Religious Adoption Hypocrisy...and, MONEY!

The National Catholic Register published the most hypocritical article entitled: "Penalized for Putting ‘Best Interest of the Child’ First" by William B. May is chairman of Catholic for the Common Good.

While the article is about the catholic obsessive hatred of same sex unions and adoption, there are some GREAT, very quotable quotes in the article which starts out by stating these realities of adoption:

If the clients are the adults, the child then becomes a precious commodity. The qualification for the adoptive parent(s) is merely competence in parenting. However, if the client is the child, the process for qualifying the prospective parent is quite different, taking into account the human rights and dignity of the child.

First, let us consider the state of the child up for adoption — deprived of his or her mother and father who for some reason were not able to fulfill their responsibilities to the child. Nevertheless, the child carries the flesh of these people and is a witness to their union for all of eternity. The child has not only lost a very real primordial connection associated with his or her identity, but something that is common to every person without exception and important to human flourishing.

As the child grows in age, the awareness of loss increases. Not only the connection with the persons from whom the child originated is missing, but there are also questions about siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, medical history, sense of family history and ethnic and cultural heritage. The ability, as far as possible, for a child to know and be cared for by his or her mother and father is so precious that it is an internationally recognized human right specified in the “U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Considering the child’s status, adoption is really an accommodation for this privation. It is an act of charity in which strangers make an irrevocable promise to love, to stand in for and to represent the man and woman who gave the child life and who were not able to fulfill their responsibilities. In this sense, they are not only taking on responsibility to the child, but also to the parents of the child."

The article then goes on to make the absurd argument that the original mother can only be replaced by a female and the original father, by a man. All logic is suspended at this point, but I guess religion is wont to do that, what with virgin mothers and holy ghosts.

 

HOW IRONIC considering that the Catholic Conference (CC) is the major opponent to adoptees accessing their own original birth certificates and being able to reconnect with their lost kin.

 

ALL equal access activists are URGED to use these quotes to prove what hypocrites Catholics are!! The incredulous irony of May saying: “Human rights cannot be created or changed, only recognized” while the CC stomps on the human rights of adopted persons.

SOOO, why does the CC oppose adoptees right to be treated to all non-adopted citizens? Because of a very insulting pretense that mothers who lovingly - or under pressure - relinquish children they have carried for nine months for adoption would prefer to abort rather than risk being found! Does that ability to reverse time apply to mothers who have their rights terminated by the state years after their children were born?

Their argument is however contrary to the statistics which indicate that in status where adoptee access has been restored there has been no increase in abortions and no decrease in adoptions. And they know it!

So what is their REAL reason for fighting desperately to deny the rights of these children whose rights May speaks of? It is fear of priests and other men in high positions being found by children they fathered outside of their marriages.

How dare a Catholic speak about the human rights of children and “the principle of irreplaceability” when they advocate erasing the truth of the adopted child’s identity, heritage and lineage and replacing it with a fraudulent birth certificate claiming adoptive parents as parents to whom the child was born. The church baptizes these children confirming these falsehoods….the same church that told thousands of mothers in the past to LIE about ever having had a child.

Hatred for homosexuals and homosexuality allows them to violate their own moral arguments, not to mention eliminating possible parents for children in foster care who cannot be reunified with their families and might benefit from caring parents, regardless of their gender.

Follow the Money

Beyond all this is yet a bigger hidden agenda!  Religious agencies have every right to discriminate as they chose to. They can give preference to prospective adopters who are Jewish, or Muslim, or Catholic and they can reject applicants who are NOT Jewish or catholic or whatever...

The simply cannot make those kind of discriminatory choices AND expect tax dollar support for doing so!

Catholic Charities of Illinois has more than 3,000 children in its foster care and adoption agencies, representing around 20 percent of all such services in the state, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.  

 

In recompense, the state pays the organization around $30 million a year. THIS is what is at stake!

 

Catholic Charities is hoping for an amendment to the civil unions bill allowing exemptions for faith-based organizations, allowing them to pass adoption applications to gay-friendly organizations without penalty. Rep. Dwight Kay (R-Edwardsville) introduced an amendment to the civil unions law  that would ensure religious child welfare agencies can turn away committed same-sex couples who want to adopt children or provide foster homes.

 

Illinois officials are investigating whether religious agencies that receive public money to license foster care and adoptive parents are breaking anti-discrimination laws if they turn away potential parents who are openly gay.

If they are found in violation, Lutheran Child and Family Services, Catholic Charities in five regions outside Chicago, and the Evangelical Child and Family Agency will have to license openly gay foster parents or lose millions of state dollars, potentially disrupting thousands of foster children in their care or give up the tax funding. 

"If we are forced out it is the children that are going to be affected," Celeste Matheson, Director of Advancement for Catholic Charities, is quoted as saying. 

 

They want it both ways. They want to discriminate and have tax payers foot the bill! AND they claim to be charitable when it's really all about the money!  

But let's be clear about same sex adoption. It is NOT all about placing special needs kids, despite the old rhetoric that gays are willing to accept children no one else wants including HIV positive children. 

 

They are also on the front lines competing for yet UNBORN newborns and are able to appear more sincere in offering open adoption to do so!

The NJ Bar Association website states:

In the next time slot of seminars I visited Creating Family: Counseling GLBT Clients on Adoption with attorneys Debra Guston, Donald Cofsky, and Doulas Pine with Terry Petrone and Elaine Schwartz from Adoptions by the Heart.

I really found this to be an informative program about the difficulties and hurtles that GLBT clients must navigate on the path to adoption. Among the issues for these couples are insurance companies, cryobanks and embryo donation organizations that refuse to serve same-sex couples.

Insurance lags behind woefully, said the panelists. Insurance companies try at every turn to put language in insurance policies that eventually will lead to the insurance company denying the claim and not paying.

Panelists from Adoptions from the Heart said that same-gender couples are more willing to be open with birth parents than opposite sex parents. They come across more sincere with their promise of openness. They are finding that birth parents are more amenable to choosing a same-gender couple for their adoption as the right couple to adopt their child for just those reasons.

The agency looks for stability, committed relationships, the couples motivation to adopt, and their commitment to a stable home. More and more birth parents are choosing same-gender couples.

Another important point taken from this program is counseling GLBT clients about the stability of their relationship. The motto is "we're never going to break up," but reality is reality. Counsel clients in this regard and sit down and have them figure out,what do they want to accomplish? You may find out things that did not come to light at first.

Guest Blog: Evelyn Robinson Shares Her Trip to Korea

I have just returned from my first visit to South Korea. On the 27th of May, I presented a paper on how adoption policy and practice have changed in Australia at an international forum organised by the Institute of Gender and Law at Ewha Womans University, in Seoul. Ewha has the distinction of being the oldest women’s educational institution in the world. It was, of course, a great honour to be invited to speak in Seoul and I was delighted to accept their invitation.

Ewha University has grown to become the largest women’s university in the world and the Institute of Gender and Law decided to celebrate their first anniversary by hosting this forum. The forum was entitled Unwed Mothers, Adoption and Gender Law and this seems an ideal topic to be addressed by such an institute. The conference was an important event at a high profile educational facility and attracted interest from the media.

