Many so-called "voluntary relinquishments"
of infants for adoption were anything but voluntary. Since the
start of the adoption
industry after WWII, the demand for babies has prompted
the use of unethical, inhumane
and illegal means to obtain infants from vulnerable (young,
unwed and/or poor) natural mothers who wanted to keep and raise
them, violating their basic
human rights.
Many families are now reuniting after being separated
by forced adoption-separation. After reunion, loving family
(parent and adult offspring) relationships are often re-established,
as a natural family heals from the damage done to them.
Adopting Children - Back?
Once we are family again emotionally and socially
(as well as biologically, of course), some of us start wondering:
why not legally again as well?
"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)
Share
Your Story?
Have you adopted back your
child? Have you, as an adult, been adopted back? Are
you a "former adoptee"? Please share your
story with others. Email it to scarlett@adoptingback.com
When a child is surrendered to adoption, all legal
recognition that he/she is part of his natural family
is terminated. The child and his natural family become
"legal strangers" to each other. When adopted,
the child is considered "as if born to" the
adopters. The technical term for this legal relationship
is "Filiation":
"577. Adoption confers on the adopted person
a filiation which replaces his original filiation.
The adopted person ceases to belong to his original
family, subject to any impediments to marriage."
- Civil Code of Quebec, S.Q. 1991, c. 64, Book
2 The Family, Title 2 Filiation, CHAPTER 2 ADOPTION,
SECTION III EFFECTS OF ADOPTION
Legal recognition of a family relationship is similar
to the difference between marriage and living common-law.
One is recognized by the Law as existing, and the other
one isn't. One has legal rights and obligations, and
the other one doesn't.
Is this a step in healing for natural
families separated and/or damaged by adoption?
Anywhere that families were separated by the closed
adoption system, which includes most major English speaking
countries. Unfortunately, the U.K. does not have laws
permitting this yet. Many parts of the U.S. and Canada
do. In Australia, adoptees can annul their adoptions,
achieving the same result.
Who?
Exiled
mothers and the adult children they lost as infants
to the adoption industry (via agencies, maternity homes,
social workers, hospitals that routinely removed babies
from unwed mothers, etc.)
Why?
The "triad" is a myth. There are FOUR
parties in any infant adoption: the agency, its customers
(the adopters), the natural parents and the baby.
Two of these parties held power: the agency and the
adopters. Two held little if any power (especially true
in the 1920's through 1980's): the natural parents and
the baby . The agency (maternity home, social workers,
government, hospital etc.) obtained the baby and had
the power to broker it as a commodity. The adopters
had money and societal approval and the "purchasing
power" to pay the fee for the commodity. The infant
had no power to make any decisions and most times the
natural mother didn't either - OTHERS made decisions
affecting them: including terminating their legal parent-child
relationship and thus making them LEGAL STRANGERS TO
EACH OTHER!
Now that many of us are reunited with the adult children
we had lost to adoption, and are re-establishing loving
family relationships with them, some natural parents
and their natural children are considering regaining
the legal recognition of these relationships that had
been forceably removed. The once-powerless now have
the power to make a decision for themselves re the legal
status of their personal family relationship.
When?
After reunion, when the adopted person
is a legal adult. In a society valuing rights and freedoms,
two consenting adults should have the right and
freedom to choose to re-establish a family relationship
which was previously removed from the two of them by
force.
Also, when the child is still a minor,
if/when adopters realize that the natural parents of
the child they are raising were coerced or forced to
surrender and give their consent to the adopting-back
process.
How?
Theoretically, restoring legal recognition of a family
(parent/child) relationship could be done by either
(1) annulling
or revoking the adoption, or (2) "adopting-back"
our adult children (with their consent).
"Option 1" is not readily available in North
America, but if more adoptees lobby for it, laws could
be changed to provide it.
"Option 2," adopting-back our adult children
to restore the legal recognition of a family relationship,
is available in about half of all states and provinces
using existing adult adoption laws and procedures. Other
governments could be lobbied to provide it also.
Adult adoption is normally a private matter between
two consenting adults who decide to do it - the adult
who adopts and the adult being adopted. Legislation
differs from state to state and province to province.
In some places like Oregon and California, there are
relatively few restrictions. In other places, it can
be close to impossible
Is there any rational reason to limit anyone
to having only two legal parents?
What about name changes?
What is a family?
What about inheritance rights?
Sealed adoption records from infant-adoption:
shouldn't they be opened if you're being "adopted
back" by your natural parents? Why should they
be closed at all?
What about adopters?
How might this affect the adoption industry if
its "commodities" can decide to return
to their natural families again as adults?
When they were infants, "Adoptees" were not
given the right to choose - they were traded as commodities
in most cases. Shouldn't they, as adults, have the right
to choose their legally-recognized families? The once-powerless
finally have the power to decide.
"Adoption Loss is the only trauma in the world
where the victims are expected by the whole of society
to be grateful" - The Reverend Keith C. Griffith,
MBE
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