Quoting federal data that notes that only about 6,800 babies a year are relinquished at birth for adoption, writer Cheryl Wetzstein notes that is "a minuscule number out of nearly 3 million unwed pregnancies." Plus, it's only white women giving up their kids! Black families are keeping their babies to such a degree that those placed for adoption are "statistically zero." Legal abortion is part of the reason, of course. But what's also blamed is an anti-adoption attitude that is being pushed, and that the option that was once "no way" that is, keeping the baby, is now "OK." Yet woe to Joe and Jane Q. Public who wish to adopt:
"Meanwhile, millions of Americans remain willing, even anxious, to adopt, and this number is likely to grow because infertility among men and women is expected to rise due to the epidemic of sexual disease."Not mentioned: the number of women who wait until 30, 35, even 40 before they try to conceive, long past their fertile time span. Implied here: My god, we had better do something for these poor people! Ladies, let's multiply and give them our babies! But it isn't going well, Wetzstein writes, for since 1973 (when the attitudes of the Sixties caught up with real life) the number of adoptions dropped to roughly 1 percent, and relinquishments are becoming so rare they are nearly impossible to study statistically. I'd call that a victory for the end of stranger-adoption. Ms Wetzstein calls it a "perfect storm" that has beset domestic infant adoption.
Those nasty anti-adoption websites
Wetzstein implies that anti-adoption websites which call adoption "barbaric" are at least partly to blame. Gee, I don't think that was moi, but we do have among our readers a variety of opinions on how sane and healthy adoption is for both the birth/first mother and her baby, and I'd have to say that we bloggers three at Birth Mother, First Mother Forum are not all that wild about stranger adoption except in cases of demonstrated and dire need. We personally might not like the Palin family body politic, but we cheer that Bristol decided to keep her baby! And if Wetzstein counted us among the "anti-adoption" websites, we would be honored. Judging from the tone of the story, I would say that anything that didn't urge young women to give up their babies to supply the huge demand for healthy white infants would be called "anti-adoption." She quotes a site (without specifying which one) that states "No mother who has lost a child [to adoption] fully recovers."
Amen!
Of course the adoption agencies weigh in on this dire state of affairs of Not Enough Babies To Supply Demand.
"We hoped we would see a 'Juno' effect, but it hasn't happened,'" said Teresa McDonough, who directs the adoption program at Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Arlington."She adds that since previously there was no acknowledgment of the birth mother's grief--"No wonder they couldn't let it go"--but now, since some genius sociologist figured out that we do grieve our children lost to adoption, we are much more "empowered." In other words, give us some counseling and support services (an unlimited lifetime supply of Kleenex? A memory-eraser?) and Voila! we are "settled and at peace."
Giving up a child, Ms. McDonough concludes, is "really a loving option."
Okay, all together now, how many children who have been reunited with their birth mothers have thanked them for loving them so much they gave them up? How many of us have been reunited with our children to find that they had no issues with being adopted? That they were ... thrilled to be adopted? They they loved us for making that decision? That they harbor no resentment?
NCFA to the rescue...Not
An employee of the Maryland Bowie-Croft Pregnancy Clinic (and ministry) comments that a few years ago they sent about 25 volunteers for adoption training from the National Council for Adoption.* While the training improved the workers' comfort level in promoting adoption...it did not affect the number of girls choosing it! Sad, notes a NCFA spokesperson, because he estimates that there are 10 million couples who would like to adopt "an infant domestically."
At least the story quotes someone who doesn't look for more teens to be like the despicable wise-cracking birth mother in our least favorite movie of all time, Juno: (Read more here about movies.)
"Juno was a horror show, said Jessica Del Balzo, founder of the adoption-eradication advocacy group Adoption: Legalized Lies and author of Unlearning Adoption: A Guide to Family Preservation and Protection."The story also includes interviews with two women who are at peace with their decision to have their children be adopted. One had a ritual in a Catholic church with a priest presiding over the"entrustment ceremony," after which the baby went home with the new parents, and the mother when home with her parents. (One wonders what the scene was like in the car on the drive home.) The birth/first mothers quoted, both in open adoptions that have remained open, do sound at peace with their decision to relinquish their children. Birth mother Jessica O'Connor-Petts even went from a partially open--updates without names--to a fully open one, and her relinquished son, now eleven, was the ring-bearer in both her and her sister's weddings.