The university campus is very impressive and it was wonderful to see so many young women in a environment of higher learning, considering a hundred years ago women could only attend lectures at Oxford and Cambridge universities with special permission and they were not allowed to study for degrees. It was a commonly expressed view at that time that allowing women to study would distract them from their domestic duties. That may amuse us now, but it is an indication of how much progress has been made already in women’s issues.

 

Evelyn with Hee-Jung (beside me), Jane (L) and Pastor Kim.

It was clear from the conference and from my discussions over the few days that I spent in Korea that attitudes towards unmarried mothers and illegitimate children in Korea are very similar to the attitudes experienced by mothers in countries like Australia and the United Kingdom from the 1950s to the 1970s. Thankfully those attitudes have changed enormously since that time and they are changing in Korea. Social changes such as these come about because people are prepared to make a stand and refuse to tolerate discrimination and inequity.

Adoption has always been largely a women’s issue and has been linked to the status of unmarried women in society. It is closely linked to the empowerment of women, their ability to control their own fertility and their freedom to make informed choices around parenting, safe from coercion. In countries like Australia we take these freedoms largely for granted nowadays, but they only came about because women were prepared to fight for change - sometimes with the assistance of informed and supportive men.

Records indicate that at least 200,000 Koreans have been adopted out of Korea in recent years and raised in other countries. We know little about the long term impact of this loss on the Korean mothers and families, because few of them have felt confident to speak out about their experiences. We are, however, hearing more and more from adults who were adopted out of Korea as children about what it has meant for them to have been raised apart from their families and heritage. Many of them are now returning to Korea in search of family and in an attempt to connect with their sense of being Korean and are describing their sense of cultural displacement. Their stories are harrowing, but their enthusiasm and commitment are admirable and they are a powerful force for change.

Now that the prestigious Ewha University has begun to acknowledge these issues, it is to be hoped that they will go on to produce valuable research, which will convince the Korean government that they can learn from the mistakes of the past and that sending Korean children to live in other countries is not solving any of the problems which exist in Korea and is, in fact, creating long term issues for those involved. All countries have social problems of various kinds and I have no doubt that social attitudes will change in Korea, as they have done in other countries and that, over time, there will be both government and community support for families in difficulties.

I thoroughly enjoyed my first visit to Korea. The Korean people I met were extremely welcoming and hospitable and Korean food is amazingly creative and interesting. I met with not only the staff at the university, especially those from the Institute of Gender and Law, but also Hee-Jung Kwon, Executive Director of KUMSN (the Korean Unwed Mothers Support Network), Jane Jeong Trenka, co-editor of Outsiders Within and President of TRACK (Truth and Reconciliation for the Adoption Community of Korea) and Pastor Kim Do-hyun, founder of KoRoot, a guest house which welcomes and supports returning Korean adoptees. These are some of the people who are working in Korea to support those whose lives have already been affected by adoption separation and to bring about social change and replace intercountry adoption with more family-focussed alternatives.

The Korean people I met were delighted to hear of the progress that has been made in Australia, where we no longer coerce mothers into agreeing for their children to be adopted and where we provide post-adoption support services for family members who have already experienced adoption separation. They are managing to make their voices heard in Korea, in order to educate the community about the issues for unmarried mothers, who are struggling to resist the pressure on them to part with their children for adoption and for those who have already experienced adoption separation and are suffering complex long term grief and loss issues.

Unmarried mothers in Korea are disempowered in the way that they once were in Australian society and because of the shame they are being made to feel, they are being coerced into parting with their children. We can support them by encouraging our government to stop colluding in this situation by accepting these children into Australia. If we are genuinely concerned about the needs of children in Korea, there are more positive ways we can assist them, rather than removing them from their families and heritage. There is a growing awareness in Korea of the importance of family preservation and we can play our part in that by encouraging those who are working there for more social supports for the underprivileged.

The solution to Korea’s social problems lie within Korea and those of us outside of Korea can assist the Korean people to take responsibility for solving those problems and offer positive assistance where we are able. I’m delighted to have been given the opportunity to lend my support to those who are working for positive social change in Korea and who are offering ethical, family-focussed solutions.

Please feel free to share.

Kind regards,

Evelyn

A View Back to 1962: Everything Old is New Again

Changing Concepts in Adoption in Services to Unmarried Mothers

By Florence G. Brown

Jewish Communal Service Association of North America, National Conference of Jewish Communal Service, Winter 1962 

The author argues that one reason Jewish family agencies have difficulties finding Jewish children for adoption by Jewish parents is that Jewish agencies are not reaching unwed mothers in their communities. She discusses rising rates of childbirth out of wedlock, and reviews the services offered by her agency, Louise Wise Services of New York City. These include increasing services to the unwed mothers themselves, increased service to the adoptive children after placement, and increased services to the adoptive parents after placement, instead of focusing exclusively on the adoptive placement itself. Efforts better to serve children with disabilities are also being made, along with new efforts necessary to place children of interracial backgrounds. 

Instead of applauding a decrease in women seeking out-of-family placements for their children as a sign of health for individuals and the nation...instead they bemoan the downturn in the baby market, the reduction of the lucrative redistribution of children. 

The concern is not for waiting children in orphanages or languishing in foster care, it's about how to cope with "difficulties finding Jewish children for adoption by Jewish parents." DIFFICULTIES FINDING CHILDREN to fill orders!!! This is a problem because "Jewish agencies are not reaching unwed mothers in their communities." !!!

The answer is RECRUITMENT, though they try to cleverly hide it in newspeak: "increasing services to the unwed mothers"

It is amoral. Children are clearly commodities to fill a demand and keep those in the industry making a living from it all...There is absolutely no other explanation for recruitment programs that this article is addressing as a s"solution" to the "problem" of a paucity of "available" babies to fill orders...especially within a niche market!

This is the kind of behavior that Australia apologized for but still continues in the US to this day!!!

The only slight change today in MARKETING techniques would be to delete the word "unwed" and to dangle open adoption as the best of both world's carrot. Otherwise, the gist of the article could be printed today...and likely IS!

The Club that Wants no Members

...everything

I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go...

In Blackwater Woods by Mary Oliver

Today I attended the memorial service of a young member of my congregation who chose to end his life. Matthew (all names have been changed to protect privacy) had battled demons and his parents thought all that was behind him and he was doing well and had so much to live for. He was just 32.

His mother, becomes the FIFTH mother in my personal circle of friends and acquaintances to loose a young adult child to suicide. Counting me, that makes six that I know of personally. Of the six, four were children who had been adopted, but that is likely a result of my involvement in the adoption community and so many of my friends and acquaintances being touched by adoption, although adoption is known to be a risk factor for suicide.

Suicide is misunderstood and needlessly riddled with shame, complicating the grief process for survivors.

Recently, I shared with a widower that I had lost my daughter when she was just 27. He asked if it was illness or an accident, since I suppose those are the two common distinctions that divide the widow/widower community. I stopped and thought. Which neat little categorical box did suicide belong in? The answer was plain: neither. What the man was really seeking to know was whether my loss had been sudden or more anticipated and in some cases a welcome relief of suffering.  In that sense, suicide is both.  It is most often the end of a long battle with depression, diagnosed, known, or not, and yet it is a sudden and very unexpected end in almost all cases. The person is there and fine one day and gone the next.

