MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME

Today on the Internet:

An adoptress "confesses" in the indulgent, cheap and easy way we've all come to expect :

http://www.truemomconfessions.com/confessions/tmc111019161

"This sucks. I've just had an epiphany that I'm totally wishing my life away waiting for my children to grow up so I can get on with MY life. I can't wait until they're old enough to go to school and get them out of my hair. I hate all of this and I dread each and every day. I wish this was a rant, vent or just a bad day but it's not. I HATE BEING A MOM. I get very little out of this and I'm beginning to doubt my capacity to love anything at all. I wouldn't mind wishing a few years of my life away if I had more of it ahead of me than I do. I'm 40 and these kids won't be going to school for several more years. The worst part of this whole thing is that both of my children are adopted and
somewhere out there are two birth mothers whose children went to an adoptive mother who has very little appreciation for them. This is the dirtiest, most awful--probably the ONLY awful thing I've ever done, but boy is it a doozy. I can't tell a soul this because it's just too terrible to say out loud. It's probably every birth-mother's nightmare...to plan an adoption for your child who ends up with a mother who doesn't want or appreciate them. I really have no idea how I got here or why this happened, but I know it makes me an awful person---a
person I can't look at in the mirror because my heart is so small that I can't stand being a mother. I used to like me. I hate having kids. This crushing boredom, endless need, bottomless thanklessness, blatant greed and inconsideration are slowly killing me. Even worse still is that I pretend very poorly that things are "okay" and in the end that will only rob these two kids of something real. It's clear that I can't "fake it 'til I make it" in this situation. If there was any way to save face and send these kids away, I'd do it. The worst of the worst? I hate myself, but I think I hate them more. Maybe they'll get lucky and I'll die before they really figure out what a horrific bitch their "mother" really is. "

*************************************

All right, everyone take a nice, deep, cleansing breath.

May I say I have no sympathy for this writer? N.O.N.E.

She chose to enter into the adoptions of these two children. Who held the gun to her head? With her dollars, she chose to support a system that separates mothers from their children, for profit. I feel no sympathy nor any empathy whatsoever for this woman. The way I see it, these children are simply characters in her own personal drama.

In my opinion (and where have you heard THIS before?) it would have been much better for everyone involved if this woman would have spent those hard earned dollars on a therapist instead of an adoptionist. And yet, she was "allowed" to adopt.

This on the heels of stories (again) of child abuse by two adoptresses. It's not like these are isolated incidents. We regularly read of abuses just like this happening within the "homes" of those who purchase children.

One kept her purchased child in a cage. The 17 year old "son" weighed 49 pounds when he was found http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/05/23/caged.teen.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview )

The other adoptress forced her 11 year old purchased adolescent son to wear a diaper and eat his own feces.(http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=691077&category=RENSSELAER&BCCode=HOME&newsdate=5/24/2008 )

I have advocated for state mandated psychological testing for the wanna be mommeees and daddeees of AdoptionLand before they take that little baby "home" for as long as I can remember.

This is why.

Once again with feeling, the central theme of AdoptionLand:

MEMEMEMEMEMEME

Robin blogs this confession at Motherhood Deleted in her usual practical, no nonsense way:

http://motherhooddeleted.blogspot.com/2008/05/adoptive-motherhood-same-as-natural.html

You know, the only real answer to this is to do more to help mothers and their children stay together. This country has become so adoption-crazed that people do it because they THINK they should...not because it is what is best for either them or the children they might adopt. She's wasting energy hating the children because she's the one who decided to raid the baby market. She's also wasting time hating herself when she needs to be taking
action. Let's hope she can forgive herself, be kind to these kids and do what is right by them...FIND THEIR MOTHERS.

You said it, Robin.

Barb, for myself

Happy Mother's Day!!

Happy Mother's Day to each and every one of you beautiful, strong, courageous Mothers.

