Shameless: The Fight for Adoption Disclosure and the Search for My Son

by Marilyn Churley

Overview

In the late 1960s, at the age of eighteen and living far from home amidst the thriving counterculture of Ottawa, Marilyn Churley got pregnant. Like thousands of other women of the time she kept the event a secret. Faced with few options, she gave the baby up for adoption.

Over twenty years later, as the Ontario NDP government’s minister responsible for all birth, death, and adoption records, including those of her own child, Churley found herself in a surprising and powerful position – fully engaged in the long and difficult battle to reform adoption disclosure laws and find her son.

Both a personal and political story, Shameless is a powerful memoir about a mother’s struggle with loss, love, secrets, and lies – and an adoption system shrouded in shame.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781771131742
Publisher:	Between the Lines
Publication date:	03/20/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Marilyn Churley is a former Toronto City Councillor and former Member of Provincial Parliament. She has served as the Deputy Leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party and was the Ontario Legislature’s first female Deputy Speaker. She has been referred to as the mother of adoption disclosure reform in Ontario.

Table of Contents

• Part I: : Goodbye, Little Baby
• Chapter 1: A Call from the Premier
• Chapter 2: Beginnings
• Chapter 3: First Glimmers
• Chapter 4: My Very New World
• Chapter 5: The Worst Happens
• Chapter 6: Now What?
• Chapter 7: In Hospital, Alone
• Part II:: The Elevator Lady’s Son
• Chapter 8: The Dream Is Over
• Chapter 9: A Star Is Born
• Chapter 10: To the Corridors of Power
• Chapter 11: A Punitive Policy
• Chapter 12: The Day Arrives
• Part III: : Five Times to the Brink
• Chapter 13: Out of the Closet
• Chapter 14: Hanging Out with Billy
• Chapter 15: So It Begins
• Chapter 16: Between a Rock and a Hard Place
• Chapter 17: A Tumultuous Year
• Chapter 18: Survival Is to Begin Again
• Chapter 19: Last Stand
• Part IV: : No More Secrets
• Chapter 20: Father and Son
• Chapter 21: The Commissioner and the Lawyer
• Chapter 22: Victory!
• Chapter 23: Victory Delayed
• Chapter 24: Reflections
• Looking Ahead
• Resources
• Index