The setting is unmistakably Hawaii, and Shelley and I, classic 1968: blond and tan in our stylish mini-dresses, the telltale bulges of early pregnancy thus far absent from our slender frames. We were girls waiting to become women, my friends and I — eighteen years old, but girls nonetheless — on the verge of grown-up lives that we could not yet envision.
This article analyzes the provisions in a collection of birth mother surrender documents assembled by the author—seventy-five mid-twentieth century documents executed in twenty-six different states. In order to establish the significance of the surrender document provisions with respect to these claims, the article first relates depictions by birth mothers of a journey from silence to legislative advocacy. The article then examines the conflicting claims about birth mothers that pervade legislative contests over adult adoptee access to original birth certificates. Finally, the article analyzes the provisions of the surrender documents. The analysis of the provisions definitively supports birth mother advocates’ reports that women were neither offered a choice of nor guaranteed lifelong anonymity. Their opponents’ contentions to the contrary, whether motivated by concern for birth mothers or other interests, reinscribe an earlier culture of shame and secrecy, subordinating women’s own wishes and silencing their newly raised voices.
Now, we must remember she is a former ABORTIONIST PROFESSIONAL, so she’s must KNOW better than I about things like MY LIFE. Especially as there must be GOD on her side!
Please tell me what to do. After all, I have had many years of training being a “good birthmother” Yes, yes, perhaps I just need an adoption Kool-Aid booster shot? Give it to me, Abby! I’m just JONESING hardcore for that Adoption Kool-Aid! Yum..Pro-Life flavor!! My fav-o-rite!
But women are not informed of the very serious physical and psychological consequences of abortion adoption , and the adoption alternative is not promoted as the positive, life-affirming option contains lifelong loss, unresolved grief and sadness for both mother and child.
I have just read so many Bible verses about Orphans that my head is ready to spin. And almost ALL of them are not just about the CHILDREN, but include the lines “the Widows and Orphans” or instead speak of “the fatherless” meaning , I would assume, single mothers. So how come devote Bible quoting folks can so easily IGNORE the word of God that clearly says CARE FOR THE WIDOW? How come only the CHILD’s soul is worth saving? How come we can’t save the mother’s soul too?
I would think that “Thou Shall Not Covet Thy Neighbor’s Child” falls in there. Right? So if the Bible says to not desire to TAKE the widows child, and to help her, perhaps save her soul too? Especially, one would think, when the mother/widow has “chosen life” and should be rewarded somehow for not having the evil abortion? Like isn’t she half way there already?
On a foundation of good intentions and corruption, domestic infant adoption has rebranded itself thorough strategic public relations moves, market research and a well funded legislative lobby. While the public thinks sweet thoughts about adopting all those “unwanted children”, the adoption industry creates a product and cashes in on a billion dollar business.
They agreed to send updates (letters and pictures) every 6 months until she turned 18 and kept up with that until about 3 years ago when the updates suddenly stopped. No explanation, no warning, nothing. The updates were being sent to me through CHS so I called the agency and got the run around. This, to me, is one of the most heartless and cruel things that can be done to a Mother and I’m in utter shock that this is actually happening.
She is not a saint. She is not a whore. She is a woman faced with one of the most awful concepts a mother can imagine: the willing separation of one’s child for life. Saints or sluts are not real. They are labels use to dehumanize the relinquishment experience. Both are used to separate the birthmother form the rest of the population and create impossible social contracts from which any person, birthmother of not, cannot continue to love within. The saint cannot admit to the pain and the slut does not deserve to feel the love. Polar opposites and not realistic for anyone. Not helpful for anyone. Not healthy for anyone.
I did not know Alyssa Toner. What I do know, though, is that Alyssa was searching and cannot finish her search. She made the video, but it does not show up in searches for her birth date. The article about her adoption birthmother search does not seem have been published. The news stories about her death, do, right now, but as time passes, news articles like these get achieved and fall way down on the search rankings. Maybe her search will be forgotten completely. Maybe her account will be taken down, the video eventually deleted and, if her birthmother ever does decide to search, she will never find anything at all.
The message will be lost.
I do not believe that we will see the end of adoption completely, but these solutions could very well produce a country like Australia where the relinquishment rates dropped about 95%. That is not unrealistic to me. Ideal, yes, but… People will want children that they cannot bare, and here will be people who have children who do not have any desire to ever be a parent. Yes, adoption will still be there, but let it be a safe guard that provides families for children who need homes rather than finding children for families that want them. Adoption relinquishment should be seen as the last possible choice.
Based on a 100% population, then, the USA IF it had similar adoption practices and supported mothers would have 539 Voluntary Domestic Infant relinquishments annually give or takeWant to do it again? Based on the 2006 numbers, we are looking at only 826 infants relinquished in the USA rather than the 14,000.
I don’t even need my calculator to know that it means we are looking at aproximately 13,500 babies relinquished by mothers who, IF given accurate information regarding parenting and had options and support, would most likely NOT have placed their babies for adoption. Now multiply that by the last ten years: that’s over 135,000 families separated for no other reason than the fact that adoption is a huge profit driven business in the USA.
Indications were strong that biological mothers who know more about the later life of the child they relinquished have a harder time making an adjustment than do mothers whose tie to the child is broken off completely by means of death. Relinquishing mothers who know only that their children still live but have no details about their lives appear to experience an intermediate degree of grief. It might seem a paradox that continued knowledge about the relinquished child would intensify a mother’s grief symptoms. The question of whether open adoption inhibits a healthy grieving process needs careful consideration before open adoption becomes a standard method of practice
I really have to almost get a chuckle out of it when people try to tell me to shut up. Really? You are going to tell ME to STOP? And you think I will listen to YOU? How’s that working out for you? Yes, it IS FUNNY! You did not bother to find out who you are talking to. I take my rabble rousing VERY seriously. Why are you spending all your energy trying to convince me that you got it so good and adoption is so positive and “not like my experience”. Did I mention that I just do not care?
If you don’t believe in abortion, then don’t have one. I promise I won’t force you, but please don’t force my daughter to feel shame or cross state lines for wanting to control her fertility. Don’t give our countries women fake choices and then blame them and shame them for doing what they must. Don’t make them endanger their lives or be slaves to their bodies. Don’t let sex become something only the rich deserve. Don’t feed the adoption machine at the risk of women’s lives. You decide your moral code for your body and I will decide the moral code for my body.
2006 Michele Goodwin argues that the current adoption model in the United States resembles an unregulated marketplace in children. Whether lawmakers and citizens wish to recognize this marketplace, its existence is demonstrated by frequent financial transactions among adoptive parents, birth mothers, and adoption agencies that resemble payments. The author explores this marketplace and the way in which race, genetic traits, and class are implicated in adoption processes, resulting in higher fees associated with the adoption of children with desirable traits. The author proposes two mechanisms by which the government could regulate the adoption market—price caps and taxation.