(continued from previous post)

Q: How are pregnant women considering adoption treated in other countries? How are things done differently outside the U.S.?

There are places in the world that the concept and the word “adoption” (especially as it is practiced in the U.S., with name changes and sealed records) simply don’t exist. Within Western Europe and many other parts of the industrialized world, there is more support of single mothers and less coercion and pressure placed on those considering relinquishment. In Australia, for instance, domestic infant adoption barely exists.

Intercountry adoption consists of two worlds: the sending [poor] countries and the receiving [affluent] countries. The United Nations is attempting to regulate the enormous problems in international child trafficking in adoption. Black-market baby stealing, buying and selling, kidnapping, payoffs, graft, money laundering, and kickbacks are rampant in Eastern Europe, Asia and South America.

Q: Are you against all adoptions? If not, when are you in favor of their occurring?

A: I support family preservation. Like UNICEF and the CRC, I favor “appropriate alternative family environment” as “a last resort.” I also favor truly open adoption of orphans and those children who can never be reunified with any original family—in preference to institutional care. Contact with kin should be maintained, as safely possible.
I am against profiteering in adoption, and against all the unethical exploitive, coercive practices in adoption that profiteering breeds. I am against all secrets and lies in adoption which serve to aid and abet profiteers at the detriment of the people adoption is intended to serve. I am against depriving children of their identity or replacing it with a false identity. Such practices are contrary to the Hague Convention and the best interest of the child. Secrecy is not necessary to provide alternative care for children in need.

Q: What would a truly ethical adoption look like?

A: First, expectant mothers would be informed of resources available to care for their child themselves, and would be free from psychological influences and economical pressures to relinquish. When alternate care is necessary, it would look like adoption in other parts of the world and in the U.S. prior to the 1940s. Extended family would be encouraged to exercise first right to care for orphans and children whose parents could not, and if needed, receive financial subsidies to do so. If no extended family was able, then pre-approved families would be provided the legal right to provide permanent care for them. There would be no profiteering or pre-birth matching; legal counsel and option counseling would be provided from a central source funded by adoptive parents; and parents would have adequate time limits to fully consider their options and their decision. Finally, the process would be truly open with no records sealed or falsified, for all adoptions going forward and open to those at age 18 for those adopted in the past.

Q: As fellow birthmothers, how would you characterize our responsibility to today’s women who are experiencing unplanned pregnancies?

A: Again, that’s a matter of personal conscience, ability, etc. My hope would be that those who have experienced the loss of a child to adoption would share their experiences as a voice to those trying to weigh options in a time of stress.

Q: Do you have any final advice for women considering surrendering their babies?

A: Adoption is the most "forever" decision you will make. It will affect your life, that of your child, and both of your extended families forever after. It is no easier a choice than parenting, and in many ways more difficult.

- end of interview -

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3