While survivors of suicide share the unanticipated shock of the event with those whose loved ones are killed in fatal crashes or victims of fatal crimes, the question of blame is fare more difficult to navigate.

Often - in suicide, unlike any other death - the answer of who to blame is the victim or his survivors.

The most recent loss by suicide prior to Matthew's was a friend from the "Y" who lost her daughter in November, just before Thanksgiving. Paulette's daughter left two children. Some of Paulette's family are old school Catholic and she had to deal with their unkind judgmental comments such as the fate of her daughter's soul and her daughter being called 'selsifh' for taking her life.

At today's memorial service one of the subjects addressed by my Unitarian minister was the fact that we need to celebrate the BRAVERY of people who chose to end their lives for their COURAGE in dealing with their demons as long as they did! I wished Paulette had been there to hear that! And I wish all the ignorant people who suggested otherwise could understand it.

I and the three other mothers who twice lost our children - lost them twice to ignorance and judgement. First we were labeled "unfit" to parent them, told others were more deserving, then burdened with SHAME for having done so. And, then, we lost them in a manner that is again filled with societal ignorance, judgment and shame.

There was no shame in their births or their deaths! My daughter and the other three were born as a result of LOVE and died as a result of PAIN. No shame in any of that!!!

They say our loved ones who die are not gone because they live on in our love for them and in our memories of them....

But some of us have few or even no memories at all of our loved ones, because they were taken from us twice.

Miss Me, But Let Me Go

Author Unknown

When I come to the end of the road

And the sun has set for me,

I want no rites in a gloom-filled room,

Why cry for a soul set free!

Miss me a little - but not for long

And not with your head bowed low.

Remember the love that we once shared,

Miss me, but let me go.

For this journey that we all must take

And each must go alone;

It's all a part of the Master's plan

A step on the road to home.

When you are lonely and sick at heart

Go to the friends we know,

And bury your sorrows in doing good deeds.

Miss me, but let me go.

New Justification for State Child Removal: Obesity?

Dr. OZ: From Fan to Fear of His Fanaticism 

I've been a huge fan of Dr Oz. I have watched his show most days and been enthusiastic fan of his efforts to improve people's health through healthier diet, exercise, and his advocacy for alternative or integrative modalities and healing herbs etc.

Yet the more I watch, the more I have witnessed misinformation or incomplete information being passed along to audiences on his fast-paced audience interactive show watched by an estimated 3.7 million viewers.  For instance, he was criticized on Huffington Post and by others for saying that "Type 1 is also called juvenile diabetes and you are born with it" neither of which are true and would certainly need a qualifier to say it effects people of all ages.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, a cardiac surgeon, Vice Chair of the Department of Surgery at Columbia University and medical director of the Integrative Medicine Program, got his start like Dr. Phil: on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Oz, a long-time proponent of alternative medicine who a decade ago brought reiki masters into the operating room, has been criticized by The Times for his connection to the website RealAge.com, which The New York Times has criticized for its pharmaceutical marketing practices, which is odd considering he is very negative toward pharmaceuticals. The site solicits medical information from visitors to determine a visitor’s biological age and then uses the visitor's medical profile for pharmaceutical marketing purposes.

Val Jones, MD, GetBetterHealth.com, joined the crusade against Dr. Oz, saying that he’d descended from “competent and caring cardiothoracic surgeon whose research interest was reducing preoperative stress” to “America’s chief snake oil salesman.”  And, he's been attacked from the far left. Medical marijuana supporters were very upset with his mid-ground statement that it's not "all-purpose healer."

Today's show, however, sent me over the edge:

"If you knew a child was being abused, it is quite likely that you would say something or take action, right?" he asks questioning whether or not Child Obesity, an epidemic of our time, is child abuse or not. 

While trying to appear neutral, Oz clearly gave voice to and supported those advocating having mothers of obese children charged with child abuse and removing their children if they did not avail themselves of help.

His "experts" consisted of someone named Meme Roth, self-proclaimed "public figure" - or as she is often referred to: "Writer, Speaker and Anti-Obesity Advocate MeMe Roth." She is affiliated with [read sole owner, president of] the National Action Against Obesity. And, Ms. Meredith Roth, who prefers the narcissistic abbreviated version of her name: MeMe, was was viral on the Oz program.

 Her facebook page reveals proudly of her invitation to the show: "The producers feared all the experts would be 'too polite' to the parents... They wanted MeMe Roth. as the "matchstick..!" She was a fire-bomb making blatantly incorrect statements such as genetics is bullshit. Note, however, that neither her FB page nor her blog provide any credentials whatsoever. This, in and of itself does bode well for Dr. Oz.

The National Action Against Obesity website, which names Roth its president and founder, is suspiciously silent on the topic of Roth's qualifications to hold forth on issues of health. While Roth's bio page refers vaguely to "members of the NAAO community" who are "physicians, nutritionists and sports trainers, in addition to chefs, film-makers and students," she subsequently admits that, "for the most part, we all consider ourselves concerned citizens." But "we" seems to be MeMe and only MeMe.

Dr Oz's expert meme is not a doctor; not a dietitian or nutritionist; not a medical researcher and may not even hold a bachelor's degree! Shame on Dr, Oz for allowing this young woman to judge mothers and their mothering and tell them their children should be taken away from their for their abuse! My heart was breaking for the children also invited into this circus to be hear this!

His other guests today were pediatrician Dr. Alan Greene of Dr Greene.com, author of "Feeding Baby Green” and Dr Corey Hebert, a practicing physician and talk show host who touts himself as a "renowned healer and motivator" flat out said it's the parents' FAULT.

In addition to my horror at the suggestions of MeMe and Dr. Oz that children's obesity should used as proof of their mother's abuse of them, and they should be removed when all else fails...as if that is not and enough...I have yet another concern about Oz, MeMe, Dr. Herbert and others' hyper attacks on obesity:

Where is there concern for the backlash of eating disorders, another EPIDEMIC facing youth and others?  Never have I heard one word from Dr. Oz, whenever discussing obesity as a health risk, mention the opposite health risk of being too thin, though he did exploit the topic by having on the world's thinnest man and the world's oddest eating disorders, such as chalk eaters!  It's a freakin' side show!!  Bet he'd love to book the "tree man'!

Interestingly enough...Ms. MeMe admitted on the Alan King show that she herself has an eating disorder! BINGO! That explains her extreme obsession with FAT and obesity! Do Oz's producers vet their guests at all?  Obviously they are far more interested in ratings than the health of their audiences! Shame, shame!  No surprises, but shame.

Oz, I believe. like any politicians, started out with good intentions. But he has allowed those who hold the purse strings of his show - and apparently his puppet strings, as well - to turn him into nothing more than the SHOCK JOCK of daytime TV!

AND...there's a poll asking: Is It Child Abuse to Have a Child Who Is Obese?

The NOS are currently ahead by a small margin: 54% to 46%. So cast your vote!  

More work to do on adoptee access

I just discovered this was published on May 13!  (Maybe my nemesis will see that we really do not disagree much...except in the way we deal with those differences. It's all the last paragraph!)

