Thursday, October 6

What Steve Jobs isn't

Yes, Steve Jobs has died. I am not as sad as a large portion of our population. He was also adopted. This does not amaze me as it does much of the population. I don’t know why this would make any difference any more than, oh, I don’t know, what his favorite flavor of popsicle was. It just does not correlate in my mind. Steve Jobs has, however, become the face of the adoption vs. abortion conversation. This is a conversation that, in my mind, is just BS.
Yes, adoption and abortion are both possible reactions when faced with an unplanned pregnancy. So is raising your child. I have yet to see an article about how the world would have been different if Steve’s birth family had raised him. This kind of upsets me. How is this option suddenly unimportant?
Then there is the whole adoption vs. abortion thing. I don’t even know how this is a logical conversation. I have never met a birthmother who said ‘well, yes, I thought seriously about abortion but decided, instead, to go through with the pregnancy and heartache’. They are different reactions from different mindsets. Yes, Jobs could have been an abortion. Look in the mirror, though, and so could you have been. I don’t see any serious articles about ‘what if Hitler had been an abortion’ or “What if Mother Theresa had been an abortion’. I would venture the chances of either of those were just as great as Jobs.
I can’t explain why this bothers me as much as it does. Monkey had no chance of being an abortion. I don’t know any bmoms who did not abort just to place. Generally, when one chooses not to abort, they raise that child. Abortion is, in part, about preventing one from going through a pregnancy. Placing a child? That requires one to be pregnant. Adoption, inherently, requires planning for the future of a child. Abortion is sort of the opposite. Planning for a child (embryo, whatever) to have no future.
Can anyone articulate this better than I am, or am I making a fight out of nothing?
With Love Always
Me

5 comments:

  1. You are not making a fight out of nothing! I think you make a very good point. However, I have to say that Aidan's birthmom did tell us (very bluntly) that she had planned to have an abortion and just couldn't bear to do it, so she chose at that same time to place him for adoption instead. I know she's in the minority for sure, but I do know they're out there.

    I think that when *SOME* people learn that Jobs was adopted, the thought will cross their mind that, "hmm, he was adopted and he did amazing things." That thought alone is a positive thing since a lot of people think that kids who are adopted will always be messed up.

    No offense intended with any of the above, of course! You know I adore, appreciate and respect you! <3

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  2. No offense at all. I am glad adoption is getting good pr, but...I just hate it having abortion linked. I would love to find a way to find statistics on this kinda stuff - but don't know that there will ever be honest ones. I am so glad she couldn't go through the abortion, Adian is such a precious, amazing person.
    Maybe that's it -- people saying (implying) that Jobs 'overcame' adoption to be who he is...

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  3. The article I read on adoption vs abortion simply put it that Jobs is who he is because he's adopted (among the stuff that makes him up) and wonders how many aborted babies had the potential to be a Jobs (or Hitler or Mother Theresa, for that matter). You also bring up an interesting point of view.

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  4. I hadn't thought of it in the sense of saying he 'overcame' adoption to be fabulous. Not true and not cool, if that's what they mean! Go get 'em!

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  5. That whole abortion versus adoption debate drives me nuts as well because I think the number of birthmothers (at least out of all the ones I know) who seriously contemplated abortion is very small. For most of us, it was parenting versus adoption. Abortion is a reproductive choice, adoption is a parenting choice. The end.

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