Thank you so much for this thoughtful response. Of course, I cannot know, so any answer is conjecture. With that said, legal barriers like sealed records, amended birth certificates, foreign governments and unethical institutions compound the very basic trauma of maternal-child separation. So, sure, a picture earlier in my life would have helped some. But open adoption has its own complexities. I think the full answer is that adoption remains complex no matter what.
In the United States, adoption is a multi-billion dollar industry: in 2023, it earned $24.7 BILLION (link below). Like it or not, that's the buying and selling of babies and children. There's a much larger social and moral issue than just the emotional cost. IT's just all more complex than most people want to recognize.
