Independence for Adoptees?

My natural Mother, Norma Carol, was a social activist and author who wrote articles for a local newspaper. One of my treasured possessions is an article she wrote about Alice Paul, a women's activist who fought for the right of women to vote in the early 1900's.

If my Mother were alive today we'd be standing arm-in-arm speaking out about the closed record system in adoption.
She could have been one of the brave women interviewed by Ann Fessler in "The Girls Who Went Away".

She registered on the ALMA Registry, and told her family never to forget that I would someday come looking. All the while, she searched for a "son" because the hospital and attorneys told her that she had given birth to a boy by c-section, when truth was, I was a daughter. That saddens me.
In 1968 it was almost impossible for a young, unmarried mother to keep her child. In 2015 it is very possible, but the same adoption issues that were prevalent in 1968 are still in force today.

Sealed records, secrecy, lies, coercion, and unethical practices permeate the adoption system.  When will our society realize and acknowledge the researched and proven fact that separating mother and child brings life-long consequences, and should never be done simply to build another family for those willing to pay. 

A humane society would never legalize "marketing" strategies to encourage the increase of children and babies "available" for adoption ~ yet here we are.  Sealed records benefit no one except those who profit from this unethical and unregulated system in the transfer and stripping of human identities.  Our nation will never have a truly honest discussion about adoption ethics unless money is removed from the adoption system (even in the form of federal adoption "incentives") and the inhumane practice of "amending" and "sealing" birth certificates is ended.   

One of my favorite movies is called "Iron-Jawed Angels", about the women's suffragist movement at the beginning of the 20th century ~ the story of Alice Paul and Susan B. Anthony. They fought for women's right to vote, even though many, including politicians and other women, thought they were "radical" and even "angry". Thanks to their hard work, determination, and refusal to give in, every American woman enjoys the right to vote in every election.

"Women in the Voting Booth", an article in the Daily Record, begins with...

"It was 90 years ago this month that women across the nation got the right to vote through ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. This was 144 years after the Declaration of Independence — proclaiming that "all men are created equal" was signed, and 50 years after African-American men were given the right to vote."

When will adoptee's be given the simple right to their own identity? 

Adoptees deserve the same right as every other American citizen to access their own original birth certificate and court records upon adulthood.

It will be a wonderful day when ALL Adoptees can proudly walk into the Bureau of Vital Statistics office and request their own original, unfalsified birth certificate without "good cause", without shame, and with equal standing.

Adoption Reform Speech: "THIS TIME MUST COME"

By Sandy Musser

Presented at the First March on Washington Adoption in August of 1989, by Sandy Musser, a natural mother who went to federal prison for helping people search:

"I stand here before you today as a civil rights activist for the adoption reform movement. But I want to talk about three well-known activists of other eras who loudly and clearly proclaimed the need of freedom for their people."If a man named Moses were standing here before us today, I believe he would be speaking on our behalf and say to our present government - Let My People Go! Because Moses was not only the leader of the Jewish nation- he was also the most famous adoptee - one who had been adopted outside of his Jewish heritage and Jewish faith.But when he became aware of the bondage his people were in, he fought and persisted to see that they were set free. The Bible says that God heard the heart cries of His people. Our heart cries are now beginning to be heard around this country. We fight against the plagues of the adoption and child welfare system - the plague of the sealed record, which always equals cover-up; and the great plague of all - a corrupt system that has become a billion dollar business!" But I believe that we're well on our way to the Promised Land, and that most intelligent, caring individuals really want truth and openness - not secrecy and lies. This will be a land that will not see the need to sever birth roots nor eradicate the family name; a time when guardianship is a more cherished role than ownership. It will be a land that will not require the control of the social work profession, nor legislated rules and regulations; a land where no money need exchange hands (known as "fees") in order to adopt a child. Our Promised Land will be a land where adoptees, birthparents, and adoptive parents can come together and form a circle of love that will be immersed with openness, honest; and heartfelt caring."

