I just wanted to share this post by Mei-Ling about the term "paper pregnant". I was truly disgusted the first time I heard that phrase used by PAPs. I felt like I, along with all the other natural mothers out there, just had the last door shut in our faces, the last connection to our children negated. The people that society claims are more deserving of our children are not only taking our babies but staking the claim to our pregnancies also. No PAPs, you are not pregnant, not even on paper. It's a lie. It's just another step in the "as if born to" process of pretending the baby is yours. It's another way that the agencies encourage PAPs to feel entitled to a woman's child before she's given birth to the baby. It's another way to put pressure on a pregnant woman. If she's sharing the pregnancy with the PAPs then surely she's not going to keep the baby from them after the birth. Here we have it, 2 more words in the coercion arsenal.
On another note, update on the show Parenthood that I mentioned on the previous post..... pregnant girl has a legal issue but can't afford an attorney. Guess who IS an attorney - of course, the one who wanted to buy a baby. She happily offers her services to the girl free of charge. You could see the gleam in her eye and the wheels turning. Later in the show, after legal issue is resolved, she asks the pregnant girl if she would consider letting her adopt her baby and all the girl says is NO. Yay!
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Monday, September 19, 2011
Will they or won't they?
I watch this show called Parenthood. It's pretty good for a weekly family drama/nighttime soap opera. I watched last season and was excited to see the new season starting this week. I was prepared, I was settled in with my remote, ready to fast forward through the commercials (of course I try to record anything I watch on a regular basis so I don't have to sit through those). What I wasn't prepared for was one of the characters on the show bluntly stating that she wanted to BUY A BABY. I don't remember the exact words but it went something like.... "You know the latte girl at the office? She's pregnant and I want to buy her baby". I may not have all the words exactly as they were scripted but she did say BUY. After I got over my annoyance that the topic of adoption crept into my guilty pleasure of a nighttime soap, I was shocked at what I heard. She really did say BUY!
My first gut reaction was such utter disgust that I was about to turn the tv off and declare that I'm never watching that show again. Then I thought..... I wonder where the writers are going with this. For them to have her state that with such brutal honesty, it makes me think - could it be that they might not be going down the sparkly, pastel colored kool-aid highway? What if a show actually, really told the truth about the human trafficking known as adoption? What if they actually talked about the role the agency plays and the amount of money to be made on the backs of mothers and their children? What if they made a point of talking about how society views women. What if they actually tried to present adoption from the viewpoint of the natural mother, or even the adoptee? Could it happen? Am I dreaming to think that on prime time TV there might be a viewpoint presented that doesn't suck up to the industry? Could there be a show so bold as this?
Ok, I'm a awake now and yes, I know it's fiction. It would probably mean ratings suicide for them but I have turned into the eternal optimist. I would like to think that a show I've enjoyed would continue to be a show that I'll enjoy AND they'll tell the truth about something. We'll see what happens.
My first gut reaction was such utter disgust that I was about to turn the tv off and declare that I'm never watching that show again. Then I thought..... I wonder where the writers are going with this. For them to have her state that with such brutal honesty, it makes me think - could it be that they might not be going down the sparkly, pastel colored kool-aid highway? What if a show actually, really told the truth about the human trafficking known as adoption? What if they actually talked about the role the agency plays and the amount of money to be made on the backs of mothers and their children? What if they made a point of talking about how society views women. What if they actually tried to present adoption from the viewpoint of the natural mother, or even the adoptee? Could it happen? Am I dreaming to think that on prime time TV there might be a viewpoint presented that doesn't suck up to the industry? Could there be a show so bold as this?
Ok, I'm a awake now and yes, I know it's fiction. It would probably mean ratings suicide for them but I have turned into the eternal optimist. I would like to think that a show I've enjoyed would continue to be a show that I'll enjoy AND they'll tell the truth about something. We'll see what happens.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Religion and reality
I've been reading Sam Harris's book Letter to a Christian Nation. I read it a few years ago but decided to pick it up again. It's funny how different things jump out at you when you're in a different place in your life. When I read the paragraph below it screamed adoption at me.
