The Right NOT to Know?

Two adoptees in Argentina are fighting a court order requiring them to provide DNA samples to determine if they are related to any of the "disappeared" by Argentina's military junta, and then illegally adopted:

The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo allege that Clarin owner Ernestina Herrera de Noble illegally adopted them 34 years ago with help from officials of the military junta. Hundreds of political dissidents were kidnapped and killed after giving birth in clandestine torture centers during the 1976-1983 dictatorship, and human rights groups believe the Noble Herreras' birth mothers were among them.

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If the DNA shows a match to families of the disappeared, their very existence would serve as evidence — "object proof" as they put it — of a crime that could land their mother in prison, if lawyers can then show she knowingly accepted stolen babies.

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"If it is really true ... well, it's up to us to assimilate it, it's up to us to prepare ourselves and it's up to us to see what we want to do," [the daughter] said. "Only we will know how we'll feel."

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But they say they have no need to know more about their birth families, not after 34 years developing their own identities.

"Our identity is ours. It's a private thing, and I don't think it's up to the state or the Grandmothers to come and tell us what is ours," Marcela said, referring to the prominent human rights group that works to identify infants stolen during the dictatorship.

"Despite this, they have tried for nine years to forcefully impose our genetic history on us," she added. "They don't listen to us, they don't respect us, they don't respect our timing."

This is a hard one. What do you think? Do the birth families have superior  rights to the adoptees here?  Does the governmental interest in investigating crime (by the military junta, by the adoptive mother) trump the rights of the adoptees here?

Former U.S. Diplomat Testifies in Argentina's "Baby Stealing" Trial

A follow-up by the AP to the story I posted yesterday about information the U.S. holds, through classified documents and past diplomats, about Argentina's military junta stealing children from dissidents and placing them with families loyal to the regime during the "Dirty War" of the '70s & '80s:

A former U.S. diplomat testified Thursday that American officials knew Argentina's military regime was taking babies from dead or jailed dissidents during its "dirty war" against leftists in the 1970s, and it appeared to be a systematic effort at the time.
Elliot Abrams testified by videoconference from Washington in the trial of former dictators Jorge Videla and Reynaldo Bignone and other military and police figures accused of organizing the theft of babies from women who were detained and then executed in the 1976-1983 junta's torture centers.

Abrams said U.S. officials were aware that some children had been taken and then illegally adopted by families loyal to the regime.

"We knew that it wasn't just one or two children," Abrams testified. There must have been some sort of directive from a high level official, he suggested: "a plan, because there were many people who were being murdered or jailed."

"It was a very serious problem because these were children who were alive," Abrams added.

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The junta apparently saw the program as a way to prevent children from growing up "communist," Abrams said. Also, enabling loyal families who couldn't conceive to adopt the babies was seen as a blessing by the regime, he said.

Where Did I Come From? Some Stolen Children Don't Want to Know

I've posted before (here, asking about the right not to know) about the baby-stealing for adoption that was part of the Argentinian military junta's "disappearance" of dissidents in the 1970s & 80s.  Robert Krulwich comments on two cases, asking about the right to know and the right not to know for the adoptees, the birth parents and the grandparents:

Bottom line: what began as a movement to find abducted babies has now become a struggle between the right to know and the right not to know. The stakes are very high on both sides, because the truth can be so double-edged and so painful.

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I don't know. Different people will probably have to differ on this, but in the end, I find myself almost siding with Francisco Madariaga, who says, he just wanted to know the truth about his adoption. For 32 years his adopted family told him lies, he says, "And lies cannot last forever." Well maybe they can. And sometimes maybe they should. But who decides? That's what I don't know.

Recent Adoption News Links

Opening the books on adoption, from the Minn-St.Paul StarTribune, about search and reunion.

Future uncertain for children in Thai baby scam, reporting on an operation using Vietnamese women as surrogates for wealthy childless couples overseas who placed orders for newborns online.

State probes religious foster care agencies over discrimination, the Chicago Tribune reports on an investigation into foster care agencies who receive state funds and reject gay couples who want to foster and adopt.

South Korean Consulate Appeals that Adoptee Not be Deported -- this is a SECOND South Korean adoptee facing deportation, not the case I blogged about here in January.  

Argentine dictators go on trial for baby thefts from women dissidents captured and tortured during the heyday of the military junta, 1978-83; the children's identities were changed and they were placed for adoption with couples sympathetic to the regime.
 
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes star Jane Russell dies at 89; the Guardian (UK) reports that Russell adopted three children because of infertility caused by botched illegal abortions, and started an adoption agency after she experienced difficulties in adopting.

Convicted: Baby-Stealers from Argentina's Dirty War

I've posted before (here and here and here and here) about the trial in Argentina over the systematic stealing of babies from murdered/imprisoned/disappeared leftists by the military junta during the Dirty War of the '70s '80s. Those babies were placed in politically-connected families, often military families.  Well, the court announced the guilty verdicts today:

An Argentine court Thursday found two former dictators, among others, guilty of stealing babies during the country's dirty war.

Jorge Rafael Videla, who ruled as a dictator between 1976 to 1981, was sentenced to 50 years in prison.

He was among the coup leaders who overthrew then-President Isabel Martinez de Peron in March 1976.

Gen. Reynaldo Benito Bignone, who ruled the country from June 1982 until the nation's return to democracy in December 1983, was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

They were both found guilty of systematically stealing babies from political prisoners and giving them new identities.

Classified U.S. Documents Relevant to Argentina's "Stolen Babies" Trial?

I've posted before (here and here and here and here) about the trial in Argentina over the systematic stealing of babies from murdered/imprisoned/disappeared leftists by the military junta during the Dirty War of the '70s '80s. Those babies were placed in politically-connected families, often military families. In a new twist, classified U.S. documents are now being sought for the trial, as reported by Women's eNews:

The trial, expected to close this year, is being closely watched by a group of women now in their 80s or 90s, known as the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo.

For 30 years they have driven a very public effort to find stolen grandchildren and to bring their children's killers to justice.

Now they are finding an ally in a Democratic Congressman named Maurice Hinchey, who represents the 22nd district of New York, northwest of New York City and bordering Pennsylvania.

Hinchey announced last week that he'll retire at the end of this year. For now, he is seeking the declassification and release of CIA and Pentagon records that could help identify some of the missing grandchildren.

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The State Department in 2002 declassified 4,700 documents pertaining to the Dirty War.

Carlotto and her group's lawyers believe that one of those documents proves there was not only a systematic plan to appropriate children, but that it was sanctioned by the highest levels of power.

That document is a 1982 memo by Elliott Abrams, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state for human rights and humanitarian affairs, who is scheduled to testify here this month.

In that memo, Abrams wrote: "I raised with the ambassador the question of children in this context, such as children born to prisoners or children taken from their families during the Dirty War. While the disappeared were dead, these children were alive and this was in a sense the gravest humanitarian problem. The ambassador agreed completely and had already made this point to his foreign minister and the president. They had not rejected his view but had pointed on the problem, for example, of taking children from their adoptive parents."

Carlos Osorio, director of the Southern Cone Documentation Project at the National Security Archive at George Washington University, said in a November interview that the Abrams memo is key.

"The Grandmothers are pointing to this little nugget as evidence that declassified documents help to bring some justice in Argentina then, and thus they want to call for CIA, FBI and Pentagon declassification on Argentina," Osorio told Women's eNews.