Adoption as the Exploitation of Children
I think that most people are repulsed by the idea of the buying and selling of human beings. The term “human trafficking” is the legal term, and when you have a group in society that has been rendered vulnerable due to human rights abuses and lack of social/political power, and when there are no laws (or non-enforced laws) to protect them, others who lack any morals or ethics are in the position to be able to exploit them. We have seen this over and over again with past and current slavery operations, the sale of women and children into forced prostitution, the sale of boys into armies to become child soldiers, etc. Even
But what about when babies are taken from their original mothers and families and sold for adoption purposes? Adoption agencies, lawyers, and “facilitators” do this every day, with full government sanction, making a huge amount of profit off of each and every sale.
BUT one reason they can get away with this is that, in the realm of the international (and by default, domestic) baby trade, according to the U.s. State Department, international adoption is not “human trafficking” because the adoptee is not considered to be exploited.
http://lawreview.vermontlaw.edu/articles/v32/1/smolin.pdf
“The United States Department of State, poised to play the key role under the treaty as the central authority overseeing intercountry adoption, has declared that buying children for adoption is not child trafficking, since children are not “exploited” by such practices.”
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/47255.pdf
“However, illegally selling a child for adoption would not constitute trafficking where the child itself is not to be exploited. Baby selling generally results in a situation that is non-exploitative with respect to the child. Trafficking, on the other hand, implies exploitation of the victims.”
But what constitutes exploitation? If you are shoved into a home for the purposes of replacing a child who was not born, to fulfil the desire of an adult to raise a child, to meet the needs of another person when your own human rights are being violated (see Article 25 of the Univesal Declaration of Human Rights) making you vulnerable to being taken from your family and culture, that certainly sounds to me like you are being used.
And I do know adult adoptees who feel they were exploited, being adopted to be a “substitute child,” used in order to fulfil an adult’s “desire for a child,” etc. An acquaintance of mine, Dan, states:
” How is adoption NOT exploitive to the child adopted?!?!?!
” The child LOSES his/her mother (in many cases to benefit the nfamily from embarrassment or impediment to their life plan), is given (sold) to another set of parents (to benefit an infertile couple or one with a savior complex), and profited from by lawyers, agencies, the state…
” And what does the child get in return for providing all of this to all of them? Their heritage and truth is stolen and sealed from them for life. They get vetos filed stating that if you search for them you will be punished by the state (they make us criminals). They get treated like second class citizens for the actions of their nfamily, while the nfamily get’s “protected” from us for responding to THEIR OWN actions.”
(Dan is quoted with his permission).
I think there should be pressure put onto the State Department to include baby-selling as a form of human trafficking. Maybe they will listen to the voices of adoptees such Dan and start recognizing this as a form of exploitation of children.
Adoption Critique 
April 24, 2010 at 8:32 pm
To clarify the statement “they make us criminals”, the state of Michigan has a bill in committee that states that in exchange for non-certified copy of my Original Birth Certificate, I MUST sign an affidavit that I will not use the information contained on said OBC for the purpose of searching for my family of birth.
This constitutes a self imposed (under coersion) restraining order that is legally binding.
A restraining order granted without hearing or trial, such as is required in a criminal action.
We are convicted and punished without trial.
It also flies in the face of “freedom of association” and “freedom of information” to name just a few constitutional rights infringed upon.
April 24, 2010 at 9:40 pm
Its also EXPLOITATION when people adopt children to abuse!
Lois
April 24, 2010 at 9:46 pm
Up until very recently, the US has not promoted the idea of contact vetoes in access to records laws. The state of TN was the only state that had a contact veto. That was passed in the mid-nineties. It has caused a great deal of trouble for searchers….by criminalizing contact between family members.
One reason why lawmakers feel free to put contact vetoes in bills is because many records activists have stated over and over that “reunion” and “searching” is not the issue.
Therefore, lawmakers have concluded that all that is wanted is the OBC…not the actual access to relatives.
