LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
LETTERS to the Editor 'Readers React to Matthew Rothschild's 'Babies for Sale* In "Babies for Sale" (Janu-lary issue), Matthew Rothschild presented a side of the Korean adoption story which the...
...But the story is not why there are so "many" adoptions from Korea...
...Steve Edwards Soquel, California The author replies: Look, I didn't disparage adoptive parents and I didn't minimize the problems that unwed mothers and abandoned children have in Korea...
...I went to agencies and orphanages just as Rothschild did, but my sources seemed much more upbeat about adoptions than did his...
...The fundamental change in Chicago politics is that black and progressive white and Hispanic voters will no longer accept any politician who makes deals with the white machine...
...The arms-race juggernaut has almost stopped and may soon go into reverse...
...If a child is not entered in the family registry, the birth-mother cannot legally relinquish it for adoption...
...In Korea, female babies are considered bad luck...
...January issue...
...This is the most important result of the adoptions, but it was glossed over in "Babies for Sale...
...As a result of his efforts, a new map was passed which gave him control of the Council in mid-1986...
...I believe we have been able to give our new daughter the invaluable gift of a loving home...
...South Korean society bears much of the responsibility for the disgraceful plight of orphans...
...I explored the complex issue of Korean adoptions in the United States, and I made sure that more than one viewpoint was represented...
...You attempt to divert attention from your true purpose by acknowledging that Harold "may well have been the best of today's big-city mayors"—in reality, no one else comes close—when your true intention is to criticize him for "fail[ing] to deliver on the promise that he would bring fundamental institutional change to Chicago...
...People on welfare, particularly long-term recipients, tend not to have these connections and are therefore frozen out of the primary job network...
...In Korea, it is an impossible feat for any woman who does not have money or parents willing to help...
...The foreigners I met who adopted Koreans or abetted the practice in some way were sanctimoniously smug in their contention that they were "doing the poor little Koreans a favor...
...The cover picture, the title, and most of the article give a very distorted picture...
...it is a distortion to suggest that they do...
...Ten million Korean Christians, accounting for 25 per cent of the population, have been conspicuously absent in the care of Korean orphans...
...Many of the adopting parents regard themselves as righteous liberals who can prove their anti-racism by adopting a Korean...
...It's easy to disregard unpleasant facts, especially when a childless couple is involved, but ethical considerations should be of paramount concern in any adoption...
...Favoring scattered-site public housing...
...The family registry also explains why so many children in Korea are "abandoned...
...The prevailing attitude is, "If we can get rid of these outcasts and make money and gain friends at the same time, it's a good deal for us...
...If peace leaders have finally begun a dialogue with political leaders, that should merit praise, not brickbats, from The Progressive...
...All letters may be edited for clarity and conciseness...
...Matthew Rothschild Madison, Wisconsin Unfair Workfare One point Laurie Udesky did not make in her article ("Workfare: It Isn't Fair and It Doesn't Work," December issue) is that most jobs that pay living wages come not through responding to help-wanted ads under the supervision of welfare department personnel, as provided for in the GAIN program, but through leads from friends and others in the informal networks accessible to most people who have jobs...
...Everything in the article pointed to a carefully monitored adoption system...
...My sense as a journalist leads me to suspect your author took a selectively negative view of his subject...
...Some of the mayor's progressive achievements include: ¶ Fighting the ward map of Jane Byrne, which diluted black and Hispanic representation on the Council...
...Nor did I call for the cessation of adoptions from Korea...
...Far-reaching changes in Korean society would be necessary for domestic adoptions to increase there—changes that cannot be made simply by a government-based public-relations effort...
...But I'm afraid people aren't willing to shell out more money for public broadcasting, whether radio or television, and would rather have the corporations pay for it...
...Like the Federal welfare reform of President Reagan's first term, it will probably further impoverish the poor and provide children with inadequate health care and nutrition—all without the "benefit" of reducing welfare costs by one penny...
...I simply tried to give American readers some understanding of how Korean adoptions work and why it is an issue of concern to many Koreans...
...Obviously, many of the people Rothschild interviewed have never seen the inside of a Korean orphanage...
...Those days are over, and that is the mayor's legacy...
...Peter Maas Madison, Wisconsin The editors welcome correspondence from readers on all topics, but prefer to publish letters that comment directly on material previously published in The Progressive...
...Rothschild reported on the large role foreign church groups play in purveying orphans to foreign couples...
...I suppose we should conclude that free speech is to be defended by The Progressive, but only within two columns of type...
...I know because I am the father of an adopted daughter from India...
...A chronic weakness of the peace movement has been its inability to focus latent political power on the decisionmakers...
...Mayor Washington's four-and-a-half years in office must be understood in the context of machine politics that he confronted, especially in the first three years...
...Thus, unwed mothers often can place their sons with family or friends, while female infants are rejected...
...Abuses do occur, and the monetary incentive puts a premium on finding babies for overseas adoption, regardless of the interests of the mother or the child...
