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[Cedar]

The "Evolution" of Illegal Adoption Practices in America
by Karen Wilson Buterbaugh

In America, beginning after WWII, single parent families - especially white families - came to be viewed as a primary source of babies for the adoption market.

Up until about the mid-40s, maternity homes had encouraged mothers to keep their babies. As social workers became involved and the market for "adoptable" babies grew, things changed.

Social workers and adoption agencies - setting themselves up as "professional experts" - promoted the idea that single pregnancy was a symptom of illness that could be "cured" by separating mother and child, supposedly returning the mother to a virginal, "marriageable" status.

Pregnancies to single women began to be called "unplanned" and the babies born to single women were said to be "unwanted". The basis for determining whether a pregnancy was "planned" or a baby "wanted" had nothing at all to do with planning or wanting - it was based only on marital status.

Pregnant women who were single (and mostly white) were incarcerated in wage homes or maternity homes where they were called "inmates" and received punitive "treatment" and "counseling".

Even when they lived with relatives or at home, women who were single and pregnant were usually forced to hide in attics or basements and not see visitors. When they went to the hospital to give birth their babies were often removed from them.

Many devious tricks were used to manipulate parents and grandparents and separate families and their "adoptable" infants.

For example, some mothers were encouraged to sign papers allowing for foster care, and provided assurances that they could retrieve their babies once they had employment or a way to support them.
When parents and grandparents came to retrieve their family member, many were lied to and told their babies had already been adopted when they had not.

The paperwork the mothers signed was later used against them as proof they were "unfit". The papers claimed "negligence", even when there was no basis for determining negligence - in fact, many parents had not even been permitted to hold their babies.

There were huge conflicts of interests. Social workers breached their duty to single mothers as they catered to prospective adopters. Many legal protections were abused and ignored. No single parent was provided the information necessary to make an informed consent.