Adoption . . . The Last Slavery
by
H. Kent Craig
©1998
The American Century Dictionary defines
slavery as "condition of a slave". I define the
condition of slave as a human being who is born into a
economic or political sub-class that, by law, has fewer
rights and privileges than those of free-born classes.
Once adult white men created the basis of modern society
and put themselves in charge around the 1000 A.D., slavery
for adult white men was pretty much eliminated. Then,
slowly over the next millennia, slavery for other
sub-classes of human beings were slowly eliminated in most civilized societies.
This planting of the idea of freedom for all was the mustardseed of Revolutionary American Constitutional ethos, though it took a couple of centuries for fruition.
First, the adult male African-Americans
were emancipated. Then, with the passing of child labor
laws and the foundations of free, public education being
laid in the late 1800's, freeborn children were given their
due. And even women, the largest social class ever to
suffer their own form of slavery, because slavery by birth
of female gender extended across all racial and social and
economic lines, were finally freed with the passing of
suffrage laws in the early 1900's. Which leaves but one
political sub-class of human beings left who are born
slaves by virtue of their being born into circumstances
beyond their control, those circumstances invoking direct,
harsh, punitive legal measures against them, simply because
of the whys and wherefores of their birth, those being
adoptees.
I should mention that age seven months in 1957, I became an
open adoptee, something totally unheard of in 1957 and
still extremely rare, even today. My adoptive parents were
close friends with my bio.mother's family, and I grew up
always knowing and keeping in contact with my siblings. But
even in those circumstances, some bio.family members still
played God over certain facts and bits of knowledge of
family history and circumstances well into my adulthood,
simply because of the circumstances of my being adopted.
So, I'd like to think I have a perspective which, will
unique, offers broad-based insights and perspectives into
the adoptee mind-set of late 20th century America.
If any other social or political group had, by legislation,
a substantial part of their universal and human rights
taken away simply because of circumstances of their birth,
there would be a hue and cry of biblical intensity, of
which the din would resonate into every home in the land.
If African-Americans, Asian-Americans, German-Americans, or
women were born into a theater of legal absurdity which
told them from infancy onward that they could never know
who their biological parents were, that they could never
know their biological families heritages', that they could
never know their genetic heritages even if they suffered
from a debilitating and possibly fatal chromosomal
condition which their doctors couldn't treat properly
because they didn't have knowledge of their patient's
genetic encoding, then there would mass demonstrations if
not rioting in the streets, demanding full and equal
protection and treatment under law.
But adoptees suffer quietly in the darkness of their
imposed civil and moral rights dungeon, with nary a
whimper, save the odd quiet push for modest legislative
reform mostly on the local level, which usually gets
nowhere fast.
There is such a negative stigma even in this "enlightened"
day and age in the late 20th century to being adopted, to
being an adoptee, and why? Because, with rare
exceptions, being adopted means that you were born into a
family situation of such unsteady economically or unhealthy
parentally or a combination of both circumstances that your
bio.parent(s) couldn't take care of you as an infant, and
that's why you were put up for adoption, and the unspoken
acknowledgment of the humble reality of your birth by the
rest of society creating an uncomfortableness of "by the
grace of God, go I".
As long as human beings remain human beings, there will be
a need for adoption, so I'm not advocating outlawing
adoption. As long as some human beings have proclivities
towards unhealthy uses of drugs or alcohol, or towards
mental diseases or illegal or immoral behaviors such as
spouse or child abuse or incest, and until society
recognizes that little children are indeed its most
important asset and takes steps to help stabilize temporary
economic uncertainties within families or familial
situations, which are the root causes of many (but not all)
adoptions, then there will be a need for a rational, fair
adoption process, to protect the children involved.
It's making the process rational and fair for the children,
not for the convenience of the adults or societal
organizations involved, that is at the heart of my
argument. If one truly believes that the welfare of a given
child is the most important rule of governance concerning
how a child is treated by the adoption process, then how
can one make any sort of logical or rational argument that
denying a child full knowledge of its heritage, its genetic
and medical history, and its parentage is conducive to the
child's overall welfare and mental well-being?
The thing about kids is that, if they're lucky, they become
adults, but guess what? Once an adoptee becomes an adult,
having all other full enfranchisement rights as citizens,
an adoptee is still, by full force and fury of law, a
second-class citizen, the only such
born-second-class social class left in America.
Adult adoptees do not garner a single more right upon
reaching their twenty-first birthday to know their
bio.parents, their genetic and medical history, or their
heritage than do adoptees under the age of majority, and if
this does not strike you as blatantly unfair and bald-faced
discriminatory, then I suppose you also might see some
benefits to re-instituting slavery for African-Americans,
too.
The problem of what to do with children who are born into
or whose families evolve into desperate economic or
unhealthy relationship models has always been with us, and
will always be with us, to some extent. For all its faults,
I suppose the modern American way of taking out its
collective shame and guilt on the very victims of
circumstances it's supposed to protect, the innocent
adoptee children in all of this, is better than tying a
yellow ribbon around them and sending them into the streets
to be picked up and "adopted" by other families who could
take care of them better, as was the practice in so-called
"civilized societies" for centuries up until the Industrial
Revolution. Absolutely, it's a better system than that, but
with the on-going enfranchisement evolution of raising the
political, moral, and social rights and responsibilities to
all classes of citizens, it never the less remains a fact
that adoptees of all kinds, child adoptees, child adoptees
who become adult adoptees, open adoptees, closed adoptees,
are still the only social sub-class which suffers the yoke
of legislated societal gestalt hidden anger and
caste-shame.
It's time our society grew up a little more, and gives
full, equal protection and consideration under the law to
adoptees.
Readers are encouraged to cross-post this article to other
websites, to reprint it in hardcopy publications, and/or
otherwise use it in whole or part in any other media.
Please
email me
to ask permission to do so first, thanks. I'll routinely
grant all such requests, I just would like to know how and
where it's being used, and thank you!
{Back To Deeply Personal & Misc. Page}
Home
Contact