An Open Letter to Young Women

An Open Letter to Young Women

(this news item posted on December.30.2006)

An Open Letter to Young Women,

Recently, the Allison Quets story has been all over the news. Briefly, Allison Quets is a woman who lost her children to adoption in spite of the fact that she emphatically changed her mind within 24 hours and has spent more than a year and $400,000 dollars trying to get them back. If, in the face of all that, she was unable to get her children back, what hope do people who don't have that much resolve and a life's savings of $400,000 have against the adoption industry?

I write this letter because I have seen people that I care about very deeply be irreparably harmed by the Adoption Industry. It would seem that there are no easy answers or perfect solutions when it comes to women's fertility issues and reproductive rights. It is a very volatile, contentious and emotional subject. It is not the intention of this letter to berate adoptive parents or stand in judgement of young women who have made an informed decision to place their child for adoption. Rather, it is my hope that this letter will provide useful information for young women who are or may become sexually active and/or pregnant.

A Marketdata Enterprises industry analysis of Adoption Services in 2001 placed a $1.4 billion value on adoption services in the US, with a projected annual growth rate of 11.5%.

It is safe to say that there are a lot of people who profit from adoption. In the United States, couples have demonstrated a willingness to pay anywhere from $1,000 to the more typical $10,000 on up to $50,000 to secure a child. Now that the United States awards a tax credit of $10,000 per adopted child, much of this is even done with the money of the average U.S. citizen.

In 1972, as a result of the Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion there was a sharp decline in the availability of healthy Caucasian infants. The growing adoption industry attempted to compensate for this loss in several ways. One way was to expand their efforts in the area of international adoptions. Another was to redouble their efforts to separate mothers who were on the fence about adoption from their children.

Adoption Industry professionals have a number of coercive and insidious tactics at their disposal. They have a great deal of money that the government takes from everyone and gives to them, giving them very deep pockets. And they have very slick public relations and media campaigns that attempt to make adoption look like a beneficent perfect solution that harms no one.

Don't believe it.

One of the first things you should know is that if you are pregnant and confused and running out of options and you see anything like an advertisement that offers young pregnant women free room and board while they get their lives together, this is probably TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE. Young women taking advantage of such offers are finding themselves under extreme pressure to either surrender their baby for adoption or pay back the cost of their "free" room and board.

Another very important thing to be aware of is that the Adoption Industry needs you to sign relinquishment papers and there have been cases where industry professionals will do almost anything to get you to sign. Please be prepared and know what to do BEFORE you are in the vulnerable state of just having delivered a baby. You have the legal right to insist that anyone who is bothering you be forced to leave your hospital room. And if any person refuses to observe that right, you have a moral obligation to refuse to stop screaming at the top of your lungs until they leave you in peace (using whatever language you deem necessary for the situation).

Next you should know that if you have signed relinquishment papers, there may be state laws that allow you a grace period to change your mind.

You should also know that many adoption industry professionals may attempt to entice you with the lure of "open adoption" --they will tell you that you can still visit your child and be a part of their life. Please know that "open adoption" arrangements are almost never enforceable and in a great many of the cases the adoptive parents change their mind (sometimes leaving the mother unable to contact their child EVER).

Most importantly you should know that many natural mothers report prolonged physical, psychological and physiological effects long after losing a child to adoption. And regardless of what anyone may tell you, many children placed for adoption suffer prolonged physical, psychological and physiological effects after losing parent(s) to adoption.

In the New Year, as you're filling out mySpace bulletins and passing on chain letters and having other assorted fun on the internet... please also take time to pass this information on to anyone you feel it may be of use to. Please feel free to change it, put it in your own words or add links and so on.

Peace and Love,
-Alex Mead, a friend of a friend


Here are some links to more information:
www.theadoptionshow.com
www.OriginsUSA.org
www.exiledmothers.com
Adoptese MSN Group

Being 36

Being 36

(this news item posted on December.16.2006)

A coworker of mine and I just had birthdays. He was turning 26 as I was turning 36. We were discussing getting older and he told me that he felt like having a rate reduction on his auto insurance by turning 26 was the last age related thing to look forward to in life and that it was probably going to be all downhill from here.