More work to do on adoptee access

The passage of New Jersey’s Adoption Birthright bill Monday is a long-overdue, momentous day for the adopted people in New Jersey who have waited and worked 30 years for this. And there is great hopeful anticipation that Gov. Chris Christie will sign this bill into law speedily.

However, there is still a long way to go. Instead of giving adopted people unconditional, unrestricted access to their own birth certificates — the same as all other citizens have — this legislation contains restrictions that apply only to adopted-separated citizens.

A birth certificate is a legal document identifying a citizen as he comes into the world. It is a snapshot in time marking an important and unique private and public event and thus is protected by Articles 7 and 8 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Adoption, which occurs subsequent to birth, legally severs the relationship between mother and child. The mother relinquishes her parental rights and becomes, legally, a nonrelated stranger to her child.

This law now allows this nonrelated stranger, who has relinquished all rights to her child, to go back in time and rewrite history, defacing the adoptee’s original record of his birth by redacting her name. They only have a year to do so, and statistics from other states tell us very few will. But however many do, it is unfair and should not be allowed.

At the same time, mothers who desperately want a copy of a legal document on which they are named, and which represents a monumental moment in their life, the birth of a child — for many their first child, and for some their only child — are denied access to documentation of the event that occurred prior to relinquishment and adoption.

In both of these ways, this law maintains discrimination by treating adoption-separated citizens as a separate class of people with laws that apply only to them and none others, although they are neither minors nor criminals.

“Laws suppressing information about adoptees and/or their birthparents, and laws allowing access to such information only upon consent or registration, or laws allowing access to such information only upon court order, deny adopted persons, their birthparents, and their relatives equal protection of the laws and constitutes unwarranted interference by the government with the right of people to choose whether to associate.” FL-ACLU, April 21, 1987

Additionally, left out of any relief by this bill are people who already have suffered the indignancy of having been abandoned who forever will be denied access to any documentation that might identify the hospital they may have been born in or any other shred of fact.

Legislators believe they have created a compromise that balances the rights of adoptees and their birth parents. This is not true, inasmuch as parents who relinquish their children for adoption relinquish all rights to that child and are promised nothing in return. There is no right to privacy, anonymity or legal protection of secrets and lies nor a right to go back in time and change or erase facts or events. On the other hand, all citizens are allowed unrestricted access to birth certificates on which they are named.

One is a civil rights violation, the other is not.

The governor needs to do the right thing and sign this first step toward total equality. And we need to not stop fighting in New Jersey until all citizens enjoy the same unfettered access to their birth certificates and freedom of association as guaranteed by the First Amendment.

Mirah Riben

Adoption 'rights' should not protect mothers

MyCentralJersey.com May 20, 2011

Arnold Schwarzenegger is the latest, but far from the first or only man caught when his sexual dalliances became public fodder. Just ask John Edwards. No matter how powerful, such men are unable to protect their secrets and lies from being revealed.

But adoption does just that — erases a birth as if it didn’t happen by issuing a falsified so-called “amended” birth certificate indicating the adopted child was born to his adoptive parents and sealing the original and true birth certificate, not just from the public, but from the very people named on the record and to whom it should belong.

States (Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois and Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington) currently revisiting outdated laws that discriminate against those who were adopted by preventing them access to their own birth certificates are being bombarded with lies perpetrated by adoption industry lobbyists claiming mothers who relinquished their rights have some alleged “right” to protection from their lies and secrets.

Politicians, swayed by paid lobbyists, find costly and convoluted “compromises” such as state-appointed intermediaries to find each mother and ask her permission, or provisions for mothers to file a waiver or veto disallowing her child access to his birth certificate.

But equality cannot be compromised and when you sort through all the rhetoric there is no conflict of mothers’ rights as there is no right of privacy or any right to protect lies and secrets. Adoption secrets when revealed are generally far less harmful than we fear, as witnessed recently when Oprah Winfrey's long-lost sister found her.

On the one hand, you have people who were born in America and adopted as children who are denied the same right to their own birth certificate all other U.S. citizens take for granted. On the other hand, you have false allegations that mothers were promised that a child they had would be kept secret, a right no one has.

Alleging mothers who relinquished were promised or now need “protection” is no different from the arguments made to prevent women from voting. In neither case did the women want such protection, and it instead created a denial of sexual equality and civil rights. Men are sought after to own up to their paternity while women are to be “protected” not from public scrutiny — which might be expected — but from their own offspring.

How do I know? In the summer of 1967, the Summer of Love, I left the abusive man I had eloped with when I was just 19 and had a child who was relinquished for adoption. In 1980 I co-founded a New Jersey-based national support group for mothers who lost children to adoption and in the ensuing years have counseled hundreds of mothers who were pressured by the mores of the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s. I have read many of the relinquishments signed by such women, and none make any promise to “protect” their anonymity.

In fact, many of the papers state that the mothers are relinquishing their parental rights for the minority of their child’s life, leading mothers to believe that upon their child reaching adulthood they would be allowed to know of their well-being.

I also have researched the laws that sealed adoption records in most states in the 1940s. The reasons stated were to protect adoptees from the stigma of illegitimacy and to protect the adoptive parents/family from intrusion of the birth family. Not one word of any concern about protecting original mothers. Sealing of adoption records was encouraged by adoption practitioners who operate more easily under a cloak of secrecy, fearing the transparency might reveal some less than ethical adoption practices.

Will giving access to birth certificates cause discomfort for some who have relinquished? Possibly. But few laws please all the people all the time. Even “if” mothers assumed their relinquished child would never know their name — things change. Marriage vows are exchanged without expectations of divorce, and no homeowner ever expects to lose their home by eminent domain. And in Pennsylvania, mothers who relinquished expected to know their children and that their children would be able to find them, until the law was changed sealing birth certificates there in 1985.

And even without their original birth certificates, many adoptees find members of their first families. Anyone not wanting contact merely has to say “no” to a phone call or knock at the door. There are ample laws to protect anyone from unwanted contact such as harassment or stalking.

It’s high time we ended all laws that are sexist in nature and that use a guise of “protection” to deny equality and caught up with Alaska and Kansas, which never sealed adoption records and no harm ever came to anyone. Antiquated laws that sealed adoption records in the 1940s simply need to be repealed to create total equality for all adoption-separated people. A birth certificate is both a public and private record, and as such belongs to all named therein. It is s snapshot in time that cannot be eradicated or annulled as having not taken place.

Mirah Riben
 
The writer is author of “The Dark Side of Adoption” (1988) and “The Stork Market: America's Multi-Billion Dollar Unregulated Adoption Industry” (2007).

UPDATE 5/24/11: This piece will be reprinted in the very pro-adoption publication, Adoption Today. the editor wrote to me:

"I just finished reading your Op/Ed Adoption 'rights' should not protect mothers and thought you made a compelling argument for repealing the antiquated laws that have sealed adoption records and denied equal rights for so many.
I would like to share your article with the readers of Adoption Today with a page 3 position usually reserved for my editorial. I am requesting your permission to reprint your article without edit in the June 2011 issue of AT.
The favor of your reply is requested at your earliest convenience."

Of course I granted permission! 

Trauma, Witness, and Accountability

"To study psychological trauma means bearing witness to horrible events. When the events are natural disasters or ‘acts of God,’ those who bear witness sympathize readily with the victim. But when the traumatic events are of human design, those who bear witness are caught in the conflict between victim and perpetrator. It is morally impossible to remain neutral in this conflict. The bystander is forced to take sides.

