As an adoptive parent, it's incredibly frustrating to read articles about the attitudes of the majority of people regarding adoption. To sum up the attitude, and pardon me for being sensitive about this, better to kill the child than let me adopt him. This isn't an attitude that's exclusive to the abortion/ adoption issue. It also comes up over and over with embryo adoption and the "other choice" of donating the embryo to science.
Sarah Kliff wrote a Web exclusive interview for Newsweek appearing on MSNBC's webpage today, June 20, 2007. Kliff spoke with Ruth Faden, director of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics
"How do you explain the preference for stem-cell research over adoption by another couple?
"In a companion qualitative study, we interviewed a smaller number of patients in depth. What was very interesting was getting an understanding of how they view the embryos that they have had cryo-preserved. They saw the embryos they created as emerging from their desire to have a baby. And they felt very strongly that if an embryo was ere permitted to become a child, they wanted to be and should be the parent. It's important, and I don't think we can over state this, to understand that this big policy debate is also a very private, personal choice for a lot of individual patients. It's a policy debate for the nation but a private decision for many couples who actually have these embryos cryo-preserved."
My note: Yes, as a parent, you often wonder, am I doing the right thing for my child. It's only fair to consider vivisection among those options.
MSNBC writes, "What currently happens to the frozen embryos of infertile couples?
"There are no national data about how many embryos are donated. There are data from the United Kingdom, where we know, for example, that over 3,000 embryos have been donated for research last year and about 230 were donated to other couples for adoption. We have no idea what the situation is in the United States because we keep no comparable records in this country."
My note: Did you catch that? There were over 3,000 embryos donated for research last year. Do you know what that means? Donated to die. Doesn't bother you? Well of those 230 who were allowed to be adopted, I can tell you that one of them is a very handsome, lively little boy who is thrilled to be alive.
What is it about adoption that is so distasteful to people? Images of mole-nosed old hags cooking children in giant soup pots are the stuff of fairy tales. Do people believe that's what adoptive parents are really like? Or is it just plain old selfishness. I don't want you to play with my toy so I'll break it. I mean, most 4-year-olds I know can't even justify that line of thinking. And yet, isn't that what it comes down to in the end?
I hear it all the time from third parties who know that I'm an adoptive parent and who are relating stories of abortion or embryos for science. "It's nothing personal. It's not against you. The parents just don't want anyone else to raise their kid." Better dead than... than what? Than my child? Damn right it's personal.
I will close with this, because it's always good to end on a high note. I appreciate all the more how great it is that we have been able to adopt nine embryos with more on the way. I am also very appreciative that Will's birthmother decided that his life was worth saving.
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