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“You only wish you had been raised by your other mother because there is nothing of substance to detract from the idea that living in your birth country would have somehow been better.”

I get that a lot in PMs, in the occasional e-mail, in forum messages. I even got that on occasion at The Original Heping.

When people ask me why I wished I had been raised in my birth country, their enquiries are usually something along the lines of:

• no curfew
• not having to do chores
• not being nagged to do homework
• no punishments, ever
• eating all one’s favourite food
• being able to buy anything one wants (since the fantasy mother never says “No”)

The above list of hypothetical reasoning and rationalization for the “only” reasons they could ever imagine that I would have desired to live in my birth country for? Silly. Just plain silly.

My mother is not a fantasy.

She’s just a regular person with her own flaws and mistakes, like you. She’s just who she is: a woman who desired to be a mother and wanted to raise a daughter. She is likely no different from you except for the fact that she gave up a daughter. Yet, giving outsiders that knowledge will undoubtedly put the spotlight on my mother as a person and then all sorts of assumptions will be made, including how “lucky” I am that I was saved from her.

As if my mother would have been some sort of unnamed horrible beast, capable of abusing and/or neglecting me with only the worst intentions.

~

I don’t put my mother on a golden pledge of Perfection. I don’t elevate her status to be “better” than how my adoptive mom would have raised me. I do not pretend as if my mother is better, whether or not she made a “sacrifice” to relinquish me, or how she would have parented me, or that she never made any parenting mistakes with my sister.

It is not about that at all.

My mother is just a person.

She’s just a person, an ordinary human being with her own flaws, regrets, faults, who strives to do the right thing.

She is just a person who wanted to raise a child.

It is that simple.

Presumably just like you.

The only major flaw she seems to have is being misinterpreted by what I have said and outsiders who only know her on the basis that I was adopted – therefore, something must have been wrong with her. Something must have been terribly wrong. She must have done something wrong, so terrible that her daughter was sent overseas for adoption.

She is a terrible person for having given me up.

She gave up her child; something was wrong with her.

She can’t be “like other mothers.” She can’t be “human”, because she gave up a child.

She is not “like us” – she gave up a child.

Or that is what people like to say, anyway.

When I attempt to point out the absurd stereotypes that undoubtedly go through their minds, I am usually greeted with this irritating little gem:

“She didn’t raise you! So how do you know? Maybe her life was better off without you, otherwise she wouldn’t have given you up!” the occasionally well-intentioned idiot says.

Maybe her life was better off without you, otherwise she wouldn’t have given you up.

So if it’s not her, if it can’t be her… then the only other logical conclusion is that it’s me?

I am the one at fault simply because of my birth?

Words can hurt, you know.

Be careful on how you say them.

~

There is one other thing I’d like to bring to your attention: this very nice post by YoonSeon.

I have been talking specifically about my mother – or rather, the way others perceive me to idolize her – for a reason. It’s not just because I like rambling about her, or that I seemingly want to point out by any way, shape or form that I believe my mom’s parenting is “less than” by any means. If you think it’s all about that, then I kindly suggest you read a bit more closely.

This is not about fantasizing my mother. This is not about my adoptive mom. This is not about who “had” the better parenting methods, nor who would have raised me in a more appropriate manner.

Because my mother, she is just a regular human being who wanted to raise a child.

The above paragraph where I deny that my mother is a fantasy tends to lead to this question, as highlighted by YoonSeon:

‘if you’re so unhappy with having been adopted, what do you want? What is it that would make you happy?’

I want something that I will never have, not completely without my own conscience, without adoption issues, without the freedom to express myself.*

So, in other aspects, what is it that would make me happy?

What is it about my adoption that bothers me so much?

What is it that I strive for?

To not be exiled.

* See this post for details

I find it interesting to look back upon my thoughts as a child, then as a teenager, and then as a young adult… how they changed so drastically. For an interesting perspective, here’s a glimpse of what my mom likely thought while I was growing up: (I refer to myself as L)

“L is such a happy, joyful child. She is always wanting to do something and spend time outside with friends. On occasion she asks about her other parents, but doesn’t seem to have much interest in them. She did ask why her mother could not keep her – and I told her the truth: that her mother could not afford the hospital costs and so she loved L so much she gave her up to a loving family. L continued to ask about why she should love this other person and consider her a mother when she is a stranger to L. Well, shouldn’t L be respectful of the woman who made such a loving sacrifice? L continued to ask a few times, but eventually the topic just faded out.

