Adoption, Catholics, and Moral Responsibility

Daughter Genevieve at her First Holy Communion in May. Innocent and sweet. She has helped remind me of the beauty of faith, especially in a child, as I struggle with my feelings about the Catholic church's role in blocking adoption reform.

(This is another post from Jenn, Susan's daughter. Susan passed away on April 7th after an 8 month battle with melanoma)

I arrived home this afternoon to find the Catholic Star Herald, the official publication of the Camden Diocese, along with my other mail. I don't always have a chance to look through this paper, but something made me open it today. Because Catholic groups (The Catholic Conference, certain Right to Life groups, the Knights of Columbus) have been among the most outspoken against adoption reform, which would allow adult adoptees access to their original birth certificates, and because my own Catholic faith is important to me, I am always holding my breath, slightly, when I encounter public expressions of the Catholic faith. My mom, an adoptee, shined the light on adoption for me, and I will never be the same. I cannot be silent now in the face of what I know to be untrue. Sealed records are a violation of the adoptees' basic rights as a human being, pure and simple, and they should not exist, anywhere.

Sealed records have also been used to perpetrate and hide horrible crimes over the past century, including Spain's stolen baby scandal (http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2112003,00.html),  Argentina's stolen baby scandal (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-22004491), and, yes, right here in our back yard, the United States' stolen baby scandal (http://www.babythief.com/home.html). Though I have not yet seen the movie Philomena, I hear that this, too, shows the scandal of sealed records, and the role of the Catholic church in promoting them. Spanish journalist Natalia Junquera, who led the newspaper El País' investigation of the baby thefts in that country, said of those who facilitated illegal adoptions: "They honestly thought they were doing the right thing." As difficult as it is to accept, I do believe that there are some who fight against adoption reform who honestly think they are doing the right thing. It's time to stop. Sealed records have never been, nor will they ever be, "the right thing."

After opening the Catholic Star Herald this afternoon I first came across a lovely reflection by Jean Denton called "Discovering God through Christ-like actions," which ended, "When we live the way of the Christ, others discover God." Amen. Two pages later, though, my heart stopped when I saw the commentary on S873/A1259, a bill to open adoption birth records in New Jersey, by Patrick Brannigan, executive director of the New Jersey Catholic Conference: "Adoption law and moral responsibility." Moral responsibility, indeed. Every Catholic, every human being, does have a moral responsibility to consider the effects of unjust laws sealing adoptees' true identities from them forever. This is partly about getting medical information, yes (my mom died from melanoma, which ran in her family, which she did not know, despite her attempts to gain "full access" to her family medical history), but it is also about more than that. It is about the state (or any institution, including the Catholic church) not getting involved in blocking any human being's knowledge of his or her origins. It is about finally reforming adoption to be, first and foremost, about the welfare of the adoptee, the "voiceless party," the innocent child. Thousands of these innocent children, now grown up, have told us what they need (access to their original birth certificates without ever having to go to court to show "good cause"), and that must be respected. And please, leave those adoptees who have said they don't feel the need to search for their birth parents out of it. Had you spoken with my mom at age 30, she would have told you the same thing. But she changed, and when she realized she had no rights, she became an activist. This is the most personal of personal decisions. As my adoptee friend told me, "Searching is the most vulnerable you will ever be." We have a moral obligation to protect the vulnerable.

Which brings me to the claim that sealed records help to protect the vulnerable unborn -- the future adoptee -- from abortion. This argument is false. And there are many people fighting for adoption reform who, despite their own pain, their own lack of rights, wouldn't be in this movement if the argument weren't false. Some evidence even points to the idea that abortions increase when records are sealed because mothers cannot face the pain of a future forever locked away from their child. Certainly, states that have NEVER sealed records (Kansas, Alaska), and those that have passed adoption reform allowing adult adoptees access to their original birth certificates show that these fears are completely unfounded (abortion rates have either dropped, or not been affected). The claim, "Adoption, not Abortion!" (as posted on the Knights of Columbus website) is misleading, divisive, and hurtful. Choose Life! (We'll help you!) would be more truthful, more responsible, and more loving.