If Susan B. Anthony were standing before us today - she, too, would be speaking out on our behalf. She, too, would be saying, let these people go. She knew what it meant to be denied rights - rights that her male counterparts enjoyed. She fought and led the women of America through the streets and halls of justice so that they too could have a voice at the ballot box. In 1873, she and 15 other women marched to the voting booth and exercised their God-given right to vote - and for this she stood trial. She was prosecuted and fined - a fine she refused to pay. How many of us are going to have to stand trial, pay fines, and be prosecuted for demanding or exercising our God-given right to our original birth certificate or other records concerning our own lives?"

If Martin Luther King could be here today, he would most likely be at the forefront of our March. He would be raising his hands, his head, and his voice, heavenward and shouting to the world - Let these people go! In one of his famous speeches, Martin Luther King said, "I have a dream that someday our people will not be judged by the color of their skin" We share a similar dream - that the day will soon come when we will not be judged or branded because we bear the name of 'adoptee,' birthparent' or adoptive parent.'

"We pray for the day that we will not have to bargain, plead, beg, petition or pay for what is rightfully ours. We anticipate the day when legal documents called birth certificates will no longer be falsified - when birthmothers are no longer signed into the hospital under an assumed name, given them by an agency or attorney - we look toward the day when a simple request for information will be granted - and when Big Brother no longer stands over us with folded arms guarding our most prized possession - our BIRTHRIGHT!"

Finally, I want to share the words of a poem written by MaryAnneCohen, a birth mother with great insight and foresight. It's entitled 'THIS TIME MUST COME'

"TIME WILL COME when our tragedy will not be replayed, When no child will be torn out of the arms of love into the arms of money. When all births will be blessed, all equal. And there will be no word remembered to brand a child born outside society's ties, no recording of legal lies…When love is more lasting than papers, and no child is deprived of either heritage or nurturing, even when they come from separate places. And it is finally seen that blood and home are not the same, And neither replaces the other, and there is no quota for love…

"TIME WILL COME when social workers are to serve, not sever; When they know it is better to unite than separate, To be true than to lie, to be seen than to hide, To accept than renounce, that the give and nurturing of life are both sacred and deserving of respect; That all parents are real parent, not rivals. That love is stronger than fear of laws or time,and cannot be terminated, cannot be legislated, cannot be denied…

"TIME WILL COME when all children can grow, become real, cast off shadows, renew or sever ties by their own choice, be responsible, BE FREE! When our bondage ends, and we answer to our children; Answer with the gift of sight, gift of words, gift of sorrow…When every person has the right to trace their roots in their mother's face, their father's eyes…When nobody is condemned to eternal childhood,and no mother cries forever…

"THIS TIME MUST COME"Copyright © 1989, 2001 Sandy Musser.Visit Sandy's website at http://www.angelfire.com/fl2/musser

"My Scattered Grandchildren"

Alison Motluk
Sunday, Sep. 13, 2009

When Kathie Harris spotted a newspaper ad a few years back recruiting egg donors, she passed it on to her daughter. “I was kind of joking,” she says.

But her daughter, Melissa Braden, ended up donating six times. Now Ms. Harris, 53, has mixed feelings about it all.

“It's kind of hard,” she says. There are grandchildren out there that the family will never meet, she says. “They're a part of you. Because they're Melissa's eggs, they're a part of everybody in Melissa's family.”

It's estimated that about one million donor offspring worldwide have been born, most of them through anonymous donations. But when people choose to donate their sperm or eggs, they think of it as a purely personal decision. They forget that their DNA is a family asset, not a private one, experts say.

“The practice has grown up in a consumer context,” says Juliet Guichon, a bioethicist at the University of Calgary. “You think you're purchasing a factor of reproduction, but you're not – you're receiving the genetic heritage of a family.”

And grandparents, often the oldest surviving progenitors, can feel quite differently about trading away the family code.

This feeling recently intensified for Ms. Harris when one of Ms. Braden's recipient couples sent her daughter a photo of the new baby. At first, Ms. Harris didn't want to see it. Her daughter has two boys of her own, but this couple had had a girl. When Ms. Harris did finally look, she was overwhelmed. “That little girl looks exactly – I mean exactly – like Melissa,” she says.