I registered for Chinese classes recently and one of the first things the teacher requested was for each of us to write down why we wanted to learn Chinese. I wrote down the most important thing: that if my daughter ever wanted to return to Taiwan, I wanted her to be able to communicate.

L doesn’t seem to like classes very much and she has a hard time with her homework. She doesn’t spend much time with the other kids either, I think it’s because many of them just speak Cantonese with their parents so L feels excluded. She has a hard time in class – one evening during ‘recess’ time she came out and wailed that the teacher made her stay back to repeat the pronunciation drills and couldn’t understand why L was unable to pronounce the sounds properly.

She became so frustrated with L, particularly because L’s progress is noticeably slower than most of the other students. L also cannot do her homework because the instructions are in Chinese. I have to call a fellow Chinese mother in order to figure out what the assignment is and then how to complete it. L can barely write any Chinese and even once we have struggled through the assignment, that’s all – she has no interest in learning it.

But if I don’t do this now, how will she learn? How else will she become proficient enough if she ever decides to go back?

L doesn’t really ask questions about her heritage, nor about her mother. She keeps calling her “that other woman.” She knows she was born from her other mother but doesn’t seem to understand the importance of learning Chinese. It’s just a foreign language to her and she keeps fighting against the idea of going. She’s just not interested in any of this stuff.”

This rejection of associating myself with anything Chinese continued well into my late teenage years.

And then…

I saw something which triggered the idea of a search. Something which ultimately resulted in a 180 degree perspective change.

I saw something which completely amazed and intrigued me, and began to set me on the path of questioning everything.

I found out my adoptive parents had kept pictures of me as an infant – with my original family.

Looking back on it now, there are many things I have learned:

I learned that classes would have never helped me to achieve moderate fluency. I learned that cultural class events would have never taught me “real” culture. I learned that my mother did not sacrifice her love – she had no one to turn to. I learned that being adopted can irrevocably alter one’s entire identity and mindset about the real situation that occurred. I learned that I resented my mother so much [as a child] because it was painful to think that she might still have surrendered me even though she loved me, which would have obviously indicated that I wasn’t “worthy enough” to be her daughter.

I learned that fabricated “abandonment” based upon a legal procedure is not abandonment at all.

In my recent dreams, I call my adoptive mother ma. I call my adoptive father baba.

In my dreams I can talk to my elder brother again. Sometimes, in these dreams, I do not understand him; other times I am fluent and can converse. In the occasional [rare] dream, he is moderately fluent in English. The ones in English are usually over in a matter of seconds.

In my dreams, when people ask me who I am, I tell them I am Mei-Ling.

In my dreams… my heritage is finally real, through my name, through my native tongue, through the use of Mandarin honorifics. I almost always speak Mandarin in my dreams, even to people who do not speak it.

In my dreams I become myself again.

~

The reality is vastly different.

I call my adoptive parents mom and dad just like any other kid I know.

I do not have a real relationship with my elder brother. He can hardly muster a 3-word sentence in English (such as “don’t have money”).

When people ask who I am, I tell them my English name, although my Mandarin one is on the tip of my tongue. It is silenced. I do not speak Mandarin except to myself.

In reality I am my adopted self and others choose to speak on behalf of me.

~

In my dreams I can speak Mandarin all I want, and it will not alienate me

In my dreams I can see mama and baba again, and I can try to converse with gege

In my dreams, my sister returns “home” and watches me from a distance, unsmiling and doing her daily activities

We do not exchange a word

In my dreams the air is hot and humid, and I am wearing a T-shirt with shorts, no socks, and I have just finished going up the staircase to their room

In my dreams I can step back into Heping and be greeted by my mother’s smile, even if I don’t understand her native Taiwanese. In my dreams, my father turns to me and says in Chinese “Come back to Taiwan, see mama and baba.”

It is a simple rehash of the statement he said many times in August

I know they are no more than figments of my subconscious imagination in the sleeping world.

I know that they will never “say” anything more than what I witnessed during my visit. I know that my mind formulates “hearing” sounds of a language I cannot understand, I know their ghostly presence in my subconsciousness will only show me what I saw, and nothing more than what I learned.

But still…

In my dreams, I am free.

~

Bittersweet.

I still grieve.

