Self Love (how many adoptees don't have enough)

My definition of a narcissist is someone who is totally in love with themselves. Every child, not adopted, has this love of self. Ask a five, six or seven year old about love and they will say I love who I am, how I feel, I love my parents and I am happy – they might even act giddy, unaware their focus is on themselves and not other people. An emotionally-healthy child typically is self-centered until they grow to learn compassion, interest and respect for other life forms.

When a narcissist doesn’t grow up, they show an excessive interest in their own appearance, comfort, importance, and abilities – you might say self-centered and selfish to an extreme. It is unhealthy, actually, and all too common! It's often the "Me Generation."

There is a Greek myth about Narcissus, a beautiful youth, who after Echo’s death, is made to pine away for love of his own reflection in a spring and changes into a narcissus (a lily with narcotic properties.) It’s interesting the word narcotic is anything that has a soothing, lulling or dulling effect and narcosis is a condition of deep stupor which passes into unconsciousness and paralysis, usually caused by a narcotic or certain chemicals.

Being in love with yourself is intoxicating and quite healthy if you are a child.

Sooner or later reality will knock on your door and change this perception and sensible adult behavior will take hold.

I totally believe adoptees are not as narcissistic as they should be in childhood. We are worried, sad, watchful and we blame ourselves for everything, especially our abandonment.

I hated myself. I truly did.

This was a consequence of my adoption and my abandonment.

The adoption business will again downplay: Most of the patients in psychiatric care are adoptees!  One doctor calls it “severe narcissistic injury.”  Emotions, even extreme emotions, can be expected at some point in time in an adoptees life. Some thing or some event or someone can and will trigger a reaction.  Adoptees face facts eventually.  The adoption system is hardly aware of the damage it causes – or else they would change it or stop it altogether! Adoptees are locked out of reality and given an illusion to embrace. And we must never expect to know our origins? Yes, this is true. Sealed court documents and secrecy prevent knowledge and truth in adoption.  When will the world wake up?

Self Love (how many adoptees don't have enough)

My definition of a narcissist is someone who is totally in love with themselves. Every child, not adopted, has this love of self. Ask a five, six or seven year old about love and they will say I love who I am, how I feel, I love my parents and I am happy – they might even act giddy, unaware their focus is on themselves and not other people. An emotionally-healthy child typically is self-centered until they grow to learn compassion, interest and respect for other life forms.

When a narcissist doesn’t grow up, they show an excessive interest in their own appearance, comfort, importance, and abilities – you might say self-centered and selfish to an extreme. It is unhealthy, actually, and all too common! It's often the "Me Generation."

There is a Greek myth about Narcissus, a beautiful youth, who after Echo’s death, is made to pine away for love of his own reflection in a spring and changes into a narcissus (a lily with narcotic properties.) It’s interesting the word narcotic is anything that has a soothing, lulling or dulling effect and narcosis is a condition of deep stupor which passes into unconsciousness and paralysis, usually caused by a narcotic or certain chemicals.

Being in love with yourself is intoxicating and quite healthy if you are a child.

Sooner or later reality will knock on your door and change this perception and sensible adult behavior will take hold.

I totally believe adoptees are not as narcissistic as they should be in childhood. We are worried, sad, watchful and we blame ourselves for everything, especially our abandonment.

I hated myself. I truly did.

This was a consequence of my adoption and my abandonment.

The adoption business will again downplay: Most of the patients in psychiatric care are adoptees!  One doctor calls it “severe narcissistic injury.”  Emotions, even extreme emotions, can be expected at some point in time in an adoptees life. Some thing or some event or someone can and will trigger a reaction.  Adoptees face facts eventually.  The adoption system is hardly aware of the damage it causes – or else they would change it or stop it altogether! Adoptees are locked out of reality and given an illusion to embrace. And we must never expect to know our origins? Yes, this is true. Sealed court documents and secrecy prevent knowledge and truth in adoption.  When will the world wake up?

Self Love (how many adoptees don't have enough)

My definition of a narcissist is someone who is totally in love with themselves. Every child, not adopted, has this love of self. Ask a five, six or seven year old about love and they will say I love who I am, how I feel, I love my parents and I am happy – they might even act giddy, unaware their focus is on themselves and not other people. An emotionally-healthy child typically is self-centered until they grow to learn compassion, interest and respect for other life forms.

When a narcissist doesn’t grow up, they show an excessive interest in their own appearance, comfort, importance, and abilities – you might say self-centered and selfish to an extreme. It is unhealthy, actually, and all too common! It's often the "Me Generation."

There is a Greek myth about Narcissus, a beautiful youth, who after Echo’s death, is made to pine away for love of his own reflection in a spring and changes into a narcissus (a lily with narcotic properties.) It’s interesting the word narcotic is anything that has a soothing, lulling or dulling effect and narcosis is a condition of deep stupor which passes into unconsciousness and paralysis, usually caused by a narcotic or certain chemicals.

Being in love with yourself is intoxicating and quite healthy if you are a child.

Sooner or later reality will knock on your door and change this perception and sensible adult behavior will take hold.

I totally believe adoptees are not as narcissistic as they should be in childhood. We are worried, sad, watchful and we blame ourselves for everything, especially our abandonment.

I hated myself. I truly did.

This was a consequence of my adoption and my abandonment.

The adoption business will again downplay: Most of the patients in psychiatric care are adoptees!  One doctor calls it “severe narcissistic injury.”  Emotions, even extreme emotions, can be expected at some point in time in an adoptees life. Some thing or some event or someone can and will trigger a reaction.  Adoptees face facts eventually.  The adoption system is hardly aware of the damage it causes – or else they would change it or stop it altogether! Adoptees are locked out of reality and given an illusion to embrace. And we must never expect to know our origins? Yes, this is true. Sealed court documents and secrecy prevent knowledge and truth in adoption.  When will the world wake up?

Self Love (how many adoptees don't have enough)

My definition of a narcissist is someone who is totally in love with themselves. Every child, not adopted, has this love of self. Ask a five, six or seven year old about love and they will say I love who I am, how I feel, I love my parents and I am happy – they might even act giddy, unaware their focus is on themselves and not other people. An emotionally-healthy child typically is self-centered until they grow to learn compassion, interest and respect for other life forms.

When a narcissist doesn’t grow up, they show an excessive interest in their own appearance, comfort, importance, and abilities – you might say self-centered and selfish to an extreme. It is unhealthy, actually, and all too common! It's often the "Me Generation."

There is a Greek myth about Narcissus, a beautiful youth, who after Echo’s death, is made to pine away for love of his own reflection in a spring and changes into a narcissus (a lily with narcotic properties.) It’s interesting the word narcotic is anything that has a soothing, lulling or dulling effect and narcosis is a condition of deep stupor which passes into unconsciousness and paralysis, usually caused by a narcotic or certain chemicals.

Being in love with yourself is intoxicating and quite healthy if you are a child.

Sooner or later reality will knock on your door and change this perception and sensible adult behavior will take hold.

I totally believe adoptees are not as narcissistic as they should be in childhood. We are worried, sad, watchful and we blame ourselves for everything, especially our abandonment.

I hated myself. I truly did.

This was a consequence of my adoption and my abandonment.

The adoption business will again downplay: Most of the patients in psychiatric care are adoptees!  One doctor calls it “severe narcissistic injury.”  Emotions, even extreme emotions, can be expected at some point in time in an adoptees life. Some thing or some event or someone can and will trigger a reaction.  Adoptees face facts eventually.  The adoption system is hardly aware of the damage it causes – or else they would change it or stop it altogether! Adoptees are locked out of reality and given an illusion to embrace. And we must never expect to know our origins? Yes, this is true. Sealed court documents and secrecy prevent knowledge and truth in adoption.  When will the world wake up?

