Adoption Entrustment Ceremonies

"Do you think we would do this ["choose" adoption] if we had a choice?" one mother wrote to me. It's true, most moms will hand over their children only when they feel they have absolutely no choice...

Entrustment Ceremonies and Rituals

To mark special occasions, people often have ceremonies and create rituals. Sometimes these rituals are pleasant (like May pole dances or making a wish and blowing out candles on a birthday cake) and sometimes these rituals are rather horrifying.

One ritual that is quite startling to the Westerner is the ritual of female circumcision. To Western people it is unconscionable to mutilate someone in this way - and risk that she may die of infection. Yet to a person in another culture, a woman's intact genitalia and ability to pee easily may be considered something she should feel good about sacrificing.

From an article on "Reproductive Exploitation" by Jess DelBalzo and Bryony Lake:

In the book (and movie) The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood depicted a futuristic society in which fertile young women were held captive and used to bear children for sterile, upper-class wives.

In "The Handmaid's Tale" there are religious rituals surrounding the bizarre practice of using fertile women as if they were merely wombs meant to bear children for others. The "wombs" recieve special training to make them believe this is their duty, their job - to make babies for people. When a baby is born, the womb-slave-thing may break down crying in pain over the loss of her child. Yet as people tend to do with servants, the rich woman takes no notice of this horrendous suffering - as she shows off "her" new baby to her rich friends.

Is this science fiction? Sadly it is very close to reality. But perhaps the "training" or "couseling" is actually improved over the science fiction version. Because in modern times many mothers actually plan something called an "entrustment ceremony". During the ceremony they hand their babies over to the wealthy people who intend to use them "as if" they were their own children.

"Do you think we would do this ["choose" adoption] if we had a choice?" one mother wrote to me. It's true, most moms will hand over their children only when they feel they have absolutely no choice. As "The Godfather" liked to say: "I'll make him an offer he can't refuse." Get rid of the euphamism "adoption" and all you have left are bullies stealing candy from a baby - or in this case, stealing a healthy, desirable baby from her own mother, father, grandparents and existing or future siblings.

People donate old clothes to Goodwill, but no one should be forced to "donate" their own son or daughter so someone else can have her. If the adopting people divorce or lose their income will they be expected to "do the right thing" and re-gift the child to someone else?

When a mother is temporarily without resources to keep her baby and is suffering from morning sickness and other effects of pregnancy that is an excellent time for the adoption machine to lure her in. There is money to be made in the adoption business and many adoption agencies are expanding their domestic infant adoption services. Getting a mother to believe she has chosen adoption and getting her to select prospective adopters well in advance makes it harder for her to say "no" to these seemingly friendly people later. Federally-funded Infant Adoption Awareness Training is being provided to youth group leaders, teachers, health professionals and others with the intention of getting them to push adoption on a pregnant mother.

And after all the effort made to get her baby, there is the horrifyingly sad "entrustment ceremony". This ceremony is designed so the adopters - who surely must comprehend their role in separating these family members - may tell everyone "she gave us" her child. Then they may give the mother some "gift" - a trinket to "thank her" and honor her "birthmotherhood" (aka "birth objecthood").

Is this how women in America are treated? Being forced into a sick sacrifice? Adoption compares with practices like honor killing and female circumcision. One factor in determining the status of women in a society is the number of mothers whose babies are adopted-out.

More information on Open Adoption and mothers experiences with Open Adoption.