Yes, there is a moral responsibility when it comes to Catholics and adoption, but the commentary in this week's Catholic Star Herald is hugely misleading as to what that is. "Thousands of birth mothers placed their children for adoption, relying on the church's assurance of their privacy," writes Brannigan, "...we have a two-part moral obligation to ... establish a robust educational campaign to alert birth parents that New Jersey's law has been changed ... and [we] must make available counseling and other services for birth parents who will be impacted by this significant change in law ...People - mostly mothers - will be vulnerable because of this change in our long-established law."  In states that have passed adoption reform allowing for adult access to the original birth certificate, fewer than 1% of birth/original mothers have filed 'no contact' preferences, so we are hardly talking about thousands of women here. And, in the words of another adoption rights blogger, the women who "don't want to be found" are usually "scarred and scared" -- often from the shame heaped upon them for being unwed and pregnant, and then from the trauma of giving away their child. So yes, counseling might be a good idea, but not in the way it was presented in this commentary. The majority of birth/original mothers want to be found. Many of them have testified on behalf of adoption reform. Those who are scared and scarred (such as my mom's original mother) will not suffer by being contacted by their children. A good counselor would help them realize that.

And one more thing. Brannigan also writes, "Over the years, NJCC [the New Jersey Catholic Conference] message was consistent." This is not true. Those fighting adoption reform these days say they are doing so on behalf of the birth mother, but in the past they argued that it was for the benefit of the adopted child (to protect him/her from the stigma of illegitimacy) and for the adoptive parents (to protect them from interference from the birth parents). The message has changed through the years.

This year, as my mom, a longtime advocate for adoption reform, suffered and died while this public campaign was fought, I was saddened that the faith I needed to turn to for comfort was tainted for me by outspoken members who spoke out against reform. But my faith is strong, and the church community I am a part of is loving and beautiful. Still, it was a struggle. Often at night, cut to the core by the impending loss of my mom, I would turn to the Gospels to try to find the comfort I longed for.  I craved miracle stories, healings, signs of God's love, but I opened, again and again, to Matthew 23: the denunciation of the Scribes and Pharisees. Jesus, speaking to the crowds and to his disciples, says: "Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. They tie up heavy burdens [hard to carry] and lay them on people's shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them." Jesus then has some choice, harsh words for the "hypocrites," and all winter and early spring I wondered what comfort there was in that harshness.

Reading my mom's diary in her closet.

Ultimately, it was my mom's words that showed me that comfort. In the months leading up to her death, I was also preparing my daughter Genevieve for her First Holy Communion. She had retreats and classes each week, and each time I dropped her off, or attended with her, I struggled with my feelings. I did not want to betray my mom, or contribute in any way to the suffering of others (by supporting, through my presence or my donations, opponents of adoptee reform).  But I also saw in Genevieve's retreats, in her devoted teacher, and in the innocent, trusting faces of her entire class, the beauty of the church. The week before Genevieve's First Communion, just three weeks after my mom's death, my sister and I met at my mom and dad's house to go through some of my mom's things. Our hearts ached as we went through her t-shirts, her socks, her beloved bathing suits. After an hour or so, her closet nearly empty, we decided to take a break. It was then that I came across her diary from 1963. She had been 13 years old then. I sat down on her closet floor and read. Descriptions of ice-skating, dancing, visiting her Nana ... I smiled even as my heart broke, missing her. Her love of life, of family, was so clearly there. The entry for Sunday, January 6th, however surprised me. "This morning I took my first communion as I joined my church just before Christmas. To me, it was a very meaningful service and reminded me of Christ's presence with us always. I know that it is an experience I shall never forget." I could almost hear my mom laughing at this, remembering her story about the first time she doubted her faith, when a Sunday school teacher explained to her that Mary was just floating around on a cloud, looking over them, literally. But I also felt its deep sincerity. "It sounds like a boring day but really it was wonderful," she wrote. Her belief in God was real, tender, and sweet. Much like Genevieve's. It was only later that the Scribes and Pharisees got in the way (and I am not talking about that poor, well-meaning Sunday school teacher who told that story. I've said some ridiculous things myself, I'm sure).