Barb

Bloggy Goodness

A real potpourri of blogdaciousness today:

http://bbchurch.blogspot.com/ BB Church blogs NOLA

http://amyadoptee.blogspot.com/2008/05/arrest-of-baby-sellers.html Amy Adoptee blogs intercountry adoption.

http://motherhooddeleted.blogspot.com/2008/05/adding-insult-to-injury.html Robin blogs Barfmartyr's Day

http://heatherrainbow.blogspot.com/2008/04/freedom.html Heather blogs Freedom

http://bastardette.blogspot.com/2008/05/law-review-article-only-americans.html Bastardette blogs privacy rights

http://adoptionanimalhouse.blogspot.com/ Fuzzy Duck blogs alienation.

http://sewingabinding.blogspot.com/ dbannie blogs oversold airline flights.


http://ibastard.wordpress.com/2007/08/18/painful-truths/ iBastard blogs painful truths.


Barb

Dian Wellfare, 1951 - 2008

There are not enough loving words to describe Dian Wellfare, Founder and Director of Origins, Inc. New South Wales.

She has been a mentor, friend and heroine to thousands of natural mothers (of adoption loss) through the OriginsNSW website, message board and the Parliamentary Inquiry she and other Origins mothers demanded. Through their efforts, they were granted an Inquiry and, as a result, obtained an apology from their government for the unethical and wrongful removal of their newborns to adoption.

Dian’s strength and determination, her knowledge and intelligence contributed immeasurably to the benefit of all exiled mothers worldwide who had their children removed from them, whether before the Baby Scoop Era (post WWII - 1972), during the BSE, or since.
Dian created OriginsNSW and aided in the creation of chapters in other countries. She was strong and steadfastly honest in her interactions with other mothers and in dealing with pro-adoption organizations, government and the media. She did not back down from any opportunity to educate, always telling the absolute truth, even though it was information that people might not want to hear or accept.

The Truth. Millions of mothers worldwide had their (usually) firstborn babies wrongfully removed simply because they weren’t married and/or did not have the funds to protect their civil, legal and human rights. Dian took every chance to describe what occurred to create this phenomena of babies removed, especially during the Baby Scoop Era (a short window of time when more babies were removed from vulnerable, unprotected mothers than at any other time in history, before or since).

It is a painful truth - a very uncomfortable truth to hear - but it is The Truth, and to this end Dian never wavered. She was courageous and steadfast. Always available to support any mother who reached out for help. She was always available to the media to explain the complexities of adoption surrender: how it amputates natural families; how it devastates the lives of young, at risk mothers who surrender not knowing the life long consequences; how mothers don’t just lose their babies; they also ultimately lose their self esteem, their trust, their futures... and then their grandchildren and great grandchildren into infinity. How mothers pay the ultimate price with no pardon, no parole - for the Crime of Motherhood.

Dian Wellfare diligently, doggedly and tirelessly brought The Truth to the general public via the media, via the Internet, through government, and then even fought through two court cases in an effort to obtain justice in regards to her own experience.

Dian is a true pioneer whose worth, whose value, has yet to be fully understood and measured. But there is absolutely no doubt that if her contributions are not yet known, they certainly will be at some point - recorded for all time.

We mothers bow our heads in respect and honor. We offer prayer on her behalf. We cherish her legacy and memory. She was everything to us. We cannot compute the depth of the loss of her.

Second Verse: Not The Same As The First

There are striking differences between the experiences of BSE mothers and newer era surrendering mothers. Sweeping social change in the ways Americans viewed women and their roles, technological advances in gynecological and obstetrical care, the explosion in the availablity of information previously hidden from public view, the growth of psychological understanding, and a more open, tolerant society have all contributed to these changes. The foundation was laid in the early and mid 1970s, with the Supreme Court of the land striking blow after blow for the protection of women's Constitutional rights. Congress also contributed landmark legislation in the same time frame. Among the most important change making decisions and federal laws are the following:

In 1971, the Supreme Court ruled for the first time ever that women enjoyed Constitutional protection from discrimination under the Fourteenth Amendment, in Reed v. Reed.

Pregnant women were permitted to stay in school after the 1971 Supreme Court decision Ordway v. Hargraves. Before then, pregnant high school students were not permitted to attend regular classes.

The 1971 Supreme Court case Phillips v. Martin Marietta established a mother's right to be free from discrimination in hiring practices because she has children.

In 1972, Congress passed Title IX of the Education Amendments. It bans sex discrimination in schools. It states: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal financial assistance." A direct result of Title IX is that professional schools (medicine, law) saw their population of women students increase dramatically for the first time in history.


