Correspondence
Correspondence THE ADOPTION DILEMMA I WANT TO SHARE WITH YOU my moSt sincere gratitude for Ira Carnahan's article exposing the true colors of Bastard Nation ("The Rise of 'Bastard Nation,'" Sept....
...I was told to lie about the fact that I was a mother and to deny it to myself (it didn't work...
...Shame on Carnahan for his casual remarks about there being no stigma now to adoption...
...My wife was born in 1968...
...If the vote were put to Oregoni-ans today, I would nearly bet my life that well under 57 percent would vote for it...
...I know my family...
...I believe Bill Pierce has done some wonderful things in the world of adoption, but I also believe he is spreading misinformation and lies about adoptees he seems to consider ungrateful, spoiled children...
...I belong to a large group of birth mothers, over 400 strong and growing...
...In return, we now know my wife's medical history...
...Closed records affect more than just a birth mother's privacy...
...My daughter searched for me from the time she was 18 until she found me when she had just turned 33...
...I know that the older I get, the more I act like my father...
...I searched for my wife's parents in a closed-records system...
...I can tell you that at least three of those young women have said to me that they will not consider adoption if they have no hope of ever hearing from that child again...
...I have sympathy for those women who made a bad decision regarding the concealment of their pasts...
...The knowledge of the circumstances of their birth and surrender is important...
...For that matter, no one called the birth mother to inform her that the records had been retroactively sealed in 1982...
...Most of them are honest with their families about the past...
...It is a warped and weird society we live in, as more and more people demand that their needs be met by others instead of treating individuals with the respect and dignity that mutual consent would afford in adoption situations...
...While the desire to know may not be a fundamental right, it should certainly be understood...
...REV...
...He says that abortion rates are expected to increase in the states with open records because birth mothers will decide in favor of abortion rather than giving their child up in an open-records state...
...If she had known there was a history of such problems, she could have been checked years ago...
...Not until Measure 58 was my unplanned pregnancy and subsequent adoption "secret...
...The person whom I placed for adoption over 15 years ago cannot access my identity yet...
...As I grew up a "normie," only slightly hampered by secrecy and lies, I did not hesitate to claim what is mine, my name and heritage...
...As the parent then of three teens and one younger child, I felt that it was unconscionable that they had only 50 percent of their medical and genealogical history, that of their father...
...But the relinquished progeny of these women bear no responsibility for the bad decisions of their birth mothers...
...All her life, she's had to fill out her medical forms with a simple phrase: "I'm adopted...
...and that certain people (birth parents) have the right to demand government assistance in covering up their pasts while the records of other citizens are concealed...
...This fact alone is something the public does not understand and leaves many of us utterly powerless in our desire to have the value of our truth recognized...
...These gifts are taken for granted by people who are not adopted...
...It took me three years of diligent work, but I found them...
...Carnahan says that up to one-third of birth mothers do not wish contact...
...ELAINE M. PETERSEN Chicago, IL I TAKE ISSUE with Ira Carnahan's "The Rise of 'Bastard Nation.'" I am a lifelong conservative and an ordained Southern Baptist minister...
...A lot happens in over 30 years of medical developments, but after the adoption records were filed, no one called and updated the agency about the birth mother's family medical records...
...I love my family...
...Polite adults do not use the word bastard, but the secrecy of sealed records perpetuates the stigma of illegitimacy...
...They go out and live their lives the best they can...
...I believe they have every right to find them...
...It is impossible for anyone who has not been touched by adoption to know what it's like to be left in the dark...
...NAME WITHHELD BY REQUEST Portland, OR I AM A BIRTH MOTHER who was never promised and never requested any form of privacy, anonymity, or confidentiality, especially from my own flesh and blood...
...They are not...
...Adoption reunions happen every day, even in closed-records systems...
...The only family medical history she had was prior to that year...
...NAME WITHHELD BY REQUEST Boston, MA I AM AN ADULT, NOW 64, who found out a dozen years ago that I was adopted, then searched for and began a relationship with my real mother and birth family...
...We handled our search with respect and with great care not to interrupt the birth parents' lives...
...Carnahan says that medical records are available in most states, but that isn't the case...
...As an Oregon birth mother and adamant opponent of Measure 58 [Oregon's "open records" initiative], I can say it's about time someone started to look at this issue from a clearer point of view and see the harm being done by groups such as Bastard Nation with their "win at any cost" tactics...
...I was also told that I would "forget" (I didn't) and that having other children would "heal" me (it didn't...
...it was private...
...JEFF GILBREATH Opelika, AL BRAVO TO IRA CARNAHAN for "The Rise of 'Bastard Nation.'" Being a birth mother, I can't tell you how disheartening it is to hear that a very personal and responsible decision I made many years ago is now regarded as complete irresponsibility, and that I should be "exposed" for the crime...
...That math still indicates that the majority of birth mothers would like to know at least if their child is all right...
...I am not some rabble-rousing, sign-carrying person...
