Tuesday, September 6, 2011

More evidence of the power imbalance

Most of the time, when reading blogs from mothers who have recently surrendered their babies, I see the usual rainbow and butterfly propaganda from the adoption industry spewing forth - sometimes it's more like projectile vomiting and I just want to duck. Today I read a post that was different. This mother sees just how unethical and unfair the industry is and what she had to say just enraged me.


"I learned that everything that I did in my frantic, desperate attempts to keep my son with me, were to no avail, from negotiating my and W’s Dr., hospital and anesthesiologist fees, to a plea for Medicaid only to be denied because I made too much money. I would have had to file bankruptcy if I had kept him and that purely because W is ‘adopted’, regardless of the scenario of his adoption, or the income D & H make, that 1) he receives $175/mo in free formula from WIC for his first year, and 2) he is on FREE Medicaid for his first year, and 3) they will be getting more food allowance from WIC once he turns 6 months as he begins to eat solid foods."


Well, millions of us know the story of being stuck in the middle and falling through the cracks. You don't  make enough income to pay for what you need but make too much income to qualify for any help. It's a crappy place to be. So a single mother who is trying desperately to take care of her child is denied Medicaid yet the people who adopt her baby - who obviously had the funds to pay an agency the adoption fees and we know how high those can be - get $175/mo in formula for a year and Medicaid for a year. They get this help because they adopted. AND add to this the ridiculous tax credit/refund of something like 13,000.00 they'll get simply for adopting. All of this help is available to the couple taking the baby but none of it is available to the child's mother. This is sickening! How many more posts have to be written, what do we have to do to get people to see this industry for what it is?

Sometimes I think about not doing any more posts here because it can be so difficult to keep it up. It's just hard to keep talking about such an emotional, personal and painful subject. If I could just go about my life and not have to think about this crap anymore I would certainly have less stress but when I see stories like this I feel like I can't stop. I just want to scream. I want to shake people. Women lose their children because of money yet we (the taxpayers and that includes the mother who lost her baby) give money to the people who can afford to buy those children. Why aren't more people enraged by this?


7 comments:

  1. OK, point made.

    "Pregnant?
    Be a Patriot and Parent."

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  2. Absolutely, unbelievable and enraging. Throw the mother away, but if you adopt said mother's baby, then you will get more than we would give her, is essentially what our "government" is saying. Just sickening beyond words...

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  3. This gripes me to no end. It is so maddening that people consider it "ok" for adopters to receive government help, but look down on a mother who needs the same help. It is sickening...

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  4. Want to hear something even sicker? Guess where a large number of those babies end up when they reach puberty! FOSTER CARE!

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  5. The adoption tax credit this year is $13,360, payable if no taxes are due. http://taxes.about.com/od/deductionscredits/qt/adoptioncredit.htm Can you imagine if that money had been given to the mother instead???? Those same people standing there with their hands out, demanding the adoption tax credit would be screaming about the mother being a welfare queen.

    It's sickening, absolutely sickening.

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  6. You nailed it Melynda, I think that's exactly right. Gotta hand it to the lobbyists for the industry - they know how to work it.

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