Human Rights, Motherhood, Reproductive Exploitation … and Adoption

January 13, 2010

This is a post about human rights.   Rights that we all enjoy because, well, we are human beings and not tadpoles, buttercups, or granite slabs.  We are born human, and in a special position in the world even if we share most of our DNA with a host of other similar creatures.

Humans have the ability to commit both magnificent acts of good and terrible acts of evil.  In the mid-20th century, the world was recovering from a horrific world war and related events of genocide and destruction, which had ripped apart families and left much death and suffering in their wake.

A coalition of “civilized” nations swore that this evil should never happen again, and worked to create what became the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,  adopted and proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations ion December 10, 1948.

Included in the Universal Declaration are rights that are belong inherently to all living human beings.  They include rights to dignity and equality, the right to be free from slavery, and the right to equal protection of the law.  Also included in the Universal Declaration are rights  that protect even the most vulnerable of our citizens  from systemic cruelty and exploitation.  Rights that our governments try to conveniently forget.

A mother and her child together are one of the  most precious and yet are often the most vulnerable families in any society.  Vulnerable, that is, because in some cultures, they are rendered without protection from external forces that work to separate them. In many patriarchal nations, a mother is often only certain that she will be able to keep her baby if:  (1) she is married and thus financially/socially protected by a man, or (2) she has sufficient status  in the employment market such that she can independently support her baby by herself.

Men and women are equal, but due to biology they are very different, an example being when two people of the opposite sex make love.  The man can walk away from his responsibility for any resulting child — he may not even know he is a father.  The woman cannot walk away.  She must deal with the consequences in a directly personal way.  During her pregnancy,  social sanctions limit not only her options, but stigmatize her into solutions that society either provides or withholds from her.  A baby is a part of her body for nine months, and that experience is one she can never walk away from.

To be a woman means the inherent capability (or implied capacity) to create and give birth to a child.

“Making the decision to have a child – it’s momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart walking around outside your body.” – Elizabeth Stone

Human rights factor into the experience of every woman who becomes pregnant.   Firstly, human rights are universal, guaranteed to all human beings.  Article 2 of the Universal Declaration states:

“Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.”

Article 16 states:

“The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.” A mother and her child together is a family. There can be no doubt, and no argument, about this. They thus have the right to protection by society and the state.

But perhaps most explicit is Article 25, which states:

“(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. 2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.”

This explicitly provides every family — every mother and her child — with the support and means required to keep them together, as a basic human right.   It also means that women have the right to social protection, the right to keep their children, without having to be the “social property” of a man  (did you know that until very recently, in many areas the birth certificates of the children of unmarried mothers were stamped “Illegitimate”?).   It means that marriage is not required to “legitimize” a woman fulfilling the natural function of her body, a natural function of being a woman:  giving birth to her child.  Marriage or at least a long-term parental commitment from both partners is indeed the ideal situation, but for many mothers it is just not feasible or possible.

This Declaration agreed to in 1948 protects all mothers and their children.  It provides mothers with rights such that no mother need be forced by poverty, coercion, or social pressure to surrender her baby for adoption. Every mother has the right to protection and social support for herself and her child as a family unit such that horrific trauma of surrender, the coerced separation from her infant,  is not inflicted upon her.

“Almost everyone believes that on some level, [mothers] made a choice to give their babies away. Here, I argue that adoption is rarely about mothers’ choices; it is, instead, about the abject choicelessness of some resourceless women.” (Solinger, 2001).

It is clear that if the basic human rights of ALL mothers were respected, protected, and codified into the laws of each nation, that there would be far fewer unnecessary adoptions.  Fewer families would be destroyed, fewer mothers would be forced to surrender their beloved infants, and the world would be a far more ethical and safe place for mothers who are giving birth — mothers left vulnerable to the  adoption industry because their human rights have been violated.

* * *

References:

  • “Elizabeth Stone Quotes” at http://thinkexist.com/quotes/elizabeth_stone
  • Solinger, R. (2001). Beggars and choosers – How the politics of choice shapes adoption, abortion, and welfare in the United States. New York: Hill & Wang.