Birth control methods were readily available to unmarried women after 1973. The Supreme Court did not strike down state law prohibiting contraceptive use by married couples until 1965 (Griswold v Connecticut.) It was not until 1972 that the Supreme Court ruled that unmarried people have the right to contraception ( Eisenstadt v. Baird )
Safe, legal, abortion on demand was not readily available to unmarried women until Roe v Wade, 1973.

There was little to no way to enforce child support payments prior to the Social Security Amendments of 1974.

1974 was a banner year for women's rights. Congress also passed the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. It prohibits discrimination in consumer credit practices on the basis of sex, race, marital status, religion, national origin, age, or receipt of public assistance. As a result of being able to establish their own lines of credit, women can now get credit cards, take out auto loans, and rent apartments independently.

Finally, in 1974, sex was added to the list of protected classes in the Fair Housing Act, which was first enacted by Congress in 1968. Before that time, women could be, and were, discriminated against by sellers or renters of housing properties.


In 1975, the Supreme Court decided in Cleveland Board of Education v LeFleur, that employers can not force pregnant women to take unpaid maternity leave after the first trimester because it impinges upon women's due process rights.

1978 saw Congress pass The Pregnancy Discrimination Act. It bans employment discrimination against pregnant women. Under the act, a woman cannot be fired or denied a job or a promotion because she is or may become pregnant Further, she can not be forced to take a pregnancy leave if she is willing and able to work.

These rapid changes in the legal standing of American women between 1971 and 1978 ushered in an era of increasing economic, social and educational independence for them. With this independence came changes in women's personal power. Practices and attitudes towards women that had been the norm for a century or more were swept away in a tidal wave of social change. Advances in reproductive medicine were also occurring during the 1970s with widespread acceptance and use of the birth control pill. Coupled with the new legal standing of women, practices which had been unremarkable, everyday and "normal" before and during the Baby Scoop Era, became unthinkable.

Can anyone really imagine taking away a contemporary young woman's clothing, name, money, cell phone, Ipod, computer and access to any and all media except that which you allow her, triple locking her away behind a tall fence, reading her mail as it comes and goes, keeping her friends away, and actively brainwashing her until she gives that little baby up?

They wouldn't dare.


Can you imagine hospitals allowing women who are giving birth (usually for the first time) to labor alone, drugging a woman up until she has no strength to push, and then withholding the baby immediately after birth?

Neither can I. And I imagine that neither can any insurance companies.


The fact of the matter is that adoption practices of the Baby Scoop Era are gone. No sane person is going to open themselves up to a civil/human/ Constitutional/malpractice lawsuit brought by a young woman robbed of her baby.


The fact is that in 2008, adoption is marketed to young women and their families using the latest discoveries of consumer psychology. The concept of disallowing one's own motherhood in order to become a "Good Mother" is a logical fallacy. This is good old fashioned, garden variety, nuts and bolts style mind twisting, yet another chorus of "If you love him, you will let him go."

People have bought into it since Gibran first wrote it. And they will continue to buy into it. It's doubtful that Gibran was thinking about the separation of mother and newborn when he wrote that. But that's what the marketing gurus have made of it.

And that is finally the point.

Failure to grasp the fact that there are major cultural, psychological and historical differences between THEN and NOW and an insistence on lumping the two eras together as if they were one is much more than an academic error. It's a fundamental error. It is a failure to identify the tactics your enemy uses against you. It obscures and does not illuminate. It only adds to the fog on the battlefield of AdoptionLand.

Adoptionists of all varities are no longer stripping women of their Constitutional rights. Instead, they are appealing to women's open-heartedness, their idealism, and their guilt and loneliness. That's what's happening. And, it's working; women are responding.

Women and their families are succumbing to adoption marketing.

Pregnant women are the first consumers of adoption services. Any natural family preservation strategy that ignores, overlooks or fails to grasp this basic fact is doomed to fail.

You go to war with the enemy you have, not the enemy you wish you had.

Failure to address this most basic of facts because of a stubborn insistence on lumping together apples and oranges, or a refusal to recognize that past practices are indeed gone, or a failure to grasp that the dynamics of obtaining newborns for profit adoption have shifted into another universe entirely, can only lead to more failure.