Well, at age 36 I've aged out of my anual pigramige to Opus in August. That's no fun. I don't have any auto insurance so, consequently, I have no idea what turning 36 does to it. It's true enough that most positive age related events seem to have stopped a long time ago. I guess I can run for President now. Regardless, I don't know that I've ever had a more positive outlook on my own personal future. I tried to explain that to him.

Whenever I want to convey a message, my tendency is to try to tell a story. That's what I do, I'm a story teller. I conjured a story where the 36 year old me could travel back and try to tell the me of 6 years ago about the future. I have no doubt that the 6 years ago me would have looked at me like I was speaking nonsense.

"Well, you see, the new president you have is going to be one of your absolute least favorite presidents of your entire lifetime. He's going to use a climate of fear --created by an event that'll happen in about a year-- to trample Civil Liberties, not just in the USA, but in any nation where it can be gotten away with. This stock market buble that's beginning to burst is REALLY going to burst, because it's about to be discovered that one of the big 5 accounting firms on Wall Street has been helping most of it's major clients to cheat on their homework. Yep next year is going to be a big one for corporate crime: Worldcom, Enron, Tyco, Adelphia, Global Crossing, Quest, and the list goes on. All those folks have been misleading their investors and sums of money that you can't even begin to fathom are about to be lost on Wall Street. Despite the economic upheaval this will cause, the Bush administration, at the behest of their corporate paymasters, will still push through staggering tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, ballon the Pentagon budget up to 450 Billion (with a B), in order to start two major wars for oil, and --believe it or not-- make the situation in the middle east even worse. At the same time they're going to start destroying the environment faster than ever, and replace the Public Education system you're used to with memorization, standardized tests, and big corporate charter schools. Mr. "I'm a uniter not a divider" will then steal another election in 2004, and push through some "Help America Vote Act" which will threaten to steal elections in into the future indefinitely. Most Americans will become very suspicious of corporations and millitarism, but the corporate media will make sure that at any given time these suspicious Americans won't be able to help but feel they're in the minority. Congress will push through sweeping bankruptsy and credit reforms which will push even more corporate power up to the already powerful international banks, and the middle class will be saddled with more debt than anything your lifetime up-till-now has prepared you for. You'll learn all about how the adoption industry is pretty much just baby-trafficing, and upper middle income families will be encouraged to buy babies from all the nations we'll be devastating with 'shock and awe'. So many people you know and love will be alone and isolated, deep in dept, denied access to continuing education, and some, stuck in cycles of medicated depression."

"BUT, don't worry about all that, you'll have two totally wonderful girlfriends, AND all of the chaos will give you plenty to write about as you'll be a self-published author many times over. Oh, AND you'll be a performer... at age 33 you'll suddenly decide to start rapping in public and people are really gonna dig it. AND you'll be building community with some really amazing activists that you have yet to meet. And, Oh by the way, you'll be a manual laborer making a lot of money crossing a strike-action picket line and throwing big heavy tires. You'll be totally buff, in the best shape of your life, and lots of really fantastic women will find you attractive and be great friends to you. And you'll even have long hair again. Remember how much you used to like the long hair? Now, you'll be making more money at this job than you've ever made before --and boy you're going to need it because you'll conveniently ignore everything your mother ever tried to teach you about paying the balance on your credit card on time and you'll be one of those Americans swimming in debt that I was talking about before-- BUT don't sweat it, long as you keep crossing the picket line to chuck tires you'll be fine. They're even gonna make you the boss. Don't look at me like that. Being the boss ain't so bad."

Yeah. The truth is easily just as strange as fiction. Through the eyes of six years ago, the world definitely does seem to have gone to hell in a handbasket, but it would be impossible not to enjoy all of these crazy twists in my life. After four plus years of an intimate relationship I still wake up to erotic dreams of my wise and wonderful and beautiful lifemate and get all worked up and excited about my budding romance. I like to think I must be doing something right.

I dunno.

Life is funny.

LAUGH.

cry.

Have a full range of emotions.

You might as well.

Peace & Love,
-Alex