But before I give the linky, yeah there are some things that are a bit off.

Not enough to freak out really.. Like Rye was annoyed that they call me “Corrigan” alot, but Ido not care about that. I feel bad that they say Origins-USA operates the data base to search…which is way off and not true. Obviously, we are referring to the ISRR here, but they don’t mention that or RegDay by name….giving OUSA all the credit as opposed to “sponsoring” RegDay. And I know that I explained all that…spelling out Soundex!

Odd what quotes were chosen out of a two hour long interview…but not so bad I suppose. All and all I suppose it is truthful enough…seems a bit tame to me..but I supose if one is use to hearing it all. Too ban they didn’t mention more contact and resourse info there.. no informative sidebars at the end! And not one plug for the NY laws.. which I did plug!

So that’s my “hit head against the wall” list.

Here it is.. though I think this link will only work for this week!!

So here is the whole thing!
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Kingston Times – Featured News 11/22/2007

Opening Adoption

Kingston mother joins a national battle for adoption reform

by Jesse J. Smith

Claudia Corrigan-D’Arcy of Kingston, a member of the board of directors of OriginsUSA, with photos of her four children. She recently reestablished contact with her oldest son whom she placed for adoption at birth.
[ Diane Pineiro-Zucker ]

Back in 1987, Claudia Corrigan-D’Arcy was enjoying the life of a club-hopping Manhattan art student. Then she got pregnant.

The turmoil of her pregnancy and her eventual decision to relinquish her child for adoption began a two-decade journey to a reunion with her son and a passion to reform what she says is an “industry” built on the exploitation of vulnerable young women.

The Kingston homemaker and interior designer was recently appointed to the board of directors of OriginsUSA, a group which advocates “natural family preservation,” the opening of adoption records to birth-parents and adopted children and a system which favors “guardianship” arrangements over the total relinquishment of parental rights for women who choose to let others raise their children.

Corrigan-D’Arcy got involved in adoption-reform about seven years ago when she got high speed internet service and found herself drawn to adoption-issues discussion sites. What she found, she said, was a new perspective on adoption that she initially found unsettling.

“At first I hated these people, I despised them, I thought they were crazy,” Corrigan D’Arcy said of the adoption critics – often adoptees – whom she encountered online. “But after I read the stories and saw what they were saying I started learning that what I had been taught and what I had used to get me through 15 years was not necessarily a good thing for my child.”

What she was taught, at a Boston-based adoption agency where she lived in the final months of her pregnancy, was that adoption was a perfect win-win situation. She would get to move on with her life, a deserving couple (she approved the adoptive parents based on a profile provided by the agency) would get the child they always wanted and her baby would be brought up in a loving home with the means to provide a better life than she could. It was a far cry from what adoption-reformers call the post World War II “Baby scoop era” when single women were shamed into giving up their children and cut off from the adoption process.

“Everything was very warm and open,” said Corrigan-D’Arcy. “It was really nice to be around people who were as excited about being pregnant as I was. I came out thinking everything would be wonderful.”

Not adequately prepared

What she didn’t count on, and what she says was never discussed during counseling at the agency, was a sense of unresolved grief that dogged her for years even as she moved on, had three more children and got married.

“All the counseling was about what I was going to do after the adoption, they didn’t talk about why I was doing the adoption, and they didn’t talk about the consequences.”

Eventually, Corrigan-D’Arcy was able to find her son online; circumventing the adoption agency’s approved procedure of making contact information available only to the adoptee after his or her 18th birthday. They are now in contact and he attended her wedding in Kingston this summer.

Now, Corrigan said, she wants to change what she calls the adoption industry. According to Corrigan, adoption is a billion dollar, largely unregulated business that relies on the recruitment of expectant mothers who might otherwise be able to raise their children by themselves or with help from family. She points to websites that advertise smiling, young, usually white, women touting “options” and “choices” while warning of the diminished expectations and perils of single motherhood. With a huge and growing demand for healthy white infants and a limited supply of women willing to give up their children at birth, Corrigan said adoption groups must actively market the “adoption option” to counselors, clergy and educators as well as pregnant women.

“It went from having to sell people on the idea that adoption is just as good as bearing children to now where it’s accepted and there’s this huge demand that needs to be filled.”

OriginsUSA, Corrigan-D’Arcy said, believes women should get more information about the potential negative consequences of adoption for themselves and their children. She also wants uniform federal regulation of adoption, including a ban on contact between birth and adoptive parents before a baby is born and an increased waiting period between birth and the final termination of parental rights.

Open records

The group also lobbies for laws to open up adoption records, a move recently advocated by a federal commission studying adoption practices. Unlike most open records advocates, though, Origins believes that not only adoptees, but their birth parents should have access to the information. Origins also operates a database to put adoptees and birthparents in touch. On Nov. 10, Corrigan-D’Arcy manned a table at the Hudson Valley Mall where people could enter biographical details in the database, which actively seeks out matches based on geography, birthdates and other data.

“It was amazing, I had people come up and say ‘I never knew this existed” said Corrigan-D’Arcy. “I had one woman come up and say ‘Oh my God, I thought I was the only [woman who relinquished a child for adoption] in Kingston.”

Corrigan-D’Arcy admits that OriginsUSA’s views are controversial, even among adoption reform advocates. It’s one of the few groups which explicitly states “natural family preservation” as a core goal.

“Adoption is like communism,” she said. “It looks good on paper.”

She insists, however that the group does not favor leaving children in dangerous or abusive homes. Many of the most at risk children in fact are never adopted. They end up in foster care where, by the time the system is ready to involuntarily terminate parental rights, they are too old to be prime adoption candidates.

Dawn Smith-Pliner, of the Vermont-based agency Friends in Adoption said that, while she disagreed with several of OriginsUSA’s positions, the group and others like it served as reminders of the ethical risks inherent in adoption and are a force for needed change.

“I’m glad we have those voices because they drastically changed how adoption is done today,” said Smith-Pliner.
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