"It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear, and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action, engagement, and remembering.

"…In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. Secrecy and silence are the perpetrator’s first line of defense. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure that no one listens.
 
"…Without a supportive social environment, the bystander usually succumbs to the temptation to look the other way. … Soldiers in every war, even those who have been regarded as heroes, complain bitterly that no one wants to know the real truth about war. When the victim is already devalued (a woman, a child), she may find that the most traumatic events of her life take place outside the realm of socially validated reality. Her experience becomes unspeakable."
  
Trauma and Recovery, by Judith Lewis Herman, M.D

"Herman draws on her own cutting-edge research in domestic violence as well as on the vast literature of combat veterans and victims of political terror, to show the parallels between private terrors such as rape and public traumas such as terrorism. The book puts individual experience in a broader political frame, arguing that psychological trauma can be understood only in a social context."

The tendency described in the original quote by Herman... the ability to walk past panhandlers; step over the homeless has been called "intentional blindness or "willful blindness." 

The later is the title of a book that looks at business (Enron), science, government and family explains why whistle-blowers are so rare and explains why wilful blindness is so dangerous in the globalised, interconnected world in which we live,

"It was not enough for the defendants [in the Enron case] to say that they did not know what was going on; that they had not seen anything. If they failed to observe the corruption which was unfolding before their very eyes, not knowing was no defence."

Is this not the primary phenomenon in homes in which children are abused?  And is it not the reaction of the public to our cries for attention be drawn to the harm adoption separation cause families?

Separating Myth From Fact RE NJ 1406

In a Bastardette blog, March 1o, 2011  Marley writes that she thinks she "kicked ass" (a situation others might describe as getting her ass kicked, or simply making an ass of herself) and calls her appearance at the Hard Rock Cafe, New York to bash the NJ legislation "mission accomplished." If that was what she set out to accomplish - though she admits not distributing the "manifesto" she had spent the night before writing -- and was worth her traveling to NY for -- I cannot imagine what failure would look like.

She briefly pats herself on the back and then, New Jersey being MaryAnne's Cohen's home state, she (MaryAnne) comments on this blog on March 15:

...for those who do no understand, a contact VETO and contact PREFERENCE are two different things. A contact preference, as exists in Oregon and some other real open states, is just that, a PREFERENCE, not binding and with no penalties. The adoptee still gets their full OBC with nothing whited out. They are also told that their mother "PREFERS" not to be contacted, but if they ignore that and make a contact there is no legal penalty. Most adoptees respect the mother's wishes, but that is a personal matter, not a legal one.


A contact or disclosure VETO prevents the release of the OBC or releases a damaged document with things like the mother's name whited out. If a contact veto is in place and the adoptee violates it, there are fines and other legal punishments in place under law.


I would be a little less upset about badly compromised adoptee access legislation if those supporting it were honest and did not refer to it as "adoptee rights" or "adoptee birthright" legislation, because it is not.


What it is is search and reunion legislation, sometimes with a mishmash of other things like medical records to further complicate things. It gives new legal rights of confidentiality to birth mothers that did not exist before under law, which most of us do not want. It is not about rights, but about permission from Mom and the state for some adoptees to get their own OBC. Such legislation admits this is not about civil or human rights for all adoptees, but about granting a favor to some.


The point is often made that "99%" of adoptees will still be able to get their OBC because so few mothers will file vetoes, so what's the harm? Another point also made is that "adoptees are dying" in large numbers without being reunited because mean people like BN insist on only clean bills.


Both these assertions are distortions and exaggerations. Even if your point of view is about reunions, not rights,certainly more than 1% of birthmothers do not welcome contact, based on the experience of search results for many years, Yes, a majority want to be found, but nothing in the real world indicates that high a majority. Self-selected surveys are skewed, always....

Badly compromised bills such as those some want to pass in order to pass something/anything on their watch do more harm than working for more years to pass a clean bill. Look at the facts, and decide which kind of bill you favor for your state for years to come.

It is almost amusing that someone who knows not of what they speak, begins with "for those who do not understand"!  If you are going to criticize something it is best to understand it first.  It makes your criticism far more credible. And it is. after all, your home state, you'd think you'd take the time to understand a bill you are opposed to!

MaryAnne's 's distinction between contact and preference veto is correct. However, she first conveniently ignores or doesn't know that the veto in the NJ bill is limited to ONE YEAR. After that the bill is clean!

Secondly, she is likewise ignores or does not understand or know there is also a difference between an OPT-IN and and OPT-OUT veto. The NJ legislators vehemently favored a passive veto wherein mothers would have to take action to allow OBCs with their names to be released - OPTING IN. They pushed very hard for it and NJ-CARE pushed back, refusing to accept a bill with that provision. In the end, a compromise of a one year limited proactive OPT-OUT disclosure veto.

"Disclosure Veto" is apparently something MaryAnne is unfamiliar with, but is what this bill provides. Mothers are required to PROACTIVELY submit a certified letter requesting their name is redacted from the OBC.

Finally, contrary to MaryAnne's contention that the veto means no OBC, ALL NJ adoptees WILL get their OBC, albeit a precious few might have their mother's name redacted.

Is it optimal? No. However MaryAnne gives stats on percentages of mothers who want to be found versus those who are not welcoming. This falls under the heading of "lies, damned lies, and statistics." The number of mothers who welcome contact is different from the number or percent of mothers who take advantage of proactive opt-out vetoes in states that have him. That number is 1% or less!

The decision to accept this compromise was based on THAT and on 31 years of experience with the powers that be in NJ including opposition by a COALITION consisting of NCFA, the Bar Assoc., Catholic Conference and NJ-ACLU that NJ-CARE made a difficult decision to chance those few adoptees whose mothers would go to the trouble of writing a certified letter - or throwing ALL NJ adoptees under the bus for who knows how many more decades!

NOW...as if that's not bad enough that MaryAnne spouts off lies, myth and misconceptions...Marley adds her 2 cents after this comment by commenting:

Thanks for posting these Maryanne. I really don't understand what is so difficult to grasp about conditional access other than deformers and deactivists don't want to feel guilty about the people they are screwing over. The sickening display of sell-out at the Hard Rock was probably actually good but painful to experience Now we really know who our friends are; and they aren't in the so-called movement.

By not correcting one thing, Marley proves she is as clueless what it is she vehemently campaigns against as is MaryAnne!  It is frighteningly prophetic when she says "I really don't understand." Indeed she really does not understand and it seems difficult for BOTH of these self-appointed judges of other's work to "grasp" the facts of what they are objecting to. One can only wonder if they really object to the actual bill or just to their imaginings of what it is.   Guess they were both too busy complaining to actually read the bill A1406/S799. Unless they are intentionally being deceptive? But I doubt it!

Either way, I believe that anyone who was not there for the 31 years working on this and knowing the options has no right to complain!  I myself am not 100% thrilled with the bill, none of us are, but I participated very minimally in working on it and so I have the courtesy to respect those who did.

