HYDERABAD: Unable to bear the harassment of her husband due to her infertility, a woman was led to steal a newborn boy from the government hospital in Malakpet. After a 48-hour ordeal for the baby’s parents, police managed to trace the baby boy on Tuesday and took the accused into custody. Police got a clue from the conversation over mobile phone between the woman and baby boy’s aunt which helped them to nab the abductor.
Syed Nayeemuddin Javed, inspector, Chaderghat police said, the accused Shajahan, resident of Pahad Sharif had approached the baby’s mother Mehboob and claimed her mother-in-law was also admitted in the hospital. Before leaving, the woman played with the infant but later escaped along with the baby. He said that Shajahan got married for the second time a year back with an ayurveda doctor Ali, who runs a small hospital in Koti. After their marriage, Ali started harassing her for not being able to give birth to a baby. Recently, she approached a few doctors of Kathiza private hospital in Bhavaninagar.
“The doctors at Kathiza encouraged her to steal a child from the government maternity hospital while they prepared a fake record citing Shajahan was pregnant. After Shajahan stole the newborn from the government hospital, she went to Kathiza and took a certificate of giving birth to a baby boy,’’ the inspector added. “The accused had a conversation with Begum’s sister Baba Bee. Based on Baba Bee’s mobile call records, they identified Shajahan as accused and she was arrested from her house in Pahad Sharif. The baby boy is safe and has been handed over to his parents,’’ Javed said.
He said they would initiate legal action against Kathiza hospital management for encouraging Shajahan to steal a newborn baby from the government hospital. The hospital authorities refused comment.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Can Adoption Lead to Child Abuse?
Lisa Belkin
Posted: 11/9/11 07:08 AM ET
I have not been able to get four-year-old Sean Paddock, or 11-year-old Hanna Williams, or 7-year-old Lydia Schatz out of my mind. As Erik Eckholm reported in the New York Times yesterday, and Anderson Cooper discussed on CNN, most recently last week, the three children all died within the past five years, and they had several chilling factors in common.
Each of their deaths were brutal and agonizing: Sean suffocated; Hana, who was found lying naked in the muddy yard, died of hypothermia and malnutrition; Lydia showed signs of a brutal beating. In each case, one or both of their parents has been charged with their murder.
And in each case, those parents are said to have essentially punished their children to death, allegedly because they believed it was God's will. They are said to have been guided by the book To Train Up A Child, by Michael and Debi Pearl, which advocates beating children with rubber tubing, leaving them outside in the cold, and witholding food for days at a time in keeping with Biblical teachings. (No, I am not linking to it, out of sympathy with those who are petitioning sites like Amazon not to sell this particular book, which does not directly advocate the level of abuse that killed these children, but that appears to have been misinterpreted and misused by at least some of the parents who stand accused.)
Much attention has been paid to the religious pieces of a this tale. Less noted is that each of these children joined these families through adoption. Sean was born in the US, as were his five adopted siblings. Hana was from Ethiopia, as was her adopted brother (their parents had six biological children as well), and Lydia was from Liberia (there were two other adopted siblings among the family's nine children.)
Is this merely grisly coincidence? Or is there something about the adoption dynamic that makes violent abuse more likely?
One possibility is that adoptive children -- particularly those who spend their earliest years in an orphanage or shuttling from one foster caregiver to the next -- are more likely to suffer reactive attachment disorder, which are essentially the inability not only to bond, but to feel. The effects are not just psychological, but also physical, with evidence these children can have elevated levels of the hormone cortisol, which increases their tolerance for pain. Some speculate that spanking a child with Reactive Attachment Disorder can spiral out of control quickly, because it takes abusive levels of pain before the child actually feels it and responds.
This cycle is the talk of a handful of adoptive parenting websites, and, in particular, it has been discussed often on Why Not Train a Child, which is dedicated to warning parents about the dangers of the Pearls' book. There an anonymous commenter there, who describes him or herself as knowing the parents of Hana Williams personally, speculates:
Initially, I think their intentions for adopting were "good" (although I am uncomfortable with the idea of adopting children solely because you are religiously motivated to "rescue" them). I don't think they adopted Hana and her brother so that they could have some children to torture and abuse. However,I believe they made a huge assumption that these kids would respond to their methods just like their own biological children did. They expected Hana and her little brother to assimilate into their family, and most likely ignored their culture, how they had grown up (customs, beliefs, etc), and most importantly, the trauma that Hana and her brother had gone through in their childhoods. These kids just weren't acting like their biological children. Instead of taking a step back and getting professional help, they decided that they would continue to follow the Pearl method, but continued to up the ante, because these kids were NOT succumbing to being "broken".
Adoption can save a child and create a family. It can also come with complications that biological parents are far less likely to face. All children are vulnerable, but adopted children are more so, because the very fact of their adoption tells of a shakier start in life. They deserve more of our protection. In at least three cases they did not receive it.