“I am in a dark room in a dark corner, but I am radiant. There is nothing in my sight but me, a dim lamp, and a miraculous telephone connecting me to the other side of the world, to my mother, who could say nothing but my name, over and over again in her breaking voice: Kyong-Ah. Kyong-Ah.” – Jane Jeong Trenka, page 71, Language of Blood

The sunlight streams into the windows, indicating it is early morning. Clear plastic bags rest on the small oval table with wooden chopsticks placed into each bag. Some of them contain empty cardboard boxes, while other boxes lay strewn over the surface, their contents having been finished some time ago. There is a small folded pink blanket on a side couch where my mother normally sits; it has been ruffled, indicating she was sitting there at some point this morning before heading out. My father’s glasses case lies untouched in the shelf; he apparently did not bother to stay long in the apartment this morning.

The television is not on. There is no sound of a clock ticking or radio blasting. My sister’s door is closed, perhaps she has gone out with her boyfriend for the day. My parents’ bedroom sliding doors have been left halfway open in a casual manner and the bed has been made in uniform fashion. My brother is in his room behind a closed door, likely playing his favourite computer game and talking to his girlfriend on his cellphone.

Aside from the sounds of neighbouring citizens starting up their motorcycles just down from the living room window, engaging in casual talk before seeking out their plans for the day, the house is still and silent.

Then the phone goes off.

~

I sit at my computer desk, my palms sweating, clutching the phone tightly, my fingers somewhat still brushing over the final button I have just pressed in order to make the long-distance call across the Pacific Ocean. I have tried to contact them by using the cellphone they gave me overseas, but that has no connection or signal back in Canada. So I am forced to use a local system while remembering that it will cost long-distance charges to connect.

I don’t care.

The number – first to dial the exit code for Canada, then the entry code for overseas – is sixteen digits long. It is the longest number I have ever dialed, the most nerve-wracking line of digits that my trembling fingers have ever had to press. I hope it is correct, I hope I have dialed accurately.

Pause.

Silence.

There is no automated voice telling me that the connection has failed. My heart beats faster. Isitworking??

More silence, then a faint click and finally -

Ring.

~

The red phone in the corner of the living room at Xingnan goes off. It rings, short, consecutive sounds that cut off abruptly as soon as the next ring emits. If my mother and father are there in the room, they will not answer; I already know this. They will shift, glance over at it, say something about it, and then turn back to their discussion.

Any close friends or family members will directly call their cells. I know this, too, from having spent the summer with them.

The phone continues to ring.

I am calling from Canada, from across the Pacific Ocean, halfway around the world. I am calling from an exact opposite point on the globe. I am calling home from home. I am about as far as I could possibly be from them without leaving the planet, but this phone has made the connection, this phone call is allowing my signal through. This signal, which expands from the middle of Canada to the opposite point on the globe, to a region where my roots originally came from, connects to a place where my original family lives.

I can phone their house.

It has reached them.

I can connect to that world I left behind.

~

The phone continues to ring. I know they will not pick up. It doesn’t matter; I have their cell numbers. I listen to the ring over and over again, picturing the living room, visualizing them watching television while eating breakfast before heading out.

I listen.

To the only remaining connection I have.

I can connect to that world I left behind.

~

I hang up, exhale to regain my sense of calm, then take out the sheet of paper that has my mother’s number. I shuffle some papers on my desk and find a notepad on which I have written a message I wish to say to my mother – if the connection works properly, and if the call time allows me.

I sit there for a long moment in silence, pondering, contemplating. I look at the clock – almost ten o’clock on Sunday their time – and pick up the phone. Slowly, I dial out the number with shaking fingers, and press the receiver to my ear.

Pause.

Silence.

Faint click.

It rings.

There are too many thoughts all jumbled up in my head right now that they aren’t really coherent.

I said I was going to call my mother in the middle of October. It’s almost the end of the month and I’ve thought about it – amongst other things – but ultimately decided not to. In fact, I didn’t really want to. Here’s what would happen:

1.) Dial the number. She’d pick up and ask who it is. I’ll tell her it’s Mei-Ling.

2.) She’d exclaim my name and then start rambling fast, probably because of the long-distance connection and the call cost. There’d be a lot of static and delays.

3.) I’d struggle to understand her, then I’d ask her something and likely not understand her response. By this time, I bet 2 minutes will have already passed. I’d deem the call pointless and hang up.

4.) That feeling of utter helplessness and grief would kill me and I’d sit there, wishing I could actually speak.

So, I haven’t called her.

and I’m not going to.

