Adoption practice: “What is coercion?”

“What is coercion?”  This question was asked recently in an adoption-related forum, by someone unfamiliar with the idea that mothers may not want to surrender their babies for adoption.  Someone who has meekly accepted adoption industry brainwashing and never questioned the notion that mothers’ don’t willingly abandon their children hither, thither, and yon.

Ever since the Post World-War II demand for newborn infants arose, and the social work profession decided to meet that demand by taking the babies of vulnerable mothers, coercion has formed a large part of adoption practice.  You can read all about it in many pages on the internet.  Origins Canada has a collection of articles about coercion, including the coercion checklist I created from the true experiences of mothers I had got to know in support groups.   You can also read about Baby Scoop Era practices in the U.S. and what excuses baby brokers used for their abuse of mothers and abduction of infants.  You can pick up a copy of Ann Fessler’s book  The Girls Who Went Away and read first-hand accounts from the mothers incarcerated in maternity prisons, which were little more than baby farms, who knew they would never be allowed to leave with their babies.   Or you can read mothers’ stories  on the Exiled Mothers and Origins Canada sites.    You can look at the many years of research, the millions of dollars in federal tax money, put towards inventing new methods to separate mothers from their beloved newborn infants:  techniques such as open adoption, taking mothers away from their support system and putting them into maternity homes because it will more than double the rate of surrender (Namerow, Kalmuss, & Cushman, 1993), and research in which blindfolded regressed “volunteers” were forced to relive the trauma of their surrender in order to find out what coercion worked best.  One of these volunteers committed suicide after her experience.

But what is a good one or two sentence definition that sums of what constitutes coercion in adoption practice?  I thought it may be useful to invite feedback on one such possible definition:

“Coercion” includes any practice  specifically designed  and intended to either ensure — or  significantly increase the odds —  that a mother will surrender her baby for adoption.

“Coercion” describes any practice designed to remove a mother’s freedom of choice by the use of influence, persuasion, fraud, or duress. A coerced “choice’ is not a “choice” at all.

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Update:  This article, from March 2010, ends with a proposed possible definition of coercion.  This short description was taken and expanded upon in a later article:  “The Definition of Adoption Coercion.“

Related Posts:

• Adoption “Choice” – A Response to a Mother
• Adoption Coercion in Black and White
• Adoption: “Studies on How to Take Babies”
• An “Apology” for Abduction
• The Basic Facts of Pre-Birth Adoption Matching
• They admit it was illegal!
• This is what it’s like.
• “What Constitutes Coercion?”  (By “Write-A-Holic”)