Barb

Oh, Good Goddess!

What next?

Adoptors whining about the insensitivity of a McDonald's commercial on You Tube.

I guess it's not enough for some people that they have taken other people's children to raise. I am so tired of people demanding that everyone else walk on eggshells around them.

Barb, for myself

Marketing Adoption: A Timeline

The Family Research Council and the National Council for Adoption have joined forces to increase the domestic adoption rate, following a two pronged strategy. The NCFA has long utilized a legislative agenda to promote infant adoption within the United States.

Now, they have joined forces and together they have retained the services of a premiere marketing research firm, probed the deep attitudes towards adoption that Americans hold, and developed a marketing plan targeted at women and their families who are utilizing the services of crisis pregnancy centers.

For details and extensive history, please follow me below the fold.


1972. Nixon is in office. Roe v Wade has not yet been decided. The number of unmarried white women surrendering children for adoption is at an all time high. The maternity home movement in America is at its peak. Dr. Charles Kenny founds RightBrain People, a marketing research firm.

1973. Roe v Wade is decided. The National Right To Life Committee is formed in Detroit.

1973 - 1988. The domestic surrender rate for healthy white newborns plummets dramatically from a high of 19.2% of births to unmarried white mothers in 1972 to 7.6% in 1981, to 3.2% in 1988 (Bachrach, Stolley, London, 1992.)


1980. Roe v Wade has been the law of the land for seven years. The ACLU Women's Project, headed by Ruth Ginsberg Bader has successfully been suing for Women's Rights for nine years. The number of healthy white newborns surrendered for adoption has fallen precipitously since 1972. James Dobson founds the Family Research Council in 1980 to drive the national debate on what has come to be known as "Family Values." These values are based on biblical Christianity. The model for family and marriage in biblical Christianity is Christ and the Church. Men take the Christ role (suffering servant, sacrificed God, victorious resurrected Saviour) and women that of the subservient Church. This is not really a contemporary marriage model constructed for contemporary times...but it is well funded with contemporary dollars.

1981. Reagan is inaugurated. Sens. Jeremiah Denton (R-AL) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT), introduce The Adolescent Family Life (AFL) Demonstration and Research program, as Title XX of the Public Health Service Act. Congress passes it without hearings as part of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981. It is found unconstitutional in 1985 (Kendrick v Sullivan) ,but the decision is reversed by the Supreme Court in 1988. AFL continues to receive federal funding through the Clinton Administration. (http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/tgr/01/2/gr010205.html)

A history of AFLA is available here via SIECUS:
http://www.siecus.org/policy/SReport/srep0001.html
A quote from the SIECUS report:

Since 1981, the Office of Populations Affairs has administered the Adolescent Family Life Act Demonstration Grants program (commonly referred to as AFLA). Designed to prevent teen pregnancy through teaching abstinence and to promote adoption (as opposed to abortion) as the appropriate choice for teenagers who become pregnant, AFLA was often viewed as the Far Right's "alternative" to the Title X family planning program and was controversial from the start.

The ACLU sues the program.

1983. The Family Research Council incorporates as a non profit with James Dobson as its head.

1984. The pro-birth movement is in full throat. The number of pregnancy terminations has been increasing since 1978; the number of children being surrendered for adoption has been declining since 1972.

Edmund Mech, a professor and researcher at the University of Illinois at Champaign releases a 9 page report called Orientations of Pregnancy Counselors Toward Adoption, for U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Population Affairs. This 9 page document laid the groundwork for the much that follows, including the Infant Adoption Awareness Training Act.

A quote:

The aim of the research was to study counselors' attitudes, beliefs, and knowledge about adoption. Three questions were posed: (a) what are the attitudes of counselors toward adoption as an alternative for pregnant adolescents? (b) How adequate is the adoption knowledge base of counselors?, and (c) what are the main counseling methods used? ....

The intent of this section is to draw attention to the possible connections between the research findings and policy and practice. Our main focus is on identifying strategies that appear likely to promote and facilitate consideration of adoption as an option among adolescents. The Adolescent Familv Life Act has intended that adoption be accepted as a positive option.

