This is so wonderfully written and powerful. I can only relate in perhaps 1/10th of a fashion, being Irish-born (adopted to and grew up in the US) and sometimes having been the butt of some fairly obnoxious stereotyping. I have zero tolerance for intolerance of any sort. And yes, I am that cranky white bitch who will say something. I find as I get older (55), I am more apt to say something. But I do understand the nuance and fragility of some situations, and would never want to embarrass a friend by standing up for him/her in a way that could cause further problems. It's such a dilemma and I certainly don't want to be exercising white privilege in taking on a battle perhaps best left alone. If there's the possibility of somehow getting a quick word in to and approval from the friend offended, like a whispered "is it okay if I say something?" or some body language to gauge it, I would go for it. I do think any opportunity we have to stamp out racism or just gently remind people it's not okay to make even micro-aggressive comments like that, we should take it. So sorry you had to experience that and feel so disempowered. If you ever need a cranky, assertive white Irish bastard to be your wing-woman at a dinner table, I'm your lady.
Ok. Clearly you have an axe to grind with infertility. I'm not going to go any further on this with you, except to say that NO one is pushing infertiles into foster adoption. What I am saying is that adoption was originally intended as a social policy to find permanent homes for children in care who need them. That's historical fact. It should still be about that - always. But we've turned it into a game of 'covet another woman's baby' and attached huge price tags to it. That and this insane notion of crowd funding to adopt are what's wrong with adoption today (among other things).
I am merely suggesting we need to go back to adoption's original intent. And that applies to ANYONE who adopts. Not just infertiles.
I realize you have an issue with infertility. I'm sorry you feel marginalised by society for it. That should give you some empathy and understanding for how adoptees feel. But it does not entitle you to another woman's child. If you feel you can open your heart and home to a child who needs one, the more ethical route to take is adoption from foster care. That's all I'm saying.
You keep bringing infertility into it when I've clearly stated not all people who choose to adopt are infertile, although many are. I do believe that infertility is an unacknowledged loss, just as losing a child to adoption or a child losing his mother to adoption are. Those losses need to be acknowledged and properly grieved, and society doesn't give us much to help.
Perhaps you might want to have a read of
http://www.culchieworks.com/blog/2006/03/01/the-h....
You're still not her, and close as you may be, it's still anecdotal. Besides, you missed the part where I said it usually isn't the adopters coercing the mother - it's the agency.
The anti-abort crowd don't understand that abortion and adoption are not the yin to the other's yang. Abortion is the decision to legally terminate a pregnancy; adoption is the decision not to parent.
It's usually not the adopters who coerce the mother into relinquishing using the open adoption carrot - it's the agency. Your cousin may be unaware of the tactics used. That's frequently the case. Also, you are not your cousin, the birthmother(s) or the agency, so to use anecdotal, second-hand "evidence" to refute someone who has actually lived the experience is disingenuous and a bit mean.
Open adoption is widely recognised as a "tool" to ease a mother into agreeing to relinquish. It also frequently fails (Bethany Christian Services once acknowledged that some 85% of their open adoptions had closed, at the adopting parents' request), and is not legally enforceable in every state.
Most reputable agencies (including religious charities, like Catholic, Jewish or Lutheran) have always had a temporary care or fostering system in place during that "cooling period." Even in 1978, when I was forced to relinquish my daughter through Philadelphia Catholic Charities, there was a three month period between her birth and when I had to sign formal relinquishment. It would only be at the gray-market level (direct attorney involvement with a birthmother), black-market level (trafficked children) or sketchy small private agency level that this temporary placement care doesn't exist. And I would hope we would all agree those last three scenarios shouldn't exist, either.
As for your final statement that "there is no system" in place to provide a woman immediate, temporary support, you couldn't be more wrong. There is: it's called family and it's existed for millennia. Until we as a society decided it was a shameful thing to have a family member facing an untimely pregnancy in our homes, we used to just accept it as part of life and communally raise the child. Some cultures/societies still do it.
Your comment made no sense. "PAPs" generally just refers to "prospective adoptive parents." It doesn't draw a line under who is a PAP because they can't have children or because they can, but want to provide a home for a child who needs one, or perhaps even a combination of the two. I know many people who are physiologically capable of having children who opted to adopt from foster care.
So there is no guilt-shaming standard. I would have no way of knowing which person reaching out to adopt from foster care is physiologically incapable of having a child. Many same-sex couples adopt from foster care (at two times the rate of their hetero counterparts, according to the Guttmacher Institute). I personally don't care who adopts from the care system - my point is, when adoption was developed as a social policy 70-plus years ago, those are the children for whom it was originally intended. Not for womb-wet infants taken from women who actually were guilt-shamed by society.
It doesn't matter. Many adoptees deal with infertility. Both their own and the effects of their adopting parents. It can often be devastating for all involved. Adoption is not a cure for infertility, but because some people believe it is, it can have consequences on adoptees and their parents you can't imagine if not dealt with properly.
It's still not an entitlement or right, whether you "have" them or adopt them. I assume you know the difference between what's a "choice" and what's a "right"?
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maristeed 
Medley