Saturday, March 28, 2009

All's Fair In Adoption?


It would seem, according to this CNN story, that breaking the law of any country is okie-dokie if the perpetrator is a pair of adopters who "dreamed of becoming parents." In a country (Egypt) where adoption is not legal, our "heroes" falsified documents in order to procure children for their "parenting needs."
As the story comes out, the attorneys for these people are going for the sympathy vote by waxing eloquently about their overwhelming need for a child. The bitch of it is that no one respects the laws of the country involved, just as no one respects the culture of the country of a child's birth or the person who brought a child into the world. No...all the sympathy is with the heroic, saintly adopters who suffer from infertility. The suffering of the mothers, grief and pain, and the suffering of the children who are not allowed their own, true heritage, take a back seat to the problems of the infertile and the adopters seeking social canonization. In 1962, if I had been told that I had to either lose my children to adoption(which is what I was told to do) or be infertile and never give birth, I think I would have chosen the latter.
What is wrong with this picture? Have we, the American public, fallen so fast and hard for the industry hype that we only validate the pain of the adopters while negating the deeper pain of the mothers of adoption loss and their children, shorn of their civil right to their own identities?
What about the case of the couple who abducted and raised a young man after the mother and father changed their minds about surrender? Not only did the kidnappers (and make no mistake...that is what they are) get all the sympathy, but even the abductee involved was supportive of the criminals that raised him. No one spared a thought for the parents that had searched for their son for years. I still do a slow burn over the injustice of that one.
So now falsifying birth certificates in Egypt and breaking the laws of that nation is being excused as a means to a "noble" end. How noble is adoption which is really all about the selfish needs of the adults that adopt and the money made by the industry? No one who really knows the score pretends, any longer, that it is all about the children, except the industry spin doctors and the adopters, themselves. There is no compassion for the mothers who have been made to represent the "sins of Eve" to the prudish and hard-nosed among us. And the children are seen as ungrateful if they, as adults, insist on their civil rights.
When did our world become so off-kilter that there is no compassion for mothers who lose their children and children deprived of their mothers? Why is that sacred bond no longer honored for what it is? Natural family preservation seems to only be for those that follow obscure and judgmental rules that have nothing to do with loving thy neighbor. Churches have long tried to keep their hands in the social engineering pot, doing all they can do to see that children are raised by "the right kind" of people, ie., those who follow the tenets of the church.
Somewhere in this land of myth and legend, there has to be someone who cringes at the thought of punishing an unmarried and/or financially disadvantaged mother by taking her child. Diogenes needs to lend us his lantern, but, rather than searching for an honest man, we need to search for what we have lost...balanced values and true compassion.
It's out there. I know it is.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Robin,

No, money changed hands. Hello, there was the $5000, for expenses and donation. Sounds to me like the church has its hands dirty, along with adopters who just wanted a baby. oh, those poor things, they are great grandparents ages..hello.

Didn't they think that would be a red flag.

Oh, no they had papers..it was all legal, although adoption in Egypt is illegal!

I read the responses from the adoption lovers, those who know an adoptee, those who have adopted, those who know nothing but have pity for these poor adopters who broke the law.

Nothing for the babies, or the natural moms after all they are the incidentals when it comes to adoption.

g

Marley Greiner said...

As a life-long child hater, I have never understood this need to reproduce biologically or through statute. Infertility is a gift that should be celebrated. It frees you for a happy life, not one full of stress and strife and mindless blather.

I'd love to see these jokers thrown in a Egyptian prison, but since we're dealing with a international situation it won't happen, probably It's not like they were smuggling heroin or something useful.

Robin said...

While I don't see things the same way, Marley, I understand what you are saying and defend your right to feel the way you so.

I have family members, now deceased after living into their
90's, who were never able to have children. They lived with it and played the hand they were dealt. We nieces and nephews benefitted from their attention and guidance and they lived happy, productive lives, fulfilled lives. I learned a lot from them about acceptance and liking who you are.

I also don't quite see "by statute" as true reproduction. It's social engineering by legality and what the adopters receive into their homes is not a product of their genetics. God knows, though, that most of them will try to make it seem that way.

Reproduction is a natural process. Adoption is anything but natural.

Anonymous said...

