Book Review: The Girls Who Went Away

A few years ago, a blogger mentioned that one of her favorite books is The Girls Who Went Away:  The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade by Ann Fessler. I put it on my mental list of “books to read when I have time.” Well, as a medical student, I never really have “time” per se. When Jenna started the Adoption Reading Challenge, I knew that I would participate, and that this would be my first book. I was not disappointed.

Despite the title, this book does not get into the controversy of abortion. However, one of my favorite quotes was from “Nancy” speaking about the popular conservative idea that adoption is the obvious alternative to abortion:

It’s hard to convince others about the depth of it. You know, a few years after I was married I became pregnant and had an abortion. It was not a wonderful experience, but every time I hear stories or articles or essays about the recurring trauma of abortion, I want to say, “You don’t have a clue” I’ve experienced both and I’d have an abortion any day of the week before I would ever have another adoption–or lose a kid in the woods, which is basically what it is. You know your child is out there somewhere, you just don’t know where. It’s bad enough as a mother to know he might need you, but to complicate that they make a law that says even if he does need you we’re not going to tell him where you are.

This brings up another message that really struck me as I read this book. There is no law that gives adopted children access to their biological family records – medical history, parents’ names, etc. While there are certainly psychological issues which arise from this, the family medical history is what frightens me the most. As a health care professional, I am made aware every single day that most (if not all) health conditions have a strong genetic component. Is it morally acceptable to withhold this information from adopted children and adults? Shouldn’t every girl have the right to know if her mother had breast cancer at age 35 or if her father had Huntington’s disease which developed later in life? Sure, genetic testing is available, but why should adoptees have to go through costly, invasive procedures that can be obtained from simple questioning?

Another quote resonated with me.

I never gave him away. He was never meant to be a gift. If anything, the gift was that I thought I gave him the parents that he needed. They were the gift. They were the gift to him. My son was not a gift.

To me, this statement needs to be read by every adoptive parent. It negates the stereotype of birth parents that they are “giving away” their children for whatever reason. It takes away the passivity of the act of placing a child for adoption, and instead reiterates the fact that so many parents do think realistically about their child’s futures.

I learned a thousand times more from this book than I thought I would.

Disclaimer:  I was not endorsed for reviewing this book.