Writing My Wrongs

The Root of Money

“So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?” - Ayn Rand

A friend sent me an article regarding Ohio legislators considering expenses paid to expectant mothers. Apparently several agencies and prospective adopters are complaining about their inability to properly coerce, ahem, I mean, support the expectant mothers.

Ohio legislators must be smoking something. If they aren't, perhaps they are being wooed by the likes of Seymour Kurtz and his associates.  Maybe someone in the Ohio government is having a hard time adopting.

The idea of adoptive parents or attorneys  providing funds to expectant mothers before, during or after birth is to me highly unethical. It creates a coercive and intimidating situation.

It is not support money. It is insurance. Money used to guarantee the expectant mother surrenders. Money used to intimidate her and remind her of what she doesn't have and those lovely adopters do. Money used to prove how worthy prospective adopters are of her child and she is not. Money used to keep her on a lower rung and those lovely adopters on a higher rung. Money used to buy the baby before it is even born. It is a security deposit. 

Oh, sure, individuals will hide behind gooey altruistic statements that suggest they are just helping some poor mother. More often than not, they are helping themselves. For when that mother they helped decides to keep her child, do they congratulate her and wish her well? No. They scream fraud and scamming and raise holy hell that they did not get the baby. They never cared about the mother. They only cared about the baby she would give birth to. The baby they could then take, rename and whisk away to the burbs to act "as if born to".

There should be no funds at all.

By no means am I suggesting an expectant mother in need of assistance should be forgotten.  I am not. I am however suggesting those funds should come from someone other than those that stand to profit off of a possible adoption transaction.  State welfare, an individual organization, a friend, a family member, someone with NO vested interest in the child being born should help that mother.

Not the salivating agencies, attorneys and adoptive parents.

Frankly, I am quite surprised the problems inherent in providing money to expectant mothers is lost on some folks.

Money creates a situation where mothers can be coerced and intimidated. I know, I was one of them. Prior to being sent from my family home in CT to the lovely State of IL, my mother signed a document obligating her to pay the agency back for any services rendered to me prior to surrender. My mother insists the document said $200.  Funny how that number changed once the agency got me away from my parents, into a maternity home, and under their control.  Even though I was required to work in the home and pay for my rent there, they claimed my rent was subsidized by them. They further said that the lunches the caseworker paid for when she met with me were considered advanced funds.  Some might consider the caseworker visits and such a cost of doing business. Not so for Easter House. There was a return on investment expected.  And lets not forget those regular doctor appts at St. Josephs Hospital. Someone had to pay. 

I paid with my child.

When I, weeks before birth, told my caseworker that I wanted to keep my daughter she not so gently reminded me of the promissory note my parents signed and informed me if I attempted to keep my child I, and my parents, would be sued. She further reminded me that I had caused my parents enough trouble, hadn't I?

It was made clear to me that due to the monies advanced to me in the form of support and housing, I was morally and legally obligated to surrender my child - against my will - to the agency. Lacking any legal counsel, being isolated with my only contact being with the agency that stood to profit from the sale of my child, I surrendered.

I wonder if my daughters adoptive parents knew how their dreams came true?

Money creates a situation for agencies and adoptive parents to be scammed. Again, Easter House in IL was known for providing monies, paying for rent and groceries for expectant mothers.  Not surprisingly, scammers got wind of this took advantage of EH. While I don't shed a tear for the likes of EH, the situation can and does happen over and over gain.  Agencies and adoptive parents that provide funds are just asking for it.

An adoptive family I know in NY purchased their child from a Kurtz agency. The infant was born in AZ, surrendered to one Kurtz agency and adopted through a second Kurtz agency in GA and then placed with the family in NY.  The State of NY stalled the finalization of the adoption due the unusually high fees that were being charged to the adoptive parents. The adoptive parents did not question it. They would have paid anything to get a baby.  Furthermore, they were told the high fees went to the mothers care.

I know the mother in this example. The mother never received a cent from the agency.  The high fees went to line the agency pockets. The adoptive mother is still angry about this and her child is now an adult.

Money creates pricing structures. How do you decide what to advance? Do black moms get more or less money?  What do you pay for? What do you not pay for? What if the mother keeps her child? Does she have to refund the monies provided to her?  And since she was probably considering adoption  due to poverty, how exactly is she supposed to do that? And if she then runs or refuses to pay, do you then file lawsuit against her and dig up her past and her poverty and claim she is unfit so you can get that baby for sale?

What amount is given? Does it vary by state? By situation (how poor is the mother REALLY?) Perhaps it depends on what color her child will be. It is widely documented that white children fetch more on the open market.  Do white expectant mothers get more money since their "product" can likely be sold for more money?

No.

No monies. No buying and selling babies.

Organizations, individuals, families should help expectant mothers. I have done it three times myself and two children remain with their mothers and one was surrendered to a kinship adoption.

And I would do it again in a heart beat.

Do you want to adopt a child or extort one?

What Can I Do?

"The strongest bond of human sympathy outside the family relation should be one uniting working people of all nations and tongues and kindreds." - Abraham Lincoln

Last year when  I attended the Ethics Conference sponsored by Evan B. Donaldson and Ethica I was struck by many topics that were discussed. I cried often. In several sessions I tried to comment but routinely found myself choked up.  People expected this, no one chided me, but still I felt a bit ridiculous.  At a few panel sessions, I even made the moderator cry. 

In reflecting on the conference the other night, I remembered the single event that hit me, a mother who lost her child to the American Adoption Industry, the most.

Days before the conference, news broke loose about the heinous adoption practices that were taking place in Guatemala.  Kidnapping babies, prostituting teenage girls to make babies, all so the infertile wealthy Americans could buy them. There is much to the story and the practices that lead to the situation. Google Guatemala adoption and you will find oodles of information.

