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May 27, 2005
"Predestined" for Adoption
"Predestined" for Adoption
"Adoption is a cultural thing," I am told by some mothers who have been horrendously used as if they were only the source of babies for adoption. "You can't change that."
Adoption is said to be "predestined" and apparently many people believe in the predestination of adoption.
The Chinese - who were "conditioned" to believe they were destined for defeat - gave in without a fight to the Japanese troops at the Rape of Nanking. Nearly 370,000 Chinese were massacred. Just like the Chinese were "conditioned" to give in, some single mothers have been "conditioned" to give in to adoption.
In the United States, there are few real orphans, especially orphans that are young enough to be desirable for adoption. But there are many people who are infertile. So to get babies for adoption, a "culture of adoption" has been cultivated. Pregnant women are called "birthmothers", rather than "mothers-to-be". There is intense advertising for adoption, solicitation via "Dear Birthparent" letters and "adoption counseling". A special adoption language has been developed that makes people who are completely unrelated to a baby seem more entitled than her own mother, father, grandparents and siblings.
It is known that adoption causes suffering for the natural family.
Some websites try to justify infant adoption, explaining why adoption is a "Christian" thing to do. "Adoption is predestined." "Adoption is from God." "Adoption is God's blessing." "We adopt a child not for our glory, but for God's glory." "In adopting we model for children and others the mercy and the justice of God." One of my "favorite" website titles is "Christian Adoption: WOW".
One website (thankfully) speaks of "God's blessing to unwed mothers" and actually seems to be in favor of keeping family members together.
Another website seeks to comfort the infertile people who are "forced" to adopt, claiming that through adoption a "miracle pregnancy" might occur! (And the adopters might get the added bonus of their own child.)
Jesus is even referred to as an "adoptee" - supposedly Jesus was "adopted" by Joseph. Was Joseph an adopter? If he was, then surely when Jesus claimed God as his Father, Joseph would have become angry and insisted that he (not God) was Jesus' "real father".
Adoption is said to be "predestined" and apparently many people believe in adoption predestination. But natural families will be "predestined" for adoption separation only as long as naive and vulnerable families can be found and used.
Not everyone benefits from adoption - and it's time people knew it.
Posted at 09:44 am by warriorwoman
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May 26, 2005
"Snowflakes" and Embryo Donors
"Snowflakes" and Embryo Donors
It is the year 2005. The word "life" is a euphamism for creating, buying or acquiring an unrelated child to use "as if" she was your own. The word "life" is a great disguise, making people think of things like human dignity, even as human dignity is being stripped away and denied.
Are you considering donating an embryo or two to people who are infertile or gay? Are you looking for information on "how to" donate unused frozen embryos - your own offspring-to-be? Think how the term "sperm donor" is used to insult a father who does not take responsibility for his child. Being a sperm or egg donor - or embryo donor - is SHAMEFUL, not heroic. The mother or father is not there for their child, they have abandoned or even sold her. Her own siblings and ancestors are withheld from her. It is in no way guaranteed that a child who is unrelated to her buyers, will "attach" or feel connected in the same way a child does in her natural family. It is known that adoptees have life-long issues - even extending to the next generations. Embryo donation and embryo adoption is child abuse.
With ordinary adoption, single mothers may feel forced to "donate" their offspring, by economic circumstances and societal pressures. But with sperm and egg "donation" and embryo adoption, people who are not at all pressured are having their children removed from them. It is sad when people are so naive.
With ordinary adoption, a mother's child is referred to by baby brokers as "the baby" (not "your baby"). "It" is dehumanized and stripped of any acknowledgement of family relatedness to help encourage the mother to make "it" available for adoption. With embryo adoption, "it" is referred to as a "snowflake", dehumanizing language that denies family relatedness. The embryo donor may not later know "the difference" losing their child - yet the adopted person will have the same life-long issues that any adoptee has.
If you believe this embryo is a human life, then consider that human beings are not "snowflakes". If you don't believe this embryo is a human life, then consider that the very real human beings that may be obtained through adopting an embryo are not "snowflakes".
Are you considering donating embryos for adoption by people who are infertile or gay? Clinics will surely profit from selling embryo adoption "services" for all those "spare" embryos they created on purpose. But your offspring are not like some old beat-up couch to be donated.