....A five point plan was outlined for consideration. The main elements are: (1) Mandatory adoption counseling guidelines for all federally supported programs aimed at adolescent pregnancy, (2) Encouraging social influence and interactional counseling models as alternatives to "non-directive" methods. (3) Establishing procedures for certifying counselor proficiency in adoption (4) Developing outreach strategies to include (a) options counseling for adolescent clients in WIC, AFDC, and related 'at risk' programs as a condition for receiving food vouchers and/or financial assistance, (b) community education to increase adoption awareness, and (c) expansion of Residential (Decision) Center services for adolescent clients and (5) Utilizing "consumer" input from members of the adoption circle as a way of increasing the credibility of adoption for adolescent clients."

1985 AFLA is declared unconstitutional (Kendrick v. Sullivan.)

1988 The Supreme Court reverses Kendrick v. Sullivan but remands the case for further factual findings as to whether the implementation is unconstitutional. Investigations reveal "widespread constitutional violations during the Reagan and Bush administrations."

The Reagan Administration prohibits counselors in family planning clinics supported by Title X of the Public Health Service Act from providing women facing an unintended pregnancy with information about abortion or a referral to an abortion
provider, even in response to a direct request for such information

1991 Clinton is inaugurated and continues to fund AFLA, although he suspends the gag rule imposed by the Reagan Administration.

1993 A settlement is reached in AFLA that places conditions on further funding "such as requiring AFLA grantees to submit curricula to DHHS for review and "consideration of whether the curricula teach or promote religion and whether such materials are medically accurate."


1999 - 2000 Ken Connor was appointed to head the FRC, and brought with him very extensive ties to the Pro-Life Movement. The Family Research Council actively enters the adoption arena. According to the FRC History and Mission Page:

As a pro-life advocate, Connor had served as president and board chairman of Florida Right to Life, vice chairman of Americans United for Life, and board chairman of Care Net, an umbrella organization for five hundred pre-natal care centers.

Under Connor's tenure, FRC launched the Center for Human Life and Bioethics and the Center for Marriage and Family, thereby reaffirming FRC's commitment to provide the nation's lawmakers with critical research on public policy affecting the family."

In 1999, the FRC retained Dr. Charles Kenny, founder of the marketing research concern, Right Brain People. He was retained to conduct research on adoption counseling in Crisis Pregnancy Clinics. His findings are contained in THE MISSING PIECE: ADOPTION COUNSELING IN PREGNANCY RESOURCE CENTERS by CURTIS J. YOUNG © 2000 by the Family Research Council, a 40 page paper. You can purchase a copy of this paper from the FRC's website for $2.50

From the introduction:

The research was designed to identify the underlying factors that either
inhibit or motivate the consideration of adoption in both single, pregnant women
and in pregnancy counselors. The research focused on discovering the most basic
impressions that women and counselors have about adoption and on the
psychological dynamics of decision-making concerning adoption.

The first third of the report focuses on finding the resistances to the idea of
adoption within the minds of pregnant women, and ways to overcome them. The second third focuses on the resistances of pregnancy counselors and how to overcome them. The final third is composed of recommendations to aid counselors in promoting
adoption to pregnant women.

That research made the following significant discoveries:

The following emotional equations underlie how most women feel about adoption and explain why adoption is such a difficult choice:


1. Adoption = Abandonment
2. Adoption = The Big Lie
3. Adoption = An Unbearable Sacrifice

Adoption as the abandonment of a child is the most powerful of these three
equations.This is what drives women to doubt the character of those who choose adoption. While they may give an opinion that adoption is a good thing because a
child gets a family, they cannot bring themselves to consider adoption as a choice
they could make. This negative association explains why public-opinion polls that try to measure support for adoption are of little relevance. These only measure surface opinions. When personally involved in the decision-making process, the
deepseated mental equations take over and cause women to move away from adoption.

(Emphasis added)

A summary of The Missing Piece from Dr. Kenny's website :
http://tiny.cc/GMysc

Study author Curtis J. Young summarizes the results of in-depth interviews both with women facing unexpected pregnancies and the center staff who counsel them. The study shows what pregnancy centers can do to increase their adoption rates - and how this research will dramatically benefit children and families. The conclusions of The Missing Piece are generating new momentum for adoption nationally and around the world. Curtis Young is one of the leading founders of the national pregnancy center movement.

