Wednesday, March 9, 2011

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.

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