Birthmother's Day

Birthmother's Day and the need to honor girls and women who give babies up for adoption

The Saturday before Mother's Day was designated Birthmother's Day by a group of birthmothers in Seattle, Washington in 1990. "Birthmother" in this context refers to a female who gave birth and gave the child up for adoption.

Holiday Insights notes, "If ever there was a controversial holiday, this is it." The website goes on to state that many birthmothers "don't want a special day" due to "feelings of remorse, and often guilt."

However, it seems to me that they should have a special day precisely because they ought to be free of remorse and guilt since they acted so courageously and generously in carrying unwanted pregnancies to term and relinquishing their children. Birthmothers are genuine heroines. Faced with a crisis pregnancy, they took the most difficult road by lending their bodies to the unborn and giving life and by recognizing their own limitations, even if temporary, and giving their young up to those who wanted to raise them.

While I'm on this subject, I also want to register an objection to the term "birthfather" that is often used in the adoption community and elsewhere. Fathers give birth among seahorses but not among most species and not among humans. To use the term birthfather obscures the very different roles of human males and females in reproduction and is, in my opinion, an example of using a term denoting sexual equality where there is the greatest inequality. The comparable term should be "biological father" or "genetic father."

This is not to say that this difference does not come with its own set of problems for men. Since they neither carry nor give birth, males may not know that they are biological fathers even when they are responsible men who would want to be involved in their children's lives. Males may also believe they are biological fathers when they are not. These problems are real but they are not identical to those of the sex that gestates and gives birth.

It is vitally important that those of us who believe adoption is a superior solution to the problem of unwanted pregnancy than abortion -- regardless of our stance on abortion's legality -- do everything in our power to cleanse relinquishment of shame and embarrassment and make it something in which these heroines may take pride.

There may be some who dispute my designation of birthmothers as heroines because they feel that, at least in the case of those who were unmarried, they committed a wrong in getting pregnant in the first place. My mother once saw a headline reading "Help for pregnant girls." She commented, "Help for pregnant girls? Tell 'em not to screw around!"

However, it is unlikely they had not heard that message. At least some birthmothers were raped. Others engaged in voluntary heterosexual relations for a variety of reasons. I recognize the risk of stoking prejudice against men when dealing with these reasons. However, it IS usually the male, not the female, who initiates sexual intercourse, especially when the partners are unmarried and/or the sex is unprotected. Females who do not want to get pregnant but seek sexual adventure are apt to use protection.

It is usually the male who coaxes and pushes for sexual intercourse. Thus, some girls and women who just want affection and attention are manipulated into sex by boys and men.

Some birthmothers may have had sex simply because they were curious about it. Some wanted money or gifts since the greater fervency with which males seek partnered sex may be used by females to separate males from their resources.

And some birthmothers got pregnant because they were just plain horny.

But whether rape victim or prostitute, the female who carries an unplanned pregnancy to term and gives the child up for adoption deserves honor for her life-giving heroism.

The sex act may have lasted a few minutes or an hour but the carrying to term lasted for nine months.

As columnist Jennifer Roback Morse has noted, "A woman can end her pregnancy at any time. The abortion clinic provides her with an immediate solution to her 'problem.' She can walk in pregnant, and walk out not pregnant. . . . By contrast, the decision to carry a child to term has to be renewed on a daily basis. Throughout the pregnancy, the mother may have moments of fear or fatigue or indecision. Her boyfriend or her mother may be working on her to abort. If her conviction wavers, for even a single afternoon, she can get an abortion."

How can we honor birthmothers? Ask a birthmother to speak about her experiences at a local group. Ask someone else to speak on the good that bithmothers have done by carrying to term and relinquishing. Write to card companies asking them to make special cards for this day. Buy a present for a birthmother with whom you are acquainted.

The above are a few of my suggestions. I'm sure my readers can come up with others.