Yesterday's Photo: a Response to Some Responses

I did a workshop on Saturday about Adoptee Rights, at an event coordinated by the Three Rivers Community Foundation, which was an inspiring experience for me.  My friend, Marianne, and I got to share about Adoptee Rights to some activist-minded people and they listened with interest and compassion.  No one asked me if I was grateful not to have been aborted.  No one assumed that I hated my parents for reuniting or wanting my birth certificate.  No one called me self-absorbed for calling attention to adoptee issues.  Wow.  I left with high spirits lifted higher by Occupy Pittsburgh which was going on at the same time as the workshop.  My a-mom (who went to the workshop with me) kept stopping the car at cross streets so I could get a better look, excited by my excitement and that we were sharing this experience together despite usually having differing political views on a lot of different issues.  The next day I thought about what I could do to help raise awareness about how being adopted is one more way in which these wealthy corporations and lobbyists take away the voice of those who an issue impacts.  I loved the pictures I saw being posted about various issues and wanted to make my own (see above).  I expected it would be shared/re-posted when I put it on Facebook because I made it for the purpose of it being shared.  I did not anticipate the amount of times it would be shared, however, and for that, I thank everyone so much.

I anticipated that the Adoptee Rights message I put out there would get the same praise and the same protest that our messages always do (and kudos to so many Occupy Movement supporters who learned about this issue that was new for them and responded with positivity and support).  I saw some responses on some re-postings of the photo: the usual themes of mothers choosing abortion if Adoptee Rights are restored, nonsense about 'real parents,' and people claiming adoptee oppression doesn't exist.  I figured that my blog was the best place to make a response:

It gets frustrating after a while to remind people that we are human beings not "abortion survivors."  It gets tiring to hear that I am valued only by her choices and hearing her valued by her choices as well--especially as her decision-making process (whether or not she considered abortion) is no ones business but her own.  She and I are so much more than that.  I feel like I shouldn't have to remind people that a lot of women experience unplanned pregnancy and consider abortion and most do not surrender to adoption.  So why is it only the adopted and their mothers who carry this obnoxious stigma?  More women will not choose abortion if adult adoptees are allowed to see their own birth certificates.  And what does any of that have to do with equality?

If anyone ever wonders if adoptees are oppressed, look no further than the assumptions about our mothers, assumptions that we were almost aborted, assumptions that we were unwanted, assertions that we have no right to equality or to what is important to us because we are adopted, demands that we need to be grateful for receiving basic human rights as children, and claims that not having the same access to information the non-adopted have is acceptable because we are adopted.....that, dear friends, is oppression.

The photo wasn't about abortion or bothering original parents or who someones 'real' parents are (I have four 'real' parents.  Are there 'fake' parents?). People may assume that about the photo because of stereotypes about adoptees. Stereotypes are oppression. Not knowing the issues your community (or another person's community) faces because of the invisibility of the issues is the product of (and perpetuation of) oppression.  Don't like it?  Me neither.  Let's work for change.

Thank you to those who are supportive of Adoptee Rights.  Thank you to those who are open-minded to the message and do not stereotype and label us (or our families).  For those who responded that you are searching for more information about yourselves or your family members, I wish you comfort and support on your journey.

PS. I am doing NaBloPoMo again this November and am looking for guest posts about foster care again like I did for Foster Care Awareness Month this past May.  I am also especially interested in hearing from the adoptee (and those with like-issues e.g. foster alumni, donor conceived) community about experiences being a member of a diverse/oppressed/multi-cultural group (e.g. LGBTQ).  Email me if you want to write something.