From the article: The writer, Gretchen Sisson, is the author of Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood. The story paints a chilling picture of coerced...
From the article:
Are maternity homes back? Reporters have been asking this question long before the Dobbs decision — from the Associated Press proclaiming a “new beginning” for maternity homes nationwide, to The Washington Post’s glowing coverage of Texas “maternity ranches,” to The New York Times’ critical look at the “oppressive sanctuary” of Florida maternity homes.
Histories like Ann Fessler’s The Girls Who Went Away and Gabrielle Glaser’s American Baby increased many advocates’ awareness of the complicated history of pre-Roe maternity homes, and this summer’s addicting Liberty Lost podcast (from reporter TJ Raphael, featuring Abigail Johnson) showed many listeners that that history is far more recent than they believed.
I’ve studied domestic adoption in the U.S. for over fifteen years, and I’ve done hundreds of interviews with mothers who have relinquished their infants. I know the harm this system inflicts on tens of thousands of American women every year, and I know their stories intimately. I also know that most of what Americans believe about adoption, and about maternity homes today, is wrong. Adoption isn’t the benevolent system we’re taught it is; it doesn’t exist because we have “so many babies” in need of homes; it’s not the “common ground” we should concede in abortion debates. To understand today’s maternity homes, we have to first reframe what we think we know about adoption.
The writer, Gretchen Sisson, is the author of Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood.
The story paints a chilling picture of coerced birthing by disadvantaged women and girls for the benefit of well-off people desiring to adopt in the U.S. The Handmaid's Tale is already happening, not covered or positively recommended by news sources.
Haven’t followed the links, but this article seems like a good start for people who want to learn more. Here is a bit more from it: I’m wondering how long they get to stay after having the baby...
Haven’t followed the links, but this article seems like a good start for people who want to learn more. Here is a bit more from it:
Maternity homes today seem similar to their pre-Roe predecessors: they’re heavily religious, and many require church attendance or regular Bible study from residents. Some also closely police residents, requiring them to download location-monitoring apps on their phones or turn over their food stamps.
But present-day homes are fundamentally different in two crucial ways. First, women were sent to baby scoop era homes because they were being hidden, not because they needed housing. Today, expectant mothers most often enter homes because they need a stable and affordable place to live. They seek out homes because they’re in crisis; they’re seeking safety, not secrecy.
Second, once a young woman entered a baby scoop era home, there was virtually no possibility that she would be allowed to parent her baby: the child was taken, the papers were signed (always without counsel, often coercively, occasionally fraudulently), the adoption was done. Today’s maternity homes will hand out some adoption materials, but they assume, correctly, that most of the mothers will parent their babies.
In other words, maternity homes are best understood as residential crisis pregnancy centers. They are able to exist for the same reason CPCs do: because our country has no social safety net. In the same way pregnant women will go to CPCs because they need pregnancy tests or free diapers, they go to maternity homes because they need housing.
An expectant mother will take the proselytizing and policing because she has no better choice.
I’m wondering how long they get to stay after having the baby and what happens next. What do they do for housing then? It’s not like they have fewer needs.
From the article:
The writer, Gretchen Sisson, is the author of Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood.
The story paints a chilling picture of coerced birthing by disadvantaged women and girls for the benefit of well-off people desiring to adopt in the U.S. The Handmaid's Tale is already happening, not covered or positively recommended by news sources.
Haven’t followed the links, but this article seems like a good start for people who want to learn more. Here is a bit more from it:
I’m wondering how long they get to stay after having the baby and what happens next. What do they do for housing then? It’s not like they have fewer needs.