This is my first post in this blog.

Today I will defend the policies on adoption of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as beneficial to all involved. This is a response to a misguided attack on the policies of the Church published recently in the Huffington Post.

To begin with we need to be accurate on what the policies of the Church are. At times publications have ignored the real policies or tried to obscure them.

In the case where a woman or girl get pregnant out of wedlock the Church policy is to encourage her to marry the father where possible. There are obvious exceptions, such as the case of rape where no such encouragement would be given. If the girl is a minor, or the boy is a minor, than in all likelihood marriage will not be a feasible option. However in some cases it is, and I have known and known of people who got married under such circumstances where they were both minors within the last 20 years and are still married.

If the father is unwilling to marry the mother, or unable to marry the mother, or the mother does not want to marry the father the Church counsels that the next best option is adoption. Utah has laws that are more friendly to giving the mother say in this matter than other states. This makes sense. The reality is that laws in other places allow fathers to block adoptions, putting children in legal limbo and either forcing mothers to raise children they really didn't want to or creating complex guardianship battles.

The fact is that adoption benefits all the people involved. Under the LDS Family Services plan, only couples that had been sealed in the temple could adopt. This gave the children a chance to be sealed to parents, a very important thing. For various reasons the Church no longer directly facilitates adoptions, but it now works with outside agencies and will refer parents to them under the same rules.

While it is true that such couples might divorce, of the 20 plus LDS couples I have known who had adopted children only one has divorced.

The children in general will be in a better situation when raised. Of course there are cases where the Mom keeps the children and things turn out wonderfully. The last person highlighted in "Meet the Mormons", the Missionary Mom had had a child out of wedlock, later married a man who had that child sealed to him as a son, and neither father nor son felt any less connected. However the sad reality is that the most common way child molestation occurs is live-in boyfriends molesting their girlfriend's children with a different Dad. Not to say that even in that case the majority are molestors, just to say that is where it is most common.

Children adopted into a stable household have many advantages.

Beyond this, the mother's who give the children a better chance by letting them be adopted also have a better chance. Especially when these mothers have not graduated high school. The children in general will do better if they are adopted and the mothers will in general be able to in the long run become more effective participants in society.

Lastly the reality is that the Church has many members who choose to keep their children. Church policy fully accepts this decision. LDS Family Services will provide counseling to help such mothers through the emotional issues they face in this situation at no cost. I have even known of YSA wards that had primaries to help parents in such situations.

The policies are designed to bless children. The world is blessed by adoptions. All sides are blessed. We live fuller lives because of it. I just hope we can live to see a day when all parties in adoptions are fully celebrated. At present there are too many people who spread negative information with regard to adoption and try to balance other needs against those of the child and the mother, the only two needs that should count.