| My Position on Adoption Related Issues |
| Open Records: |
| Adoptees are the only people in this country who do not have access to information about who they really are. The rest of us have our orginal birth certificates which gives the name of the woman who bore us. Adoptees have a piece of paper that tells a lie about their names and who bore them. In some instances, even the birthdate has been altered. Do we not have the basic right to know who we are? I believe that we do. There is a longing in most of us to know our roots and to be connected to our hertiage. And shouldn't we all know about the medical history of our natural parents? Everytime we go to a new doctor we are asked to complete information about our family's medical history. It must be important if the doctors' take the time to request that information. But for adoptees who have not been able to locate their natural families, this information cannot be provided. What about the privacy of the natural family? I am a mother who has lost two children to adoption. I was never promised confidentiality and neither did I want it. But for those who thought and depended on that, I am sorry, but when we got pregnant we also got some responsibilites. Those responsibilites did not all disappear when the child was adopted. Providing our children with their heritage and background is our duty and responsibilty. I am strongly in favor of open adoption records. It is the right thing to do for our children. |
| Adoption in General: |
| There are numerous articles and studies that demonstrate the harmful effects of losing a child to adoption on the natural mother. And there are many of us out there that will tell you personally of the pain and suffering we have experienced because we were not supported in keeping our babies. While there are adoptees who had good childhoods as well as those who did not, adoption has had some negative impact on most of them too. So then why do we want to support a system that hurts peopl?. The adoption agencies will tell you that adoption creates families. Does it really or does it destroy the true family? I say it destroys the true family, the family that should be supported to keep their children within the family. If I had been supported to keep my children then we would have been a family. But my family was destroyed so that someone else could have a family, someone who society deemed to be able to be a better parent because they were older, had stable jobs, had more money and more material possessions. But those people could never provide the things that I could have and that are so important--a natural mother's love, knowing who they really are--their heritage. Some may ask, well, what about the people who can't have children. I am truly sorry that they cannot have children, but that does not mean that I should have to give them mine nor does it mean that someone else should have to loose their chid. I don't mean to sound cruel or callous, but it may mean that they have to accept that they were just not meant to be parents. It is not possible really make someone else's child yours nor is it ethical to take someone elses child and pretend that it is yours. I also recognize that there are children out there whose parents are not able to raise them for various reasons, but that does not mean those children must be given a new identity. Instead, society needs to rethink it's philosophy about adoption. Chilren already have an identity and should not have to loose that identity. They should keep their own names and know who their parents are. Guardianships instead of adoption should be used. And if these people who want to adopt truly want to have a child in their lives they would be willing to take a child in under guardianship. Love can be given to a child without "ownership." Finally, the adoption agencies do not want any of us to realize the consequences of adoption for they have much to loose $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Adoption is big business. There is lots of money to be made from the grief and suffering of others. They do not want the truth to be known. Much more needs to be done to help women keep their babies and to help children keep their true identies. I am strongly in favor of abolishing adoption. It is the right thing to do for our chilren. |
| The Term Birthmother: |
| I know that I made some poor choices when I was young, but the price I paid for those choices was much too much. Those choices did not include chosing to give my babies up for adoption and there are hundreds ot woman out there just like me--who likewise had not choice. My family and society let me and hundreds of other young girls down. It is time that we recognize, acknowledge,, and change the injustices of the adoption system. It is a system that is designed to benefit the adoption agencies and those who want to adopt and to deny basic rights and respect to other--those of us who are the natural parents to our children.. |
| When we found ourselves unwed and pregnant most of us were given no REAL choices about our lives. We did not want to "give away" our babies. We did not "chose" to relinquish our children. In reality, we were forced to give up our children, coerced into relinquishment by a society that did not offer us real choices through provision of housing, financial assistance, medical care, emotional and psychological support, and assistance with education and job training so we could be independent. There were no real choices offered to us from the professionals who told us lies: * we would forget our babies *that our babies would be better off with the strangers who were married and had material "things" to offer our babies *we would have other children that would replace the ones we lost There were not real choices from society in general who told us: *we were bad girls *were were unfit to be mothers *we deserved to loose our babies because we were immoral and neurotic And they ignored the information that was known about he effects of relinquishment and seperation for both the mothers and the babies What They Knew and Didn't Tell Us Why did they lie to us? Why did they ignore the effects of relinquishment and seperation? Because our babies were a commodity. There were people out there that wanted our babies and would pay for them. Birthmother is a term that was coined by the adoption industry to put us, the natural mother, the real mother of our children, into a lesser, secondary role. It is meant to imply that our motherhood ended when we signed the relinquishment papers. It implies that we were little more than vehicles to bring babies into the world--breeders or incubators--cradles of sin. In using the word "birthmother" we are accepting and even putting ourselves into the lesser, secondary role. We help to perpetuate the idea that we had choice and that that choice was not to be our children's true mother. I will not accept the label that the adoption industry has attempted to give to me. I am my children's mother--all seven of them, the five I raised and the two I lost to adoption. I will not be put into a lesser, secondary role. Someone else was given the opportunity to "mother" my children, but not because of my choice by rather because of a society that refused to support keeping the real family together. I am mother to all my children; always have been, always will be. |
| birthmother's day The day before Mother's Day has be designated as birthmother's day, a day to celebrate and honor birthmothers. For the reasons that I reject the label of birthmother, I also reject the idea of birthmother's day. To celebrate means to rejoice; to mark with ceremony or festivities; to honor. Why would I want to rejoice for the loss of my children to adoption? Since the label birthmother puts me into a catagory that is lesser or secondary, why would I want to mark this day? And why would I want to "honor" myself as lessor than the people who adopted my children? The simple truth is that I do not want to do any of these things. I will celebrate my rightful place as mother to all of my children on Mother's Day. |
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