Posted: 11/9/11 07:08 AM ET
I have not been able to get four-year-old Sean Paddock, or 11-year-old Hanna Williams, or 7-year-old Lydia Schatz out of my mind. As Erik Eckholm reported in the New York Times yesterday, and Anderson Cooper discussed on CNN, most recently last week, the three children all died within the past five years, and they had several chilling factors in common.
Each of their deaths were brutal and agonizing: Sean suffocated; Hana, who was found lying naked in the muddy yard, died of hypothermia and malnutrition; Lydia showed signs of a brutal beating. In each case, one or both of their parents has been charged with their murder.
And in each case, those parents are said to have essentially punished their children to death, allegedly because they believed it was God's will. They are said to have been guided by the book To Train Up A Child, by Michael and Debi Pearl, which advocates beating children with rubber tubing, leaving them outside in the cold, and witholding food for days at a time in keeping with Biblical teachings. (No, I am not linking to it, out of sympathy with those who are petitioning sites like Amazon not to sell this particular book, which does not directly advocate the level of abuse that killed these children, but that appears to have been misinterpreted and misused by at least some of the parents who stand accused.)
Much attention has been paid to the religious pieces of a this tale. Less noted is that each of these children joined these families through adoption. Sean was born in the US, as were his five adopted siblings. Hana was from Ethiopia, as was her adopted brother (their parents had six biological children as well), and Lydia was from Liberia (there were two other adopted siblings among the family's nine children.)
Is this merely grisly coincidence? Or is there something about the adoption dynamic that makes violent abuse more likely?
One possibility is that adoptive children -- particularly those who spend their earliest years in an orphanage or shuttling from one foster caregiver to the next -- are more likely to suffer reactive attachment disorder, which are essentially the inability not only to bond, but to feel. The effects are not just psychological, but also physical, with evidence these children can have elevated levels of the hormone cortisol, which increases their tolerance for pain. Some speculate that spanking a child with Reactive Attachment Disorder can spiral out of control quickly, because it takes abusive levels of pain before the child actually feels it and responds.
This cycle is the talk of a handful of adoptive parenting websites, and, in particular, it has been discussed often on Why Not Train a Child, which is dedicated to warning parents about the dangers of the Pearls' book. There an anonymous commenter there, who describes him or herself as knowing the parents of Hana Williams personally, speculates:
Initially, I think their intentions for adopting were "good" (although I am uncomfortable with the idea of adopting children solely because you are religiously motivated to "rescue" them). I don't think they adopted Hana and her brother so that they could have some children to torture and abuse. However,I believe they made a huge assumption that these kids would respond to their methods just like their own biological children did. They expected Hana and her little brother to assimilate into their family, and most likely ignored their culture, how they had grown up (customs, beliefs, etc), and most importantly, the trauma that Hana and her brother had gone through in their childhoods. These kids just weren't acting like their biological children. Instead of taking a step back and getting professional help, they decided that they would continue to follow the Pearl method, but continued to up the ante, because these kids were NOT succumbing to being "broken".
Adoption can save a child and create a family. It can also come with complications that biological parents are far less likely to face. All children are vulnerable, but adopted children are more so, because the very fact of their adoption tells of a shakier start in life. They deserve more of our protection. In at least three cases they did not receive it.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Overseas adoptions 'too hard'
Adoption has been a long and emotional journey for Anita and Marty Fratel.
The couple are among of a small number of West Australians who have adopted a child from overseas but their attempt to adopt a second child came to an end last month when, after years and reams of paperwork, they finally gave up.
Before their successful adoption, which took four years, the couple lost the child they were waiting to adopt from India when the baby died of septicaemia just weeks away from the final approval for him to come to Australia.
Had approval been granted in time the Fratels would have been allowed to pay for medical treatment to save the baby's life.
Last financial year just eight children were adopted from overseas in WA, down from 18 the previous year.
Four children were adopted from China and one each from Korea, Ethiopia, India and Taiwan.
The number of children available for adoption is declining but the number of parents willing to adopt continues to grow.
Some countries have limited their intake of new applications for adoption and others have been suspended over concerns about child trafficking.
Intercountry adoption rates in WA are the second lowest in the country and the rate in Australia is among the lowest in the world.
Mrs Fratel said intercountry surrogacy had now become more popular than adoption because it was considered easier.
"We know of several couples who have taken that route after waiting so long for an adoption," she said. "They are home within 18 months with their babies."
The Fratels began trying to adopt a decade ago.
Ms Fratel said the Department for Child Protection, responsible for overseas adoptions in WA, was anti-adoption, poorly staffed and over-bureaucratic.