Ms. Braden, 30, insists that she has no maternal feelings for the little girl and that the recipient mom is the only mom. But her own mother feels differently. “In my heart,

I think of her as my granddaughter,” Ms. Harris says. “I carry her picture in my purse.”

Shana Harter, 31, had a similar difference of opinion with her mother. She donated eggs twice when she was in her

early 20s. But her mother was not happy with the choice. “I caught a lot of flack,” the Atlanta resident says.

Almost a decade later, her mother still thinks about them. “I wonder all the time what they look like, if they look like her, what they're doing, where they live,” says her mother, Lynn Corcoran, 52. “It's just that feeling of knowing that I have other grandchildren out there. I'll never see them. I'll never know them. I hope they went to good homes.”

For a long time the two women stopped talking about it altogether. But when Ms. Harter got married and had trouble conceiving herself, it was the elephant in the room. What if the only genetically related children she ever produced were born to other people?

In the end, after IVF, Ms. Harter gave birth to a little

boy in January. Her own struggle with infertility made her even more understanding of couples who long to have children. “I have a new appreciation myself,” she says. “I'm very happy to know I helped make that happen for one or two other couples out there.” Ms. Corcoran admits it gave her some insight into the plight of childless couples too.

Kirk Maxey, 53, who donated sperm for almost 10 years,

says he now sees that grandparents are an overlooked piece of the donor puzzle. “There's a set of fully legitimate grandparents out there, who've missed seeing grandchildren, usually all the way through teenage years,” he says. His own parents were delighted when two teenage donor daughters surfaced a few years ago. “It impacts grandparents in ways that people didn't really imagine it would,” he says.

For some, the relationships are surprisingly warm. Florida resident Christine Striegl has discovered that she's closer to her donor granddaughter than to any of the grandkids born through her son's marriage. She met her son's teenage donor daughter, Virginia, about 18 months ago and they immediately hit it off. “She calls me her grandmother,” Ms. Striegl says.

For others, it stirs feelings of regret. Diane Wilkins, 53, of Ottawa, will probably never have the chance to meet any children born through her daughter's egg donation, though she'd love to. “Even if I just got to see them, just to see what they look like,” she says. But shortly after the donation, the relationship with the recipient couple soured.

(Since 2004, it has been illegal to pay donors for eggs or sperm in Canada, and though women can still import commercial U.S. sperm, that's not true for eggs, so many women leave the country for such procedures.)

“Grandparents are vulnerable, on the sidelines, waiting to be invited in,” Dr. Guichon says. But she also turns the issue around: A recipient couple, she believes, has a moral obligation to consider whether a child would benefit from knowing their grandparents. It could be important to their identity, she says.

Perhaps no one feels the bond more intensely than grandparents whose own children have died unexpectedly.

Marjorie Smith's daughter died before she'd had kids of her own – but she had donated eggs three times, and Ms. Smith (not her real name) knew children had been born. She was ecstatic when a recipient family got in touch. “When I heard from that family, it was like a gift from heaven,” she says.

They are hoping to meet soon. “These kids are part of my daughter. They look like my daughter. I hope to become a real grandma to them.”

Mothers Are Mothers Are Mothers

"Birthmothers Day" - An Adoptee's Perspective
by Anne Patterson

Of all the most condescending insulting visions of adopters and baby brokers(agencies and attorneys), the day called "Birthmother's Day" would win the prize for ignorance and disregard.

While the traditional adoptee has had to live with a blind invisibility about our issues of loss and grief this celebration takes the whole thing to the largest level of illusion.

Adopted adults have lost their mothers, their fathers, their families, their names, their heritage, their history, the rights to who they were when they were born, their birth certificates, and their identities. It is quite a long list of losses, and one's that should never be ignored.

Few adoptees are allowed to express their true feelings of loss and grief at being separated from their mothers and natural families. Birthmothers Day Celebrations is not only a total disregard for our feelings of sorrow but an overt exploitation of our pain.

I would never expect any mother who surrendered a child to adoption to celebrate that loss. I would further never expect any adopted adult or adopted child to "celebrate" their loss either.

