Show Notes
UM Special Edition – When Adoption Is Framed as a Solution - This conversation is not about debating politics. It is about lived experience, accuracy, and accountability. It centers the voices of those most affected by adoption—and asks what the public deserves to understand when adoption is elevated during moments of national influence.
SHOW NOTES: A Super Bowl commercial titled Adoption Is an Option ignited strong reactions among people connected to adoption. Positioned as a “third choice” in the abortion debate, the ad presents adoption as moral workaround to the question of abortion. But for many, the message felt incomplete—and deeply unsettling.
In this special edition of Unraveling Me, Kara convenes birth parents, adoptees, therapists, and advocates to examine what happens when adoption is framed as a solution rather than a lifelong reality. Together, they unpack the distinction often overlooked in public messaging: abortion is a decision made early in pregnancy; adoption is a permanent legal outcome to an often temporary problem—a choice that should only occur after carrying a child to term and giving birth.
Kara sits down with a powerful group of birth parents, adoptees, therapists, and advocates:
Leslie Pate Mackinnon: birth mom, therapist with decades of experience, and board member of Concerned United Birthparents Dr. Abby Hasberry: birth mom, adoptee, therapist, and author of Adopting Privilege Jennifer Fahlsing: adoptee, birth mom, and co-founder of the National Association of Adoptees and Parents Renee Gelin: birth mom and founder of Saving Our Sisters
Together they discuss: Why adoption and abortion are not answers to the same question What gets erased when adoption is reduced to a “third option” The lifelong realities of relinquishment for birth parents and adoptees How public messaging shapes cultural understanding of adoption Who benefits when adoption is framed as a solution—and who is left out What support, resources, and family preservation conversations are missing
Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.
At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.
For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from Unraveling Me
S1 E51 - Unraveling Chris & Mary Chris grew up knowing he was adopted—and knowing his genetic family. His parents shared celebrations, built relationships with one another, and made room for everyone in his life. He calls it “integrated adoption.” But even with that openness and connection, Chris struggled with feeling slightly different everywhere he went. Recognizing the grief connected to his adoption brought a question he hadn’t known how to ask: “Is it okay that I feel this way?” His raising mother, Mary, answered without hesitation: “Of course it’s okay.”
S1 E50 - Unraveling Corey & Kendall Kendall always knew he was adopted. His parents welcomed his questions, and when his adoptive mother died, his father showed him the name he’d been given at birth. Kendall was ten. He searched through phone books, library records, and adoption registries, and petitioned the court three times for his sealed records. Years of dead ends left him believing he might never find his genetic family.
S1 E49 - Unraveling Stephanie Stephanie’s story is about what happens when a lifelong search for roots finally begins. It is also a reminder that success does not always mean finding every answer. Sometimes it means discovering where you come from, building relationships along the way, and finding the courage to keep searching. Stephanie was adopted at three years old from a Mother Teresa orphanage in India and raised in a white Catholic family on Long Island. She always knew she was adopted, but for most of her life, she gave little thought to the identity, culture, and history she had lost.
S1 E48 Unraveling Tom J Tom Junod has spent much of his career investigating other people’s lives. His profile of Fred Rogers inspired the film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, and his essay The Falling Man became one of the most recognized pieces of writing about 9/11. But in his memoir, In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man, Tom turns that investigative lens on his own family.
S1E47 Unraveling MP MP grew up feeling like the odd person out. He looked different from his brothers, struggled to connect with the man he believed was his father, and was repeatedly reminded that his interests, personality, and appearance did not fit the rest of his family. At 13, he unexpectedly learned that his parents had married after he was born. That first crack in the family story left him wondering what else he had not been told.