I just stumbled on a fascinating debate over abortion and adoption at the First Things website. In "Adoption, Abortion, and a Message of Hope," J.D. Flynn argues that pro-lifers overemphasize adoption as an alternative to women considering an abortion. These two paragraphs toward the close struck me:
Unfortunately, our views on adoption can be colored by our consumerist culture. Out of real generosity, families are often willing to expend huge sums of money to adopt a child. But in justice, we ought to ask what the same amount of money might do to preserve a child’s natural family, and whether we’re willing to provide it.
Of course, adoption sometimes really is the best choice. When parents decide that, we should support it. But we should begin our charitable support by working to preserve the natural family through the solidarity, and charity, that combats the fractioning and isolation of the culture of death.
Well said, although I feel compelled to point out that those huge sums of money (also often spent on infertility treatments) can be saved by those willing to consider the non-white children in the American foster systems who desperately need a real home. My compulsion is echoed by the less eloquent, but no less forceful, "We Need to Talk About Adoption" by Elizabeth Kirk. Her point is simple: given that over a million babies are aborted in this country each year, and that less than 20,000 newborns are placed for adoption, we need to talk much, much more about adoption.
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