"One of the most pernicious effects of religion is that it tends to divorce morality from the reality of human and animal suffering. Religion allows people to imagine that their concerns are moral when they are not - that is, when they have nothing to do with suffering or its alleviation. Indeed, religion allows people to imagine that their concerns are moral when they are highly immoral - that is, when pressing these concerns inflicts unnecessary and appalling suffering on innocent human beings."
The zeal of the religious to stop abortion may make them appear to be coming from a morally superior place - in the eyes of other religious people anyway. For many the morally correct stance is not to allow contraception. Then add to the list the abstinence only education for teens who are dealing with raging hormones and there you have the mix that creates the perfect environment for the religious to press their concerns and push the adoption agenda. Talk about inflicting unnecessary and appalling suffering on innocents! The unwavering faith in what the religious authority has to say allows people to simply wear blinders when it comes to the results of following those dictates. Why else would the BSE be allowed to be continued for so long? How could people who are normally loving and compassionate people, be duped into believing that sending girls away and forcing them to live without their children is the best solution for an unplanned pregnancy? So many people claimed that family is everything yet could send their pregnant daughters to go live among strangers to deal with such a traumatic experience on their own. That is truly a divorce from reality. The sad thing is these attitudes still continue today which is why adoption in it's hideous form still continues today.
"You believe that your religious concerns about sex, in all their tiresome immensity, have something to do with morality. And yet, your efforts to constrain the sexual behavior of consenting adults - and even to discourage your own sons and daughters from having premarital sex - are almost never geared toward the relief of human suffering. In fact, relieving suffering seems to rank rather low on your list of priorities. Your principal concern appears to be that the creator of the universe will take offense at something people do while naked. This prudery of yours contributes daily to the surplus of human misery."
This is the shame that created so much pain for so many millions. This belief, combined with the idea that only a married couple - defined as one man and one woman - is capable of raising healthy children, continues to cause pain for many more adults and children. This is another huge divorce from reality. Sadly many women are still raised in these beliefs and think they're doing the right thing when they hand over their babies for others to raise. It's only after the fact, and sometimes decades after the fact, that they wake up from the delusion of "adoption is wonderful". In the meantime their children are living with the day to day reality of being an adoptee. The trickle down consequences of adoption continues for generations and it all stems from the belief that sex without a certificate of marriage is bad.
If the religious were really pro-life they would welcome new life regardless of the marital status of the mother. If they were really pro-life they would do all in their power to keep sacred the bond between a mother and her child. If they were really pro-life they would make sure that a new child is taken care of within their own natural family. If they were really pro-life they would do all in their power to prevent the suffering of living human beings, not just blastocysts. The suffering caused by adoption is immense yet the blinders are still on thanks to the immense power of religion to turn something natural and beautiful into something dirty and shameful. Equally as shameful is the adoption industry that uses people's beliefs in these ideas against them in order to acquire babies to sell and line their pockets with the cash.
"One of the most pernicious effects of religion is that it tends to divorce morality from the reality of human and animal suffering. Religion allows people to imagine that their concerns are moral when they are not - that is, when they have nothing to do with suffering or its alleviation. Indeed, religion allows people to imagine that their concerns are moral when they are highly immoral - that is, when pressing these concerns inflicts unnecessary and appalling suffering on innocent human beings."
The zeal of the religious to stop abortion may make them appear to be coming from a morally superior place - in the eyes of other religious people anyway. For many the morally correct stance is not to allow contraception. Then add to the list the abstinence only education for teens who are dealing with raging hormones and there you have the mix that creates the perfect environment for the religious to press their concerns and push the adoption agenda. Talk about inflicting unnecessary and appalling suffering on innocents! The unwavering faith in what the religious authority has to say allows people to simply wear blinders when it comes to the results of following those dictates. Why else would the BSE be allowed to be continued for so long? How could people who are normally loving and compassionate people, be duped into believing that sending girls away and forcing them to live without their children is the best solution for an unplanned pregnancy? So many people claimed that family is everything yet could send their pregnant daughters to go live among strangers to deal with such a traumatic experience on their own. That is truly a divorce from reality. The sad thing is these attitudes still continue today which is why adoption in it's hideous form still continues today.
