Before developing an opinion, I read numerous articles and reports about adoption and rapes which resulted in pregnancy. What I learned is that about 32% of women decide to give birth to a child that was conceived due to a rape. But, only 5 or 6 percent of those mothers give up their babies for adoption. When I worked as a maternity clinic nurse, I only had one very young girl who conceived as a result of being raped, and I only had one who opted to put her baby up for adoption. She had not been raped, and I had wished that open adoptions were more common back then. So, the first thing I learned is that there are an extremely small number of children who are adopted due to the mother being raped.
Next, I learned that most mothers find it easier emotionally to have an abortion then it is to give up a baby after carrying a fetus for nine months, that they may have already developed an attachment to.
Then, I learned that adopted children as well as mothers who opt to adopt out their own child usually suffer from serious emotional issues throughout their lives. The children often become very distressed if they can't discover who gave birth to them. The mothers often suffer emotionally from guilt or from simply worrying whether or not the child they gave up has been loved and cared for.
I also found that about 70% or more of adoptions in the US, are now open adoptions, meaning that the birth mother and the adopted mother maintain contact and the child is visited by the birth mother about once or twice a year. This is now considered the best option when it comes to the emotional health of both the birth parent and the adopted child.
So, I don't think there is a right or wrong answer to this dilemma. But, to me, it makes sense to allow the adopted child to discover who her birth parent or parents are. There is only a small chance that the child is the result of a rape and for all we know, the birth mother has still suffered emotionally from not knowing what happened to her child, perhaps even more so than the trauma that she experienced from being raped, if that was why she gave up the child.
I read an account of one woman who kept the child that was the result of a rape. She said that although there were times that the child reminded her a little bit of the rapist's physical appearance, she loved him as much as she did her other children.
I think the best thing would be for the adopted child to be permitted to find her birth mother, as long as she doesn't put any unrealistic expectations on her birth mother, once she is located. At least, knowing who her birth mother is would help her deal with her situation. And, hopefully, knowing that her child was successfully raised to adulthood would also ease the mind of the mother, regardless of the circumstances of her pregnancy. I have a hard time seeing this as a moral issue. Both the birth mother, assuming she doesn't want to be found, and the child have legitimate reasons for their positions. So, I can't make a value judgment on one of them being wrong or right, or on who will be most harmed if the child successfully finds her birth mother. We really don't know. I do think the mother would be well within her rights to tell her child that it would be too painful for her to meet in person, if that's the case.
But the more I consider this, as a mother myself, I can't imagine, regardless of how my child was conceived, not wanting to know how that child was doing.
