Consider What You Do To Another

It was contentious. Someone wrote – Infertility sucks, but adoption is not meant for people that can’t have their own kids. People that can’t have their own kids should not be able to adopt. It should be an automatic disqualification. Infertile parents have a high probability of piling on trauma for adoptees intentional or unintentional. Infertile people adopting should not be a thing.

There are so many struggles in life that there is just no fix for. You can’t take someone else’s organ because yours failed. You can’t move into someone’s home because you were evicted. You can’t take other peoples’ children because you can’t have them. To me though this also opens up why people who CAN have kids shouldn’t adopt either. Because, then it becomes all about designer babies . . . we have 3 boys but we want a girl, we want blue eyes, we want international. It shouldn’t be that way either. Infertility and its impact on mental health need to be taken more seriously in the US. It’s a grieving process and the only reason buying a child is encouraged is because of the way our adoption practices are set up. People profit and that is all this country cares about. But people on an individual level need to work through it. Sometimes shit happens that cannot be fixed. It is a part of life. We all get slapped something at some point. Your money just insulates you and entitles you to do things that, if others did, it would be unacceptable.

Someone suggests – would a prerequisite for adoption would be a fertility test? To which the original commenter said – yes, testing would be an option. I don’t have all the answers to how, just sick of seeing infertile people treating vulnerable humans as second choice options. How about just staying childless?

What about someone who is anti-natalist? Anti-natalism is the philosophical position that views birth and procreation of sentient beings as morally wrong: anti-natalists therefore argue that humans should abstain from procreating. This was more of a concern when it appeared that population would continue increasing. Recently, that concern related to over-population has been downplayed. Whether over-population remains an important driver of climate issues is debated. You could read this in Sustainable Review – LINK>3 clear reasons why overpopulation is a myth. One conclusion – a sustained population decline (mainly due to lower fertility rates) is already becoming a realistic outcome.

That is never-the-less not an argument for adoption, though some anti-natalists support adoption as an avenue of possibility for those who wish to raise children. Some reality – fertility issues are heartbreaking. There are plenty of people who want so badly to be parents but are not able to. That does not justify ripping apart another human being’s family. It does not justify predatory behavior towards children and their parents who are simply facing hard times. It does not justify enriching a system that is profit motivated. A person who wants to parent but isn’t able to do so, should seek to fill that need in ways that aren’t blatantly selfish. Find ways to fulfill their own goals, rather doing that at the expense of inflicting trauma on others. Love for children should always be child-focused. Nobody is put here to fulfill the desires of somebody else.

The issue of LGBTQ people came up but that doesn’t change the calculation – someone’s sexual orientation does not give them right to take someone else’s children.

One last thought (I am aware of this back in my own childhood) – it is a known phenomenon that some adoptive parents go on to conceive that biological child they wanted all along. Adoptive parents don’t want to admit it but some were probably told that very thing because adoption has been put forth as a solution for infertility. About 30% of the time, people who were struggling with infertility issues, manage to conceive after adopting a child. Some of them go into adopting, knowing this, straight up using their adopted child to ‘trigger’ their own fertility. Strange but true. Simply – human beings have a bias toward their own offspring, though many adoptive parents try to argue that isn’t the case.

Endthepatriarchy’s Blog Comment

At the end of this comment, the person wrote – “I am truly astonished you have read this entire comment. You must REALLY care. Thank you for reading.” I do – REALLY CARE.

This appeared in response to the blog titled Adoption Is A Selfish Act, which I posted back on Nov 25, 2020. I write daily so that is going pretty far back. I am surprised to see that blog had 23 views because I am lucky to get a couple of views on any single day. I did go back and read it again.

And I did read all of your long comment and found it sincere and thoughtful.

Your comment went into my spam folder because of your using MY Gazing In The Mirror WordPress website address. This troubled me right away. How you could even do that is beyond me but obviously it is possible. BTW that blog has nothing to do with this one except they have the same author. I attempted to email you to clarify this but it bounced. It appears to be related to Greenbrier Schools in Greenbrier, Arkansas. My paternal grandfather’s family is deeply rooted in Arkansas.

