What Is An Anti-Adoptionist?

This one really got banged around on a message board, this morning, with every negative connotation that the writer could think of to denigrate anyone who held this kind of belief. Their view was that the anti-adoption-minded person was mired in the past and filled with hate and unable to accept responsibility. Reeeeeeeaaaally? My goodness, I didn't know that I live in the past and hated people and I hope my family and friends don't find out how I shy away from responsibility. Gosh...I suppose I should thank this person for telling me what I feel and think, but I'll pass and offer the truth instead. It goes better with my coffee.

One thing that the writer stated WAS true. I do not believe in adoption as viable and desireable in any way, manner, shape or form. I do not think that it is necessary for people to pretend to be parents in order to give a child care and nurture. I endorse, instead, a strengthened and well-policed form of legal guardianship, perfereably a kinship guardianship if at all possible, with the child's original name and heritage left intact and unaltered. This is not the same thing as foster care for the requirememnts would be more stringent and better supervised for guardians.

Adoption brings into the mix the emotional needs of the adopters and the onus for meeting those needs seems to wind up on the shoulder of the adoptee. Adoption is the legalized lie that goes against all that nature has disposed. It is used as a form of eugenics and is a denial of the reality and importance of the mother-child bond. NO mother who is equipped (as opposed to the self-centered "ready") to be a mother should ever be led down the garden path of the, so-called, "informed choice." She should be encouraged and supported in keeping her baby FOR THE SAKE OF THAT BABY! We who are anti-adoption are definitely opposed to the idea that a women who finds herself pregnant can just "choose" adoption as an out like those who choose to terminate a pregnancy have been accused.

Replacing adoption with the option of a legal guardianship is only sensible and logical. When something not only doesn't work, but doesn't adapt well to being re-worked, the smart person replaces it with something that is more appropriate to the need. Adoption is a dinosaur with the huge feet of self-interest that walks all over the confusion and pain of the participants. If the people who consider themselves "more rational or reasonable (not saying that is so)" want to cling to its tail as it tramples their gardens, then that is their problem.

The myth of choice also entered into the essay of our detractor. We "a-a's are purported not to "take responsibility" for our loss. That is the BIGGEST Pile of Guano I have ever heard. How can you take responsibility for being coerced, forced, manipulated and threatened into doing something that every molecule in you said not to do? I was a scared, insecure teen with no support at all. No other option was given to me, no helping hand was extended. I cannot take on the responsibility for something I DID NOT DO! Yes, I was 50% responsible for the pregnancy with my first child...though I sure as Hell didn't ask for the rape that resulted in the second. But, with the first one, I plead gulty to being a young girl in love with the wrong guy. Why should I have been punished for that and continue to be punished to this day with stupid and hateful condemnations by such as the author of that post to which I refer? I would love to have been held responsible...responsible for the raising and nurturing of the children I bore. THAT'S taking responsibility!

Groups against whom an injustice has been done have all been known for educating the public about that injustice, asking that things change to avoid that injustice in the present and future and requiring the perpetrators of that injustice to address the matter and, at least, issue an apology. I guess that Martin Luther King, among others, lived in the past and was filled with hate. Whoulda thunk it?

It was brought to the reader's attention in the "anti-anti-adoptionism" tirade, as well, that there is some question in the mind of the anti-adoptionist about the parental status of the adopters. Hey, what can I say? As Joyce Kilmer put it, "Only God can make a tree." Run with that thought. I respect how my adult reunited children feel about the people who raised them, and I would never say anything to them that is negative about them. But I will never call them parents, either. For all that it has been cruelly said that "it takes more than giving birth to make a mother," let me say that it takes more than whining about changing diapers and sitting up with a sick child (which I would have given my right arm to do) to confer motherhood on a genetic stranger.

And finally...the "hate" card that ties into the old "anger" bit. Since when did well-earned, righteous indignation over an injustice and a tragedy become something bad? I get angry often...all humans do. But that doesn't mean I have hatred or malice in my heart against the person or persons at whom my anger is directed. Usually, I just want them to go away and leave me to walk my chosen path. Anger is a feeling, not an affliction, and has also been an effective motivator for some really great happenings in history. I daresay that the US was a bit miffed when they decided to join in the fray during WWII. Do you really think that all those men who placed their own bodies upon the railroad tracks in India did so because they were just so happy with the British government? And those boys tipping all that tea into the Boston Harbor were there out of love and friendship? Something tells me that someone, somewhere was pissed.

Anger, like anything else, has good uses if properly directed and understood. That "anger" argument against us is so stale it crumbles. Something happened to us and continues to happen to others that IS JUST PLAIN DOWNRIGHT WRONG! If we don't get angry, nothing will get done about it to keep it from continuting to happen. So excuse my convictions, but, if all you venom spitters are through trying to rake anyone that challenges your comfy views over the coals, those of us with a REAL agenda need to get back to work.

Robin Westbrook
True Mother of Four
http://www.originsusa.org
http://www.keepyourbaby.com/
http://groups.msn.com/Anti-AdoptionTruth
Reformers who are always compromising, have not yet grasped the idea that truth is the only safe ground to stand upon.
- Elizabeth Cady Stanton