A clarification on why adoptees deserve access to medical, family records
Dear Mr. Nicholson, the tone and content of your response to my original letter [page 5, March 22 issue] on adoption suggest that some of my comments have personally offended you. This certainly was not my intention, and my purpose for this letter is to provide clarification and perspective.
As you will recall, my original letter advocated for full access to “family history information” for all adopted people as contained in the proposed amended legislation (A2557 and S1087).
I maintain that adopted people (as well as those in the system awaiting adoption) should be accorded the same fundamental rights as any other person. Denial of such rights by statute objectively creates a legal and social underclass, and is fundamentally unjust.
And while you may have not personally suffered from adverse consequences attributable to the lack of medical history, or from discrimination resulting from restrictions to social and cultural background information, it is, from my experience, more common than I believed prior to the adoption of our own children.
Furthermore Mr. Nicholson, the assertion that knowledge of one’s cultural and social roots is integral to the development of a healthy identity does not imply that lack of such knowledge is sufficient to condemn the adopted person to a life of debilitating psychological or behavioral problems, nor does the assertion that adopted people face rejection throughout their lives.
The literature on this subject only serves to identify issues with which adopted people must typically contend as a result of their circumstances.
As your own account and my personal experiences suggest, children are more likely to thrive, regardless of the circumstances of their birth, as members of a loving and caring family.
I personally thank God every day for the gift of our two wonderful daughters, I pray that their birth parents are comforted in their loss, and I grieve for the thousands of children who are without families. And while it would no doubt prove difficult for me, should our daughters decide in the future to search out their birth parents, my love for and devotion to them will remain, unconditionally.
Douglas R. Merkler
Blairstown
Women already honored by Church
In an article about John Allen Jr. (March 22 issue), he stated: “The perception that the Church is somehow anti-women, or discriminates against women, hangs around our neck like an albatross.” He spoke of the need for “gender equity.”
Christ was a special friend to Martha, Mary and other women. There was no sign they resented that none of the Apostles were female, or that Christ always spoke of God as “our Heavenly Father.”
As for women, the Church honors Mary above all the other saints. She is “the Queen of Heaven.” In his outstanding book, Civilization, the noted scholar, Kenneth Clark, describes Mary as “the great protectress of civilization.”
The distinguished British historian, William Lecky, showed how the Church has greatly elevated the status of women: “For the first time women was elevated to her rightful position . . . No longer the slave of man, woman rose, in the person of the Virgin Mother, and became the object of a reverential homage, of which antiquity had no conception. All that was best in Europe clustered around it, and it is the origin of many of the purest elements of our civilization.”
Allen spoke of “equity” for women. Actually, women are superior to men. They are more spiritual, they are more sacrificial and they love more deeply. The best thing a man can do for his children is to love their mother very much! All else will follow.
Dan Lyons
Bloomsbury
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