I am a family preservationist and family restorationist myself, and my goal has always been to help people find each other again. Therefore, I cannot see the logic in activists’ statements that would lead lawmakers to conclude that the OBC in itself is all that matters…not the actual people.
I have worked in access to records, but have always stated in testimony that we are looking for our relatives, in many cases, and that is our right. The first amendment does give freedom of association and the 14th amendment gives equal protection under the laws. Adopted persons and their natural families’ rights have been violated under those amendments.
April 25, 2010 at 1:34 am
I was adopted to fulfill someone’s desire to be a parent and lost my biological identity in the process. I was exploited as a child when I was sold in the name of “adoption” and am continually exploited by having my ethnicity and biological identity kept from me via my original birth certificate remaining sealed.
April 25, 2010 at 9:11 am
While I agree that some cases NOT ALL or MOST but some cases can be properly described as “fulfilling someone’s desire to be a parent and (I) lost my biological identity” we must also look at the facts. Not all TransCultural Adoptions go bad, nor is there abuse, most do not want to search for their biological/natural/birth family.
Even “family preservation and family restoration” is practiced by the four adoption agencies in Korea, but NOT ALL Mothers want to keep their babies. It is a positive sign that in 2000 the percentage was 8.6% but in 2009 it has gone to 37%(http://www.koreanwarbaby.com/p/reviewing-issues-on-unwed-mothers.html. This means that 63% of the Unwed mothers in 2009 CHOSE TO GIVE UP THEIR BABIES for adoption.
Of these given up, (Oh, do they not have CHOICE in this?) about 25% went to FOREIGN or Overseas adoption, now called by UN as InterCountry Adoptions (ICA). That works out to 3 domestic adoptions per 1 “Exported”.
For those who are “luckier” to keep their language, culture, etc. they are 98% done in TOTAL SECRET,which is another thing that the Korean War Baby disagrees with, a Child has the right to KNOW that they were adopted, don’t you agree? There are many complex issues in This Thing of Ours-Adoption. We can/should/must AGREE to disagree on somethings but find a middle road on others.
Speaking in generalities, that is for all, most of us. (HeHe) should be avoided, yes? Oh, today is Sunday and the clinics in Korea are indeed open for business, with rates driven up by the government’s plan to get birthrates up. Abortions costs even for prescriptions have TRIPLED and the vultures of profit are raking it in with 1 to 4 thousand ‘procedures per day’. And women in Korea don’t have LEGAL Choice, it has just been allowed with a wink and a nod for “medical reasons” UP UNTIL NOW.
OH, should the women have ‘procedures to eliminate unwanted pregnancies’ be FORCED to have babies? What of their RIGHT TO BE A MOTHER? Gets into another BIG issues, but it is interrelated to Adoption, Family Preservation, unwed mothers support, etc.
I predict that the number of babies born in 2010 WILL indeed go up, but MORE babies will be Given up by women who are NOT ready to be Mothers, yet. Do they have the Right to do that?
April 25, 2010 at 3:23 pm
I leaning toward Kittz’s argument that claiming access to the OBC is not about reunion is part of the problem. I think the issue should be that adoptees have a right to their real birth record since it is a goverment document held in their name; whether or not the adoptee wants reunion is none of the government’s business and should in no way be tied to equal access bills.
I also think adoptees need to get their APs on board with this to counteract the industry’s opposition.
April 25, 2010 at 9:14 pm
Korean War Baby wrote: “This means that 63% of the Unwed mothers in 2009 CHOSE TO GIVE UP THEIR BABIES for adoption.”