We were NOT cheering compromise at the Hard Rock or anywhere. It is what it is and it it was a difficult choice. It is far better than other states, including Marley's home state of Ohio which has one of the worst access laws in the nation - a law which eliminates all adoptees born between 1964 and 1996.  They complain about the NJ bill and those who worked on it when NJ-CARE refused to accept a year limited bill!

The argument that a bill cannot be revisited simply because no one has revisited an access bill YET, is bogus! It most certainly COULD be and it has just as much chance of passing as the did the original, it just needs a little bit of time between the first and a second go around and it needs people to do it! Instead of arguing it can't be done wouldn't it make more sense for Marley to TRY to fix the Ohio mess?  But that takes actual work, not just blah blah blah bitching and moaning and complaining!

Bottom line: Know what it is you are against!

For-profit Adoption Agency Raked in $1.2 MILLION Last Year

Iowa targets license of adoption agency

DES MOINES, Iowa—

Iowa is moving to revoke the license of a Waukee-based adoption agency accused of breaking several provisions in state adoption laws and failing to adhere to a voluntary legal agreement reached with the Iowa attorney general's office in 2008.

The for-profit agency, Abby's One True Gift Inc., said an investigator's report is one-sided and is fighting the state's effort.

• • X
    Trials
    Adoption
    Justice System
    Lawyers
    Des Moines Register
    Georgia

The Des Moines Register on Wednesday reported that the Iowa Department of Human Services decided to revoke the agency's license on Monday, after a state investigator outlined allegations, including claims that it coerced couples into contracts and encouraged adoptive parents to pay birth parents above legally allowable expenses to prevent adoptions from failing.

The company has filed an appeal, meaning it can remain in business while the case is decided by an administrative law judge.

The agency's attorney, Michael Ensley, said in a statement to the newspaper that it's still allowed and able to operate.

"We strongly feel that the appeal process will result in the rightful renewal of our license," he said.

Abby's took in over $1.2 million last year, making contact with about 1,350 birth mothers and adoptive families, according to state investigators. An investigator for the Iowa Department of Inspection and Appeals found 43 matches had resulted in successful adoptions; 39 failed and 29 were pending at the time of the yearlong probe ending in March.

"The agency consistently operated without due regard to the well-being of birth parents, adoptive parents and children," wrote the investigator, Dixie Dupey.

Ensley called the report "concerning and confusing."

"Unfortunately, the manner in which this was investigated did not allow for any opportunity to even review the issues," he said. "Rather, the only opportunity for a response was to answer questions from an investigator whose mind was already made up and did not provide a fair opportunity to be heard."

The report did not name those who made complaints to the state. Abby's will have an opportunity to address the allegations when a hearing in scheduled.

The Register said the Iowa attorney general's office has received 16 complaints about the agency since 2004, including one from a couple suing the owners for fraud. Robert and Jennifer Welsch of St. Louis said they were forced to return a Georgia newborn after the birth father objected to the adoption, court records show.

The owners of the agency, K.C. Gerlitz and Patricia Gerlitz, told The Register in an interview earlier this year that the birth father was dishonest in that case, which is scheduled to go to trial in late August.

Abby officials say in their notice of appeal that the state failed to approve or deny the agency's latest application for a license within the 90 days required by law. They said the state investigator also cited as deficiencies in its latest report practices that had been approved in past years' reviews.

If the state prevails in the case, Abby's will not be allowed to do business in Iowa.

------

How DISGUSTING that any civilized country would allow FOR-PROFIT adoption agencies to exist in the first place - or even so-called not-for-profit agencies in which the salaries are enormous and dependent upon the redistribution of children!  It is such an OBVIOUS open door for corruption and ecploitation!  It's a total joke to think that the best interests of anyone - especially the children - would be considered when profits are at stake!  This is as backward and shameful as SLAVERY - as both involve the SELLING OF HUMAN BEINGS!!

POUND PUPPY has collected data on "Executive compensation at adoption agencies as per IRS 990 forms" for 2008 and 2009. 

Very eye opening!  

Angry Divisiveness: Where Does It End?

In the past week I have experienced those who prefer to spend their time writing comments on my blog or on Facebook telling me that the petition for National Adoptee Rights day is a "waste of time" or comments regarding an educational program I am doing at my church on May 31 in Princeton asking:  "what's the point of educating anyone"?

The ignorance in these comments is self-evident. The time these people chose to put into this negativity instead of working to educate or create positive change is mind-boggling!  If all of the collected time and energy spent among adoption activists arguing with one another were spent instead fighting against the adoption industry, public ignorance and mythology, and those who work to keep adoptee records sealed....we might actually accomplish something!  It never ceases to amaze me that so many prefer to spend so much time and energy being negative and knocking down the efforts of others...because...if it's not THEIR way, it's wrong!

Isn't that the very attitude that is the basis of all religiously inspired wars throughout history and current terrorism?  The attitude that there is just ONE RIGHT WAY and all other approaches are "evil."

The Serious Danger of Political Divisiveness


Often political rebel-rousers stir the pot with inflammatory name-calling without the realization that among their constituents are are people on the edge who will take their rhetoric as a battle cry for violence.  We've seen this numerous times. It was thought to be the case with the shootings of Congresswoman Gifford and killing of others in Arizona.  The adoption community has at least its fair share, if not more, of unbalanced, angry people. We need to exercise caution when we stir populations up with hate-filled language. 

The anger within the adoption community has escalated to threats of violence.  

An adoptee on Facebook has called for shooting someone he specifically names - not even for her politics - but rather "for being a birthmom / slut."  He apparently would like to shoot us all, but names one in particular he would begin with because of her local adoption political connections. (And, oddly, not me!)


This was preceded by a posting of the shooting at Kent State this month 41 years ago with comments about "sell-outs" who should be shot...a connection which is lost on me, since the Kent students were shot by National Guardsman.  If anything, that incident stands as a stark example of the inability of people to allow to dissenting points of view....and the extremities of a police state in an allegedly "free" speech nation.. So whatever point was attempted with posting that video was lost on me, as I said. 

This month is also the anniversary of another very sad event: the burning of the Freedom Riders bus filled with Blacks and caucasians in an effort to desegregate positions of Interstate highways.   The people of Alabama tried to burn these people alive for their efforts.


And we are certainly all aware of the killings of gay people and gay rights activists. Otherwise normal, everyday, non-violent citizens stirred to commit MURDER! It happens. It happened to Martin Luther King, Jr and other civil rights activists as it did Harvey Milk. Will an act of physical violence to the adoption rights movement make its name in history?  Is that the kind of notoriety we want, not to mention the blood on anyone's hands for inciting such hysteria?

A threat to shoot a named individual and/or all "birthmother /sluts" is very scary, highly incendiary, and a a crime: terroristic threat. What's next? Where does it end? Where does it end, folks?  I am not providing a link to these comments so as not to give any additional power to them. Know that I have saved screen shots.


We've had our jailed martyr for the cause of access. We do not need or want a dead one!



Will we curb the anger and stop the petty arguing, or will we continue until some real damage is done?  I hope some serious thought will go into the divisive rhetoric before people hit the keyboards on blogs and facebook where it is so much easier to spew anger.


I have been told there are things I have "no right" to do or say because I am not adopted. This, despite the fact that i have worked longer and harder for adoptee rights than most adoptees.  I am also straight, but nor narrow and a supporters of gay rights. I am White, but have walked shoulder to shoulder with Blacks in the 1960's and continued to fight to end discrimination since. 

