To those who have asked about alternatives to adoption...

 First, I offer the  Evelyn Robinson's presentation in Toronto to the
Canadian Council of Birthmothers on May 2,   2001.

(Click on "Adoption and Loss:  The Hidden Grief", the next article
below this one )

Ms. Robinson is from South Australia, where adoption is dwindling.
Please pay particular attention to the last third of the  article, where
she enumerates alternatives already being successfully used in
South Australia.  Please try to read it all. The article is invaluable.

  I also suggest the consideration of legal guardianship, wherein the child
keeps his or her name and identity, growing up without   the pretense of being
someone else's child.  Under legal guardianship, the child will also have
automatic access to his or her natural family and ancestry at the age of
majority, if not sooner.  He or she would still have the advantage of a
"loving home," as the adoption industry is so fond of calling it (as if the
alternative is not capable of loving without an SUV, a back yard, and a
purebred puppy).

  The disintegration of the mother/child entity is a tragedy, a genuine
trauma.  Infertility is not.  Get over it.  Having freedom from   responsibility
for one's own children can provide truly caring people with   the time and
resources to touch many children's lives, instead of just one   or two they
would claim as their own.  People need to quit thinking they   have a RIGHT to
have a child.  They don't.

  International adoption needs to stop.  It accomplishes nothing more than
heating up the market for children as commodities and robs these countries   of
their greatest natural resource.  And it is just this resource that can  give
these countries the wherewithal to repair the problems that cause
  people to lose their children in the first place.  As long as there is a
market for their children, they will not fix their problems.  Look how long  it
has taken Korea to finally put their foot down on international  adoption.  And
now China has a severe shortage of females.

  International adoption has also contributed to the climing numbers of
children in the U.S. languishing in foster "care."  When couples can't get  'em
young, that might weed a lot of adopters out permanently, but maybe  some  will
consider legal guardianship of older children right here in this  country
(infertile couples sign up here).  What a concept.  I still cannot  believe the
stories I hear about "saving" some poor kid in a Russian  orphanage.
Helloooooooo.

  We need to stop the demand for children, and that starts with adopters.  No
one can deny that the lion's share of adopters want babies.  And the sad   fact
is that their first priority (according to the Dave Thomas Foundation)  is
getting one young enough not to remember his or her natural parents.  How  sad
is that?  These people still think babies are blank slates.  That  theory
  ("tabula rasa") was thrown out in the 50s and came from a man who died in
1704!  Of course, the adoption indu$try would like everyone to believe it
still.

  If there is no market for children, alternatives will be found such as
keeping them, paying more attention to birth control, better access to  earlier
abortions, and finding QUALITY communal ways of raising the truly  parentless.

  As Evelyn Robinson says, we are looking for alternatives to adoption that  are
BETTER than adoption.  Let's quit trying to rearrange deck chairs on  the
Titanic, and build a better ship.
 
 
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