Posted at 07:54 am by warriorwoman
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May 25, 2005
Angel Giver of Life
I have written a lot about how the dehumanizing terms "birthmother" "birthmom" "birthparent" "birthfather" "lifemother" are used to target a mother or father as the source of a baby to be used for adoption. These ugly terms deflect attention from the fact that these people are a child's own parents - the use of these terms turns parents into mere "birth objects". The parents are viewed as being similar to a placenta - their "function" will end when their infant son or daughter is born. Then "the baby" goes to "it's" "real parents" - the people who are adopting. Sometimes the adoptive people try to "be nice" and let the mom see her baby once in a while - as long as she knows "her place".
Now I find moms who are targeted as the source of a baby for adoption are being called "Angel Giver of Life" in addition to the other horrendously misleading terms. Valued only for their reproductive capability, the very real motherhood of these women is trashed, dragged in the gutter when they are called "Angel Giver of Life" instead of being called "mother" or "mom" - instead of being acknowledged as the the "parent" of their own child.
"Angel Giver of Life"? Perhaps the religious leaders, social workers and adoption attorneys could be called "Angel of Death" for their role in symbolically killing off a mother's motherhood so someone else could get a baby to adopt?
"Angel Giver of Life" and "Angel of Death" - Adoption is like a horror movie, isn't it? Actually, phrases like "Angel Giver of Life" and all the weird adoption rituals sort of remind me of some science fiction, like Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale".
"Angel Giver of Life"? - give me a BREAK! Start helping the real moms and dads instead of taking their babies for adoption .
Posted at 10:05 am by warriorwoman
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May 24, 2005
Domestic Adoption
Domestic infant adoption in the United States appears to be increasing - if you believe the newspaper accounts where adoption attorneys and adoption agencies are bragging about getting more babies for adoption. Adoption agencies are expanding and charging their customers more for babies (disguised as "adoption services"). They are advertising and using federally-funded Infant Adoption Awareness Training" to produce a "culture of adoption". Then - using the lure of "open adoption" - they are able to get babies whose mothers would have kept them. Open Adoption is not so "pretty" a picture when you look at it closely. Sometimes the adopted child may consider herself to be lucky she at least knows who her natural family is. But for the natural family, open adoption is far less than ideal, with children, parents, grandparents and siblings having contact with their family member controlled by the adopters. And after all, even most single moms and dads could have kept their own kids if they had not been lured into the "adoption option".
"A domestic adoption 'baby boom' should not be a source of pride, but of shame on the part of agencies, medical experts, the government and others for having exploited citizens of our own country, the United States, to obtain babies. "
Posted at 07:51 am by warriorwoman
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May 23, 2005
"Donating" Your Own Child through Reproductive Technologies - or Adoption
"Donating" Your Own Child through Reproductive Technologies - or through Adoption
"Donating" your own child to the infertile is popular in America: Selling human sperm or eggs, donating embryos, making babies on purpose for your friends (or to make money) - and the old stand-by of infant adoption. Whatever the means of donation, the donors are called "angels" and "heros" for making infertile - or gay - people's dreams come true. Accepting "donations" of little human beings is popular as well. In fact, if not for the market for babies, there would be little adoption - or other donation of family members - going on. When an adoption occurs, the people who adopt are thought of as being "generous" for "taking in an orphan". They are considered "saviors" of supposedly "unwanted" babies.
What could possibly be wrong with donating your children or accepting a donated child? How can it be immoral? After all, Christian churches have been encouraging single parents and their families to donate their infant children to fulfill the "hopes and dreams" of the infertile for many decades now. Because of the cavalier attitude that churches have about legally abandoning one's own son or daughter for adoption, people are completely unaware of how moms, dads, siblings and the adopted person might suffer from this operation.
Try this website for some insights into the adoptee experience, infant adoption, embryo adoption and the means used to get more babies for adoption.
Read this website for many interesting quotes from adoption professionals: Known Effects of Separating Mothers and Babies at Birth. And here is another account of what it might be like to be a mom or brother or sister of the baby used for "open adoption".
Many people who are "donating" babies for adoption today may be unaware of the sordid history of adoption. Often parents were - and are - coerced or tricked into surrendering their babies for adoption. Sometimes the "encouragement" of the so-called "adoption option" has been enacted with a certain brutality, to ensure the parents knew they were being punished. Other times, the "encouragement" has been more covert, making parents think adoption was "their" choice. As they suffer from the loss of their infant sons and daughters, moms whose infants have been adopted-out are told to "think only of the happiness of the adopting couple" and "what a miracle this is for them". People are advised that a baby "won't know the difference" and as a result of this statement many moms are unaware that their babies suffered from the separation as well.
