Although the adoption legislators have acknowledged the disastrous emotional carnage left in the wake of the closed adoption system, once again, no form of research has even been considered let alone conducted into the new open form of adoption.

Any rational thinking person who thought for one minute how they would feel, having to spend the rest of their lives watching and hearing their own child, their own flesh and blood, calling total strangers with no biological tie 'mummy' because they had gone through a temporary life crisis when they had been young, poor, and unsupported, when someone had recommended adoption as an option out of their situation, would realise the mental anguish and distress such a situation would eventually create in both the mother and the child.

The natural mothers in these open adoption situations are at the mercy of the goodwill of the adopting parents and end up becoming `the dancing bear', suppressing their own grief and rage, dancing to the tune of the piper, accepting crumbs, an hour here, a letter there, a forced smile, jumping through hoops, tolerating anything to avoid being put back in their cage, with no further contact to their child.

For others, the despair in having to see their child being raised by strangers after their temporary crisis is over, forces them to avoid any contact at all. And then they are accused of not being interested.

Just as the peak suicide rate in Australian women coincided with the peak adoption period, suicide and attempted suicide is not uncommon amongst mothers who are part of the new open adoption practice.

And still the legislators fail to acknowledge that the new concept of open adoption is also fraught with extreme mental health problems to its consumers.

If so ask yourself if your decision to surrender your child is based on meeting your own needs or on your child's emotional needs. Can you live with 'throwing your baby out with the bathwater'? So far we have yet to come across any adopted child who has thanked their mother for "giving them away" irrespective of her age or financial situation at the time of birth. If adoption was such a noble act why are birthmothers seen as the lowest form of life in having done the most unnatural thing any mother can do - give away her own baby? While someone wants your child adoption will be promoted as being in your child's best interest - BUT once you sign a consent you will live with the stigma of being seen by all of society as "the sort of mother who could give away your own flesh and blood" Your child's adoptive parents will wish you dead. They will be terrified of your making demands on them or wanting too much of your child's life.