Mothers who have been mistreated by Bethany Christian Services and similar adoption firms are now organizing on social media and founding non-profits to provide crucial education and support for parents considering adoption.
Kathryn Joyce, author of The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption, believes the roots of the current problems with adoption firms like Bethany Christian Services (BCS) can be traced back to World War 2.
In a recent conversation, Kathryn described the history of adoption in the United States following WW2, a time that is often referred to as the “Baby Scoop Era”.
“This was an era of deeply secretive adoptions that usually resulted after women were sent away for some portion of their pregnancy to reside in a secretive maternity home where they were treated as though they had done something sinful,” she explained. “When they eventually had their babies, their babies were whisked away to adoptive homes, and the women were sent home and told ‘you will forget this ever happened’.”
She says in these cases the women would be told to move on with their lives and have children later when they were married.
“What happened instead, is that so many of these women — and we are talking about millions of women in the U.S. — had really profound, lifelong, extreme grief,” Joyce told TLAV. “From the severing of the bond, under what in many, many cases was at least coercive circumstances, and in some cases you could say outright forced circumstances. These women did not have a real choice about whether they were going to keep their baby.”
It is in this so-called “Baby Scoop Era” that adoption firms like Bethany Christian Services came onto the scene.
As reported in part one of this series the history of BCS shows they have received financial support from the DeVos family, including former Secretary of Education under Donald Trump, Betsy DeVos. This in itself is emblematic of a larger issue involving wealthy Christian philanthropists donating to BCS and similar adoption firms in the hopes that they will prevent abortions and promote adoption.
BCS also has a history of involvement in the US government’s separating of children under the Trump and Biden administrations. Finally, we reported on the history of lawsuits against BCS, and parents who have accused BCS employees of manipulating or lying to them in order to secure adoptions.
In the second follow up report, we spoke with three mothers who had direct experience with BCS who feel the Christian firm has irreparably damaged their lives and their relationship with their children. While the stories differ in the specific details of how each woman came to know BCS, their outcomes are nearly identical.
Every woman we spoke with told us BCS promised that if they chose to relinquish their parental rights, and allowed their child to be adopted, they would be able to participate in a so-called “open adoption” where they would receive pictures of their child, and letters updating them on their lives. Every one of them said these promises were not upheld and often completely ignored.
These women and others like them are part of a growing online community of social media pages, websites, and forums dedicated to raising awareness about the problems they’ve experienced with Bethany Christian Services, and the adoption industry in general.
After learning about the history of Bethany Christian Services, and speaking to mothers who were directly impacted by their actions, I wanted to learn more about the individuals and organizations who are standing up for birth parents and educating them about their rights and the risks of open adoptions.
Saving Our Sisters from Adoption Harms
Renee Gelin had been struggling with getting out of debt after her business collapsed around 2008. When she found out she was unexpectedly pregnant she panicked. She struggled to believe in herself and her ability to give her child the best possible life.
After spending months trying to work out a plan to take care of her incoming child, she ultimately signed papers relinquishing her parental rights 72 hours after her son was born. Like the other women we spoke with, she was promised an open adoption.
“It was a very, very rude awakening and extremely traumatic to learn all the things that happen in an infant adoption. I was not informed of my rights, I didn’t have an attorney, I didn’t even know I should have an attorney,” Gelin told TLAV. “Its been a really rough road, it’s really affected my family.”
While struggling with the aftermath of the adoption, she began reading blogs written by other parents who dealt with the traumatic effects of adoptions. In 2011, she connected with Lisa Woolsey, another mother who was struggling with the adoption of her daughter. The two women soon realized they had been misled regarding what they consider “unnecessary infant adoptions” and decided they wanted to help other mothers avoid their experiences.
It was the conversations between the two women which led to the creation of Saving Our Sisters (SOS), a non-profit organization created explicitly for the purpose of educating mothers who are considering infant adoptions. SOS has become part of a nationwide network focused on family preservation.
“We just started reaching out and talking to people, and lo and behold, these pregnant moms started finding us, and we starting having a lot of success and connecting to the adoption community that’s out there today,” she stated.
Since that time, SOS has grown to have volunteers in all 50 states of the United States. These volunteers, what SOS calls “Sisters on the Ground”, are a “family preservation focused individual” which communicates with a mother or family in need. The Sisters on the Ground share knowledge, advice, and resources related to the adoption industry, specifically facts that will not typically be shared to parents by groups like Bethany Christian Services.
However, due to the grassroots nature of SOS, resources are limited for tackling the false information promoted by BCS and similar adoption firms. Gelin and SOS are competing against an industry with significant financial resources and preexisting relationships with many hospitals.
“It all comes down to money. Ye who has the most money has the most face time,” Gilen shared with a hint of frustration. “They can get in front of people more. They have the ability to travel and hold seminars.”
Nevertheless, Gilen and her team continue to focus on direct action and educating families about their options with the goal of preserving biological families whenever possible. SOS teaches families about the short and long term impact of adoption separation on the natural family, including trauma to the infant when experiencing maternal separation.
“What breakdown happened that made that Mom feel like giving her baby to a stranger was the right thing?,” Gelin asked.
She echoes what has been reported by Kathryn Joyce — many women who opt for adoption do so due to financial limitations. In some cases women choose adoption because they are in need of as little as $500 to make it through their pregnancy and birth.
“Back in 2015, when we were starting I helped Mom’s with $500 dollars. Five hundred dollars to keep their child and navigate their crisis,” Gelin explained. “Get through having their baby, get through their maternity leave, and successfully parent their kid.”
Adoption Truth and Transparency
Janine Vance and her twin sister, Jenette, were adopted in 1972 from Seoul, South Korea to the United States. At 25 years old, shortly after her adoptive mother passed away, her and her sister discovered that they were not U.S. citizens.
