Our guestblogger today is KatjaMichelle, a first mom 7 years into an open adoption. She is also a social worker whose experience includes working with foster youth, foster to adopt, at risk youth, pregnant and parenting women in transitional housing, and single parents. Her blog can be seen at therapyisexpensive.wordpress.com.

Rather than turn the comments section of Faith A’s 5/27/09 post, “Frustration with the Assumption that ALL Infant Adoptions are Coerced” into a debate on what is or is not coercive, I decided to submit a guest blog.

Angela W commented in part that, “One state’s laws allow potential adoptive parents to pay for expenses like rent for a pregnant woman, and this woman MIGHT place her child for adoption. Isn’t this coercion? Doesn’t this place a sense of debt/pressure on the pregnant woman?”

Yes, Angela this is coercion. It’s legal but it is coercion and in my opinion it is unethical, especially since a lot of adoption professionals are either social workers or others who claim to abide by the NASW Code of Ethics. I don’t think it’s realistic to expect the monetary support for expectant mothers considering adoption to disappear all together, but it is realistic in my view to do away with money going directly from hopeful adoptive parents to expectant mothers.