"We have had 14 staff dealing with the India program in eight years," she said. "The system is a mess. It is better odds to win Lotto than to get a child through intercountry adoption. "You have to be very resilient and you have to pay around $20,000."
Single mother Heidi Robinson tells a similar story of heartbreak when trying to adopt her daughter from Ethiopia.
Like the Fratels, Ms Robinson lost a baby she had been allocated while she waited helplessly for the final paperwork to be approved.
The eight-month-old girl died while waiting for her final health clearance.
"Even though I had never met her, once you have that photograph you are desperate to protect them and get them home. It was terrible," Ms Robinson said.
She was successful in a later attempt and is now the mother of eight-year-old Kendi from Ethiopia, who she says is the "sweetest, kindest, loveliest person".
"I'm sure they lose a lot of babies in those places," Ms Robinson said.
A spokesman for the Department for Child Protection said prospective parents were urged to consider fostering a local child.
"The current average waiting time for a placement is four years after the applicant has been approved," he said.
"The adoption team is not under-resourced and all applications and placements are managed in an efficient and timely manner. Staffing in the adoption team has been consistent with staff having been in the team, on average, for six years."
A spokeswoman for National Adoption Awareness Week, which began yesterday, Jacqui Gilmour, said her organisation was trying to open the issue to public debate.
"There are hundreds of children in orphanages who have no families in countries like Ethiopia, while you have parents here who are desperate to adopt and have to wait for years. It just doesn't make sense," Ms Gilmour said.
"Everyone recognises that the best option for children is to be with their parents. "We think all children should be loved and that doesn't happen in institutions."
The couple are among of a small number of West Australians who have adopted a child from overseas but their attempt to adopt a second child came to an end last month when, after years and reams of paperwork, they finally gave up.
Before their successful adoption, which took four years, the couple lost the child they were waiting to adopt from India when the baby died of septicaemia just weeks away from the final approval for him to come to Australia.
Had approval been granted in time the Fratels would have been allowed to pay for medical treatment to save the baby's life.
Last financial year just eight children were adopted from overseas in WA, down from 18 the previous year.
Four children were adopted from China and one each from Korea, Ethiopia, India and Taiwan.
The number of children available for adoption is declining but the number of parents willing to adopt continues to grow.
Some countries have limited their intake of new applications for adoption and others have been suspended over concerns about child trafficking.
Intercountry adoption rates in WA are the second lowest in the country and the rate in Australia is among the lowest in the world.
Mrs Fratel said intercountry surrogacy had now become more popular than adoption because it was considered easier.
"We know of several couples who have taken that route after waiting so long for an adoption," she said. "They are home within 18 months with their babies."
The Fratels began trying to adopt a decade ago.
Ms Fratel said the Department for Child Protection, responsible for overseas adoptions in WA, was anti-adoption, poorly staffed and over-bureaucratic.
"We have had 14 staff dealing with the India program in eight years," she said. "The system is a mess. It is better odds to win Lotto than to get a child through intercountry adoption. "You have to be very resilient and you have to pay around $20,000."
Single mother Heidi Robinson tells a similar story of heartbreak when trying to adopt her daughter from Ethiopia.
Like the Fratels, Ms Robinson lost a baby she had been allocated while she waited helplessly for the final paperwork to be approved.
The eight-month-old girl died while waiting for her final health clearance.
"Even though I had never met her, once you have that photograph you are desperate to protect them and get them home. It was terrible," Ms Robinson said.
She was successful in a later attempt and is now the mother of eight-year-old Kendi from Ethiopia, who she says is the "sweetest, kindest, loveliest person".
"I'm sure they lose a lot of babies in those places," Ms Robinson said.
A spokesman for the Department for Child Protection said prospective parents were urged to consider fostering a local child.
"The current average waiting time for a placement is four years after the applicant has been approved," he said.
"The adoption team is not under-resourced and all applications and placements are managed in an efficient and timely manner. Staffing in the adoption team has been consistent with staff having been in the team, on average, for six years."
A spokeswoman for National Adoption Awareness Week, which began yesterday, Jacqui Gilmour, said her organisation was trying to open the issue to public debate.
"There are hundreds of children in orphanages who have no families in countries like Ethiopia, while you have parents here who are desperate to adopt and have to wait for years. It just doesn't make sense," Ms Gilmour said.
"Everyone recognises that the best option for children is to be with their parents. "We think all children should be loved and that doesn't happen in institutions."
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
From Steve Jobs to Kids in Foster Care: Lessons During National Adoption Month
From Steve Jobs to Kids in Foster Care: Lessons During National Adoption Month
Posted: 10/28/11 01:21 PM ET
With seemingly ceaseless regularity nowadays, most recently in the coverage of Steve Jobs' passing, we are inundated by conflicting messages relating to adoption.
