"Giving Thanks for Life" By Mona Charen
dd...@bellsouth.net
by Mona Charen
Mia's story is good holiday fare. That must have been what the
Washington Post editors were thinking when they put her smiling face
on the front page. Whether they considered the deeper implications is
not so clear, as we shall see.
Mia Fleming is a 20-year-old college student who was adopted as an
infant. This year, she set out to find not her birthparents, but the
two teenagers who found her on a Fairfax, Va., townhouse's front
steps.
Emily Yanich and Chris Astle were both 15 in 1989. They acknowledge
that on the afternoon in question, they "may" have walked to the 7-
Eleven to buy cigarettes. When they returned to their neighborhood,
they heard a baby crying. "I looked around and noticed that there
weren't any moms out there pushing their kids around in a stroller,"
Astle recalled. The two teens followed the cries and found a bundle on
the landing of a townhouse "where it didn't seem anyone was at home."
They found the dark-eyed baby girl wrapped in orange towels, her
umbilical cord still attached.
After frantically knocking on the townhouse door without result, Astle
and Yanich, holding the crying infant, tried to decide on the best
course. The Post recounted their thinking: "Had someone forgotten the
baby? Was she hungry? Should they go back to the 7-Eleven and get some
food? Should they take her? Would they get in trouble?"
Shocked and uncertain, they took the baby to Yanich's stepfather, who
called the police. In short order the emergency vehicles arrived and
the baby (who was estimated to be 12 hours old) was whisked off to the
hospital. Later that day, a nurse called to tell them that the child
was healthy and was going to be just fine.
And she was. A couple who already had one adopted child eagerly
embraced the opportunity to adopt her. This month, 20 years later, Mia
Fleming managed to contact her two guardian angels through Facebook.
Her message was tentative: "Hi. I'm sorry to bother you, but if you
are the Chris Astle I was looking for then I just want to thank you.
You and Ms. Yanich found me on someone's doorstep when I was an
infant. I don't really know what else to say, but thank you."
Fleming speaks for millions of adopted children. It's pretty basic.
Everyone (excepting only the pathological) is grateful to have been
given a chance at life. Fleming's simple gratitude contrasts with the
fatuous nonsense often peddled in the media that adoption is always
traumatic. It isn't. Yet even if it were, isn't it better to be alive?
Yes, some adoptees struggle with questions of identity, but life is
full of challenges. In other ways, adoptees are actually better off
than the average American child. A Search Institute study found that
55 percent of adopted teenagers reported high self-esteem compared
with 45 percent of others. This may be because adoptive families have
lower-than-average rates of divorce, and/or because adopting couples
want children very badly.
Fleming's birthmother abandoned her in a relatively safe place. The
same could not be said of many infants found in public restrooms,
train stations, and even dumpsters around the time she was born. In
response, all 50 states (but not the District of Columbia) have now
adopted safe haven or "Baby Moses" laws permitting women to relinquish
newborns "no questions asked" within a few days of birth -- a sad
necessity.
Baby Moses has inspired one more entrant into the compassionate
network of organizations hoping to help women with crisis pregnancies.
In the past 35 years, thousands of such groups have sprouted around
the country like wildflowers. But until now, none was specifically
focused on Jewish women. The Bible (Exodus: Chapter I, verse 15)
relates the story of Shifra and Puah, the midwives who refused
Pharaoh's order to kill the male children of the Israelites. "But the
midwives feared God, and did not as the King of Egypt commanded them."
December marked the debut of "In Shifra's Arms" (Inshifrasarms.org),
the first Jewish crisis pregnancy group (in whose founding I played a
small role). Here, Jewish women struggling with life-and-death
decisions will find support, information, and resources on
alternatives to abortion.
Mia's story is heartwarming. But one cannot read it without thinking
of something else -- the millions who cannot give thanks. Each year,
1.2 million children in America are aborted. If they were placed for
adoption, they'd presumably want to thank someone as well. The goal of
In Shifra's Arms, like its sister organizations, is to ensure that
more Mias get the chance to be grateful.