Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!laura From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) Newsgroups: net.abortion Subject: Re: Message-ID: <3671@utzoo.UUCP> Date: Thu, 22-Mar-84 20:31:30 EST Article-I.D.: utzoo.3671 Posted: Thu Mar 22 20:31:30 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 22-Mar-84 20:31:30 EST References: <553@psuvm.UUCP> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 51 the problem with adoption is that it often does not work out well. The theories as to why a lot of adopted kids do not turn out well vary, but the 2 main ones are as follows: the adopted kid gets to a point in his life where he cannot reconcile a feeling of his own worth with the knowledge that somebody ``gave him up''. The personality disintegrates and you get suicidal adopted kids, criminal adopted kids, and all sorts of personality problems of this sort. the other: The adoption agencies select parents who are bright, middle class. These people want children, but their basic concept of children is necessarily ``like I and my siblings were when I was a child'' since this is where your image of what a child is comes from. The adopted kid, though, is not selected for intelligence. (In fact, if intelligence is to some degree inherited, and one of the reasons that people have an unwanted pregnancy is that tey were too stupid to use birth control, or use it properly, precisely the opposite is being selected for in the adopted kid.) Therefore, the parets will do a bad job of raising the kid precisely because the kid cannot helpt but feel alienated in an intellectual household due to his inferior intelligence. Note that neither of these theories ever says that the parents go out and try to do a bad job raising the child that they adopted -- in the first case whether they try to do a good job is irrelevant and in the second case the harder they try to be good parents the more likely they are to make things worse unless they are aware of how to raise a stupid kid, which presumably they can not learn from their own experience. The end result, which is not questioned, is that are a lot of parents out there whose adopted kids ``turn bad'' in adolescence. And they now feel that adoption was a mistake because they did not know that they were getting a jekyl-hyde monster. I have seen this happen many, many times -- including within my own family. I do not think hat it is known hown to raise an adopted child. I believe that the problem is different than a naturally born child (though we really don't know how to do a good job about that, either.) I just don't think that killing a human being is ever morally right, and I do not know how to get a definition of human. Therefore, perfect birth control is a must. -- Laura Creighton utzoo!laura "Capitalism is a lot of fun. If you aren't having fun, then you're not doing it right." -- toad terrific