This is in response to Anne D'Angelo's Nov. 1 letter to The Day, "Don't redefine family, return to it," in which she states that she "was handed a piece of propaganda which was an outline for a documentary about how the system fails to protect abused children.". Under the section 'What must be done?' it listed 'Redefine the family.. eliminate biological bias...create a national social policy for children' as solutions to this problem.

Unfortunately for the reader, Ms. D'Angelo doesn't bother to state from where or what group this piece of "propaganda" came. Had she, those of us involved in the adoption triad might be better able to discern for ourselves whether or not it is indeed propaganda.

Ms. D'Angelo goes on to state, "No one can replace a biological parent. How often do we hear of an adopted children searching for its biological parents or the parent searching for the child he or she gave up for adoption decades earlier? The biological bond cannot be taken lightly."

Unfortunately, Ms. D'Angelo does not bother to state whether or not she has a position in the adoption triad and, if so, just what that position is. As an adoptee, I can state that, yes, biological parents can be "replaced" by non-biological parents and that the bond is just as strong, if not stronger, than with a biological parent. (Did I forget to mention that I'm also a biological parent?) Never was this more clear to me than when I searched for and was reunited with my own birth family. There was nothing there for me, plain and simple.

Many adoptees upon reunion find the same thing, that there's nothing there for them or that reunion wasn't what they had hoped for expected. While I will say that going into a search/reunion with expectations is wrong, it is also human nature to do so as we have grown up in a closed-records system and having nothing but fantasies and expectations to rely on and keep us motivated while we search.

As for the part about "how often do we hear of an adopted child searching," it's an adult adoptee or just an adoptee. Children do not search…

The main reason most adoptees search is not out of some need to bond with the original family but for medical reasons and plain old curiosity, which is bound to be created when dealing with a closed records system.

The biological bond is not to be taken lightly, but it doesn't outweigh all else in the equation-or weigh in as heavily as Ms. D'Angelo would like to think. The "Primal Wound" theory is being debunked day by day by adoptees themselves.

I would suggest to Ms. D'Angelo (and to anyone out there with an interest in this subject) that if she has Internet access she come and join us in the Usenet Newsgroup alt.adoption and hear what all sides of the triad have to say or that she come and visit the Bastard Nation Web Page at ... The Bastard Nation is an incorporated, non-profit group of adoptees who are out in the trenches fighting for open records in the face of the Uniform Adoption Act. She may be surprised to hear what we really have to say about adoption.

Ms. D'Angelo also asserts that if we redefine the family and eliminate the biological bias, there's a possibility that a young mother may find herself being faced with having her child taken away, which is preposterous at best and hilarious at worst. No one is talking about ripping babies from the arms of young mothers, but rather not allowing the fact that the young mother was able to reproduce stand as a reason for her being a fit parent (in some cases the only reason) if it came to a case of child abuse. That's what 'eliminating the biological bias' means.

What's truly in the best interest of the child is not always what the "adults" in any given situation might want. The children come first, they deserve to and they need to.