10-04 Adoption or Abortion

It is 1947 and the family is in Belfast visiting with the grandparents and taking a trip to Dublin. Everything was scarce so soon after the war, and father had sent a two-month supply of can goods in advance of our visit.
We learned that people from Northern Ireland made trips down south to pick up things like shoes or nylon stockings. And folks from Ireland, mostly young people, packed the trains coming north to pick up contraceptives.
I could secretly hear my father and grandfather talking about birth control and abortion issues in what they called Catholic Ireland.
Now it is 1950 and my mother is working part-time for the Children’s Aid Society. She said she was not a counsellor, but picked up children from the hospital that were available for adoption. She said she cried for each child wondering about its future.
So before reaching adulthood, I was made aware of the great moral issues of birth control, adoption and abortion.
It wasn’t until I was married and unable to bring children into this world that Mary and I adopted two children. So much joy came into our lives, and I often thought of their birth mothers who chose adoption over abortion.
At that time, I was not into the political debate over “a woman’s right to chose” or “the right to life”. I was, however, emotionally into the concept that all life is precious.
All that changed as I travelled the world and was exposed to other people’s history and culture.
First there was the trip to China in 1985 and visiting schools on four occasions. And each time we were shown groups of happy young girls. The photo is one I took that I just love.
The guide was very honest when I asked her about seeing groups of girls. She said it was deliberate government policy because of all the bad publicity China had received associated with its “one child” policy.
I had read stories about women who had endured forced abortions and sterilization when they had more than one child and could not pay the fine for having a second child. We were talking about 13 million abortions a year.
The big story, however, was that half the abortions were about pre-natal sex selection. They were aborting girls for the most part, and this explained the visits to girl’s schools. A future crisis in the making.
The next story was even more enlightening. It was visiting Poland to attend a conference and asking about visiting Treblinka where my grandfather had 65 family members gassed, and half being children.
My Polish contact told me that Poles suffered their own horrors. His story was about friends that had their children taken away by the Nazis because they had blue eyes and looked Aryan. These children were given German names and adopted by German families.
So, it is hard to believe that all human life is precious when you are exposed to these pieces of history. And, it is almost impossible to believe that mankind aborts something like 50 million babies a year. Ok, fetuses.
These stories sent me over to the “women’s right to chose” side of the abortion debate. Everything about this issue is political.
In early 2000, we made a friendship with a couple in Maui, who had two children of their own and an adopted child. The woman is an adopted child herself and worked in counselling women on abortion or adoption.
She asked the birth mother of the girl she adopted if she wanted to have contact with her child after the adoption. She said she did and was invited to their home on all special occasions such as the child’s birthday, Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Her actions helped me deal with the morality of adoption or abortion. That your morality should be based on kindness.
And that’s the way I see it anyways.