Posted by
Magdalene on Wednesday, January 03, 2007 10:17:06 PM
A propos nothing, except noticing a Townhall article by Jay Sekulow, I began thinking again about an issue on which I parted paths with him some years ago: the fight of adoptees and birthparents to open adoption records in various states.My biography says that I am the mother of one son, but there are no more details there than that. The fact is, I am the birthmother of that son, who was adopted as an infant in 1970, and I am also an abortion survivor. (By that, I mean that I committed the abortion, and lived to tell about it.) Before your hackles go up, please hear me out. I do not confess to the abortion as something to be proud of, like some feminists have been doing recently. The abortion took place in 1976, and it was almost 25 years before I could even talk about it. The beginning of my healing came when I became able to confess it among trusted friends, and accept the forgiveness that can only come from Jesus Christ. And, of course, healing is an ongoing process, a long journey.
But this post is not about abortion. I'll deal with that separately. I only wanted to produce my bona fides, in a sense: I have been in the shoes of both situations, so I believe I can speak with some authority. I have also discussed it, and participated in hundreds of forum postings, collecting anecdotal evidence from other women in the same situations.
If memory serves me correctly, the "evangelical" position on open records went something like this: if an unwed pregnant woman believes her records might not remain forever sealed, she is more likely to pursue a path of abortion than adoption. I don't believe that's a position that can be supported, and as an evangelical myself, I dislike having my faith identification co-opted by a position that diverges from what I have experienced as truth, for myself and the majority of others.
Even though abortion was illegal in 1969 when I became pregnant at the age of 18, it was an option for me. A person with some influence and position (a friend, not the father) would have pulled the legal/medical/financial strings to provide an abortion for me. I was not a believer at the time, and I knew nothing about abortion, to judge it good or bad. Nor did I believe it would be possible for me to raise my child as a single mother; in those days it simply was not done. I don't think you can overstate how much our society has changed in the past 40 years. However, from the time I knew I was pregnant, I had a sense that this child had a destiny. Even then, at 6 weeks pregnant, I knew it was a boy, and named him David.
After he was born I refused to sign the adoption papers until I was absolutely certain it was what I needed to do. It was probably 6 weeks before I did. I have 3 photos that were taken then, of him and of us together. I treasured them all these years.
Here is the counseling I was provided: "Now, you go home and just forget this ever happened, and some day you will have completely forgotten about it. You'll get married and have children of your own and live happily ever after. You can't ever find out what happened to the child, you can't ever contact him, because the records are sealed tighter than a tomb. That's to protect the privacy of the adoptive family. You were a bad girl, you made a mistake, and the price you pay for it is you lose any chance to know the child you gave birth to. The best you can do for yourself is forget."
So I went home and tried to forget. Isaiah 49:15 says, "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?" The answer is, no. Her body, her mind, her heart, her spirit are forever altered by the experience. I had not only relinquished my firstborn, I had also relinquished my sense of self-worth, an act which only Christ could redeem. But it would be three decades before that came to pass.
In the years that followed, I lived a life of reprobation, engaging in serial relationships, multiple marriages and divorces, and, of course, repeated pregnancies. The first of these occurred during the first marriage, and the miscarriage precipitated its end. The next was terminated by abortion: after experiencing the trauma of relinquishing a child to adoption, I decided I couldn't make myself go through that again. Why did it never occur to me that the appropriate time to choose would have been BEFORE I got pregnant?
This is so hard to write, it's taken me all day. But I do have a point to make.
The birthmothers I have known through the years, including some I have counseled in recent years, were never concerned for their privacy in the adoption matter, in fact quite the opposite, as evidenced by the fact that most of the recent birthmothers have contracted for open adoption. They have stayed actively involved in their children's lives to the extent that the adoptive families were able to handle. The birthmothers from my era have wept to hear that it was possible to have such contact.
The women who have had abortions post-Roe did not for the most part grow up with the stigma attached to unwed motherhood. Why would they choose abortion simply to retain anonymity? That was never an issue for any of the birthmothers I have known. I wouldn't go so far as to claim that it was never a factor in any abortion, but how do those who oppose open records justify their claim that it's enough of a factor to keep birthfamilies forever separated?
As for me, I was fortunate enough to be reunited a year and a half ago, and I cannot begin to tell you what a healing journey this one is!
Well, I will be curious to see what you think about this issue. Thanks in advance for your input.