Shortlink to this post:  http://wp.me/p9tLn-ei

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A precious (adoption-related) photo

November 3, 2009

I decided to participate in the  “Adoption Carnival III: Photos of Adoption,” presented by the blogging network “Grown In My Heart,” which encourages bloggers to share blog posts related to adoption.

I thought about what photographs to share, and decided that posting photos of people may be a bit more personal than I would like to be.  So, I took a photo of a print-out of an “e-card” mounted on the wall of my office.  Along with the adoption certificate from when I adopted-back my son, and his original birth registration, this is the most precious adoption-related document I have.

My precious son turned 19 in 1999.  Thanks to Open Records and Freedom of Information legislation in BC (which enabled me to obtain his adoptive name plus the adoption case file, and all birth and court records), I found him in November of 1999, and we reunited in-person in February 2000, one day before his 20th birthday.   That Mothers’ Day, May 2000, he sent me an unexpected e-card that blew me away.   “Here Mom!  A Bunch of Love  Happy Mothers’ Day” it read:

here-mom-a-bunch-of-love

(click here for full-size image)

I was blown away by this card. After twenty years separation, in a closed adoption, I had assumed that perhaps we would be friends, if I was lucky. I knew the bond and love I felt for him, loving him as deeply as I loved my other three children, but I had no idea that he would feel similarly. But he did. Unfortunately, he had to hide his feelings from his then-adoptive parents, and they reacted very negatively (understatement) when he let slip about a year later that he considered me to be his mother, when recounting a story to them about introducing me to one of his friends. They laid down the law that they were his only parents and that he may not consider me to be a mother. In their eyes, i was not a mother to him, only a “birthmother.”

But, this e-card is very precious to me. It shows that the natural mother-child bond can endure through decades of separation, that my son felt this bond very early in our reunion, and that it will last no matter what. It shows that even then in his eyes I was not his “birthmother,” but that he loved me as, and considered me to be, one of his mothers.

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“Baby Look for Home” and Adoptions from China?

October 30, 2009

An new initiative by the Chinese government to try to find the homes of stolen and trafficked children was in the news this week (see “Chinese crackdown nets thousands of ‘stolen’ children“).   The news is about the creation of a website, named “Baby Look For Home.”  You can find it at http://www.mps.gov.cn/n16/n983040/n1928424/index.html.

As the newpaper article states:

“Many, if not most cases are not formally listed because local police are unwilling or unable to investigate crimes that usually involve crossing provincial borders. As well, many of the parents think police might be complicit in the kidnappings. It is a lucrative business that can net about $4,000 for each boy sold and about $1,000 per girl… The abducted children are mostly boys and are sold to families who want a son. The girls are often sold into marriage or to agencies that arrange foreign adoptions.”

The  sale of children within China has made the news as far back as 2001 (see “China’s Baby Traffickers“) and kidnapping since 2006 (see “Stealing Babies for Adoption“)   Despite this sordid history,China is lauded as having an “ethical” international adoption system that prospective adopters can have confidence in:

“For a family looking to adopt from the most ethical country, China is the best choice.  They are highly regulated and have increasingly good orphanage conditions” (Thome, 2007)

But, given China’s history of not enforcing laws against the sale of children within China, how is any Westerner able to guarantee that the child they are adopting from China is not stolen?  From the above quote, it appears that little girls in China, those same girls that are supposedly abandoned, are selling for up to $1000:   not exactly a price that would be charged if there were a surplus of “product” on the market.

But agencies and orphanages stand to make a lot of money on each transaction, so unfortunately they have a financial incentive to hide this information from “clients.”  (Perhap more “ethical” adoptions ( an oxymoron?) will only occur once  no-one’s paycheque depends upon the transaction being made, where there is no financial incentive to kidnap, abduct, or coerce.)

