RELIGION, RIGHT TO LIFE AND ADOPTION

I have been thinking about this topic for a long time. I have to say that Religion and Right to Life have no business in adoption. Many times the Religious and the Right to Life all proclaim adoption is the best thing since sliced bread. Adoption as it stands now is violation of human dignity and civil rights. This includes human rights.

I believe in God. I believe in Jesus. I do know that Jesus preached truth. So how can I apply the truth to adoption? I have been asked by people who are so pro-life that its sickening. Are you sure God wants you to do this? Everytime I doubt myself God sends me a sign that I need to keep on trucking with this fight. Whether it be a natural mother he puts in my path, an adoptee, or even adoptive parent who believes in truth. What about those "birthmothers needing protection from their past?"

I don't know how many times that I have been told. How can you do this to your parents? My adoptive parents may not be as radical as I am about this. They or at least my adoptive mother believes in Truth. Jesus preached the truth. He nailed the Pharisees for their hypocrisies. Would HE want me to stand down? I don't believe HE would. He would be very ashamed at a industry that makes a massive profit off human lives. Don't tell me that its chump change. Its not. Its a 2 BILLION dollar business. Just Google adoption and see what you find. Madonna and Angelina Jolie are usually making headline news. There is rumors of unethical adoption amongst both of them.

When you have a President of the United States on the board of Gladney Adoption Center? If the current affairs of our country right now don't make question him, then his presence on one of the NCFA's biggest contributors boards should. I have been told that Gladney used to make the natural mothers lie about their child's natural father. They made them not name them.

Then I stumble upon these two gems:

http://soulofadoption.com/forum/index.php?topic=24205.0

http://miassavinggrace.wordpress.com/2007/06/05/editorial-worthy-of-lining-my-birdcage/
The two comments from a dear friend's blog really set me on fire.

PollyJune 6th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
I feel a bit sorry for the whole lot of you, but I am frustrated too. You just don’t get it, do you? Until you make an honest effort to try to empathize with those birth mothers who really do not wish to have their privacy violated, for whatever personal reason they have, you will fail to understand the complexities of this issue from all sides. Most Americans want their privacy respected. Those who do not can sign the consent form. And I agree with the author - some adopteed absolutely cannot be trusted to respect the wishes of the birth mother for no contact. The only way to insure that the birth mother’s rights in such a case are upheld is to withhold information from those who will likely abuse it.


Rights go both ways. You can’t demand your rights while simultaneously denying birth mothers their rights. You live in the U.S. Birth mothers have the right in this country to privacy. They do not give that up when they sign the dotted line. They sign with the understanding that their privacy will be protected if they so wish. We also have laws in place to ensure that if both birth parent and child are open to it, the privacy veil can be dropped. I disagree with the position that adoptees have rights over birth mothers. That is the same attitude that says fetuses have more rights than women. It’s misogyny at its worst, and what is scary is that most of the bloggers here are women.
Sadly, it is an unfortunate aspect of adoption that the child does not have a say in it. For that I would argue for more open adoptions and more legal reinforcement for obtaining much needed medical information that a spiteful parent might withhold from an adopted child.
And I don’t consider you perpetual children, Amy, but I do consider many of you unable to see both sides of the issue. I don’t really blame you — you want your own way and other positions be damned. Most people are the same. But it does not advance the dialogue to stake out such a rigid position. You are likely to gain nothing when compromise or empathy are not words in your vocabulary list.

How do you explain it to a woman like this Polly (Anonymous is probably the same person) that its not about a right to privacy? It is about equal consideration under the law and the Constitution. It is about being forever subjected to a priori before ever having being convicted of a crime.

I have to wonder what exactly is the problem with people like this. They just don't want to understand the truth of our lives and the lives of those living adoption. We are subject to governmental interference just by the sheer fact of our birth. Here is where I have tough questions for the Religious and the Right to Life. IF human life begins at conception, when do we begin to treat the baby equally under the law? Is it just before and at birth? Why does it stop after birth and even after adoption? Why is it that human life becomes nothing after its born? The Religious are always saying hate the sin and not the sinner. Does the child become the sin because we were conceived in sin? If not, why are adoptees made to pay the price of our identity? Why do our natural parents have to pay forever for their sin by not ever knowing their children? Should the laws reflect how our choices in adoption? Shouldn't we all be allowed access to the very document that binds those living adoption? Why do adoption agencies have the final say in our records and in the laws surrounding our lives?

How can the rights of those living adoption equate the same as abortion? Another fighter, Mary Ann Cohen once said, "The right to lifers deify the child and the pro choice groups demonize the child." There is a middle ground here. Adoptees are always someone's son or daughter but we do grow up with all of the rights, responsibilities, and priviledges that should come with adulthood. It is not a matter of more rights than the other. Its a matter of the same rights. If a parent terminates their rights, this means ALL rights. With so many natural parents speaking out against this thought of privacy, what is it going to take for people like Polly to listen? If in non adopted individuals all immediate family members have access to each other's birth certificate, why can't those living adoption? Both of my mothers deserve a copy of my original birth certificate just as I do.