Just Adopt

I’ve been witness to many conversations where a woman expresses her desire to be a mother but she will not be having a child biologically due to her own health issues, or concerns about the risk of passing along genetic defects, or fertility issues, or fear of pregnancy and delivery, or to not contribute to the overpopulation of the Earth, or other various reasons. Assuredly, others will immediately pipe in and say, “Just adopt!” Well, wouldn’t it be fabulous if life were “just” that easy, but it’s not. Adoption is not an uncomplicated solution to difficult decisions about fertility, conception, pregnancy, and parenting.

“Well, wouldn’t it be fabulous if life were ‘just’ that easy, but it’s not.”

There is not a store where you just walk in, pick out a baby, and return home as a parent with out any reverberation. When you “just adopt” you are also “just” participating in an industry that has a history of corruption and coercion, “just” contributing to the trauma of a child by separating them from their family, “just” severing a child’s legal ties to that family, “just” choosing to erase the identity of a person, “just” removing a child from their heritage and culture, and “just” forging a family built upon someone else’s misfortune.

You don’t simply “just adopt.”