A Long Discussion on Morality Under the One Child Policy

You say, "I'm sorry you were likely trafficked or the police confiscated you." 

I say, "What a relief it is to know I was not simply abandoned."

They say ignorance is bliss but the truth will set you free.

Like all Chinese adoptees, I was given the same story about how boys were favored and so girls were abandoned in public places for the police to pick them up and bring them to the orphanage. (Because it was illegal for the birthparents to bring the babies to the orphanage themselves and also illegal for them to keep the baby and also illegal for them to be caught abandoning a baby...so...they didn't have much of a choice.)

This story really did a number on my self-esteem because it's very hard to hear that your birthparents abandoned you. The message was that your birthparents didn't want you because you were a girl. Anger, resentment, helplessness, frustration, and sadness all abound.

As I got older, I started trying to understand what China was like back then more. Was it truly a walk in the park for our birthparents? Even if they missed me, they still abandoned me, right?

To have a more realistic idea of the kinds of pressures our birthparents were under is a blessing and a curse. At the start of 2020, I finally had time to breathe while finishing up my last semester of undergraduate college. I was stuck at home during the pandemic and given this avalanche of free time, I drifted towards what I wanted most in the world: To find out the truth. To find my birthmom.

I had been putting off watching One Child Nation--not having the emotional energy while keeping up with my schoolwork. I finally had time to watch that. I watched Somewhere Between and Meet Me on the Bridge. I read the 2014 research paper by Brian Stuy entitled, Open Secret: Cash and Coercion in China's International Adoption Program, bought the birthparent search analysis, and then made an at-home documentary about how everything I learned intersected with my personal origin story. I got to talk with more non-local adoptees and even Simeng Dai, a "hidden daughter." I attempted to cram as much knowledge into my head as possible before my graduate school program began in the summer.

Most of what I learned I have documented on this blog. For instance, my running list of "What really happened" stories from birthparent reunions. As I dove deeper into the labyrinth that was Chinese adoption, I became increasingly disappointed with how the media was failing to cover the story accurately or twisting it sixteen ways from Sunday into something so unrecognizable I had to pinch myself to remind myself that I was an adoptee from China.

The key takeaways I learned were:

1) No one really had a choice.

2) Many birthfamilies tried to run away from the one child police and the village officials, but were not always successful.

3) The police could demand the parents pay a fine for extraquota children and barring that could surround the house and confiscate the baby anyway.

4) Some birthfamilies tried to give their babies to relatives or to a couple who wanted a child to varying degrees of success.

5) People were turning in neighbors. A baby's cry was a dead giveaway that you were harboring an extra baby.

6) Some people made arrangements with midwives or middlemen before the baby was born so that they could get their baby safely to the orphanage. Some midwives/doctors/middlemen were coercive or flat out lied that the baby would be raised in China, while in reality, they brought the baby to the orphanage.

7) Many women were sterilized against their will or made to undergo abortions against their will.

8) Some birthfamilies are still searching for their children, thinking they are being raised somewhere in China. I've seen birthsiblings make it their mission to track their missing sisters.

9) Many finding/abandonment documents were forged to hide the fact that the whole abandonment story was not the whole story. Twins were separated and birthdates were changed on purpose to make reunion later on even more difficult.

10) Some orphanages had connections with hospitals to come pick up newborns there after lying to the birthparents that their overquota child would be going to a local family.

11) And yet, some people who find their birthfamilies learn they have multiple sisters living in China with the birthparents.

Number Six on my list is considered "human trafficking" because orphanages started offering money to those "finders" who would bring babies into the orphanage. I understand that our birthfamilies did they best they could and many live with regret and feelings of loss. Giving their baby to the midwife or to some sort of "matchmaker" was an option at that time to survive within the confines of the law--I think it would be disingenuous of me to begin to label myself a "human trafficking victim" the way the news media would like me to simply because I don't see what other options there were for our birthparents. You try coughing up a solution.

I am actually very relieved to know that the situation was complicated and that I was likely very loved, but that circumstances forced events into motion. When people do get to reunite with their birthparents, you can see that there is a lot of love and loss--but no one is the "winner" or the "loser" or "good/evil." I have always just blamed the Chinese government and those that enforced the One Child Policy. People who fixate on the headline of "human trafficking" without understanding the full context of what was going on should shut up and listen more.

My parents were never so naive to think that my birthparents didn't want or love me. They let me know that the One Child Policy did not leave birthparents any choice. Therefore, when I learned that the abandonment story was an elaborate lie that only applied to a handful of the thousands of adoptees, rather than the one and only story, I was quite relieved to know I was not "simply" tossed aside. The story of abandonments was a great cover story for the Chinese government to keep their international adoption program open--but it is emotionally devastating for adoptees. The truth is a relief. Yet so many people prefer the old story and cling to the story of "girls were unwanted and abandoned." For them, this story puts the birthparents in a bad light and also places the blame on the adoptee for being born the "wrong" gender, while the adoptive parents and adoption agencies are the "good guys." When one learns about the supposed "dark side" of the adoption program, this flips around the roles and adoptive parents are often left questioning if they did the "right thing" and if there are birthparents out there suffering and wanting to know if their baby is alright. 

