By Matt Berg
Former vice president Mike Pence (click here) vowed Friday that “we must not rest” until abortion is outlawed in every state in the country, pushing for legislative action in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn nationwide protection for abortion rights.
“Now that Roe v. Wade has been consigned to the ash heap of history, a new arena in the cause of life has emerged, and it is incumbent on all who cherish the sanctity of life to resolve that we will take the defense of the unborn and the support for women in crisis pregnancy centers to every state in America,” Pence said in an interview with the far-right media outlet Breitbart News. “Having been given this second chance for Life, we must not rest and must not relent until the sanctity of life is restored to the center of American law in every state in the land.”...
January 1, 2003
By Marianna Bitler and Madeline Zavddny
CONTEXT: The legalization of abortion in the United States (click here) led to well-known changes in reproductive behavior, but its effect on adoptions has not been investigated.
METHODS: Variation across states in the timing and extent of abortion legalization is used to identify the effects of changes in the legal status of abortion on adoption rates from 1961 to 1975. These effects are estimated in regression analyses that control for states' economic, demographic and political characteristics, as well as for health care availability within states.
RESULTS: The rate of adoptions of children born to white women declined by 34-37% in states that repealed restrictive abortion laws before....
Women who are denied an abortion are more likely to initially experience higher levels of anxiety, lower life satisfaction, and lower self-esteem compared with women who received an abortion.
Unwanted pregnancy has been associated with deficits to the subsequent child’s cognitive, emotional, and social processes.
The number of unsafe abortions is likely to increase when policies limit access to reproductive health care.
There is a strong relationship between unwanted pregnancy and interpersonal violence.
Laws restricting access to safe, legal abortion are harmful to low-income women, women of color, and sexual and gender minorities, as well as those who live in rural or medically underserved areas.
A woman’s ability to control when and if she has a child is frequently linked to her socioeconomic standing and earning power.
Sister Mary Borromeo, R.S.M., B.A., Dip.Soc.Wk. (1968)
Borromeo based this article on many years of work with unmarried mothers. Its purpose was to draw attention to the grief reaction which the natural mother experiences after the adoption of her child which both she and her family are ill prepared for.
She compares the separation of adoption to the separation of a child through death. The loss is as irrevocable in terms of relationship.
Borromeo notes that the surrendering mother knows that acceptance back into her family circle is dependent on her ability to “put it all behind her,” and so she is under double pressure to do this and suppress her grief. In cases where this is done it is not unusual to find a severe breakdown in self control occurring somewhere around the child’s first birthday.
Experiencing unwanted pregnancies appears to be strongly associated with poor mental health effects for women later in life....
Each adoption process (click here) shares the same ultimate purpose: to unite children who need families with those that want children. Yet, despite this common goal, the price tag of adoption in the United States varies widely.
The cost depends on what path you choose: If adopting through the public foster care system, your total out-of-pocket expenses can be next to nothing. If you hope to adopt a newborn, however, the cost can reach $45,000 or sometimes higher if you’re adopting from outside the country....