Reply to Closed Adoption and found the birth mother

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

NP. Because *other adults who have full agency are involved in this scenario.* If I had a half-sibling out there, I would want to know. And I would figure out a way to make contact and possibly form a connection without involving my mother or father. Yes, the birth mother gets to decide no contact. But the child can choose to pursue contacts with other blood relatives, and those blood relatives can choose to engage or not. Once it is clear that anyone in this scenario is not interested in contact, that right should be respected.[/quote]

But the point is that having a child is a completely different situation. The child is a human being and very much an Intercal part of the decision that the mother unilaterally made. It is an unusual thing that one person can make the choice for another not to know his or her blood relations or to have any opportunity to see the people the child is related to.  With that kind of extreme right, my view is that there is also a responsibility to behave humanely.  These are often children who have no idea why their parents abandoned them. Why they weren’t worth the trouble, worth the sacrifice, worth even the inconvenience of being embarrassed later in life  by being available to answer questions.  To me, that is an incredibly selfish act for biological parent. It very well may be that placing your child for adoption is fully altruistic and benefits you were a child. But not offering to provide information or any contact when your own child approaches you to me is the upmost and selfish behavior.  At core, I believe that we all owe each other common decency and, where we can provide it, information and enclosure.  And when discussing a biological parent, in my view that responsibility is heightened extraordinarily.  Giving up your child for adoption in my view takes away the responsibility for caring for and raising the child. It does not take away the responsibility of behaving empathetically and with an open heart and kindness to a life that you brought into the world. [/quote]

In other words, you would take away from the birth mother any agency in deciding how to treat this.  Surely you understand that disclosing a child given  up for adoption (if this was previously unknown) to her family members would cause a major upheaval in her relationships with them? Or do you think she ought to be able to manage this and just move on? What if she doesn't want to? The adoption advocate positions that I read is "get therapy and get on with the program, face your demons".  Again, the mother is made powerless twice. [/quote]

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