~

Xiao-Ping and I have not really talked since the end of August when I messaged her to tell her I was back in Canada. I’d see her online, wonder why her status was Idle for anywhere between half an hour to six hours (what, did she leave her computer on during the night?!).

What’s there to talk about? What could we talk about, anyway?

Oh yeah, my vocabulary is at 250 words…

Well, there’s my limited capacity for conversation right there.

Maybe silence is better. I like pretending.

She’s not really my sister. (Just like she doesn’t think I’m “really” part of the family, that her mother is “really” my mother.)

Is she?

She can cut me off by the language barrier all she wants. She’s the “real” one after all.

Not that it matters.

I’ve stopped going on Yahoo Messenger.

~

At this point, I don’t know.

I’ve had dreams about going back. I’ve dreamt about the airport at least three times a week ever since my arrival back in late August. I only dreamt once upon about stepping foot inside Heping and having my adoptive mother with me. It was strange.

I like the idea of pretending.

Very much so.

Pretending gives me peace, pretending means I don’t have to think so hard and over-analyze.

Oh, and pretending means I can stop caring for two seconds.

~

It was foolish to think she would actually have the decency to remain patient with me.

It was foolish to think we could actually have a relationship.

In the paradoxical sense, we are only related through adoption.

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It is a strange thing, to hold onto someone who shares your features, who shares your blood, who exhibits many of your physical traits, but emotionally and linguistically is about as far from you in mannerisms as it’s possible to get.

The first day my sister took me out for a motorcycle ride to the bank and to buy a towel for me to use.

These motorcycles don’t usually have any handles, and traffic was hectic. I basically got on and freaked out when she began to take off through the alleyways and I had nothing to hold onto. So the only thing I could think of was to wrap my arms around her waist.

Preferably without strangling her mid-waist in my fear.

I remember her navigating in and out of traffic. I was freaking terrified, yet far too nervous to hold onto her as tightly as I wanted to. She was my sister – as our bloodlines indicated – but she was also a stranger. I don’t think she would have taken too kindly to the adopted stranger suffocating her in traffic by way of a “hugging” hold.

I remember thinking, so this is your way of life. This is how you travel on a daily basis. This is what you grew up being accustomed to.

It’s a strange feeling, to sit behind someone who is blood-related to you, and feel as though they are more of a stranger than anyone you have ever met before back in your adopted country.

Especially since you’re not really supposed to be a stranger.

~

It’s also a very eerie feeling to walk into the hallways of a school you’ve never attended, and know that in an alternate universe, you would have been a student there.

To know that you would have been the little girl in the photos, standing amongst your classmates with the peace sign, that you would have learned how to write and pronounce the language, that every day when the bell rang, Mama or Baba – or maybe both of them – would have been there to pick you up and give you a ride home on a motorcycle.

Or maybe they would have walked you home, along with your brother. Maybe you went to friends’ houses to play after school, or maybe you often had to return home right away to finish your homework and help out with household chores… who knows…

Maybe you would have taken cram classes in junior high, or maybe you began working as a junior high school student in volunteer efforts to prepare for your life as a senior student. Maybe you would have ended up taking night classes and working during the day, or maybe you would have taken classes during the day, then moved onto university while working part-time… the possibilities are endless…

~

In the evening, Xiao-Ping decides to take me out to her friend’s night class at a university.

“Wo pengyou ting de dong Yingwen,” she says. “Keyi fanyi gei ni.” My [classmate's] friend knows English, they will be able to translate.

“Ta zenme zhidao Yingwen?” I ask.

“Ta cong Jianada hui lai,” she tells me. “Wo tongxue ke.” It’s my classmate’s lesson.

We head out on her motorcycle – turns out the university is over 5 minutes away and down an inter-country highway. Also, her boyfriend is coming with us, since he seems to be attending this class as well. There are bumpy roads here – she powers up the engine and lets us go speeding down a small hill. “Whoo!” she calls back over her shoulder. “Hao wan ma?”

“En!”

She parks and motions for me to get off. I hand the borrowed helmet back to her and packs it in the trunk of the seat. We head up the huge staircase together and her boyfriend goes off to check things ahead of time, I’m not sure what. She turns to me and grins.

“Do you like?” she asks. I blink. She laughs and repeats her sentence again. “Do you like? You like? Chinese?”

“Wo xihuan Zhongwen,” I holler back at her. “Wo xihuan!”

