National Institutes of Health Supports Open Records for Adoptees! Well, not exactly. According to Dr. Francis Collins, the NIH Director and former Director of the Human Genome Project, by obtaining complete family medical history, physicians can determine risks for various cancers including breast, ovarian, and colon cancer and order tests and procedures accordingly. This is more effective than a "one size fits all" approach to disease prevention. - "Dramatic Breakthroughs in Cancer Treatment" (Parade 9-20-09)
(A woman has a higher risk of getting breast and ovarian cancers if she has two or more close family members who have had breast or ovarian cancer or breast cancer has been found in family members before the age of 50.)
Dr. Collins advises that "we all should be aware of our family medical histories. A medical history is essentially a genetic test. It won't cost you any money to collect the information and ... it could save your life.”
Well, that's fine and dandy, but what about those adopted people who can't get their medical histories because the government is hell-bent on preserving the privacy of women who most likely do not want "privacy" from their children? Those women hold the keys to the real medical histories of children they lost to adoption because they are the REAL mothers of the children. Obviously, a medical history of one's adopted family does not help one whit, and if the adopted person were to use it, the doctor would just be befuddled and make incorrect medical decisions. And then there are the offspring of anonymous sperm and egg "donations" (really sales). These folks have even less ability to obtain their genetic history. As Lorraine said, anonymous donations ought to be illegal.
There’s something like six million adopted people out there without their real medical histories. You’d think anything that saves lives and money would be a no-brainer for even the densest politician. Still, we deal with legislators who don't get the message, or, like Danny O'Donnell (NY Legislator and brother to Mama Rosie), just don't give a damn.
I have to agree - the ignorance of the masses, however, make it almost impossible to reach through the social stigma's that surround adoption that will lead to a truth. Children are not "gifts" nor are they interchangeable.
ReplyDeleteIf you adopted or have a child that was the product of sperm donation, do you want to be the one to find out that your son married his sister or half-sister? Or the other way around?
I hate to say it but adoptive parents do not get the attraction issues, which include the basic sexualized attraction of syblings (raised together or apart), that being raised together cools rapidly into normalized behaviors. But with adoptee's they may meet someone that they are totally attracted to, that person that they are dying for their parents to meet because they "fit" together so well.
It has happened more than once. How can this be ignored? Particularly when their (the siblings) children are part of the mix....explain that to your grandkids - yeah, my mom married her brother or my dad married his sister.
Talk about the old jokes about 6 toes or deformities -
Ignorance, the battle cry of the money blind masses.
As an adoptee, she says her and others' greatest fears are not knowing the health background of their biological parents and not knowing whether you have married a relative.
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She knew where he had worked and the cause of death, which was similar to her health problems.
--from The Peterborough Examiner, Ontario, Sept. 27, 2009 in a story about Shirley O'Grady, who found both her parents after a long search.
And please lets not forget the importance of medical history that belongs to the natural father, for he makes up 50% of the genes his child carries. Every adoptee should have a right to that knowledge.
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ReplyDeleteHuh. You sure about that? I constantly read that on AP-centric forums and blogs. *snerk*
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ReplyDeleteI published the previous comment, but I want to add immediately that this presumes that all adoptive parents are unthinking, unloving immoral bastards, and we have seen enough posting here to know that that is most definitely not the case. And I don't think the Catholic clergy is all skanky. They--people who are against open records, adoptive parents who are opposed to working for them (see Third Mom, Osolomama's and Malinda's blogs and as well as others) just think that the odds of this happening are so remote they do not have to think about it.
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