If you believe that you need, want, desire, have a right to, can only accept, are entitled, or even have made a “choice” that an infant though domestic infant adoption (or surrogacy) is the way to go, then please let me warn you that you are in great danger of becoming exactly what you have fought against for so long. You are entering a slippery slope where you are in great danger of becoming the oppressor.
I’m not sure how long an adoption agency should be allowed to thumb their noises at carefully spelled out rules and laws especially when dealing with the welfare of human beings especially children, but ten years and 17 pages is way too much for me.
Open Groups, Closed Groups and Adoption Discussion pages on Facebook for adoption support, question or just making noise and causing trouble. There are a whole slew of adopting groups and pages on Facebook, if you can’t find one that fits your needs, then you are just not social!
WHEN: FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28 AT 10:30 AM
WHERE:Legislative Office Building in in Room 1D in Hartford, CT 06106
WHO: Access Connnecticut http://accessconnecticut.org/
If birthmothers had to be identified all the live long day some people might find the need to pelt us with rocks or at least, if one was ever to take seriously what one reads online, hurl vast insults and barbed comments as we went about our days. I could see a lot of us spending a lot of time in tears because what people say out of fear or weird anger or ignorance or just plain judgment can be really harsh.
I know many birthmothers who have “chosen” to relinquish a child to adoption have great difficulty explaining the very subtle coercion and thought process that goes into it. It’s not so obvious to be called brainwashing. It is often not forceful enough to be openly accepted as coercion. We don’t even know or want to call ourselves “victims”. Is it the sophisticated manipulation tactic known as “Gaslighting”?
We, as adoptees, are demanding respect today, in a show of strength like never before. Our strength lies in our togetherness; our united voice. It is important to play fair and be kind, as everyone’s experience is different and VALID. Please think about that before you tear someone’s head off.
If there are other options that CAN BE sought BEFORE adoption, then the adoption itself, not matter how happy anyone claims to be, is a tragedy. “What about the mothers who truly aren’t able to parent?” If we want adoption to really be a good thing, ethical, and used as it should then we have to then ask, ‘What is the obstacle in her way that is making it less than idea for this mother to parent this baby?
There ALWAYS was a way for an adoptee to open up the sealed adoption records even IF ONLY by court order, then when Peter Kelly and John M. Czygier Jr., gave those VERBAL promises of confidentially to birthmothers while practicing adoption law in new York State, they LIED.
The Fight for Adoptee Rights is about CIVIL and HUMAN rights first and foremost. The opposition wants to make it all about reunion, but it is NOT. We do not demand that adoptees are restored access to their OBC because they want to find mommy, we demand it because adoptees deserve to be treated the same as non adopted. What an adopted person then DOES with their OBC is their choice.. so reunion is secondary. When we tell long stories about insane searches & happy reunions, then we feed into the mythology that the opposition wants. Do not DO IT!!
If the average number of friends every Facebook user has is 130, then 10,000 shares means that over 1 million three hundred people can be viewing the intimate details of a birthmothers “hidden” pregnancy before she is found by the one person who is looking for her. New York State’s A909bill would allow the communications between a birthmother and her adopted child to be exactly that – a communication between the parents and the adoptee.
We need to stop infantilizing adoptees over the age of 18. We should restore to adoptees the rights that all other adults in this state take for granted. Society has changed, and it is time for the laws to change accordingly. When the purpose of a law ceases to exist, so should the law.
“It’s not about a supposed myth of birthmother privacy and being afraid of one’s child; it’s really about treating people equally. Adoptee Rights legislation does not force an adoptee to obtain their original birth certificate. It simply restores this civil and human right to adopted people so that, if they wish to, they can access their birth certificate the same as all other people. Not different, not special, just equal.”
At the most basic level Adoptee Rights is about civil rights and being treated equally. I mean why should we have special laws for people just because they happen to be adopted after they were born? That’s just not right. So for many adoptees, they want to right to have this piece of paper because it is theirs.. it’s their original identity. It has their name on it. It’s their documentation and why shouldn’t they be allowed to have it?”
The thing is; I’m not a super woman. I don’t have better speaking skills than the rest of the world. I don’t do anything spectacular. I just talk to people about adoption and most specifically adoptee rights; a lot. These same conversations and discussions can easily be adaptable to speaking to ANYONE about adoptee rights; Congressmen, shop clerks, your neighbors, your mother, newspaper reporters… get the idea? Don’t be so worried about saying it “wrong”. These conversations are only wrong is your DON’T say or DO anything.