Know Thine Enemies:

Know Thine Enemies: Opponents of Open Records
by Marley Greiner and Ron Morgan

(This feature appeared in the Summer 1999 issue of the Bastard Quarterly.)

The organized opposition to Adoptee Rights represents the full
spectrum of mainstream political ideology in the United States,
ranging from the far-right Christian conservatism of the Family
Research Council to the left-liberalism of the ACLU and Planned
Parenthood. In a political system where issues are usually framed in
terms of conservatism and liberalism, what sense can we make of an
opposition that cuts across these normally unbridgeable philosophical
gulfs?

The enemies of adoptee rights fall into two basic categories:
ideological and industrial. Ideological opposition comes from various
state chapters of the ACLU and Right to Life, organizations that do
not have a financial interest in adoption. Industrial opposition is
represented primarily by the National Council for Adoption (NCFA),
and other adoption agency fronts, like Concerned Adoption
Professionals (a political action committee, or PAC, formed
specifically to fight Oregon's Ballot Measure 58.) There is much
overlap in these two categories, and the industrial lobbyists hold an
inordinate influence among the ideological opposition, which often
parrot the rhetoric of the adoption industry without change or
commentary.

Most ideological opposition organize the debate around central issues
that are actually peripheral to Adoptee Rights. Both Planned
Parenthood and Right to Life oppose open records because they feel
that access to, or frequency of, abortion will be affected by changes
in the law. The state chapters of the ACLU that have come out against
us have used a tortured argument based on non-existent privacy rights
that neither the general public nor legislators have taken very
seriously. Concerted outreach and education are effective in
neutralizing this opposition, both with the general public and within
the opposition's organization itself.

The industrial opposition's motivation is much more transparent -- trade
protection. In the years since Bastard Nation has shifted the discourse
of Adoptee Rights from psychologically based pleas to straightforward
assertions of civil rights, the rhetoric of the industrial opposition
has shifted in reaction, revealing an honest apprehension of tort
liability and systemic accountability.

The Christian Right possesses qualities of both categories. As
ultra-conservative think tanks heavily promote adoption as a primary
remedy to a gallery of perceived social ills, large constituency
churches (including the Church of Latter Day Saints) and their
auxiliary organizations have entered the adoption industry to
facilitate these theologically based social policies. Honing the
existing rhetoric of the industrial lobbyists like the NCFA, these
theological opponents of Adoptee Rights pose as our greatest potential
opponents due to their extensive grassroots penetration and their
enormous fundraising capabilities.

Our greatest ally in the continuing struggle for Adoptee Rights is the
average citizen, whose common sense and basic understanding of
fairness and equality are qualities we can count on for support.

Marley Greiner and Ron Morgan are members of Bastard Nation's Executive Committee

(This feature appeared in the Summer 1999 issue of the Bastard Quarterly.)