Self Love (how many adoptees don't have enough)

My definition of a narcissist is someone who is totally in love with themselves. Every child, not adopted, has this love of self. Ask a five, six or seven year old about love and they will say I love who I am, how I feel, I love my parents and I am happy – they might even act giddy, unaware their focus is on themselves and not other people. An emotionally-healthy child typically is self-centered until they grow to learn compassion, interest and respect for other life forms.

When a narcissist doesn’t grow up, they show an excessive interest in their own appearance, comfort, importance, and abilities – you might say self-centered and selfish to an extreme. It is unhealthy, actually, and all too common! It's often the "Me Generation."

There is a Greek myth about Narcissus, a beautiful youth, who after Echo’s death, is made to pine away for love of his own reflection in a spring and changes into a narcissus (a lily with narcotic properties.) It’s interesting the word narcotic is anything that has a soothing, lulling or dulling effect and narcosis is a condition of deep stupor which passes into unconsciousness and paralysis, usually caused by a narcotic or certain chemicals.

Being in love with yourself is intoxicating and quite healthy if you are a child.

Sooner or later reality will knock on your door and change this perception and sensible adult behavior will take hold.

I totally believe adoptees are not as narcissistic as they should be in childhood. We are worried, sad, watchful and we blame ourselves for everything, especially our abandonment.

I hated myself. I truly did.

This was a consequence of my adoption and my abandonment.

The adoption business will again downplay: Most of the patients in psychiatric care are adoptees!  One doctor calls it “severe narcissistic injury.”  Emotions, even extreme emotions, can be expected at some point in time in an adoptees life. Some thing or some event or someone can and will trigger a reaction.  Adoptees face facts eventually.  The adoption system is hardly aware of the damage it causes – or else they would change it or stop it altogether! Adoptees are locked out of reality and given an illusion to embrace. And we must never expect to know our origins? Yes, this is true. Sealed court documents and secrecy prevent knowledge and truth in adoption.  When will the world wake up?

Reunion: What you need to know about rejection

Perhaps one of the best analysis of the “reunion of adoptee and birthparent” I have found is called The Second Rejection, Part 1 and 2 by Marcy Wineman Axness (available on the website: www.reunite.com/adoption-records/the-second-rejection.html)

The Second Rejection
Your phone call takes too long to be returned. Your letter goes unanswered for an unnerving number of weeks. You concoct exaggerated scenes inside your overtime mind, clamoring to make sense of it all, to somehow feel sense of it all.
Ah, reunion.
Now that we as a movement have gotten past the reunion-as-panacea stage, we are beginning to address the very complex issues imbedded in the process, the relationship, the roller coaster experience that attends reunion. And the big old elephant sitting squarely in the middle of this room, the one almost everyone sees -- or rather feels, trampling their already-bruised toes -- but hates to mention for fear of making it real, is named Rejection. But whether we name it or not, it’s very real.
For many adoptees, it’s experienced as The Second Rejection. My friend Amy’s birthmother, upon being found, said that she needed time to adjust. She told Amy to call her in six months, and upon doing so Amy found that she had moved to Germany. Amy has channeled her renewed feelings of abandonment into her own healing, thereby transforming what might have been an immobilizing turn of events, but she still knows frustratingly little about what’s at the heart of her birthmother’s rejection.
Dr. Randolph Severson explains that behind many kinds of reunion rejection lies a sort of grieving for the might-have-been. And people respond to that grief in different ways.
“I think there is a stage that some people go through where they feel rejected, really, by life. That all these things that could have been, or, along a different kind of life trajectory, would have occurred, simply aren’t going to be -- too much of life has already been lived. And people withdraw. The anxiety is just too great, the disappointment is too great.”
This kind of withdrawal can happen on the part of the adoptee as well. “What a lot of adoptees seem to go through is a stage where they realize that the birthmother or birthparents are really not going to be able to answer to their wish when their fundamental wish is ‘I wish none of this had ever happened to me.’"
Dr. Severson says that an underlying desire of many adoptees -- subconscious, irrational, and understandable -- is that through reunion they will somehow become un-adopted, become like everyone else.
“The second rejection sort of occurs when folks realize that this just simply can’t happen. And sometimes it creates a little bit of a distance that the birthparent then complains about, too. It’s like an almost impersonal rejection that occurs as a result of finding that the reunion simply can’t erase, eliminate or undo everything that’s gone before. The wounds still exist.”
It is the different way we address these wounds that is at the heart of my own experience with the second rejection. As long as I was still in the deep sleep of denial over how adoption etched me, my birthmother felt safe to be very forthcoming in our relationship. The fact that I’ve come to address these issues, these wounds of mine, holds a certain terror for her, I think, since she has always minimized her adoption experience, as in “I had a great pregnancy, I knew I was carrying you for Bee and Bob, and I’ve never believed in ownership of children.”
In her blithe attitude about this profound experience -- one we intimately shared -- I experience a certain basic rejection, a dismissal of the part of me who doesn’t regard it blithely in the least, the part of me who feels fundamentally shaped by it.
My birthmother’s response is a variation on a theme that Dr. Severson says often occurs in the reunion experience as birthparents encounter the fullness of their children’s emotions and responses. “They can be overwhelmed about the intense, deep sorts of needs and yearning that adoptees often have. And they can just withdraw, it’s just too frightening. I think most second rejections that occur literally, occur out of fear, mostly, and not knowing how to respond.” (It can also happen vice versa, with the adoptee overwhelmed by the needs of the birthparent.)
Sometimes the birthparent -- most often the birthmother -- doesn’t feel free to respond to her newly-returned “child” in the way her instincts would guide, hamstrung as she is by allegiances to her existing family, especially her husband, notes Dr. Severson.
“When the full weight of what this means bears in on a spouse, and for awhile the birthparent becomes almost a stranger, that spouse can put a whole, whole lot of pressure on the birthparent.”
This can lead to painful choices that pit a birthmother’s instincts and heart’s desires against the harsher demands she may feel pressing in on her. In this way, the birthmother - or birthfather --experiences another kind of second rejection, of the sort that occurred when she had to reject an entire realm of response within herself -- and indeed felt it rejected by those close to her -- in order to relinquish her child for adoption. This can stir up old anger, another elephant in the reunion room, who sits in many laps.
Whenever I attend our local support group, I can count on hearing at least one birthmother complaining about her adult child’s confusing, ambivalent, “push-pull” behavior, which she will often perceive as rejection. I usually offer some insight into primal anger, for notwithstanding the old debate regarding Did-We-Or-Did-We-Not-Abandon-Them, I believe that regardless of how we -- including adoptees -- frame it within our adult, intellectual perspective, there is rooted in the adoptees’ experience a profound sense of rejection registered on the most primal level, at our most tender marrow. Dr. Severson cautions against regarding the anger as simply a “stage”, which implies some sort of term limit.
“It co-exists with all these other feelings, and it doesn’t go away. It exists because it’s reality-based. It’s human. And then when it comes boiling out it frightens everybody, especially if they’ve not read anything or talked to anybody, are not in therapy or a support group, and it’s kind of like ‘Where’s this anger coming from? It shouldn’t be there because after all, we’re having this nice, happy reunion.’"

