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Maybe I'm misreading your comment, but it seems like you're missing the entire point of GP.

No one is attempting to cast aside unwanted children. We're trying to prevent conception from happening in the first place for people who are not ready. In this sense, there would be no need for adoption (optimistically speaking), because the only children conceived were done so with intent. It takes out the whole, "Oh crap, I'm not ready aspect," (again, optimistically speaking), because both parties would have had to agree that they were attempting to have children.

To reiterate, this is optimistically speaking. There are always instances where parties agreed but then realize mid- or post-pregnancy that having a child isn't for them for any number of reasons. Contraceptives won't fix that. I'm not trying to trivialize your experience nor your feelings. I just think that you're addressing something completely different.

> It's probably difficult because you don't have children and therefore lack the experience necessary to develop a comprehensive understanding of the topic.

> That's not to say your partial understanding is not valid, it's just incomplete.

Thank God somebody who understands everything has shown up to set them straight.

> Not only am I adopted (thus not "wanted")

So are you saying that, despite the effort, time, and money it takes for adoption, your adoptive parents didn't want you?

That doesn't make any sense.

While it might be true that your birth parent(s) didn't want you, there might be reasons why that is so; of course, I can't speak to that as I don't know your situation.

What I can say, though, is that my parents wanted me when I was adopted. I can't really say why my birth mother (let alone whoever my father is/was) gave me up for adoption (what I was told as a child, doesn't sit completely right with me as an adult - I'll never know the truth, though - and that's ok). But I do know that my adoptive parents spent a lot of time and money to keep me (I was a foster child before that, at 2 years of age). That and the rest of my life growing up makes me know that I was wanted.

Perhaps I'm just misinterpreting what you wrote; if so, I apologize.

> So are you saying that, despite the effort, time, and money it takes for adoption, your adoptive parents didn't want you?

No. I'm pretty confident that the "not wanted" statement was made in reference to the biological parents.

To be honest, I think children adopted very early in life would have better childhoods than children raised by their birth parents because

p(parents are generous/caring/loving | parents are the type of person to adopt a child) > p(parents are generous/caring/loving | parents bring pregnancy to term)

In addition, for adopted parents, we know that both parents want the child. Whereas with birth parents, we know that the mother wanted a child but we do not know if the father did.

> Whereas with birth parents, we know that the mother wanted a child [...]

I can think of many situations where this wouldn't be the case. Poor women in states with restricted access to abortion (requiring multiple visits to a clinic that's hundreds of miles away for example); women trapped in controlling relationships where leaving could be physically risky; teens who get pregnant for socially immature reasons and end up not wanting the child.

I don't have your experience, nor do I really know what it's like, but here's a perspective I thought of after reading your post.

Your birth parents may not have wanted you, putting you for adoption. However, you were wanted in a different sense, chosen for adoption by whomever adopted you.

-shrugs- Don't know what point I wanted to make, just a thought

I would also add that his birth parents had enough compassion to let their child have life.

Religious or other social reasons aside, the fact that s/he was brought to term indicates that he was wanted in some sense by his birth parents. Late-term abortions are most typically done only in the case of a grave medical issue (for the fetus or mother).

Instead, what may have happened are situations changed for the couple. Maybe a nasty divorce occurred, or one of the partners abruptly left the relationship for reasons? Or maybe the father suddenly died? Or lost his job (or she did - or they both did)? Or any one of those coupled with already having other children. Any one of those, and other reasons, could be the case. Had something like that happened late in the pregnancy, where a legal late-term abortion wasn't available or allowed, then adoption might be the only choice for the parent(s).

That doesn't mean s/he wasn't wanted by the birth parents, but that they instead (perhaps) loved the resulting infant so much that they decided adoption would give a better chance for life than keeping him/her. Maybe that was the wrong choice, maybe not.

Adult choices are rarely easy.