As a mother who relinquished my voice is important to countering the lies that we were promised anonymity.  When doling out credit for the passage of Oregon's Measure 58, the effects of the full page ad taken pout and paid for by birthmothers cannot be underestimated!


Let's a get a grip, folks. Let's get back to basics and remember we are all on the same team with the same goal, albeit different strategies to get there. Let's chill out the anger and divisiveness and spend a little less time knocking one another's efforts.

The Clueless and the Misinformed

I recently had occasion to speak to the general public about adoption issues, in particular adoptee rights to their original birth certificate.

The results have been eye opening. I spoke with a couple of hundred people at a tri-state meeting and at my local church. With just one exception, all were Unitarian Universalists, so a very select group. Unitarians are known to be a upper-middle-class, primarily white of northern European descent, mostly middle aged or older, with an average educational level of 17 years and liberal political leanings. A very select group, with many preferential adopters.

When asked to sign a petition granting adopted persons a right to their original birth certificate approximately 60 percent asked, said, "Sure!" and signed, no questions asked.  Some asked why they weren't allowed to have it, with some amount of  surprise. It might also be noted that most of these persons knew me personally a factor which may have swayed their decision because I was someone familiar, a friend, asking.

Approximately 35-37 percent had the same hesitation: "I don't know. I have to think about..." or simply: "What about the rights of the mothers?" Of those who asked and waited for an answer, perhaps a little less than half were convinced with a sentence or two. Revealing that I was a mother who had relinquished was a markedly positive factor in their decision to accept that mothers did not want anonymity, that the laws were never sealed to protect them to begin with, etc, and they signed.

 May 7, 2011, Morristown NJ. UU NY/NJ/CT metro meeting.

One person said vehemently: "I do not agree" and stomped away! Another said it and stayed so I asked if he wanted to share why. He proceed to give three different reasons. First he said that adoptees didn't deserve anything special; that he couldn't get his father's medical record and neither should they. I explained that this was about access to their birth certificate. He then said something I do not recall and finally said that he believed that mothers would abort rather than be found.

Three people shared with that they had adopted children - now adults - and they had never thought about it before!  One of these three was the on non-Unitarian, albeit also white, liberal. His only concerned about adoption were in shortening the time mothers had to "change their mind." Twenty years after the fact this man i will call Sam was still upset and angry about the year he "sweated" it out fearful of his child's mother reclaiming custody. He was absolutely unable to see adoption from any perspective other than his own, except that he did say that he had told his daughter he would support her if she wanted to search for her birth family. Despite that, it seemed all three of these adoptive parents I spoke to did not even consider the perspective of their children, just their own. It was about their ability to obtain a child. Period.

It was a rude awakening for me because I confine most of time to being online and speaking to people - including adoptive parents - who are involved in the adoption COMMUNITY...who see all aspects of adoption, the good, the bad and the ugly....  Adoptive parents who regret their initial fears that kept them from obtaining more history about the kids they took into their families and who are trying everything they can now to assist in reunification.

There are others who get "involved" with adoption for what it can do for them and that remains their sole interest. But the there are plenty of adoptee and original mothers who get involved in adoption "reform" for the sole purpose of resolving their on search and nothing else. I guess people are just basically selfish.

Conclusions

Despite the totally unscientific methods, I have drawn conclusions form this experience.

Ask the average John Q. Citizen what "gay" issues in this country and they can tell you at least these two:

- marriage equality versus civil unions
- don't ask, don't tell in the military

Though both of these issues are controversial and people may be for or against them, they know of them. Adoptee rights is an issue that the many in the public have no idea about.

Many people have told me that they never knew adopted people were issued a secondary birth certificate and that their original one was sealed. Yet it would be difficult to find anyone who doesn't know that gay people cannot marry in most states. Why is this?

The major reason is that the gay community is more organized, more outspoken and willing to spend money to campaign for their rights and we are not.

For one thing, we lack a central organization. Each state has it's own group - many with only Facebook pages and nothing can be found via a google search.   The American Adoption Congress has all the state info but they themselves are not well known and certainly not known as an adoptee rights organization. They are not. New people come onto Facebook every day and are LOST. We bitch among ourselves. We search, we reunite. We talk to one another about our searches, our reunions our adoption "stories" but we do not ORGANIZE!

Those Who Can, DO! Part II

It was May 2010 when I wrote Part I of this post: Those who can, do. 

I am revisiting this because the controversy is VIRAL.  Those who can DO. Those who do NOTHING, COMPLAIN about those who do.

I am well aware that all grassroots movements have schisms. The civil rights movement had the Blank Panther extremists who advocating change by force. They still have their Rev. Alan Shartpon, a lone wolf who goes of his own campaigns, sometimes achieving a label for himself of clown or buffoon.

Adoption reform is kind of like Christianity in that that it is an umbrella title under which you have some recognized religions and also some lesser known cultish clans on the outer limits who practice non-traditional things like snake handling, or multiple marriage....far smaller than mainstream, but often they generate quite a bit of media attention simply for their odd positions.

In our movement we likewise have a couple of fringe groups.  There are no "B" worders, the BSE mothers and the senior mothers who may or may not be all the same people. Like religions that focus on one word or phrase in the entire bible to base their entire belief system, these mothers focus on one word as being the cause of adoption coercion.

On the adoptee side, the rock throwing, name-calling, do-nothing-but-complain contingent does nothing other than tell everyone else what they are doing wrong.  Let's explore the FACTS underneath all the hyperbole:

Marley, "Damsel Plum" and BN take credit for the Oregon access bill: Measure 58. Access in Oregon was passed via REFERENDUM, financially made possible by one Helen Hill.  What BN seems to refuse to understand or accept is that a referendum is a very different process than many other states have available to them. 

Once the language of the referendum is set in place the voters get to vote for or against. 

In states that do not provide this option, or where there is no one to fund it as there was in Oregon (Helen Hill)...we have to: 1) convince a legislator to sponsor the bill, then work on obtaining co-sponsors. 2) the bill then works it way through committee which more often than not amend its original language, 3) it has to pass BOTH the assembly and the senate, and4) it then has to get signed by the Governor. 

As opposed to a referendum, where you are dealing with a yes or no and public opinion... when dealing with POLITICIANS they love COMPROMISE! BN has NEVER done this work, but they complain about how others are dealing with these difficulties. 

BN takes credit for jumping on the bandwagon in some other states like NH. But they have never fought in a state with the opposition that NJ faced for THIRTY-ONE YEARS!

Marley Greiner - the loudest of the name calling complainers need to clean up her own back yard first.  Marley's home state, Ohio, has one of THE WORST bills in the nation that allows for access ONLY for adoptees born prior to 1964 or AFTER 1996! 

As I understand it, NJ-CARE PULLED a bill with year restrictions! Why didn't BN do this in OH?? Why don't they go back and fix it now instead of telling everyone else what to do or not do? 