“Mr. Peng …  said some of the girls were sold to orphanages. They … often end up in the United States or Europe after adoptive parents pay fees to orphanages that average $5,000.” (New York Times, April 4, 2009).

Anyway, I wonder if this new website may be able to serve those who have adopted a child from China and wonder if that child has been abducted?  Many people adopted children from China, trusting in the assurances of baby brokers whom they now realize may have been lying or omitting the truth, and some of them now want to search, to find their child’s natural parents and discover if that child really was abandoned, or whether the child was kidnapped or the parents were coerced to surrender.   Maybe a photo-listing of that child on “Baby Look for Home” may be at least provide a small chance of finding the child’s natural parents and the truth?  I wonder if the Chinese government would cooperate?

(P.S.  If you check out the “Baby Look for Home” site and cannot read Mandarin, you’ll find Google Translate to be a useful tool.)

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Adoption Coercion in Black and White

September 16, 2009

The statistics are in: Few natural mothers (“birthmothers”) who “voluntarily” surrendered a baby to adoption over the last 50 years did so (or are doing so) as an act of free will. Very few were allowed to recover first from birth, unpressured by social workers, lawyers, family members, or people hoping to adopt. Few were provided with all the resources they required in order to keep their babies (unless, as Solinger (2000) pointed out, they were African American and their babies were not in demand on the adoption market). Few in “open adoptions” are not pushed into “pre-birth matching” which automatically puts a mother into a position where emotional coercion may freely occur, where she is unprotected from it.

I feel that coercion really is black and white: The decision whether or not to surrender is so monumental and life-changing, and the bond between mother and child so important, that the dynamics that go into the separation of mother and child must be carefully examined.

“Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.” — Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Given the immense financial and social power of the adoption industry and the many years and thousands of dollars that have been expended on finding out ways to get more mothers to surrender their babies — given the power differential between the industry and a vulnerable (e.g., young, poor, unsupported, or unmarried) mother — the position must be taken that a mother’s decision regarding the surrender of her child must be freely made, fully-informed, and non-coerced in order to be a decision or “choice” at all. It is black and white. There are no grey areas.

Analysts of sexualized violence against women and children now agree that coerced sexual intercourse is not sex, it is rape. Unless there is a clear “yes,” ethically it is “no.” “Anything other than Yes means No” is the new phrase that defines rape and other types of sexualized violence. There is a new recognition of coerced sex as being violence, when a woman or child is pressured into saying “yes” to intercourse or a sexual act when she does not want to. Forced or coerced sex is always rape.

“An emerging factor from this research was the striking similarity of feelings associated with sexual abuse and relinquishment.” – Logan (1996), p. 619.

Just as with the trauma that is known to result from forced sexualized violence, and the recognition that this crime is has major consequences, in the same way the mother-child bond is also of equal importance. Just as a woman’s body is to be protected from violation, the relationship between a mother and her newborn is sacred and needs to be considered equally important and protected from violation.

Given the importance of her relationship with her child and the tremendous potential lifelong consequences of separation for both mother and child, a true “decision” or “choice” only exists when a mother (1) is free of any emotional, psychological, social or financial coercion, (2) has been provided with all the facts regarding the emotional and psychological consequences of surrender, (3) has been given enough time to recover from the birth to make an informed decision, and (4) when her human rights have not been violated.

Just as rape is rape and “anything other than YES means NO,” a mother who “make an adoption plan” resigned to the idea that no other viable options exist, or whose ability to make that decision post-birth and post-recovery has been compromised or negated, is not making a decision.

When others have orchestrated and influenced the act of separation to increase the chance or ensure that she surrenders her baby, coercion has occurred. Particularly if these others have a vested interest in seeing this mother surrender:

  • They may be adoption agency or maternity staff whose agencies or organizations depend on the revenue from brokering babies in order to remain open, whose paycheques depend on a certain number of surrenders per year. No surrenders = agency bankruptcy. (This is the main reason why open adoption was developed.)
  • They may be people eagerly hoping to adopt her baby.
  • They may be priests or nuns who feel that they are carrying out the will of God in ensure that an infant “born in sin” is “redeemed” by being adopted into a “good Christian family.”
  • They may be the mother’s own parents, who want the “shame” of a “bastard grandchild” to be removed from the family ASAP (“What would the neighbours think?!”).
  • They may even be “birthmothers” themselves, recently surrendered, who seek emotional justification of their loss by convincing other mothers to surrender their babies.

