Adoption In The News: “Father spoke of having Obama adopted”

How would your life have changed if you were adopted? That is a question we have all wondered at one point or another. According to this article on Boston.com, Barack Obama I., the father of United States President Barack Obama II, told United States authorities that he and his pregnant wife, Ann Dunham, “intended to put their child up for adoption.”

The author of the article, Sally Jacobs, recently finished a book entitled “The Other Barack, The Bold and Reckless Life of President Obama’s Father” which will be released next week.

At the time President Obama was born, his father was a sophomore foreign student at the University Hawaii and had what he said was an ex-wife and two children in his native Kenya.

Despite his father’s claims that they were considering making an adoption plan, the article said that President Obama had no knowledge that an adoption plan was considered. Friends and family members of President Obama’s mother, who passed away in 1995, said she never considered placing her son for adoption.

Whether or not President Obama’s parents considered an adoption plan will probably never be known for sure, however there have been several politicians including Presidents Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton, who were adopted. Other adoptees in politics include John Hancock, Senators Paull H. Shin and Robert Byrd, First lady’s Nancy Reagan and Eleanor Roosevelt, and former South African President Nelson Mandela. The Adoption STAR website has a full list of famous adoptees.