I think this says a lot more about your reasons for feeling this way than you realize.

You have been in contact with and helping people who are searching. Of course you`re going to be in contact much more with those who are in agony and who do feel a desperate desire to know. You aren`t going to have much contact with those who aren`t searching. More than likely they never even bring up the subject of adoption - there is no reason for them to.

I acknowledge this. Children who were given up during that period have a stronger incentive to either want to know or NOT want to know.

The key point here is not all. The majority, I believe, does end up being fine. It`s the cases where something goes wrong that are heavily publicized in the media. Of course there are some who regret it. I am sure there are jsut as many or more who regret keeping a child. Not all mothers are of sound morals. Not all mothers care about their children.

Is this a reason to eliminate adoptions and donations?
That is the true question. There are indeed people who need to know... But how does that apply to the modern situation? Now mothers aren`t forced to give their babies up. Now babies aren`t swept away and the mother told it was a stillbirth because the father didn`t want a baby.
Those sort of things should never have happened. But they do not apply so much to the current system.

Yes, because in the past all mothers were loving and perfect and never died or didn`t want their children. Think reasonably about this. Not all adopted children were ripped from the arms of weeping mothers.

I know someone who went to a lot of trouble to find her birth mother... Who was a drunk who tried to kill her baby by throwing her out the window of a moving car. On initiating contact, the woman came after her to get her to pay for "birthing fees", because she suffered by giving birth. The mother wasn`t particularly interested at all, and had hoped the baby had died.

Sometimes it is not always better to know.

There is more to not wanting an older child than just "wanting a newborn". There are a lot of major issues that come into play with an older child. Not everyone is prepared to deal with the type of emotional issues that are quite common. Because people do not have the ability to care for children with issues... They should not bother to adopt at all?

Unfortunately, there are countless people in the world who DO take it lightly. And they are NOT the ones investing huge amounts of time and money into adoption, IVF, or surrogates. They are the kind who pop kids out like the dozen for the benefits they receive, or those who abuse and abandon the children because they do not fit into their lifestyle.

Certainly nothing worse than what happens to the countless children born every day into families that do not want them or love them.

If it were something like hair color, eye color, personality traits, etc that were being chosen - yes, I could see your point.
It`s medical history that is "chosen". Would you WANT to have a child who is likely to have some sort of medical disorder if you didn`t have to? Imagine being told that if you and your partner were to have a baby - because you are both carriers of some genetic quirk - they would suffer from a horrible disorder. Would it be wrong of you to still want a child, and to choose a donor who is NOT a carrier, so that you can give the child the best chance at life?

If you were in the household from the before memory... And were treated as their child, raised entirely by them... They will not be some "couple". They will be PARENTS. They will be FAMILY.
I am sure the young person would do the same thing as all the other young people in the world do when they have a fallout with PARENTS or FAMILY.

I understand that you have not experienced it, and that in contact with those who are searching have not seen much of it... But there are countless adoptees - I would say MAJORITY - out there who feel that their adoptive parents are indeed their parents and that they are indeed family.

I am not related by blood to my husband, nor am I related by blood to his family. But I assure you, he and his family are VERY MUCH family to me. Why is it impossible to imagine a child that is not related by blood to the parents actually feeling that they are family?

ah well I have said my two penneth.

Five years editing a newsletter for the childrens society here in UK plus five years of running groups and listening supporting helping those who are searching including those former child migrants to the Commonwealth countries who knew nothing of their parents.


Yes I get very incensed at the apparent thoughtlessness of those who simply choose to pretend that wanting to know family roots is all pie in the sky.

In America many of the States will not reveal documentation to those who are desperate to know.

NO of course not every one wants to know-- but it still needs to be considered. why did the UK change the law about anonymity for donors in UK?


Anyway thats that!!! Horses for Courses and all that.