You don’t believe in coercion, do you? And a coerced choice is not a choice at all. What about this article, which quotes baby brokers admitting to how they coerce mothers into surrendering their babies:
Excerpt: “‘According to the questionnaire that we distribute at the orientation interview, 90 percent want to keep the babies, says Kim Yongsook, the director of Ae Ran Won. But after counseling, maybe 10 per cent will keep them. We suggest that it’s not a good idea to keep the baby’…. After delivery at a hospital, the baby is taken from the mother.. ” — http://www.transracialabductees.org/politics/progressive.html
I know this was written in 1988, but agencies even today need a certain minimum number of surrenders per year to stay open and profitable, so they ensure that these surrenders happen, while letting a certain number of mothers go home with their babies. Mothers surrendering their babies does not mean it it was their choice: there could be any number of people and forces coercing her: inlaws, agency staff, her partner, human rights abuses (e.g. poverty), etc.
April 27, 2010 at 12:51 am
Korean War Baby:
“most do not want to search for their biological/natural/birth family.”
Not to dismiss your opinion, but please define “most.”
April 28, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Korean War Baby – where is your proof that “most do not want to search”?
My son certainly does not agree with you – nor the hundreds I know of who are searching (I run a search group which has over 350 members).
BTW – less than 1 percent of eligible people in Ontario filed a diclosure veto.
That means that the vast majority are either searching or, at the very least, they are not minding being found – like my son.
And if you think that all mothers in Korea had in choice in giving up their children, then why are there protests there saying otherwise? Why is it that a motion is being put to the Korean government about this?
or this;
Korean adoptees from abroad and mothers protest overseas adoption
http://www.nestkorea.com/kboard/kboard.php?board=newsboard_e&act=view&no=5&page=8&search_mode=&search_word=&cid=
Many quote the huge stigma attached to being an unmarried mother (as many here including myself will testify to) and the lack of society acceptance or support by such a conservative society.
Your figures do not show that the mothers willingly consented – there is nothing to indicate whether they felt otherwise in those circumstances.
Your figures could show that, in fact, coercion is alive and well which seems to be the viewpoint of the people from the above links who actually live in Korea and have experienced this first-hand.
April 28, 2010 at 8:44 pm
Most is like a simple majority, just over 50 percent. There are few surveys that have definitive numbers of Korean Adoptees taking the survey. I have talked personally with many KAD’s (approximately 300) and roughly half do not want to pursue searching beyond getting their document files, visiting Korea with their Adoptive family or by themselves. Some figures of 75,000 adoptees coming back to Korea to visit are based on immigration records. I have been back and forth 12 times in 15 years. Only 2,450 or 2.7% have had reunion, I believe that the reason more are not happening is not improper records but pressures on Korean women to “come out and admit to her family” the secret child she gave up. Remember this is Korea, not USA or Australia, UK or other WESTERN countries. Social pressures are just like they were in the 70’s in Australia and USA.
Stories go all across the board, so I try not to use “ALL, Every” and Most is my own estimate of 13 years of meeting adoptees coming to GOA’L. SOME adoptees feel that to really ‘search’ in newspapers, on television, is a major step. We can all cite examples from different cases, but that just shows that there IS diversity in cases.
ON CHOICE, COERCION…kind of like the ‘half-empty or half-full glass’ analogy. From different perspectives both are correct. My focus is that in Korean society, from Family of the birth mother, and in a FEW cases birth fathers the Decision was made to relinquish or ‘give up’ children/baby for MANY reasons. Over the years reasons changed from mixed-blood (Korean terms) who were unwanted for sure in the 40’s to 70’s; poverty (doesn’t seem to apply some would say but believe me there are some very poor families that abandon children of all ages even now; Divorce, well thanks to modern Korean laws divorce became easier which is a good thing for women’s rights because when I first got here in 1995, the right to the children usually went to the husband, if he wanted them.
I could go on and on, basically what I am pointing out is that circumstances of life, little support for Unwed Mothers (and Single head of household women, some of which are from the now 50% rate of Divorces per marriages each year), just some of the REASONS that 63% CHOOSE to give up. Now you may say that they were Coerced into it, such as the example cited of the counselors at Ae Ran Won BUT THAT WAS 1988. Don’t blame Ae Ran Won they have been the leader in helping promote Unwed mothers, try googling more recent articles with Ae Ran Won, or search for them in my blog. Rev. Kim DoHyun would tell you they are the premier at helping Unwed mother find support.
