Reproductive Justice

And Reproductive Justice MUST include adoptee voices because adoptees are intimately familiar with the same systems of white supremacist violence that make reproductive justice necessary. Today’s blog is thanks to an op-ed by Tina Vasquez in LINK>Prism. The goal of this series about reproductive justice and adoption was simple – disrupt the adoption storytelling that has become the norm in mainstream media. These feel-good stories from the perspective of adoptive parents rarely include the voices of adoptees or question the preponderance of “cheap, easy, and fast” transracial and international adoptions by evangelicals that amount to little more than child trafficking.

No more salvation narratives. No more narratives of gratitude. No more framing adoption as a “win-win.” No more white saviors. We will question adoption as a system—its power dynamics, its economics, and its privileging of certain “reproductive destinies.” “Out of the Fog” is a phrase adoptees often use to describe facing the reality of their adoptions.

LINK>Operation Stop Child Protective Services (CPS) was founded by Amanda Wallace. She spent 10 years as a child abuse investigator before realizing that “she had become the silent enforcer for an oppressive system.” She now lends her insider knowledge to families navigating the system and trying to regain custody of their children.

About 27% of adoptions are transracial, according to a recent survey from the Department of Health and Human Services: birth mothers are disproportionately women of color, and adoptive parents are overwhelmingly white. Low-income Black and Native American children are the most likely to be separated from their families. Poverty is often interpreted as neglect when applied to these people.

When Roe v. Wade was overturned in June, white evangelicals wasted no time communicating their desire to take the babies that result from forced pregnancies. Never mind that most people denied abortion care simply become parents and that there is little evidence linking abortion bans to increases in adoption.

Time and time again, the solution offered to state violence is adoption, yet we fail to center adoptees whose lived experiences and areas of expertise touch every injustice and systemic problem our movements battle against. This is especially true when it comes to reproductive justice. While efforts are being made to explicitly discuss adoption as a reproductive justice issue, adoptees’ voices are still not being uplifted in these conversations. Adoptees are building their own movements—including Facebook groups like LINK>Adoptees for Choice—but will movements for sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice invite them into the fold?

I Admit I Am Old School

This not the first time it has come up. I am doing my best to recognize changing norms and find a good level of acceptance within my self. For one thing, among those changing norms is a recognition of the trauma that every adoptee experiences. Another is same sex couples and the frequent desire of these couples to go beyond marriage to parenting. There I do struggle with having grown up with a certain kind of mindset that believes optimal for children growing up is having both a male and female role model. I am also realistic enough to know that isn’t always possible. We have several single mothers in my mom’s group. Some chose to enter into pregnancy without a male partner and some became widows after their children were born. In both cases the children do seem to be thriving and I am a witness to that fact.

Today the question was asked in my all things adoption group – What are your thoughts about the Buttigieg’s impending adoption? I didn’t know about it until I saw that. So I went looking and see that this male same sex couple is at least enlightened enough to have been seeking “a baby who had been abandoned or surrendered at short notice”. Yet, we are talking about an infant it would appear. I once had a discussion with a friend who was good friends with a male same sex couple who was raising a little girl who they had via a surrogate. I expressed my reservations about that situation honestly. I have less concern about a female same sex couple where one contributes the egg and the other carries the pregnancy. There is still the issue of the child being donor conceived and how some sperm donors have fathered a multitude of genetically related children.

I am glad my boys have their father as a male role model. I am glad they have me as a female role model. There are a lot of gender issues in our modern society. There is toxic male culture but my boys are home schooled so they aren’t exposed to very much of that in their daily life. It’s enough that they have witnessed me have to push back on some of that at home. Thankfully, my husband is for the most part respectful, appreciative and considerate of me. With over 30 years of marriage completed, there are bound to be moments that aren’t sterling.

In these days of gender equality, marriage equality and equal employment opportunities, it might seem odd to even contemplate discussing the topic of a male parent versus a female parent. Undoubtedly many well-adjusted children are raised in single gender families making the equality of parenting question seem out-dated and narrow-minded. I do understand this.

However, there are a number of ‘experts’ who agree that the influence of both a female and a male are vital for proper child development. This diversity give the child a broader, richer experience of interactions. I found an article that shares the perspectives of Dr Kyle Pruett of Yale Medical School who notes that females and males parent very differently.

If you are at all interested, you can read about his perspectives in this article – Do Children Need a Male and Female Parent? “Need” is probably too strong a concept given the realities. I would say in a perfect world . . . but this isn’t . . . is it ? So adoptions still continue to happen today. They probably always will but reforms in the practice are still possible and adoptees are leading the charge to make reforms possible – keeping genetic and identity information intact – even after an adoption.

Strong male/female influences can be created through other family members such as an aunt or uncle, grandfather or grandmother. In an imperfect world this is a reasonable alternative method of supplying male or female role models in single sex households.

Tainted Love

I heard this old song from the 70s and immediately, I thought of current events, our president and his supporters since the election was called in favor of the opponent. However, as the lyrics kept playing in my head, the words of so many adoptees who’s perspectives I have read for the last 3 years started forming themselves into the truth of this situation.

The sad truth is that no matter how much love an adoptive parent has to give the adopted child there will always be something tainted about it. Not that the adoptive parent could do anything to prevent that or that their love is not genuine and heartfelt.

An adoptee begins with a serious strike of perceived abandonment at the start of their relationship with the adoptive parent. It matters not the reason really – it is a fact. The parent who gave birth to them isn’t there. This happens as well in divorce when the two parents that were one entity for the child split apart. I know that one. Coming of age in the early 70s, I bought into the idea of male/female equality and that extended itself in my own perspective to the two parents. Either one was equal to the other. In a divorce, it really didn’t matter which parent raised the child, both were equally the parent. And it is true as far as it goes.

Since learning about adoption trauma and the impact of mother loss, I have had to accept that it really wasn’t the same. Not that I can change the way things came out but I do understand the errors in my own thinking at the time. I remember clearly explaining to my daughter regarding the divorce – you still have a mother who loves you and you still have a father who loves you but we won’t all be living together anymore. That was true as well. What I didn’t conceive of at the time was that she would not grow up with me but with him. And decades later, come to find out, it wasn’t the good situation that I thought it was but I was never told until very recently.

So, back to adoption. Fact is, an adoptive parent is never going to be the same as the parents the child was born to. There are many issues. There is the feeling that if the adoptee doesn’t live up to the adoptive parents expectations, they could send the child back. While that may sound like a far-fetched worry, it actually happens and causes what are called second-chance adoptions. So there is an insecurity and people-pleasing aspect to being an adoptee.

If the parents actually have biological children AND adopt, there are differences in the parental response to the children, even if that is NOT the intention of the adoptive parents. It has been explained as – your house is on fire and you can’t save ALL of your children. Which would you chose ? Your biological/genetic child or the one you adopted ? Sadly, the answer is obvious excluding issues that preclude a choice at all.

And I have read more times than I would like to admit to that adoptees can be difficult to love and tolerate. They act out. They often do not understand themselves why they behave that way. These are deep seated psychological issues. It is always recommended that a trauma/adoption informed therapist be employed to salvage a truly destructive and dangerous situation. Yes, it gets that bad sometimes.

Now you know why those words “tainted love” inspired me to write today’s blog.