...Ross R. Zarub Roslyn Heights, New York Matthew Rothschild's "Babies for Sale," read in a context that includes the sleazo hype of the cover, other graphics, and the quotations featured in bold type alongside the text, has as its implicit message the notion that adoptive parents are basically acquisitive shits...
...Becoming the national mayoral point person for fashioning a new urban agenda...
...Paying for a mother's medical care does not constitute baby-selling, nor does a social worker talking to a mother about adoption...
...The suggestion that these little girls should raise their own babies or be supported by welfare is not realistic...
...rather, it is why there are so few from such places as India or Ethiopia...
...In Korea, the issue of foreign adoptions is a controversial one...
...Ask any child...
...All are living happily in families they would not have had if they had remained in their home countries...
...That doesn't seem to indicate a large profit line...
...Therefore, there are many "arranged abandonments" in which someone brings a child to a police station or adoption agency, claiming to have found the child on the streets, when in fact the "finder" is the child's relative...
...In 1983, as a foreign correspondent, I visited Seoul and wrote about Amerasian orphans in Korea...
...One aspect the article failed to mention is the disproportionate ratio of female orphans to males...
...Having resided in Korea for six years, I was able to observe the realities of the orphan business first hand...
...And as for adoption fees, I suggest that you investigate some of the U.S...
...Unfortunately, I found that even mild criticism of the trade would bring down the wrath of many institutions and individuals with vested interests in perpetuating the present system...
...Because he shunned the machine and declared its days of divisiveness and corruption over, Harold was faced with a hostile City Council bloc of twenty-nine votes arrayed against him...
...If 90 per cent of Korean unwed mothers "want to keep their babies," as a social worker stated in the article, why don't these church groups set up factories with attached day-care facilities...
...Even in the United States, it is only recently that many unwed mothers have begun keeping their babies...
...John P. Herling Carle Place, New York Harold Washington Never have I been so totally disappointed in an article in a journal of the Left as I was in the editorial hatchet job on Chicago's late mayor, Harold Washington ("Town and Country," Comment, January issue...
...A couple wishing to adopt a foreign infant, particularly a Korean, is not necessarily obtaining the child on the terms presented by the adoption agency...
...While a child born to an unmarried mother can be added to her family registry, doing so disgraces the child, the mother, and the entire family...
...The story gave no evidence of baby-selling, which is a specific and definable crime...
...Father Ben Zweber Inchon, South Korea Maybe some Americans "buy" South Korean babies, but the fees are the basic sustenance of the private welfare societies there...
...Ray Lodato Chicago, Illinois Before We Cheer The INF treaty is mainly a symbolic step, but it does have unique significance that Samuel H. Day Jr...
...Dramatically increasing the number of women in high positions in his administration, including such non-traditional roles as planning director, budget director, and director of intergovernmental affairs...
...Neal E. Robbins Chicago, Illinois While it is certainly more desirable for children to be adopted within their own culture, the concept of nonrelative adoption is so foreign to Koreans that it was not even legal until 1976...
...It is disconcerting to see The Progressive advising peace activists to forsake the corridors of political power and tend their gardens of hope at the grass roots ("A Peace of the Action," Comment, November issue...
...Lois Melina, Editor Adopted Child Newsletter Moscow, Idaho Matthew Rothschild quoted me correctly, but that is the only part of his article I agree with...
...The fact is that $5,000 is not exorbitant for an international adoption...
...Such children have no legal existence and will have difficulty attending school or holding a job...
...The implication that the adoptions are motivated mainly by money is particularly galling...
...LETTERS to the Editor 'Readers React to Matthew Rothschild's 'Babies for Sale* In "Babies for Sale" (Janu-lary issue), Matthew Rothschild presented a side of the Korean adoption story which the self-serving individuals involved in the trade are reluctant to acknowledge...
...In desperation to justify his grant, he hyped it for all he could...
...I could have provided greater horror stories from domestic adoption agencies-like the one that requires women to earn less than their husbands, or the one that has a no-smoking rule for domestic but not for overseas adoptive parents...
...Mobilizing a political movement that cannot be bought by any politician not committed to progressive ideals...
...He refused its entreaties and forced it to deal with him and his agenda...
...I understand the concerns of adoptive parents and others involved in the adoption process, but I don't accept the conclusion that all adopted Korean children are living happily in the United States or the implication that all the Korean "birth-mothers" are better off without their babies...
...Librarians in the City University of New York were active in the formation of my union, the Professional Staff Congress, American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO, which has achieved top salaries and superior benefits for librarians as well as for other faculty...
...Harold broke the machine...
...There's plenty of subterfuge and profit in the adoption of Korean orphans...
...The decisions to eliminate weapons, shut down plants, and seek security by means of peaceful accommodation are made in the Capitol, not in Grassroots, U.S.A...
...For the first time, on-site inspection will be authorized...
...agencies that charge much more though their costs are considerably lower...
...If their intentions are so benign, why don't they adopt a starving Ethiopian or Mozambican...
...Such action deserves more than damning with faint praise because it falls short of perfection...
...The Progressive chose to ignore this in calling the mayor a failure...