"You believe that your religious concerns about sex, in all their tiresome immensity, have something to do with morality. And yet, your efforts to constrain the sexual behavior of consenting adults - and even to discourage your own sons and daughters from having premarital sex - are almost never geared toward the relief of human suffering. In fact, relieving suffering seems to rank rather low on your list of priorities. Your principal concern appears to be that the creator of the universe will take offense at something people do while naked. This prudery of yours contributes daily to the surplus of human misery."
This is the shame that created so much pain for so many millions. This belief, combined with the idea that only a married couple - defined as one man and one woman - is capable of raising healthy children, continues to cause pain for many more adults and children. This is another huge divorce from reality. Sadly many women are still raised in these beliefs and think they're doing the right thing when they hand over their babies for others to raise. It's only after the fact, and sometimes decades after the fact, that they wake up from the delusion of "adoption is wonderful". In the meantime their children are living with the day to day reality of being an adoptee. The trickle down consequences of adoption continues for generations and it all stems from the belief that sex without a certificate of marriage is bad.
If the religious were really pro-life they would welcome new life regardless of the marital status of the mother. If they were really pro-life they would do all in their power to keep sacred the bond between a mother and her child. If they were really pro-life they would make sure that a new child is taken care of within their own natural family. If they were really pro-life they would do all in their power to prevent the suffering of living human beings, not just blastocysts. The suffering caused by adoption is immense yet the blinders are still on thanks to the immense power of religion to turn something natural and beautiful into something dirty and shameful. Equally as shameful is the adoption industry that uses people's beliefs in these ideas against them in order to acquire babies to sell and line their pockets with the cash.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
More evidence of the power imbalance
Most of the time, when reading blogs from mothers who have recently surrendered their babies, I see the usual rainbow and butterfly propaganda from the adoption industry spewing forth - sometimes it's more like projectile vomiting and I just want to duck. Today I read a post that was different. This mother sees just how unethical and unfair the industry is and what she had to say just enraged me.
"I learned that everything that I did in my frantic, desperate attempts to keep my son with me, were to no avail, from negotiating my and W’s Dr., hospital and anesthesiologist fees, to a plea for Medicaid only to be denied because I made too much money. I would have had to file bankruptcy if I had kept him and that purely because W is ‘adopted’, regardless of the scenario of his adoption, or the income D & H make, that 1) he receives $175/mo in free formula from WIC for his first year, and 2) he is on FREE Medicaid for his first year, and 3) they will be getting more food allowance from WIC once he turns 6 months as he begins to eat solid foods."
Well, millions of us know the story of being stuck in the middle and falling through the cracks. You don't make enough income to pay for what you need but make too much income to qualify for any help. It's a crappy place to be. So a single mother who is trying desperately to take care of her child is denied Medicaid yet the people who adopt her baby - who obviously had the funds to pay an agency the adoption fees and we know how high those can be - get $175/mo in formula for a year and Medicaid for a year. They get this help because they adopted. AND add to this the ridiculous tax credit/refund of something like 13,000.00 they'll get simply for adopting. All of this help is available to the couple taking the baby but none of it is available to the child's mother. This is sickening! How many more posts have to be written, what do we have to do to get people to see this industry for what it is?
Sometimes I think about not doing any more posts here because it can be so difficult to keep it up. It's just hard to keep talking about such an emotional, personal and painful subject. If I could just go about my life and not have to think about this crap anymore I would certainly have less stress but when I see stories like this I feel like I can't stop. I just want to scream. I want to shake people. Women lose their children because of money yet we (the taxpayers and that includes the mother who lost her baby) give money to the people who can afford to buy those children. Why aren't more people enraged by this?
"I learned that everything that I did in my frantic, desperate attempts to keep my son with me, were to no avail, from negotiating my and W’s Dr., hospital and anesthesiologist fees, to a plea for Medicaid only to be denied because I made too much money. I would have had to file bankruptcy if I had kept him and that purely because W is ‘adopted’, regardless of the scenario of his adoption, or the income D & H make, that 1) he receives $175/mo in free formula from WIC for his first year, and 2) he is on FREE Medicaid for his first year, and 3) they will be getting more food allowance from WIC once he turns 6 months as he begins to eat solid foods."