The NJ bill that Marley is so vehemently opposed to has a ONE YEAR opt-IN veto requiring a certified letter. The NJ legislators were dead set on an opt-OUT veto! This was a major compromise and experience tells us that precious few mothers will opt-in. Further, those few adoptees that MIGHT be affected by this during that one year window will still receive their OBC, albeit redacted. They will still know where and when they were born and maybe even another parent's name. After 31 years, NJ-CARE chose WISELY to accept this rather than throw ALL NJ adoptees under the bus for perhaps another 31 years. 

BN knocks compromise because they do not understand a process they have never participated in. And that in itself would be bad enough, but they go on to use demeaning language to put down the efforts of those who have worked their buts off, in the case of NJ for 31 years! AND...they don't stop there...they try to defeat bills that those in state have worked on and believe is the best option. They show no respect whatsoever for state autonomy and the knowledge of those who live in and work with their local lawmakers. Every state is unique. in NJ, for instance, we had the Bar Assoc and ACLU OPPOSING - where in other states these orgs were silent or in some cases the ACLU even supported access. 

Marley/BN need/s to fix OHIO before she has any right to point a finger toward any other state in the union!

One of Marley's pet arguments is that bad laws have never been revisited.  Why doesn't she work to set a new example and do just that?  We know for a fact that laws CAN and ARE enacted incrementally. In fact adoption records in many states, including NJ, were sealed incrementally - first to the public and then to all, including adoptees and their original families. it CAN be done! It's been done with anti-smoking laws and examples too numerous to list. It CAN be done, why doesn't Marley even TRY?

Marley's pet cause is Safe Haven - baby dumps. She has spoken about this at many conferences and has exorbitant amounts of research on it, following specific cases.  Yet, gee whiz, despite all her best efforts, Safe Havens have been enacted in EVERY state!  She was unsuccessful in stopping them! Does anyone demean her for her best efforts that weren't enough?  I have never heard one word spoken - let alone written -  to that effect.  No one diminishes her efforts though they were unsuccessful. We all know and respect that she did her darnedest - her very best effort - and it just wasn't enough to fight the adoption INDUSTRY. But she can't give the rest of us the same respect.

Why can't we simply recognize that we are all players ON THE SAME TEAM - all seeking the same goal - but perhaps with some varying strategies about how to get that winning point? Is being so contentious between us really helpful? Is it the best use of our time, energy, focus, resources? Does it actually fuel our REAL enemies when we in-fight?

We need to learn how to disagree with more political savvy!

I fully appreciate and support letting legislators know that bills do not go FAR ENOUGH! This is in fact my position in NJ. But we need to act with caution when we send messages - and advocate others send messages - with "VOTE NO" in the subject line, instead of expressing the not far enough aspect. Letters with "VOTE NO" in the subject line, as BN advocates, simply go into a NO file, right along with those of NCFA and RTL!

In addition to all this, Marley is also attacking a petition to declare a National Adoptee Rights Day.  A petition with one simple goal: to educate the public that this is a civil rights issue and to demand "unconditional" and "unrestricted" access!  Doesn't get any more PURE, yet she campaigned telling people NOT to sign it because she doesn't like me personally. This shows a total lack of political savvy and maturity! It's in fact called shooting ones-self in the foot as it would help all of us in all states.

UPDATE 5/16/11: The anger has escalated to threats of violence.  An adoptee on Facebook calls for shooting someone he specifically names - not even for her politics - but rather "for being a birthmom / slut."  He then names on to be the first - oddly, not me!


Very scary, highly incendiary and a terroristic threat. 

See New Posting: May 17

Chinese Babies Stolen Sold, Trafficked for Adoption

China province probes sale of "illegal children"

BEIJING (Reuters) - A southern Chinese province has begun investigating a report that officials had seized at least 16 babies born in violation of strict family planning rules, sent them to welfare centers and then sold them abroad for adoption.
The children in Longhui county near Hunan province's Shaoyang city had been taken away by officials since 2005 after their parents were accused of breaching the one-child policy or illegally adopting children, the Caixin Century magazine reported.
The local family planning office then sent the children to local welfare centers, which listed them as being available for adoption, the report said, adding the office could get 1,000 yuan ($154) or more for each child.
Some of the seized children were the sole children of couples who were often away working in the cities, the magazine added.
At least one migrant worker said she had found her daughter had been adopted abroad and was now living in the United States, it said. The welfare centers could receive as much as $3,000 for each child placed in overseas adoption.
"Before 1997, they usually punished us by tearing down our houses for breaching the one-child policy, but after 2000 they began to confiscate our children," it quoted villager Yuan Chaoren as saying.
The Shaoyang government is now investigating the case, the popular tabloid the Global Times reported on Tuesday, though it quoted one official as denying any involvement in child trafficking.
"When we found illegal birth children, we fined the parents in accordance with the law," the anonymous official told the newspaper, without elaborating.
Provincial officials, whose promotion is closely linked to the effectiveness of measures to stop people from having more babies, have often been criticized for using violence or coercion to enforce tough family planning policies.
Chen Guangcheng, a blind legal activist, drew international attention when he took on officials over forced abortions in his home province of Shandong and was jailed. He was released in September, more than four years after being convicted of damaging property and disrupting traffic in a protest, and has been held under virtual house arrest in his village ever since.
With a population expected to peak at 1.65 billion in 2033, China has been cautious about dropping its one-child policy that was implemented to spare the country the pressures of feeding and clothing hundreds of millions of additional people.
China already allows a number of exceptions to the policy, and some experts have called for a greater relaxation to tackle the problem of a population aging before it can first become rich.
($1 = 6.494 yuan)

Yesterday, as we celebrated NJ's victory, someone commented how 'things are so much better now than they were in the past - the 60's and 70's".  Women - American women - are not longer under as much social pressure to relinquish and they have more reproductive options to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

Yes, things, on the whole are better for homegrown girls, though the few who become pregnant and consider adoption are often pressured into a deceitful so-called "open adoption" which may or may not remain so.

But more importantly, we cannot take our eye off the bigger picture. The demand for babies has not gone away, if anything it is steadily increasing. New markets are opening op demanding babies, such as the gay community. And new market created to fill these needs: frozen embryos, outsourced surrogacy.  And around the world the demand for babies continues to create a climate in which sought after commodities tiny commodities are stolen, kidnapped, coerced from mothers, mothers duped, then sold and trafficked for adoption.

Why should we care?

Why should we care what happens to third world mothers? And after all, they kids are better off in the long run if Evangelicals - even with a bit too much vehemence and zeal - go into Haiti and rush out with children they've "saved."

We MUST care. When the tobacco industry was pushed out of this country with restrictive laws, they moved their business overseas and began getting young children addicted. We turned the other way. Not out problem. Sad. But not our problem. Those "other" countries need to do what we did and pass laws stopping it.  Not our problem.

But international adoption IS out problem because the US is the largest importer of these children. It is US citizens are the recipients, who create the demand that causes the illegal sale of human life.

And we must care because the children they are stealing become US citizens and they grow up and will tell their tales of how colonial US played a role in their mother's exploitation and in their commodification to meet a demand for a "product."

We need to do FAR MORE than see to it that American born adoptees regain their civil rights. We cannot stop there. We need to work to stop the culture of adoption encouragement and see it as family disruption and separation and loss and grief.  Until we turn that around and prioritize original families in crisis, we are off our moral kilter and headed in a very immoral direction.

More here and here.