The aims of the Civil Liberties and Public Policy (CLPP) conference, held this weekend (April 2-4)at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA are reproductive freedoms and social justice. But, as one Iowa woman discovered, there is a gaping hole in the reproductive freedoms supported by this conference. Laurie Frisch, representing OriginsUSA, had secured an invitation to distribute information at this conference with the assurance from the staff that the right for a woman to keep her own child was an important right that did need to be addressed. OriginsUSA is a national organization which seeks to protect unmarried mothers who want to keep their children from the slick advertising and sales pitches of the adoption industry.

Upon Ms. Frisch's arrival at the conference, conference director Marlene Fried told her that CLPP would not allow the display of artwork or the distribution of information from mothers whose children had been adopted-out. She also refused to allow distribution of stories of adoptees real life experiences, except when those experiences were positive ones. CLPP's stand is an unfortunate result of conflicting "rights", with the "right" to adopt winning out over the right of a mother to keep her own child.

In today's climate, many unmarried mothers are being denied a real choice when it comes to adoption because of the increasing pressures and lack of information provided by adoption sevices providers, who benefit financially when a child is adopted. The adoption industry has found ways to thwart attempts by natural mothers and adoptees to tell their stories and voice their concerns.

According to statistics compiled on Adoption.com, the mothers whose children are adopted-out "often come from higher socioeconomic backgrounds. These women come from intact families...." (Stolley, 1993). These mothers tend to be in college or college bound, responsible women who want to do what is truly best for their child. Unfortunately they are uninformed, misinformed and have no moral support from anyone due to the mistaken belief that they will soon get over the loss of their child and that their child will not know "the difference".

It could be your daughter or granddaughter who is pressured into surrendering her parental rights when all she really needs is some temporary assistance and moral support in order to keep her child and prevent a life-time of suffering from an unnecessary loss that is unacknowledged by society.

United States is not the only country that pressures unmarried women to surrender their children. But there are countries which support women in the right to keep their children, such as Australia and Sweden, where mothers are counseled to keep their children to prevent the harm that comes from separating them.

CLPP's refusal to protect the rights of mothers to keep their own children is not so much different from the general view of our society. What is disturbing is that CLPP's mission is specifically social justice and reproductive freedom and yet it apparently applies only to those who have difficulty reproducing and denies the freedoms of those that actually do have their own children.



Author Information

Laurie Frisch
ORIGINSUSA