Coercion includes the emotional coercion that comes with having potential adopters involved in a mother’s life during pregnancy or birth. She is left with no way to make that choice without their presence, their affluence, their desire, their childlessness, their need, influencing her. A freely-made decision, or choice, in this situation is thus impossible.

“Almost everyone believes that on some level, [mothers] made a choice to give their babies away. Here, I argue that adoption is rarely about mothers’ choices; it is, instead, about the abject choicelessness of some resourceless women.” (Solinger, 2001, pp. 55‑56)

Coercion comes in many many forms. But what is definitive is that once a mother’s decision whether or not to surrender has been affected by coercion, it is no longer a freely-made choice. There is thus no decision. We can see how many years of adoption industry research on how to get more mothers to surrender and acceptance of this pressure, has ensured that those natural mothers (“birth mothers”) who have actually “chosen adoption” are few and far between.

Whenever a mother surrenders her baby because it is “of last resort” and she feel she has no other choices, no other viable options, then there is no choice at all. It is not a “choice” if there is only one option, if a mother feels she has no right or no ability to say “No!,” has expressed that she wants to keep her baby but no-one is listening, or has been silenced.

No decision = no guilt = no self-blame. A mother can hold the truth in her heart: I was not responsible for what was done to me that resulted in me feeling I had no choice.

~ ~ ~

In contrast, what a non-coerced surrender look like? Picture this scenario:

A mother is pregnant and gives birth. Throughout her pregnancy and aftrwards, she has access to all the resources she requires in order to be a parent. Her child will not suffer and poverty will not be a stressor. She recovers from birth with her baby, breastfeeding that child, taking her baby home, caring for her child, receiving the support and love of her family. Weeks pass, and she has recovered from the birth. The mother finds she does not love or want her baby. She goes to a counsellor provided for free by a provincial government Ministry (such as the Ministry for Children and Family Development here in B.C.) or child welfare agency whose paycheque or funding does not rely on some PAP’s “adoption fees.” No money changes hands in exchange for a baby. The counsellor explains the risks of PTSD, unresolved grief and loss, major depression, anxiety disorders, relationship difficulties, parenting difficulties, and secondary infertility. The counsellor explains the emotional, social, legal and developmental difficulties faced by adoptees. A government-appointed lawyer, again whose income does not depend on the surrender, explains the legalities of adoption, especially that open adoptions are not enforceable and her baby’s birth records will be changed. The mother signs surrender papers but receive more counselling. She has a month in which she can revoke her consent. After that month, her baby is in the custody of the province. A government social worker, protecting the right of the child to his family and heritage, examines the possibility of kinship care. If this is not possible, the mother begins interviewing prospective adoptive parents presented to her by the social worker, eventually choosing which set will adopt her baby. Case closed.

Mothers are protected by the same system that is in place in Australia. No adoptive parents have influenced her decision with a “pre-birth match,” financial coercion has not played a role, and adoption is used for its true purpose: to find a home for an unloved and unwanted child.

References:

  • Gerow, D. (2002). Infant adoption is big business in America. Retrieved November 23, 2006 from http://www.originscanada.org/infant.pdf.
  • Logan, J. (1996). Birth mothers and their mental health: Uncharted territory. British Journal of Social Work, 26(5), 609-625.
  • Solinger, R. (2000). Wake up little Susie: Single pregnancy and race before Roe v. Wade. New York: Routledge.
  • Solinger, R. (2001). Beggars and choosers – How the politics of choice shapes adoption, abortion, and welfare in the United States. New York: Hill & Wang.

