The Real Costs of "Brave Love"
The adoption industry, cloaked in the language of love and sacrifice, is a billion-dollar industry built on the exploitation of vulnerable women and the commodification of children.
The term "brave love" has been romanticized and co-opted by the adoption industry to paint a rosy picture of birth mothers making the selfless choice to place their babies for adoption. The Brave Love Movement and similar initiatives present birth mothers as heroes, making courageous decisions for their children's well-being. However, this narrative is deeply manipulative, obscuring the underlying motives of pregnancy crisis centers and adoption agencies that profit from the buying and selling of babies. Let's call it what it is: legalized human trafficking.
The Manipulative Nature of the Brave Love Movement
The Brave Love Movement glorifies birth mothers' decisions to give up their babies by framing it as an act of love and bravery. This rhetoric is designed to tug at heartstrings, making the act seem noble and selfless. However, the reality is far more sinister. These organizations, along with pregnancy crisis centers, exploit vulnerable women, often in desperate situations, to relinquish their babies under the guise of bravery and love.
Financial Exploitation
Adoption agencies and related organizations are businesses. They thrive on the fees paid by adoptive parents, which can range from $20,000 to $50,000 or more per adoption. This money fills their pockets while the birth mothers are often left with little support, both emotionally and financially, after the adoption. The narrative of "brave love" is a marketing strategy to keep this lucrative unregulated industry thriving.
The Harms to Adoptees and Birth Mothers
1. Emotional and Psychological Trauma
Adoptees often face lifelong emotional and psychological trauma. They grow up with a sense of abandonment and identity issues and sometimes struggle with attachment disorders. The feeling of being unwanted or given away can haunt them into adulthood, affecting their mental health and relationships.
2. Loss of Biological Identity
Adoptees frequently struggle with questions about their origins. The loss of biological identity and heritage can lead to identity crises and a perpetual feeling of not fitting in. Searching for birth parents often becomes a complicated and emotionally charged journey. Grief consumes them from separation trauma the moment they take their first breath after separation, and it never leaves.
3. Grief and Regret for Birth Mothers
Birth mothers are left to deal with profound grief and regret. The decision, often made under pressure and without full understanding, haunts them. Many experience depression, anxiety, and a lasting sense of loss that the Brave Love Movement fails to address.
Consider Reading: Understanding Closed Adoption: The History, Harms and The Urgent Call for Truth and Transparency.
Tactics Used to Manipulate Birth Mothers
1. Emotional Appeals
Organizations use emotionally charged language to persuade birth mothers that giving up their baby is the most loving and selfless act. Terms like "brave love" and "gift of adoption" are designed to create a sense of noble sacrifice.
2. Promises of a Better Life
Birth mothers are often told that their child will have a better life with adoptive parents. While this may sometimes be true, it overlooks the child's potential emotional struggles and the birth mother's grief. Read The Perplexity of Forced Bonding in Adoption.
3. Lack of Full Disclosure
These organizations rarely provide full disclosure about the potential long-term impacts of adoption on both the child and the birth mother. The focus is on the immediate act of adoption rather than the lifelong consequences. Read: Being Adopted, When Your Truth is Held Hostage.
4. Financial Incentives and Pressures
Pregnancy crisis centers may offer financial incentives or assistance to persuade women to carry their pregnancies to term and then place the baby for adoption. This creates a coercive environment where the birth mother feels pressured to comply due to financial necessity.
The Real Costs of "Brave Love"
Let's delve deeper into the real costs of this so-called brave love, starting with the adoptees:
1. Adoptees' Emotional and Psychological Trauma
Adoptees often suffer from feelings of abandonment and rejection. They grapple with questions about their identity and heritage, which can lead to identity crises. The emotional toll can manifest in mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, and attachment disorders. The adoption industry rarely acknowledges these long-term impacts, preferring to focus on the immediate placement of the child.
Consider Reading: Thirty Things To Consider Before Adopting.
2. Birth Mothers' Grief and Regret
For birth mothers, the decision to relinquish a child can result in a lifetime of grief and regret. The pressure and emotional manipulation they experience during pregnancy can lead to deep-seated trauma. Many birth mothers report feelings of loss, depression, and anxiety long after the adoption process is complete. The Brave Love Movement fails to address these ongoing struggles, instead portraying the decision as a quick, brave choice rather than a life-altering sacrifice.
How many birth mothers have you sat down with and heard their stories? I have listened to countless; many are heartbroken and have little to no preparation to deal with these emotions.
The Ugly Truth
The adoption industry, cloaked in the language of love and sacrifice, is a billion-dollar industry built on the exploitation of vulnerable women and the commodification of children. It is a system that needs to be abolished, with transparency and accountability. Birth mothers need real support and counseling, not manipulation and empty promises. The act of handing over a baby to strangers is not brave love; it is often a decision born of manipulation, coercion, and a lack of viable alternatives.
How the Adoption Industry Manipulates Birth Mothers
1. Emotional Appeals and Manipulative Language
The language used by adoption agencies and crisis pregnancy centers is carefully crafted to manipulate. Words like "selfless," "heroic," and "brave" are used to convince women that giving up their baby is the right choice. These emotional appeals can cloud judgment, making it difficult for birth mothers to make fully informed decisions. They also start calling them a “Birth Mother’ well before they make their decision, as a way to create a separation in the mind and heart of the mother carrying her baby.
2. Promises of a Better Life
Adoption agencies often promise that the child will have a better life with adoptive parents. The reality is no one can guarantee a better life, only a different one; this empty promise overlooks the potential emotional and psychological impacts on the child and the birth mother. It also disregards the fact that birth mothers, with proper support, could also provide a loving and stable home for their children.
3. Lack of Transparency
These organizations rarely provide full transparency about the adoption process and its long-term impacts. Birth mothers are often not fully informed about their rights or the potential consequences of their decisions. This lack of disclosure is a deliberate tactic to ensure compliance and minimize resistance.
4. Financial Pressures
Financial incentives or assistance can be used to coerce birth mothers into choosing adoption. In many cases, these women are in dire financial straits, making them more susceptible to manipulation. This financial coercion is another form of exploitation, further complicating the ethical landscape of adoption.
It’s All About The Money
Adoption agencies often present a warm and supportive façade, creating an atmosphere that suggests they are there to help pregnant women make the best decisions for their babies. However, beneath this kind veneer lies a profit-driven agenda where these women are viewed as dollar signs. The agencies are well aware that each pregnant woman represents a significant financial gain, with fees for adoptive parents ranging from $20,000 to $50,000 or more. Adoption is, in reality, an unregulated multibillion-dollar industry rife with corruption.
The outrageous fees they charge are a testament to their primary focus: profit. The situation becomes even more alarming when we consider the racial inequities within the industry. Babies of color are often priced lower than white babies, revealing a deeply ingrained systemic bias that treats children as commodities with varying market values based on their race. This exploitation underscores the urgent need for transparency and abolition within the adoption system to protect the rights and dignity of both birth mothers and their children. This is real life, people, and if you don't believe me, do the research! I literally can’t make this shit up!
If we take the money out of adoption, the industry would dwindle to nothing, as it is fundamentally a business driven by profit. Adoption operates on a supply and demand model where babies are the supply, and prospective adoptive parents are the demand. This financial motivation leads to aggressive marketing and manipulative tactics to persuade vulnerable women to give up their babies.
Coercive Control in Adoption: Tactics Used by Brave Love and the Adoption Industry
Coercive control within the adoption industry, particularly by organizations like Brave Love, involves manipulative tactics designed to persuade birth mothers into relinquishing their babies. These tactics often include:
Emotional Manipulation: Adoption agencies frequently exploit the emotions of vulnerable pregnant women, emphasizing the supposed selflessness and nobility of placing a child for adoption. They may glorify adoption as an act of love and sacrifice, which can pressure mothers into feeling that keeping their child would be selfish or detrimental to the child's future.
Financial and Material Incentives: Some organizations offer financial assistance, medical care, housing, or other material benefits to expectant mothers during their pregnancy. While this support is framed as help, it can create a sense of obligation or indebtedness, making it difficult for the mother to later decide to keep her baby without feeling guilty or ungrateful.
Information Withholding: Agencies may provide incomplete or biased information about the realities of adoption. They might downplay the long-term emotional impact on the birth mother and child or fail to present parenting as a viable option. This can prevent mothers from making fully informed decisions about their child's future.
Isolation and Pressure: Birth mothers are sometimes isolated from supportive networks that might encourage them to keep their babies. This isolation can be physical, by moving them into agency-provided housing, or emotional, by fostering a narrative that only the adoption agency truly understands and supports their situation.
Promises of Open Adoption: Many agencies promise open adoption arrangements where birth mothers can maintain contact with their children. However, these agreements are not legally enforceable, and once the adoption is finalized, the adoptive parents may choose to cut off contact, leaving the birth mother with no recourse. This is beyond devastating not only to the birth mother, but the families.
Pre-birth Matching: Agencies often encourage pre-birth matching with adoptive parents, creating an emotional bond and a sense of responsibility towards the adoptive parents. This can make it extremely difficult for the birth mother to change her mind after the birth, as she may feel she is letting down the adoptive parents, who are eagerly awaiting the child.
These coercive tactics create an environment where birth mothers may feel they have no real choice but to place their babies for adoption, masking the true nature of their consent and perpetuating a cycle of emotional manipulation and exploitation.
Brave Love: The True Definition
Brave love is not about handing your baby over to strangers and hoping for the best. Brave love is fighting like hell to keep your baby, never giving up on them, and doing whatever it takes to move mountains so you can provide for them. It's about seeking every possible avenue for support, advocating for your rights, and making the sacrifices necessary to raise your child. Brave love is about courage, determination, and unwavering commitment to your child's well-being. It’s about challenging the system, finding strength in adversity, and ensuring that your child grows up knowing they are wanted and loved fiercely. This is the true essence of brave love.
The Brave Love Movement's tactic of putting birth mothers on a pedestal and praising them for giving their babies away is deeply manipulative and profoundly alarming. By glorifying the decision to relinquish their child as an act of noble sacrifice, these organizations exploit the emotional vulnerabilities of pregnant women. This praise is not rooted in genuine support or care for the birth mother or child but in a calculated strategy to secure more babies for adoption, thus fueling their profit-driven agenda.
The façade of "brave love" obscures the harsh reality that these women are being coerced into making a decision that will have lifelong emotional repercussions. This manipulation is insidious, using flattery and emotional appeals to mask the true motives of an industry that views babies as commodities and birth mothers as means to an end. It’s a cruel and cynical ploy that preys on the hopes and fears of vulnerable women, turning their deeply personal and often painful experiences into opportunities for financial gain. The Brave Love Movement is not about bravery or love; it's about exploitation and profit.
Consider Reading: When Adoptees Know Loss Before We Know Love.
The Need for Abolition and Reform
The adoption industry must be abolished, and comprehensive reforms must take place that prioritize 100% truth and transparency. This includes providing comprehensive support and counseling for birth mothers and adoptees, ensuring transparency in every step of the process, and addressing the long-term impacts of adoption on all parties involved. Only through abolition and sincere reform can we protect the rights and well-being of birth mothers and adoptees.
Consider Reading: If Adoption is Love, So is Understanding Adoptees.
A Call to Action
It's time to challenge the Brave Love Movement and similar initiatives. We must advocate for the rights and well-being of birth mothers and adoptees, demand transparency and ethical practices from adoption agencies, and expose the manipulative tactics used by these organizations. Birth mothers deserve to know the truth about the potential harms of adoption and to make fully informed decisions without coercion or manipulation.
Handing your baby over to strangers is not brave love. It's time we call it what it is: a decision often born out of manipulation, coercion, and a lack of viable alternatives. Birth mothers deserve better. Adoptees deserve better. The truth must be told, and the narrative must change. Brave love is about fighting for your child, ensuring they know they are wanted and loved, and doing everything in your power to keep them with you. This is the real brave love that should be celebrated and supported.
Consider Reading: Adoption Hasn’t Touched Me, It’s Ruthlessly Kicked My Ass!
Saving Our Sisters
Renee (Founder of SOS) is a personal friend of mine and someone I love dearly. If you are a mother struggling with the decision of whether to keep your baby, reach out to Saving Our Sisters. This incredible organization is dedicated to providing you with real answers and comprehensive support to help you make an informed decision that will impact both your life and your baby's life forever. Saving Our Sisters offers compassionate guidance, practical resources, and unwavering support for families facing unplanned pregnancies.
The team at Saving Our Sisters is committed to standing by your side, offering not just temporary aid but long-term support to help you build a stable and loving environment for your child. By choosing to connect with Saving Our Sisters, you are choosing a path of empowerment, informed choice, and genuine care that honors your role as a mother and prioritizes the well-being of your family.
SOS supports all members of expectant families considering adoption. They are committed to helping them make fully informed decisions based on information that so many other families have learned too late. They are dedicated to ensuring they avoid applying a permanent solution to a temporary crisis based on partial or misinformation.
SOS is dedicated to direct action and education regarding the preservation of biological families whenever possible. This may include assisting expectant and new parents by locating resources, explaining the long and short-term effects of adoption separation on everyone in the natural family, explaining the lifelong effects of trauma their infant will suffer if exposed to maternal separation, and connecting them with a local support person and mentor.
Q & A
I would love your thoughts! What are some of the long-term emotional and psychological impacts on adoptees and birth mothers that the Brave Love Movement fails to address? How does the pricing disparity between babies of different races highlight systemic biases in the adoption industry? Why is it important to challenge the narrative presented by the Brave Love Movement and similar initiatives? What are your thoughts on crisis pregnancy centers and the Brave Love movement? Have you heard of Saving Our Sisters? Has the Brave Love movement impacted you in any way? Drop your insights below!
Would you like to chat one-on-one about this topic or other various topics relating to adoption?
As an adoptee and a certified grief recovery method specialist, I am dedicated to supporting and guiding adoptees who have experienced the unique challenges of adoption. I have personally walked the path of adoption and understand the complexities and emotions that come with it. My mission is to be a lifeline for adoptees and those in the adoption constellation who feel lost or isolated in their journey. Whether you need a listening ear, advice, or a shoulder to lean on, I am here, ready to help. I am also hosting one-on-one Grief Recovery Workshops for anyone in the adoption constellation! To learn more and join the waiting list, click here.
I see you; I feel your pain for all the adoptees who feel forgotten, lost, and alone. Please don’t give up, and know you aren’t alone in feeling like you do.
I have compiled a list of recommended resources for adoptees and advocates. It can be found here: Recommended Resources for Adult Adoptees and Adoption Advocates.
Thank you for reading and for supporting me and my work.
Understanding is Love,Â
Pamela A. KaranovaÂ
Here are some of the writing pieces I’m the proudest of:
Adoption: Mislabeled, Medicated, & Diagnosed Adoptees Could Be Grieving Profoundly.
The Perplexity of Forced Bonding in Adoption - I share my thoughts on the bonding process in adoption.
100 Heartfelt Transracial Adoptee Quotes that Honor the Truth of Adoption - 100 Transracial Adoptees come together to share feelings on how adoption has impacted them.
Adoptees, Why Are You So Angry? - Adoptees share feelings on why they are angry.
Why Do Adoptees Search? An Adoptee Collaboration - Many adoptees experience why they choose to search for biological families.
100 Heartfelt Adoptee Quotes that Honor the Truth of Adoption - 100 Adoptees come together to share heartfelt feelings on how adoption has made them feel.
My Friend Has an Adopted Child, and They Don’t Have Any Issues with Being Adopted - Shining a light on the comment so many adoptees hear over and over.
Here are some of the articles I have been featured in:
These Adoptees Refuse to Be Christian Pro-Life Poster Kids by Kathryn Post of Religious News Service.
Toward Preventing Adoption- Related Suicide by Mirah Riben.
Before a month celebrating adoption, a day to recognize adoptees’ trauma by Religion News Service.
Bringing Adult Adoptee Issues to Light by Angela Burton of Next Avenue.
I'm shocked at the advertisement for adoption, listing out the cost and the separate separate price levels based on race. Its like looking at the pricing of different car makes and models. Wow. I have no words.. I have often heard the adoption phrases. "Act of love" "Act of bravery" "Selfless gift". In the past I never thought of those terms as being manipulative but I see things much more clearly now.
I sneer anytime I hear about this horrific movement. Thank you for bringing this to light!