The conference organizers were concerned about the session and there was talk of added security, riots and more. Angry prospective adopters were expected to show, lawyers, legislators, agency personnel, and government bodies.

The emotional energy was palpable.

I did not attend the session and I regret it. I was scheduled to be elsewhere and remembering thinking "what could I possibly add to a discussion of Guatemala adoptions?"

I was sadly mistaken.

I learned after the session that several mothers in attendance (Mirah, Claud and others) did attend the session. They spoke up at one point and said they were there on behalf of the Guatemalan mothers who could not speak for their children. They were there as a show of support to those mothers and teenage girls in Guatemala who had been lied to, deceived, or prostituted so their children could be placed on the adoption open market. They were there to show solidarity for all mothers the world round. They were there to give a face to the absent, faceless Guatemalan mothers. Mothers that could be easily disregarded since they were not present.

The action still makes me cry.

With Guatemala and Vietnam and other countries shutting down (if even temporarily) adoptions, I cannot help but wonder what will happen to those babies?   Don't get me wrong. I am glad, as in stupid silly glad, that these matters are getting the long over due attention. But while official focus on the corruption, the lawyers, the agencies, the American buyers, is anyone looking to fortify the orphanages, homes, countries, mothers that are currently holding those children? Is anyone thinking ahead on how to care for those children?

Is anyone working on the flip-side of this coin to help those mothers, those agencies and families that will, hopefully, end up being able to keep their babies where they rightfully belong  - in their own country and with their own people?

To use a woefully poor analogy, we seem to be getting the fox out of the hen house. But who is fortifying the hen house while we keep the fox at bay?

 

My greatest fear is that while the officials get bogged down in red tape and investigations, something horrible happens to a child or number of children, and the officials and religious zealots take the easy way out of their investigation and just end up back where we started - that is, believing selling  children to foreign buyers is easier than addressing the root cause. They will put their own ego preservation above family preservation.

What can we do for those countries? For those mothers? For those babies in those "stalled" adoptions? 

I feel so limited being so far away and with language and knowledge barriers. I can help in the States but in the other countries?

What can I do?

Do you know if my children have been sold?

"The most famous law in economics, and the one economists are most sure of, is the law of demand. On this law is built almost the whole edifice of economics."  - David R. Henderson, "Demand," in The Fortune Encyclopedia of Economics, 1993.

Received the following from Ethica.

I am saddened by the fact that Americans fail to realize that the baby hungry Americans, salivating over a child, at any cost, are creating situations like these.  As long as Americans continue to believe they are entitled to a child, as long as the continue to fool themselves into believing Mommies can be replaced and babies are blank slates, these attrocities are sure to continue. Why bother addressing social issues that place mothers in these situations when you have lines of Americans too happy to buy the "product" being sold?

It is basic supply and demand folks.

My heart aches for these mothers in Vietnam. It also makes me a bit embarassed to be American. Are Americans the only adopters buying babies from Vietnam? Surely not. 

Even still, I feel dirty to be part of a country that finds nothing wrong with this. Or this.

Dear Bloggers,

Since we launched our campaign, "Voices for Ethical Adoption-Join the Chorus," I've been receiving troubling information from Vietnam regarding international adoptions.  A social worker wrote how adoption agencies and orphanages are not working with children who are legitimately available for, and in need of, adoption.  Instead, financial motives have structured a process so that infants are provided in order to meet a demand. 

She writes:
"How do I really understand the needs of people who want to adopt a child?  And what about their pressure on policymakers and related programs?  The key issue lies in giving and receiving children purely with the spirit of humanitarianism.  It's also correct that a situation of exploitation can easy develop to turn this into a business, that's not good.  Because both the mother and the child will become victims and that will bring such unspeakable harm."

A researcher also wrote asking for assistance:

"During a recent return to the area in 2007, some parents expressed a concern to me regarding  their children. As one mother explained, local officials from the provincial capital, and communal authorities had come to the village offering help to the children. After some discussions and visits, several households agreed to send their children to the institution.   These were supposed to be short stays, but now apparently many of the children were gone and had not come back to the villages. One mother explained how she had become worried and gone to town to see her children, only to be informed that they were gone. "Do you know if my children have been sold?", she had asked me. She had received a photo picturing what seemed like a ceremony of her children being handed over to foreigners and was now seriously worried about the fate of her children. Others told me that some villagers had received money, apparently as "poverty alleviation" support. Figures mentioned were  between 500.000 VND (some 31 USD) and 1.000.000 VND (some 62 USD). 

Mothers, many illiterate, had apparently signed two contracts. One official contract involving support to the child in a provincial children's centre. The other, in hand-writing, entailed giving away all rights to the children. Apparently as many as 10 to 13 children in this small ethnic minority community had been sent to this institution, and many were being adopted without the formal or informed consent of the parents. These included older children such as the siblings Cao Duc Muoi and Cau Duc Buoi aged between 7 and 10 at the time of adoption."

These are the voices that need to be heard as we navigate press coverage on Vietnamese and adoptions worldwide. 

These are the voices seeking assistance since their government can not or will not assist them. 

These are the voices that Ethica advocates for in order to lend transparency and accountability in the adoption process.  Please help support our work so that more of their experiences can come forward.  I would be most appreciative if you could include the ChipIn ticker on your blog.  By raising $20,000 or roughly the cost of one adoption, Ethica will be able to continue assisting thousands of families from the adoption triad and from communities where there are women still asking, "Where are my children?"

Thank you.
--
Linh Song, MSW
Executive Director
Ethica, Inc.

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Be sure to check out this site too if you are desirous of more information on Easter House. It's an enlightening read of how wonderful and honest our American adoption industry is.

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