But the term natural mother may not be one which is familiar to you.  Let me explain a bit about it.

What is the origin of the term natural mother? Before the term birthmother was invented, the term natural mother was used throughout adoption-related literature. It was in the first modern child adoption law (Massachusetts, 1851) and is still in the laws of several states including California, Florida, Virginia, and Texas.

Some say the term natural parent means that the adoptive parents must therefore be unnatural.  I call this “playing the opposites game.”  By this reasoning, the opposite of birth parent is death parent.   Obviously, forming a false black and white dichotomy is no reason to reject the term “natural mother.”  (That is, unless you have adopted a child and really do enjoy being called a “death parent”… )

Instead, more accurately, the adjective “socially-created” contrasts with  “natural.”  Calling someone a natural mother refers to motherhood by the laws of Nature, while the adoptive mother is a mother by the modern legal and social process of child adoption.  It respects the reality that legal child adoption did not exist prior to 1851 (see “Why Adoption Is How it Is”).

Choosing to use the term natural mother to describe one’s self is a way of saying, “I am a mother, too. I never ceased having a mother’s love for my lost child.”  In using the term natural mother for her instead of birthmother, others are saying to her, “I respect you as a mother; you are not an incubator.”

Reclaiming the term natural mother—honouring ourselves and each other as being mothers and refusing to be defined/dehumanized as being walking incubators—is an empowering way to reclaim our dignity, pride, and humanity. And as Wade (1997, pp. 23-24) states, “resistance to violence and oppression is both a symptom of health and health-inducing.”

Reference:

• Wade, Allan. 1997.  ”Small Acts of Living: Everyday Resistance to Violence and Other Forms of Oppression ”  Journal of Contemporary Family Therapy 19:23–40. doi: 10.1023/A:1026154215299

“ Adoption coercion is any form of overt or covert pressure, manipulation, convincing, force, fraud, human rights violation, or withholding of services that results in a woman surrendering a baby for adoption.

“ It includes any practice specifically designed and intended to ensure or significantly increase the odds that a mother will surrender her baby for adoption. It also includes any practice designed to restrict or remove a mother’s freedom of choice by the use of influence, persuasion, fraud, or duress. A coerced ‘choice’ is not a ‘choice’ at all. There is no ‘decision’ where there is coercion.

“ Perpetrators of adoption coercion may include anyone in a position of trust, authority, or relative power in relation to the mother.  Examples are: adoption industry employees, hospital staff, medical professionals, prospective adopters, social workers, government social policy makers, the mother’s own parents, clergy and nuns, etc.”

Again, what do you think?

You may also be interested in reading these related posts where I elaborate more on specific coercion practices:

• Adoption Practice: “What is Coercion?”
• Adoption Coercion in Black and White
• Adoption: “Studies on How to Take Babies”
• Adoption: Getting more babies to market

And the “Coercion Checklist for Mothers” on the Origins Canada site.

Instead, adoption is a multi-billion-dollar industry.  Each transaction, each time money is given to an agency in exchange for an infant, a profit has been made, a human being has been bought.  And, usually by people who would recoil at the concept of human trafficking.  But if you can dress it up in euphemisms of “adoption services” and “adoption situations,” you can get away with treating babies as commodities.

Here are examples of price-lists for babies.   These are screen-captures of actual pages from business websites.  I am leaving out the business names to avoid legal hassles.  But just google “adoption situations” to find these and many more.

(Click on graphic to see full-sized image.)

And, gee, this one below even offers a great discount for African American babies — only $17,000!  These prices are not based on the needs of children — they are based on market demand.

And the mother gets a kick-back as well, under the euphemism  “living expenses” (although I would also classify “medical expenses” under this heading).

Want to compare how much profit is being made by these businesses? It cost me all of $200 to adopt-back my son.  This is because there was no business needing to make a profit on it.  Only the court paperwork.

In most other nations, it is illegal to sell children, it is considered to be human trafficking.  In Canada and the U.S., however, it is just considered to be business.  See Gerow’s article “Infant Adoption is Big Business in America” (PDF) for a good analysis of why this unregulated industry exists.