BRAVO BRAVO Robin,
I echo your every word,we mothers are still perceived as societies filth, and continued daily diet full of lying crap,and sickening propaganda spouted from the psuedo social wreckers.
Wow how they are beginning to quiver, as we mothers are armed now, thanks to brave women, that access bona fide social wrecker archives and expose their tirade of dirty tricks they have waged against us,we are so well equipped now ( I name Karen W.Buterbaugh, www.babyscoopera.com) ORIGINSNSW,also ORIGINS CANADA,ADOPTIONCROSSROADS, anybody that is not educated to the truth after reading that exposure, truly is a lost cause.
And you Robin, taking them on, HEAD ON, no quarter given, you command great respect from fellow mothers of loss,truly it was the rape of our soul, and the theft of our babies,sanctioned by the state.

Dont get me started on churches that buy and sell babies, and say it is in the name of Christianity--Here's what the bible calls them.
"THE MEN STEALERS".
They qualify their dishonest deeds by saying---NOT FOR PROFIT???

THEY ARE A GENERATION OF VIPERS.

The FILTHY LUCRE THEY ACCRUE, for their plush offices, and houses, cars, boats and plane's, plush fancy church buildings,entertained by big bands,and
with orchestra's also fitted out with plush carpeting.
Within the church, counsellling suite's with "SO CALLED COUNSELLORS, FOR EVERYTHING UNDER THE SUN" with their EXORBITANT RATES they charge for counselling,THEY ARE NOTHING MORE THAN CHARLATAN'S OF THE HIGHEST ORDER.
TRULY A GENERATION OF VIPERS,
THE MANTLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN WOULD NEVER DON THEIR BEING, AS THEY ARE SO TARNISHED BY THE FILTHY LUCRE, SWELLING THEIR BANK BOOKS,----LIKE THE RICH YOUNG RULER,BIBLICAL QUOTE,HE COULD NOT GIVE UP THE RICH LIFE,HE WENT TO HELL,WITH HEAVEN ON HIS MIND. IT WOULD BE MORE THAN THEIR LIFE'S WORTH TO GIVE UP THEIR LUCRATIVE EARNING'S ACCRUING FROM ADOPTION--- THEY ARE SO EVIL,THEY WILL NEVER BELIEVE THE UNTOLD SUFFERING OF OUR SOULS, AND OUR BABIES,SOULS,HOW IT HAS IMPACTED OUR WHOLE LIFE, CAUSING UNTOLD PAIN SEPARATION AND GRIEF, TRULY A LIVING BEREAVMENT.THE BOTTOMLESS ABYSS OF SORROW.

THEIR PORTION ON JUDGEMENT DAY.

DEPART FROM ME YOU WORKERS OF INIQUITY, AND GOD WILL SPEW THEM OUT OF HIS MOUTH.

Your sterling effort for the truth to be told, NO HOLES BARRED ROBIN,
is greatly, greatly ,appreciated by your fellow mothers of loss, long may you have the strength and forthright calibre to continue, till the day when the shackles of adoption, will be gone, and only to be found in the annal's of history.
Tartan Hugs. Marah66.

Marley Greiner said...

It used to be that if people couldn't have kids they let it go. A few adopted (like my parents and later my first mother and her husband--he also knocked up a neighbor), but most just got on with their lives. There wasn't the entitlement mentality there is today.

My first mom adopted 2 kids, not because she wanted to, but because "you" had to have kids to be respectable and belong. It was about female identity. Funny how that no longer holds true, but adoption has become an obsessive activity for what seems like half the country.

maybe said...

Thankfully, mothers are speaking out and people ARE listening. It's a long, slow process, but everyday I stumble across an anti-adoption agency blog or article (not necessarily outright anti-adoption, but the message is being heard). It's always particularly refreshing when the critcal view of adoption is offered by someone in human rights, feminism, etc. They are slowly starting to see the big picture (and the big dollars).

But on the otherhand, I'm still concerned about the pervasive "adoption is beautiful" mythology because it appears to heavily influence youngsters. I often read posts by young girls on Y!A (just entering teen years or verly early adulthood) who wax naively poetic about their desire to adopt. Why on earth would they even entertain the thought of adopting when they've never been pregnant or in a serious relationship? It's something that always catches me off guard. Adoption mythology is powerful.