This post is probably going to generate a few hard feelings with some of my sisters, if, in fact, my blog is important enough to be read by enough people to make any kind of discernible difference. It may be that it is of no consequence at all. I hope do that all who do read it will understand that this is my personal belief and opinion and that I am led by my conscience and concern for the best interests of the original family preservation/adoption reform(abolition) movement. I hold no hard feelings against those with whom I disagree, but I am of a strong conviction concerning this issue.
Not too long ago, there was an email circulated by several people that stated they were clarifying a misconception regarding the Allison Quets case. They said that there was a rumor that she had actually been in a surrogacy deal with the Needhams and had backed out. Well, maybe that kind of rumor has been going around. I never saw it but I sincerely believe them when they say that was not the truth of the matter.
HOWEVER, nothing was said to address the point of real truth from which this rumor probably originated. While there is no reason to believe that she was ever involved in such a surrogacy arrangement, it is still a fact that the ova used in the IVF procedure that resulted in the problematical pregnancy of Ms. Quets WERE NOT HER OWN EGGS! Nope...no surrogacy here...just embryo adoption. Why is this fact constantly ignored or downplayed or diverted, hmmmm? I see the hands of a very savvy attorney who knows PR and how to use people to the advantage of the case he is working. In denying "rumors of a surrogacy arrangement" the real issue of embryo adoption was cleverly avoided. I, for myself, don't like my concerns being dismissed in such a cavalier manner.
For those who think that this is not an important aspect of this issue and that the Quets case can open doors for us, I'd like to refer you to the appearance on national television by Ms. Quets. The interview was all about her...and she gloried in it. Nothing..I repeat..NOTHING was said about the prevalence of coercion, the frauds used by the adoption industry or the hideous laws in Florida. It was all about the attention and publicity and her personal angst. So far, I have seen nothing but sensationalism and a few decent newspaper articles coming out of Canada that did focus some part of the articles on the issues but more on the splashy aspects of her dramatic flight north of the border...an action that I suspect was well orchestrated with promises made, etc. JMO, on this one. Other than the fact that Canada was the country to which Quets "fled," this is really not about Canada. The US needs to choose its own causes.
One other thing I need to insert here for those who scan rather than read...NO the issue is NOT about IVF. IVF with the mother's own ova is a good thing as far as I can see. The real issue is donor eggs/embryo adoption/helpless embryo adoptees with no chance to ever know their heritage.
I'd like to beg my sister moms and others in the original family preservation movement to please reconsider who you want to use as a poster child. There are other, horrible cases of adoption industry coercion and fraud being fought right now, by people without the wherewithal to employ a clever legal eagle with connections. These are regular people like you and like me...not professionals with deep pockets who adopted the embryos of others...but people whose lack of connections, financial and otherwise, made them vulnerable grist for the adoption mills and who lost their own, genetic children. Quets cannot deny that the eggs were not her own...that is a matter of record and easily discovered. When that becomes general, public knowledge, and taken with the fact that we have taken a stand against embryo adoption as groups and individuals, this is going to come back and bite all of us in our collective butts. Yes, the fact that the eggs were not her own IS important, no matter how hungry we all are for a breakthrough, a hero and how much we want to see a big splash made for our cause.
Maybe the attorney representing Ms. Quets would like to take one of these really worthy cases on, say the Bennett case in Ohio, pro-bono? For some reason, I highly doubt that will happen. Meanwhile, I am watching the anti-adoption movement floundering in the waves created by one woman who decided she had a "right to a child," even if it meant using the eggs of another woman. This situation has diverted, divided and conquered and other objectives have gone begging. I advise us all to head for high ground and let her and her attorneys navigate these seas. Meanwhile, I am also resigning myself to being an iconoclast, once again. Luckily, in this one, I am not completely alone.
Good luck to the Bennetts and their supporters in Akron on Friday, the 19th. I will be there with you in spirit. To my other sisters and others in this valiant fight, I apologize if I have offended any of you, but my conscience is my own and I have to answer to it.
2 comments:
Quets was not an embryo adoption. She did invetro however they were not the "adoptive" mother's eggs. She did IVF because all attempts with her own eggs failed. The adoptive parents became involved after Quets boyfriend introduced her to his cousins which were the parents who adopted the twins.
An embryo adoption is when an embryo, IVF created, is implanted in the woman's womb that is NOT from her own eggs. Those were NOT Quets eggs, therefore the embryos were not from her eggs, ergo, she adopted the embryos. I don't see where you get that it wasn't an embryo adoption. If her own eggs were not viable, she should have stopped then and accepted her fate.
The twins created by the eggs that were not hers and the sperm that was also donor have no way to trace their natural heritage now. What do you think embry adoption IS? What she did IS Embryo Adoption.
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