Concurrently, the Congress was working on legislation introduced by Tom Bliley (R, VA) and Jim DeMint (R, SC) that aimed to reinstate the abortion gag rule and continue AFLA.

The Guttmacher Institute (http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/tgr/07/3/gr070310.html) wrote that this new legislation

enumerated the various options that family planning providers would be required to discuss with clients facing an unintended pregnancy, specifically excluding abortion. At the same time, it authorized funds for a grant to a "national adoption organization" for the purpose of training Title X and other federally supported health care providers in how to "promote" adoption ("Family Planning and Adoption Promotion: New Proposals, Long-Standing Issues," TGR, October 1999, page 1). From the start, the bill's language appeared geared to support the National Council for Adoption (NCFA), an organization that takes credit for having played a key role in developing the legislation and shares the conservative views of the bill's sponsors.

2000 This legislation is signed into law as the Infant Adoption Awareness Act. The prohibition on abortion counseling was removed. Funds were directed to a number of adoption providers to train health care providers regarding adoption counseling according to Title X guidelines. A 2004 study by The Guttmacher Institute on implementation of the IAATA found many clinics to be out of compliance with Tile X guidelines. An excerpt:

A fundamental complaint raised by a number of participants was the directive nature of the training. In January 2004, Charles Marquardt, the program coordinator and lead trainer for the Title X training program at the California Family Health Council (the largest Title X grantee in the nation), highlighted his concerns about the training experience in a seven-page letter to his federal regional health administrators. He wrote: "The trainer promoted tactics and techniques for attempting to persuade the client to choose adoption by (1) discouraging abortion as a viable option, (2) overly promoting adoption, (3) highlighting the difficulties [the] child will encounter if [a woman] should choose to raise it herself, and (4) encouraging counselor opinions in scenarios by having the counselor choose for the client the best option." Similarly, Kelly McBride of Planned Parenthood of Indiana noted the exclusive and "constant focus on 'child-centered' counseling" and "how to inform clients that adoption is a 'good choice for the child.'" She said she was given "tips and techniques...about how to work against [women's] resistance, make them proud of their decision and convince them that adoption is a good choice." One family planning provider from Planned Parenthood of Collier Country, Florida, said she was told to repeatedly bring up adoption as an option, even if a woman says she is not interested. These examples border on coercion and clearly violate both Title X guidelines and principles of medical ethics.

However, the federal funds kept flowing to the people cranking out the training materials, i.e., the NCFA. Page 3 of the NCFA's 2005 Form 990 (http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2006/751/721/2006-751721671-02c3394c-9.pdf) outlines the activities and disbursements of the NCFA in 2005.

The NCFA received $1.6 million in government grants in 2005. This was about half its operating budget for that year. Line a states that in 2005, the NCFA spent $1.6 million on the IAATA, $147K on educating the public about adoption issues, and
$239K on research on all aspects of adoption practice. So...in 2005, $1.6 M in grants, $1.6 M out on the IAATA.

Your tax dollars at work, convincing women to go against their best, if unconscious, instincts. Marketing at its finest. These dollars are being spent to talk women and families who are perfectly capable of caring for their own children to put them up for adoption. Your tax dollars are going to train counselors to persuade women to violate their best instincts, against their deeply held beliefs about who mothers are and how mothers behave


Page 3, Line 15 of the Schedule A ( page 11 of the .pdf) states that over the period 2001-2004, the NCFA received a total of 19 million dollars in grants. That puts grant allocations to the NCFA at a total at about 22 million between 2001-2006.

2007 The Family Research Council and the National Council for Adoption jointly publish a booklet titled: BIRTHMOTHER, GOODMOTHER, Her Story of Heroic Redemption was published in 2007 by the Family Research Council and the National Council for Adoption, and authored by Charles T. Kenny, Ph.D.From the booklet:

The responses of women in these interviews provided clues to powerful
associations that women carry in their minds about adoption. These associations are difficult to change because they are so firmly rooted. They are important to understand because communication designed to change how women think and feel
about adoption must be able to chip away at those associations and establish new
ones, which make women feel comfortable.

