LilMtnCbn
11-21-2004, 06:59 AM
http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2F
RTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031779202621&path=!flair&s=1045855936229
Forced to give up her baby, she now opposes adoption
BY BILL LOHMANN
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Nov 21, 2004
The day they took her baby is etched in Karen Wilson Buterbaugh's memory like a
scar on her soul.
In 1966, Buterbaugh was 17 years old, unmarried and frightened. She was living
in a maternity home - or, as she describes it, "a maternity prison" - having
been shuttled there by her family out of shock and shame. Her teenage
boyfriend, the father of the baby, was never in the picture.
On the 10th day after giving birth, she took her baby to a church down the
street to be baptized. A few hours later, she was taken into a room at the home
that was empty except for a rocking chair. Soon after, a nurse entered the room
and gave Buterbaugh her baby and an hour to say goodbye.
"I didn't know what was coming," recalled Buterbaugh, who spent her high school
years in Northern Virginia. "I sat and rocked her for an hour and talked to
her."
Then the baby, whom Buterbaugh named Michelle Renee, was gone, whisked away
first to foster care and then to an adoptive home. Buterbaugh was left alone,
shellshocked into silence.
While the pain lasted, the silence didn't.
Buterbaugh, now 56, is an outspoken member of national and international groups
that oppose adoption. She is co-founder of OriginsUSA and Mothers for Open
Records Everywhere, and a founding member of Mothers Exploited by Adoption. She
is co-author of "Adoption Healing: A Path to Recovery for Mothers Who Lost
Children to Adoption." She is working on her autobiography and is constantly
researching the issue, advocating against adoption and keeping in touch through
the Internet with those who share her anger.
Rather than "anti-adoption," those in the movement prefer to think of
themselves as "natural-family preservationists," said Buterbaugh, who moved to
Richmond almost three years ago with her second husband, Grant, after a career
as a nurse and legal secretary.
This is truly a war of words.
Adoption organizations consider the woman who gives birth to an adopted child
the "birth mother;" while natural-family preservationists call her the "natural
mother." In an adoption, the "birth mother" "chooses an adoption plan" or
"finds a family to parent her child," according to adoption organizations; to
natural-family preservationists, a "natural mother" more often than not is
"coerced."
To Buterbaugh, adoption is nothing more than "legalized kidnapping."
It's an unyielding position that runs counter to the views of most Americans,
who generally consider adoption a noble cause. But one must consider
Buterbaugh's experience to understand her perspective.
She and many others opposed to adoption gave birth to children who were later
adopted in what some call the "baby scoop era" - a period generally after World
War II and before Roe versus Wade in 1973 - when unmarried mothers were shunned
by society and maternity homes were in vogue.
In most cases, adoption was presented as the one and only option, Buterbaugh
said. Little or no effort was made to help the mothers keep and raise their
children. They were provided neither hard information nor moral support, she
said, and were instead humiliated, punished and railroaded by social workers
and overzealous representatives of religious organizations. In her view, they
were nothing more than victims of a lucrative adoption industry.
"I just remember feeling that we were lower than dirt," Buterbaugh said.
The experience traumatized her. She married, had two more daughters, divorced
and married again. She suffers from anxiety and post-traumatic stress and has
flashbacks.
For years, she didn't tell anyone about her first child. Every night, she would
look at a grainy color picture of her with her baby, a snapshot taken by
another young woman in the maternity home who smuggled in a camera. It grew to
be both a prized possession and a certain ticket to anguish.
Buterbaugh was alone then, but she is convinced she is far from alone now. She
and psychotherapist Joe Soll, a longtime advocate for adoption reform and
co-author of "Adoption Healing," believe there are tens of thousands of mothers
who have shared Buterbaugh's bitter experience.
The rage is real on the various Internet message boards where opposition to
adoption is the subject. The most zealous are against adoption under any
circumstances, believing it dooms parents and children to a lifetime of misery.
They believe the first option should always be to help the mother and father
keep their child. If that is impossible, a family member or other caring adult
should assume the role of legal guardian. But the child's identity should never
be changed, the child should be made aware of family relationships and all
birth records should remain open. No money should change hands.