Marcy Wineman Axness, an adoptee, lives in California with her husband and two children. She writes and lectures nationwide on adoption and pre- and perinatal issues. She welcomes correspondence at her e-mail address: axness@earthlink.net

[I am posting this from my research on adoption and what I learned while writing my memoir...Trace]

Reunion: What you need to know about rejection

Perhaps one of the best analysis of the “reunion of adoptee and birthparent” I have found is called The Second Rejection, Part 1 and 2 by Marcy Wineman Axness (available on the website: www.reunite.com/adoption-records/the-second-rejection.html)

The Second Rejection
Your phone call takes too long to be returned. Your letter goes unanswered for an unnerving number of weeks. You concoct exaggerated scenes inside your overtime mind, clamoring to make sense of it all, to somehow feel sense of it all.
Ah, reunion.
Now that we as a movement have gotten past the reunion-as-panacea stage, we are beginning to address the very complex issues imbedded in the process, the relationship, the roller coaster experience that attends reunion. And the big old elephant sitting squarely in the middle of this room, the one almost everyone sees -- or rather feels, trampling their already-bruised toes -- but hates to mention for fear of making it real, is named Rejection. But whether we name it or not, it’s very real.
For many adoptees, it’s experienced as The Second Rejection. My friend Amy’s birthmother, upon being found, said that she needed time to adjust. She told Amy to call her in six months, and upon doing so Amy found that she had moved to Germany. Amy has channeled her renewed feelings of abandonment into her own healing, thereby transforming what might have been an immobilizing turn of events, but she still knows frustratingly little about what’s at the heart of her birthmother’s rejection.
Dr. Randolph Severson explains that behind many kinds of reunion rejection lies a sort of grieving for the might-have-been. And people respond to that grief in different ways.
“I think there is a stage that some people go through where they feel rejected, really, by life. That all these things that could have been, or, along a different kind of life trajectory, would have occurred, simply aren’t going to be -- too much of life has already been lived. And people withdraw. The anxiety is just too great, the disappointment is too great.”
This kind of withdrawal can happen on the part of the adoptee as well. “What a lot of adoptees seem to go through is a stage where they realize that the birthmother or birthparents are really not going to be able to answer to their wish when their fundamental wish is ‘I wish none of this had ever happened to me.’"
Dr. Severson says that an underlying desire of many adoptees -- subconscious, irrational, and understandable -- is that through reunion they will somehow become un-adopted, become like everyone else.
“The second rejection sort of occurs when folks realize that this just simply can’t happen. And sometimes it creates a little bit of a distance that the birthparent then complains about, too. It’s like an almost impersonal rejection that occurs as a result of finding that the reunion simply can’t erase, eliminate or undo everything that’s gone before. The wounds still exist.”
It is the different way we address these wounds that is at the heart of my own experience with the second rejection. As long as I was still in the deep sleep of denial over how adoption etched me, my birthmother felt safe to be very forthcoming in our relationship. The fact that I’ve come to address these issues, these wounds of mine, holds a certain terror for her, I think, since she has always minimized her adoption experience, as in “I had a great pregnancy, I knew I was carrying you for Bee and Bob, and I’ve never believed in ownership of children.”
In her blithe attitude about this profound experience -- one we intimately shared -- I experience a certain basic rejection, a dismissal of the part of me who doesn’t regard it blithely in the least, the part of me who feels fundamentally shaped by it.
My birthmother’s response is a variation on a theme that Dr. Severson says often occurs in the reunion experience as birthparents encounter the fullness of their children’s emotions and responses. “They can be overwhelmed about the intense, deep sorts of needs and yearning that adoptees often have. And they can just withdraw, it’s just too frightening. I think most second rejections that occur literally, occur out of fear, mostly, and not knowing how to respond.” (It can also happen vice versa, with the adoptee overwhelmed by the needs of the birthparent.)
Sometimes the birthparent -- most often the birthmother -- doesn’t feel free to respond to her newly-returned “child” in the way her instincts would guide, hamstrung as she is by allegiances to her existing family, especially her husband, notes Dr. Severson.
“When the full weight of what this means bears in on a spouse, and for awhile the birthparent becomes almost a stranger, that spouse can put a whole, whole lot of pressure on the birthparent.”
This can lead to painful choices that pit a birthmother’s instincts and heart’s desires against the harsher demands she may feel pressing in on her. In this way, the birthmother - or birthfather --experiences another kind of second rejection, of the sort that occurred when she had to reject an entire realm of response within herself -- and indeed felt it rejected by those close to her -- in order to relinquish her child for adoption. This can stir up old anger, another elephant in the reunion room, who sits in many laps.
Whenever I attend our local support group, I can count on hearing at least one birthmother complaining about her adult child’s confusing, ambivalent, “push-pull” behavior, which she will often perceive as rejection. I usually offer some insight into primal anger, for notwithstanding the old debate regarding Did-We-Or-Did-We-Not-Abandon-Them, I believe that regardless of how we -- including adoptees -- frame it within our adult, intellectual perspective, there is rooted in the adoptees’ experience a profound sense of rejection registered on the most primal level, at our most tender marrow. Dr. Severson cautions against regarding the anger as simply a “stage”, which implies some sort of term limit.
“It co-exists with all these other feelings, and it doesn’t go away. It exists because it’s reality-based. It’s human. And then when it comes boiling out it frightens everybody, especially if they’ve not read anything or talked to anybody, are not in therapy or a support group, and it’s kind of like ‘Where’s this anger coming from? It shouldn’t be there because after all, we’re having this nice, happy reunion.’"

Marcy Wineman Axness, an adoptee, lives in California with her husband and two children. She writes and lectures nationwide on adoption and pre- and perinatal issues. She welcomes correspondence at her e-mail address: axness@earthlink.net

[I am posting this from my research on adoption and what I learned while writing my memoir...Trace]

Understanding impact of past adoption practices: Australian research (2009)

Current needs of women affected by past adoption practices (part 3 of their report)



Marshall and McDonald (2001) noted that there is considerable (emotionally charged) debate around the effects of adoption with, at the extremes, some extravagant claims for and against adoption as a practice. The purpose of this review is not to debate the merits or otherwise of adoption or what the research says about how current adoption practices could be improved. Instead, the focus is on understanding the impact of past adoption practices, and the evidence from the research literature that can be used to assist with understanding and developing appropriate responses to the needs of women affected by past adoption practices.





Many writers (including autobiographical accounts and collections of case studies) either indirectly or directly identify that one of the crucial issues for mothers affected by past adoption practices is for their experiences to be publicly recognised. For example, in her recent edited volume of mothers' perspectives interspersed with documentary material, Cole (2008) quoted the following response from a psychiatrist, Dr Geoff Rickarby. In response to an interview question on his expectations of the NSW inquiry into adoption practices (which reported in 2000), Rickarby stated:



I would have liked to have seen a huge exposure of what was actually done ... you know ... for the adoptees to actually see what a helpless isolated position their mother was in, what drugs were given to them, what coercion, what brainwashing, what illegal things happened and how they were taken from their mothers. (cited in Cole, 2008, p. 173)



This points to a common theme across all of the research: the pervasiveness of the silence and shame, and the impact this has had in terms of isolation, lack of support and specific services. Marshall and McDonald (2001) argued that long-term pain for relinquishing mothers could have been relieved if they had had help in dealing with the relinquishment, accompanied by support and the opportunity to know something about the child (p. 73).



Based on her advocacy work with mothers who have been separated from their babies by adoption, Lindsay (1998) identified some of the needs that she recognised as being part of the healing process (which she sees as a societal responsibility):



•availability of ongoing counselling with highly skilled psychologists;



•provision of trauma counselling services pertaining to mothers and children traumatised by adoption separation;



•establishment of advertising campaigns encouraging mothers to speak out;



•provision of education programs for GPs and other health services providers; and



•avoidance of statements that are likely to re-traumatise (e.g., referring to 'unwanted babies', 'your decision', 'birth mother', 'think about how the adoptive parent feels').