She keeps asking that as we head up more stairs to get to the base of one of the university buildings. I grow tired of that same fragmented question, so she changes tact by switching to some random swear words in English.

“Huai nu!” I tell her, lightly hitting her across the shoulder. “Bu yao shuo na ge ah! Huai ci! Huai nu!” Don’t say that. Bad words.

“Ow!” she exclaims, giggling. “Bie da wo!” Then she continues to swear in English. I just shake my head as her boyfriend comes up and engages her in an exchange about the class.

~

We enter the classroom. That strange, uncomfortable feeling hits me again, like seeing a glimpse of something incomprehensible but tangible from another world.

There are a few groups of older kids sitting together, with their notebooks and pens ready. Xiao-Ping heads for one of the middle seats and her boyfriend pulls up a desk and sits beside her. There is someone up at the front, holding a few papers and conversing in half-Chinese, half-English with the instructor. I grab a desk and partially tug it over.

For a brief moment, I wonder if this is the university I would have gone to, or if this might have been where my sister took her cramming classes. I feel so out of place; I can’t understand anything and I don’t know anyone here, but in another scenario, I would have belonged here.

A few students are doing their presentations in English. The teacher constantly switches between languages. I wonder if this is supposed to be an English project class? I glance over at Xiao-Ping; she is talking to her boyfriend and writing down several sentences. She finishes, then slides it to the classmate sitting in front of us. He turns around and looks at the notebook.

We end up having a somewhat bilingual exchange – he speaks to my sibling in Mandarin then relays her questions to me. Likewise, I answer in English and he translates to her. We end up not having enough time to go through approximately 5 or 6 questions because of the miscommunications between all of us, and then the added exchanges between my sister and her boyfriend.

After about an hour of this, the instructor dismisses the presentators, then finally seems to take notice of me. He gestures at me and says something in Mandarin. Oh crap, what do I say? I’m not supposed to be here, am I? I turn to Xiao-Ping, but for some reason, she looks like she wants to crawl under her desk. I suppose she just didn’t want to deal with the inquisitive looks and questions from strangers.

Her boyfriend immediately bursts out into an explanation of some sort, and the bilingual classmate also speaks up, clarifying something. The instructor listens to what they have to say, still gesturing to me and then Xiao-Ping. Finally he switches to English. “They are sisters?” His gaze shifts between the two of us. I can understand why he seems so astounded – he must know that Xiao-Ping is either an acquaintance of one of his students who comes to hang out, or maybe she was previously a student in this class. All of a sudden a “sister” is with her? His confusion is obvious, but for the time being, he does not press questions and resumes the next queue of presentators.

Class is finally dismissed, but just as the other students are packing up and preparing to leave, he motions to me again, this time speaking in English. “Could I have a word with you?”

I glance over at Xiao-Ping; she seems bewildered. Her boyfriend says something to her and she responds. The instructor also says something to her and she nods, leaning back against a wall to watch.

I proceed to have an exchange with this instructor, whose English is surprisingly efficient enough; he wants to know if we really are sisters and how that is possible when Xiao-Ping has never had the presence of a sister accompany her. He also wants to know why I only speak English. I give him the condensed explanation and glance over at Xiao-Ping. I’m sure she barely understands anything of what I am saying; she stands there, looking baffled by all the English. She must be bored, but there is nothing I can do about it because it becomes too tiring to translate back and forth all the time through a third-party.

After about 20 minutes of this, finally we head off.

I am reminded that once again, in an alternate universe, I wouldn’t have been a stranger to any of this. I would have belonged.

Then again, in an alternate universe, I wouldn’t have had a sister, either.

In deciding to blog, there comes a risk.

• being told you’re just “an” adoptee and many other adoptees aren’t like you
• being discovered online by family members
• being told your experience was unique and many adoptions don’t “work this way” anymore
• being told you should be grateful for your adoptive family, education and life
• being told to get over yourself because “it could always be worse”

I’ve been looking at the stats of my posts, and as usual, many people are choosing to remain silent. I admit I do wonder what they’re thinking as they go through my posts, but I’m sure that if I had struck such a personal nerve with anyone yet, I would have already known about it either by commenting or through e-mail.

Quite a few of you are my old readers from Original Heping and therefore were able to recognize that I am the adoptee who was mentioned in Cedar’s post. By writing that post, I risked receiving a huge amount of backlash – people who would like to pretend that these things don’t happen, people who would still believe my mother made a “choice” in sacrificing me so that I may live. I risked my personal story to bring out the huge issue in adoption: What makes an adoption ethical?