I was inclined to approve your comment anyway but have decided, to instead address your comments in this new blog, and feel that you may see this one too. I always try to not only be honest but respectful and considerate of anyone who comments. So that you have hidden yourself makes me sad. Maybe you do not have confidence in yourself enough to present yourself to me honestly.

I will make a few responses but because of all of the above will not show your entire comment.

Certain references to saviorism, which often does drive adoptions – especially on the Evangelical Christian side of religion, seem to have troubled you. I can understand that you feel an emotional objection to that as you state that you are a Christian.

As to overpopulation, at one time I was more worried about that but it is expected to peak at 8 billion in 2040 and then decline. Overpopulation article on Vox.

Regarding “Open Adoption”, unfortunately a lot of good intentions going into such an agreement fall apart – either sooner or later. Most do not succeed in living up to the promises.

The identity issue you dismiss is real and I don’t think it is brought on by being treated differently due to adoption (except in cases of transracial adoption where the difference in race between the adoptive parents and the adoptee stands out). Fact is, babies are born with a name given to them by the conceiving parents and in adoption, most adoptive parents change the child’s name to something different that they like better. My parents (both adoptees) used to tease one another with their birth names – once they had been able to even learn those. An adoptee lives under an “assumed” name much like a criminal on the run might.

What is interesting is that you seem so passionate about these issues – when you admit that you are not adopted and that you don’t even have children yourself nor do you want any. If you could be open with me about who you are, I’d be happy to discuss whatever in more detail with you. As it is, I have written about almost everything to do with adoption or foster care so much – that I’ve probably all said it all before and am always in danger of repeating myself. I wish you well-being and happiness.

Mirabai Starr in Wild Mercy

I am in the midst of reading Mirabai Starr‘s book – Wild Mercy – and today learned she adopted her children. Hers is a multiracial family. She had made the decision in her youth due to a concern about overpopulation (a concern I shared at one point in my own life). The looming shadow of the climate crisis was another motivation.

Between them, Mirabai and her husband, Jeff, have four grown daughters and six grandchildren. Mirabai’s youngest daughter, Jenny, was killed in a car accident in 2001 at the age of fourteen. On that same day, Mirabai’s first book, a translation of Dark Night of the Soul, was released.

Mirabai writes – I am a mother who has lost her child, Jenny Starr. In the midst of terrible beautiful unbridled mothering I am suddenly childless. I cannot find my way through a world that does not have my girl at its center. I do not understand. I don’t get why you did not make it through the hurricane season of adolescence, why the vessel of our love, of our ferociously devoted love, did not carry you safely back to me.

Her book Caravan of No Despair is the story of her journey through the grief of this tragedy. She has written in an essay Why Mother’s Day Is Still Special To Me that she found her daughter on her thirtieth birthday. “It was early May and we drove to Albuquerque from our home in the mountains of northern New Mexico to meet Jenny at her foster home in the South Valley. I had been prepped for the encounter, and had cultivated a degree of reserve so that I would neither overwhelm the child nor give her false hope in case it was not a good fit and we wouldn’t be following through.”

She continues, “Most children in the adoption system have been abused, neglected, abandoned, and have serious trust issues. I envisioned Jenny as a wild bird landing for a moment in my hand. I must not scare her off. We pulled up to the dilapidated adobe and parked at the curb—my soon-to-be ex-husband, my older daughter, Daniela, whom we had adopted two years earlier on her eleventh birthday, and me. I stepped out of the car and there she was, a toddler on a tricycle, peddling toward us with a shy smile. Look, Mommy, her face said to me, I can ride my bike.

A week later, on Mother’s Day, we brought her home. Jenny’s social worker met us halfway, at the Dunkin’ Donuts in Santa Fe. Jenny clutched the paper bag containing all of her possessions—a couple of pairs of pants that were too small and a flowered blouse that was too big (the new jacket conspicuously missing). She had a “memory book” put together by the staff at her foster home. It contained a picture of a little black baby cut from an ad in a magazine because Jenny did not have any real baby pictures and the Gerber child looked a little, but not very much, like her (and not a thing like me).

