Feminists For Choice

A while back I posted about the lies that crisis pregnancy centers tell women in an effort to persuade them not to seek abortions. They’ll tell you that you’re going to be sterile if you get an abortion, and that you’ll get breast cancer, wind up depressed and addicted to drugs, and find yourself living on the street. Abortion, depression, and drugs, oh my!

Last week the blogosphere and Twitter were all a buzz about the latest aspect to the CPC agenda – adoptions. Crisis pregnancy centers don’t just want you to have your baby – they want you to put it up for adoption so that barren, Christian families can take the child from you. According to an article on Jezebel:

You’re single, pregnant, and scared. Maybe you’re even Christian, in some form and to some extent. You find these nice Christian people who tell you they can help. If you’re still considering abortion at this point, they’ll show you gruesome films and lay on the guilt and shame until you’re not. And then, once you’ve agreed to give birth, they start telling you there’s no way you can hack single motherhood — perhaps adding that God disapproves of the sex you’ve already had and will be even more pissed if you raise this kid without a father or a marriage certificate — and explain that keeping your baby would be selfish and sinful, because there are wealthy, childless Christian couples desperate to give it everything you can’t. Or, as Carol Jordan, who got sucked in by a CPC in 1999, puts it: “[O]nce you say you won’t kill it, they ask, What can you give it? You have nothing to offer, but here’s a family that goes on a cruise every year.”

Carol Jordan’s story was also a feature story over at The Nation last week. Part of that is because she’s got a new book out about the crisis pregnancy center/Christian adoption agency movement. Her experience, as well as the experiences of countless women just like her, speaks to the level of class privilege that is inherent in the CPC movement. If you’re poor, you’re not considered fit to be a mother. But God forbid you should consider abortion to be an option. Oh, no. Not where there are wealthy Christian families who want a baby but can’t have one on their own. If you’re broke, why not rent out your uterus to one of these couples?

Jordan was given scrapbooks full of letters and photos from hopeful adoptive parents hoping to stand out among the estimated 150 couples for every available baby. Today the “birthmother letters” are on Bethany’s website: 500 couples who pay $14,500 to $25,500 for a domestic infant adoption, vying for mothers’ attention with profuse praise of their “selflessness” and descriptions of the lifestyle they can offer.

Jordan’s story brings me back to many of the comments that have been made on the three stories that we’ve had about Nadya Suleman on this site. Suleman is unemployed, ergo . . . she shouldn’t have kids. It’s irresponsible. Perhaps she should have donated some of her fertilized embryos to a “loving, Christian family,” then? Would that have been the more responsible, compassionate decision? I’m really curious to hear where ya’ll stand on this one – I’m not just saying that to be snarky.

Check out this older article from Broadsheet @ Salon.com about crisis pregnancy centers and the big cash cow that they are. All three of these articles show that the crisis pregnancy center/Christian adoption movement is a serious racket.