Adults who were adopted
as infants are not treated equally in the eyes of the law. The right to
one’s original unaltered record of birth is a human and civil right that is
being denied to adults in 44 states across the United States.* Prior
to the 1940s no such laws existed.
Why were they put into
effect and why are they so hard to change?
There are three assumptions underlying the
status quo of adoption;
Adoptees are somehow
defective.
Birth mothers are not
real mothers.
Adoptive mothers are
likely to be duped.
1.
Adoptees are Defective:
Being adopted is
entangled with being born out of wedlock. We cannot ignore that the word
“adoptee” supplanted the word “bastard.” The word bastard is
interesting. Translated from the biblical term “nathos,” the origins of
the word “bastard” can tell us a lot about what speakers were thinking when
they first put this English translation to use. The noun nathos refers to
something of irregular, inferior, or of dubious origin; translated into English
as “an illegitimate child.” The adjective nathos describes something as not
genuine, spurious, and resembling a known kind of species but not truly
such. In other words, the idea of being inferior – even not
truly human was translated into the word “bastard” by English
speakers, a term which English speakers then used to label “illegitimate”
children. By the way, if you doubt this keep in mind that the second
definition of the word “illegitimate” according to Webster’s online dictionary
is “departing from the regular,”
it comes right after “not recognized as lawful offspring; specifically born of
parents not married to each other.”
2. Birth
Mothers are Not Real:
"Adoption"
gave birth to a multi-billion dollar predominately private industry in the
1940s. When the popular book “The Chosen Baby” was published in 1939, it
was to combat the stigma of adoption, making it more comfortable for
adults seeking to adopt and promoting the acceptance of adoption as a way of
becoming a family. The concept of “matching” was popular during this
time. Matching referred to the practice of placing an infant for adoption
with parents who have the same nationality, so that parents and child will
likely share particular features, making it possible for the adoptive parents
to lie about the child's origins. As adoption popularized, laws
sealing records began to be put in place, comforting the adopting parents by
depicting them as the "real" parents, and attempting to erase the
biological parents from existence.
3. Adoptive
Mothers Get Duped:
The earliest research on
adoptees consisted of studies of intelligence and development. The underlying belief that there must be or
will be something developmentally wrong with an adopted child is apparent in
the kinds of questions researchers asked about adoptees. The fear of getting duped extended beyond
just the anticipated deficiencies of second hand stock; there was also the inherent
fear of the “birth mother.” The young
birth mother may change her mind. Labels
such as “birth mother” and “triad,” place two women, two mothers, at odds with
each other. They are described as opposing forces, "nature vs.
nurture," instead of a collaboration between human qualities and human
circumstances. This unhelpful terminology continues to be in use today.
The stigma that
surrounded closed record adoptions contributes to the challenges adoptees face
as adults, particularly during "adoption reunion." Movies and
prime time television today portray adoption reunion in a negative light,
sometimes even as pure evil. Adult adoptees who choose to search for their
origins are faced with outsiders who do not always perceive their desire
as natural, something a person would do simply because she or
he wanted to and not for some ulterior motive. The assumption is they are
betraying their adoptive parents. They
can be faced with angry accusations and misunderstandings; for this reason many
adoptees claim to wait until their adoptive parents pass away to begin a search.
Summary:
Adoptions that took
place in the United States
Betty Jean Lifton
(1977, 1979, 1994) broke the silence of adoptees. According to Lifton
(1979) “It could be said that all Adoptees are survivors of a holocaust of one
kind or another. They get their first hint of this in the chosen-baby
story, which has the implicit message: we saved you.” (p. 39). Betty Jean
Lifton passed away in 2010. Although she raised the voices of adoptees,
birth records remain closed or are laden with conditions in 44 states.
It is the HUMAN and CIVIL RIGHT of EVERY person to have
acess to their own record of birth, unaltered.
*The overturning of laws sealing records began in 1998 when Oregon voters approved Measure 58 making Oregon Alabama Alaska and Kansas Maine