"It sounds like a boring day but really it was wonderful"

My mom was able to make peace with her God, and she loved the women's prison ministry she was a part of for many years, but she was never quite able to shake her distrust of the "institution" of the church, which so often seemed to do exactly the opposite of what Jesus preached. She also saw what the institution of adoption, supposedly set up for her benefit, did to her and others, and she said a simple, "No thank you." I respect her for that, and I ask that all well-meaning Catholics, including those who have been outspoken against adoption reform, do her the honor of at least considering, or reconsidering, their views. You might even say we have a moral obligation to do so.

Sweet Genevieve opening the necklace we gave her for her First Holy Communion.

Adoption and Abortion: It's Not as Simple as Many Pro-lifers Think

Recently, I received a comment on a post I had written some time ago on what drives state bar associations to oppose equal rights for adult adoptees.  Those of you who have been involved in the adoptee rights movement will recognize the anecdotal argument right away -- it is the argument that sends legislators who are thinking about supporting an adoptee rights bill running for the hills.  It is also the argument that prompts the question some of us adoptees have heard from time to time: "Why can't you just be happy you have your life and weren't aborted?"

Here's the comment:

"My sister was a birth mother years ago. She chose adoption over abortion thinking a chance at life with a loving family was better than no chance at life or life with a teen mom. She wanted it done and over with so she could move on. She was willing to do the 9 months, willing to get the glares and stares and willing to hear the not nice comments. Our parents supported her although they thought an abortion would have been much easier for my sister.
Now the state she lives in trying to get birth certificates opened. She feels it was a two way street she got to move on with life and the child got a life. She was young did not have the means to raise a child. If she had to do it over she said she would have had the abortion. There is a reason why woman choose a closed adoption. They should be allowed to keep their privacy. I'm sympathetic to the adoptee who wants information. Mutual consent open the birth certificates for all birth mothers and adoptee families who want an open adoption. Life is not fair not everything is equal. My birth certificate does not have a father's name on it. He took off before I was born. My mother refused to put his name on the birth certificate and refuses to talk about him. Should the gov't force woman to put the father's name on all birth certificates and force my mother to give information about my father. Obviously, he didn't want to be involved in my life, I accept that."

On the surface, this argument sounds compelling, and it is a difficult one to refute in the legislative arena, because it is driven by emotion and ideology.  Here was my brief reply:

"According to the data, your sister is in a distinct minority of birth parents, and public policy should never be formulated to serve a distinct minority. What makes you think the adoptee would be disrespectful of her feelings? All we're saying is that the adoptee is entitled to the truth about her own personhood, whatever that truth might be. Many adoptees are only looking for genetic information about themselves, and it is disrespectful to imply that the adoptee will continue efforts at contact if the mother says no. Your sister did a good thing, but people should not assume that adoptees want their original birth certificates so that they can take inappropriate actions. I had one phone conversation with my original mother after I had suffered a serious medical problem and gained valuable information that has helped me physically and emotionally. I have respected her wishes and have not contacted her again. Are you saying that one conversation is too much to ask? You may not realize it, but such an attitude shows a profound disrespect for the adoptee and his or her motives. My original mother is not my enemy and never has been. She is an adult forging her way through life the best she can, as am I. She is entitled to her privacy but not lifetime anonymity from her own child, and the law is very clear on this point."

I could add many facts and statistics here to show that there is no link between adult adoptee access and abortion rates, and that mutual consent registries just don't work, but I have done that often in other articles -- I'll include the links below this post.  I will repeat the fact that in Oregon, which enacted adult adoptee access legislation in 2000, fewer than a quarter of one percent of birth mothers have filed "no contact" preferences, while more than 10,000 adoptees have applied for and received their original birth certificates.  Would not this statistic alone indicate that the vast majority of original parents do not live in mortal fear that their offspring might someday find them?  Statistics from the other open-access states reinforce the fact that the number of original parents who prefer no contact is very, very small.  The writer's sister in the comment above is actually an anomaly.