While that did sound like an outcome that would be at least livable, and the adoptive parents did not go back on their words to keep the adoption an open one, Ms. O'Connor-Petts had these wise words to add:
"If you make the decision that you really believe is the best one for you and the child, you will be able to live with yourself," she said. "The only way you won't be able to live with yourself is when you make a decision that you sense is not the best decision for you or your child."
"For some people," she added, the best decision "may not be adoption. But for me, the joy of watching him grow up in his family far outweighs the grief of separating from him."
But those words at the end were so far outweighed by the overreaching attitude of the piece: Gee, why can't adoption be made more palatable to girls who have babies? As I read, I kept remembering Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. And thinking that family columnist Cheryl Wetzstein was an advance man for the society depicted therein.
________________
You can read Wetzstein's latest on this story...Adoption Success a Reality.
Email the paper with your comments at yourletters@washingtontimes.com
Email Ms. Wetzstein at cwetzstein@washingtontimes.com
And a second installment, on embryo adoption, is coming on Sunday. Stay tuned.
You know, I never write about adoption without full disclosure--that I am a birth/first mother, and if I did, I would be hooted out of town on a journalistic rail. But we have no clue as to Ms.Wetzstein's connection/desires regarding this life event. It would be good to know. Let's ask the paper to inform us. All we know is that she writes a bi-weekly column called, On The Family. I think I may send her a copy of Birthmark. Yes, I'm shamelessly promoting my 1979 out-of-print memoir about the reality of giving up my daughter for adoption.
Funny, I read the article differently. Oh, well! I'll write you privately about it.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't the message I got either.
ReplyDeleteWhatever. In a follow-up letter to her article http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/
apr/14/adoption-success-a-reality/ Cheryl Wetzstein writes that "adoption is the best outcome for children whose parents (and birth families) cannot, will not or should not care for them".
I'm trying to keep an open mind about this article, you know, keep my own issues out of it and I'm finding that may be impossible.
ReplyDeleteIt's good to hear that fewer babies are available for domestic adoption but at the same time we've seen the result of that in the huge increase of international adoptions which frequently leads to stealing and selling children.
I'm even glad to read that counselors are being given special training so that they are more comfortable discussing adoption and further excited to read that the special counseling has NOT resulted in more adoptions. That actually speaks volumes to me as a counselor because it's NOT the job of the counselor to convince or persuade the client to make one choice over another but to help the client make the choice that is best for her and her child.
What is best for her may easily be determined at the time and may not be what is best for her a few years down the road.
What is best for her child cannot be determined, not only because the child does not have a voice but because what is down the road is an unknown and it will remain an unknown until one actually arrives at some point down the road and there are no guarantees in anyone's life.
I came away from this article feeling that agencies are finally realizing that the old closed adoptions aren't working anymore so they will have to change their tactics, the way they handle adoptions and the types of adoptions they offer in order to stay in business. It almost sounds like some verbiage has been changed, i.e., giving up a child has become selecting a couple of your choice to parent the child, which sounds better but is it really any different.
I don't mean to darken the entire community of adopters because I know some awesome adoptive parents who have worked with good agencies and I do agree that there are some cases where adoption meets the needs of both the birth mother (and father) and the adoptive parents.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure it has positive affects for the the majority of adoptees. I know very few adoptees who do not suffer from the difficult task of dealing with a long list of negative and unhealed emotions for the rest of their lives; the end result being not much different at all from what first/birth mothers have endured. Sometimes it seems that neither side can see and feel the hurt of the other.
I like the presentation of positive stories from mothers who kept their children. We just don't see enough of those stories, probably because no one is hurting badly enough to write about it.
As for the "Entrustment Ceremony," I suppose it has good and bad points. We can do anything if we wrap it up in a ceremony but at the same time I have to wonder what emotions are truly left when the hoopla is over and done with.
I await the article on the rise of embryo adoption. I'll be interested to see how anyone can present such a scheme as anything less than offering babies to the highest bidder.
Aunt Patty, you are right. Closed adoptions account for a very small tiny percentage of adoptions today, which made the adoption in Juno (which was never a closed adoption) seem so particularly heinous. Almost all private adoptions, ie, those arranged through an agency, today are open, and most infant adoptions are arranged through agencies. Even god-awful Gladney, which is a NCFA stronghold, now has open adoptions, undoubtedly because the girls there finally said enough! We want open adoptions or you don't get our babies!
