Bush
Admin Pushes Grabbing Babies From Poor Women So Wealthy Can Adopt
by
Linda Webber,
(plus
numerous letters to the editor in response
OpEdNews.com
Hello:
I am one
voice joined with others finding their voices for
the millions of Mothers and children of adoption wounds. Some
have found their voices and some that haven't yet. I have held
adopted persons and Mothers in my arms as they sobbed about the
pain of being without each other. Many of us Moms are sick and or
dying young from the grief of having our children taken from us by
adoption brokers. Only in America will a community gather around a woman
who's child has been kidnapped and offer validation for her pain
and yet will tell a Mother and adopted person that has lost each
other to coercion to be grateful for the act of separating them
from each other. I have held many Moms and adopted while they
sobbed about being hurt from adoption. There are cases where adopted
persons and Mothers have committed suicide do to the trauma of
adoption. Many adopted teens are in treatment centers. These are the
truths you will seldom be told because adoption is very Politically
correct now.
We are
then told that times have changed. Well, Not really....There's is a push
now by President Bush and some of his church-based adoption agencies to
bring back the good old days when all a women needed to be was
young, no family support and little to no social welfare programs
in place to lose her baby to adoption.
Because
now there are more choices for women and parental help the government is
trying their best to take away those choices to make room for more
adoption of infants to wealthy clients of adoption agencies.
First,
welfare reform has caused more woman and children to fall into the worst
poverty that we have seen in a long time, Second, they want to stop
the choice of abortion. There's a real pebble in their shoe and it
is what young women have today they didn't have and that is
parental support. First our government, furthering the Republican
agenda of baby selling baby in America, voted for "The Infant
adoption awareness act." But what to do with those pesky
parents/grandparents? The answer is HR 7 that would reintroduce
"group homes for unwed mothers" We all know that thought
control/coercion works best in a closed or non-existent support
system. So, Can we say it's starting to look a lot like the
50's, 60's and even past there to some extent? Those of us that
were sent away to the Prisons for unwed Mothers do not want to see those
horrid places in anyway shape or form emerge again.
Under
President Bush's watch we are witnessing going backwards not forward
when it comes to the rights of woman and children.
It is scaring the heck out of us Moms and many adopted persons that
are the direct result of the baby scoop era. We are fearful for
the young scared Moms that will fall prey to these adoption brokers. An
adoption agency in Texas has just opened a new "campus
"just before these bills were passed and President Bush is in tight
with this agency. This Texas Adoption agency was saying they
have a lot of open beds for pregnant Moms and then comes these bills?
Does something smell? Also, one of the big agencies at the National
Council for Adoptions has listed as a contact agency an agency that is a
big, church run conservative institution.
I
read the documents well before they deleted some of them and they stated
that they need to focus on white babies because there isn't much of a
demand for babies of color. Again, here's the 60's revisited. It was
suggested that birth control be taught more to women of color. The
reason I believe that many believed the testimony before Congress
was because they didn't hear testimony from us Moms and our children
about the harm done to us by being separated from each other. Remember
these bills are not for the purpose of anything but to bring in more
INFANTS. And in truth the government was promised a savings in tax
monies although Bush just pushed the 10,000 dollar incentive to
adopt, including infants, through. Just think what a single Mom could do
with $10,000? Some may say well there are open adoptions now and I say
many young Moms are coming forth saying they had never been told their
contact could be slammed shut once the adoption became final. And that
is exactly what happened. Interestingly, the agencies failed to inform
the Moms of this
All we Moms and adopted children of adoption loss have is our truth and
integrity. We don't have the money that the adoption brokers
have. We have the resolve to fight for the rights of all women and
children poor and middle class that Republicans have such a hatred for.
And yet they have no problem taking their children to sell to their
friends at the adoption agencies. We hope that our voices are heard
for the sake of all women and children.
And we also need your help. Here are a few things you can do to
help:
Write
to your congressman/woman and tell them it is not OK to support the
separating of Mothers and children for no reason other than they are
poor. Ask them what they are doing to preserve familles? Write letters
to the editors of your local paper informing parents/grandparents of the
intent of our government into separating their children and
grandchildren from them. Praise them for showing true family values by
keeping their children/grandchildren close to them with love and
support.