Another important point is that the writer assumes adoption has always operated in absolute secrecy, when estimates indicate some 40 percent of adoptees have some identifying information on their adoption decrees.  Both my adoptive brother and I, for example, have always had our original birth names.  Adoptees find their original families everyday in this country, in spite of sealed birth certificates;  however, under the current archaic system, original parents have no way to indicate whether they would prefer direct contact, contact through an intermediary, or no contact at all.  Clean adoptee access bills would give original parents the opportunity to express their preferences.  When people oppose such bills, they are assuming adoptees would do inappropriate things no matter what the original parents have indicated in preference forms.  As an adoptee, I find such attitudes incredibly insulting.

Too many people in the pro-life movement see adoption as the simple, win-win solution to abortion, when they actually know little about the subject's complexities.  Those who actually work in the field are well aware that closed-for-life adoptions have served neither original mothers nor adoptees well.  Consider carefully what Paul Swope, then president of Life Net Services, wrote more than 10 years ago in 1998:  "A pressure to end a pregnancy with an adoption does not save a child from abortion, but may in fact, be a determining factor in a woman choosing to terminate the pregnancy ... ."  Swope's point was that a woman facing an unwanted pregnancy is desperate for a sense of resolution to her crisis, and in her mind, "adoption leaves the situation the most unresolved."

Open adoptions have risen in popularity because adoption facilitators know that very few women are willing to relinquish their babies unless they can have some knowledge about how those babies are doing.  However, open adoption agreements are not legally enforceable in most states, a fact that many surrendering mothers have learned the hard way.

I have some faint hope that people are beginning to realize that adoption in this country is too often run like a business, in which the couples desiring a Caucasian infant to adopt far outnumber the Caucasian babies available.  Prospective adoptive parents are the paying customers, and the best interests of the surrendering parents and the adoptees themselves are too often overlooked in the effort to supply the babies to meet the demand.

The Catholic News Agency recently ran an article describing a nation-wide, pro-adoption ad campaign being conducted jointly by Austin, Texas-based Heroic Media and Michigan-based Bethany Christian Services.  An ad, featuring a pregnant woman explaining why she plans to put her baby up for adoption, aired 45 times over a four-week period on Oxygen Network during the reality TV series "I'm Having Their Baby."

The ad focuses on adoption as a "life-changing blessing for adoptive  parents" and a "gift of love and hope" for adopted children.  Unfortunately, Bethany Christian Services is ranked very poorly by original mothers who have surrendered their children, and Bethany Christian Services continues to oppose adult adoptee access bills, even as they extol the benefits of more openness in adoption.  The TV series and the ad campaign, in my mind, are ethically repugnant.  Even the title, "I'm Having Their Baby," is repugnant, as the expectant mother is obviously not receiving unbiased pregnancy counseling -- she is being groomed to see herself as an inadequate mother and adoption as the noble and uncomplicated answer to all her problems.

What gives me a little hope is that Catholic News Service published six comments about the ad campaign, and five of them focused on adoption truth. You can read the entire article here, and
below are the six comments published on-line.



"I'm not sure why pro-life has to equal pro-adoption. One can still be opposed to abortion, yet encourage families to seek out the resources they need to successfully parent their own children - adoption is not an alternative to abortion, it's an alternative to parenting. Most women who are considering adoption were never seeking abortion in the first place.
As for the agencies themselves, particularly Bethany (I will not add the other two words in the name of their company b/c there is absolutely nothing Christian about their "services")- to quote Job 24:21 "They prey on the barren and childless woman, and to the widow show no kindness"


"Separating a mother from her baby is being promoted by a Christian organization?  Why isn't the Catholic Church helping women in "crisis" pregnancies to keep their children?  Most of these women just need financial help and low-cost child care."