For the next few weeks, the wonder of adoption will be on display. November is National Adoption Awareness Month, so media outlets nationwide will be -- and should be -- writing stories about children whose lives are improved as a result of moving from foster care into permanent, loving families. President Obama will even issue a proclamation, as he and his predecessors have done routinely in past years, saying something to the effect that our country is blessed by this extraordinary institution.
At other times, of course, a very different picture is transmitted. Sometimes the focus is on adoptive parents who seem to regard adoption as child rental (remember the mother who "returned" her son to Russia?) or ones who purportedly use the child welfare system as a means of getting monthly support payments; the most sensational case took place several years ago in New Jersey, where a couple allegedly starved their four adopted sons in order to retain more of their state subsidies.
Press accounts cast an appropriately suspicious eye on parents who commit such horrid acts but, all too often, they also raise broader concerns about the competence and motives of adoptive parents per se; in particular, they implicitly or explicitly suggest that people may adopt children for dubious reasons or even that adoption itself is somehow a less-legitimate or less-desirable means of building a family than is childbirth. In the coverage of Jobs, for instance, we're regularly seeing and reading reports that question his being "given away" by his "real parents" -- language that hardly affirms adoption as a positive option.
So which is it? Lucky kids or kids relegated to second-class families? Good people trying to do the right thing for their children, either by placing their children for adoption or adopting them, or desperate people with suspect motives? What are we to think when we receive such disparate impressions, not just today, but time after time when there's a high-profile story involving adoption? Or even when adoption is depicted in either very positive ways ("Modern Family") or chillingly negative ways ("Orphan") in the movies and on television?
Based on available research and extensive experience, two unambiguous images emerge: that most adoptive parents are doing the same things as most biological parents -- that is, providing their children with all the affection and care they humanly can; and that, with rare exceptions, boys and girls are far better off in permanent families than in foster care, orphanages or any other temporary or institutional setting.
But adoption's history of secrecy has afforded us with too few opportunities to learn about its realities. So we tend to assume we're learning far more from singular, usually aberrational experiences -- man bites dog is a story, after all, while dog bites man is not -- than we usually are.
Yes, financial payments intended to increase the number of adoptions from foster care can cause complications, but that's the clear exception. And, yes, families sometimes struggle as a result of the challenges their children face as a consequence of having been mistreated and/or institutionalized before they were adopted. But there is no indication that horrors such as the ones that typically make the news are being repeated with any regularity elsewhere, even though many thousands of parents throughout the country receive state subsidies -- and even though the number of children being adopted from foster care is at historic highs.
Moreover, even in the most troubled systems, good things are happening daily. Most children are being reunited with newly healthy mothers, fathers and other biological relatives, while a fast-growing number of kids -- over 52,000 last year alone and over 57,000 the year before that -- are being adopted by loving parents who treat them well. The same is true for the hundreds of thousands of girls and boys who have been adopted from orphanages abroad over the last couple of decades.
It's hard to learn much from secrets, so we as a culture don't yet know enough about adoptions from foster care and institutions to put the aberrational stories in perspective. That's changing, to be sure; organizations such as the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, which I'm proud to lead, are providing more and better research and knowledge - please take a look at www.adoptioninstitute.org to read our most recent work - and, partly as a result, the media are doing a better and better job of informing the public, policy-makers and others who profoundly affect the tens of millions of children and families for whom adoption and foster care are daily realities.
Even as we make progress, however, the still-widespread lack of knowledge has tangible, negative consequences that play out in the attitudes all these people encounter and the policies that impact their lives.
I am not defending any system that does less than everything possible to protect the children within it. But we live in a society in which nearly every program that helps vulnerable children receives insufficient resources; in which well-intentioned quick fixes replace (rather than augment) thoughtful, long-term solutions such as post-adoption services; and in which cases like the ones I've cited above fuel our worst stereotypes about adoptive parents, birth parents, their children, and adoption itself.
A positive and fair question for the media to ask (but I haven't yet heard it asked) would be something like this: Would the world have had Steve Jobs without adoption?
During National Adoption Awareness Month, states across the country will celebrate by holding public ceremonies at which hundreds upon hundreds of children will receive the opportunity to move into permanent, loving and successful families.
I'd like to suggest it's also a good time for all of us to start learning more about adoption, foster care and institutionalization (orphanages), because the problems will be fixed more rapidly if faulty stereotypes are replaced by genuine understandings. And the ultimate beneficiaries will be the hundreds of thousands of boys and girls, in our own country and others, who will still need homes long after we turn another page on our calendars.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
The ‘Enabling Violation’ of International Adoption
The ‘Enabling Violation’ of International Adoption
By DRUCILLA CORNELL
The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers on issues both timely and timeless.
