I Choose Justice

“Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?” - - Martin  Luther King Jr.

I get so tired of adoption.  So tired of the injustices that come with it.

For something that is so easily accepted as being all about an overflow of love and happiness, there is an awful lot of pain and hell involved.

Something I was reminded about all over again these last couple of months.

It’s been the little things that I know to expect and should be more than used to after all these years, compounding on top of yet another surgery for my oldest son in his ongoing fight against cancer.  In that reminder, while living through the ugliness of what adoption can be, that there are so many that believe I don’t have a right to fight for justice for vulnerable pregnant mothers and their unborn children, for my own child – my own flesh and blood.  Because I will always be viewed as the one that was “less-than” to the woman society deemed as “better” for my child simply because she had the money, the house, the marriage, that satisfies the superficial demands we hold over others.

And it’s been that blogger – strangely supported by a select few in the adoption reform world even though she actively encourages more of the injustices against mothers and their unborn children – who just can’t be satisfied with labeling me and doing all she can to discredit me on her own blog, but must take it to comments on other blogs, as well.  Something I’m so used to, have faced many times, know so many others have faced too.

And yet, these last couple months, she’s that one that represents all the self-righteous, self-serving enemies that exist in the fight to bring justice to vulnerable, pregnant mothers and their unborn children.  She carries the limited, self-justifying views of comparing the children in foster care as justification to why more pregnant mothers facing unplanned pregnancies should give up their babies.  Following right in line with the coercive thinking and counseling that such mothers pose the greatest risk of abusing and neglecting their children.

Because she wants those like her, those who have suffered the terrible loss of infertility, to continue to gain off the lack of support and help for pregnant mothers.  Off the stereotypical vision of what kind of mothers those society views as “less-than” will make when it compares to how much “better” she, and other infertile women like her, are in comparison.

She, just like so many others who believe as she does, doesn’t give a damn about the injustices mothers denied their rights face every day.  She doesn’t care.  She suffered her loss of infertility and now expects others to suffer an even greater loss so that she, and those she fights for, can satisfy their desires of wanting a child to call their own.

Who gives a damn about the hell mothers have lived because there is absolutely no protection for them against the multi-billion dollar adoption industry.  Who cares about the many mothers left with mind-numbing heartache, with a dark pain she can never understand, when she can walk into her children’s room every night and kiss them goodnight.  When the very injustices she chooses to encourage have given her the ability to keep herself uplifted by how deserving she and other infertile women like her are because there are mothers out there who just aren’t good enough for their own kids, their own flesh and blood.  Who aren’t worthy of the justices we fight for because those like her have decided who these mothers are, what they have done, somehow makes them deserving of such horrible injustices brought against them and their children.

She paid money, she believed the half-truths, lies and myths.  What more can anyone ask for?  Why should she give a damn about coercion and manipulation of vulnerable, pregnant mothers.  Why should she care about anyone who is fighting for justice when it goes directly against everything she has gained, and now believes in, considers herself such an expert on that she, and others who believe as she does, actually speaks for the mothers who are and have lived the hell of being victims to the multi-billion dollar adoption industry?

She can, and does, do everything in her power to combat against the abuse so many pregnant mothers face at the hands of the adoption industry.  And is praised for doing so, even by those who fight hard to make changes in the world of adoption – which is so hard to understand.

She can discredit and label those like myself, those fighting so that no other mother, no other child, ever has to suffer the injustice of an unnecessary separation, and be praised for doing so.

She doesn’t know hell.  She has no clue, no experience of what it is like to be one of those vulnerable pregnant mothers facing an unplanned pregnancy, used as victims, without any protection, to satisfy the needs of those like her, so self-involved they don’t give a damn about the pain of another mother as long as their own selfish desires are satisfied.

And yet, she is just one of many.  Another participant in the dark history of our country who fight hard to continue the injustices against others.  Refusing to see any problem, any reason for change, in an act that has satisfied their own selfish desires.  The very ones they have convinced themselves are worthy of whatever it takes to be satisfied.  Even if it means allowing pregnant mothers and their unborn children to be treated in the most inhumane of ways.

Who cares as long as they get what they deserve.  As long as they have a chance to parent that child born to the “unworthy” mother who, by her own “supposively” sound mind has determined she isn’t good enough for her own son or daughter and has decided – because that is what us loving, caring mothers do – that some complete stranger to her child is better than she could ever hope to be.

It’s an ugliness that is adoption.  A horrible reality nobody wants to talk about and so many will do whatever they can to keep silent, especially when it takes away the “feel-good” myth of stripping an innocent baby away from one family to satisfy the desires of another.

And, yep, I know, I sound harsh, don’t I.  I’m risking turning others off, chasing followers away.  Insulting those who read my blog.

That’s reality, isn’t it?  Sacrificing my oldest son so the desires of another woman could be satisfied, isn’t enough.  I must still make sure I say the right things, act the right way, be cautious about what I say and how I say it if I want to earn any kind of help and support from others, those who are just fine in encouraging the injustices against mothers and their unborn children if I, and those fighting the fight I do, aren’t good enough to convince them otherwise.

Heck, I have the list.  I know it well.  Self-absorbed  adoptive parents who write entire posts to let us First Moms and Adoptees know how wrong we are for how we go about our fight because we aren’t pleasing them and their needs, aren’t doing it like they want us to.  If we just did things in the way they want us to.  In the way that would make them support us.