The United Nations has also expressed concern:

“During the course of 2002, the Special Rapporteur received many complaints relating to allegedly fraudulent adoption practices. Where such practices have the effect that the child becomes the object of a commercial transaction, the Special Rapporteur, like his predecessor, considers that such cases fall within the “sale” element of his mandate. The Special Rapporteur was shocked to learn of the plethora of human rights abuses which appear to permeate the adoption systems of many countries. The Special Rapporteur considers that the best environment for most children to grow up in is within a family, and the adoption by a parent or parents of a child who does not have a family able to look after him or her is a commendable and noble action. Regrettably, in many cases the emphasis has changed from the desire to provide a needy child with a home, to that of providing needy parents with a child. As a result, a whole industry has grown, generating millions of dollars of revenue each year, seeking babies for adoption and charging prospective parents enormous fees to process the paperwork.” – from “Rights of the Child:  Report submitted by Mr. Juan Miguel Petit, Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography in accordance with Commission on Human Rights resolution 2002/92.  

Want to do something about it?  Write to your legislator and let them know that this is human trafficking and you are offended and appalled by it.  Ask them to pass laws to take the profit out of adoption, to prevent situations where money needs to change hands in order to provide a new home for a child.  Ask them to pass laws to protect unwed and new mothers from reproductive exploitation.  And,  if you are seeking to adopt, refuse to patronize these businesses.   Instead, look at alternatives where you are not paying in order to obtain a child.

This Facebook group is still connected to the “”Healing Families Dismembered By Adoption” site  at http://www.adoptingback.com, as the MSN group was.

Anyway, for years this group and site have been basically focused on the legal process of adopting-back, which of course has always been the “second-best” option, because the very best option would be for all adoptees to be able to terminate their own adoptions as they saw fit.  But, we were unable to gather much information about this being done — until now.

So, I’m thrilled to let you know that this option, of terminating an adoption has been done, and not only that — it has been done with some frequency in Alberta!

One of these Acts was done recently, in 2009, the Beverly Anne Cormier Adoption Termination Act.    This excerpt from the Standing Committee on Private Bills  proceedings gives some details of why a private members bill was used:

“Ms Dean: Certainly, Mr. Chair. As all committee members are aware, a private bill seeks something that’s not available through the general public law. Bill Pr. 1 is seeking the termination of an adoption order because, basically, the petitioner is unable to get recourse in any other way. A person is unable to set aside an adoption order after one year unless it has been procured by fraud. Now, that’s not the case here. There’s been no fraud, so this is the appropriate tool by which one goes about terminating an adoption of this type. It’s a fairly rare type of bill, but these have come before the Assembly before. The most recent one was in 1998.”

Other adoption termination acts have included:

• Tanya Marie Bryant Adoption Termination Act (1998)
• Kenneth Garnet McKay Adoption Termination Act (1997)
• Satnam Parmar Adoption Termination Act (1990)
• David Michael Skakun Adoption Termination Act (1985)
• Dino Alberto Knott Adoption Termination Act (1984)
• Keith Dial Adoption Termination Act (1980)

This is the topic of discussion and information sharing on our FB group, as one of our members knows a lot about the process.

Unfortunately, the Facebook group name can’t be changed to “Natural Parents Adopting-Back Our Children / Adoptees Terminating Our Adoptions” because Facebook does not allow names that long, but that is now what our group is about.  Because, all adoptees should have that option, and it does restore legal filiation with the natural family again.

Related to this, I wanted to share this with you a new article from Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixties_Scoop.

“Sixties Scoop”

The term Sixties Scoop was coined by Patrick Johnston in his 1983 report Native Children and the Child Welfare System.^[1][2] It refers to the Canadian practice, beginning in the 1960s and continuing until the late 1980s, of apprehending unusually high numbers of children of Aboriginal peoples in Canada and fostering or adopting them out, usually into white families.^[3].

Reder (2007) reports that the adult adoptees who were the subjects of this program have eloquently spoken out about their losses: loss of their cultural identity, lost contact with their natural families, barred access from medical histories, and for status Indian children the loss of their status ^[4]

An estimated 20,000 aboriginal children were taken from their families and fostered or adopted out to primary white middle-class families ^[5],^[6]

This government policy was discontinued in the mid-’80s, after Ontario chiefs passed resolutions against it and a Manitoba judicial inquiry harshly condemned it. ^[7] This judicial inquiry was headed by Justice Edwin Kimelman, who published the File Review Report. Report of the Review Committee on Indian and Métis Adoptions and Placements ^[8] (also known as the Kimelman Report).

