You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

Preverbal trauma, plenary adoption, and the cost of legal erasure in the United States.

GUEST POST by Lorah Gerald, an adult adoptee from the U.S. Baby Scoop Era, aka The Adopted Chameleon.

There is a phrase that’s often used to excuse harm in hindsight,

You don’t know what you don’t know.

And when it comes to infant adoption, particularly the plenary model practised in the United States, this phrase has been used for decades to justify decis…