"If Bethany Christian Services would lobby for adult adoptee access to their own birth certificates and for laws that would enforce open adoption agreements, then I would believe that their primary interest is indeed the welfare of the child and the original mother.  Speaking as an adult adoptee who was blessed with loving adoptive parents, I still maintain that adoption is not as simple as the ad portrays.  It is complicated, and it often results in profound feelings of loss for both original mother and adoptee.  I am not anti-adoption, but I am pro adoption reform and for full disclosure of the facts to all parties.  I also believe it is possible to offer a child a loving home without obliterating his or her original identity for life.  Unfortunately, I have found that many agencies routinely whitewash complex adoption realities."


"Some of our energies and prayers might also be well-spent finding ways for mothers to keep and raise their own children. Many women who give up their children for adoption have said they would have kept them if they had the simple support (financial and otherwise) every mother deserves. Without that, how can we say these women's decision to adopt was really their own idea?"


"Perhaps some energy and prayers should be directed towards making contraception allowable. Obviously, the plan to make sex between two loving people within the bonds of matrimony clearly isn't working. Contraception would lower the dilemma women face when deciding on an abortion. Time to admit people are going to have sex (even despite gay marriage) and keep having babies... choose the lesser of two evils, contraception over abortion."


"All of our energies and prayers must be focused on programs like these. Campaigns directed at those who have traditionally killed their children are much more effective than attacking politicians who are constitutionally unable to overturn the Supreme Courts ruling on Roe v. Wade which has unfortunately stood for 40 years now.  Time to get over hating politicians and begin saving children."


I take great comfort in the first five comments, one of which is my own.  They seem to come from people who are well-versed in adoption realities.  The sixth comment seems to come from a true believer who is not so well versed in adoption truth.

Could it be that the times are slowly changing, and that people are starting to recognize that adoption itself is not the painless and problem-free antidote to abortion that some pro-lifers seem to think?  We can only hope so, and keep working for the adoption reforms that are so badly needed.


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Adoptive Parents and Pro-lifers who Cannot or Will Not See the Realities of Adoption

Why is Honesty in Adoption Still a Controversial Subject?

Pro-Life Ideology and Adoptee Rights

Adoptee Rights and a Woman's Reproductive Choices

Pro-life Ideology and Adoptee Rights

There are some ideologies that simply can't be moved by any amount of data or research.  The pro-life position that an adult adoptee's access to her original birth certificate will somehow lead to more abortions seems to be just such an ideology.

Recently, in response to one of my posts, a commenter wrote this:

"The simple fact is birth mothers (and fathers when involved in this decision) have made a decision, a choice, to give up their child to the adoption process.  Mothers have a right to choose.  In fact, 100% of all birth mothers have the right to choose the amount of openness in the adoptive relationship, and she will select the family that is open to her request.  This has resulted in 67 percent of private adoptions having pre-adoption agreements of at least a semi-open adoption.  The 33% that don't have pre-adoption agreements are at the request of the birth mother.  Don't these mothers have a right to anonymity?  If you take that away, what will be the choice of these mothers?  We don't have to guess.  In states that took away the privacy rights of birth mothers, abortions rose."

Unfortunately, this opinion is rather widespread, even though the facts directly refute what this commenter is saying.  Rather than repeat all the statistics, as I and others in the adoption reform movement have done many times, I'll share the conclusions of several comprehensive studies and refer readers to the original source, when I can.

A 2010 study by the Evan B. Donaldson Institute concluded that there is "no discernible relationship between a state's policy on access to OBCs (original birth certificates) and its abortion rate."  The Institute paper noted that abortion rates in Kansas and Alaska, two states that never sealed birth certificates from adoptees, are lower than the national average.  The study likewise shows that those states that have reopened OBCs to adult adoptees have lower abortion rates post-access than pre-access.  When "open" states are compared to states that remain closed, abortion rates vary up and down, but there is no pattern and no statistically-significant trend.  The variations, the authors conclude, are most likely caused by social and cultural factors, as well as accessibility to abortion services.