If we just said it right, did it right. Whatever it took to continue to bend over and give it all to those deemed better than us. Then maybe we might have more support  in our fight for justice.

Because it’s not about actually researching and learning about the coercion and manipulation that exists in adoption.  It’s not about giving any importance to the First Mothers and Adoptees who have been through such hell because of adoption.

That kind of stuff takes work, actual exertion from so many of those who have gone so long believing they deserve the child of another mother to satisfy their desires.  Believing children are nothing but grateful for having their entire lives changed forever because adults, before they were ever born, decided to change everything for them.  Decided to change everything they should have been able to count on as their birthright.

What does it matter to them?  What does it matter to those like the blogger who is so intent on silencing my fight for justice because she believes infertile couples deserve better, deserve the injustices brought against mothers and their unborn children because she agrees with the coercive thought that adoption saves “unplanned” womb-wet babies – the highest paid commodity - from abuse and neglect?

It doesn’t matter to them, which is why they continue to believe they have the right to dictate to First Moms and Adoptees who have lost so much more than they could ever imagine, what they should say and how they should say it if they want to “earn” their support.

It is what adoption is.  It is what our past has proven to be true for others who are deemed “less-than” those who gain off their loss, their lack of support, protection. 

Slave-owners gained.  Those who fought against equal rights for minorities – both by race and gender – gained.  And they, just like those who continue to encourage the injustices of the present day, believed their selfish desires were justification to continue the crimes brought against others.  They were self-righteous about it too.  Saw nothing wrong in standing tall and proud against any form of justice that might threaten what they, and others had gained.  What they believed they were worthy of having because of what another lacked.

They, just like my favorite blogger, saw nothing wrong with attacking and going after those who were fighting for a justice that went against the injustice that had brought them so much satisfaction.  They too, were insulted, that anyone might dare to suggest anything wrong with the very unethical, victimizing practices that caused such terrible harm for their gain.

It is the reality of who and what we are, as a society.  As blind, unquestioning supporters, today, of adoption and it’s practices.

It’s the reality of what is faced, by so many.  Of the constant battle guaranteed to be waiting for anyone who dares to suggest that mothers and their children deserve better than what exists in today’s world.  That they deserve protection,  assurance that no mother, no child, is separated so that an industry can profit, an infertile couple can gain.

It’s a tiresome fight.  I know that, I see it every day.

But it’s also one that can’t be given up on.

Because how do we give up on justice?  How do we walk away and leave more and more mothers and children victims to the very belief in injustices that brought us to this hell?

There has to be change.  There just has to be.

I know it won’t be soon in coming.  But it has to be there, somewhere in our future.

Because I am done being a victim.  Done allowing my daughter, my granddaughter, my nieces, be victims to those who want to continue such terrible injustices so that they, and others like them, can continue to gain off of their suffering, their lack of help and support.

I will not accept what I’m supposed to say, how I’m supposed to say it, to gain the support of those who have already been given so much from the injustices brought against others.  I won’t be bullied into silence by those who choose to label and describe me when they have never lived the hell I have.  Have never even taken the time, the care, the concern, to truly educate themselves about the coercion and manipulation that so many vulnerable mothers face because their unborn children are worth the worst of sacrifices to those believing they are worthy of a child of their own, regardless of the cost to the child, to his or her mother, family.

So, yeah, those who want to do all they can to silence those like me who dare to share the very real horrors of adoption, can do their best to damage me, discredit me.

It doesn’t matter. 

Right now, you can enjoy the power society has given you.  You can follow the myth that you are more deserving of another woman’s child.  That your loss from infertility is more justified than a mothers loss of her own child she has carried for nine months.  Who she has shared the most intimate connection a human being can ever know.

Someday, I believe, the truth will be seen, accepted.  Someday, even if it’s not in my life, society will understand, just as it has with the horror brought against others viewed as less-than and worthy of the injustices brought against them, how wrong it is to accept vulnerable pregnant mothers and their unborn children being used to satisfy the selfish desires of infertile couples wanting a child to call their own.

Someday, the truth will be heard and recognized in those who fight so desperately to continue the practice of coercion and manipulation of pregnant mothers.  Who turn a blind eye to the very real fact that the money and profits involved in separating an infant from their mother to satisfy the wants of a paying couple selfishly seeking to build a family, is right there with human-trafficking and should never be accepted.

I don’t want, and I can’t stop fighting for, the protection my future generations deserve.

I only have so long I’ll be here.  So much of a guarantee how far my message will reach in the generations of my family that will come after I have passed on.

And, damnit, if I’m willing to let those like the blogger who enjoys labeling and accusing me be the defining message in what my family will here once I’m gone.  I will fight hard and I will fight long to make sure the damage she fights to encourage doesn’t reach the generations yet to come in my family.

Her voice, her acceptance and encouragement of injustice against others so that she and others like her will gain, will never be acceptable to me or to what I want my family, now and in the future, to hear.

She doesn’t deserve the power she has now to spread that message and she, and those like her, do not deserve that power in the future.

So I fight.  So many others fight.

Because we want better.  Not just for today’s generation.  But for the justice deserved by the generations yet to come.

Generations that face the same injustices we face today, have faced in the past, if we don’t find some way to finally silence their encouragement and make society see, as it has in the past, the wrong in supporting those who gain from the injustices committed against others when we all, no matter who or what we are, deserve the same, fair justice of every human being . . .

Because nobody deserves, in the past or today, the ultimate sacrifice of another just to satisfy their own selfish desires.