Two lawsuits have been filed in Canada by survivors of the Sixties Scoop, one in Ontario in 2010 ^[9][10] and one in British Columbia in 2011.^[11]

Use of the Term

The term “Sixties Scoop” has wide usage in Canadian media:

“A new report shines a light on the “sixties scoop,” where unusually high numbers of native children were put into foster care or adopted, usually by white families. ^[12] (CBC Radio Archives, 1993)

“Lawsuit filed for ‘Sixties Scoop’ kids,” (The Victoria Times Colonist, June 1, 2011) ^[13]

“The ‘Sixties Scoop’ is a term that refers to the phenomenon, beginning in the 1960s and carrying on until the 1980s, of unusually high numbers of children apprehended from their native families and fostered or adopted out, usually into white families…” (Reder, 2007) ^[14]

“Commonly referred to as the Sixties Scoop, the practice of removing large numbers of aboriginal children from their families and giving them over to white middle-class parents was discontinued in the mid-’80s..” (Eye Weekly, Toronto Star Newspapers Ltd.). ^[15]

“B.C. natives sue federal government for millions over ‘Sixties’ Scoop’.” (The Vancouver Sun, May 31, 2011)^[16]

Similar social developments in other countries

An event similar to the Sixties Scoop happened in Australia where Aboriginal children, sometimes referred to as the Stolen Generation, were removed from their families and placed into internment camps, orphanages and other institutions. A similar term, Baby Scoop Era refers to the period in United States history starting after the end of World War II and ending in 1972,^[17] characterized by an increased rate of pre-marital pregnancies over the preceding period, along with a higher rate of forced adoption^[18].

References

External links

• Sixties Scoop Class Action Lawsuit
• The Stolen Generation, the 60’s Scoop
• The “Sixties Scoop,” Chapter 14 Child Welfare, Report of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba. Justice and the Aboriginal People. The Aboriginal Justice Implementation Commission

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This came from an online conversation about a recent “birthmother petition,” where an organization is requesting the signatures of natural mothers to support adoptee-rights.  Now, I believe wholeheartedly in open records, and that EVERYONE has the right to their original birth records, their family history, and the right to make contact with their lost family members if they choose (this means both ways!) … BUT, I also do not believe that it is the right thing to do to objectify a group of people in order to further the rights of a separate group, at the expense of the first.

So, in this conversation about this petition, several natural mothers such as myself stated that we would not be signing it.  Not that we do not support adoptee rights (we wholeheartedly DO! and the women discussing this have spent years of their lives actively working for open records), but because: (1)  being mothers still, we are not “birthmothers;” (2) we find it offensive, dehumanizing, and objectifying to be defined and labelled as “incubators;” and (3) we feel that the organization which sponsored this petition could just as easily have used the term which respects us:  “natural mother.” Even if it used both terms, that at least would show respect for all of us, those natural mothers who respect themselves as being mothers, and those who accept the adoption industry’s statement that we are no longer mothers.

So, this is my response to the person who defended the use of the term “birth mother” in the petition.   I sincerely respect her an an open records advocate, but I do feel that even if she does not feel that her own natural mother is a mother to her, that is her personal choice in her life, but it does not mean that this can be generalized to cover other mothers-of-adoption-loss without our consent.  And I do not give consent to be dehumanized.

” I am sorry to hear, xxxxxx, that your natural mother is nothing more than an incubator to you (yes, this is what she is reduced to if your adoptive mother is awarded the status of being your sole mother, it means that her only relevance/action as a mother in you life was to gestate and push you out), but the word dehumanizes and objectifies women as being nothing more than convenient uteri. Legislators also recognize and understand the term natural mother. They have for ages, as much currently-in-effect state and provincial legislation still uses that term.

”  I disagree with you that it is necessary to use this term with politicians. I have been involved in open records campaigns in 3 provinces, actively writing to politicians, creating websites that promote open records, and sending out bulletins to members of nonprofit organizations I belonged to in order to publicize open records campaigns and get members in involved in open records. I have never yet had to use the term ‘birthmother’ in any of these actions.

”  People have the right to not be objectified. The ‘birth terms’ objectify women. They were invented and defined by the adoption industry, which treated and treats us as livestock anyway:

‘… the tendency growing out of the demand for babies is to regard unmarried mothers as breeding machines…(by people intent) upon securing babies for quick adoptions.’ – Leontine Young, ‘Is Money Our Trouble?’ (paper presented at the Nationa…l Conference of Social Workers, Cleveland, 1953)

”  And, if one reduces a human being to an object, one can then treat them as voiceless, with rights, in need of protecting. The term ‘birthmother’ actually plays into supporting closed records legislation by defining us as having NO continuing love or connection with our lost child, and thus no interest in ‘reunion’ or being ‘found.’ And reunion IS the elephant on the dining room table when it comes to ‘adoptee rights’ and ‘open records.’