The 20 page booklet, which can be requested for free from the NCFA and FRC is a how to manual for selling adoption placements to potential customers - pregnant women. The first part of the booklet contains the results of their marketing research, and
the last page or two contains selling strategies.

Some nuggets :

Deliver the message through birthmothers that sometimes choosing adoption is what it means to be a good mother. Use the media and public relations to help potential birthmothers understand adoption in advance of unplanned pregnancy. Use article placements to establish adoption as a viable option if an unwanted /unplanned pregnancy occurs.

....Educate potential birthmother supporters such as family members and friends. Challenge the assumption that all women should want to keep their unplanned babies and/or want to parent.This strategy prepares the way for pregnant girls to choose
adoption and not be judged as bad women. Show potential supporters that choosing adoption is a demonstration of maturity and love."

2008 Conclusion: The National Council for Adoption and the Pro-Life movement headed by the Family Research Council have found that they have common interest in seeing the domestic adoption rate rise. They have joined forces and together with the services of a well established marketing research firm have identified the most common major areas of resistance to the idea of adoption that people have. They have reframed the characterization of a woman who surrenders a child for adoption from a bad woman who does not keep faith with the child she bears to one of a good woman, even a heroine. Within this frame they have developed a program to market adoption to pregnant mothers. Within this frame the young pregnant woman is both a consumer of adoption services, a supplier of commodity to the adoption marketplace, and a heroine to boot!

Some of the funding for programs developed to help crisis pregnancy center counselors counsel more effectively toward adoption have been federal funds.
The research that has been conducted regarding outcomes for women who lose children to adoption, either coercively or through marketing is disheartening. A tiny portion of it can be found here http://www.babyscoopera.com

Existing evidence suggests that the experience of relinquishment renders a woman at high risk of psychological (and possibly physical) disability. Moreover very recent research indicates that actual disability or vulnerability may not diminish even decades after the event.

....Taken overall, the evidence suggests that over half of these women are suffering from severe and disabling grief reactions which are not resolved over the passage of time and which manifest predominantly as depression and psychosomatic illness. "
-- PSYCHOLOGICAL DISABILITY IN WOMEN WHO RELINQUISH A BABY FOR ADOPTION, Dr. John T. Condon (Medical Journal of Australia) Vol. 144 Feb 3, 1986 (Department of Psychiatry, Flinders Medical Centre, Bedford Park, SA 5042, Consultant Psychiatrist)

A grief reaction unique to the relinquishing mother was identified. Although this reaction consists of features characteristic of the normal grief reaction, these features persist and often lead to chronic, unresolved grief. Conclusions: The relinquishing mother is at risk for long-term physical, psychological, and social repercussions. Although interventions have been proposed, little is known about their effectiveness in preventing or alleviating these repercussions."
-- “Postadoptive Reactions of the Relinquishing Mother: A Review.” By Holli Ann Askren, MSN, CNM, Kathleen C. Bloom, PhD, CNM. In the Journal of Obstetric, Gynecological and Neonatal Nursing, 1999 Jul-Aug; 28(4):395-400

Relinquishing mothers have more grief symptoms than women who have lost a child to death, including more denial; despair, atypical responses; and disturbances in sleep, appetite, and vigor." Askren, H., & Bloom, K. (1999) Post-adoptive reactions of the relinquishing mother: A review. Journal of Obstetric, Gynecological and Neonatal Nursing, 1999 Jul-Aug; 28(4):395-400

Results shown in Table 3 demonstrate that mothers relinquishing a child for adoption tend towards more grief symptoms than bereaved parents ... ." ... "Table 3, comparing natural mothers in both open and closed adoptions with bereaved parents, shows that natural mothers suffer more denial, atypical responses, despair, anger, depersonalization, sleep disturbance, somaticizing, physical symptoms, dependency, vigor." Blanton, T.L., & Deschner, J. (1990). Biological mother's grief: The postadoptive experience in open versus confidential adoption. Child Welfare Journal, 69(6), pp. 525-535.

Considering the findings of this research, is it advisable to continue to provide federal funding to those who, for whatever motivation, would attempt to persuade young mothers to release their children to the for-profit adoption market in the United States?