Here is another young woman. She was scared, having problems with her parents, and pregnant. She goes to someone who is supposed to support her. He is there as a counselor for the teens in that high school. Instead he sends her into a spiral slide into hell. I hear every adoption agency say in almost every article "oh this isn't the norm." Things like this don't happen. Ohio just like Florida allows minors to act as adults when it comes to adoption. In other words, the minor does not need to have a parental consent from her parents to give a child up for adoption. In fact in fourty one states allow minors to put their children up for adoption without their parents' consent. I find it amazing that in every other aspect of a minor's life he/she must have parental consent to sign a contract of any kind except adoption. Here we are dealing with human lives yet we are very cavalier when it comes to those very lives. The religious right complains about the babies being lost to abortion. Yet the very thing they support ruins and damages lives as well. All most of us ask for is that parenting be represented as well.
Stephanie is a shell of the girl that she probably used to be. She walks around like a zombie. She is missing her child. Her parents are upset that she was allowed to make a decision without consulting them. In fact she was lead as innocent lamb to slaughter with no one there to protect her. The school counselor gave her pamphlet and told her to run away. The school district's superintendent runs the adoption agency in this case (called A Child's Waiting). She signed away her rights in the hospital. She dealt with the agency on two occasions. In this situation, the high school counselor was obligated in my opinion to tell her parents. Yet he chose to give her advice that left her alone in a very adult world. Now the adoption agency in question is in contempt of court because they refused to bring the child into the courtroom. They have probably told the adoptive parents to hide the baby at all costs. All they want to do is keep the money that they earned.
With situations like this occurring more and more, the voices of adoption will not be quiet any longer. The women from the baby scoop era can and will testify that this is what they faced. In fact they want to all of them do now. I can't say that I blame them. I completely understand where they are coming from.
These mothers (Yes they are mothers) want open records. In Oregon alone, over 99% of them spoke out. Imagine if you will, the mothers out there, could you let your children go? I couldn't. I would kill anyone who would try to take my daughters away from me. My husband would as well. Everyone assumes an antagonistic view between mother and child. Even the mothers who were raped face this issue. What many of these women wanted back in the day was the right to raise their own children. Many of these women looking back see that they could have made it. They just weren't given any options. They were lied to, coerced and shamed into giving their children up. Many were punished by the doctors and other medical staff because they got pregnant. Many were further punished by their families including my own. She is still facing her demons and her sins. So if you will imagine yourself in their shoes. Imagine being ridiculed shamed coerced just for having a baby. Imagine that you didn't have access to support and resources. None whatsoever. What would you have done? Add to that you are scared because of that lack of support and your body is rapidly changing. You have your family telling you that you have destroyed your family, you have shamed your family. What would you have done? Have you thought about it? Did you shed a tear for these women? I did and still do. I also commend their strength. They are stepping up. They are now showing the young women of today that they can indeed raise their own children. They believe in true family preservation and true family values. They believe parenting is an option. Yet that option is never presented in either the Crisis Pregnancy Centers nor Planned Parenthood.
Now that these types of stories are coming out. I see also that state legislators from all over the country are indeed visiting our blogs - the adoptees, the mothers and the fathers of adoptees. Its time to investigate adoption records. Its time to open them up. Its not just adoptees that are wanting those records. It is our parents as well. Its time to hand them over. They belong to us. We are the ones affected by adoption. The laws of this country should reflect our views, thoughts, and feelings. Its time that Joe Public sees and understands our truth as that - truth. If the records are open, then adoption agencies and attorneys will start following the law more closely. They won't violate the rights of women and men.
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