In 2004, the Vance twins went to Seoul, South Korea for the 50th Anniversary gathering for overseas adoptees from Seoul. “There were about 450 Korean-born adoptees who traveled to Seoul to contemplate overseas adoption,” Vance told TLAV.
It was at this gathering that the twins discovered there were Korean parents who were searching for their children. “That came to us as a complete surprise because we had always been told that we were unwanted, we were orphans, we were abandoned,” she stated. “That kind of triggered my investigation into how are the children obtained exactly.”
The twins soon discovered that adoption agencies around the world have been caught claiming children have been abandoned by their parents, or that the birth parents have died. As part of her investigation, Janine Vance began to read the memoirs of the pioneers of international adoption from Seoul.
“The pioneers were actually faith-based evangelicals who built the overseas child welfare system, and actually have a huge impact, and influence on the system which has now exploded to overseas adoption all over the world.”
In 2011, the Vance twins started the Adoption Truth and Transparency Worldwide Information Network. The organization focuses on advocating for adoptees and providing resources for families who have experienced the trauma of adoptions. Through their website and social media pages Adoption Truth highlights the reality of the adoption industry which most Americans are painfully unaware of.
Janine Vance says Adoption Truth differs from other adoption groups because they do not silence people who have negative experiences with adoption. She said they put a priority on the voices of families who have been separated by adoption, and adopted people as adults who want to talk about the truths relating to the adoption industry without being shamed.
“The people who’ve been influenced by these adoption agencies, they have these knee-jerk reactions to us that we are “anti-adoption” when really we are questioning the way that children are obtained for adoption,” Vance shared with TLAV.
The Korean Adoption Industry
Janine traces history of adoption back to the Catholic Church in Europe in 1618, and then to the America’s in 1850’s.
“Then, in the 1950’s, after the Korean War ended, the evangelicals and missionaries began coming to Korea and started the demand for children,” she explained.
From there, she says, the Korean model of adoption became seen as the standard model for overseas adoptions. “The reason why it has that reputation is because everything became legalized, they created adoption laws that made it legal to do, what a lot of adoptees believe is child trafficking,” Vance shared.
The model then continued to be exported to South America, Africa, India, and other parts of the developing world. In recent years the Korean adoption industry has begun to hit the mainstream news, including a focus on the Holt adoption firm responsible for the Vance Twins adoptions.
In 2023, as they came to understand the depths of the Korean adoption industry, Janine and Jenette sent a special request to the Korean government’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission asking it to end overseas adoptions. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established in 2005 to investigate atrocities in Korean history.
They are calling on the Korean government to “finally end overseas adoption 70 years after the Korean War ended AND to refrain from ratifying the Hague Adoption Convention which was created and monitored by the adoption lobby itself to legitimize child trafficking”.
The Vance twins sent the commission their adoption files to investigate their adoption, as well as the hundreds of other Korean-born adoptees who were sent to the U.S. and Europe.
“The document also explains exactly how overseas adoption is child trafficking,” Janine Vance noted.
The document was endorsed by Saving Our Sisters, the National Association of Adoptees & Parents, Adoptees with Guatemalan Roots, the Family Preservation Project, Adoptee Rights Australia Inc, and dozens of other family preservation/adoptee advocate organizations. The Vance twins are also seeking additional signatories to the document.
Janine and her sister have also launched several other projects aimed at raising awareness on the issue of international adoption. They organized the “Adoption Trafficking Awareness Symposium“, a unique gathering of adoptees and advocates that refused to take money from big donors associated with the major adoption firms.
Janine is also behind AdoptionHistory.org, which she describes as “an effort to get the perspectives of adopted people — based on inherent, God-given and natural human rights and natural law — out into the mainstream.” She says the website is focused on adding educational resources on the adoption crisis which are “devoid of faith-based industry advertising campaigns” and marketing ploys which “deceptively hail faith-based agencies as “saviors” and also proclaim they speak for and work for God”.
“One of the things I would ask of the public is don’t vilify us or persecute us, and say that we’re “anti-adoption”. In the adoption world that is the equal to being “anti-Jesus”, “anti-Christian”, “anti-religion”,”
“Really what we’re doing is we’re on the side of families, and natural human rights, and reuniting communities.”
As a parent of a now adult child adopted via open adoption. Although via a different agency than the one named. The experience was nothing like reported. We communicated directly with the birth mother before adoption, discussed how she desired to have her child in a Christian home and did not feel she could care for the child. No talk about $500 to do it. We sent reports to her annually of progress. In fact, one year we were late sending an annual report. The birth mother contacted us via the adoption agency for an update and we got it to her quickly, all facilitated through the adoption agency.
I would not be surprised, if a birth mother not getting updates was actually the fault of the adopting parents. The adoption agency does not make the report, the adopting parents do. I thank God we were able to raise a child in need to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. And pray Derrick, that you come to know Jesus in truth. And not the tainted view that comes from people who are not truly following Jesus.
As an adoptee, I am grateful to you for writing this. Adoption is not the panacea that most seem to think it is. I’ve tried to talk to several people in the “liberty community” about this and it mostly falls on deaf ears. The propaganda and brainwashing on this topic goes deep. And lest the other commenter here that is an adoptive parent think my parents weren’t Christian, they were and abusive ones at that. I’ve spent my lifetime healing and sorting it all out. Far from feeling like a victim, I believe my soul chose to come here to learn these lessons, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need support in navigating the healing journey. Blessings to you.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts Ash. This is an important conversation. I also think with how much is going on these days something like this is less attention grabbing for most, sadly enough. But TLAV will be following up on this. Derrick has done outstanding work.