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On April 24, 1993, I legally adopted my daughter in Asuncion, Paraguay. I will never forget that day. I was a complete nervous wreck. Our adoption was being expedited because the first free elections in decades were to be held that spring, following the 35-year rule of the dictator Alfredo Stroessner, who was ousted in a military coup in 1989. There was much uncertainty as to whether the election would even take place, and concern that another military coup might prevent it. Tanks were in the street, and there was a sense that the country might well fall in to a civil war.
Against this background, adopting a baby might have seemed like a small issue. But in fact, all the opposition parties agreed on one thing: they would quickly stop all adoption to the United States, and indeed, in 1995, a law was passed to suspend adoptions from Paraguay until there had been a complete overhaul of adoption procedures.
I will never forget — having always considered myself a progressive person — the night my hotel was surrounded by demonstrators protesting against us for stealing Paraguayan children. I was staying in a hotel whose guests were exclusively United States citizens adopting Paraguayan children. I tried to comfort myself by remembering how scrupulous I had been in working with my Paraguayan lawyer to follow all the rules and procedures that were to govern adoption under the old regime. But of course, the old regime was a dictatorship, and completely corrupt. So how could we really be sure that we had not fallen into a corrupt situation, one in which the children being adopted had not been given up willingly by their families, or at the very worst stolen and trafficked?
I had read stories about children being stolen from their parents; these stories were all over the press at the time I was in Paraguay. And of course, the issue is still with us today. Recent news stories reporting the abduction in China of children for international adoption have again brought to light the flaws and complexities of a system (or many systems) by which children are adopted. They have also raised questions about the ethical responsibilities of those systems and those who participate in it.
I had read stories about children being stolen from their parents; these stories were all over the press at the time I was in Paraguay. And of course, the issue is still with us today. Recent news stories reporting the abduction in China of children for international adoption have again brought to light the flaws and complexities of a system (or many systems) by which children are adopted. They have also raised questions about the ethical responsibilities of those systems and those who participate in it.
I still believe that I legally adopted my daughter, but only because I was able, by paying a friend of my daughter’s birth mother under the table, to get as much of her story as I could, including that she had legally put her daughter up for adoption. There were many other difficulties that at times almost overwhelmed me, including the ill health of my then-daughter-to-be, who urgently needed medical care, which could only be provided by the solicitation of bribes.
The adoption of children is an act fraught with innumerable intersecting personal histories and motives. While not traditionally known to be a topic of philosophy, it is in fact deeply intertwined with many of the most fundamental issues of the discipline — personal and political freedom, self-determination, free will, and of course, human rights.
Central to all of these matters is the issue of the child’s best interest, or more broadly, children’s rights. An international treaty, the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, which the United States ratified in 2008, has gone some way toward establishing protections for children and parents in the adoption process. But of course problems remain.
Leif ParsonsThere is a voluminous literature arguing that the act of child adoption itself constitutes a trauma. For example, the writer Betty Jean Lifton argued that no matter what adoptive parents do, an adopted child has undergone a foundational trauma. I have argued against that position because for Lifton, biological connection is the only way for a family to constitute itself through a foundational narrative of belonging. On that view, an adopted child will necessarily be robbed of such a narrative, and will be without answers to basic questions like “When did mommy meet daddy?” and “What happened on the day I was born?”
But of course it is not only adopted, children who lack such narratives. Those who do not live in conventional heterosexual families are also cut off from them. The normalization of the heterosexual family — mommy and daddy and baby makes three — does not describe the majority of families. If one narrative of family belonging — in this case traditional heterosexual — is treated as the only valid one, it cuts off other possibilities for other stories of how one becomes a family and belongs to a family. Thus, the very argument that adoption is foundationally traumatic shuts down possibilities that would allow adopted children to tell different family stories and be part of different kinds of families. The argument itself becomes exclusionary.
In my own writing on adoption, I have emphasized the importance of what I call the “imaginary domain,” both within the United States and in the context of international adoption. The imaginary domain is an aesthetic idea that represents the psychic and moral space individuals need in order to come to terms with the complex identifications all of us face in our relationships with our family, our sexuality, and our national and linguistic identities.
One way of trying to facilitate the protection of an adopted child’s imaginary domain is through open adoption, in which the biological mother or parents and the adoptive family know each other. However, open international adoption is very difficult; some of the countries that still allow international adoption either do not have records of the birth parents or have laws and practices that prevent access to the birth parents. There is also a deeper problem. Many of the countries that allow adoption are at times unable to control the privatization of adoption, with the result that some orphanages end up in the hands of mafias. This raises the specter of children who, if they have not been outright stolen, have in some way or another been coercively removed from their family of origin.
