Stop Baby Boxes Now!

Dangerous, Unethical, Anti-family, Anti-adoptee

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Abortion, Adoption, Safe Havens, and Reproductive Justice

As seen elsewhere on the site, SHBB Inc is heavily supported and funded by Right to Life and similar organizations, the Catholic Church, Protestant fundamentalists, and culturally and politically conservative groups. These organizations, through their opposition to reproductive rights, promote adoption as an alternative to abortion, thus creating a larger adopted population. Simultaneously, they loudly oppose the civil right of this same adopted population to obtain their original birth certificates, court and agency records, and other information about themselves and their biological families.

They lobby against adoptee rights bills in state legislatures, arguing  essentially that if a 47-year-old adoptee obtains their OBC now some future fantasy woman will seek an abortion to hide her dirty little secret later—the idealized grateful adoptee “saved from the dumpster.” (Or, an ungrateful homewrecker as the case may be).

Of course, this is all theater. Adoptees and “desperate mothers” are nothing more than dehumanized props used to create a utopian abortion-free world.  Pregnant people that carry to term are not abortion-minded. Biological parents and potential adoptees and the already-adopted are simply co-opted and exploited—nails to be pounded unmercifully by “pro-lifers” hammer.

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Some ideas on how the Dobbs decision will impact adopted people, adoptee rights, and adoption reform

Journal of Adoption and Culture, November 2022- Advanced Access

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The idea that Safe Haven laws and now Safe Haven Baby Boxes “prevent”  abortion is absurd, and most Safe Haven advocates admit this. For them, Safe Haven laws, at least in theory, are post-birth measures to prevent discard and possible neonaticide.  Due to 24/7 “anti-abortion propaganda, however, it is impossible to separate  Safe Haven from abortion since both movements are tied at the hip, invested in “baby saving.”  SHBB Inc, with its forced birth leadership history, refers to itself as a “pro-life ministry”  with all the abortion baggage that term carries. Law Professor Carol Sanger detailed this relationship between anti-abortion and Safe Haven in her foundational 2006 Columbia Law  Review article  Infant Safe Haven Laws: Legislating in the Culture of Life.

Now, let us introduce you to The Justice Foundation, (TJF, formerly the Texas Justice Foundation) led by Allan Parker, and its attached ministry, Operation Outcry,  reportedly funded in large part  by  Dr. James Leininger, a rightwing Texas bagman, whom Molly Ivins called  “God’s Sugar Daddy.”

TJF, claimed as far back as 2003 that  Safe Haven laws negate the need for abortion since women can now “release their newborns to the community” legally (and for free!)–as if historically relinquishing a child for adoption was illegal. Over the last 20 years starting in Texas, TJF has filed numerous suits and amicus briefs–all rejected– as a basis for overturning Roe v Wade. Two years ago it issued a press release advising women caught in Covid chaos to consider anonymous abandonment rather than be “coerced into an emergency abortion.” Any woman considering an abortion could actually contact TJF and be advised on how to utilize anonymous abandonment and at the same time attain public assistance, including Medicaid, which under any other circumstance TJF considers Big Government tomfoolery.

Parker’s cranky SH-Roe argument has not been taken seriously until it appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, (as far as the general public is concerned) when US Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, brought up the Safe Haven “abortion alternative,” during oral arguments in Dobbs v Jackson–the suit that may overturn Roe. The Justice Foundation had, in fact, filed an amicus in the case, and Coney Barrett was listening.

Traditional Save Haven advocate organizations, but not all, may fall into the anti-abortion camp, but they do not subscribe to TJF’s radical Safe Haven argument. They have been open that they do not want to be dragged into the abortion sinkhole. Like adoptees, they demand, “Leave us alone!” Even  SHBB Inc seemed to be put off by Parker’s Covid press release.

We do not intend to delve into the abortion issue deeply here, but the connection between baby boxes and spurious abortion claims needs to be addressed. Monica Kelsey, founder of the SHBB movement has been clear that if Roe falls, which she hopes it does, boxes will be needed more than ever to “save babies.” More boxes mean that adoptee rights advocates will have a harder time pursuing genuine gains.

Below are a few links regarding The Justice Foundation’s decades-long peculiar argument as well as some commentary about it.

TJF Chronology

Chronology of TJF attempts to use Safe Haven Laws to overturn Roe v Wade and its companion Roe v Bolton

TJF Documents – The 1st attempt and current attempt  Nothing has changed.

The Justice Foundation Caught in the Act!

Expect more of this when Doe falls! May 224, 2022, Louisiana Senate Judiciary Committee A. Cynthia Collins, TJF/Operation Outcry’s Louisiana head testifies against HB 450, a bill to restore the right of all Lousisia-born adoptees the right to obtain their Original Birth Certificates. The bill passed 4-2 despite Collin’s frets, and heads for a floor vote It already passed the House. (Video clip courtesy of Greg Luce)

News and Commentary – Before Dobbs v Jackson Decision

Listed chronologically

News and Commentary – After Dobbs v Jackson Decision

Listed chronologically

Related Readings

Moral Panic! We need to saturate our culture with adoption propaganda, Feed the childless! Would you rather have been aborted? How about free baby boxes and free adoptions?

Saturday Night Live, Weekend Update, June 7, 2022

Adoptee Voices

Adoptees for Choice (Facebook)
Not Your Abortee. Not Your Poster Child (Facebook)

*The term “pro-life” will appear sparingly on this site, and then in quotation marks unless it is part of a direct quote from an independent source.

Updated: June 9, 2023