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Removing Anonymity Does Not Reduce Donor Numbers
Sperm donation in Australia was once shrouded in secrecy and donors were forced to be anonymous, even if they did not want to. After learning some of the lessons from adoption, as well as listening to the voices of the donor conceived, practice and policy regarding donor conception began to change. No longer would donors […]
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Begin Again – A Workshop for Adult Adoptees
I spoke with Sherry Hearn about her counselling / coaching business and the one day workshop she is offering to adopted people at Relationships Australia on 17 September 2016, in Adelaide. Sherry, you are an adopted person, born in New Zealand, in the 1970s. You grew up in Christchurch and Hawaii before studying at […]
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Reconnecting Heartlines to Bloodlines
Heartlines – The Year I Met My Other Mother is a new memoir exploring the adoption legacy of Robin and Susannah, mother and daughter separated at birth – at Robin’s choosing – who meet again half a century later – at Susannah’s choosing. Their reunion occurring fairly recently, and rapidly, once locating each other in […]
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Reflecting on Adoption – Interview with Sofie Gregory about short film Loss and Connection
I spoke to Sofie Gregory about her adoption experience and the short film, Loss and Connection she was involved with late last year. Readers should watch the nine minute film first as the interview relates to the content of the short film. Sofie you are an adopted person from the closed adoption era. Dealing with loss […]
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In Conversation with Margaret Watson about her book Surviving Secrets
It’s several years since your memoir Surviving Secrets was published and I reviewed it for the Australian Journal of Adoption. How has your life been in the intervening years since the book went to print? Thank you for that review Thomas and your support for my memoir. It is coming up to 7 years since […]
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Adoption Revivialists – Recreating a Shameful Past?
Adoption is often seen as the panacea for social ills. For much of the latter half of the 20th Century adoption was used to forcibly remove children from young mothers to shield society from the shame of having children out of wedlock. The mothers, fathers and their children often deserted in their time of greatest […]
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Coming of Age
‘What if abandoning a child was the greatest act of love this world has ever known?’ This statement was made by Victor Alexeyev, one of five young adult adopted people, who spoke at the Coming of Age session at the Redefining Family conference in Auckland. Victor, along with Alex Gilbert, Alexander Kuch, Katya Murray and Voichita […]
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About Ipsify
Ipsify is about identity, connection, belonging, family and living life. Discovering who you are and where you fit in. With yourself. With family. To find a place in the world. For adopted people, and those conceived through donor conception, surrogacy or other forms of medical engineering, the concepts – and lived reality – of identity, […]