At the conclusion of their groundbreaking Australian empirical study, Winkler and van Keppel (1984) recommended that two things were most needed for these women:



•counselling and support; and



•increased information.



The efficacy of these various services or actions have not been empirically tested in relation to the specific population group; however, they are consistent with the broader theoretical and empirical literature on other forms of trauma, such as the field of child abuse and neglect or adult sexual assault (see Astbury, 2006; Connor & Higgins, 2008). Consideration should also be given to the difference between generalist services, and specialised mental health and other support services for this particular group. As with other groups who have experienced pain and trauma, having society recognise what has occurred (i.e., naming it, and understanding how it occurred and its impact) is an important element in coping with and adjusting to the deep hurt they have experienced.



Winkler, Brown, van Keppel and Blanchard (1988) noted:



Many older adoption practices were cruel and insensitive, reflecting older, harsher social attitudes; the scars left by these practices have never really healed for many people. The probability, therefore, is substantial that adoption-related problems will occur over a person's full life course. (p. 3)



Given that past practices cannot be 'undone', one of the steps in the journey for both mothers and children given up for adoption is the choice around reunion. Given the variability in responses provided in the case study literature, and the absence of any systematic empirical evidence, this is an area where further research would be of particular value. Services attempting to support those affected - including professional counsellors, agencies and support groups - would all benefit from a greater understanding of typical pathways through the reunion process, estimates of the number of reunions that have occurred, the perspectives of those involved, and factors that are associated with positive and negative reunion experiences.



Apart from these issues relating to reunion, the research material—supported strongly by the case studies and autobiographical material (see Appendix, Tables A2 and A3)—points to other ongoing issues for mothers affected by past adoption practices. These issues include:



•personal identity (the concept of 'motherhood' and self-identity as a good mother);



•relationships with others, including husbands/partners, subsequent children, etc.;



•connectedness with others (problematic attachments); and



•ongoing anxiety, depression and trauma.



(note: I added the italics and highlights for emphasis...This study could certainly be applied to First Nations mothers who lost children in North America.  The lack of support for us is a further betrayal... Trace)

Understanding impact of past adoption practices: Australian research (2009)

Current needs of women affected by past adoption practices (part 3 of their report)

Marshall and McDonald (2001) noted that there is considerable (emotionally charged) debate around the effects of adoption with, at the extremes, some extravagant claims for and against adoption as a practice. The purpose of this review is not to debate the merits or otherwise of adoption or what the research says about how current adoption practices could be improved. Instead, the focus is on understanding the impact of past adoption practices, and the evidence from the research literature that can be used to assist with understanding and developing appropriate responses to the needs of women affected by past adoption practices.


Many writers (including autobiographical accounts and collections of case studies) either indirectly or directly identify that one of the crucial issues for mothers affected by past adoption practices is for their experiences to be publicly recognised. For example, in her recent edited volume of mothers' perspectives interspersed with documentary material, Cole (2008) quoted the following response from a psychiatrist, Dr Geoff Rickarby. In response to an interview question on his expectations of the NSW inquiry into adoption practices (which reported in 2000), Rickarby stated:

I would have liked to have seen a huge exposure of what was actually done ... you know ... for the adoptees to actually see what a helpless isolated position their mother was in, what drugs were given to them, what coercion, what brainwashing, what illegal things happened and how they were taken from their mothers. (cited in Cole, 2008, p. 173)

This points to a common theme across all of the research: the pervasiveness of the silence and shame, and the impact this has had in terms of isolation, lack of support and specific services. Marshall and McDonald (2001) argued that long-term pain for relinquishing mothers could have been relieved if they had had help in dealing with the relinquishment, accompanied by support and the opportunity to know something about the child (p. 73).

Based on her advocacy work with mothers who have been separated from their babies by adoption, Lindsay (1998) identified some of the needs that she recognised as being part of the healing process (which she sees as a societal responsibility):

•availability of ongoing counselling with highly skilled psychologists;

•provision of trauma counselling services pertaining to mothers and children traumatised by adoption separation;

•establishment of advertising campaigns encouraging mothers to speak out;

•provision of education programs for GPs and other health services providers; and

•avoidance of statements that are likely to re-traumatise (e.g., referring to 'unwanted babies', 'your decision', 'birth mother', 'think about how the adoptive parent feels').

At the conclusion of their groundbreaking Australian empirical study, Winkler and van Keppel (1984) recommended that two things were most needed for these women:

•counselling and support; and

•increased information.

The efficacy of these various services or actions have not been empirically tested in relation to the specific population group; however, they are consistent with the broader theoretical and empirical literature on other forms of trauma, such as the field of child abuse and neglect or adult sexual assault (see Astbury, 2006; Connor & Higgins, 2008). Consideration should also be given to the difference between generalist services, and specialised mental health and other support services for this particular group. As with other groups who have experienced pain and trauma, having society recognise what has occurred (i.e., naming it, and understanding how it occurred and its impact) is an important element in coping with and adjusting to the deep hurt they have experienced.

Winkler, Brown, van Keppel and Blanchard (1988) noted:

Many older adoption practices were cruel and insensitive, reflecting older, harsher social attitudes; the scars left by these practices have never really healed for many people. The probability, therefore, is substantial that adoption-related problems will occur over a person's full life course. (p. 3)

Given that past practices cannot be 'undone', one of the steps in the journey for both mothers and children given up for adoption is the choice around reunion. Given the variability in responses provided in the case study literature, and the absence of any systematic empirical evidence, this is an area where further research would be of particular value. Services attempting to support those affected - including professional counsellors, agencies and support groups - would all benefit from a greater understanding of typical pathways through the reunion process, estimates of the number of reunions that have occurred, the perspectives of those involved, and factors that are associated with positive and negative reunion experiences.

Apart from these issues relating to reunion, the research material—supported strongly by the case studies and autobiographical material (see Appendix, Tables A2 and A3)—points to other ongoing issues for mothers affected by past adoption practices. These issues include:

•personal identity (the concept of 'motherhood' and self-identity as a good mother);

•relationships with others, including husbands/partners, subsequent children, etc.;

•connectedness with others (problematic attachments); and

•ongoing anxiety, depression and trauma.

(note: I added the italics and highlights for emphasis...This study could certainly be applied to First Nations mothers who lost children in North America.  The lack of support for us is a further betrayal... Trace)

Understanding impact of past adoption practices: Australian research (2009)

Current needs of women affected by past adoption practices (part 3 of their report)

Marshall and McDonald (2001) noted that there is considerable (emotionally charged) debate around the effects of adoption with, at the extremes, some extravagant claims for and against adoption as a practice. The purpose of this review is not to debate the merits or otherwise of adoption or what the research says about how current adoption practices could be improved. Instead, the focus is on understanding the impact of past adoption practices, and the evidence from the research literature that can be used to assist with understanding and developing appropriate responses to the needs of women affected by past adoption practices.


Many writers (including autobiographical accounts and collections of case studies) either indirectly or directly identify that one of the crucial issues for mothers affected by past adoption practices is for their experiences to be publicly recognised. For example, in her recent edited volume of mothers' perspectives interspersed with documentary material, Cole (2008) quoted the following response from a psychiatrist, Dr Geoff Rickarby. In response to an interview question on his expectations of the NSW inquiry into adoption practices (which reported in 2000), Rickarby stated:

I would have liked to have seen a huge exposure of what was actually done ... you know ... for the adoptees to actually see what a helpless isolated position their mother was in, what drugs were given to them, what coercion, what brainwashing, what illegal things happened and how they were taken from their mothers. (cited in Cole, 2008, p. 173)

This points to a common theme across all of the research: the pervasiveness of the silence and shame, and the impact this has had in terms of isolation, lack of support and specific services. Marshall and McDonald (2001) argued that long-term pain for relinquishing mothers could have been relieved if they had had help in dealing with the relinquishment, accompanied by support and the opportunity to know something about the child (p. 73).

