A while back I was talking with a birthmother and advocate for ethical adoption that I know, a real powerhouse of a woman. She’s a fun and positive person, with a strong vision of how beautifully adoption could work if everyone involved would just behave themselves properly. (Unfortunately, for right now, her vision is still more of a dream. Adoption As It Should Be is not very common, while Adoption As It Really Is has a deeply ugly side. You can think of it as the difference between a noble ideal and a poorly regulated business.)

So anyway, this friend gets a lot of calls from women in crisis pregnancy.(It’s impossible to take such calls lightly; I know from my own experience the heavy sense of responsibility you feel when someone turns to you, desperate for advice.) So I asked her, where do you send these women when they call? Who can you trust?

She told me she had a list of about ten adoption agencies across the United States that are doing a good job of arranging ethical open adoptions. That’s right: ten. (“I don’t need more than two hands to count 'em.”) These agencies are considered “best in practice” because they truly respect the rights of pregnant women. They counsel their clients on all the options, including parenting, and do not pressure women to give up their babies. They try family preservation first, and only then do they set about the business of meeting the needs of their paying clients (hopeful adoptive parents). They know the real meaning of open adoption and educate all parties as to what a lifelong commitment really means. Then they provide the support and assistance to make sure that happens.

Just ten agencies. In the entire nation.

Chances are, a pregnant women won’t live anywhere near one of the ten. Instead, she’ll be forced to turn to someplace with a cheesy ad or a number in the phone book, or she’ll venture out onto the Wild West of the Internet. She’ll be told lies about visitation contracts in open adoption being enforceable, or that she has to sign relinquishment papers right there in the hospital bed, or that the father doesn’t need to know of the adoption. She’ll be told over and over again that the only decent, unselfish decision she could possibly make would be to relinquish. Unless she hires her own attorney, there will be no one looking out for her legal interests at all. How’s she supposed to get through the experience without being taken advantage of?

To protect yourself as you consider becoming a birthmother, you really do have to approach it like major project (say, a doctoral dissertation). To learn everything you want to know, you'd need to read dozens of books, check in on the findings of ethical watchdog groups, learn your legal rights, talk to experts in the field, seek out birthparents of long experience, and hear from adopted people about how adoption has affected their lives. And let’s face it, most pregnant women simply don’t have the time, energy or resources to do this.

My hope is that one day the book will be written that will tell pregnant woman every single pitfall she needs to be on the lookout for as she attempts to navigate the Big Business that is the adoption industry. In the meantime, I guess I’ll keep plugging away at this blog. Perhaps slowly, over time, this will become a place where the traps and snares are collected in one central location for open and honest discussion.