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that others have read the piece differently, but I fail to see how the writer Wetzstein is doing anything other than bemoaning the shortage of babies for adoption? Adoption is always painful for both the giver and the given.
What do FMF readers think of the statement, high up in the story, from the Catholic Charities agency that they were hoping for a "Juno" effect? I doubt the movie changed any minds about whether to have an abortion or not, but what I read was that Teresa Mcdonough, agency worker, was hoping that more teenagers would give up their babies. With abortion, the grief ends; with adoption, it goes on.
Not related to the article I've had some dialog with social workers at a NYC agency recently because of mixed messages from them pertaining confidentiality.I can't stand agency workers who state we promised first/birth mothers confidentiality or we made a commitment to them without prefacing their statements with we coerced them or forced the to surrender. And I say this because there are many younger folks who don't know women were forced to surrender to adoption.( some believe we gave them up because we didn't want them) Also because there were no promises of confidentiality and agency workers continue to lie.
ReplyDeleteNow to this article which some I see say has some redeeming qualities as it shows how agency workers are changing their mindsets and advocating more for open adoptions.Cheryl Wetzstein is unhappy there are fewer babies for adoption because more keep their babies and she points the finger at anti adoption websites. Makes me wonder why she didn't mention Madonna's song, "Papa don't Preach"
and point the finger at Madonna. Is it because Madonna adopts? Surprised she doesn't point the finger at the media also which has depicted single motherhood in a positive light for years. I"ll read the article later but from what you say Lorraine it annoys me
Wetzstein can't just be happy with
women keeping their babies.
I had a mixed reaction to the article. I really got a kick out of the stupid social worker hoping for a "Juno effect" that never happened. This confirmed my faith that young women are not so air-headed to base a major life decision on a dumb movie.
ReplyDeleteI found it a strange article, all over the place. I think the author gave the anti-adoption sites too much power....how many young pregnant women read those things? Their effect in the real world is very minimal. They make a good scapegoat for NCFA and pals, but the fact is that the "give up your baby" message is falling flat with young moms, for a variety of societal reasons having nothing to do with anti-adoption sites.
The over-all message, that women in crisis pregnancies are mostly keeping their kids was a good one, even if couched in "ain't it awful" rhetoric. Also the fact that most adoptions now are open.
The "bad old days" of most white unwed mothers surrendering are not coming back. The adoption industry needs to get used to that.
"Okay, all together now, how many children who have been reunited with their birth mothers have thanked them for loving them so much they gave them up?"
ReplyDeleteI did - in a big sticker that said "Thank you so much for giving me Life, I owe it all to you!"
I shudder to think that she might have perceived it as "Thank god YOU didn't raise me."
That's sweet, Mei Ling, and what you thanked her for was giving you life, not giving you up. I hope she understood.
ReplyDeleteIn any event, wouldn't it be nice if more mothers just said "you're welcome" when adoptees say thanks, for anything, rather than getting upset that the adoptee is not following the script that mother wants to hear? Better to respond to the sincere intent that to the words?
Every mother has her own adoptee to deal with, with his or her own unique take on their own life. They are not all going to respond the same way.
A friend of mine recently wrote a lovely piece about why her reunion works, and most of it had to do with not having a lot of expectations, plus patience and giving the adoptee time to work out what is comfortable for him. She also focuses on what she has gained in the relationship, rather than constant reference to what was lost.
Mairaine - Yes, but my perspective changed drastically after that point. I didn't want to thank her - because she had planned ON giving me life AKA raising me before my adoption occurred.
ReplyDeleteThat sentence I sent her might have indicated I was glad that I hadn't been raised by her, when in truth, it was when I was just starting to realize that there had been an alternate scenario in which she *could* have raised me.
She never had a choice to begin with.
"She also focuses on what she has gained in the relationship, rather than constant reference to what was lost."
That's true to an extent and important to do, but the issue here is that there is no way to evade reminders that what happened in the past affects the present.
Particularly in IA. I mean, sure, you can reunite and hope for the best; you can try not to dig too deep into the past and create new memories. But there's an impact - not having grown in the same world, not being able to speak the same language - which affects the reunion as well. It is impossible to pretend that didn't happen.