If
you belong to a church or temple ask the congregation to embrace a young
Mom and her child into fellowship not for the purpose
of removing her child from her but in true support.
Last
but Not least, we really need to restore a family friendly
administration into office and vote out the Republican agenda of
America being good for only the wealthy.
Linda
Webber, mommaL3@aol.com Activist
for the rights of Mother's and children to be free from adoption
coercion.
Mentor
for young Moms that are parenting their children
Wife,
Mother of two sons and one reunited daughter
Grandmother
of four children
Some
interesting links
3/5/2004
Thank you for printing the article by the birthmother whose child was
stolen from her through adoption. I am an adoptee and it is so
unfair for adults who were adopted as children to have their own
original birth certificates sealed from them, even when they reach
adulthood.
My birthmom died while searching for me and I wasn't able to meet her.
It makes us feel like continual children to have to beg judges for the
same birth information that other Americans take for granted! We
don't have our own family medical histories, and when they make us use
registries we feel like criminals.
The National Council for Adoption is using taxpayers money to train
teachers, hospital workers, social workers how to coerce young mothers
into giving up their children for adoption. I went to this
training and they do not tell the professionals of any of the rights of
the child to know his/her biological identity, or how painful adoption
is once the adoptee and birthmom realize they have lost out. It is
only for money, and baby commodities for infertile couples - with no
regard for the child. They say it is "in the best
interest" of the child - but then keep records closed so that the
unethical practices can be covered.
We need to stop lawmakers from reinstituting this bill every year - they
say it is to help get foster children adopted - but in truth, the money
is used for coercion so they can get healthy white infants for infertile
couples.
Surrogacy, egg and sperm donation, and adoption ALL disregard the rights
of the child who is affected.
Samantha Franklin
Tulsa, OK
also, "Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Parent's Knew" by
Sherrie Eldridge
Kudos,
Linda, on exposing the hidden truths so many of us endured.
'Relinquishment'
and the subsequent adoption of babies has for so long been deemed
a 'noble' 'selfless' and gratitude producing 'act of love'.
However,
it is time to expose the lies. The act of separating babies
from their mothers as a means to fill the arms of childless
couples is a heartwrenching, traumatic experience, for both mother
and child. It is a profound ache that many mothers live
with, often unresolved. And all too often the true
repercussions of 'relinquishing' are minimized by adoption
'professionals' who advocate for the annihilation of the core
of the family unit. Of course, they would have to diminish
the significance of the blood bond as well as the spiritual and
emotional bond formed in the prenatal and neonatal period to
procure the commodity of their industry: an infant. The
lies and manipulative tactics of adoption brokers must be exposed.
But it seems our dear Dubya sees the billion dollar adoption
industry (and make no mistake, it is an industry, billions of
dollars of revenues yearly is hardly a non profit endeavor) as a
lucrative boost to our economy..But at what cost??
At the
cost of mothers whose lives are forever changed.
The subsequent
realization that their supposed 'act of love' was in a fact an
erroneous, irrevocable belief in the proclamations of
the brokers, they were duped into believing they were not best for
their own children? A little adoption broker tactics aside: Their primary
goal is to ensure that the economically challenged or
young mother realizes her inadequacies, and ensures her that there
are 'better', translated into = wealthier, more stable, translated
into = married, and 'better equipped= has never parented
either, but this sure does sound appealing, however fallacious it
is, parents out there to raise her child.
Or do we
blindly continue....
At the
cost of these babies who grow up suffering often times, identity
integration dilemmas and other psychopathies? Or even of
those adoptees who have not made a conscious connection that their
inner turmoil is due to the separation from their first mothers,
yet they acknowledge having a constant or nagging longing to
know? And when they do seek to find the answers to their
genealogical questioning, the truth surrounding their
heritage, their genetic propensities or dispositions, they
encounter legislative measures that have made it almost
criminal to procure such fundamental truths, they are legally
barred from them. Many adoptees will attest, as will their
original, true and correct 'BIRTH' certificate (which is filed
away, sealed and replaced with an 'amended' one) that they were
given false information in regards to their actual date, time and
place of birth to impede the ability to attain such information, when
it would be desired (had they not believed an adopted person would
in fact want this information, they would not have the need to
falsify it years before.) For those of us who are not
adopted, this is rudimentary knowledge, knowledge we in fact
take for granted.