But they are the most successful NOW (think it is at helping Unwed mothers KEEP their babies. (who now make up over 95% of the mothers giving birth “outside Marriage” (Korean point of view). The figure is up to 60% there now. WHAT HAS HAPPENED? Many changes in KOREAN SOCIETY, folks. DO you know the numbers of women who kept their children since 1984? Well, I can tell you, 55,000 and they have increase AS KOREAN SOCIETY CHANGED.
Unwed Mothers who Kept their Babies
5.8% – 1984
7.2% – 1998
8.3% – 1999
8.6% – 2000
11% – 2001
31.7% – 2005
37% – 2009 *Latest Figures from KWDI (Korean Women’s Development Institute)
Note that in last nine years big changes have happened. BUT IT STILL ain’t easy for a woman to keep her baby unless her family helps. No Korean Law makes the Male (refuse to use father term) take responsibility and pay support. I would like to see old fashion “Shotgun weddings or Coerced DNA testing for paternity and make him or his family help pay for support. BUT there is no law for that now.
Any of you know how much support from the government a mother gets per month? Well, about 35…dollars…per month. 50,000 won equals 35 USD. She can also get for a few years about 717 USD assistance but if she gets a job she must deduct so most don’t work openly. By the time the child is about 7-8 assistance stops.
As you can see I DO ACTUALLY live in SEOUL, since 1995, and I go to all the meeting at KWDI, and various Unwed Mother’s support groups, I am the most unbiased male Korean half-breed adoptee out here.
The group of KAD adoptees who want to Stop all ICA (InterCountry Adoptions) only number less than 400 members. About a hundred live in Korea.
Hey I could go on but the gist of it is this, Coercion by social workers is NOT the main culprit, it is the shame of the Family about a single Unwed mother, pressures to Abort (and do you know the figures on that? Visit me); it is the expulsion from the family that some not all Unwed mothers face that cause/force them to give up. Then imagine that instead of their baby being sent away, they have a very good chance to finding out it was secretly adopted and they may see children that could be THEIRS? This is also tragic and for the children adopted secretly, where are their rights to know?
Complex issues, yes? Need to update your facts and not depend on 1988 articles. Listen, I am NOT SMART, I just learned to hyperlink last November. Welcome to visit and check my facts, I try to link to several sources. Also look up Jane Jeong Trenka.
Hey, the glass is getting fuller. It may take another 15 to 20 years though.
April 28, 2010 at 10:12 pm
I am glad you acknowledge that mothers still get a raw deal in Korea and that the patriarchial society still does not give such women support. That means that they are not *choosing* – they are being forced to – there is a difference, believe me. After all, what mother would want their children to starve? It is not a choice when you are forced to surrender a child when you are told that they will starve if you don’t or that they will not receive medical care if you refuse to let them go for adoption (I know of Korean adoptees that were horrified to find that out). That is *not* choice by anyone’s standards.
April 28, 2010 at 10:26 pm
I wasn’t depending on 1988 articles – if you had bothered to check the links, you would see that they are very recent – as in the years 2007, 2008 and 2009!
(along with associated links to “Who Stole my Culture”, etc.).
One thing I will agree with you on is that it is very tragic that adoptions are secret and closed. You are preaching to the choir here on that score.
Trust me, I know, as do the other mothers on this list.
May 5, 2010 at 6:09 am
Unicorn,
I was commenting on just the 1988 article, do realize that others had other links. However that being said, who stole my culture should be amended to “Why Was I Abandoned by my PEOPLE?” There is actually a well known legend of “Bari/Pari Gong Ju” meaning literally “Thrown-away Princess”. Google that and you will find “abandoned princess korea” English on the goddess of the Shaman religion of Korea.
Sad to say, perhaps up to 400,000 Korean women have Given up for adoption, half overseas and half SECRETLY in country. Please see Jane Jeong Trenka’s Blog as she and I are WORKING TOGETHER. http://jjtrenka.wordpress.com/2010/04/30/kumsn-booklet/
The KUMSN is the Korean Unwed Mother’s Support Network which some of you know was started by Dr. Boas.
Please…let us find common ground, agree to disagree on a few things. What is important is for the entire RANGE of situations IN PRESENT DAY SOUTH KOREA.
Change comes slowly, ask OUR USA President. (though I did NOT vote for him, I respect him as MY President).
May 5, 2010 at 6:18 am
Also this from Your Post:
From Men’s News Daily By Robert Franklin, Esq.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Back on June 1st of this year, the province of Ontario opened all its old adoption records so that adoptees could locate their birth parents if they wanted. Read about it here (Toronto Star, 12/10/09). And, to no one’s great surprise, a lot of them did want to find their biological fathers and mothers.
UH, just want to note that many, not all, adoptees in USA that I know do not want to pursue searching either. Some have told me they don’t want to upset their adoptive family, kind of a ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ mindset. The surveys will give one CLEAR thing, there is NO ALL, in This Thing of Ours-Adoption. The cases are all over the place, and no group has dominance. The issues should not be looked at as BLACK or WHITE but SHADES OF GREY. (see my posts on that).
Watch for my “Perfect Solution” post coming soon.
May 5, 2010 at 8:53 am
Korean War Bab – you have misunderstood the Ontario article completely!!!
Fathers were DENIED the right to put their names on those birth records. My son’s father is one of them.
My son’s father (whom I am still in contact with) wanted to put his name on there. He went through all the correct procedures but the Ontario government then broke their promise to us that they would put his name on the document despite the fact that my son’s father made the legal statutory declaration of paternity as required.
My son’s father wanted to be found, as do many others. Do NOT make the assumption that they don’t want to be found just because their names are missing.
Other fathers have found that even when they managed to get their name on there, the Ontario government simply (and illegally) deleted their names by pasting a blank form over the original or they used white-out to get rid of this.
This isn’t rumour – the Deputy Registrar of Ontario has admitted this is true.
Please do not make *wrong* assumptions about people – in this case, you certainly do not have all of the facts!
My son’s father and others like him are fed up of hearing they don’t want to be found when in fact they do but the Ontario government has blocked them from this. They are truly fed-up of people like yourself making assumptions about him that are NOT true.
May 5, 2010 at 9:21 pm
[I could go on and on, basically what I am pointing out is that circumstances of life, little support for Unwed Mothers (and Single head of household women, some of which are from the now 50% rate of Divorces per marriages each year), just some of the REASONS that 63% CHOOSE to give up.]
If they have no support and they want to keep their child but society dictates that they do not, then where is the “choice”?
If one considers keeping a child vs. being kicked out on the streets (or having to give up one’s home) as a “real” choice, then you live in a privileged nation.
Many first-world nations and even some second-world nation would not force its own citizens into such a dire situation that they must either give up their child or “choose” to lose their home.
May 5, 2010 at 9:22 pm
“Please…let us find common ground, agree to disagree on a few things. What is important is for the entire RANGE of situations IN PRESENT DAY SOUTH KOREA.”
The protest against international/transracial adoption in Korea IS taking place during present day Korea.
May 7, 2010 at 2:19 pm
In answer to “you have misunderstood the Ontario article completely!!! UH, just want to note that many, not all, adoptees in USA that I know do not want to pursue searching either.