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Separated by adoption reality: the adoptive parent experience

July 27, 2009

Today, I had a conversation with a woman (whom I will call Helen) who had adopted a newborn 19 years ago. This child had behavioural problems while growing up, and the parents despaired. Eventually, the adoptive parents contacted the natural mother (“birthmother”) with hopes that the daughter would be “fixed” by some form of contact, and a reunion happened when the girl was 16.

And then, when the daughter was 18, she moved back in to live with her natural mother and full brother.

Helen is in shock. No-one had warned her that this would happen. I won’t elaborate on the contents of our conversation, as I respect her confidentiality, but it was clear that the agency she had obtained this baby from had not told her that the child could ever do this. In essence, this family was put together by the adoption industry, and then separated by adoption reality.

There is a sales-pitch that the industry promotes and tells to people hoping to adopt, manipulating them so that they will indeed hand over money ($25,000 or more in the current market) for that “perfect baby.” This is a brief sampling of what this sales-pitch can consists of:

  1. All families, both adoptive and natural, are the same.
  2. Your adopted child is now “As if born to” you, emotionally and socially. The amended birth certificate will say that you gave birth, so act as though you did. You are now the only mother.
  3. The child needs only you and not the love of their “birth parents.”
  4. Environment is everything – the child is a blank slate (“tabula rasa”). Personality is at least 80% due to environment.
  5. Rest assured that the “birth family” can never search for the child because records are sealed tight to protect you in most states and provinces.
  6. The natural mom is just an incubator, a “birthmother,” a “gene donor,” and her only purpose was to gestate that child. Her motherhood ended with the cutting of the umbilical cord.
  7. This child is unwanted, and the “birthmother” will never return or want her back.
  8. If loved enough, this child will never want to search.
  9. Adoptees will never feel hurt from being surrendered or taken. If they do have questions, love from adoptive parents will solve everything.
  10. “Adjusted” adoptees do not search, and those who do only want medical and historical information. Reunion entails a one-time meeting and then both parties separate.
  11. “The Primal Wound” is a complete myth. No adoptee faces it.
  12. This is a lifetime guarantee.

Even the loaded term “birthmother” primes the adoptive parents to believe that the natural mother is only a past and irrelevant part of the adoptee’s past, her entire role consisting of having given birth, as irrelevant to an older adoptee as a baby bottle would be. Or, as it was told to me by the man who had adopted my son:  “R— has only one mother, K—, and one father, me.”

So, this woman, like millions of people who have adopted, believed the word of the agency. After all, they’re supposed to be “adoption professionals,” right?

While I was talking to Helen, I began thinking about my son and the people who had adopted him. For those readers new to our story: I found him in 1999. We reunited in 2000. He moved back with me on New Year Day of 2003. I adopted him back in 2007.  He is now, in his eyes, a former adoptee. His former adoptive parents deny that I am related as “family” to him. “R— is a member of this family and shall not be shared in any way, shape or form” were their words to me in their 2001 attempt to forcibly end his reunion with me, to define me as being unrelated, a complete stranger, not-family.

They too believe(d) the adoption industry myths, the “sales pitch,” and it lead to them trying to control him and end our reunion. One more adoptee gets hurt, caught up in an agency promise of a “lifetime guarantee.” And the agency gets off scot-free. Agencies should be sued for false advertising.

I wonder if Helen’s adopted daughter will return to her entirely, will be adopted-back by her natural family, will maintain family connections with both families, or do none of the above? There is no predicting.

But agencies must stop promising adoptive parents that the baby they adopt is “as if born to” them. There is nothing preventing an adoptee, even one raised in a “good home” from feeling the strength of the blood-bond and returning once more to their natural family, whether it would be to build a family of 4 equal parents (2 natural, 2 adoptive) or to return exclusively to their natural parents. But would adoptive parents pay the same “big bucks” for a child who may only be “theirs” for 18 years? You make more money if you can sell an unrealistic, impossible-to-guarantee myth.

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