Jenny herself dubbed Mother’s Day as our “anniversary.” Every year on that day we celebrated with cake, mostly on our own, as the man who was supposed to be her father never was, and her sister became a teenage mother early on and left home.

The year I turned forty, Jenny turned fourteen. One night in a fit of teenage rebellion, Jenny took my car for a joy ride and never returned. She crashed on the downward slope of a steep mountain pass and died alone under a full moon. It never crossed my consciousness that I would outlive my child or that Mother’s Day would become an unbearable reminder that the daughter into whom I poured the full cup of my love would leave this world, and that I would shatter.

On a personal note – my then teenage daughter once went for a joyride in the middle of the night with a sleep-over friend and they wrecked her step-mother’s car. She called me wanting a plane ticket to Missouri. I knew that her dad and step-mother would look here first and that she needed to face the responsibility for what she had done. It took my parents intervention (who were still in the same city) to keep her from running away (which was my primary concern). I am so grateful upon reading this that she at least survived. It could have turned out tragically.

Infertility and Adoption

Erin Brockovich has an op-ed in The Guardian about this book by Shanna Swan with the alarming prediction that by 2045 her research suggests sperm counts could reach zero. Though I have known for a very long time what an awful influence the chemical industry has and that the pervasive chemicals in our environment are not good for reproduction in general, my thoughts after reading this article, went in the direction of this blog where I consider issues related to adoption.

I realized that increasing infertility will put increasing pressure on the availability of adoptable babies. This is not a happy thought for me. From personal experience, I know that medical science has the ability of offset fertility deficiencies with assisted reproductive techniques, so there is that as a natural counter for decreasing reproduction among humans without tearing babies away from the mothers who conceive easily.

I remember my own science experiment with our aquarium. The snail population had spiraled into filling the entire space with snails. I didn’t take any actions but to my utter surprise, the snails quit reproducing and eventually there were none, their dying bodies happily goggled up by our albino catfish who yet lives solitarily now in our aquarium. So could a major die-off of humanity simply be a natural event, much like there are no dinosaurs left on the earth today ?

Of course, we do need to care about our environment !! The truth of the matter is – the Earth does not need saving but humanity might. However, I also happen to believe there are more than enough people, as regards sustainability and resources, and that is why I am in favor of allowing any woman who does not want to commit herself to 9 months of pregnancy to have an abortion. Not that women should be coerced to have abortions and any woman who wants to carry, birth and then give her baby up for adoption will find an eager and more the willing market to accommodate her. Not that I am in favor of adoption as I have expressed in this blog many many times.

Swan’s book includes statistics such as these – “In some parts of the world, the average twentysomething woman today is less fertile than her grandmother was at 35.” and “A man today will have half of the sperm his grandfather had.” Swan’s research finds that these chemicals are also shrinking penis size and volume in the testes.

And of course, aggressive regulation is lacking in the United States in no small part due to lobbying by chemical industry giants. Chemicals are killing us, literally, but also by harming and attacking the very source of life: our reproductive capacities. And not only are they doing that but this will likely guarantee there will be more couples looking for that baby to love that they can’t birth themselves. So that is the relationship between chemicals, infertility and ultimately adoption.

Skewing The Narrative

It is a fact that many adoptees will actually say they wish their natural, genetic, biological mother had aborted them. It is also a fact that the government does NOT fund abortions, contrary to the messaging that comes out of evangelical, pro-Life and conservative interests with the hidden agenda of triggering people’s emotions in order to get their vote. It is also true that the government is already funding some adoptions through a huge tax credit for the single adoptive person or couple. The government also funds adoptions from foster care paying court expenses. Many of these adoptions also receive an adoption subsidy, Medicaid and free tuition for the child.

And finally, I do speak from experience on this issue. I am grateful for access to a safe, legal abortion back in the early 1970s. That is a blessing that is increasingly hard to get access to. This planet actually already has enough people and truth be told, more than is sustainable.