Christian churches like to make people think that all of the babies who are adopted would have been aborted anyway. They heartlessly encourage the adopted person to believe that he or she was unwanted by her mother and would have been aborted. This is very cruel, but how else can they explain that they would not help single parents and their babies stay together? No baby is adopted until she is born. A baby who is born is not in danger of abortion - the only "danger" she is in is that of being taken home and loved by her own family.
"Donating" your own child to the infertile is popular in America - including the old stand-by of infant adoption. The donors are called "birthparents", "birthmoms", "birthfathers", "birthmothers" ("birth objects") for making infertile - or gay - people's dreams come true. It's sad when these naive or pressured parents learn the truth - they never were "birth objects" - they were parents and have been used.
For people naively considering egg or sperm donation or embryo donation, get some insights into the adoptee experience, infant adoption, embryo adoption and the means used to get more babies for adoption.
Posted at 09:36 am by warriorwoman
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May 22, 2005
Dear Birthmother Letters - Why Not?
Dear Birthmother Letters - Why Not?
Some people are saying "Dear Birthmother letters - why shouldn't we use a Dear Birthmother letter or Dear Birthparent letter - when we are looking for a baby to adopt?
It is harmful to separate a newborn from her mother at birth. This separation traumatizes mother and child - and that is true whether the adoption is an open adoption or closed adoption. If a mother held her baby in her arms and then rejected her newborn (and the father and grandparents did, too) and if it were not simply a temporary post-partum depression that might be one thing. But moms who are being advised by trusted "experts" that "adoption is an option" (as if it were perfectly reasonable - and "loving" - to legally abandon your own son or daughter) are not rejecting their babies. They are simply naive.
Just look at all the websites proclaiming that moms will be "angels" for making the "heroic choice" and handing their babies over to someone else. If the adopters later have a baby will they reciprocate by being "angels" and giving the mom THEIR baby to make up for her loss?
The United States government likes to make babies available for adopters. Infertility is a big problem in America, with people waiting too long to start a family and gay people also hoping to adopt. Infertility treatments, reproductive technologies and adoption are all big businesses, with plenty of lobbyists.
The United States government funds Infant Adoption Awareness Training to try to get more babies for people who are infertile or gay. State governments have Choose Life License Plates with proceeds going only toward "services" designed to get more babies for adoption. And while benefits for adopters are increasing all the time, benefits for natural families are decreasing. It seems as though the government is actually "starving them out" just to get babies for adopters.
"Dear birthmother letters" are letters soliciting moms for their healthy babies. When there are not enough real orphans to be found (that are desirable for adoption) and there is a market for babies, people think they have to get a baby somehow.
Posted at 08:55 am by warriorwoman
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May 21, 2005
Parental Alienation Syndrome in Reproductive Technologies and Adoption
Parental Alienation Syndrome - in Reproductive Technologies and Adoption
"Parental Alienation Syndrome" is just a fancy name for disrespecting a child's mother or father. Everyone knows "Yo momma!" is a terrible insult. But when one parent is disrespecting the other, denying or limiting contact between parent and child, this is seen as CHILD ABUSE. The offending parent's parental rights may be terminated or custody given to the other parent.
When a woman puts a shirt on her child that says "My daddy's name is Donor" that is abusive. Actually, just intentionally mixing the raw materials to create a child, intending in advance to deprive a child of his father or mother is abusive. And yet, clinics continue to lure naive people into selling or donating their offspring to people who are infertile or gay. And infertile and gay people buy them.
On one message board a woman wrote that she made a baby ON PURPOSE for her friend to adopt - and she was in serious pain after losing her baby. But in spite of her suffering she may still not comprehend that it is because she IS the mother of her child.
Well, how are people supposed to know the truth? The mothers and fathers are called "donors", "surrogates", "genetic objects" or "birth objects" while the buyers are referred to as "real parents". The brokers insist that fake "families" are just as good as real families, if not better.
"Parental Alienation Syndrome" is just a fancy name for disrespecting a child's mother or father.
It's not just egg and sperm donation where parental alienation syndrome comes into play. The man-made institution of "adoption" is inherently disrespectful of a child's own family. You can't respect a mother and father and pretend they are not related to their child at the same time. When you dishonor the child's origins, you dishonor the child.
