Adoption - Is Family Heritage a Human Right?
by Laurie Frisch
With the adoption industry promoting the illusion of adopters
being the real parents of the unrelated children they are
raising, adoptees are being denied basic knowledge about themselves.
Who are they really? Who are their ancestors and what is their
health history?
Marion, IA (PRWEB) July 20, 2004 -- In the movie "Roots
II", the African man Kunta Kinte newly arrived in America
and auctioned as a slave, submits to being whipped almost
to death before he will acknowledge the new name given to
him by his owner. This determination to maintain our identity
is something most people relate to; fortunately most people
will never know what it's like to have their own identity
unacknowledged.
In adoption, the true identity of a human being is obliterated,
beginning with the issuance of an amended birth certificate.
The amended birth certificate lacks the adopted person's name
at birth and her parents' names, instead identifying the adopters
as having given birth. In some states, even the place and
date of birth on these official documents are false. In spite
of the Freedom of Information Act, even adoptees who are adults
are denied access to their original birth certificate in most
of the United States.
Adopters have been told by those who profit from adoption
that if they love a child enough, the child will not need
his true family. Many people probably think that for someone
adopted as a baby, their identity forms based on those who
raise them. Identity is often confused with developing good
values. But is it the same?
In the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling, Harry's parents
are the basis of his identity. This is true despite the fact
that Harry’s parents died when he was an infant and Harry
was raised by his Uncle and Aunt Dursley.
Harry's experiences living with the Dursley's are similar
to those of many adoptees. The Dursley's try to suppress Harry's
inherited tendency toward magic, which they can't understand.
They lie to Harry about his parents telling him they died
in a car crash. Questions are discouraged. While the Dursley's
dote on their real offspring, Dudley, they can’t relate
to Harry. Despite their concerted efforts to suppress it,
his talent for magic becomes apparent anyway even before the
Wizard world reconnects with him. His hair grows back in one
night after Uncle Vernon decides to cut it all off. He is
transported mysteriously to a rooftop while being chased by
Dudley and his gang.
The Dursley's denigrate Harry’s true parents, insulting
not only his parents, but Harry in the process. At one point
in his anger over the insults he uses his magic to blow Mrs.
Dursley up like a balloon which then floats away into the
sky. Many adoptees find the denial of their true family by
their adopters and others in society to be an insult.
Heritage and the family bond is essential to the identity
of all the characters in the Harry Potter books. Harry's rival,
the bully Draco Malfoy, has inherited a dark nature from his
father Lucius. The Weasleys are a poor but prominent wizard
family. Neville Longbottom, whose parents were tortured and
driven insane, do not even recognize their son. But when his
mother recognizes him as someone she likes and gives him the
gift of a gum wrapper, he saves it. And while Hermione Granger's
parents are Muggles, they at least have a bond with and appreciate
their daughter as herself and allow her to develop her talents
as a witch.
Those who truly care about Harry make it a point to keep
his parents memory alive for him. "You look just like
your father, but have your mother's eyes," Harry is told.
It seems this simple statement is a great comfort to Harry.
Even when Serius Black, Harry's godfather, asks Harry to live
with him, Serius does not mention changing Harry's name and
pretending to be his father. Serius respects Harry's heritage.What
does an adoptee think when viewing this movie? The comfort
of natural belonging is something that adoptees lack. They
are "special," in that they are different from everyone
around them. Whether their true mother is dead or alive, adoptees
surely can’t help but wonder about her.
On an internet discussion board, Dave Staplin, a 48-year-old
adoptee, introduces himself as "Mark (my real name, given
at birth)." He states: "I played the role I was
assigned faithfully for decades. I played the "as if"
(born to my adopters) game as well as anyone, and like Sleeping
Beauty, I stayed asleep and untouched. One day about 2 years
ago, I began to wake up, and realized that what was important
to my adopters was not me as I really am, but their image
of the child they wanted. I was a stand-in, a representation
of their dream of children and family."
In a message titled, "Why We Would Want to be Adopted
Back By Our Parents - An Adoptee's View," he states:
"We who have been adopted have been sentenced to carry
out someone else's wishes, carry on someone else's name...When
I began searching for my mother, every manipulative trick
in the book was pulled to dissuade me from doing so. Again,
concern only for what THEY want...Why would we want to be
adopted back by our real parents?...We are NOT your children...no
loving god would let happen to children what happens in closed
adoptions... As to the adopter's pain, it doesn't begin to
compare to the pain created by the way our lives have been
manipulated."
While many people have been led to believe that adoption
is caring for a child in the best way possible, inherent in
adoption is the denial of a human being's own identity and
heritage. While adopters claim they have a lot of love to
give, it's what they don’t give that is harmful: Respect
for the true family of the child they are raising as his family.
Adoptees sometimes do not even know whether the people they
are dating or marrying are their own cousins or siblings.
This may be especially true for Donor Insemination adoptees
and Embryo-adopted adoptees who may guess at the truth but
are less frequently informed of their adoptive status. For
those adoptees who do know, adopters control them using measures
such as guilt, material possessions and the lure of an inheritance.
After having searched in vain for decades for their true family,
many adoptees discover after their adopters have passed away
that the adopters had in their possession identifying information
that could have helped the adoptees locate their parents.
And the adopters withheld it.
There are other methods of permanency for a child that do
not deny him his heritage such as natural family preservation,
custody, guardianship and kinship care. These methods require
no lies about family relatedness and they put the child's
interests first.
It's not in the best interest of a human being to be treated
as the property of adopters. Even many of the people who have
adopted agree that their adoptees deserve to have identifying
information about themselves. And nearly all moms whose sons
and daughters were adopted-out would love to know how their
children are. Yet the National Council For Adoption, representing
agencies which profit from selling the fantasy of "real
parenthood" to prospective adopters, stands in the way.
We must have justice for all adoptees. In the future, no
child should have her identity or any other information changed
on her birth certificate. No child should be subjected to
having his own heritage disrespected and denied. With adoption,
not only the adoptee but each successive generation is cut
off from their heritage. What right could be more basic than
the right to your true identity? What could be more demeaning
than to have who you are ignored or denied? Is Heritage a
Human Right? It most certainly is.
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