Based on her advocacy work with mothers who have been separated from their babies by adoption, Lindsay (1998) identified some of the needs that she recognised as being part of the healing process (which she sees as a societal responsibility):

•availability of ongoing counselling with highly skilled psychologists;

•provision of trauma counselling services pertaining to mothers and children traumatised by adoption separation;

•establishment of advertising campaigns encouraging mothers to speak out;

•provision of education programs for GPs and other health services providers; and

•avoidance of statements that are likely to re-traumatise (e.g., referring to 'unwanted babies', 'your decision', 'birth mother', 'think about how the adoptive parent feels').

At the conclusion of their groundbreaking Australian empirical study, Winkler and van Keppel (1984) recommended that two things were most needed for these women:

•counselling and support; and

•increased information.

The efficacy of these various services or actions have not been empirically tested in relation to the specific population group; however, they are consistent with the broader theoretical and empirical literature on other forms of trauma, such as the field of child abuse and neglect or adult sexual assault (see Astbury, 2006; Connor & Higgins, 2008). Consideration should also be given to the difference between generalist services, and specialised mental health and other support services for this particular group. As with other groups who have experienced pain and trauma, having society recognise what has occurred (i.e., naming it, and understanding how it occurred and its impact) is an important element in coping with and adjusting to the deep hurt they have experienced.

Winkler, Brown, van Keppel and Blanchard (1988) noted:

Many older adoption practices were cruel and insensitive, reflecting older, harsher social attitudes; the scars left by these practices have never really healed for many people. The probability, therefore, is substantial that adoption-related problems will occur over a person's full life course. (p. 3)

Given that past practices cannot be 'undone', one of the steps in the journey for both mothers and children given up for adoption is the choice around reunion. Given the variability in responses provided in the case study literature, and the absence of any systematic empirical evidence, this is an area where further research would be of particular value. Services attempting to support those affected - including professional counsellors, agencies and support groups - would all benefit from a greater understanding of typical pathways through the reunion process, estimates of the number of reunions that have occurred, the perspectives of those involved, and factors that are associated with positive and negative reunion experiences.

Apart from these issues relating to reunion, the research material—supported strongly by the case studies and autobiographical material (see Appendix, Tables A2 and A3)—points to other ongoing issues for mothers affected by past adoption practices. These issues include:

•personal identity (the concept of 'motherhood' and self-identity as a good mother);

•relationships with others, including husbands/partners, subsequent children, etc.;

•connectedness with others (problematic attachments); and

•ongoing anxiety, depression and trauma.

(note: I added the italics and highlights for emphasis...This study could certainly be applied to First Nations mothers who lost children in North America.  The lack of support for us is a further betrayal... Trace)

Understanding impact of past adoption practices: Australian research (2009)

Current needs of women affected by past adoption practices (part 3 of their report)

Marshall and McDonald (2001) noted that there is considerable (emotionally charged) debate around the effects of adoption with, at the extremes, some extravagant claims for and against adoption as a practice. The purpose of this review is not to debate the merits or otherwise of adoption or what the research says about how current adoption practices could be improved. Instead, the focus is on understanding the impact of past adoption practices, and the evidence from the research literature that can be used to assist with understanding and developing appropriate responses to the needs of women affected by past adoption practices.


Many writers (including autobiographical accounts and collections of case studies) either indirectly or directly identify that one of the crucial issues for mothers affected by past adoption practices is for their experiences to be publicly recognised. For example, in her recent edited volume of mothers' perspectives interspersed with documentary material, Cole (2008) quoted the following response from a psychiatrist, Dr Geoff Rickarby. In response to an interview question on his expectations of the NSW inquiry into adoption practices (which reported in 2000), Rickarby stated:

I would have liked to have seen a huge exposure of what was actually done ... you know ... for the adoptees to actually see what a helpless isolated position their mother was in, what drugs were given to them, what coercion, what brainwashing, what illegal things happened and how they were taken from their mothers. (cited in Cole, 2008, p. 173)

This points to a common theme across all of the research: the pervasiveness of the silence and shame, and the impact this has had in terms of isolation, lack of support and specific services. Marshall and McDonald (2001) argued that long-term pain for relinquishing mothers could have been relieved if they had had help in dealing with the relinquishment, accompanied by support and the opportunity to know something about the child (p. 73).

Based on her advocacy work with mothers who have been separated from their babies by adoption, Lindsay (1998) identified some of the needs that she recognised as being part of the healing process (which she sees as a societal responsibility):

•availability of ongoing counselling with highly skilled psychologists;

•provision of trauma counselling services pertaining to mothers and children traumatised by adoption separation;

•establishment of advertising campaigns encouraging mothers to speak out;

•provision of education programs for GPs and other health services providers; and

•avoidance of statements that are likely to re-traumatise (e.g., referring to 'unwanted babies', 'your decision', 'birth mother', 'think about how the adoptive parent feels').

At the conclusion of their groundbreaking Australian empirical study, Winkler and van Keppel (1984) recommended that two things were most needed for these women:

•counselling and support; and

•increased information.

The efficacy of these various services or actions have not been empirically tested in relation to the specific population group; however, they are consistent with the broader theoretical and empirical literature on other forms of trauma, such as the field of child abuse and neglect or adult sexual assault (see Astbury, 2006; Connor & Higgins, 2008). Consideration should also be given to the difference between generalist services, and specialised mental health and other support services for this particular group. As with other groups who have experienced pain and trauma, having society recognise what has occurred (i.e., naming it, and understanding how it occurred and its impact) is an important element in coping with and adjusting to the deep hurt they have experienced.

Winkler, Brown, van Keppel and Blanchard (1988) noted:

Many older adoption practices were cruel and insensitive, reflecting older, harsher social attitudes; the scars left by these practices have never really healed for many people. The probability, therefore, is substantial that adoption-related problems will occur over a person's full life course. (p. 3)

Given that past practices cannot be 'undone', one of the steps in the journey for both mothers and children given up for adoption is the choice around reunion. Given the variability in responses provided in the case study literature, and the absence of any systematic empirical evidence, this is an area where further research would be of particular value. Services attempting to support those affected - including professional counsellors, agencies and support groups - would all benefit from a greater understanding of typical pathways through the reunion process, estimates of the number of reunions that have occurred, the perspectives of those involved, and factors that are associated with positive and negative reunion experiences.

Apart from these issues relating to reunion, the research material—supported strongly by the case studies and autobiographical material (see Appendix, Tables A2 and A3)—points to other ongoing issues for mothers affected by past adoption practices. These issues include:

•personal identity (the concept of 'motherhood' and self-identity as a good mother);

•relationships with others, including husbands/partners, subsequent children, etc.;

•connectedness with others (problematic attachments); and

•ongoing anxiety, depression and trauma.

(note: I added the italics and highlights for emphasis...This study could certainly be applied to First Nations mothers who lost children in North America.  The lack of support for us is a further betrayal... Trace)

Understanding impact of past adoption practices: Australian research (2009)

Current needs of women affected by past adoption practices (part 3 of their report)

Marshall and McDonald (2001) noted that there is considerable (emotionally charged) debate around the effects of adoption with, at the extremes, some extravagant claims for and against adoption as a practice. The purpose of this review is not to debate the merits or otherwise of adoption or what the research says about how current adoption practices could be improved. Instead, the focus is on understanding the impact of past adoption practices, and the evidence from the research literature that can be used to assist with understanding and developing appropriate responses to the needs of women affected by past adoption practices.