Some states have moved toward more open adoptions in recent years, but
Buterbaugh doesn't believe those reforms have gone nearly far enough to ensure
access to records for parents and children.
C. Lynne Edwards, executive director of Coordinators2inc, a licensed nonprofit
adoption agency in Richmond, appreciates the resentment felt by mothers harmed
by adoption in the past.
"In our country, we don't provide the same level of service and support if a
birth mom wants to keep her child," said Edwards. "There's a whole slew of
funding streams that follow foster care but don't follow if a birth mother
chooses to keep her baby.
"I understand that dilemma."
Edwards was adopted in the mid-1940s, at the outset of the "baby scoop era." In
later years, she searched for her birth mother and found her. She also
discovered her story.
"She gave birth to me in 1946 when it was shameful for an unwed mother to give
birth," said Edwards. "She was living with her grandparents. I was premature by
two months. I was in the hospital for several months after birth. She said to
me, 'I left a sick baby in the hospital and my grandparents told me you died.'"
"There are all kinds of stories where women felt absolutely powerless to do
anything. That's the history of adoption. There were no choices."
But open adoption, also known as parental placement, is at least a step in the
right direction, said Edwards, whose agency has been working with
parental-placement adoptions since Virginia changed its laws in the late 1980s.
"I don't think we do as well in this country as we could," said Edwards. "And
yet, I think there is a need for adoption and there are children who would not
have a permanent family without adoption."
Nothing will change Buterbaugh's mind that adoption is more about coercion,
fraud and class discrimination, with the poor and powerless at a distinct
disadvantage.
More than 30 years after her child was taken from her arms in that maternity
home - and several years after the agency that handled the adoption declined to
provide information about her child - Buterbaugh hired a search firm to find
her daughter. The young woman had been living in Northern Virginia, not far
from Buterbaugh. They corresponded by e-mail for a year before meeting face to
face in 1998. That is the only time Buterbaugh has seen her daughter. She's
never met her grandson or her son-in-law.
"She didn't want as much of a relationship as I did," said Buterbaugh.
It just proves, she said, that adoption "is an amputation of a family. I've
lost my daughter and my grandson, and then my great-grandchildren. It goes on
to infinity."
-------------------------
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown
RTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031779202621&path=!flair&s=1045855936229
Forced to give up her baby, she now opposes adoption
BY BILL LOHMANN
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Nov 21, 2004
The day they took her baby is etched in Karen Wilson Buterbaugh's memory like a
scar on her soul.
In 1966, Buterbaugh was 17 years old, unmarried and frightened. She was living
in a maternity home - or, as she describes it, "a maternity prison" - having
been shuttled there by her family out of shock and shame. Her teenage
boyfriend, the father of the baby, was never in the picture.
On the 10th day after giving birth, she took her baby to a church down the
street to be baptized. A few hours later, she was taken into a room at the home
that was empty except for a rocking chair. Soon after, a nurse entered the room
and gave Buterbaugh her baby and an hour to say goodbye.
"I didn't know what was coming," recalled Buterbaugh, who spent her high school
years in Northern Virginia. "I sat and rocked her for an hour and talked to
her."
Then the baby, whom Buterbaugh named Michelle Renee, was gone, whisked away
first to foster care and then to an adoptive home. Buterbaugh was left alone,
shellshocked into silence.
While the pain lasted, the silence didn't.
Buterbaugh, now 56, is an outspoken member of national and international groups
that oppose adoption. She is co-founder of OriginsUSA and Mothers for Open
Records Everywhere, and a founding member of Mothers Exploited by Adoption. She
is co-author of "Adoption Healing: A Path to Recovery for Mothers Who Lost
Children to Adoption." She is working on her autobiography and is constantly
researching the issue, advocating against adoption and keeping in touch through
the Internet with those who share her anger.
Rather than "anti-adoption," those in the movement prefer to think of
themselves as "natural-family preservationists," said Buterbaugh, who moved to
Richmond almost three years ago with her second husband, Grant, after a career
as a nurse and legal secretary.
This is truly a war of words.
Adoption organizations consider the woman who gives birth to an adopted child
the "birth mother;" while natural-family preservationists call her the "natural
mother." In an adoption, the "birth mother" "chooses an adoption plan" or
"finds a family to parent her child," according to adoption organizations; to
natural-family preservationists, a "natural mother" more often than not is
"coerced."