I do believe in letting nature take it’s course. I believe that purging events such as the COVID 19 pandemic is an activity of this Earth. I believe that predators cull out the weak. Not that I wish to be a victim of either. I believe in the kind of God that always knows what each of that God’s individual expressions will do in any given situation. I believe in a life that is meant to teach our soul important lessons, make us more empathetic and give us a more tolerant perspective on human behavior. I also believe there is never anything wrong going on, even if we are unable to truly comprehend what we are seeing. And I do believe that humanity evolves and progresses and that includes what medical science advances including safe abortions and reproductive assistance. Finally, I believe that death is only an experience in our human lives but personally, I believe in eternal souls living more than one incarnation. We cannot kill a soul though we can kill the body that the soul moves about the planet with.

An image like the one above is offensive. Abortion and adoption have nothing to do with each other. Speaking of government funding – why not help families stay together, fund the help that struggling families actually need and support them through a financial crisis ? What if government funded birth control ? What if society supported struggling mothers ? What if society held fathers to higher standards ?

While I’m at it – what about free health care ? Mental health intervention ? How about the government starts caring about drug addicts and puts more funding into rehabs and counseling ?

Some of these people who think like the image above should have to spend at least 9 months forced to serve as a walking incubator for someone they’ll never be allowed to meet again, and then have all proof that they gave birth to a child erased by changed birth certificates and sealed adoption records. Yes, think about all of those mothers who have had that very experience. One can get over a conception and abortion quickly. One lives with the pain of having been separated from their child for a lifetime.

You Can Just Adopt

The world already has enough people. More and more, deciding to remain childless is an option people are choosing deliberately. My husband and I don’t even know whether our sons will ever marry and/or have any children. There will never be pressure from us in that regard.

The decision to have children occurs within a pronatalist social context. When I was a senior in high school in 1972, I knew I was going to continue getting advanced education, work full time, get married and have children. No wonder I failed. Some women may excel at the SuperWoman effort but I did not. I never got a degree, I ended up divorced and financially unable to provide for my child. But I have had to work at some kind of revenue producing effort all of my life.

Why do those that cannot have their own children think that domestic infant adoption is another way to build their family? I suppose because it has been promoted as a good thing and socially acceptable for decades now – at least as far back as the 1930s.

Our culture views parenting as an essential part of achieving fulfillment, happiness, and meaning in life, and as a marker of successful adulthood. When my husband told me that he wanted to be a father afterall (after 10 years of being grateful I had been there and done that and no pressure on him), I was a bit shocked and it was not an easy path for us. I am still grateful medical science had a way to make it possible, even if it involved some non-traditional sacrifice on my part. Having children did deepen and expand upon our relationship as a couple, making us a family. As we are aging without any other family nearby, we are grateful our children may be there for us.

Remaining childless by choice (AKA childfree) is still an outlying path, a move that raises questions and is met with prejudice and even moral outrage. This is particularly true for women, whose gender identity and social value have long been tied to fertility and motherhood. Thus, women who decide to not have children are commonly viewed unfavorably.

Though I now see the problems and emotional fallout of adopting children, I also do recognize that a mature person can love any child genuinely. It is not necessarily a selfish motive or ego stoking decision. Children are easy to love for most well balanced and emotionally healthy persons. Sadly, there are people who are not that and should not have children. Personally, I respect any mature person who knows themselves well enough to know they shouldn’t take on the responsibility of raising a child. There should be no negative perceptions from anyone else towards those who make such a choice.

Life

This is an annual event and I have done a lot of thinking about it. I am in favor of access to abortion being safe and legal. I believe it is always an unfortunate choice but I continue to believe the choice should be there. As a spiritual person, I do not believe we can make a mistake. I believe that the Divine knows what we will do before we do it and uses that. I also believe that every life is precious, should be valued and cared for. I believe this makes me pro-Life but does not make me anti-abortion. Many pro-lifers are simply pro-birth but not concerned about the quality of the life they insist needs to be born after it emerges from the womb. They also seem to be totally unconcerned with the impacts of an explosive population growth on our environmental quality. This is just how I see it and I do not need for anyone else to see it the same way I do.

