Assumptions About Unwed Pregnant Girls

People sometimes try to debate me on adoption issues, emphasis on the word try and say things like:

Photo Credit: genue.luben, Flickr

It's so much better for unwed girls/women to relinquish their babies instead of keeping and raising them, because if the child is not adopted they:

[pick one]

• May be neglected
• May be abused
• May be mistreated/abused/killed by the mother's boyfriend

Okay.

Whoah!

Hold your horses, people.

Seriously.

Yes, people actually give these possibilities as logical reasons for relinquishment.  This recent comment thread from one of my posts this week is an example.

Time and again I face discussion with people who judge pregnant girls/women who haven't even tried their hand at motherhood yet. They have already assumed the worst outcome even while the child is yet in the womb. And yet none of the worst has occurred.  They just thought it might.

Neglect, abuse, and murder? 

Truthfully, any of that could happen to any of us. I could walk out my door right now and get murdered. Am I going to live, paralyzed in fear, and never venture out because of what might happen?

 What about children who are in homes with married parents, or two parents living together unmarried? Could those children not also be neglected, abused or murdered?  Anything is possible.

We can choose to live by "what if's" or we can press forward and believe for the best. And we can believe for the best in others. 

We can extend a helping hand to a woman rather than lending a doubting voice.
We can quell a girl's fears rather than add to them.
We can speak a word of hope to the one who is with child, rather than a word of defeat.
We can take the time to mentor them so they have the tools to be a good mom.

Do we speak words of failure over these girls/women, with their child yet in the womb?

I was a 22 year old married woman when I had my son Dustin. Even so, I was so nervous! I remember being petrified that my soon-to-be-delivered baby might get sick and I wouldn't  know it. I was worried that I wouldn't know how to properly care for him. Thankfully, women of God spoke life to me. They explained to me how I would know the baby was sick, and gave me insight on the best ways to take care of him. 

What do you speak, to a girl or woman who is expecting a child?

May we operate in faith, not fear.

"Stay awake, stand firm in your faith, be brave, be strong." I Corinthians 16:13 (CEB)