Many writers (including autobiographical accounts and collections of case studies) either indirectly or directly identify that one of the crucial issues for mothers affected by past adoption practices is for their experiences to be publicly recognised. For example, in her recent edited volume of mothers' perspectives interspersed with documentary material, Cole (2008) quoted the following response from a psychiatrist, Dr Geoff Rickarby. In response to an interview question on his expectations of the NSW inquiry into adoption practices (which reported in 2000), Rickarby stated:

I would have liked to have seen a huge exposure of what was actually done ... you know ... for the adoptees to actually see what a helpless isolated position their mother was in, what drugs were given to them, what coercion, what brainwashing, what illegal things happened and how they were taken from their mothers. (cited in Cole, 2008, p. 173)

This points to a common theme across all of the research: the pervasiveness of the silence and shame, and the impact this has had in terms of isolation, lack of support and specific services. Marshall and McDonald (2001) argued that long-term pain for relinquishing mothers could have been relieved if they had had help in dealing with the relinquishment, accompanied by support and the opportunity to know something about the child (p. 73).

Based on her advocacy work with mothers who have been separated from their babies by adoption, Lindsay (1998) identified some of the needs that she recognised as being part of the healing process (which she sees as a societal responsibility):

•availability of ongoing counselling with highly skilled psychologists;

•provision of trauma counselling services pertaining to mothers and children traumatised by adoption separation;

•establishment of advertising campaigns encouraging mothers to speak out;

•provision of education programs for GPs and other health services providers; and

•avoidance of statements that are likely to re-traumatise (e.g., referring to 'unwanted babies', 'your decision', 'birth mother', 'think about how the adoptive parent feels').

At the conclusion of their groundbreaking Australian empirical study, Winkler and van Keppel (1984) recommended that two things were most needed for these women:

•counselling and support; and

•increased information.

The efficacy of these various services or actions have not been empirically tested in relation to the specific population group; however, they are consistent with the broader theoretical and empirical literature on other forms of trauma, such as the field of child abuse and neglect or adult sexual assault (see Astbury, 2006; Connor & Higgins, 2008). Consideration should also be given to the difference between generalist services, and specialised mental health and other support services for this particular group. As with other groups who have experienced pain and trauma, having society recognise what has occurred (i.e., naming it, and understanding how it occurred and its impact) is an important element in coping with and adjusting to the deep hurt they have experienced.

Winkler, Brown, van Keppel and Blanchard (1988) noted:

Many older adoption practices were cruel and insensitive, reflecting older, harsher social attitudes; the scars left by these practices have never really healed for many people. The probability, therefore, is substantial that adoption-related problems will occur over a person's full life course. (p. 3)

Given that past practices cannot be 'undone', one of the steps in the journey for both mothers and children given up for adoption is the choice around reunion. Given the variability in responses provided in the case study literature, and the absence of any systematic empirical evidence, this is an area where further research would be of particular value. Services attempting to support those affected - including professional counsellors, agencies and support groups - would all benefit from a greater understanding of typical pathways through the reunion process, estimates of the number of reunions that have occurred, the perspectives of those involved, and factors that are associated with positive and negative reunion experiences.

Apart from these issues relating to reunion, the research material—supported strongly by the case studies and autobiographical material (see Appendix, Tables A2 and A3)—points to other ongoing issues for mothers affected by past adoption practices. These issues include:

•personal identity (the concept of 'motherhood' and self-identity as a good mother);

•relationships with others, including husbands/partners, subsequent children, etc.;

•connectedness with others (problematic attachments); and

•ongoing anxiety, depression and trauma.

(note: I added the italics and highlights for emphasis...This study could certainly be applied to First Nations mothers who lost children in North America.  The lack of support for us is a further betrayal... Trace)

Understanding impact of past adoption practices: Australian research (2009)

Current needs of women affected by past adoption practices (part 3 of their report)

Marshall and McDonald (2001) noted that there is considerable (emotionally charged) debate around the effects of adoption with, at the extremes, some extravagant claims for and against adoption as a practice. The purpose of this review is not to debate the merits or otherwise of adoption or what the research says about how current adoption practices could be improved. Instead, the focus is on understanding the impact of past adoption practices, and the evidence from the research literature that can be used to assist with understanding and developing appropriate responses to the needs of women affected by past adoption practices.


Many writers (including autobiographical accounts and collections of case studies) either indirectly or directly identify that one of the crucial issues for mothers affected by past adoption practices is for their experiences to be publicly recognised. For example, in her recent edited volume of mothers' perspectives interspersed with documentary material, Cole (2008) quoted the following response from a psychiatrist, Dr Geoff Rickarby. In response to an interview question on his expectations of the NSW inquiry into adoption practices (which reported in 2000), Rickarby stated:

I would have liked to have seen a huge exposure of what was actually done ... you know ... for the adoptees to actually see what a helpless isolated position their mother was in, what drugs were given to them, what coercion, what brainwashing, what illegal things happened and how they were taken from their mothers. (cited in Cole, 2008, p. 173)

This points to a common theme across all of the research: the pervasiveness of the silence and shame, and the impact this has had in terms of isolation, lack of support and specific services. Marshall and McDonald (2001) argued that long-term pain for relinquishing mothers could have been relieved if they had had help in dealing with the relinquishment, accompanied by support and the opportunity to know something about the child (p. 73).

Based on her advocacy work with mothers who have been separated from their babies by adoption, Lindsay (1998) identified some of the needs that she recognised as being part of the healing process (which she sees as a societal responsibility):

•availability of ongoing counselling with highly skilled psychologists;

•provision of trauma counselling services pertaining to mothers and children traumatised by adoption separation;

•establishment of advertising campaigns encouraging mothers to speak out;

•provision of education programs for GPs and other health services providers; and

•avoidance of statements that are likely to re-traumatise (e.g., referring to 'unwanted babies', 'your decision', 'birth mother', 'think about how the adoptive parent feels').

At the conclusion of their groundbreaking Australian empirical study, Winkler and van Keppel (1984) recommended that two things were most needed for these women:

•counselling and support; and

•increased information.

The efficacy of these various services or actions have not been empirically tested in relation to the specific population group; however, they are consistent with the broader theoretical and empirical literature on other forms of trauma, such as the field of child abuse and neglect or adult sexual assault (see Astbury, 2006; Connor & Higgins, 2008). Consideration should also be given to the difference between generalist services, and specialised mental health and other support services for this particular group. As with other groups who have experienced pain and trauma, having society recognise what has occurred (i.e., naming it, and understanding how it occurred and its impact) is an important element in coping with and adjusting to the deep hurt they have experienced.

Winkler, Brown, van Keppel and Blanchard (1988) noted:

Many older adoption practices were cruel and insensitive, reflecting older, harsher social attitudes; the scars left by these practices have never really healed for many people. The probability, therefore, is substantial that adoption-related problems will occur over a person's full life course. (p. 3)

Given that past practices cannot be 'undone', one of the steps in the journey for both mothers and children given up for adoption is the choice around reunion. Given the variability in responses provided in the case study literature, and the absence of any systematic empirical evidence, this is an area where further research would be of particular value. Services attempting to support those affected - including professional counsellors, agencies and support groups - would all benefit from a greater understanding of typical pathways through the reunion process, estimates of the number of reunions that have occurred, the perspectives of those involved, and factors that are associated with positive and negative reunion experiences.

Apart from these issues relating to reunion, the research material—supported strongly by the case studies and autobiographical material (see Appendix, Tables A2 and A3)—points to other ongoing issues for mothers affected by past adoption practices. These issues include:

•personal identity (the concept of 'motherhood' and self-identity as a good mother);

•relationships with others, including husbands/partners, subsequent children, etc.;

•connectedness with others (problematic attachments); and

•ongoing anxiety, depression and trauma.