In 1956, economists Christopher Cundell and Carlos McCartney designed the quality-adjusted life year, also know as QALY. Health-care systems have used it extensively ever since to evaluate the costs and benefits of various medical interventions. It takes the number of remaining years someone would be expected to live, and, if that person is expected to live in perfect health, multiplies it by one—and by a smaller number if the person will be, for example, paralyzed.

Quality of life is certainly an important issue with me. If I were to be diagnosed with a cancer that would likely end in death, no matter how it is treated, I would prefer to make the most of my remaining time and forego treatment. I would prefer not to torture myself with medical interventions if the result will be the same and my quality of life will be worse before I die. That is just the way I see it. I probably won’t have to face a cancer diagnosis but will probably be fortunate enough to meet an irrevocable end (ie a heart attack as my parents and grandparents did).

Both of my parents were adopted and until recently when I learned about my original grandparents we had no idea what our family health history included. It appears that all of my grandparents most likely did die of heart attacks, though my paternal grandmother was just being released from the hospital after successful breast cancer surgery when she had her fatal event.

And I am grateful I wasn’t aborted or given up for adoption. I am grateful I have had a decently good life. I did have an abortion in the late 70s (I believe that was the time frame). It was safe and I didn’t have to face a bunch of protesters going in. It was emotionally traumatic and I struggled with my own personal ethical misgivings.

One day, in my heart’s mind, I heard “I am coming.” I did believe that was the soul of the child I gave up in the physical sense. Eventually, my son did arrive and he does not carry my genes but he did grow in my womb and nurse at my breast. I will ever think of him as my atonement child. He has also allowed me to prove to myself that I can raise children (as I gave up my daughter to her father when he wouldn’t pay child support and I could not financially provide for us).

I do NOT believe any person should put their values upon other people whose shoes they have not walked in. Bottom line.

Adoption and Overpopulation

While overpopulation is a valid concern, the two issues should never be interconnected. A prospective adoptive parent who believes adopting a child, rather than procreating, is solving the problem of overpopulation, has objectified the child.

A child is not an object.

The issue of AI is important to me. So consider this. What are the ethical concerns associated with our use of automated intelligence ? What if that AI has been taught to feel emotion ? It is non-organic. Yet, it has feelings. It is an object. Do we have an ethical responsibility to it ?

When an adoptee is treated as an object to solve a problem, it is the same consideration. And adoptees are so often denied their basic human rights.

Adopting a child to satisfy a personal mission unrelated to the welfare of the child is simply the wrong reason to do so.

Actually, adoption needs to end. Guardianship that supports the welfare of the child without stealing their identity from them is a better choice – and not for reasons of solving overpopulation. Every child deserves consideration and respect for their innate humanity.

It’s About Pregnancy

In the fight against abortion, it is often very easily overlooked the kinds of demands any pregnancy places upon a woman. They are not minor. It takes almost a full year out of any woman’s life to gestate another human being. It changes a woman’s body, a woman’s daily life and if the pregnancy goes to term and she delivers the baby – her entire life will no longer be the same. It is not an equal situation regarding the man who made being pregnant possible in the first place.

So, one fact overlooked in the choice to have an abortion is a woman who is unwilling to commit such an extended period of time to gestating yet one more human being – and if being honest, thoughtful people realize that this planet is already overpopulated. There is no longer any need for human beings to be fruitful and multiply.

I know that not wanting to commit myself to 9 months of pregnancy was part (but not the only reason) that I once chose to have an abortion. However, I would be quick to add, every time I have had the circumstances to support me and the willingness to go through the extended period of time to gestate a child, I have loved every minute of it.

Adoption advocates seem only to care about the production of children that can be taken from mothers who are unable to make the longer commitment to raising a child. Adoption carries with it definite wounds to the original mother and to the child she surrenders to adoption. While there is a time and place (orphaned or abused children) for adoption, banning abortions is not for the support of infertile couples wanting to have a larger volume of babies to chose from. It is about controlling the lives of uppity women – plain and simple – by jerking around the emotions of people who love their own children.