Well, millions of us know the story of being stuck in the middle and falling through the cracks. You don't make enough income to pay for what you need but make too much income to qualify for any help. It's a crappy place to be. So a single mother who is trying desperately to take care of her child is denied Medicaid yet the people who adopt her baby - who obviously had the funds to pay an agency the adoption fees and we know how high those can be - get $175/mo in formula for a year and Medicaid for a year. They get this help because they adopted. AND add to this the ridiculous tax credit/refund of something like 13,000.00 they'll get simply for adopting. All of this help is available to the couple taking the baby but none of it is available to the child's mother. This is sickening! How many more posts have to be written, what do we have to do to get people to see this industry for what it is?
Sometimes I think about not doing any more posts here because it can be so difficult to keep it up. It's just hard to keep talking about such an emotional, personal and painful subject. If I could just go about my life and not have to think about this crap anymore I would certainly have less stress but when I see stories like this I feel like I can't stop. I just want to scream. I want to shake people. Women lose their children because of money yet we (the taxpayers and that includes the mother who lost her baby) give money to the people who can afford to buy those children. Why aren't more people enraged by this?
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Care and Feeding
In my wanderings through web pages I came across this little tidbit. The title of the article is Infertility - Caring for the Birthmother. Seeing this line in the middle of the list of other articles such as what kind of aromatherapy candles to buy for stress relief, recipes for chocolate cake, and shopping for funeral sprays made me feel like there should be a card with a list of how-to's like you get from the hardware store about re-grouting your bathroom tile. Maybe adoption agencies could start making labels they can tag on pregnant women that give PAP's care and feeding instructions for "your new birthmother". Geez.... the title says it all too doesn't it? Infertility = take someone else's baby. And... she's not even a woman or an expectant mother, she's THE birthmother, an "it" to be handled.
Here are three of the items on the list.....
3. A complete social, family, medical and personal
history is essential, including drugs and alcohol
use. The woman may be afraid to be specific.
4. A woman considering placing her child for
adoption may be at higher risk for STDs and
social problems. She may require additional
medical and social supports, even after the
placement of her child.
5. Care during delivery should be the same as for all
mothers. However, delivery may not be joyful; in
fact, the mother may show signs of grief and
bereavement. The mother may not want to see her
child or stay on the labor and delivery floor. These
wishes should be honored.
Well, you know how I feel about the "b" word so I'm not going into all that again.
Interesting that the first line of #5 has to be mentioned at all. We all know why that is. Care during delivery for unwed mothers used be very different from married mothers. For decades we were treated like breeding stock and even abused by medical staff. "However, delivery may not be joyful; in fact, the mother may show signs of grief" - wow! Imagine that - the walking uterus has feelings.
The snark could go on forever with crap like this but it's a lovely Sunday afternoon and I've had enough of being annoyed. Just thought I'd share.
Here are three of the items on the list.....
3. A complete social, family, medical and personal
history is essential, including drugs and alcohol
use. The woman may be afraid to be specific.
4. A woman considering placing her child for
adoption may be at higher risk for STDs and
social problems. She may require additional
medical and social supports, even after the
placement of her child.
5. Care during delivery should be the same as for all
mothers. However, delivery may not be joyful; in
fact, the mother may show signs of grief and
bereavement. The mother may not want to see her
child or stay on the labor and delivery floor. These
wishes should be honored.
Well, you know how I feel about the "b" word so I'm not going into all that again.
Interesting that the first line of #5 has to be mentioned at all. We all know why that is. Care during delivery for unwed mothers used be very different from married mothers. For decades we were treated like breeding stock and even abused by medical staff. "However, delivery may not be joyful; in fact, the mother may show signs of grief" - wow! Imagine that - the walking uterus has feelings.
The snark could go on forever with crap like this but it's a lovely Sunday afternoon and I've had enough of being annoyed. Just thought I'd share.
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