WILL YOU LISTEN?

I have been thinking and pondering about this adoption thing for a long time. I have been writing about it for a long time. Learning as I go along. Hearing all sides of it. I can tell you that it needs to be reformed. Adoption is not about God. It is about an industry that makes billions of dollars of human lives yearly. Its up to three billion dollars. That is a yearly figure. There is no regulation of them as there is with us. It began with adoptive parents being fearful of the first parents coming back for their children. It also began with adoptees being considered "illegitimate or bastards."

Adoption agencies like Gladney and other NCFA affliliates would like that to continue. They take advantage of the families involved in adoption. It is not about our choices. It is about theirs. When we are fighting amongst ourselves that we have the occasion to do, we are giving them credibility. We continue the belief that we can't handle our own business.

I am considered an angry adoptee. I am considered to be anti-adoption. I want those agencies, those attorneys, and their lobbyists to be held accountable for their actions. Just the recent news shows that they think that they can get away with theft. Here are a few for you to read.

http://www.federalnewsradio.com/?nid=80&sid=1133016
http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/17183365.htm
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/050507/nen_167552191.shtml
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20070504-0404-adoptionnightmare.html
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/news/local/17181202.htm
http://www.tahlequahdailypress.com/features/local_story_124112947.html?keyword=topstory
http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local/7326341.html

This was just this last week. This is just adoption agency stories. Here is a story on an adoption attorney.

Joyce Sibson Dove, P.O. Box 10426, Tallahassee, suspended, effective 30 days after an April 27 court order. (Admitted to practice: 1992) Dove proceeded with a termination of parental rights and adoption although she knew that the adoptee’s maternal grandparents were asserting a claim for priority in placement because she had lived with them for six months. She failed to notify her clients, the adoptive parents, of this claim and lied in court documents that she did not know the identity of the birth father. Dove’s actions resulted in litigation on the part of the birth mother and maternal grandparents to return the adoptee. In a subsequent settlement agreement, the adoptive parents were forced to agree to an open adoption, which means, the order states, that “instead of being a family, they will always be a substitute family. It is impossible to measure the difference between the open adoption achieved and the closed adoption sought. The non-clients’, birth mother’s, birth father’s and grandparents’ rights were also materially impacted.”

These people have more credibility than we do. It just blows my mind that the state legislators of this country actually give them that. These people profit of adoptees and their families. There is many unethical situations that go unreported because of gag orders and secrecy around adoption.

There is a couple of serious misconceptions about adoption.

1.) Birth parent were promised forever confidentiality.

Let me tell you about the statistics from New Hampshire, Oregon, Tennessee and many other states. Its a consistent 99%. What is also consistent is the .4 % of contact from confidential intermediaries. So does this blow the opinions of the NCFA and their ilk out of the water? No because they still spew this crap. Adoptees have to have both sides of their families testify in front of legislators to prove this. Somehow money is what wins. In Texas, there was 100 people offering testimony to state legislators. 94 of people who were for it and 6 who were against it. Out of those six against it, three were adoption attorneys. Ms. Heidi Cox was one of them. By the way, she represents Gladney Adoption Center. Who we all know has the Bush family on its board. Makes you wonder who is still controlling the politics here in Texas.

If you were to look at the two court cases that tested this laws on the basis of familial privacy, these people along with many right to life groups to include Pat Robertson were defeated soundly. No woman is given the fundamental right to put their child up for adoption; therefore they are not entitled to the forever confidentiality. In Oregon, it was a voter initiative that allowed adoptees access. It also helped that there was an ad that had 500 first mothers names and signatures in it. The other thing that still befuddles me is this. I think maybe the judges saw this. In contraception, parenting, and abortion, women are practicing familial privacy. In adoption, women are giving up these rights along with all of their rights to their child. These agencies are declaring a priori against adoptees and their families before any of us have even committed the crime of contacting each other. Yes they would like to see searching criminalized. What is bad is that they have the ears and pockets of state legislators across this country.

The other thing is that even though some legislators don't want to be seen as too pro choice. They do want to be seen as pro adoption. So any legislation that comes along that promotes adoption they are for. Look at Texas again. One of its legislators put out a bill that pays women $500.00 not have an abortion and put their children up for adoption. Another idiot bill if you ask me. It further perpetrates adoptees as commodities. That children in the state of Texas thinks children are a big business. That the first parents of these children are producers of a marketable commodity.

2.) Adoptee access to their own records will cause women to have more abortions.

First if a woman has her mind made up on abortion then you won't be able to talk her out of it.
Second, a woman is more than likely to keep her child than give up a child for adoption. A great of that comes from the secrecy of adoption. So many lies have been told to adoptees and their families. We have gotten the word out. Yes the adopton industry and its secrecy has caused its own downfall in many respects. They just can't accept that we living adoption want more openness, truth, and freedom.

3.) Adoptee access to their records will ruin those birthmothers' lives.

First access to our own records does not necessarily mean searching and reuniting. Yes its part of it but not the totality of it. One very dear friend, Mia, put it correctly. If we are talking about equal rights, then just as adoptees lose access to their birth certificates then so does everyone else. Every time a mother does speak up and says that she believes in our rights to our original birth certificate, you have an adoptive parent who says then they can pay back the adoptive parents for 18 years of parenting. Hang on here its about adoptees. We are the children all grown up. We are just asking for access to the very records that factually and truthfully record our birth. Every non adopted person has that. Unless our adoptive parents are adopted, they have access to their records. Unless our first parents are adopted, they have access to their own records. Their parents do not control their records, yet we have to beg our parents, the courts, the adoption agencies, the attorneys, and the vital statistic clerks who consider and treat us as ungrateful little bastards. It is a fundamental right to have access to the documents that records the lives of humanity in the United States. Adoptees don't have that right. We are sentanced and condemned before we even think about looking at our truth (the true crime in the eyes of the adoption industry).

As I think about my own story, I realize that I messed up. It should have been me that contacted her. It should not have been an adoptive parent. It should not have been the former director of the adoption agency. It should have been me and her. Now as another Mother's weekend approaches, I realize that I might not have another chance. I thank one mother for enlightening me on the tactics of the Coleman adoption agency. They weren't the happy happy joy joy agency that I was raised to believe.

If you are reading me Ann, please know that I wish you a happy and a sad Mother's Day. It still breaks my heart that we have not met yet. I dedicate Kelly Pickler's latest song to you.