The money used to save lives? The adoptive culture always being perceived as “better” than what anything else in a 2nd or 3rd world economy could amount to? The intentions of the agency, the adoptive parents or the social workers?

Everyone thinks my story is simple when they read the condensed version of it. Everyone is brought into the overwhelming belief that my mother “made the best choice.” Everyone believes that adoption was the best for me in the end. Does my mother feel that way? I don’t know. Cultural pride and obligation would have heavily influenced the way she felt things could be – or would be, in any case – so that answer is likely to remain unclear for the rest of my life.

Not to mention, it puts the psychological existence of my sister’s birth at risk, which is yet another factor in why my adoption was seen as good. If I question about my adoption and its ethics to my mother, I question my sister’s right to live.

So, really, my adoption is about as far from simple as it gets.

~

No one got off scot-free in my story. No one was a real winner.

My original parents lost the chance to raise me. I lost my original family, language and culture. My adoptive parents won through adoption, but even then that wasn’t enough to calm their guilt. They lost the chance to adopt a baby without being aware that their white privilege is what allowed them to adopt from the hospital system based on another couple’s unfortunate financial situation.

Myst1998 nailed it:

“No one was lucky in this story, NO ONE except Mei-Ling’s adoptive family maybe but even then, knowing you received a child because her parents couldn’t pay medical bills and that is the reason why must be a burden to bear.”

My adoptive parents are not guilty of recognizing that my original parents could not afford to pay my bills.

My adoptive parents – emanating in subconscious ways – are guilty of acknowledging that they could have only adopted me if my original parents had consented to giving up my life on the basis of money. They viewed it as a sacrifice on behalf of my mother’s desperation, but there was no way they could have explained what led to my adopting and omitted the factor of money in my relinquishment.

~

If my adoptive parents hadn’t adopted me, I’m sure I would have either a) died, or b) been handed off to the next prospective couple. So in that sense, I am undoubtedly thankful I ended up with this particular set of parents. I am thankful I ended with a set of parents who at least attempted to encourage me to reunite, to communicate, to rebuild up broken ties.

I have to say, though, that the Fate answer irks me. A lot.

In fact, the words “a lot” cannot possibly describe how insulted I can get on behalf of my birth and my original parents when I hear someone justify my particular coincidental adoption as “Fate.”

People will often say my adoption was a matter of Fate since I ended up with such wonderful adoptive parents and had a good childhood. But then this leads back to why I had to be adopted in the first place: surely it was not Fate that I was premature? surely it was not Fate that the social worker “offered” my life in compensation for adoption? surely it was not Fate that my mother became so frantic she had no choice but to drive to the hospital right after my birth?

That’s not Fate.

That’s a tragic accident.

~

I risk a lot of backlash in telling this story. I risk receiving comments of disbelief, people who don’t believe anything is wrong with the ethics in this story, people who believe that having me be adopted on the basis that my adoptive parents were the only ones who could pay the bill is justified and moral, people who can’t consider that my mother’s decision wasn’t really a choice after all, people who have never had to imagine what “desperation” of a choice really is.

People who say: “I’d do anything for my child.”

And in doing so, imply my mother did not care enough to save me.

Seriously, how dare you? You would watch the scenario of a mother consenting to the adoption on the basis that she didn’t have enough money for medical procedures to save her baby’s life, and call that a choice?

Listen to yourself. Listen to what you are insinuating. You are assuming that this mother has alternatives. You are assuming she has resources, people to turn to, people who won’t demand all her life savings and to give up her mortgage in order to save her child. You are assuming that the law – in the case of a premature birth – allows the mother to do anything.

You are wrong.

This mother, who has no assistance, who knows of no resources, whose economy ultimately lets people die in the hospitals because they cannot afford to burden their families with medical expenses… you would call that a choice?

Yes, some people would call it a choice. It’s better than death, they might say. It’s better than abortion. It’s better than dying and having no chance to live.

Then that is truly the lowest of the low, and should not be a standard in which to “justify” if an adoption is ethical. If we have sunk so low as to consider that adoption is an actual choice compared to the “well you could have died” scenario rather than a necessary means of survival based on economic expenses in health care, then I really don’t know what to say except that you live in a privileged world where you have never had to face that type of desperation before.

~

Maybe one day I will write a memoir, and prove how a choice in ultimate desperation is anything but a choice at all.