Many of the children waiting to be adopted are waiting because of legal processes, not a lack of loving homes. There are two million pre-approved American couples awaiting adoption. Two million women want to be mothers right now, and many of them want more than one child, as well as wanting children with special needs.
On a personal note, my father was a foster child. (No pun intended on my last name!)
His father died when he was just a year old, during the Great Depression. My grandmother could not care for him, and so he grew up in an orphanage and later in foster care.
As a little boy he lived through unspeakable horrors until he was rescued by a loving couple.
But you can never tell me that my father’s life wasn’t worth living. He wasn’t the problem. Lack of emotional support and practical resources were the real enemies.
My father was a parenting student. I was born and my sister was on the way. My parents also took care of the childless elderly couple who had taken in my father as a little boy, until those two lovely people passed away.
My father had a powerful presence. Intense, smart, articulate, persuasive. He had a contagious laugh. He was a professor who got standing ovations from his peers as well as students, and was loved by his family and friends.
He put his unique stamp on life. It was “a wonderful life” and, like the movie, many stories would have had different endings (or no beginning) if he had never lived at all.
I am honored to work for Feminists for Life, helping to create a better world, one that welcomes and nurtures children like my dad, who some would label “better off if they had never been born.” A world where parenting students don’t have to choose between their children and their educations. A world where life is championed at its weakest, most vulnerable moments. A world where mothers—and fathers—are honored and supported.
– FFL President, Serrin M. Foster