In Lowis Lowry's book "The Giver", roles are assigned. Lowry makes it plain that women assigned the role of baby-production equipment ("birthmothers") have the lowest status in society.
"Birthmothers" DO have the lowest status in society - as low as child molesters for "giving up" their own children. Some naive "birthmothers" say they want to change the public's perception so people know that "birthmothers" were just ordinary moms who were pressured and had no alternatives. Yet without using the honest terms "mother" or "mom" to describe themselves, they get nowhere.
"Parental Alienation Syndrome" is just a fancy name for disrespecting a child's mother or father. To get babies for adopters, moms and dads are called "birth objects" well in advance, even while they retain their parental rights.
A lot of euphamisms are used to make the transfer of babies from their own families to unrelated people palatable - or even make it seem desirable. But behind all the euphamisms, there is a lot of suffering as human beings are artificially orphaned to supply the baby market.
"For adoptive couples, adoption is wonderful. For the natural mothers and families of adoptees, adoptees themselves and their progeny, adoption is profoundly painful. ...
"No matter how much they want and can love a child, most adopters are blind to the child’s pain of separation. This does not make for good parents. Think, for a moment, how you would feel if you were expected to join in the "celebration" as everyone dances on your mother's grave." Julie A. Rist, adoptee - "Is the U.S. Promoting Pain?"
Posted at 09:49 am by warriorwoman
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Maternity Group Homes - "Safe Havens" for Women or Baby Breeding Farms?
Maternity homes have long been used to get babies for adoption. Get pregnant women separated from society, get them separated from their babies' fathers. And voila! a "miracle" occurs - you can get moms to surrender their own beloved infant sons and daughters.
Maternity "homes"? Today the breeding farms have become pretty fancy - with beautiful swimming pools and expansive lawns. To look at them you might not guess that they were all about punishing women for having babies and getting more healthy babies for adoption.
"Get 'empowered' and choose an adoptive family." "Take control." - These are some of the adoption industry messages to mothers, some of whom were probably unceremoniously dumped at the home by their parents. Feeling low and with nowhere to turn, they begin turning the pages looking at slick advertisements for prospective adopters.
To make them feel even more pressured toward adoption they undoubtedly are told: "There are hundreds of hopeful adoptive couples." (And you owe one of them a baby!)
Maternity homes have long been used to get babies for adoption. Get pregnant women separated from society, get them separated from their babies' fathers. Call the moms by dehumanizing terms like "birthmothers" ("birth objects") And voila! When God's miracle of birth occurs it is quicky obscured by the "miracle" of getting wealthy buyers a baby for adoption.
Karen Wilson Buterbaugh's article "Not By Choice" helps explain how homes for "unwed" mothers were used in earlier decades to get babies for adoption. Today, things have changed is some ways - but the coercive nature of maternity home isolation is still present. Maternity homes with adoption "counseling" mean that more families will be separated so the babies can be sold off for adoption.
Posted at 07:59 am by warriorwoman
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May 20, 2005
Internet Photolistings of Children for Adoption - Not in a Child's Best Interests
On my computer screen is a picture of a girl, "Pretty and vivacious". Another girl is described as "very glamorous". On another page an African American girl is listed as "currently in therapy" and "developmentally delayed". A boy is described as "on medication to assist him with symptoms of ADHD." and "does not have contact with any of his family members." One girl "is very sensitive, can misread social cues and often believes people are making fun of her". A girl "occasionally exhibits disruptive behavior". A boy of 16 is described as an "attractive little boy".
All of the pictures have the child’s first name included. Is this a fraternity boy’s prank? Who would put pictures of children on the web with their names and such descriptions?
The website is one of many on the internet advertising children. Near the listings of older children are listings of couples, singles and gay people who “look forward to expanding our family and cherishing the addition of a new baby”. None of the prospective adopters’ ads says “occasionally exhibits disruptive behavior” or “can misread social cues”, although surely it happens. Even listing their ads seeking an infant shows great insensitivity toward children who have been advertised as available for years.
“This is such an invasion into these kids lives, exposing to the entire world that they are an orphan or making it out that they haven’t got parents that love them.” emailed one woman who had been in an orphanage as a child. “And with these girls it looks like they are advertising their sexuality. It could cause some pedophile creep to come forward and adopt these young girls.”
