Saturday, December 10, 2005
Adoptee rights revisited
A woman who gave up her child for adoption 18 years ago recently commented on my Adoptee Rights post. Her perspective is interesting, and not one I see brought up often; I encourage everyone who was interested in the issue to check it out. Also, she addresses adoption and birth parent issues on her own blog, Musings of the Lame. Thanks to her for her personal perspective.
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12 comments:
So I read her post and then went to her blog and it seems like she has two main points:
First, when people encourage young unwed mothers to give their children up for adoption, they don't prepare the mother for the actual ramifications of that decision.
Second, instead of pushing for adoption, we should be pushing for a society that provides better support for young mothers so that they don't feel the need to turn to adoption. It is only because young women feel so abandoned and alone that they are forced to give up their child.
Now, being that I'm not adopted and have never put a child up for adoption, and that I'm not a woman and so I can't fully understand the connection between mother and child, I have to defer to her judgment on her first point. On her second point, though, I am in complete agreement. We have a government (or a series of governments) with bizarre and misplaced priorities. Our first priority as a nation should be to provide for the less fortunate members of our society, and that includes young mothers.
Until we recognize that lower taxes are not worth the cost in human suffering, adoptions and abortions will continue, unabated. At the root of every symptom into which our country pours billions of dollars is poverty. Until we help the needy in our society, we're just wasting our resources.
Wow. Maybe I should run for office instead of you, Panda.
I agree with you fishfrog. And, godless tho I may be, I think that the notion "that which you do to the least of my people" is a pretty fucking awesome principle. But I do want to add this wrinkle:
Many childless couples have buckets upon buckets of love to heap upon children. If they medically cannot conceive, then adoption's their only choice.
Some (I won't venture a guess as to percentage) pregnant woman lack the motivation or skills to parent.
That is to say, adoption can serve a useful and good end.
And finally, you'll never get elected arguing for anti-poverty, social services, etc. Sure, I'll vote for you, but who else will?
Maybe some poor people will vote for me?
I'll vote for you.
I agree with you both.
I'm not totally against adoption because for some mothers that may be the best choice. There is also something called an "open adoption" and that seems to work best for child, adopted parents, and biological mothers. No doubt, many prospecitve adoptive parents don't want this becuase they want their new baby to be "theirs" as much as possible, but most of the stuff I've come across (admittedly not a ton) indicates that open adoptions can be good for all the parties involved.
There are also different "levels" of openess. Some, the birthparent might just help place the child and then that's the end of it, others may recieve photos and updates of their child, or others may have direct contact with the child.
Nothing I am thinking sounds politically correct and I don't want to offend readers who have gone through this experience themselves.
That being said I am a big supporter of adoption. Give plenty of support to the biological mother. Give medical information to the child. and then support adoption.
I would like to ask what kind of government programs would you like to see for poor people including unwed mothers? Maybe that would help my political correctness. I mean its easy to say provide for the "less fortunate" people, but how do you propose we do so.
1 - nationalized single payer health care. The fact that we don't have it is a crime and why democrats don't push and push and push this is beyond me. This is, to me, the single most important thing America needs.
2 - revamping the financing of local school systems. Local tax revenues, while cute and very American, means that poor people just get screwed over and their kids get terrible educations. A healthy injection of federal dollars wouldn't hurt, either.
3 - bump up financing of higher education. The degree is often the key to financial success, and it should be easily affordable and available to all.
4 - Make election day a federal holiday. The more people vote, the more support goes to the Democrats, the more progressive social policy gets passed.
5 - Robust welfare/aid to families with dependent children. "Welfare Queens" were largely a myth.
6 - Reduced spending on the military. VASTLY reduced. The disparity in social spending vs. military spending's disgusting and gives us the impression that we can and should just send our troops around the planet at will, with horrible effects (quick, name the war that we've gotten into since WWII that wasn't at least half a farce.) Decimation or elimination of the standing army.
7 - nationalize the record of all american court cases in a public database. It offends the notion of nulla poena sine leges and democracy itself that the law is confined to a self-selected elite of the mostly affluent. Eliminate law schools, integrate the law programs into college education, allow anyone to take the bar.
8 - stricter zoning to reduce exurban sprawl.
9 - Investment in public transportation.
10 - national free wifi.
11 - Nation's supply of hookers and blow delivered to my apartment.
That's about it.
It used to be that high school got you somewhere in this country way back when. Now you need a degree. Now you really need grad school. If we make it readily accessible to anybody then won't we just need to increase the amount of schooling everybody needs.
Making election day a holiday will not make more people vote and you can't shut everything down anyway. A day off to vote would make people take a day trip with their family or sleep in or realize "oh yeah, I meant to do that" at 6pm that they haven't gone out yet to vote.
The problem is not too much accesability. The problem is too little diversity. As a society we have inflated the value of higher classroom education and that is why you can't get a good job with out continuing school.
All forms of higher learning should be valued, and higher learning in a classroom should be one of just many choices (aprenticeships, etc).
Still, it should be one of many choices that ALL have, not just those who were lucky enough to be born into wealth.
Not really on topic, but I wanted to point out that memepool's entry for Monday the 12 is devoted entirely to you.
Its been almost a full week since you last posted!
serioulsy, you lack of posts is criminal. You can't even use finals as an excuse anymore. I don't care if it's a next blog of the week, cat genetics, or crazy loony people, but I want a post, damnit! A POST!
You do realize that Washrambler's updated more recently than you, don't you?
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