I didn't see the article as as a total Jeremiad. As in not actual wailing and gnashing of teeth. Although there was a definite wiff of bias, it seemed to me that by and large Wetzstein was largely fair, reporting on figures, numbers and the opinions of others.
ReplyDeleteI too was heartened (and amused) by the Church Lady's hand-wringing that " Juno" hadn't prompted a tsunami of infant relinquishments.
Julia Thornton said that there is stigma attached to relinquishment, and I think that's true. It used to be more that being an unmarried mother was something to be looked down upon and there were invariably dire prognostications as to the consequences of such a decision. But now, it seems, the pendulum has swung fairly dramatically the other way. Personally, I don't think that's an entirely bad thing, particularly if it stems the flow of unnecessary and unwanted infant relinquishments.
*Of course* young women in 'crisis' pregnancy deserve to be encouraged to keep and raise their kids, to be informed and supported in their decision and given the help they need to make it work - but OTOH I don't think anyone should be wheedled or pressured into raising a child when they don't want to (for whatever reasons).
Just as an aside, the article left me wondering if Ms. Thornton did in fact return to school after relinquishing her daughter for adoption. Especially as she spoke so movingly about the "unconditional love and sacrifice inherent in it."
I don't think 'open adoption, even when it is honorably maintained on both sides, is a perfect answer to children who need families in which to grow - nor do I think guardianship or in-family situations are either. Nor do I think it's an magical antidote to to the pain of separation (Brenda Newport "Adoption Success a reality" http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/
apr/14/adoption-success-a-reality/ “We've done hundreds of newborn placements,” she said. “It's a win-win situation, and nobody's hurt.” Same old phooey.)
However, I DO think that the fact that Ms. Wetzstein appears to unconditionally support the right of adopted people to their OBCs, including all identifying information speaks to a genuine concern for adoptees and their original parents.
Particularly for the adoptee, who had NO agency at the time that the whole direction of their lives was decided for them.
Dear All - This is Cheryl Wetzstein. Thank you sincerely for taking time to read my story and comment on it on this blog.
ReplyDeleteAs "Kippa" saw in my April 14 column, I have been writing on adoption since the 1970s, when I interviewed Florence Fisher. Lorraine was curious about me personally, so I will mention that besides being a long-time journalist, I am also married mother, and ... a birthmother. So adoption is not a foreign subject to me, professionally or personally.
My "domestic infant adoption is vanishing" story was built on numbers that nobody else bothered to chase down (6,800 babies relinquished at birth a year). I knew that these numbers would satisfy some, and dismay others, so I tried to include those views.
"Juno" was a pop-culture news peg, but story was about what were real women doing today, and why. I wanted to let mothers speak for themselves.... I'm not sure if you all saw the pictures, but they were all poignant in their own way.
I absolutely welcome anyone with a comment to write to our letters page at yourletters@washingtontimes.com. There's also more to write on adoption, so I hope you will feel free to contact me with comments or suggestions.
Best wishes, Cheryl cwetzstein@washingtontimes.com
Cheryl, I rather liked much about your article. I was surprised at the small number of relinquishments--good on you for doing the research and crunching the numbers. At one point I was trying to read into your piece whether or not you felt that this number might be too low and that more women should consider relinquishing, but I couldn't find this bias. That was clearly the case with the Catholic Charities director, but others have commented on that.
ReplyDeleteThe one place I had to bite my tongue was where you quoted butt-insky Jessica Del Balzo--neither an adopteee nor first mother nor adoptive parent, but someone whose opinions have been large enough to fill at least one stupid book and several insipid articles on the subject because oooh, she just really feels her opinion matters. In fact, your quote is vintage Del Balzo:
"Taking a character who's supposed to be so savvy and smart — and have her be so detached from her baby and ultimately go through with an adoption — is a very bad portrayal," Ms. Del Balzo said. "I would hate to see other young girls emulate that."
I really fail to see how it is Del Balzo's place to comment on the very personal choice of a woman to raise her child or relinquish. While I think the relationship between adoption agencies and pregnant women considering adoption has often been coercive, I fully accept that international adoption is rife with problems, I still think it's a woman's right to place her child for adoption. The fact that fewer and fewer women are relinquishing may be heralded as a welcome trend, but need not be an occasion to denounce adoption altogether or criticize those who choose it.