“  I have the right not to be defined as an non-mother, an incubator, etc. So do all other MOTHERS who have lost children to adoption. Thus the term natural mother, which recognizes and respects our continuing motherhood, is the one which is not derogatory or denigrating to us. Or you can call us mothers, or mothers of adoption loss. Or mothers separated from a child by adoption.

“  What is a natural mother? I am a mother by the laws of nature. The adoptive mother is the mother who was created by the laws of modern human society, pursuant to laws which began with the first child adoption law, invented in 1851 in Massachusetts. So, natural and socially-created. But the continuing love and blood-bond I have with my child, our sharing of genes, that I created him through the processes of Nature, all count towards me being a mother. (He also calls me Mom and I have adopted him back, but these are moot points). If laws and social-worker-procedures and the adoption industry had not been created to rip us apart, we would still have been together. My love for him never died, my connection with him that is just as strong as my connection and love for my other children. This is NOT saying that adoptive parents are unnatural. It is not a game of ‘Opposites,’ because if you say that this makes adoptive parents ‘unnatural’ then in the ‘Opposites Game’ the term ‘birthmother’ makes them into ‘deathmothers.’“

Sometimes I feel that i beat this topic to death, and you, dear readers, are likely sick of hearing it. But why ask for my support in a way that treats me as less-than-human, that assumes that I do not have or want a family relationship with my son?   The issue this time is that we, as natural mothers, are being asked to further the interests of another group while ignoring our own interests (e.g. open records for natural parents as well), but we’re being asked as “incubators” do to so.

Meanwhile, please sign this petition, which has been active and on in the internet since 2000:

Mothers for Open Records Everywhere
(MORE)

I feel like we’re in a time-warp.  Nothing has changed.  Like I stated in 2008, all we can choose from are  Old Rich White Men.

So the sorry fact is that, even if your party’s platform pretends to pay attention to you, you can be certain that the corporate culture in Ottawa will not even know you exist.  Even the women who are elected to Parliament end up finding out that they have to obey the rules of the “Old Rich White Boys’ Club.”

“Ottawa is old, white and male” – John Ibbitson, in “Five reasons Ottawa is turning you off” (Globe and Mail)

And, I know my readers will remind me about the Green Party leader, Elizabeth May.   But what does it say about Canada that the only female leader is heading up a party that stands no chance of being elected under our current “First Past the Post” system?

No wonder there is no support for young, single, poor mothers to keep their children.  The life experiences of the people whom our political parties nominate for leadership do not reflect their experiences, values, beliefs, or struggles.

I can give you a clear picture of this:   A young First Nations woman I know well, struggling to raise three children on welfare, has bills this April of $740 not including groceries.  Her total income is $600. She is already in subsidized housing.  Child support?  What’s that?  She has to call the father of her children every month to try to hound him to pay up.  If she makes even a little bit of money, the welfare office takes it away.  The stress of trying to figure out how to afford to feed her children, how to pay her bills, and how to get herself out of the crushing student debt she is in (the college she had enrolled in went bankrupt so she ended up with a staggering debt and no diploma.   She is overwhelmed with “How do I get the money to feed my children?” and this constant stress is on her mind even when her daughter is demanding attention — how can you focus on two critical things at once?  Her stress is harming her health and she already has chronic neck pain.  Working?  How do you afford daycare for three children?  She already has lost children to adoption due to poverty alone.  Canada is still forcing women to surrender their babies and children due to poverty.   Is this not systemic financial coercion?

But is there anyone who cares?   Obviously not.   And nothing will change as long as our only choices for political leadership are old rich White men.

I admit, I sit on the fence regarding the term “first mother.”  I am not certain whether I like it or not, or whether I feel it is insulting or not insulting.  It is ambiguous, and a little informal poll that I took reflected this ambiguity.

