In the complicated world of adoption reform, highly charged terms like "open adoption," and "sealed records" and "search and reunion" create passionate debate on both sides.
In his new book, Mike Chalek tells a compelling story from the point of view of a former adoptee who discovered the truth of his black market adoption late in adulthood. He fought back against the courts that covered up the fraud—and against his abusive adoptive family—by finding his birth family and with their blessing having the fraudulent adoption annulled and his rightful identity restored.
When it comes to adoptee rights, Mike's case was a landmark victory in bringing to light the pitfalls of closed adoption practices and the social oppression that existed for young single mothers during the 1950s and 1960s, a time otherwise known as the Baby Scoop Era. It was a time that created a thriving black market in human trafficking, and that left many developed countries struggling under the constraints of unfriendly adoption legislation that is anti-family and denies adoptees their basic civil rights.
Whatever you currently believe about the closed adoption system and about adoptees' rights to their own genetic information, this book is a starting point for reexamining our country's treatment of a significant minority population whose time has come, that of the adult adoptee.