In 2009, Madonna was caught in a legal battle in which some members of the family the second child she adopted from Malawi claimed that they had not truly chosen to put their child up for adoption. In a country struggling with a weak or collapsed economy, it is often difficult to maintain the line between legal adoption and trafficking. It is not surprising, then, that many countries, as they attempt to constitute themselves as independent powers in the global economy, outlaw international adoption altogether, as a signal to the world that they want to take matters of intergenerational relationships into their own hands. For example, China, which used to be one of the most sought-after countries by the adoption agencies of the United States, has now drastically limited international adoption to the Global North. Indeed, one country after another has limited or shut down adoption to countries in the Global North over the last 10 years.
How, then, do we confront the reality that some countries from which children have been adopted are now ferociously opposed to international adoptions, for the reasons given above? And what does it mean that with some exceptions, international adoption is generally a one-way street from the Global South to the Global North?
Often those who adopt children from the Global South are hailed as saviors of children from countries that have fallen into hell, on the grounds that those children were unlikely to grow up to lead meaningful lives, or even to physically survive. Adopting such children can seem like a humanitarian gesture, which allows the adopting parents to pat themselves on the back for “saving a life.” Why is this humanitarian gesture problematic? After all, these parents are breaking out of the conception that an acceptable family involves members who look alike, are from the same culture, speak the same language, and so forth. Many parents have even insisted that their children have access to the culture and language of the country from which they were adopted. Such measures are of course extremely important if one takes seriously the literature on trauma and adoption that emphasizes that the break that occurs in a child’s life when she or he is adopted be at least open to a meaningful narration, so that the child can begin to understand the complexity of her or his life. The need for this kind of narration is basic to what I have called the imaginary domain, and if it is denied, the psychic life of the child can be rendered fragile.
Of course, such measures are to be applauded as attempts to protect the imaginary domain. But they cannot entirely escape the underlying narrative that children from the Global South are better off if they are removed from those countries to the more “developed” world of Europe and the United States.
As an adoptive mother, I have had to think about my own responsibilities towards an adopted child from Paraguay, who, by all signs at the time, would not have survived if I had not adopted her. The way I think of it now is that my own action was what the literary theorist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivakhas called an “enabling violation.” I enabled my daughter’s life by adopting her, but in another sense it was a violation for my daughter, who was uprooted from her home, her language and her country of birth. I may have violated the people of Paraguay by participating in an adoption process that the vast majority of Paraguayans deeply disapproved of and ultimately sought to end. I have of course tried to make sure that my daughter always knew the story, not only of her adoption, but of what I could gather of her birth mother’s decision. But I will never feel at ease until my daughter and I visit her birth mother and hear it directly from her.
There is no easy way in which the adopted child’s imaginary domain can be facilitated, although dual citizenship seems to be a minimum guarantee to adopted children, so that they can return to their country of birth if they so desire. Ultimately, international adoption is profoundly implicated in relations of inequality that cannot be addressed on the basis of one family alone. Perhaps, then, if we at least recognize international adoption as an enabling violation, we can avoid the worst kinds of self-righteous humanitarianism, and find ourselves pointed towards a struggle for a more just world.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Emerson woman sold at birth hoping to find family
MONDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2011 LAST UPDATED: MONDAY OCTOBER 17, 2011, 4:04 PM
THE RECORD
Cyn Bird always suspected her family was hiding something, but it took a deathbed confession by her mother three years ago to confirm the shocking truth:
She had been bought on the black market as a baby for $2,500 cash. Her birth mother was a college student. And her parents traveled from Queens to Coral Gables, Fla., to make the transaction.
The Emerson artist and mother of two is part of a cluster of adults sprinkled throughout America who have recently learned from their aging parents or other family members that they are "Cole babies" — infants delivered by Coral Gables-based naturopathic physician Dr. Katherine Cole, who profited from falsifying birth certificates and selling babies to infertile couples up and down the Eastern Seaboard.
"For years, they told me I was their child, and I believed them," said Bird, who is still searching for her birth parents. "I wanted to believe them.
"My father had already died, and my mother's memory was foggy; she was sick," Bird said. "She died four months later. … It was a shock — at 46 — to find out you came from somewhere else."
Bird said the entire family knew she was bought on the black market, and no one ever let it slip. Her mother told Bird "she was afraid every time there was a knock on the door, because she thought she was going to get busted."
Her search has turned up few leads. So far, she's only been able to locate a distant cousin through a DNA ancestry firm.
"There was no original birth certificate," Bird said. "My birth certificate is a 'falsified original.' Cole put down my adoptive patents as the birth parents."
Josette Marquess, a retired Florida adoption official, has guided dozens of Cole babies through mostly fruitless state searches, and has become the state's expert on Cole.
Marquess said most of the Cole babies she helped found out about their origins quite accidentally.
"There was a rift in the family, and somebody got mad with somebody else, and, in revenge, said, 'Oh by the way ... I have something to tell you.' "
Marquess said working with Cole babies was "heartbreaking, because I knew there was really nothing I could do to help them.