If
documentation within the medical and psychiatric community did not
exist their would be little or no standing for those of us who
KNOW in our hearts that adoption was not 'best' for our children,
or ourselves, but such documentation does exist and speaks to the
pain endured by our adopted children.
We, then,
are left with a dilemma, continue to sit quietly by and allow the
misconceptions surrounding the effects of adoption on mother and
child, or raise our voices in outrage in light of this
brutal Legislation, the true annihilation of family values.
As a
reunited mom to my son who was procured by adoption brokers when I
was only 15, not legally able to even sign up for my own
medical insurance or legally seek benefits to care for my child,
however I was legally able to sign a document called 'Irrevocable
termination of parental rights'... The scales of justice were
tipped against mine and my son's rights to life, liberty and our pursuit
of happiness, because believe me, he is, as am I, still struggling
to attain equilibrium from the horrific blow to the spirit, mind,
heart and soul of the both of us.
Christina
Neuhold
Reunited
Mother of
Jonathan
Michael
2/20/99
March 3
Thank you for
publishing,
Bush
Admin Pushes Grabbing Babies From Poor Women So Wealthy Can Adopt
by Linda Webber. As the grandmother of a baby
kidnapped in a fraudulent adoption scam, I can attest to the pain
and lifelong suffering of the family members of children who are
taken from their real families through the use of fraud and
coercion. You can never forgive yourself for not being
stronger and for falling for their lies and threats.
Any
young mother who makes the mistake of being willing to hear their
sales pitch, has set herself up for disaster. First they get
you to sign non-binding papers in "consideration" of an
adoption, then once you do, the lies and threats start pouring in,
until during those precious few hours in your hospital bed, doped
up on medication, they are there with pen and coercion, and what
ever threats are needed to get you to sign, and the hospital staff
has no obligation to protect you.
The
same nurses who would tell a patient on the same medication, that
he/she can not drive a vehicle or sign legal papers, who has a
patient's spouse sign in acknowledgement of medical orders instead
of the patient, turn a blind eye to signing away ones own child.
Melinda Walmsley
Minneapolis KS
March 2
Thank you Linda Webber for
bringing to light in "Bush Pushes Grabbing Babies From Poor
Women So Wealthy Can Adopt," the horrific and very painful,
lifelong consequences of removing babies from
defenseless, financially stressed single mothers.
Social work history clearly shows
this intent, in a book published by the National Association of
Social Workers in 1964 (the "baby scoop era"):
"Because there are many more married couples wanting to adopt
newborn white babies than there are babies, it may almost be said
that they, rather than out of wedlock babies are a social
problem... Sometimes social workers in adoption agencies have
facetiously suggested setting up social provisions for more 'baby
breeding'."
This
country must stop tearing apart mothers and children. It must
honor life's most sacred bond and join the rest of the
world in supporting and preserving natural families.
Karen
Wilson Buterbaugh
Richmond,
Virginia
"Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (1948-1998)
Article 25: (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to
special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out
of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection."
Co-author,
"Adoption Healing, a path to recovery for mothers who
lost children to adoption,"
www.adoptionhealing.com
march 1
Dear editor:
As a mother who lost her child to baby brokers in 1990, I thank
you for publishing the excellent article "Bush Admin Pushes
Grabbing Babies From Poor Women So Wealthy Can Adopt" by Linda
Webber. I hope this article will help educate people about the
wrongness of tearing families apart and buying and selling human
beings under the guise of "adoption."
Bernadette Wright
Fairfax, VA
I
have read Linda Webber's letter,(Bush
Admin Pushes Grabbing Babies From Poor Women So Wealthy Can Adopt
by
Linda Webber,)
on
adoption, and feel that she has done a great job expressing us moms,
who lost their child to adoption. I hope that many more people
come aware of our life time of grief caused to us, and our children,
due to the adoption. My pain, and grief will never end. I pray
that somehow, in the future, more young moms are not coerced into
relinquishing their children to the adoption industry.
Reunited Mom. Maria Santos
