"birth"Mothers Exploited By Adoption
   “Adoption is not about unwanted babies — it is about unwanted mothers.”

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"Why BIRTHMOTHER Means BREEDER" by Diane Turski
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dear birthmother letters

For the 80 years that adoption has been a growth industry, we who had lost our children to adoption were silenced by shame. The shame of being an "unwed mother." The shame of being a "loose woman." The shame of having surrendered a child to adoption ("How could you give your own child away?"). The secrecy of closed-adoption and maternity homes where we were warned not to reveal our surnames, and being sent away by our parents to distant towns so our pregnancies would not bring shame upon the family name.

"Unwed mothers should be punished and they should be punished by taking their children away." - Dr. Marion Hilliard of Womens College Hospital, Toronto, in the Daily Telegraph (November 1956)

Now, in reunion, we have found that what was done to us "for our children's sake" was not for our children's benefit after all - that most of them do not appreciate having been given by social workers to strangers - being "adoptees." They were often told that we did not want them. They grew up with strangers, not knowing another person who looked like them. They were never told that they were taken from us. They were never told that we were usually pressured, coerced, and forced to surrender them.

Now, we are shedding the stigma that agencies and lawyers employed in order to keep us quiet. Reunited with our adult children, we have found out how much money was paid to the agencies and lawyers by their adopters for them. That adoption was more of a way for governments to reduce welfare rolls and for agencies to earn profits than for our children's benefit. An industry that profited from our grief and loss. We are speaking out.

"Birth" Mothers and Adoptees Views on Adoption

Adoption industry advertising - well-funded from over $1.4 billion per year profit - ensures that the industry's voice is heard. Their customers, adopters, are a vocal lobby group as well.

What are seldom heard are the voices of those who had no power, had no say: of exiled parents and their lost children - those who DIDN'T profit from adoption.

 

Adoptees: the REAL experts on adoption:

    1. Adoption: The Goal of the Broker is Money by Anne Patterson
    2. Dear Birthmother: What The Baby Brokers Won't Tell You  About Adoptees and the Truth! by Anne Patterson
    3. Letter To a Congregation that so Heartily Supports Mother and Child Separation by Tricia Shore
    4. "Birthmothers Day Celebrations" - An Adoptee's Perspective by Anne Patterson
    5. Fooled by Desire by Tricia Shore
    6. Adoption - Is Heritage a Human Right?
    7. Adoptees Views on Adoption - California Comic Provides Adoption Insight
    8. Embryo Adoption Study Flawed
    9. "Adoption is Unfair" - Quotes a boy who was adopted, and was quoted in "The Adoption Dilemma"

Mothers (NOT 'birthmothers') views on adoption

No Longer Silenced by Shame - Exiled Mothers Speak Out:

A Christmas Story: If Mary Really Loved Her Baby by Laurie Frisch

The vast majority of us are just like all of you. Once labelled "sluts" and "tramps," we are from many different walks of life and are taxpaying, contributing members of society. We are stepping forward, in greater numbers than ever, to tell our stories, to come out of the closet and demand the respect for us and our grief that we were never given before. We are refusing to wear the "Scarlet Letter" that society imposed on us. - Robin Westbrook, reunited natural mother

A science fiction story where adoptive "parents" get all the choices (along with money-back guarantees) and "the birthmother" is forever silenced:

 

By "members of the general public" — neither exiled mother nor adoptee:
 
 

Some Personal Websites of Exiled Mothers:

An Exiled Mother's Story. Adoption in a time (1966) when unwed pregnant mothers were incarcerated in maternity "homes" by their parents, with the condition of admittance to the facility being surrender of their babies.

One Woman's Adoption Story I am the reunited Mother of two adult children who were surrendered for adoption in the early "60's. I did not desire adoption and did not seek it out. It was decided for me. I was forced, coerced and shamed into relinquishing my babies."

Healing Dismembered Families: Adopting-Back the Adult Children We Lost to adoption as infants Restoring the legal ties ("filiation") severed by strangers when they took our infants by force and coercion. Forcably separated and made "legal strangers" to each other by baby brokers and industry customers (adopters), we can now as adults choose to restore our LEGALLY-RECOGNIZED family relationship.

Out of the Fog . An online video in which mothers speak about adoption. VERY POWERFUL! :)

The Demeter Project

Vicki L. Ayres Master of Arts Thesis Exhibit This work is in the form of autobiographical episodic series that reveal the pain and trauma of losing my only child to adoption.

Mothers for Open Records Everywhere

How They Stole My Baby: The Secrets and Lies of an "Open Adoption One mother's experience with the "Small Miracles" adoption agency in Colorado.

 
 
 
 
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