It was only 11 years ago that I first went online to look specifically at adoption-related topics, as opposed to the other online research, website design, and information exchange I had previously engaged in.   What plunged me into “internet adopto-land” was the new reunion with my eldest son.   At first,  I thought that the semantics of the term “first mother”  were that it without ambiguity meant someone who was still a mother, because it has never occurred to me that there was anyone who would ever define me as not being a mother!  Of course I was still one of his mothers, I thought to myself!  That was my reality.

Then I learned about the official definitions of adoption-related words as part of the adoption industry’s “Positive Adoption Language” (or “Respectful Adoption Language”) terminology set.  This is the terminology set which defines the woman who adopts as being the ONLY mother, the sole mother, and hence the woman who has surrendered (PAL term = “birth mother”) is not a mother at all, but only breeding stock:

“Those who raise and nurture a child are his parents: his mother, father ….” (Johnston, 2004)

In her 1979 article that laid out the basis of “Positive Adoption Language,” Marietta Spencer wrote  “Choosing emotionally-correct words is especially important in adoption transactions.”   She follows this with many examples in the article reinforcing the notion of the sole parenthood of adoptive parents after the adoption of a child, implying that no emotional or familial connection remains between members of the pre-existing family.

PAL/RAL thus reduces us to being only important for the biological/uterine purpose of having given birth, and that we are nothing to our children past this point as we are now former mothers and fathers.  And PAL/RAL also officially defines the term “first mother” as only appropriate for women who have lost older children to the child protection system:

“‘First mother (or father):’ This term is accurate only if the birth-giving mother or biological father did some parenting during the postnatal period.  If they never functioned as parents, their contribution was limited to the pre-natal and birth-giving process.  Only in the case of an older child who experienced some parenting from his birth parents is it correct to speak of a ‘first mother’ or “‘first father.’” (Spencer, 1979, p. 456)

Then came a discussion with an adoptive father who was adamant that the term “first mother” was paralleled by “first wife/second wife,” with an adoption being akin to a divorce.  That it indicates sequential motherhood, and being a “first wife” means you are no longer the man’s wife. This made sense to me, that this definition would be the one that many people assumed at face value.  But I wanted to find out how prevalent this meaning was.

So, out of curiosity, to find out the range of opinions, two years ago I asked a question on the Yahoo Answers “Adoption” board  to find out what people thought.  Interesting selection of answers, indicating that some people considered it to sequential, and some, concurrent.  Results seemed to be split about 50-50.

This last month, I took it one step further and wondered “what is the general breakdown of what the general population considers ‘first mother’ to mean?”   I posted a very unscientific poll in a Cafemom forum (“Newcomers Club”) where I took a guess that there might be a relatively proportional representation of the general population regarding how adoption may or may not have affected their lives.  I did not want answers solely from those directly affected (adoptees, natural mothers, “baby brokers,” or people who had adopted or were intending to adopt).  But I did want to get opinions from mothers or those interested in the topic of motherhood.

This was my question:

There have been 123 responses (updated on May 16, 2012), and here are the results:

Looking at the results over the first 13 days in which they gradually came in, there was little variance, only about 5% trending one way or the other.   The comments are also interesting to read.

So, as you can see, the results are pretty divided as to the semantics of the word, but more people consider it to mean “former mother” than “currently a mother to her lost child.“   Of course, this survey is really just an unimportant bit of fluff, and I don’t think it really has much practical purpose in “the real world.”  It was only done out of curiosity.

But, what do you think?  Personally, this to me gives me reason to continue to describe myself using the term “natural mother.”    There is no official legal body of course dictating how words are defined, and even if a person begins using the term “natural mother,” it does not mean that they really do consider us to be mothers.  But to me, at least, there is no ambiguity in this term.

I am a mother to my lost son, and I have not ceased being his mother.   I was not replaced.   I did not stop loving him and we did not stop being related to each other as family. And, maybe I am wrong, but I want my motherhood to be recognized in any terms that are applied to me.   I find it insulting to be relegated to the status of being nothing more than a “breeder.”   I am still of two minds about the term “first mother.”   Overall, I think I find it a bit less offensive than the term “birth mother”  — someone using it might be making an effort to respect me as being a mother — but then again, they might not.   I prefer clarity to ambiguity,  so “natural mother” is my preference.

References:

Johnston, P. I. (2004).  “Speaking Positively: Using Respectful Adoption Language.”  Indianapolis, IN:  Perspectives Press.

Spencer, Marietta (1979). “The Terminology of Adoption,” in Child Welfare, 58(7), pp. 451-459.