(note: I added the italics and highlights for emphasis...This study could certainly be applied to First Nations mothers who lost children in North America.  The lack of support for us is a further betrayal... Trace)

Once Was Von: Adoption Prosthesis

Once Was Von: Adoption Prosthesis: "Today's post was to be on adoption, of course, but on a rather different area, mainly about your Blogger's committment to change and re..."

[PLEASE Read this post today. I stand with Von on her goals list and her feelings about adoption... Trace]

Hopi Elders: offer prayers for Japan

View on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buMD1Qi_fNw



“Hopi” means Peaceful People. The greatest power is the strength of peace. Peace is the will of the Great Spirit, God....Trace

Hopi Elders: offer prayers for Japan

View on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buMD1Qi_fNw

“Hopi” means Peaceful People. The greatest power is the strength of peace. Peace is the will of the Great Spirit, God....Trace

Hopi Elders: offer prayers for Japan

View on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buMD1Qi_fNw

“Hopi” means Peaceful People. The greatest power is the strength of peace. Peace is the will of the Great Spirit, God....Trace

Hopi Elders: offer prayers for Japan

View on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buMD1Qi_fNw

“Hopi” means Peaceful People. The greatest power is the strength of peace. Peace is the will of the Great Spirit, God....Trace

Hopi Elders: offer prayers for Japan

View on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buMD1Qi_fNw

“Hopi” means Peaceful People. The greatest power is the strength of peace. Peace is the will of the Great Spirit, God....Trace

Hopi Elders: offer prayers for Japan

View on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buMD1Qi_fNw

“Hopi” means Peaceful People. The greatest power is the strength of peace. Peace is the will of the Great Spirit, God....Trace

My prayers for Japan

Prayers for you, Japan, in this great time of crisis. I have smudged cedar and offered tobacco for you. The world watches during this time of your great suffering. I know your great strength will only grow. We are all related. All Our Relations. Mitakuye oyasin.

Trace

My prayers for Japan

Prayers for you, Japan, in this great time of crisis. I have smudged cedar and offered tobacco for you. The world watches during this time of your great suffering. I know your great strength will only grow. We are all related. All Our Relations. Mitakuye oyasin.

Trace

My prayers for Japan

Prayers for you, Japan, in this great time of crisis. I have smudged cedar and offered tobacco for you. The world watches during this time of your great suffering. I know your great strength will only grow. We are all related. All Our Relations. Mitakuye oyasin.

Trace

My prayers for Japan

Prayers for you, Japan, in this great time of crisis. I have smudged cedar and offered tobacco for you. The world watches during this time of your great suffering. I know your great strength will only grow. We are all related. All Our Relations. Mitakuye oyasin.

Trace

My prayers for Japan

Prayers for you, Japan, in this great time of crisis. I have smudged cedar and offered tobacco for you. The world watches during this time of your great suffering. I know your great strength will only grow. We are all related. All Our Relations. Mitakuye oyasin.

Trace

Northern Exposure (the best tv series ever)

Miscellany Adoptee: Northern Exposure: "By the way, one of my very favorite (well, my favorite, really) shows in the history of EVER is Northern Exposure. You can buy the seasons ..."

[please friend me on Facebook since I post a ton of great things on it! Trace]

Federal Policy & Forced Sterilizations (1972-1976)

U.S. federal policy toward the Indian tribes was made without knowledge or consideration of the values of the Native people themselves. In addition, educational curricula (school books and lesson plans) and teaching came from a Eurocentric-White perspective and completely neglected any mention of tribal ways of life.

American Indians, especially those who live on reservations, are among the poorest groups in the country. In 1999, 26 percent of the American Indian/Alaska Native population lived below the official poverty level, compared with 12 percent of the total population. Factors such as geographic isolation, limited opportunities for upward mobility in rural areas and on reservations, and low labor force participation rates contribute to a continuous poverty cycle among American Indians. This poverty is often accompanied by a range of social problems —injuries and violence, depression, substance abuse, inadequate health care and prenatal health care, unhealthy or insufficient diets, and high rates of diabetes — that can greatly affect the ability and desire to pursue education. 
[Path of Many Journeys, www.aihec.org/resources/documents/ThePathOfManyJourneys.pdf]

Here is an excerpt from a report
A History of Governmentally Coerced Sterilization: The Plight of the Native American Woman, published on May 1, 1997 by Michael Sullivan DeFine, University of Maine School of Law:


The United States General Accounting Office Investigation of the Indian Health Service (IHS) Procedures and the Meaning behind Statistics of Population Growth:

Complaints of these unethical sterilization practices continued, but little was done until the matter was brought to the attention of Senator James Abourezk (D-SD). Finally, affirmative steps were taken - specifically the commissioning of the General Accounting Office - to investigate the affair and to determine if the complaints of Indian women were true - that they were undergoing sterilization as a means of birth control, without consent. The problem with the investigation was that it was initially limited to only four area Indian Health Service hospitals (later twelve); therefore, the total number of Indian women sterilized remains unknown.

The General Accounting Office came up with a figure of 3,400 women who had been sterilized; but others speculate that at least that many had been sterilized each year from 1972 through 1976.

The General Accounting Office confined its investigation to Indian Health Service records and failed to probe case histories, to observe patient-doctor relationships, or to interview women who had been sterilized. This deplorable lack of thorough investigation only served as an attempt to placate the concerns of Indian people.

The General Accounting Office investigators concluded that Indian Health Service consent procedures lacked the basic elements of informed consent, particularly in informing a patient orally of the advantages and disadvantages of sterilization. Furthermore, the consent form had only a summary of the oral presentation, and the form lacked the information usually located at the top of the page notifying the patient that no federal benefits would be taken away if she did not accept sterilization. The General Accounting Office notified the Indian Health Service that it should implement better consent procedures. Some Indian Health Service Area Directors were pressured by local Indians and by Indian physicians and staff to suspend certain nurses and to move the hospital administrators to another post. Other than that, however, there was little else done by government officials.

Outraged by the level of governmental inaction, Indian people accused the Indian Health Service of making genocide a part of its policy. For the Indian Health Service, this was a serious accusation, as the purpose of this agency was to somehow alleviate the terrible health conditions in Indian communities. The Indian Health Service defended itself by relying on the inaccurate sterilization figures provided by the General Accounting Office. In reality, however, the accusation of genocide was not far off base.

As Thomas Littlewood stated in his book on the politics of population control, “non-white Americans are not unaware of how the American Indian came to be called the vanishing American . . . [t]his country’s starkest example of genocide in practice.”

From a statistical point of view, the reality of the devastation of Native American women victimized by sterilization can be observed through the comments of Senator Abourezk himself: “given the small American Indian population, the 3,400 Indian sterilization figure [out of 55,000 Indian women of childbearing age] would be compared to sterilizing 452,000 non-Indian women.”

Conclusion: Science has provided a means of categorizing and victimizing those in society deemed unworthy of continued existence. Its influence in academic and political circles has created a pervasive social bigotry that rewards extermination over reform. The failure to embrace the racial and cultural diversity of this country has left a wake of destruction and oppression in minority populations. It is time for the pundits of social change to rearrange their thinking and give back to the people the power to choose what is right for themselves.

[from my archives and research...Trace]

Federal Policy & Forced Sterilizations (1972-1976)

U.S. federal policy toward the Indian tribes was made without knowledge or consideration of the values of the Native people themselves. In addition, educational curricula (school books and lesson plans) and teaching came from a Eurocentric-White perspective and completely neglected any mention of tribal ways of life.