Another issue: I don't see the age at first conception slipping back much. In Canada, births to women aged 35 and over are 4 times as frequent than they were a generation ago. What policy would we have to encourage people to start in their 20s and what would it say? (I'm thinking of my daughter, who will be 12 in June as I type this.) Forget about grad school? Grow up and start making babies like nature intended? I look at around at this society and my daughter's future and I can't see ever sending her such a message.
Ah, yes. Jessica DelBalzo, the Joan of Ark of the anti-adoption movement.
ReplyDeleteI was going to forbear, but since Sensible Jess has already conjured Silly Jess's name, I can't resist mentioning her 2002 article called "Adoption? Why I'm not giving up my Baby" .
I don't think I'm doing it a disservice by describing it as dumb, arrogant, callow, insensitive and overwhelmingly smug.
Another point. 40-50% of cases of failure to conceive can be attributed to infertility in men. Recent studies have shown that environmental pollution contributes significantly to this. By no means all infertility is STD or age related, and I think this is something that needs to be kept in mind. Indeed, there are also cases of infertility that can be traced to childhood sexual abuse which adds an extra and tragic element to the condition.
Actually, Cheryl, I could be wrong, but what I detected in your article was less a bemoaning of the sparsity of infant adoptions than it was a dislike of the kind of all-encompassing, anti-adoption zealotry embraced by Ms. DelBalzo and her ilk.
Indeed, there is no question that "adoption is the best outcome for children whose parents (and birth families) cannot, will not or should not care for them".
You're right too that what IS important for people adopted for the above reasons is that they retain their natural rights to their OBCs and identifying information.
I look forward to reading what you have to say in the Washington Times tomorrow.
Ooops. Just so folks know, the deletion was me. Somehow I posted the same thing twice.
ReplyDeleteKippa, Del Balzo reminds me of a certain type of homophobe--absolutist, righteous, insensitive, oblivious. Hers was the first anti-adoption site I ever happened on.
ReplyDeleteKippa, I just read said article. What a twat.
ReplyDeleteAgree on both counts, Osolo.
ReplyDeleteI love it when you use the anachronistic vernacular.
Slightly off-topic - but would you folks happen to know of http://antiadoption.wordpress.com/ ?
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned the "anti-adoption" term, so I thought I'd ask.
You missed the follow up
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/14/adoption-success-a-reality/
"My conclusion is that when handled correctly, adoption is an honorable, even noble, choice. Adoptive parents are parents by choice, and adoption is the best outcome for children whose parents (and birth families) cannot, will not or should not care for them"
Adoption is not a Honorable , Noble thing at all...
You left out one very important sector in your "adoption is the best outcome for children whose parents (and birth families) cannot, will not or should not care for them"" sentence....and thats the mothers that are TWISTED, CO erced, tormented, bullied, degraded, harrassed , blackmailed, sucked in, need I go on ?? what about those mothers ...and babies ? Is adoption the best thing then Cheryl ? I think not..
I note youve disabled comments on your article Cheryl, else I would have posted this comment there...
So tell me as a First Mother Cheryl do you feel that you did the noble and honorable thing giving up your baby > Does your heart ache for her ? Or did you just move past it ? and talk yourself into BELIEVING it was the honorable thing to do ??
Littlewing, yes, I've gone to that blog often. It's an honest blog by an adoptee, often commenting on issues I hadn't thought of. Many insightful posts and comments. Whether it's anti-adoption or not really doesn't concern me. I got for the content.
ReplyDeleteBTW, has anyone heard the latest? Rubina Ali's dad (she of Slumdog Millionaire) is putting her up for adoption and intending to charge up to 200,000 pounds. Apparently, some sheik is interested.
Yes, I know that site, LittleWing, and while I have a lot of respect for the person whose blog it is and agree with much of what she says, I don't subscribe fully to her anti-adoption stance.
