When Art Does Not Imitate Life

I have added a link to this post. It is a terrific op-ed piece by Jess DeBalzo who is a wonderful original family preservation activist. Like me, she is not afraid to call herself "anti-adoption."

http://www.opednews.com/articles/life_a_jessica__080128_a_horror_show_called.htm

Her review of the movie, "Juno" echoes my concerns about the impact that this film might have on our country and the young women who go to see it. It presents adoption as just the peachiest thing imaginable and the only alternative to abortion. How precious and how inaccurate! Showing the heroine keeping and raising her child would have been much more accurate and fair to the average single mother.

It makes me wonder who funded it and authorized the writing of the script. The anti-reproductive choice/pro-adoption, or, so-called, "Child Welfare" consortium seems to have a lot of influence and money to use to lobby and, I imagine, to make a film. Adoption is, as we have often stated in our groups, on our websites and in our blogs, a big-money business that uses young moms like breeding tools to fulfill the demand for healthy infants for the adoption mills.

Juno is played for laughs, but there is nothing laughable about losing your child to adoption. The aftermath, as it was portrayed in this piece of fantasy-fiction film, is so unrealistic as to leave me with my mouth open in profound shock. The grief that goes along with this "decision" is life-long and profound. The "decision" is often based on incomplete information and industry propaganda and "love-bombing" by wannabe adopters. On the whole, this movie is a slap in the face of mothers and adoptees who know how it really feels. The person who wrote this is either an adopter, not involved in adoption at all, or a mother in deep, deep denial.

If all it had taken for me to get past my losses was to have a boyfriend drop in with a guitar, then I wouldn't be on this blog today, would not have spent years searching for my children, would not have been blessed by my daughter spending years searching for me and would not be so adamantly working to prevent just what this movie unashamedly promotes. My feelings are echoed by thousands of mothers and adoptees and millions more, still in that "closet of shame."

Let's get real, Hollywood. You have insulted the intelligence of some very savvy people, here, and made a mockery of an American tragedy. What are you going to follow it up with? A movie about euthanizing senior citizens and babies born with birth defects? Jeez!!

The kids at the top are my great grandchildren and the one mugging for the camera, my Jantzen, would not be with us if my granddaughter and daughter had followed "Juno's" example. Thank God, they didn't. He keeps us laughing with delight and extreme love and he knows who his family IS.