"In order to have a reunion, you really need a paper trail to follow and the particular nastiness of Dr. Cole was, she made sure there was no paper trail."
Cole — known throughout the Coral Gables community as "Granny Doc" — operated an illegal abortion clinic and a legal adoption center from the mid-1930s to the late 1960s. Young pregnant girls who "got in trouble" would visit her clinic, and Cole convinced them to give their babies up for adoption, Marquess said.
Marquess said the doctor owned a number of apartment buildings within a three-block radius of her clinic. Both the pregnant girls and the adopting couples would stay there until the delivery.
Cole would assess each infertile couple individually, charging anywhere from $25 to $10,000 for a baby.
"All you needed was a wedding ring and $5,000 and you were good to go," Marquess said. "She probably placed, at a minimum, 200 babies a year and she operated in Florida for more than 30 years — even with a little prison stint in there. That's thousands of people who will never know their true identity."
While it is typically hard for legally adopted people to track down their birth parents, Cole — who died in 1981 — left no factual records behind, making it almost impossible for the babies she sold to find the truth.
"There is nothing — no records," Bird said. "Cole orchestrated it as if my parents were living in an apartment in Florida and gave birth to a baby — me."
Bird said there was even a birth announcement placed in a local Florida paper, naming her adoptive father as her natural father. "Oddly, there's no mention of my mother in the announcement," Bird said.
Bob Rooks, director of the Florida Adoption Information Center, which for free provides adoption information and referral services to adoptive parents, adult adoptees, birth relatives and pregnant women, said authorities didn't catch on to Cole for so long because doctors at the time always filled out birth certificates.
Florida doctors still fill out birth certificates. In New Jersey, parents fill out a form at the hospital that is eventually certified by a physician, according to state officials.
But doctors today don't handle adoptions, Rooks said.
"That ended in Florida in 2007. In Cole's day, physicians legally did adoptions, adding to the confusion."
Rooks said many Cole babies — and most adults who were placed through what he called black market adoptions — likely will never find their birth parents.
"The adoptive family was listed on the certificate," which were often written in red or green ink, "and the birth mother was not, so with that, there is no paper trail. These weren't legal adoptions, so these people are left out in the cold."
Rooks said the Florida Adoption Information Center — which fields more than 10,000 calls a year — has not been contacted by any of Cole's birth mothers, as far as he knows. Marquess has had no contact with any of them either.
"These children completely lost their identities, and now they're getting older and starting to show some symptoms," Rooks said, adding that he does get calls from Cole babies as well as children sold by other doctors around that same time. "They've lost their medical and social history."
Marquess said more than anything else, Cole babies want information. "They wanted a good health history, and I don't think Florida is unusual in that we historically did not do a very good job of gathering family medical history ... even though we had access to the birth mothers."
For Bird, she will never give up the search, even though she acknowledged, "I think there's a huge chance I will never know."
But she's hopeful for her children's sake. A recent medical scare made her even more determined to dig into the past. Bird underwent surgery to remove skin cancer from her hand.
"I don't think about the fact I was sold every day anymore, but once in a while, stuff will come up," she said. "I go to the doctors and they want family history, and I have none. I used to think I did, because I was lied to all my life."
Bird retreats to her art to help deal with the pain and the betrayal.
"I started this series [of paintings] pretty soon after I found out about it, and it's very cathartic for me," Bird said.
The paintings feature vibrant splashes of color, interwoven with words like "lies," "secrets" and "sin."
Bird keeps in touch with other Cole babies through a Facebook group and e-mail. She understands why her parents did what they did, but she still harbors some resentment toward them.
"Intellectually, I get it," Bird said. "They couldn't have children; they didn't qualify for the typical agency adoption, because they didn't have enough bedrooms. They didn't have enough money. I see why they did it. But I do get pissed off about it."
Bird is hoping that someone will read her story, visit her website, see her picture, and that something will trigger a memory or inspire someone to come forward. At this point, she said it is really only hope.
"I'm hoping someone will recognize my eyes or my smile," Bird said. "I just want to know who I am."
E-mail: harrisc@northjersey.com
CARMINE GALASSO/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Cyn Bird of Emerson found out at age 46 that she was sold on the black market as a baby. She uses her art to help deal with the pain.
The Emerson artist and mother of two is part of a cluster of adults sprinkled throughout America who have recently learned from their aging parents or other family members that they are "Cole babies" — infants delivered by Coral Gables-based naturopathic physician Dr. Katherine Cole, who profited from falsifying birth certificates and selling babies to infertile couples up and down the Eastern Seaboard.
"For years, they told me I was their child, and I believed them," said Bird, who is still searching for her birth parents. "I wanted to believe them.
Bird said the entire family knew she was bought on the black market, and no one ever let it slip. Her mother told Bird "she was afraid every time there was a knock on the door, because she thought she was going to get busted."