“If it gets children adopted, it’s worth it.” I’m told by a woman at one agency. I imagine her picture on the web with a description like this: Helga, age 22 “Sometimes insensitive, slightly challenged, needs help to learn to consider others feelings.”
One more click and I find myself at the Rodent Adoption Listing website which displays a picture of a 12 month old Champagne Hood and a 6 month old Mink. “These two girls are very sweet, friendly, active and extremely outgoing.”
Several websites caution people not to say children are “put up” for adoption because it brings to mind the time when children were literally placed on raised platform at a public meeting like so much meat. Isn’t the adoption photo listing just as humiliating? Even the rodents get a nicer advertisement than the kids.
- by Laurie Frisch
Interested in learning more about older child adoption and adoptions from CPS?
Read "How Poverty Separates Parents and Children: A Challenge to Human Rights". This study by ATD Fourth World - with forewards by United Nations and UNICEF, includes a description of how United States child protection system (CPS) separates family members. Discusses 1997 Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) and it's contribution to the "unfair dissolution of many families"...States that "A child in the United States blames her parents for not protecting her from the child protection system."
Interested in reading a personal story about older child adoption and adoptions from CPS and the effect it can have on a family?
Be sure to read how the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) contributed to tearing one family apart: Adoption and Safe Families Act Tears Family Apart. Denying a non-cusdodial parent's constitutional rights to the care, custody and control of their child is just one method used to obtain "adoptable" babies and children and meet the state quotas of children adopted from foster care.
The United States government itself is listing children for adoption - putting pictures of children for adoption - on the internet at adoptuskids website. These adoption photolisitngs seem almost like criminal activity. The government should not be advertising children - human beings - like some product for sale via adoption photolistings.
But adoption photolistings are not the only issue. The majority of children in United States are removed from their homes not due to not drug use, sexual abuse or physical abuse but on the basis of "denying critical care". According to Federal Report:Iowa Fails Abused Children a federal report showed 70% of kids in Iowa under this category.
"Denying critical care" might mean anything. If a social worker showed up at the stable when Jesus was born, she might say that the environment was unsanitary, there was no food in the refrigerator, Mary and Joseph were cohabitating and they planned so poorly they didn't even arrive at their destination in time to get a hotel room. If Mary was not already proficient at nursing her son, you can just image the social worker looking down on her saying "babies having babies" in digust and then taking Jesus away and giving him to fost-adopts.
Unlike the old-style foster care providers, a fost-adopt is a person who is hoping to get a child. A fost-adopt is not someone who wants to adopt a child already in the system. Instead, a fost-adopt is looking for a fresh little one who is not already abused by repeated placements and possibly other abuse while in the system.
Would Mary ever get her son back? Not unless she had $50,000 and a good lawyer.
The U.S. government would do better to stop spending effort on adoption bonuses and the humiliating photo picture listings of children for adoption and instead find ways to help more children remain in their homes.
Posted at 09:17 am by warriorwoman
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May 19, 2005
Infant Adoption Awareness Training
Infant Adoption Awareness Training
Infant Adoption Awareness, Older Child Adoption Awareness, International Adoption Awareness, Embryo Adoption Awareness - it's hard to know what to focus on.
It's shocking at first when a person discovers, for example, the Transracial Abductees website which reveals how moms in Korea are locked up in maternity "homes" and their babies taken from them for adoption. Or this article: Korean Babies for Adoption Korea must stop overseas adoption Tobias Hubinette, Korea Herald, Feb 28, 2005.
But that's just an example of how shocking the reality is - "adoption" in any form seems to be simply a way of getting unrelated babies and small children for infertile people - and now for gay people as well. Anyone who is wealthy and doesn't want to be bothered with morning sickness or stretch marks can just buy a baby to adopt.
Infant Adoption Awareness Training? It's such a tragedy.
"We don't FORCE anyone to surrender their nice healthy infant son or daughter," they rationalize. "We don't lock moms up in maternity prisons like we used to - we just give them 'an option'. If the moms are stupid enough - or don't have resources - of course we'd be glad to use their baby for adoption."
It's like they are saying: "We're trying to obtain a better product. We don't house the breeder sows the same way we used to because we found it stressed the piglets. So now we try to ensure the breeders have a more relaxed environment by getting them to think it was THEIR choice. When in fact we know the "breeders" and their families are really naive and we are taking advantage of them."
Posted at 08:21 am by warriorwoman
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