OmegaMom

Grandma died this evening, in her sleep.  She was 104.

Mom said, somewhat shakily, "But she was supposed to last forever!"  We didn’t really think that, and we were expecting this very soon.  I’m flying out to mom’s tomorrow.

My post about grandma back in December.

I first heard about it on Figlet’s blog.

Then I read about it on Bastardette.

And reading some comments here and there, I found this at Heart, Mind, and Seoul.

The gist, for those who don’t want to follow the links, is that someone put up a website purporting to be an adoption agency where lucky adopters who need organ donations can get two, two, two! for the price of one:  An adorable child (or baby or teen) specifically type-matched to be an organ donor.  Or you could even use the kids for sexual purposes (never said right out loud, but implied).

As Bastardette says, it’s satire.  I recognized this almost as soon as I started reading the intro.

And it’s thorough, complete:  it includes a child listing, it includes adoption prices, it includes "testimonials" from satisfied parents.

And it’s appeared on Snopes and been debunked pretty quickly as a hoax (what a surprise).

But, of course, some people take it seriously, so it was the brunt of horrified "OMG!  Have you seen this horrible, horrible website!" comments on a variety of adoption lists and sites.  I will admit that the horror came from those who thought it was real and those who didn’t but thought it was Not Funny At All.

Two viewpoints.  Both having their points.  Two viewpoints, what is more, that are held by bloggers and posters who I actually find interesting, intelligent, respectful.  So, what to do, what to do?  Do I stand by my original POV, that of chortling in dismay at the black humor and poking at various shibboleths, the send-up of both the entire adoption industry and those who treat children as commodities, those who would put different prices on children based on their color?  I thought it was hilarious.  Dark, oh yes.  Blasting, oh yes.  Searing?  Oh yes.  Creepy?  Oh yes.  But hilarious.  This is the view of people like Figlet and Bastardette.  But horrible?  Bad?  Evil?  Not humorous at all?  People like HMS and Chicagomama (I think) stood on that side.  So I find myself torn, a bit.

The one objection that I truly agree with–once I thought it over–is that it uses real children’s pictures.  It didn’t occur to me at first; I figured they were stock pictures, but even so, perhaps that’s a step over the line.  The website could be done with children’s pictures from the back, or in the distance, or blurred by soft focus, and the "profiles" handled by not having pictures at all, with the complete justification that various countries don’t allow pictures.

But some objections?  They make me roll my eyes.  "Giving people ideas" about adopting children for sexual purposes?  "Giving people ideas"?!?!  Please.  Let me just say "Masha Allen".  (For those who don’t know, Masha Allen was adopted as a child from Russia by a single man who managed to spend years abusing her, videotaping the abuse, selling the videotapes, and more.)  There are plenty of sick, twisted people who already use adoption as a covert method of obtaining children for sexual purposes.

Then there was "oh, noes, people will come up to us in (insert country of choice) and ask us if we’re adopting for organs!".  Dudes.  Read about the rumors of the destination of internationally adopted children that run rampant in some countries–Russia, Guatemala, even China.  While I don’t know if anyone has ever actually done that (it would be most difficult to arrange, I would think!), the rumors swirl around, fly up, get denied, die down, and then pop up again all over again.  There’s not much to do about it except educating, over and over and over again–which people who have adopted have to do anyway.

It’s been sneered at as the work of someone with an ax to grind–either against organ donation or against adoption.  No…ya think so?

It "portrays children as commodities"–well, guess what?  They are, in many cases, around the world and here in the good ol’ U.S.A.

And the thing is:  There are adoption agencies that push the hard sell almost as much as this fake website does.  I have seen ads for children to be adopted from Russia where the child is described as "sweet, obedient, willing to help around the house"–profiles that make it pretty obvious the child is being pushed as a family helper, or a maid, rather than a beloved child.  There are agencies that are pushing for adoption from Vietnam whose Vietnamese facilitators went right back to the old, corrupt methods of obtaining children as soon as Vietnam re-opened for adoption after the prior corruption hiatus imposed by the U.S. immigration service.  There are agencies that still tell potential adoptive parents who are looking at China that it will take 12 months to get a referral–not telling the truth about the three to four-year wait until after the PAPs are signed up and well into the process (some obfuscating the wait until after the PAPs have their dossier completed and logged in with China’s central adoption authority).

There are agencies and facilitators that regularly pressure potential birthmothers into adoption.  There are crisis pregnancy centers that funnel girls into maternity homes and "counsel" them into adoption.  There are agencies that whisk pregnant women over state lines into states where the adoption laws favor the adoptive parents much more, and birth fathers have hardly any rights at all.  There are still, in this day and age, pregnant girls who are hidden away from "the neighbors" by their families, sent off to other cities to have their babies in secret, alone and unsupported, just to hand them over to adopters who have lied up and down and left and right about keeping the adoption open–until they get their hands on that baby.

All this website does is to distill and concentrate a whole slew of ethical issues with adoption and paste them into one fictitious bundle, guaranteed to raise hackles, make people swoon with horror, and maybe…just maybe…make some people think about some of the issues that surround adoption.

So, I guess, in the end, while I understand the objections some people have, I side squarely with those who find it a brilliant satire.  I won’t link to it, but if you’re interested, do a search on "medical adoptions".