While the data is limited about any link between a woman's decision to abort as opposed to her decision to place her child for adoption, a 2005 survey of 1,209 women and comprehensive interviews with 38 women about their reasons for choosing abortion failed to uncover one case in which the promise of confidential adoption was a factor (Finer, Frohwith, Dauphinee, Singh and Moore, 2005).

The link between adoption and abortion is further explored in a 2010 article by Jessica Arons entitled "The Adoption Option: Adoption Won't Reduce Abortion but It Will Expand Women's Choices."  Published by the Center for American Progress, Arons' study notes that both adoption and abortion rates have fallen in recent years, even as births to unwed mothers have risen.  After analyzing the current data, Arons concludes: "Abortion has not caused the low rates of adoption in recent years; rather the low placement rates are a direct result of more single women choosing to parent on their own."

During the last legislative cycle, Larry Newman of the New Jersey Coalition for Adoption Reform and Education (NJCARE) prepared a detailed analysis to refute New Jersey Right to Life's claim that adult adoptee access would lead women to choose the abortion option more often.  His study confirms the results of the Evan B. Donaldson Institute research.  Tennessee reinstated adult adoptee access in 1995, Delaware in 1999, and Oregon and Alabama in 2000.  None of these states has seen an increase in abortions post-access, and in fact, several have seen a significant decrease in abortion rates.

Newman also noted that in Oregon, more teenagers chose life over abortion in the years following the passage of OBC legislation than in the years preceding the bill's passage.  His conclusion overall is that adult adoptee access will neither reduce nor increase abortion rates: it will have no effect because similar bills have produced no statistically significant trends.

Unfortunately, we have found that all these statistics do little to assuage the fears of many, but not all, members of the pro-life community.  Catholic Child Welfare Supervisor James L. Gritter saw the light years ago.  In 1995, he wrote, "Closed records turn adoption's boldest and most honorable claim -- that it serves the best interests of children -- into a flagrant and vile lie.  Any system that denies people fundamental information about themselves cannot in good conscience claim to serve them."

The Rev. Thomas F. Brosman, an adoptee himself and a priest at Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church in Bayside, NY, likewise speaks out for an adoptee's right to know his own truth and history.  Many opponents of adoption reform, he says, are driven by their ideology and  the understandable desire to settle for easy "either-or" answers in a complicated world.  Some pro-lifers do seem to see a complex issue this way:  in their minds, the solution to an unwanted pregnancy is either adoption or abortion.  Adoption is good; abortion is bad.  There is no need to investigate the subject any further to determine whether, in fact, adoption is always good, or whether, in fact, somebody's human rights are being violated.

Some pro-lifers fail to recognize that the child-to-be will in fact become a full-grown human being deserving of all the rights that other human beings enjoy.  She certainly does not deserve to be yoked to a lifetime restraining order preventing her from ever knowing the truth about her own personhood.  For example, as an adult adoptee and a former cancer patient, I was unable to participate in a medical protocol because I had no access to my original family history.  If that is not blatant discrimination, what in the world is?

As I try to explain to adoption reform opponents, I am a part of my original mother's private history, not a separate entity that exists outside of it.  Together, we co-own my birth information, and how we conduct our private business is up to us.  Some pro-lifers seem to jump to the conclusion that if the child knows the truth, everyone will know the truth, and the mother will be unfairly affected.  What do they think -- that I am going to run a newspaper ad or take out a billboard announcing to the world who my original parents are?

My private past is just that -- private, between my original mother and me.  No pro-life advocate, attorney or legislator has the right to interfere with that private relationship.  Like it or not, my original mother is part of me.  The truth is the truth, and genetic links cannot be severed and never addressed again, as if they had no importance.  Science tells us that genes do matter -- and no amount of rationalizing or wishful thinking can alter that basic fact.


Finer, L.B., Frohwith, L.H., Dauphinee, L.A., Singh, S. & Moore, A.M. (2005). Reasons U.S. women have abortions: Quantitative and qualitative perspectives. Perspectives on sexual and reproductive health, 37, 3, 110-118.


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Adoptee Rights and a Woman's Reproductive Choices
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