Her search has turned up few leads. So far, she's only been able to locate a distant cousin through a DNA ancestry firm.
"There was no original birth certificate," Bird said. "My birth certificate is a 'falsified original.' Cole put down my adoptive patents as the birth parents."
Josette Marquess, a retired Florida adoption official, has guided dozens of Cole babies through mostly fruitless state searches, and has become the state's expert on Cole.
Marquess said most of the Cole babies she helped found out about their origins quite accidentally.
"There was a rift in the family, and somebody got mad with somebody else, and, in revenge, said, 'Oh by the way ... I have something to tell you.' "
Marquess said working with Cole babies was "heartbreaking, because I knew there was really nothing I could do to help them.
"In order to have a reunion, you really need a paper trail to follow and the particular nastiness of Dr. Cole was, she made sure there was no paper trail."
Operated a clinic
Cole — known throughout the Coral Gables community as "Granny Doc" — operated an illegal abortion clinic and a legal adoption center from the mid-1930s to the late 1960s. Young pregnant girls who "got in trouble" would visit her clinic, and Cole convinced them to give their babies up for adoption, Marquess said.
Marquess said the doctor owned a number of apartment buildings within a three-block radius of her clinic. Both the pregnant girls and the adopting couples would stay there until the delivery.
Cole would assess each infertile couple individually, charging anywhere from $25 to $10,000 for a baby.
"All you needed was a wedding ring and $5,000 and you were good to go," Marquess said. "She probably placed, at a minimum, 200 babies a year and she operated in Florida for more than 30 years — even with a little prison stint in there. That's thousands of people who will never know their true identity."
While it is typically hard for legally adopted people to track down their birth parents, Cole — who died in 1981 — left no factual records behind, making it almost impossible for the babies she sold to find the truth.
"There is nothing — no records," Bird said. "Cole orchestrated it as if my parents were living in an apartment in Florida and gave birth to a baby — me."
Bird said there was even a birth announcement placed in a local Florida paper, naming her adoptive father as her natural father. "Oddly, there's no mention of my mother in the announcement," Bird said.
Role of doctors
Bob Rooks, director of the Florida Adoption Information Center, which for free provides adoption information and referral services to adoptive parents, adult adoptees, birth relatives and pregnant women, said authorities didn't catch on to Cole for so long because doctors at the time always filled out birth certificates.
Florida doctors still fill out birth certificates. In New Jersey, parents fill out a form at the hospital that is eventually certified by a physician, according to state officials.
But doctors today don't handle adoptions, Rooks said.
"That ended in Florida in 2007. In Cole's day, physicians legally did adoptions, adding to the confusion."
Rooks said many Cole babies — and most adults who were placed through what he called black market adoptions — likely will never find their birth parents.
"The adoptive family was listed on the certificate," which were often written in red or green ink, "and the birth mother was not, so with that, there is no paper trail. These weren't legal adoptions, so these people are left out in the cold."
Rooks said the Florida Adoption Information Center — which fields more than 10,000 calls a year — has not been contacted by any of Cole's birth mothers, as far as he knows. Marquess has had no contact with any of them either.
"These children completely lost their identities, and now they're getting older and starting to show some symptoms," Rooks said, adding that he does get calls from Cole babies as well as children sold by other doctors around that same time. "They've lost their medical and social history."
Health history
Marquess said more than anything else, Cole babies want information. "They wanted a good health history, and I don't think Florida is unusual in that we historically did not do a very good job of gathering family medical history ... even though we had access to the birth mothers."
For Bird, she will never give up the search, even though she acknowledged, "I think there's a huge chance I will never know."
But she's hopeful for her children's sake. A recent medical scare made her even more determined to dig into the past. Bird underwent surgery to remove skin cancer from her hand.
"I don't think about the fact I was sold every day anymore, but once in a while, stuff will come up," she said. "I go to the doctors and they want family history, and I have none. I used to think I did, because I was lied to all my life."
Bird retreats to her art to help deal with the pain and the betrayal.
"I started this series [of paintings] pretty soon after I found out about it, and it's very cathartic for me," Bird said.
The paintings feature vibrant splashes of color, interwoven with words like "lies," "secrets" and "sin."
Bird keeps in touch with other Cole babies through a Facebook group and e-mail. She understands why her parents did what they did, but she still harbors some resentment toward them.
"Intellectually, I get it," Bird said. "They couldn't have children; they didn't qualify for the typical agency adoption, because they didn't have enough bedrooms. They didn't have enough money. I see why they did it. But I do get pissed off about it."
Bird is hoping that someone will read her story, visit her website, see her picture, and that something will trigger a memory or inspire someone to come forward. At this point, she said it is really only hope.
"I'm hoping someone will recognize my eyes or my smile," Bird said. "I just want to know who I am."
E-mail: harrisc@northjersey.com
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