Should Glee do a Public Service Announcement on Adoption?

An adoptive mother has started a Change.org petition asking that Fox and Glee do a public service announcement to correct "myths" about adoption.  This petition was influenced by the adoption storyline within the show Glee where one character is a mother who surrendered a child to adoption who regrets her decision and wants to regain custody of her child.  Another character is an adoptee whose first mother has reappeared in her life.  The creator of the Change.org petition feels that this is harmful to adopted children and their families because adoptive families may fear that their children's first families can take them back, adopted children may fear that they can be taken back, and expectant mothers considering adoption may think that "adoption is a temporary solution, not a permanent one."

I agree that public service announcements are needed to spread awareness about adoption.  However, my preference would be that these announcements raise awareness of adoptee inequality, dispel adoption stereotypes, and promote awareness of the issues surrounding the 120,000 children legally cleared for adoption in the U.S. foster care system who go without a permanent home year after year.  The service announcements should be factual information not information that puts forth the portrayal of adoption that people would like adoption to have.

So, here are some facts for your PSA, Glee:

1. Regret and depression after placing a child for adoption is an accurate reaction.  This has been stated in research and literature in helping professional classrooms.
2. There are time periods within which a surrendering mother can change her mind.  These time periods vary from state to state and anyone considering adoption has a right to be made aware of these time periods.
3. Open adoptions are only legally enforceable in 24 states and what enforceability means varies from state to state.  In some states, it depends on who files the paper work.  I for one have never understood what enforceability means: how do you force two parties to remain in contact with one another when one or both parties are not willing?
4. Research shows that original and adoptive families who enter into open adoption and who have gotten to know one another are less likely to fear and make assumptions about each other.  Why in this day and age, unless abuse was involved, are families in adoption afraid of each other?  I would think it would be better for a PSA to promote connection and honesty rather than promote the idea that a closed process is always best and that the original family needs to be feared.
5. 120,000 adoptions take place each year in the U.S.  However, only about 14,000 of them are infant adoption (which is what Glee portrays).  About half of all adoption in the U.S. is Step-parent adoption, followed by the next largest group which is adoptions from foster care (15% of which are kinship adoptions).  It is not appropriate to cater every adoption message around how some would prefer people to view private adoption.
6. "In a study of American adolescents, the Search Institute found that 72 percent of adopted adolescents wanted to know why they were adopted, 65 percent wanted to meet their birth parents, and 94 percent wanted to know which birth parent they looked like" (source).
7. 6 million adult adoptees in the United States are denied equal and routine access to their own factual birth documentation.  This means some adoptees cannot even get a passport to travel internationally or a license to drive.  Do people care more about adoption being put on a nice display than we do about the realities of archaic policy, practice and discrimination against adoptees?
8. Adoption is a permanent "solution" to temporary life problems and issues.

Adoption is indeed portrayed in media for entertainment in severe disproportion to its occurrence in society (see Dr. Katrina Wegar's overview).  I've said it before, themes of abandonment and being orphaned are in nearly every Disney movie.  They are in popular children's television shows.  Adoptees have been made fun of several times recently on popular sitcoms and commercials.  Yet a surrendering mother expressing pain and an adoptee expressing ambivalence are what some don't want people to see?  Adoption isn't beautiful for everyone; it involves loss, pain, regret, confusion, and living a different life than most around you live (2% of mothers with unplanned pregnancy surrender to adoption each year.  Only 2% of all children in the U.S. are adopted.  Only 6 million people overall are adopted in the U.S.).  Is this really an issue of gross inaccuracy (I'll admit, I don't watch Glee that often) or just not wanting people to see a portrayal of adoption that doesn't assure to the rest of the world that it is as wonderful and problem-free as some might like people to believe adoption to be.  Adoption is an institution, not a person.  Let's worry about portraying the thoughts and feelings of real people instead of fretting over how nice and pretty adoption looks.