A Clinic Offers a Choice

When the 17-year-old pregnant high school student walked into the Reproductive Services clinic in San Antonio last July, it was to seek an abortion. Ordinarily she would have been turned away; the girl was more than 30 weeks pregnant, well past the clinic's 17-week cutoff point. This time, however, the counselors offered something different: the chance to put the baby up for adoption. Last Friday the girl's daughter Bethany, seven weeks old, became the first baby to be placed by the clinic with adoptive parents.

Reproductive Services, which operates abortion clinics in six cities in Texas and one in Oklahoma, has teamed up with Adoption Affiliates, a newly founded child-placement agency, to offer both services under one roof. The San Antonio clinic and its affiliates are counseling a dozen pregnant women who may give up their infants for adoption. Previously the clinic was turning away two or more women a week who were ineligible for abortions.

Observes Marilyn Chrisman, president of Nova Health Services, the nonprofit company that runs the unusual joint operation: "There was a big need for a continuum of services and greater support" for the women. Instead of paying an average fee of $200 for an abortion, the women who choose the adoption service carry their children to term and the clinic pays their medical expenses.

The combination of an abortion clinic and an adoption service has outraged Right to Life groups, which picketed Nova headquarters with signs reading DESTRUCTIVE SERVICES and DON'T TRUST YOUR BABY TO KILLERS. Says Bonnie DeVault, cofounder of Life Support Services: "They're saying, If you won't let us kill it, let us find it a home." DeVault extols the superior qualifications of churches and other traditional adoption agencies.

Still, a lot of would-be parents are considering this new alternative; Nova has already received numerous queries from prospective adoptive couples. With less than 5% of unwed American mothers willing to put their children up for adoption, the small number of women who cross the boundary from abortion clinic to adoption service may seem like a bonanza to childless couples.