To Buterbaugh, adoption is nothing more than "legalized kidnapping."
It's an unyielding position that runs counter to the views of most Americans,
who generally consider adoption a noble cause. But one must consider
Buterbaugh's experience to understand her perspective.
She and many others opposed to adoption gave birth to children who were later
adopted in what some call the "baby scoop era" - a period generally after World
War II and before Roe versus Wade in 1973 - when unmarried mothers were shunned
by society and maternity homes were in vogue.
In most cases, adoption was presented as the one and only option, Buterbaugh
said. Little or no effort was made to help the mothers keep and raise their
children. They were provided neither hard information nor moral support, she
said, and were instead humiliated, punished and railroaded by social workers
and overzealous representatives of religious organizations. In her view, they
were nothing more than victims of a lucrative adoption industry.
"I just remember feeling that we were lower than dirt," Buterbaugh said.
The experience traumatized her. She married, had two more daughters, divorced
and married again. She suffers from anxiety and post-traumatic stress and has
flashbacks.
For years, she didn't tell anyone about her first child. Every night, she would
look at a grainy color picture of her with her baby, a snapshot taken by
another young woman in the maternity home who smuggled in a camera. It grew to
be both a prized possession and a certain ticket to anguish.
Buterbaugh was alone then, but she is convinced she is far from alone now. She
and psychotherapist Joe Soll, a longtime advocate for adoption reform and
co-author of "Adoption Healing," believe there are tens of thousands of mothers
who have shared Buterbaugh's bitter experience.
The rage is real on the various Internet message boards where opposition to
adoption is the subject. The most zealous are against adoption under any
circumstances, believing it dooms parents and children to a lifetime of misery.
They believe the first option should always be to help the mother and father
keep their child. If that is impossible, a family member or other caring adult
should assume the role of legal guardian. But the child's identity should never
be changed, the child should be made aware of family relationships and all
birth records should remain open. No money should change hands.
Some states have moved toward more open adoptions in recent years, but
Buterbaugh doesn't believe those reforms have gone nearly far enough to ensure
access to records for parents and children.
C. Lynne Edwards, executive director of Coordinators2inc, a licensed nonprofit
adoption agency in Richmond, appreciates the resentment felt by mothers harmed
by adoption in the past.
"In our country, we don't provide the same level of service and support if a
birth mom wants to keep her child," said Edwards. "There's a whole slew of
funding streams that follow foster care but don't follow if a birth mother
chooses to keep her baby.
"I understand that dilemma."
Edwards was adopted in the mid-1940s, at the outset of the "baby scoop era." In
later years, she searched for her birth mother and found her. She also
discovered her story.
"She gave birth to me in 1946 when it was shameful for an unwed mother to give
birth," said Edwards. "She was living with her grandparents. I was premature by
two months. I was in the hospital for several months after birth. She said to
me, 'I left a sick baby in the hospital and my grandparents told me you died.'"
"There are all kinds of stories where women felt absolutely powerless to do
anything. That's the history of adoption. There were no choices."
But open adoption, also known as parental placement, is at least a step in the
right direction, said Edwards, whose agency has been working with
parental-placement adoptions since Virginia changed its laws in the late 1980s.
"I don't think we do as well in this country as we could," said Edwards. "And
yet, I think there is a need for adoption and there are children who would not
have a permanent family without adoption."
Nothing will change Buterbaugh's mind that adoption is more about coercion,
fraud and class discrimination, with the poor and powerless at a distinct
disadvantage.
More than 30 years after her child was taken from her arms in that maternity
home - and several years after the agency that handled the adoption declined to
provide information about her child - Buterbaugh hired a search firm to find
her daughter. The young woman had been living in Northern Virginia, not far
from Buterbaugh. They corresponded by e-mail for a year before meeting face to
face in 1998. That is the only time Buterbaugh has seen her daughter. She's
never met her grandson or her son-in-law.
"She didn't want as much of a relationship as I did," said Buterbaugh.
It just proves, she said, that adoption "is an amputation of a family. I've
lost my daughter and my grandson, and then my great-grandchildren. It goes on
to infinity."
-------------------------
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown
