“What Readers Are Saying: The Adult Adoption Gaslighting Act”
No government should have the right to stop someone from finding their own family.
“Barbara Sumner Is the Voice of the Voiceless. She gives voice to those long silenced: adopted people desperate to know where they come from and the mothers who lost their children to a system that coerced and erased them. She exposes the cruel, Kafkaesque bureaucracy that stands between these families and their right to reconnect—a bureaucracy upheld by politicians who abuse their power and hide behind technicalities, as if sealing records could seal away truth.
This is not ancient history. This is not the shameful legacy of a hundred years ago, when the church and state colluded to punish women for being vulnerable. This is happening now—in 2025. Families were forcibly torn apart, and today, the very institutions that should be facilitating reunification are standing in the way. It is shameful. It is inhumane.
No government should have the right to stop someone from finding their own family. The job of a Ministry of “Justice” should be exactly that: to pursue justice, to set in motion the process of healing and truth—not to hide behind cold legal language and outdated secrecy laws. And what, exactly, is everyone so afraid of? That an adopted person might love their adoptive parents less after meeting their birth family? That truth is too disruptive?
To be denied this knowledge—to not know who your mother was, whether you have siblings, grandparents, or a medical history—is a quiet, lifelong form of torture. And the cruelty of it lies in how simple the remedy could be: unlocking a file cabinet. Instead, those in power keep that drawer shut, playing dice with the lives of thousands. It is unconscionable. They should be ashamed.
In many Western countries, the process to adopt a dog is more stringent than the laws that once governed [or still govern?] the adoption of a baby in New Zealand. Let that sink in.
I am deeply grateful to Barbara Sumner for her tireless work to change the system, for standing up to power, and for illuminating the truth. Her voice is fierce, clear, and necessary—and through her work, so many of us are learning, waking up, and standing beside her.” Arlette Liwer-Stuip
As someone who was adopted at 9 months old - after being relinquished at just a week old, along with my identical twin brother - I often feel the dominant narrative around adoption misses something essential. Adoption is frequently framed as an "act of love," but I believe we need a broader, more nuanced acknowledgment of what adoption truly involves.
At its core, adoption begins with loss. It's the only life-altering experience so often cloaked in positive language without naming the reality: relinquishment. And for those of us who were relinquished as infants, especially pre-verbal, this isn't just an emotional experience - it’s a somatic and neurological one. It’s a rupture of the most primal bond.
This early separation, especially in the absence of co-regulation or continuity of care, can lead to what many adoptees experience as a form of developmental trauma - what is now more widely understood as Complex PTSD. The term “primal wound” captures this deep, pre-verbal grief and disconnection that many adoptees carry through their lives, often unacknowledged by those around them.
None of this is to diminish the love that may exist in adoptive families, but rather to ask for space to hold both truths: love can be present, and so can deep, unresolved trauma. We do adoptees a disservice when we only tell one side of the story.