Adoption Advertising - Destroying Real Families
Many businesses seek to persuade the public to buy their products through advertising. Advertising is often deceptive. "Coke adds life" is one familiar slogan that certainly deflects attention from the effects that all that Coke will have upon a person's system. Surely milk, juice or just plain water adds more to your life than soft drinks do. "Coke rots your gut" would be more accurate and honest than "Coke adds life".
Adoption agencies and adoption attorneys are not unlike other businesses. They won't make money and stay in business unless they have babies to sell to customers. When there are not enough real orphans to be found that are healthy enough to sell, "orphans" are created by artificial means. The word "adopted" and the word "orphan" are pretty much synonymous. Either way, the child is seaparated from real family, left feeling unwanted by them.
Some of the most effective means of creating more healthy infant "orphans":
- Advertising - often government-funded as with the Infant Adoption Awareness Training program.
- Positive Adoption Language (Respectful Adoption Language) that is biased toward unrelated people over real family.
- Making women believe their options are limited to only abortion or adoption - no other choice. (A great way to let males off the hook for pregnancy prevention and taking responsiblity for their children.)
"Everyone Benefits From Adoption" is one slogan we've all heard. For a long time, babies were routinely taken from middle class white parents who were single when their babies were born, with the idea that married heterosexual people should raise them. The benefit to society of punishing "unwed" mothers and maintaining families of the "family-unit" type was considered so great that the trauma to the baby or the mother was not worthy of mention. Many of the naive "relinquishing" mothers had no idea their child might be suffer from the traumatic separation from her mother at birth and by being raised in an environment devoid of any real family members. Now that single people and gay people are adopting, it's even more difficult to understand why there is any benefit to separating real families, removing children from parents who have never been proven to be unfit in any way. Yet, many naive people still have no idea the suffering that family separation can cause a person over the course of a lifetime.
Even more effective than advertising slogans, there is the "positive adoption language" the adoption industry promotes - terminology that is biased against the true family and "friendly" toward the people who buy babies.
Comparing Honest Language and Biased "Positive Adoption Language"
Infant Adoption
Honest, Unbiased Language Language Promoting Artificial Families mother, natural mother, actual mother "birthmother" (incubator) , "bmom", "BM", "unwed" or "unmarried" mother father, natural father, father wanting to take responsibility for his son/daughter "birthfather", "FOB" (father of the baby), "unmarried man trying to block an adoption" parents, natural parents "birthparents" siblings "birth siblings" person looking for a baby to adopt/buy loving couple, parents, adoptive parents, real parents person who has adopted, adopter mother, father, parent or "real mother", "real father", "real parents" surrendering or relinquishing parental rights adoption, "choosing" adoption considering surrendering parental rights considering adoption, "choosing" adoption your own child your "birth" child is adopted (is legally related to adopters as in "is married") was adopted, joined the family through adoption (pretending the relatedness is natural, not legal. The naturally-related family members are dehumanized as "birth objects".) was adopted (the child was dumped into foster care by her adopter, adoption was annulled or otherwise ended) family, natural family, relatives "birth family", "birth relatives" adoptive situation, adoptive family family, "real family" keeping the real family together a "failed adoption"
As one might guess, the infertility businesses that broker the raw materials to make a human being also utilize dehumanizing language.
Sperm and Egg "Donation", Embryo Adoption
Honest, Unbiased Language Language Promoting Artificial Families mother, natural mother, actual mother egg "donor" (also "angel or "hero") father, natural father sperm "donor" a human embryo a snowflake parents, natural parents genetics, origins siblings, natural siblings genetic siblings person planning to make an orphan for their own use loving couple, parents, real parents selling your own offspring donating eggs or sperm donating your offspring embryo donation your own child your "birth" child? has lost one or both sides of her family the "donated" person's loss of family is completely ignored.
Tradional Surrogacy (That "woman" is not just an incubator when her own egg is used)
Honest, Unbiased Language Language Promoting Artificial Families mother, natural mother, actual mother surrogate mother surrogate (the buyer is the real surrogate, NOT the woman commonly referred to as a surrogate) intended mother siblings, natural siblings genetic or birth siblings person planning to make an orphan for their own use loving couple, parents, real parents selling or donating your own child surrogacy your own child your "birth" child? has lost one or both sides of her family the "donated" person's loss of family is completely ignored.
Gestational Surrogacy (The incubator is not her real mom, but what a cruel trick on the developing embryo to be born and then removed from the only environment she's ever known.)
Honest, Unbiased Language Language Promoting Artificial Families human gestational environment surrogate mother siblings, natural siblings genetic or birth siblings person planning to make an orphan for her own use intended mother has lost one or both sides of her family the "donated" person's loss of family is completely ignored.
Before you pass out those adoption business cards or write - or hire someone to write - your "Dear Birthparent" letter hoping to get some naive mother's baby STOP AND THINK. Do you really want your first action as a "parent" to be separating a baby from her mother and family? Creating an orphan?
Despite all the advertising, Coke isn't healthy. And neither is infant adoption, surrogacy, egg or sperm donation or embryo adoption.
...brought to you by 
