April 27, 2004--Reunited Adoptee and Natural Mother, Tricia Shore, is organizing a boycott of sponsors for the 20/20 episode due to air this Friday evening, April 30, 2004 at 10:00 p.m. Shore claims there are many problems with the adoption promotion show.
A press release for the 20/20 show, says Shore, contains the word birthmother, a term that many mothers who have lost children to adoption consider derogatory. One mother described it as just as demeaning as a racial slur.
In addition to the game show atmosphere of the open adoption featured on the show, open adoption itself has caused a myriad of problems for mothers who have surrendered their children.
Will ABC mention that only in four states does the mother of a child given to adoption have legal rights? What does it say that Barbara Walters, an adopter herself, is hosting the show? A smiling Walters does not speak for the many mothers, fathers, and children who have suffered due to being separated by adoption. Many of us who have lost family members to adoption are sick and tired of the media showing adoption as a positive event. Show us mothers who have entered an open adoption and had the adopters flee the state. Show us mothers who have committed suicide, or who have had emotional and physical problems as a result of giving away their children. Show us that adoption is a $1.6 billion U.S. industry, that healthy white infants in the U.S. can command $60,000 from adopters; that adoption agencies and lawyers profit every time a natural family is separated. A California mother who lost an infant to adoption called the 20/20 program description sickening.
Shore also says that the myth of the natural mother choosing parents for her child is perpetuated in this 20/20 episode. Parents are chosen when a child is conceived. One of the biggest myths of the adoption industry is that parents are replaceable and children are recyclable.
Robin Westbrook, a Florida mother of four, two of whom were lost to adoption as infants, has learned a lot about the adoption industry since her reunion with her two lost children: "Infant adoption is not about a home for a baby. Its about a baby for a home. Adoption is a $1.6 billion per year industry and career women who wait too long to have a family and find themselves unable to conceive easily are this industrys prime market. They create the demand and they dont want the older, special needs child who has languished in foster care . . . they want healthy infants so that they can pretend. The mothers of these babies are treated as suppliers."
Shore says that the pressure on ABC and the boycott against the advertisers on 20/20 will continue until the network begins presenting the negative sides of adoption, and there are many. When those of us who have suffered and been separated from our families by adoption begin to have a voice in the media, we will begin to support those media. We will continue to fight, Shore says, until the harsh realities of adoption are honestly portrayed.
Reunited Adoptee and Natural Mother Leads Boycott Against ABC Due to 20/20 Adoption Special
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