...Ronald Grimes Silver Spring, Maryland Matthew Rothschild's "Babies for Sale" brought out some important questions about adoptions in Korea, but it was far too negative...
...I suspect Rothschild stumbled on some adoption data in the Statistical Abstract and thought he had a story...
...And, of real importance, serious talks about a 50 per cent reduction in strategic warheads are under way...
...Alison Brennan San Francisco, California Terrified Librarians I wish to contradict your correspondent who referred to librarians as "pusillanimous" and who has never heard of a librarians' union ("Terrified Librarians," Letters, January issue...
...It should be clear that the mayor did bring "fundamental institutional change" to Chicago...
...I did not confect the controversy...
...No doubt the adoption system in Korea is troubled in many ways...
...My efforts to submit a full-length rebuttal to your ill-informed attack on a great politician were continuously rebuffed...
...And the thousands of children prevented from being adopted abroad would face an ominous future in their country of birth...
...It's just not that neat and clean...
...Obviously, measures should be taken to prevent real baby-selling...
...Where are the interviews with the mothers, with the adoptive parents, and with the children who have grown up and can speak for themselves...
...The same negative impact is being felt by public radio stations and by independent stations affiliated with the Community Broadcasting Network...
...Consequently, most children born to unwed mothers are not added to the family registry...
...I have seen many adopted children from Korea and other nations...
...we sent Social Welfare Society $2,750, which helped cover plane fare, the home's costs, and our premature son's twenty-seven days in hospital incubation...
...The paperwork and travel that go into such an adoption are mind-boggling...
...The fault lies with The Progressive, however, for failing to tell the whole story...
...He made no accommodations to its divisive agenda or its corruption...
...More and more programming is geared to the acquisition of corporate sponsors...
...If all concerned weren't absolutely sure that our children's lives have been improved by the adoption process, none of us would be involved in it...
...Korea, already flooded with money from the success of its exports, surely could find easier ways to turn a buck...
...The Progressive seems to honor free speech and civil liberties on a rhetorical but not a practical level...
...These are just some of the mayor's progressive achievements, poorly summarized...
...seems to ignore ("Before We Cheer," Reflections, November issue...
...But this occurs in very few documented instances...
...Rescuing the city from the fiscal disaster of fifty years of machine rule...
...For the first time, the net store of nuclear warheads will be reduced...
...Obviously, this wouldn't be a way to gain congregants, donations, and publicity in the West...
...It is understood that these children will probably be adopted abroad...
...But Rothschild offers only the flimsiest evidence that these lapses occur on a regular and systematic basis...
...It wasn't necessarily his fault, but it was his failure...
...I did not think The Progressive would sell its soul for a mere $25...
...It seems that Asian orphans are chic with Westerners—a fad that the Korean government has actively promoted, much to its discredit...
...Such services degrade the value of university degrees meant to celebrate the achievement of a certain level of independent thought...
...As Aufderheide suggests, this trend ought to be a matter of public debate...
...Day concedes that elimination of all nuclear weapons in one fell swoop is an impossible goal...
...A subsidiary notion seems to be that interracial families are themselves racist...
...The number of Korean unwed mothers is not remarkable considering how many young people leave home in their teens to work in the sweatshops of the cities...
...Yoav Chudnoff Madison, Wisconsin Degrading Degrees I object to the classified advertisement offering "assistance" in the form of 15,278 term papers...
...We might wish Koreans were more understanding of the unwed mother and her child, but putting a sudden stop to foreign adoptions would not necessarily accomplish this...
...These white alderpeople succeeded in stifling almost every major progressive initiative...
...Backing the proposed gay-and-lesbian-rights ordinance in the face of opposition from the Roman Catholic cardinal and vocal black ministers...
...President Reagan's belated first step has begun the long, tough journey toward genuine world security...
...The few dissatisfied social workers he quotes do not seem representative...
...More than seventy of the mayor's appointments, many of whom would have given him control over key city agencies, were held hostage in committees controlled by the twenty-nine...
...H. Dale Turner Tacoma, Washington Public Broadcasting Pat Aufderheide hit the nail on the head in her remarks on corporate funding of public-television programs ("What Makes Public TV Public...
...The GAIN program, which was supposed to get people off welfare and enable them to live dignified lives, is really just a new series of hoops for the poor to jump through...
...Policies like these, and the bureaucratic vitriol of the National Association of Black Social Workers, were among the reasons we chose Korean adoption, thus laying ourselves open to Rothschild's denunciation...
...Countless librarians have fought against censorship in communities across the country...
...This gave him only one-and-a-half years in which to push his progressive initiatives...
...We did not pay "a price of about $5,000...
...Promoting the successful declaration of Chicago as the nation's largest nuclear-free zone...
...Hysteria sparked by hyped journalism should not blind us to the fact that the great majority of international adoptions give children a home, and that beats life in a godforsaken orphanage...
...Koreans do not have individual birth certificates, but are listed on the family registries of the father...
...It is truly a shame that Koreans do not try to find homes for these children in Korea, and great harm results whenever a mother is pressured into giv^ ing up her child...
Vol. 52 • March 1988 • No. 3
