November being Adoption Awareness Month, Life Canada (as does Action Life) seeks to educate on adoption. We share with you Life Canada’s latest press release:
Adoption: A Positive, Loving Choice
For Immediate Release
November 1, 2013
Ottawa, Ontario—November is National Adoption Awareness Month, and Adoption in Canada, a project of LifeCanada to raise awareness of adoption choices for women facing unplanned pregnancies, will work to spread the message that adoption can be a positive, loving choice.
“Too often lately, we are seeing media stories about past and present abuses in relation to adoption, and that is not what the vast majority of adoptions represent today,” says Anastasia Bowles, Project Director for Adoption in Canada. “We need to ensure that the many positive stories about adoption are being heard as well. We hope our efforts, especially through social media, will address that.”
In Canada, less than 2% of single women facing unplanned pregnancies will choose adoption. “We have to ask why those numbers are so low,” says Bowles. “Are women being deterred by all the negative stories about adoption? Are they getting all the facts about adoption today? Adoptions now are very different from what they used to be.”
“There is a strong anti-adoption movement out there in both traditional and social media,” adds Bowles. “We are concerned about the impact that might be having on adoptive families and on women who have chosen, or who may consider choosing, adoption. Parents who have voluntarily entrusted their babies for adoption have made an incredibly difficult and heroic choice, but instead of receiving support and resources, they are being portrayed as victims or worse. “
A search for ‘post-adoption support’ on the Internet reveals that very few sites affirm those who have voluntarily chosen adoption. “We must address that deficit,” says Bowles.
Through November, Adoption in Canada hopes to raise awareness about choices in infant domestic adoption and to support birthparents who have made that choice. “These people deserve compassion and support, not judgment,” says Bowles. “We hope to see more of the many positive stories about adoption, so people will know that adoption can truly be a loving, positive choice.”
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Contacts: Anastasia Bowles, Project Director and Natalie Sonnen, Executive Director 866-780-5433
