More adoption information may not be good

Lorraine Dusky's opinion article, "Help adoptees reach first parents" [May 13], states that questions of identity "ring deep in the breast, and neither time, nor the love of an adoptive family, can erase them." How dare she make such a declaration.

It's not a fact, it's Dusky's conception due to the pain that she has of missing a child she gave up for adoption. It's an insult to those of us who have cherished our child. We are an adoptive family.

How dare Dusky state with such ignorant boldness that our love can't make up for the love of the person who gave our son away? I am the one who stayed up all night holding him in the emergency room with a 106-degree fever. I wipe his tears and celebrate his joys. We taught him to walk and ride a bike. I'm his mother. There's more to being a mother than giving birth. His birth mother (not his "first mother") gave away four other babies, too.

He is our son in every sense of the word. And as for the other reasoning Dusky gave, namely that the child needs to know his or her medical history, this was all provided in the background of the birth mother and father.

Our son knows he is adopted, and he's known it since the beginning of his life. We've made no secret about it. He told me that he adopted us, and he knows exactly who he is.

Elizabeth Gari, Westbury
 

The goal of delivering a baby safely to his or her parents may be achieved by a Lamaze "natural" birth, birth with epidural or by Caesarean section. I extrapolate that to my delivery safely to my parents through my adoption.

Lorraine Dusky writes that opening adoption records would cause women who chose anonymity to have only temporary discomfort and embarrassment. In fact, for these women -- who may be in their 70s and older, and likely have husbands, children and grandchildren -- to be "outed" could be devastating.

Virginia Gunther Fankhauser, East Northport