THE article says “a lot of them” that also mean NOT ALL. BUT we quibble on unimportant matters, what IS important that we all listen to each other, and as mere male I can only understand the female point of view from YOU. I certainly try to listen to everything I can. You won’t find many on the Pro-Life, anti-ABORTION side that agrees with ME, that in the final choice a Woman SHOULD have the last say, as I believe it is HER BODY and if she is aware of the results of her actions and the possible effects on her own mind, emotions, etc. then SHE will not be condemned by me, No stones will I pick up. Nor do I accuse her, as some in “my side of the fence”. But on the other hand, I understand the thinking of the man who “thinks that killing an infamous abortionist” he is justified, NO WAY. I cannot condone his actions. One wrong does not make a right, etc.
“The protest against international/transracial adoption in Korea IS taking place in present day Korea” by a mere fraction of the total of Adoptees. The members of Adoptees Solidarity Korea number only 450 members with over 50 NON-Korean Adoptees. The estimates of KADs are from 170,000 to 200,000 (including many that were done by Civil Law).
As long as they DO NOT have solutions to the 98% of SECRET adoptions in CIVIL adoption, and so called “domestic adoption”; plus have no answers for the left-over babies and older children that languish in 275 institutions; I can assure you their protest will fall on deaf Korean EARS.
Something must be done to encourage more openness, less shamefulness (telling Korean what they SHOULD do is not working by the way); Laws HAVE BEEN changed yet the hearts of the people have not BUT it is slowly moving that way.
We with our Western minds want to pull out, quit, if we have to spend too much time. The Vietnamese fought the Chinese for 900 years, had a short independence then the French ruled for 140-150 years, Japanese for 5-6, then back came the French until 1954, next the Americans until they left in 1975. Ho Chi Ming knew that they could outlast us. Point is that we expect KOREA with it’s Eastern mindset to stop ICA because of economic reasons? How stupid is that, (Not anyone here but some writers of the Anti-Adoption Adoptees Associates) to think that a country with almost 5,000 years of history must think like the West.
Australia took over 40 years, give Korea another ten or twenty. Most of us will be gone, then we shall see here what is happening in Australia IMPORTING children Into the country…
Seems we have extremists on
May 8, 2010 at 6:36 pm
KWB – the article you quoted was about those searching, so why use it about those that are not?
May 8, 2010 at 6:38 pm
BTW – this blog and this article have nothing to do with abortion, so why bring it up?
It is about babies being separated from their mothers.
May 10, 2010 at 7:44 pm
@Unicorn (is it okay to use that @ symbol?)
“About those searching, so why use it about those that are not?” Well, sort of the “glass is half-full or half-empty analogy”. ;)Either way it AIN’T ALL.
The horrible other “A” word has this to do with it. The daily numbers of abortion compared with the number of mothers keeping, and children given up/relinquishing IS indicative of the Society’s outlook on Life. Even the lowest number, compared to the babies born daily, is 1,000 to 21.
But are we still quibbling?
May 10, 2010 at 11:20 pm
KWB, adoption and abortion are NOT related. They are NOT alternatives to each other, except in the minds of pro-adoption, pro-life adoption-industry hacks who use ‘abortion’ as the scare-word to try to get those who are ignorant in the general public riled up in support of adoption. Having given birth, and having terminated a pregnancy, and having had a child stolen from me for adoption, I can compare the experiences and abortion and adoption are totally unrelated. Abortion is a decision made early in pregnancy. The decision about adoption cannot be made pre-birth, it MUST be made post-birth and even post-recover from birth, and this take at least 6 weeks. Dismembabyment of a mother at birth is horrendous and appalling and is a huge form of coercion. The mother has NEVER stood a chance to give informed consent.
I also disagree with your general attitude that it is okay for mothers to be coerced into surrendering because that’s the culture in Korea and because it is culturally-acceptable to deprive mothers of support, it is okay. And I disagree with your belief that a coerced choice is a “decision” or a “choice” at all. There is no freedom of choice in coercion, and the mother-child bond is so important that any pressure upon her to surrender negates any “choice” she has made if she surrenders. The hormonal storms of pregnancy and childbirth render her vulnerable to exploitation and coercion.
May 15, 2010 at 10:47 am
KWB – Cedar is absolutely correct.
Adoption and abortion have NOTHING to do with each other.
Every woman I know who has had an abortion never ever considered adoption – never. In fact, one said to me that she would prefer her baby to be dead than to be forced to surrender her baby to strangers. That is the mind set of women who have an abortion.
The mothers **forced** to surrender (and I have yet to come across any mother *willingly* surrender her child) wanted their children – period. They have been denied the means to support their children and even you have stated that Korean society makes it very difficult to do so. Being forced into a corner and being forced to surrender are *not* choices.
You just don’t seem to get that.
This blog and this article are NOT about abortion – the blog is about mothers not being given a chance to mother their children and having their children forcably taken. They are not related to the other subjects that you have gone off from the tangent.
You are way off-base.
My son was forcably taken from me without my consent, yet the very people who took him said I was a good mother. In Ontario, they were allowed to take children without needing a reason to jusify their actions and without any right of appeal. How does that make my son’s adoption a *choice*? How does it make it a choice if the mother is told that her baby died at birth and then the “dead” baby is put up for adoption? That happened all the time in Canada.
How is that a choice? How? Explain that one to me because I can’t find anyone who can tell me otherwise.
Social workers have now admitted that some took bribes/paid bribes for these children. How is that not trafficking? Where on earth does your obsession with the glass analogy even fit? My glass is completely empty by the fact that my son was stolen from me by a social worker who has now admitted to taking bribes. Your analogy is a nonsense and an insult to every mother like myself who had no say in the matter.
Your messages are not related to the subject matter being discussed here which is why I am “quibbling” with you.
BTW – addressing people with “UH” is extremely rude.
December 9, 2011 at 6:03 am
Getting back to the point, it really comes down to the government keeping records that are and always will be ours. They have had their say for long enough and denied me of my right as a human being, to find the people who I belong with. I have a right to be with my tribe of people. I have the right to know if I’m Irish man: hell I might even get a kiss. Nobody can produce a piece of paper that can change my DNA to the sick and absolutely criminal DNA of the family that I was sold to. I want my f@#%&*%! mulligan, but in all of their power they can’t give me back the 38 years I have spent away from the person that loved me first, I love you MOM, I loved you first too. This is to every mother out in cyberspace, you were not in control, you should be praised you brave, brave girl, and now the time has come for justice and it is ours. I will have my say, and it will be heard.
February 21, 2012 at 3:48 am
I wanted to stick my two cents in here…. I am an adopted person. I, at 52, was finally given my long birth certificate which contained my Mother’s name. Unfortunately it was 4 years too late and a year too late for any information from her husband. I did though find a brother and a sister.
Now you tell me, in 1960, how you would be able to keep a child out of wedlock, be allowed to stay in your neighbourhood with all the discrimination and pious attitudes of the time, with no way to support yourself and your child… being reminded again and again of these facts,definitely affect you. Being told it would be so much better for the “baby” to have a “normal” life and not be subjected to the term “bastard” all their lives. Being told that you will get over it honestly…. that you are helping another couple who cannot have a child… that no man will ever accept you with a child… you tell me if those are not words of coercion. A young woman who is terrified and adults that they are supposed to be able to trust… Many families would deliberately say these things to these women…. and much worse… the threat of losing everything they know and love… what choice is there???
When I received my paperwork, yes indeed the father part was not filled out.. I have since been informed that it was routine to take it out.. “You cannot guarantee who the father is you know… you only know who the mother is truthfully.” It would not matter who admitted to being the father or who claimed father hood of these children… IT WAS NOT ALLOWED.
The province of Ontario opened up the adoption files… what a joy that has been for thousands of people. Both birth parents and adopted children.. We have a “RIGHT” to know who we really are and stop living the lie we have all of our lives. Not just a moral right a LEGAL right… finally.