This diary appeared on the list several days ago. I knew that Juno had to do with adoption. Those of you who know me know that I lost my oldest to a violently forced adoption in 1968 and have spent a lot of time writing about the side of adoption that the industry doesn't want you to see. This diary is another entry into that lexicon. Those of you who get upset reading about the sequelae of adoption and wish we activists would just go away probably should quit reading now. Those of you who wish to know more can follow me below the fold.
The pro-life crowd is giving Juno rave reviews, since the teen at the center of the story opts for adoption over abortion. I'm not going to link to any of their reviews because I don't want to give them the hits, but they are singing the praises of this movie. In the way we have all come to expect, they all praise and all criticize the same aspects of the movie, using almost the same language each time. Perhaps someone blast faxed movie critic talking points to each site owner/blogger. At any rate, the reviews are all very similar.
The movie is reviewed over and over as a fast moving and hip comedy with very appealing characters. Everyone falls in love with the sympathetic pregnant teen who makes an "heroic" sacrifice. (BTW, the newest industry meme being hyped in AdoptionLand to sell adoption to teen moms is that it is an "heroic" act, but that's a diary for another day. Still, I found it interesting that one of the most rabid prolifer bloggers around (Jill Stanek, blogging on World Net Daily) chose the word "heroic" to describe Juno's act of giving up a child for adoption. It's just not a word that has been used much to describe adoption relinquishment until very recently. More blast faxes?)
Why Juno matters is that teens will see it, and most probably fall in love with the characters. Their outlook on adoption may be influenced as a result. I haven't seen the movie, but after reading the reviews, it's hard to imagine that it addresses the long concealed underbelly of adoption loss. It matters that young women and their families are fully informed about adoption and its possible sequelae.
What am I talking about?
Routinely, portrayals of adoption in books, press and other media simply gloss over the sequelae of relinquishment. The original mother disappears and adoption becomes solely about the adoptive family. Adoption is almost always presented as win-win-win, but in reality, in adoption one party experiences a loss that frequently is not only overwhelming, but also does not improve over time. For adoption to be acceptable at all, the first mother's loss must be either denied, minimized or reframed. Most often it has been denied - the mother has disappeared. That is no longer working as well as it once did, and so AdoptionLand is busily working to recast adoption as a heroic act. This reframing is based on years of expensive marketing research, but, again... that's the subject for another diary.
BUT....
As we have seen amply demonstrated in other arenas of political life, reframing or recasting an event does nothing to change the hard cold facts that eventually surface. The marketing strategies used to sell a war or sell adoption don't change the realities of dead bodies, or of grief that never ends.
And in adoption, it has been shown over and over that there is great potential for grief that never ends. The research shows (over and over) that such a loss places a woman at high risk for unresolvable grief and its concomitants.
So, when you go out to this movie or meet people who speak of it in glowing terms, I hope you take a moment to remember some of the following information about adoption loss. After a period of denial, many women who choose to follow in Juno's footsteps can reasonably be expected to experience some of the following:
"Existing evidence suggests that the experience of relinquishment renders a woman at high risk of psychological (and possibly physical) disability. Moreover very recent research indicates that actual disability or vulnerability may not diminish even decades after the event.
....Taken overall, the evidence suggests that over half of these women are suffering from severe and disabling grief reactions which are not resolved over the passage of time and which manifest predominantly as depression and psychosomatic illness. "
-- PSYCHOLOGICAL DISABILITY IN WOMEN WHO RELINQUISH A BABY FOR ADOPTION, Dr. John T. Condon (Medical Journal of Australia) Vol. 144 Feb 3, 1986 (Department of Psychiatry, Flinders Medical Centre, Bedford Park, SA 5042, Consultant Psychiatrist)
" A grief reaction unique to the relinquishing mother was identified. Although this reaction consists of features characteristic of the normal grief reaction, these features persist and often lead to chronic, unresolved grief. Conclusions: The relinquishing mother is at risk for long-term physical, psychological, and social repercussions.
Although interventions have been proposed, little is known about their effectiveness in preventing or alleviating these repercussions."
-- "Postadoptive Reactions of the Relinquishing Mother: A Review." By Holli Ann Askren, MSN, CNM, Kathleen C. Bloom, PhD, CNM. In the Journal of Obstetric, Gynecological and Neonatal Nursing, 1999 Jul-Aug; 28(4):395-400
"Results shown in Table 3 demonstrate that mothers relinquishing a child for adoption tend towards more grief symptoms than bereaved parents ... ." ... "Table 3, comparing natural mothers in both open and closed adoptions with bereaved parents, shows that natural mothers suffer more denial, atypical responses, despair, anger, depersonalization, sleep disturbance, somaticizing, physical symptoms, dependency, vigor." Blanton, T.L., & Deschner, J. (1990). Biological mother's grief: The postadoptive experience in open versus confidential adoption. Child Welfare Journal, 69(6), pp. 525-535.
Juno matters because teens will be influenced by it to consider adoption as an alternative to abortion without being given all the facts about adoption. It very much matters that young women and their families fully understand what can happen to them after an adoption loss. While JUNO may be hip and comedic and endearing, it matters far more for its ommissions regarding adoption than its entertainment value.