this post, which Joe had an excellent response to. I just want to expand a little bit on the Abortion v. Adoption mentality that a lot of people have.
Adoption is not a direct alternative to abortion. It’s an alternative to parenthood. Abortion, at the most simple definition, is a form of birth control. By doing it, you prevent birth. Having an abortion in the first trimester (when 88% of them take place) is VERY different from continuing the pregnancy and giving the baby up for adoption.
People who argue, “Why don’t these women just stop being selfish and wait 9 months and give the baby up” are completely ignoring the physical, financial and mental tolls of pregnancy. It is NOT easy. If you work a minimum wage job, or don’t have sick days, you probably can’t afford to take time off because of morning sickness. If you don’t have healthcare, you can’t afford nine months of prenatal appointments. If your job doesn’t have paid maternity leave, you can’t afford to take time off to recover from the birth. (Even if you give the baby up for adoption, your body needs to physically recover, especially if you had a c-section or other complications.)
If you have complications and are required to go on bed rest… how would most young people afford that? How would you pay rent and bills and buy groceries if you had to stay off your feet for three months or longer? And if you already suffer from a chronic condition that requires medication, that medication may not be compatible with pregnancy, which means you’re asking a woman to sacrifice her own health for the better part of a year.
Demanding that women — primarily young, underprivileged women — go through pregnancy and birth so someone else can have a baby is kind of a lot to ask. Furthermore, the mental toll of giving up a child for adoption is immense. Not only do you have to go through the physical distress of labor, you don’t get to take home a baby afterward. And you have to explain your decision to family members and friends for the rest of your life. On the other hand, abortion is a private decision that has a relatively low chance of mental health complications.
Finally, there is no shortage of children waiting to be adopted. The most recent data I found suggests the number of children waiting to be adopted is close to 126,000. The truth is that most couples looking to adopt domestically (because don’t forget, there are countless thousands of children in orphanages around the world) want to adopt a white, healthy newborn. And it’s true: there is, in fact, a shortage of white newborns waiting to be adopted. But don’t pretend that people who get abortions are denying others the chance to be parents.
I wanted to add that the cost of delivering a baby - just the birth and the hospital bills for delivery - run somewhere from $7,000-$11,000 USD for a healthy, low-risk pregnancy (Source: March of Dimes). The higher risk the pregnancy, the higher that number will go, of course.
If you have insurance, you will pay on average ~$500 for the hospital stay for the delivery. But if you don’t have insurance (and hence couldn’t afford birth control pills, let’s say, thus resulting in an unplanned pregnancy), if you’re not eligible for Medicare or Medicaid, if you’re unemployed, where are you supposed to get $7K, let alone more than that?
Because that number does not include the previous 9 months of prenatal appointments, blood tests, ultrasounds, etc. involved in medical care, not to mention the time off from work, buying maternity clothing, buying adequate food and all the other incidental costs (monetary and otherwise) involved in being pregnant, which add several thousand more dollars to the figure.
This is why the right wing crusade against health care reform has always baffled me. If people who are stringently anti-abortion want women to give birth, why are they fighting to prevent women from getting health insurance, fighting to gut Medicaid and Medicare, etc.? When one of the biggest factors women cite as a reason for abortion is lack of money or insurance, why would you be fighting to make that worse? It boggles the mind.
STFU, Conservatives: Abortion versus Adoption: