fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3395 ]

[ SECRET POST #3395 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3395 ⌋

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I think that fertility treatments and surrogacy are morally questionable at best, given the society we live in. Not because I think those things are bad in and of themselves (I don't, I think it's really great that medical science has progressed so far), but because of the literally thousands of infants and children who could be adopted if people weren't so obsessed with biology and genetics. I feel the same about having more than two or three biological children (the Duggars make me ill).

I don't say any of this in public because I'm not a complete idiot and I do in fact understand that fertility can be a really sensitive subject.

I agree with you.

I understand this line of thinking a lot, tbh.

While I can understand this argument, I don't think anyone who has biological children has the right to make that choice. I'm a lesbian who wants kids one day (and yes, probably will for at least one use a sperm donor) and I was once lectured by a woman who had two biological kids about how I should adopt instead.

One, it isn't a bad thing want the experience of having a biological kid. And two, anyone who thinks adoption is easy and doesn't cost money, time, and often times heartache, knows absolutely nothing about the adoption process.

I'm absolutely pro-adoption and would certainly consider it one day but frankly it'll probably cost less and be way easier for me to just use a sperm donor.

It absolutely floors me how expensive it is to get pregnant by any alternative method or adopt a kid.

OP

I understand this point of view, especially because I have personal experience with certain factors involving adoption that I can't get into here, but I still think it's not the best for society as a whole.

Like, I get it. I want to be pregnant one day and hold a newborn and breastfeed and all of that. I get it. But my desire for that doesn't erase the children who eventually age out of the system because no one wants them, and I just can't get past that. Ideally, I'd have one or two bio children, and then adopt after that, but if I turned out to have fertility issues I would personally feel selfish spending thousands on fertility treatments or surrogacy. But again, I don't say this anywhere else because fertility is a sensitive topic and I understand that despite my feelings, I can't force that on anyone.

but frankly it'll probably cost less and be way easier for me to just use a sperm donor.

I'm in this boat too.

I agree with you if they're using surrogacy for more than two kids. Two I think is fine since it's not doing any harm to the population, you're replacing yourselves when you die. If you're using surrogacy to have more than two children it's a little questionable.

SA

Fertility treatments too. Forgot to include those. Same feelings on them.

Adoption can be difficult. I don't think there are that many people giving up kids for adoption.l

You get kids in foster care because abusive and neglectful parents don't want to give up the rights to their kids, so those kids can't be adopted.

OP

Actually, while the goal of Foster Care is always primarily reunification, foster care is meant to be temporary. In the areas I have experience with, you have to actively show that you are trying to provide a safe stable home. If a kid is in care for two years with an abusive/neglectful parent who is making no progress, their rights WILL be terminated and the child put up for adoption, they get no say in whether or not they terminate their rights.

nayrt but I wanted to comment because I've worked in foster care before.

Parental rights rarely get terminated. That is the sad fucking truth of it. You have these awful people who really fuck up their kids - I worked particularly in mental health services for kids with high behavioral problems that resulted directly from their horrible parents.

Here's the thing - foster care and adoption costs the state a LOT of money. And I'm not saying it's all about the money - what they really want is to get kids in permanent, "stable" homes and open foster homes/group homes up for other kids. It is generally in the state's best interest for both efficiency and financial reasons to let kids go back to shitty parents. Not to mention, blood relatives (especially parents) will always be prioritized because it can cause so much trouble down the line if you don't. Yeah, we do parental evaluations and such, but terminating rights completely doesn't happen half as often as you wish it did. I know. Most of the time I really wish parental rights would be terminated, but there you have it.

I've seen kids go back to shitty parents, but I've also seen the kids who's parental rights are terminated because mommy dearest decided not having kids anymore was AWESOME. I think it's a case of 'this is how it's SUPPOSED to work, but often times we skip over it because we have no funding.' And of course the occassional 'We all know they're abusive pieces of shit but since no one can actually prove it or get the kid to confess, we have t osend them home.'

I used to think the same way you did, but as I get older I'm gradually changing my mind.

There aren't - at least where I live - "thousands" of children awaiting adoption. There are less than one hundred, and every single one of them either has severe, debilitating health problems that will cost tens of thousands of dollars a year plus full time care to treat, severe mental problems, is almost "aged out" of the system already (i.e. is a teenager), or some combination of all three. The government has a list of them (under pseudonyms, of course) right up on their website. It's wonderful if you have the means to adopt one of these children, but that requires not only wealth and a special set of life circumstances that not everyone who would be a perfectly good parent to a healthy child could manage.

The "thousands" of children aren't up for adoption - they're in the foster system. And while it's true that you could apply to adopt these children eventually, you could easily be rejected, or the parents could just not want to give them up.

There's international adoption, of course, but not only does it cost as much as three times more than the most expensive fertility treatments available - zero dollars of which goes to making your child's life or the lives of other children better, and all to lawyers and bureaucrats - but there's a decent risk that child is a "paper orphan" stolen from his or her parents to essentially sell to desperate, childless, or well-meaning rich Westerners. Moreover, many countries have already closed their borders to this practice and many more are following suit, as their own fertility rate drops and their own wealthy citizens are increasingly likely to want to adopt.

You could just give money to help charities that help children in need, of course, but you could also do that while having children of your own perfectly well.

Worse, there's absolutely nothing preventing the biologically capable of "just adopting" or fostering themselves - if it's such a wonderful, preferable act, and the insistence on having biological children is so selfish and irrational, and we're already so overpopulated, why try to foist it off on the infertile and gays? Why don't you do it?

Fertility rates drop with increasing GDP, and freely accessible birth control and abortions decrease the number of unwanted children - honestly, it's probably best for the planet and society just to support global equality and development and women's rights, if that's the outcome you want, then to take up arms and berate infertile people who are probably having a hard enough time already. That's not going to solve the problem. Adoption is already in much of the developed world a seller's market, to the point couples are desperate enough to drop $100K on a kidnapped foreign kid with severe disabilities. There's no way we wouldn't be better off if they spent $25K on IVF, had the biological kid they wanted, and used the savings to foster or donate to a charity that helps children.

I think people should have kids if they want them, will take good care of them, and can afford them, regardless of how those children came to be. Economics is already taking care of the overpopulation problem; everywhere but Africa's dropped below replacement levels. So, have your one or two kids, give the ridiculous adoption fees to a young mother in Africa to help her afford birth control, or a young girl to help her go to school, instead of some lawyer or government agent. Trust me: the waiting lists to adopt anywhere in the world right now is years, that kid you were "going" to adopt is going to get adopted by someone else. Or use it to foster a second/third kid in addition to your own.

OP
I think these are all really good points. My opinion isn't set in stone, it's something I pass back and forth in my head a lot. I fullyadmit that my experiences with kids in foster care has colored my opinions.

I used to be 100% adoption all the way, especially when I was very young and back in the 80s and 90s there actually were tens of thousands of children, if not hundreds of thousands, across the world who desperately needed homes. And for relatively cheap, because the governments of those countries didn't want to keep spending money on state orphanages.

Flash forward to today and just about everybody's at below replacement levels and those that are still allowing international adoption are profiteering off of it. The kids who are actually in need are in the foster care system, and those might get yanked away from you at any time, so while it's a noble and needed effort, it's not the same. It just isn't. At the same time, fertility treatments get cheaper and more effective every year.

Today I think I'd just have one kid of my own and foster the other with a partner. That's still a net negative in terms of the global population, and leaves more cash available to help other causes - environmental or humanist - that aren't "pay a lawyer's salary for the prestige of having my own foreign adopted child like all the rich, trendy people have."

Oh yes, I'm definitely going to be fostering. Fostering has so far broken my heart, which is exactly why I feel so strongly about doing it.

+1000000000000000

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