It seems that everybody is asking me for money these days. Jimmy Carter wrote me a letter about building affordable housing, The Willdlife Fund has assured me that every last panda on Earth will be exterminated unless I send them $25, and for some reason if I don’t send the DNC more money, our very way of life will come to an end. I thought the DNC should be in pretty good shape, but I was mistaken.
This is a normal day for me. I send out little dribbles of money to save the world. It’s not something that I would even mention if I hadn’t received an appeal from another organization.
It started off like this, and I quote….
Your gift to Holt’s Special Needs Adoption Fund will help to offset the adoption expense for a waiting child, and immediately help to make sure the children are united with the loving families they desperately need. We are asking you today for a gift of $50, $100 or more to help a waiting child be adopted, or consider a special gift of $1,934 to help place one child with a loving family in 2009. Your gift will make a huge difference for these children and families!
OK, they want me to give money to help special needs kids around the world. Who could possibly be against helping special needs kids? Certainly not me. I’m all for helping special needs kids.
But wait, this money doesn’t go to the kids, it goes to potential adoptive parents….potential adoptive parents that can’t afford their adoptions. Even special needs adoptions that cost substantially less. It doesn’t go to orphanages to pay for doctors, or therapists, or surgeries. One wonders if they will be hearing from this loving family in the future, after all taking care of a special needs child ain’t cheap. If $1,934 is all that it takes to get the kid home, where are they going to come up with the costs for care, even if they have insurance? Let’s face it, if they can’t put a couple of grand on their MasterCard, how good could their jobs be, even if they have benefits? I really don’t want Holt selling them my name for future reference.
The money goes to some wannabe “family” that doesn’t seem to be aware that there are a whole load of special needs kids that you can adopt for what amounts to almost free. That’s right, if you really took a bath in this recession, there are places that will let you save a kid right here at home. They even come in a variety of colors. Heck if you don’t tell the neighbors, they’ll never know that you got them on the cheap. Just teach the kids a few words of the exotic language of your choice and send them out to play.
No, the money doesn’t pay for help for the kids, it offsets the cost of airfare and a couple of weeks in some Americanized pseudo luxury hotel, and a barbie doll. If they think I’m going to help pay for some entitled potential adoptive parents to stay in accommodations I can’t afford, they are dreaming.
But wait, there’s more…
Charlie was born premature at 28 weeks weighing 2.4 pounds. He continues to have global delays. Charlie will develop more rapidly in the love and nurture of a permanent family and your gift will make a huge difference in our ability to find him that family.
Things do sound bad for Charlie. I’m not really sure why I can’t just give some money to help out Charlie. I think the first thing I’d like to pay for is a name change, he really doesn’t look like a Charlie, that could do wonders for his self esteem. As I’m sure they tell all the potential adopters in pre-adoptive classes, self esteem is key in development.
I think I’ll pass on this one. I still want to help special needs kids and adoptees, but I think I’ll cut out the middle man. There are tons of charities that do great work in every single country that Holt is doing business. Many of them might have even been able to get poor Charlie some help without going through all the trouble of adoption.
I want to help adoptees too. I think I’ll send some money here.
Adoptee Rights.
According To Addie 
Thank you for posting this, Heidi.
“Information is power, the saying goes.”
Which is one reason, among others, why adopted people deserve to have the right to information about their origins restored to them – and I use the word “restored” deliberately, because that right was eroded and eventually lost during the middle of the 20th century.
I would also like to include the opinion of Margaret Somerville, Canadian ethicist and academic. She is the Samuel Gale Professor of Law, Professor in the Faculty of Medicine and the Founding Director of the Faculty of Law’s Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill University. She is a remarkable woman and someone to be taken seriously even where one disagrees with her.
The excerpt (below) is from a 2007 panel discussion about ethical problems relating to assisted reproductive technology, but she also relates to children’s human rights in general:
“Recently I’ve been working on children’s human rights with respect to their biological origins and biological families.
In that work I’ve argued that we must recognize that children have human rights with respect to knowing the identity of their biological parents and, if at all possible, their immediate and wider biological families; having a mother and a father, preferably their own biological parents; and to come from natural biological origins.”
She also says that “It is one matter for children not to know their genetic identity as a result of unintended circumstances.
It is quite another matter to deliberately destroy children’s links to their biological parents, and especially for society to be
complicit in this destruction.”
You can read more here:
http://www.canadianconstitutionfoundation.ca/files/pdf/The%20Intersection%20of%20Freedom%20-%20Margaret%20Somerville.pdf
She also believes that emphasis should be placed on the rights of the child, so that if an adopted person seeks disclosure of their adoption records, that information should be disclosed *whether the parent who placed the child consents or not*, because everyone has the human right to know their origins.
The reverse, on the other hand, wouldn’t necessarily hold true. In her opinion, a parent would only be entitled to information about a child who’d been placed for adoption if they consented.
“For those of you who are new to this, mandated open records ”unseal” original birth certificates of adult adopted children..”
Also for those who are new to this it might be worth noting that adoptees do not remain children all of their lives. They do become adults. For perspective should those not adopted be referred to as adult biological children, adult natural children, adult unadopted children? Sounds rather silly, doesn’t it?
I would think that even those who are new to adoption would realize that children (by definition) grow up.
It was a simple typo. Thanks for pointing it out.
Kippa:
“…having a mother and a father, preferably their own biological parents; and to come from natural biological origins.”
With regard to reproductive technology, I’d have to say that Professor (?) Sommerville is arguing against invitro and other forms of artificial reproduction, which is consistent with traditional Catholic teaching. And I fully agree that, if mandated open records becomes the norm, donor records must also be released as well. That would be simple justice — the same standard for both mother and father.
As for the final paragraph, it’s important to distinguish between “rights” and “desires.” As “Addie” pointed out, these individuals are no longer children, but adults. “Mutual consent” would seem to be the logical middle ground.
Nice try fuckwit.
here’s the second comment she refused to put up…
Comment:
Please do not presume that I would think that mutual consent would be a logical middle ground. I do not. My biological history belongs to me, just as yours belongs to you. I have as much right to know what that heritage is as anyone else.
There is no middle ground. Something that is so uniquely mine cannot be denied me, it is my right to know this.
And the response..
Frankly, it’s not my concern whether you think this is logical middle ground — you are entitled to your opinion, and the express it … on YOUR blog.
As I’ve said to Kippa, I’m not interested in prolonging the discussing about open records on my blog at this time. There are strong points of view, and frankly because each of us has formed an opinion from which we are unlikely to budge, further discussion is pointless. I’ve deleted your comment, in keeping with my comments policy.
Feel free to link and respond as you see fit … but at EMN, I get to moderate and direct the conversation as I see fit. I’m sorry if you disagree with my viewpoint.
Heidi Saxton
Author, “Raising Up Mommy” and “Behold Your Mother” (http://www.christianword.com)
Founder, “Extraordinary Moms Network”
(http://extraordinarymomsnetwork.wordpress.com)