American Indians, especially those who live on reservations, are among the poorest groups in the country. In 1999, 26 percent of the American Indian/Alaska Native population lived below the official poverty level, compared with 12 percent of the total population. Factors such as geographic isolation, limited opportunities for upward mobility in rural areas and on reservations, and low labor force participation rates contribute to a continuous poverty cycle among American Indians. This poverty is often accompanied by a range of social problems —injuries and violence, depression, substance abuse, inadequate health care and prenatal health care, unhealthy or insufficient diets, and high rates of diabetes — that can greatly affect the ability and desire to pursue education. 

[Path of Many Journeys, www.aihec.org/resources/documents/ThePathOfManyJourneys.pdf]



Here is an excerpt from a report

A History of Governmentally Coerced Sterilization: The Plight of the Native American Woman, published on May 1, 1997 by Michael Sullivan DeFine, University of Maine School of Law:





The United States General Accounting Office Investigation of the Indian Health Service (IHS) Procedures and the Meaning behind Statistics of Population Growth:



Complaints of these unethical sterilization practices continued, but little was done until the matter was brought to the attention of Senator James Abourezk (D-SD). Finally, affirmative steps were taken - specifically the commissioning of the General Accounting Office - to investigate the affair and to determine if the complaints of Indian women were true - that they were undergoing sterilization as a means of birth control, without consent. The problem with the investigation was that it was initially limited to only four area Indian Health Service hospitals (later twelve); therefore, the total number of Indian women sterilized remains unknown.



The General Accounting Office came up with a figure of 3,400 women who had been sterilized; but others speculate that at least that many had been sterilized each year from 1972 through 1976.



The General Accounting Office confined its investigation to Indian Health Service records and failed to probe case histories, to observe patient-doctor relationships, or to interview women who had been sterilized. This deplorable lack of thorough investigation only served as an attempt to placate the concerns of Indian people.



The General Accounting Office investigators concluded that Indian Health Service consent procedures lacked the basic elements of informed consent, particularly in informing a patient orally of the advantages and disadvantages of sterilization. Furthermore, the consent form had only a summary of the oral presentation, and the form lacked the information usually located at the top of the page notifying the patient that no federal benefits would be taken away if she did not accept sterilization. The General Accounting Office notified the Indian Health Service that it should implement better consent procedures. Some Indian Health Service Area Directors were pressured by local Indians and by Indian physicians and staff to suspend certain nurses and to move the hospital administrators to another post. Other than that, however, there was little else done by government officials.



Outraged by the level of governmental inaction, Indian people accused the Indian Health Service of making genocide a part of its policy. For the Indian Health Service, this was a serious accusation, as the purpose of this agency was to somehow alleviate the terrible health conditions in Indian communities. The Indian Health Service defended itself by relying on the inaccurate sterilization figures provided by the General Accounting Office. In reality, however, the accusation of genocide was not far off base.



As Thomas Littlewood stated in his book on the politics of population control, “non-white Americans are not unaware of how the American Indian came to be called the vanishing American . . . [t]his country’s starkest example of genocide in practice.”



From a statistical point of view, the reality of the devastation of Native American women victimized by sterilization can be observed through the comments of Senator Abourezk himself: “given the small American Indian population, the 3,400 Indian sterilization figure [out of 55,000 Indian women of childbearing age] would be compared to sterilizing 452,000 non-Indian women.”



Conclusion: Science has provided a means of categorizing and victimizing those in society deemed unworthy of continued existence. Its influence in academic and political circles has created a pervasive social bigotry that rewards extermination over reform. The failure to embrace the racial and cultural diversity of this country has left a wake of destruction and oppression in minority populations. It is time for the pundits of social change to rearrange their thinking and give back to the people the power to choose what is right for themselves.



[from my archives and research...Trace]

Federal Policy & Forced Sterilizations (1972-1976)

U.S. federal policy toward the Indian tribes was made without knowledge or consideration of the values of the Native people themselves. In addition, educational curricula (school books and lesson plans) and teaching came from a Eurocentric-White perspective and completely neglected any mention of tribal ways of life.

American Indians, especially those who live on reservations, are among the poorest groups in the country. In 1999, 26 percent of the American Indian/Alaska Native population lived below the official poverty level, compared with 12 percent of the total population. Factors such as geographic isolation, limited opportunities for upward mobility in rural areas and on reservations, and low labor force participation rates contribute to a continuous poverty cycle among American Indians. This poverty is often accompanied by a range of social problems —injuries and violence, depression, substance abuse, inadequate health care and prenatal health care, unhealthy or insufficient diets, and high rates of diabetes — that can greatly affect the ability and desire to pursue education. 
[Path of Many Journeys, www.aihec.org/resources/documents/ThePathOfManyJourneys.pdf]

Here is an excerpt from a report
A History of Governmentally Coerced Sterilization: The Plight of the Native American Woman, published on May 1, 1997 by Michael Sullivan DeFine, University of Maine School of Law:


The United States General Accounting Office Investigation of the Indian Health Service (IHS) Procedures and the Meaning behind Statistics of Population Growth:

Complaints of these unethical sterilization practices continued, but little was done until the matter was brought to the attention of Senator James Abourezk (D-SD). Finally, affirmative steps were taken - specifically the commissioning of the General Accounting Office - to investigate the affair and to determine if the complaints of Indian women were true - that they were undergoing sterilization as a means of birth control, without consent. The problem with the investigation was that it was initially limited to only four area Indian Health Service hospitals (later twelve); therefore, the total number of Indian women sterilized remains unknown.

The General Accounting Office came up with a figure of 3,400 women who had been sterilized; but others speculate that at least that many had been sterilized each year from 1972 through 1976.

The General Accounting Office confined its investigation to Indian Health Service records and failed to probe case histories, to observe patient-doctor relationships, or to interview women who had been sterilized. This deplorable lack of thorough investigation only served as an attempt to placate the concerns of Indian people.

The General Accounting Office investigators concluded that Indian Health Service consent procedures lacked the basic elements of informed consent, particularly in informing a patient orally of the advantages and disadvantages of sterilization. Furthermore, the consent form had only a summary of the oral presentation, and the form lacked the information usually located at the top of the page notifying the patient that no federal benefits would be taken away if she did not accept sterilization. The General Accounting Office notified the Indian Health Service that it should implement better consent procedures. Some Indian Health Service Area Directors were pressured by local Indians and by Indian physicians and staff to suspend certain nurses and to move the hospital administrators to another post. Other than that, however, there was little else done by government officials.

Outraged by the level of governmental inaction, Indian people accused the Indian Health Service of making genocide a part of its policy. For the Indian Health Service, this was a serious accusation, as the purpose of this agency was to somehow alleviate the terrible health conditions in Indian communities. The Indian Health Service defended itself by relying on the inaccurate sterilization figures provided by the General Accounting Office. In reality, however, the accusation of genocide was not far off base.

As Thomas Littlewood stated in his book on the politics of population control, “non-white Americans are not unaware of how the American Indian came to be called the vanishing American . . . [t]his country’s starkest example of genocide in practice.”

From a statistical point of view, the reality of the devastation of Native American women victimized by sterilization can be observed through the comments of Senator Abourezk himself: “given the small American Indian population, the 3,400 Indian sterilization figure [out of 55,000 Indian women of childbearing age] would be compared to sterilizing 452,000 non-Indian women.”

Conclusion: Science has provided a means of categorizing and victimizing those in society deemed unworthy of continued existence. Its influence in academic and political circles has created a pervasive social bigotry that rewards extermination over reform. The failure to embrace the racial and cultural diversity of this country has left a wake of destruction and oppression in minority populations. It is time for the pundits of social change to rearrange their thinking and give back to the people the power to choose what is right for themselves.

[from my archives and research...Trace]