Personally, I don't understand why people believed any of this was "willing" in the first place. My parents certainly never believed I was "willingly" given up. If someone puts a gun to your head and has you sign a contract, that contract is null and void because you signed it under duress. So even operating under the misconception that all babies were "abandoned," my parents still never believed that was "willing" because there wasn't freedom of choice involved. But the One Child Policy was real and babies were filling orphanages due to the policy, through no fault of their own, unable to be reunited with their birthfamilies--and China at the time was lauded as being the cleanest of international adoption programs, free from corruption and trafficking--and so they adopted me.

Yes, but what about the money?

Where money comes into play, I believe, is in encouraging law enforcement to actually enforce the One Child Policy. To my understanding, the law was the law, but it was enforced unequally and inconsistently. (Read "Changing Attitudes One Child Policy" by Lan Stuy) When an orphanage in the area got involved in the international adoption program and implemented a baby buying program (you would get reward money if you brought "abandoned" babies to the orphanage), this created a positive incentive for the One Child Policy to become "stricter" in the area. Birthparents would be hunted relentlessly by officials or middlemen/midwives/doctors/etc. because now turning the baby into the orphanage was a source of income--and birthparents might be threatened that they will be turned in for violating the One Child Policy if they don't comply or even tricked and lied to about where the baby would be taken. (For instance, some birth families thought the baby would be taken to a foreign school temporarily, not be adopted internationally. Others were told that their child was going to a local family to be raised.)  So yes, there's the argument that money makes it worse...but I think that it is incredibly myopic to think the One Child Policy was not the root cause of the problem, the forward driving force if you will, that set this whole train into motion.

The One Child Policy -->

Birthparents punished and hunted down, forced sterilizations and abortions, babies forced to be "abandoned" or hidden -->

Babies filling the orphanages -->

International adoption opens -->

Orphanages receive generous monetary donations from foreign adopting families-->

Orphanages want more babies and more money! -->

Babies must be sourced! Orphanages offer reward money in "finding fees" -->

Birthparents tricked into giving up their children/officials confiscating fully registered babies/midwives offering their moving services-->

Networks of "traffickers" moving babies to orphanages they have connections to that pay well -->

As a result, many babies originating in one region end up in another jurisdiction-->

Falsified abandonment documents and finding spots-->

The world believes that all babies were willingly abandoned -->

Adoptees grow up, raised on the belief that they were unwanted because they were female-->

The Hunan scandal (2005) reveals that human trafficking was happening but this investigation was extremely limited and the trial minimized the number of orphanages and babies involved-->

Adoptive families are convinced this is a freak anomaly and most don't think this applies to their child -->

Adoptees share their "I was abandoned because I was a girl" stories to news outlets and journals, re-enforcing the abandonment narrative-->

Adoptees return to China on heritage trips, where government approved tour guides uphold the abandonment story as they show you to your "finding spot"-->

DNA Connect (founded by the Stuys) continue to make birthfamily reunions possible and we are able to learn the truth-->

The adoption/adoptee community is splintered with half-lies, half-truths, ignorance and blindness. Despite reality, the abandonment story suits some people's emotions...to think that birthparents could desire a reunion with a baby they did not willingly ever abandon is emotionally devastating for all involved.

But here's the problem with the timeline I just painted...there was trafficking from the very beginning of the international adoption program. It was corrupt from the start. As an adult now, well-versed in basic statistics, I find myself pondering how the data could have ever seemed sound to anyone. All 110,000+ babies were give the same exact abandonment story? Every single one? Each one was placed in a finding spot? Every one? I do not know why more people did not question this bizarre behavior. Surely someone would have missed the memo and not placed their baby in a finding spot? But no...no one really questioned anything. It was convenient not to. It was simply easier to believe that babies were lining the streets...Even my own parents who knew that birthparents had no choice and must have loved me, did not bat an eyelash at the story. I was fed it just the same--and now that it's come crumbling down, I want to laugh without humor about what exactly anyone thought was ever acceptable about what had happened.

One Child Policy forcefully separating families  --> okay to adopt from China.

One Child Policy leading to an intricate cascade of extralegal ways of making money from the booming international adoption business, in turn putting more pressure on separating babies from families --> not okay to adopt from China.

I think giving or not giving reward money to midwives is an awfully fickle line to draw in the sand between what makes the adoption moral or not. Under the One Child Policy, where you would be naive to believe there was no pressure or coercion of the birthparents at all, I do not see how any "orphan" could be "created" ethically. If it was illegal for you to be kept, then that to me is a human rights violation, but apparently this did not make adopting from China unacceptable. The world community was accepting that the One Child Policy was an internal law and China had a right to do what it wanted with its citizens. In fact, this was the motivation to adopt from China in the first place, that thousands of babies were forced from their families. It was a really great marketing story that pulled at international heartstrings. No, adoption only became morally "unacceptable" when the midwife got a finding fee, when the people moving the babies between the birthfamily and the orphanage made some money. In other words, only when the One Child Policy people were so accepting of became enforced, this is where people protest. 

This kind of thinking boggles my mind. Why cling to a falsehood? Save your tears for the real deal and know that you were loved and the situation was complex.