The Land of Adoption & Politics

I am not feeling well today and have to deal with the CI and adoption courts, and that always makes me sick to my stomach and gives me a headache, but I felt the need to blog about this. So, below is what it is. There is so much more I could expand upon but just not right now please excuse typos and grammar I am exhausted.

I was a little surprised, and at this point anything about adoption does not really surprise me much, at the reaction of some towards President Obama's proclamation on National Adoption Awareness month. He was accused of leaving out the real issues in adoption and ignoring adoptee rights. This is true, as usual, that adoptees and first family were ignored and it's all about adoptive parents and the families they are creating. But, President Obama's National Adoption Awareness proclamation was nothing much different than George W. Bush's proclamation in 2008. Same spiel, rhetoric, and homage paid to the adoptive parents and the adoption industry as a whole. I guess I am a little more used to this than many others, as I reside in the land where adoption and politics are bedfellows, more than usual.

I am lucky enough to live in the great state of Texas, the land of The Gladney Center for Adoption, where adoption and politics have had a long and incestuous relationship. George W. Bush and his wife Laura at one point in time were going to adopt from The Gladney Center for Adoption until they got pregnant with twins. George Jr.'s brother Marvin and his wife adopted two children from Gladney. Gladney and the Bush family have a connection of supporting the raising of funds for Gladney, contributions, and supporting the perpetuation of the closed records system of adoption.

In 1997, and 1999, when adoptee rights groups were advocating legislation for adult adoptee access to original birth certificates in Texas, George W. Bush, as Governor of Texas, took the unusual step of attending a House committee meeting to alert lawmakers that he would veto the bill if it passed.  In 2007 a representative from the adoption agency using the Gladney name was the only speaker at both the House and Senate hearings on the identical companion bills, HB 525 and SB 221, to speak out against this legislation (Thank you Bill Betzen I took this from your Gladney site) for adoptees right to access to their OBC's. Gladney is the only real opponent we have in Texas working against adoption reform. The Bushes continue to this day to donate money and time to Gladney.

Once again, it's not about what's right in adoption it's about profits and what money can buy in the way of children, and votes.