ReplyDeleteMy own 'anti-adoptionism' (If you can even call it that, because it seems to me the the true anti-adoption person is opposed to the practice in every respect. And I'm not. Me being an adoptive parent an' all that, how could I be?) extends to opposition of private adoptions, adoption for profit, exchange of money or services, coercive practices (including the hiring of consumer behavior advisors by agencies), non-related paps getting to know the mother before the child is born, paps being present at the birth (and hanging around after), the withholding of important known information about the possible consequences of relinquishment and adoption for both mother and child, short decision-making and revocation periods, open adoption agreements, 'enforcible' or not that are not honored. Etc, etc. I could go on. I'm sure I've left lots out, but no doubt others can add to the list.
However, I will never be completely anti-adoption because I agree with Cheryl that adoption is, under certain circumstances, the best option for some children.
That does not, of course, include those situations to which Jane refers, where the mother is "TWISTED, CO erced, tormented, bullied, degraded, harrassed , blackmailed, sucked in,"etc. I would imagine that Cheryl feels the same way, and felt it was implicit in her statement.
Personally I wouldn't go so far as to call the act of adoption as "noble", because even while it may benefit a child who needs a home it also satisfies selfish impulses in those who adopt.
"Honourable" I think it can be - for instance, if done through social services and if the person adopted would not not otherwise have a home or someone to love and care for them in a personal way.
I agree that adoption should not be thought of as noble. Adoptive parents are not do-gooders and adoptees owe no one anything. The reason I like going to anti-adoption is that you get a glimpse of how something feels to someone who's been put in a position you've never been put in. One thing I've learned is NEVER to brush anything off or invalidate. It's so easy to do but it's such a bad thing to do. Recently my daughter was on the Internet in a chat room frequented by her long-time school buddies and a new boy came on and teased her about being adopted. His language was singularly ignorant. My daughter came out of her bedroom crying. By the time we had finished talking it through, I felt as though being confronted by the feelings of others had helped me. That's really my bottom line with such sites. I also am not "anti-adoption" per se and I let the ideology roll on by.
ReplyDeleteAs is often the case, my feeling about adoption and what is and is not acceptable are very much like Kippa's. I'm anti the same bad adoption practices she is, but I am not one who wants to see all adoption abolished or think that is even possible.
ReplyDeleteI took a look at that site, and although it is called "anti-adoption" it really isn't bad nor does it have a lot in common with sites like Jess DeBalzo's or some others that tend to be one-note rants, heavy on ideology and light on common sense or compassion.
Part of the problem with those sites is the tendency to universalize from the personal to the general, and a refusal to see the difference. "My adoption or surrender experience was bad, hence adoption is a universal evil on par with death, mass murder, the Holocaust, slavery, etc etc."
These people tend to operate in a closed universe of their own making, with their own special language, meanings, beliefs, and above all a rigid ideology that allows no "heresy" of any more moderate point of view.
They are responding to real pain and real injustice in adoption, but not doing it in a way that will win much sympathy outside their own circle.
I think that the tendency to universalize is - well, rather universal. As one of my sons says (I leave it to you, dear reader, to guess which), "We are all inclined to believe what we want to believe."
ReplyDeleteMea culpa too, I'm sure. Although I am disinclined to believe that ;-)
The only thing so far to which I have taken REAL visceral exception was Brenda Newport's comment "We've done hundreds of newborn placements. It's a win-win situation, and nobody's hurt."
The implication being never. Which may not be an example of universalizing, but it's certainly an obtuse generalization.
I am not anti-adoption but I'm not so stupid as to buy into that kind of twaddle. Quite apart from anything else, experience tells me otherwise. How the hell does she know anyway? Or think she does.
Things aren't always what they seem. And that's an uncomfortable reality of which someone in her position should remain aware. Sorry if it might disturb her beauty sleep.
Is Scout 76 REALLY Cheryl Wetzstein?
ReplyDeleteThis is the anonymous internet folks so I see a shill here. Perhaps someone is collecting fodder for an future article about crazed birthmothers posting on the internet.
Or material for a Ph.d
ReplyDeleteWhatever. It's a cornucopia. Let them gorge.
What the hell ? have we been duped ?
ReplyDeleteTypical Adoptees are always the Mushrooms
I agree Adoption IS necessary for some children.
Those that are TRUE orphans and those that are in peril with no escape from that way of life
OR DEATH actually
Those children definitely need adoption.
I am anti scummy bad immoral Adoption practices, but i cringe when I read about adoptees first mums etc talking the words ANTI ADOPTION
You get more flies with honey ;)
:)
Such Strong Words as ANTI never does ANY Cause any good