Who Speaks for the Children?, Page 2

Who speaks for the children? I am increasingly concerned by the haunting silence. Will there will be no voice for the children until it is too late? Adoptees talk of the difficulties they experience with "genealogical bewilderment"-the term they use for the experience of living without full knowledge of their genetic heritage. They have much to teach us, but does anyone want to learn from their experience? They tell us that children have a deep need to know where they came from. They want us to know that this is an inalienable right. They want us to know also that pain comes not only from not knowing the truth about one's origin, but from being cut off from that truth.

At the nurses conference I was a gadfly, a big mouth, a pest. I asked nurses how they could do it. Point blank I asked them how they could participate in the creation of children who would be separated from their genetic heritages. To my surprise, several acknowledged that they share my concerns. One woman turned to me and said, "I wonder how long I will be able to do my job. I wonder when the time will come when I feel that I simply cannot do what I am asked to do in good conscience." Others were less forthright, but implied that they try not to examine their ethical concerns, but to simply regard themselves as doing a job.

One Canadian nurse told a chilling story. At the program she works in women are permitted to bring in their sisters as donors. However, instead of using the sister's donations for their infertile siblings - hence creating children who would know and be connected to their genetic origins - they are using the sister's eggs for other recipients and doing so anonymously. When asked how she can abide by such an arrangement, the nurse acknowledged that she is trying to change it. Unfortunately, change comes slowly - if at all - in her program. While she works at "altering policy," children are being created who will face many of the questions that have so long and so deeply troubled adoptees. My fear is that for them, "geneological bewilderment" will be all the more intense because of the intentionality of their creation: adults had a choice and chose to separate them from their genetic heritages.

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