Academia Gone Wild: Identical Twins Separated for 35 Years by "Research" Group

Divides up twin siblings to loving homes, who might have been divided up anyway, also to loving homes.

What if this particular orphanage during that time period sent off only kids in groups of 1 as a matter of policy, to ensure that the parents didn't have too much to handle? It seems to me if this is true your abhorrence and outrage has to go away. But it doesn't seem much different to me on a practical level.

 

I didn't compare it to the Holocaust at all. I never likened it to concentration camps...to murder by gas...to lining people up to have them dig their own graves right before they're executed.

I compared it to experiments done by the Nazis while in power.

 

which is illegal.

 

it's illegal to send twin siblings to different loving homes? edit: i see now.

PS - I didn't read the underlying article from the post above mine but the post states that this was apparently done as a matter of policy which eliminates your randomness concern. Also let's take out your "illegal" concern because until 5 minutes ago you didn't know anything at all about that law - you can't claim that you have been railing about it for two days because it's illegal.

 

yes. it is. at least in NY it is...where this story happened.

 

you didn't know this until 5 minutes ago, answer the question - if the orphanage does it as a matter of pollicy doesn't it alleviate your randomness/manipulation concern?

 

no...it would still bother me that the orphanage did it!

but i think if the orphanage did it because in some crazy hypothetical no one wanted to adopt twins in the United States.....i'd still then understand that it happened as a result of circumstances beyond the orphanage's control.

this is completely CREATING THE SITUATION WHEREBY THEY ARE TO BE SPLIT UP. i see that as vastly different.

 

Orphanages set all sorts of rules which have effects like this, income restrictions,etc, which frequently cause siblings to be split up. Do you feel the same way about these rules?

See above - all sorts of rules will, and have, necessarily had this same effect. now if only you could identify some cognizable harm that occurred.

Why is it your backup assumption that infants abandoned as children by their parents will have a markedly better experience if kept together? I see all sorts of considerations on both sides, while you seem to think that failure to do so is such a total cinch that there is no rational grounds for disagreement and anybody who doesn't see it the same way is callous and heartless. I don't see it thiss way

 

They didn't just split up twins as a matter of policy.

They split them up, put them in a study, told the adoptive families that the kids were in a study (but not what it was about), filmed them, studied them and kept the knowledge that they had a twin secret from the adoptees and their families.

One of the things an adopted kid loses is a connection to their history. This includes medical history. Completely ignoring emotional issues...if the researchers discovered one twin had some sort to hereditary issue -- they should have some sort of obligation to share that info with the other.

Add in the emotional stuff -- if I had a twin, and somebody not only knew it, but was actively studying it in a Trumanesque manner I would certainly want to know. I'd be more then pissed to find out later. Wouldn't you?

It wasn't illegal to split them up at the time. And there was a school of thought that they were doing it for their benefit. But it doesn't mask that what they did was wrong. And that it went beyond simply putting twins in different homes.

If there was no foul, why did the introduce the regulations not to split them up?

 

Sam, I'm not sure how to say this other than....I'm not comfortable with research groups intentionally splitting up twin syblings to research the effects of splitting up twin syblings.

I recognize entirely that you may have a different viewpoint on this. I've never once called you or anyone else here callous or heartless. I simply stated how I see it.

 

It wasn't illegal at the time of the study.

Nobody has provided an argument as to how the twins were harmed by the study.

 

I'd say it's apparent from its face. Knowing you are a twin...and knowing your twin....is better than not knowing....it steals something from your own true identity. It's wrong enough that NY and other states introduced legislation to make it illegal.

 

this is where I have a problem with some of you guys' view points that think this was so unethical. I really don't believe you're thinking of this from an adoptees perspective. if you were adopted and you didn't know you had a twin, it wouldn't matter.

especially considering, there is no guarantee you'd know if you had one without this experiment. so if the conditions are there, why not study them?

kids adopted from birth have no knowledge of any of their family. what makes the twin situation unique?

 

With all due respect, if you don't see it, then it's because you haven't studied the issue. Not saying you're callous and heartless -- just not knowledgeable on this issue. Not by todays standards.

Those that study these things have pretty much unanimously agreed that there is a huge benefit to keeping sybling groups together. I'm not going to post links to their research, but please feel free to look it up yourself if you're really that interested.

 

They weren't physically harmed but it's obvious from their own statements that they feel emotionally harmed by the study.

I think anyone who is arguing for this type of behavior is pretty calloused and either has no siblings or doesn't like the ones they do have.

They should have made all efforts possible to get them adopted as a set of twins. If after that the only other option is to split them up, that's fine. The first aim of the adoption agency should be to keep the twins together and to keep all siblings together. Only if that is not at all possible should any other option be considered.

 

how are they emotionally harmed, they likely would have never known they were twins.

 

That's not a valid argument, but I guess you know that.

 

I don't beleive you. Post a link.