...Let's hope that some people involved in adoption still recognize that birth mothers are not things to be used as means to a storybook reunion but are actually persons in and of themselves who deserve the respect and dignity that they so lovingly gave to the children they gave birth to...
...I have always hoped I would be in a place where a mutual consent reunion might work for my birth child and me...
...They deserve to know...
...It is ridiculous to tell any adult citizen that they have no right to know "who they are...
...I am also married to an adoptee...
...Now I can only hope the person to whom I gave the life she deserved has learned dignity and respect and will go through mutual consent registries to contact me...
...I have never been in a protest—yet...
...We should not support laws that exist to soothe the feelings of certain individuals, and we certainly should not support these laws when they infringe on the rights of other citizens...
...The ability of Measure 58 proponents to produce and respond to articles and stories on their own behalf is overwhelming to those of us who find it virtually impossible to gain a fraction of their cohesion on behalf of our side of this issue...
...I started the search because I wanted to know where this person I love so much came from...
...A brief medical history which is filled out by the birth mother when she signs the adoption papers is the extent of medical history offered by the states Carnahan mentions, and that is not enough...
...When our two children were born, my wife began to develop some medical problems...
...Their heritage is important...
...JUDY NORRIS Moraga, CA...
...But already the depth of betrayal I feel as perpetrated on me by the state of Oregon has taken its toll in my life...
...Those who bear unwanted children and relinquish them to adoption are to be given a level of "privacy" only surpassed by participants in witness protection programs...
...Worse, he advocates that adopted persons be denied the same rights that other non-adopted persons have: the right to access their own birth certificates...
...I was told it would be wrong of me to intrude on my own child's life...
...Yet, my children and my wife are a mystery to me...
...Now, however, it is secret, as the nature of this issue in this state has polarized people in a way that makes it unsafe for me to share that part of my life with anyone who is not already aware of it...
...Adoptees and birth parents are not going to stop searching for each other...
...I have been openly against many of their strong-arm tactics in our AWARE forum...
...We are coming out of the darkness of the shame in which we were hidden so many years ago...
...We ask—no, demand—that our children be given the gift that only we can give them...
...Why continue to deny to a group of adults the same right all the rest of us enjoy as a matter of course, that right being the knowledge of our origins...
...The social stigma of an unwed mother is falling by the wayside and these girls are keeping their children...
...I can tell you that I've counseled young women who know it is best to give their children a chance at a better life through adoption...
...Their medical history is important...
...I was ecstatic then, in 1993, and still am grateful to her for the search today...
...Locating my mother also gave her a chance to heal the issues surrounding my relinquish-ment...
...Look at the statistics of young single mothers who decide to keep their children...
...Each of us has children who will create another generation, and as a parent I can equip my daughters and son for life if I give them as much information as I can...
...You see adoption rates falling...
...I have to agree with Carnahan about Bastard Nation and their tactics...
...I also sit on the leadership team of AWARE, Alabamians Working for Adoption Reform and Education...
...Instead of advocating personal responsibility and liberty, Carnahan has taken the side of government intervention...
...We now know why she acts the way she does and who our children look like...
...They would rather keep the baby than give the child up in a closed-records system...
...Birth mothers are not put into the witness protection program...
...They are adults looking for answers...
...They also leave behind a paper trail that is easily traced once found...
...The proponents were impressively deceptive in their simplification of the measure, and it worked—right up to the Supreme Court of Oregon and beyond...
...I am the person who searched for, and found, my wife's birth mother and birth father...
...I am a member of various pro-life groups and work diligently with my state's organizations for pro-life causes...
...I have no medical history...
...Is it too hard to understand the fact that, though my in-laws were and are wonderful parents, my wife is nothing at all like them...
...They know that in order to deal with it, they need to be up front about it...
...I was told that, because I was young and unmarried, I was "unfit" to raise my child, though I dearly wanted to...
...ROBIN K. WESTBROOK Sanford, FL AS ONE OF THE FOUNDERS of Bastard Nation, an adoptee, and a birth mother, I'm troubled to see The Weekly Standard champion two decidedly anti-conservative ideas: that the government ought to be able to conceal normally public and/or accessible records from its own citizens...
...While I think they have presented humor to the sometimes harsh and cruel world that many adoptees face, I do not like the tactics they use...
...This claim of equal rights is nothing more than a sham, as illustrated by the continuous stories of reunions in the Oregonian...
...Carnahan speaks of an adoptee's "desire" to know genes and blood as being a leaning to the left...
...Who is really being protected here...
...I certainly do not think the efforts of groups such as AWARE are going to harm adoption...
...Isn't it about time the media, as well as people like the very vocal Bill Pierce, stepped out of the myth and fairy tales of our past and faced the real and present truth...
...They should not be punished by having their birth certificates withheld from them...
...We are vocal, strong, empowered, and we won't go away...
Vol. 6 • September 2000 • No. 2
