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We are mothers who lost our babies
to the adoption
industry in both closed adoptions and "open" adoptions.
NONE of us willingly surrendered our children.
None of us "gave them away."
Our babies were NOT gifts.
They were NOT "unwanted."
We were
exiled from our babies NOT because we were proven unfit, but because
we were vulnerable (young, single, sick, or poor), and lied-to and
coerced by social workers, doctors, lawyers, maternity homes, and
churches: brokers that made money from selling our babies to a market
driven by "consumer" demand.
"...
it is quite possible that, in the near future, unwed mothers will
be "punished" by having their children taken from them right after
birth. A policy like this would not be executed -- nor labeled
explicitly -- as "punishment." - Unmarried Mothers, by Clark Vincent
(1961)
Silenced
for decades by shame and guilt, we suffered alone with our grief,
believing we were the only ones. Now we find we are not alone -
there are many others
of us who did not surrender by choice. And if there is only
one option, there is not a choice. Reunited with our children, we
now see first-hand the pain
that adoption caused them.
They told
us we'd forget. They told us to "get over it," "put
it behind us," and "get on with our lives." They
tell our children we "gave them away."
Exiled
mothers never forget. We never stopped loving our babies.
We never stopped missing our babies.
"Contrary to popular belief, mothers don't go on in this
world after "giving up" a child, enjoying their lives
and forgetting the child ever existed. Even though people
would love to think this is true, its not the reality of the situation
for most of us. Our lives are colored by the tramatic event
and we are never the same afterwards. Most of us grieve
for years .... - Jaymie Frederick, professional searcher
and licensed PI
Young
parents today are still pressured and coerced into surrendering
their children, often hearing the same lies we were told when we
were unwed and pregnant. These abusive practices are still alive
and thriving in America's
$1.4 billion-per-year adoption industry.
DARE to
explore this website and learn the TRUTH about adoption: what the
adoption industry doesn't want you to know.
"Adoption
is a violent act, a political act of aggression towards a woman
who has supposedly offended the sexual mores by committing the
unforgivable act of not suppressing her sexuality, and therefore
not keeping it for trading purposes through traditional marriage.
The crime is a grave one, for she threatens the very fabric of
our society. The penalty is severe. She is stripped of her child
by a variety of subtle and not so subtle manoeuvres and then brutally
abandoned." - Joss Shawyer, Death by Adoption, Cicada Press
(1979)
" Adoption is and has always been deeply imbued in classism,
as it is adoption's intent and most often outcome to move a child
from lower to higher-class status. This is truer today than ever,
as adoption has become a business of finding children for clients
- Mirah Riben, Shedding
Light on the Dark Side of Adoption
"I have never lost a
child to death other than miscarriages, so I may not know what
I am speaking of, but I feel no-one comes close to our grief but
the woman whose child was taken by a stranger. They are in the
same limbo, dead or alive?
"Remember, when my child
was taken there was no such thing as reunions. No reunion shows
on TV or in the paper. No slip of paper was offered to me to sign
in case my child comes to the adoption agency and wants to find
me 20 years later.
"He was gone, just gone.
Gone forever.
"Forever .... I still
went to fairs, etc. to sit on the bench to look at babies, toddlers,
kids, to look and see if I thought I saw my baby.
"They wrecked my life.
They killed me that day. They just didn't bury me. That was their
mistake." - Vicki Miller, California
A one-woman show by Celeste Billhartz of powerful images,
narratives and music about the "unwed mothers" of
past generations who were forced to surrender their babies
to adoption..
Click on Mothers
Project Concert to learn more!"
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Exiled mother: A natural mother who has lost her child to
adoption solely because of her age and/or lack of support, information
or resources. An unrecognized mother, she has been thrown away,
banished and discarded by her parents, the adoption industry and
society, who deemed her unworthy to raise her own child.
What does the Bible say about adoption?
"THE WICKED SNATCH FATHERLESS CHILDREN FROM THEIR MOTHER'S
BREASTS, AND TAKE A POOR MAN'S BABY AS A PLEDGE BEFORE THEY WILL
LOAN HIM ANY MONEY OR GRAIN" --Job 24:9--
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Adoption:
Mothers In Exile
