I wasn’t going to write about the travesties revealed by the film Three Identical Strangers, which my husband and I watched recently when it was on CNN.
I wasn’t going to until I read a defense of the practices of the researcher, Dr. Peter Neubauer, who conspired with Louise Wise Services to separate twins/triplets and research their development without the knowledge or permission of their parents. And until I got an impassioned email from my friend, an adoptee activist who will remain anonymous here.
What a week to be in Washington, DC! Thanks to Angels in Adoption®, I drank from a fire hose for three days. This post, the first in a series, is my attempt to parcel it out in a manageable stream.
The Senate side of the dome where it happens (dome where it happens).
Friends
I shared a room with friends. Fellow Angels Rebecca Vahle (2011) and Dixie Weber (2017) were my roomies and cohorts in both play and purpose. Rebecca is the founder of the Family to Family Support Network. Dixie, a nurse and healthcare executive, is the newly appointed National Director of Healthcare Programs. Meaning that she helps the Family to Family Support Network provide neutral compassionate care for moms and babies in unique situations such as adoption.
This article was originally commissioned and published by the Donaldson Adoption Institute, which closed its doors last month. No longer accessible at the Donaldson site, this article was derived from a workshop Addison Cooper (Adoption at the Movies) and I presented at the American Adoption Congress Conference in 2016.
While changes in adoption laws and policy are necessary, these alone will not make Adoption World all better. If laws were the endpoints, then the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments would have resulted in immediate equality for formerly enslaved and free African Americans. But they didn’t. Now, even 150 years later, our society struggles with these same issues.
Reforming policy and law is one necessary step, but it’s not the last step. Not until ideas of respect, empathy, and inherent value of others also take root in people’s hearts can true and enduring change happen.
