Better To Have Been Aborted

It may surprise a reader to know this, but many adoptees actually wish they would have been aborted. That is how painful it is to be given up for adoption and doubly painful if the adopting parents prove to further damage an already damaged soul.

I am pro-Choice and pro-life. Not pro-Life like most of those are. They are only pro-Birth, truth be told. They are not willing to fund adequate financial support to struggling mothers so that they can keep and raise their children.

The world has enough people already. We do NOT need to be fruitful and multiply any more. In fact, we have not needed to do that for a very long time. The population explosion first occurred on a small scale and with a relatively moderate intensity in Europe and America, more or less between 1750 and 1950. Enough is enough. If a couple wants to have children and is willing to fully support raising them, I’m all for it. Otherwise, trust women to make the best decision and stop stressing over the babies you imagine they have killed.

I fully understand what it feels like for a child to be born into this world unwanted and unprepared for. My maternal grandmother never had any other children because of the shame and guilt she felt at having surrendered a child for adoption. She died too young and I fear what happened to separate her from my mom haunted her for her entire life.

I am a woman who chose to have an abortion. The timing was wrong, the father was wrong to make any kind of commitment and the pregnancy was not developing normally. I am grateful I could go to a clean clinic, where I received counseling and good treatment. It still haunted me. I had a child before the abortion who I am forever glad I kept (even though some circumstances at the time of her conception suggested I should not have – I knew she would be just fine and she was/is). I am a woman who went on to have two very wanted sons when I entered into a marriage to a good man who wanted to be a good father and he is.

Reunion Disappointments

Search on “adoptee reunion disappointments” and you will come up with a lot of links. Many adoptees, while they are children, fantasize about what their original parents were like and how they would have treated them differently than the adoptive parents raising them. The reality cannot live up to the fantasy.

First there is the joy in discovery and finally, finally, knowing the truth of where one came from and perhaps how they came to be conceived (which may or may not actually be a very happy story). Then there is the old “nature vs nurture” story. How much of who we become is due to genetics and how much is due to the culture we are raised within.

Finally, there is the issue of gratitude. Adoptees often feel like they need to be grateful to the parents that raised them for saving them from ? That is the problem. There is no way of knowing what would have been better. Reality is whatever it was. There are always issues of abandonment and rejection and fears of causing more of those wounds if the adoptee betrays the affections of those who raised them.

Here is one adoptee’s story –

Paul had spent his whole life dreaming about his mother. He imagined what it would be like to meet someone who looked like him, who offered unconditional love and who took away the empty feeling he had always carried in the pit of his stomach.

“I thought meeting her would make me whole. I had had a happy childhood but somewhere deep in my gut, I have always been hollow,” said Paul, now 42 years old and living in Kent.

But Paul’s meeting with his mother was a disaster. “I now believe you can never recreate that mother-child relationship,” he said. “Away from the dreams, the initial rejection an adopted child has suffered makes unconditional love impossible to recreate in the cold light of reality.”

“I understand why my mother gave me up but I still find it impossible to forgive,” he said. “Now I have to come to terms with the fact that I have spent my life looking for something that was never there.”

One study revealed that, eight years after first making contact, almost 60 per cent of adopted children have ceased contact with, been rejected by or rejected further contact with their birth parent. It is rare that a birth relative rejects the adoptee. Even so, the birth parent may have higher expectations of a renewed relationship than the adopted child, who may only want to answer questions about their own identity.

According to one survey, over 70 per cent of searchers and 89 per cent of non-searchers fail to feel an instant bond with their birth parent. One in six new relationships break down within one year after initial contact and almost 43 per cent of relationships are abandoned within eight years.

From my own experience of discovering my genetic relations (I am not an adoptee but both of my parents were), one cannot recover lost time nor opportunities to forge closer relations. One can only begin where they find themselves to slowly, over time, develop whatever relationship is possible.

In Defense Of

I do believe in all the reforms I have previously written about – retaining identity and family history information, not changing names or birth dates and not listing adoptive parents as the original parent. Beyond that is a consideration for guardianship rather than permanent adoption.

All that said, from direct experience, adoptive parents have been a part of my own family’s life in positive ways. First of all – my grandparents by adopting each of my parents. On each side, they were a positive influence on my life and the lives of my siblings as well as on my parent’s lives. They were good people who meant well. What we now know about the wounds suffered by adoptees was not known at the time they took possession of my parents.

My mom’s adoptive parents modeled financial security for us and affirmed the value of advanced education. My dad’s adoptive parents modeled faith and uncompromising personal values for us. My dad’s adoptive parents may even have been responsible for keeping my parents together by getting married and preventing me from being given up when my teenage mother found herself pregnant. I am grateful for that much.

Each of my sisters gave up a baby to adoption and these two children are fine adults. In one case, my niece is showing us what a good and consistent mother she can be. Even though she has been reunited with my family, she has remained steadfast in her appreciation for the people who raised her.

My nephew could not be a higher quality person. His adoptive mother has gone the extra mile to answer the identity questions that evolved as he matured. It appears that even my sister either didn’t know who his actual father was or chose to name the person who had the financial resources to help her make what has proven to be a quality choice as a substitute mother. Given my sister’s very evident mental illness, it is for the best that she didn’t try to raise him.

All that to say, while I remain firmly of the opinion that there are better ways to provide for the welfare of children than adoption, it is not that the adoptive parents in my own family’s life were to blame. It was naive ignorance and the intention to do good – which all of them have.