The presumption that we adoptees need a separate day to think of our mothers is shocking.

Most adopted adults have spent years both mourning, dreaming, fantasizing, grieving, hoping and trying to come to terms with our separations and loss in adoption.

This celebration is an "in your face" slap to natural mothers who are seen as not being worthy enough to be thought of, loved or cherished on what a normal society calls "Mothers Day".

To think of my mother (or any mother) "celebrating" separation from their child is very cruel. It would be up there with divorce day "celebrations" and or "celebrating" diseases and other tragedies.

I personally and professionally decry and boycott all days called "Birthmother's Day Celebrations". Neither my mother who surrendered me to adoption, nor I, would wish to celebrate.

If we created "Infertility Celebration Day" I bet those who benefit financially from adoption, and potential adoptive parents might be offended.

Maybe that is what I will do: bake a cake and celebrate another person's pain?? Where is humanity going when such cruel orchestrations exist?

Copyright 2002 © Anne Patterson

In Hiding

© Photographer: Clickclick | Agency: Dreamstime.com

Evelyn Bennett~ wonder what she is doing right now? Just like all "adopted" infants, she is oblivious to the paperwork scramble that took place, the meetings, the court appearances, everything. All because of her. Wow. She just wants her Mommy. She realizes all too silently that the woman who holds her, changes her, plays patty-a-cake, feeds her, etc. is a "nice lady"(maybe), but not her Mommy. It is strange, as an adult adoptee, to think back and realize how carefully I buried the natural feelings, the sheer terror, the memories of those first few days/years in my adoptive home. It is like the real Baby Girl Lowe disappeared, went under wraps, hidden ~ kind of like Evelyn Bennett is right now. Hopefully her name won't be changed, on top of everything else she is losing. Precious moments with her real family. My name was changed ~ with my middle name being Evelyn ~ after my adoptive grandmother. Who I grew to love. Attached quite well to. But who I painfully knew I wasn't a part of. Especially after finding my natural grandmothers in reunion ~ man, was I like them. But then the pain surfaced ~ I was a part of each of them, they were a big part of who I was/am, but yet, I was separated from them my entire life up to that point. I didn't have the natural, comfortable, real granddaughter/grandmother connection, relationship from a child. Because I was transferred out, legally shifted, forever changed. Betwixt and between.

Evelyn Bennett will someday grow up and probably be livid to find out her history. The truth always comes out. Through much secrecy, sealed records, frustration and tears.

One new tactic of adoption brokers (along with "open" adoption) is to stall and delay and prolong each contested adoption, each appeal, so long that the law can be implemented called "best interest". Even if an adoption is proved wrongful, or contested and overturned lawfully, they are adding additional laws which require a separate custody hearing called a "best interest hearing" after the adoption is deemed mute. THEN, because the child was sequestered in the adoptive home for days, months, or years (most likely) the "best interest" card is pulled out, stating that the best interest of the child is to remain with the adoptive family ~ because that is all he/she has ever known. And wouldn't it be tragic, sad, abusive, to remove this innocent child from the only "parents" they have ever known? This is such a farse. Anyone with half a brain can see through the tactic of delays, prolonged appeal processes, etc. This is another necessary tool of the adoption industry because of the lack of infants available for adoption. Coerce, use unethical practices to "get" the baby, and then use unethical appeals processes to "ensure" the child remains "adoptable". We as a society see through this, and demand that lawmakers and Judges be made to change and enforce ethical laws UPFRONT in the adoption process, which protect the child and the mother, the natural family ~ and not the potential adoptors.

Stephanie Bennett was a minor who was encouraged by an adoption agency to "run away" from home so she could sign the adoption papers without the influence or support from her family. A school counselor encouraged this unethical practice. All because her baby, Evelyn, was prime meat in the adoption mill, and her value was worth several thousand dollars in the market that day......even though the courts found the adoption was wrongful, the adoptive family refuses to return the baby to her natural family, who loves and is fighting court battles to have her returned. This is a blatant denial of the legal rights and natural needs of a child and her family.

I pray for Evelyn Bennett and her family ~ for supernatural favor to surround them and bring them together again soon.