Pro-lifers put their homes where their mouth is

While I remain cynical about the priorities of Focus on the Family and other pro-life organizations, I'm glad to something positive coming out of them.

I wonder if they will adopt as many children as would have otherwise been adopted by homosexual couples?

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Caelligh -- Somehow, I doubt it: http://www.parentdish.com/2007/04/03/two-million-potential-parents/

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I wouldn't want a child of mine turned over to their tender mercies. On the other hand, at least their concern for the child no longer stops at the birth canal.

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Not so much *anymore*? Pro-lifers everywhere have been walking the walk. Most just don't advertise it. Do you really think that pro-lifers just like to scream at women?

Try this young man's blog entry. He is the oldest of 8 kids and a few years ago, his mother's young friend was planning on an abortion. She intervened in a very pro-life manner.
http://ebeth.typepad.com/van_goal/2006/01/the_march_for_l.html

Of course concern for the child doesn't stop at the birth canal. The sweeping generalizations do nothing but dehumanize the pro-life folks. Makes it easier to hate them and ignore their bottom line...that human life is precious. It doesn't serve the truth, though.

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"aims to elevate the initiative, which quietly began last fall, onto the national stage." If it's been going on all along, why the need for a new initiative?

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Maybe this is new for Focus on the Family - I don't know - but it's not new for pro-life families. I know many, including myself, who adopt, foster, and/or provide significant support for birth mothers, relinquished/abandoned orphans, and children in foster care. I don't know where pro-abortion followers got the idea that pro-lifers don't care for the children who are born of unintended pregnancies. It certainly isn't based on any statistic. It's just an empty statement that people use to bash those who have the audacity to stand up for someone other than their own flesh and blood. Maybe Focus on the Family is right that we should advertise what we do for children - but we are not doing it to get kudos, or to shut the other side up. We're doing it because we actually do care.

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"I don't know where pro-abortion followers got the idea that pro-lifers don't care for the children who are born of unintended pregnancies."

You asked and answered, SKL. It's just easier to make statements like that one than to recognize that pro-lifers are more than screaming bombers.

Roger, do you really think that the only efforts are the organized, advertised ones? Or do you just think that about causes you think are stupid?

Did conservation start with the Green Party? Or do you think that maybe many families were already doing their part for conservation? With more advertising, you're likely to get more participants, but just because there's no organized effort doesn't mean that there's nothing happening.

Are you just trying to push my buttons or do you really think this is some brand new idea? (Did you follow the link I posted?) A quick google search for something like 'abortion alternatives' will yield plenty of organizations which have been around for a very long time to help women and children in need.

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Love isn't enough.
That is the first rule of adopting children with any history of trauma and for kids in foster care, that is all of them.

I would say that doing it for an ideological reason isn't enough either.

You need knowledge and understanding and to be very open about how these kids behave and WHY they behave that way.

You have to be prepared to change the way you think, the way you do things and often the things that you beleive.

Being pro children is about far more than being willing to find space in your house for a foster child.

A "loving religious home" is not better than no home at all - if that home has no understanding of the issues that arise or how to deal appropriately with them.

Trying to get people to adopt children as a way to deal with (imo bizarre) concerns about "homosexuals" adopting - is a terrible reason.

Even more horrifying is what would be happening to the children who are gay that are adopted into these bigoted families.

Adoption, any kind of adoption, is about having children and parenting and being a family. Just like choosing to have children biologically.

It is not and should not be a political action.

Children as pawns.

It makes my stomach turn.

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Hurrah Gawdess!

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I know that saying all pro-lifers stop caring about children after they're born is a sweeping generalization, but I can say that I know people who are like this. I have several family members who are vehemently pro-life - to the point that my uncle brought it up while giving my grandmother's eulogy. However, they are just as vehemently against welfare & other social programs. My uncle is floating in money (he names rooms in his houses by their main color), but I know of several ways he hides his money to avoid taxes, so he doesn't have to pay for "lazy people".

If we force people to have children they don't want or can't afford, we must be willing to help them take care of that child, whatever that entails.

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"If we force people to have children they don't want or can't afford, we must be willing to help them take care of that child, whatever that entails."

Well, not really, Sharon. It's not about forcing people to have children they don't want or can't afford. It's about not allowing them to kill the children that they don't want or can't afford.

Maybe your uncle makes sweeping generalizations based on some people he knows who are on welfare. Just as he's wrong to hide his money, pro-choicers are wrong to act as if a pro-lifer can only defend the unborn if they're willing and able to adopt them.

Basically, with this 'common criticism' (the criticism is common, but it's based on the very wrong idea that pro-lifers aren't helping out), pro-choicers are saying, "Unless you're gonna feed this kid, you can't tell me not to get rid of it." Does that mean that my neighbor shouldn't report my child abuse unless she is willing to take in my children? (for the record, I'm not abusing my child...it's just an example)

Excellent points, gawdess. Adoption is an amazing thing. Not something all of us are able to do, and certainly not something to be entered into without serious discernment.

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Yeah, I can see where a pro-life person can be justifiably frustrated by the irresponsibility bred by social programs.

I have a step-niece who is on her fourth out-of-wedlock pregnancy, with at least the third different father. She has collected every possible cent of welfare benefits for the first three kids (and still continues to receive aid as well as child support - probably committing some fraud to accomplish this), and now here comes another child who will be brought up under her highly questionable tutelage, on the taxpayer's bill.

It's a given that my tax money is supporting her kids (in pretty good style, I might add). OK, fine. But wouldn't it be nice for the kids to grow up seeing someone go to work once in a while? What kind of "contribution" are these kids going to make when they become fertile?

I don't believe she should terminate her pregnancy. (And since she isn't looking to relinquish her kids, there's no question of adoption.) But I do believe she needs to STOP GETTING PREGNANT and get a damn job! Am I wrong?

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