Imagine What is POSSIBLE!

NJ Governor Chris Christie gutted and destroyed the bill that had been 31 years in the making -- a bill that was already a compromise. The Governor conditionally vetoed and and in doing so made it a totally unacceptable atrocity sham of a bill.

In a clear misunderstanding that this bill is was intended to restore the rights of ADULTS, Christie said: "The decision of any biological parent to seek adoptive parents for a child is an enormously complicated choice, and the protections of anonymity can be a significant consideration when choosing adoption."  HUH?  Shows whose anonymity he is thinking about!

Christie's changes are twofold:

•People put up for adoption years ago would be able to use agency-provided intermediaries to search for parents and request their consent to share their information with the adoptees. If the intermediaries can't locate the birth parents in one year, adoptees would be given access to their original birth certificates, with the names of their parents included.


But if parents are located and say no, adoptees would be denied access. In that situation, parents would still be required to provide family medical histories, which health advocates say are important for screening for genetic illnesses.
•For future adoptions, parents would be required to state their contact preferences at the time of adoption, and adoptees would be required to respect them.

On the very day the devastating news came, I was at a spiritual convention in Charlotte, NC. The national Unitarian Universalist convention called General Assembly.  I was blessed to hear a woman named Linda Stout present. Linda has worked to lift up the impoverished in America for decades. A thirteenth generation Quaker, herself born into abject poverty, she has stood with the marginalized poor of this nation as Martin Luther King, Jr. stood with and led the Black population. 

Linda spoke on the subject of her book: COLLECTIVE VISIONING.  She specifically uses the term "collective" - not a shared vision, she said. Not a common vision. Because it does not compromise but values and integrates all input.

Linda brings all the players to the table. Not just the victims of economic injustice, but those who have the power to make a difference. She brings together people who are appalled at the thought of being in the same room with one another, much like the PUBLIC CONVERSATION: five years of groundbreaking dialogues between pro-life and pro-choice leaders after the fatal 1994 shooting of two women's health clinic workers in the Boston area. The continue to teach others to get to the table together.

She brings diverse sides of issues together and she asks them to close their eyes and take a ride in her time machine. She jettisons them 20 years into the future to the year 2041.  Do this now as you read... Imagine exiting your time machine twenty years from now and with your eyes still closed imagine adoption EXACTLY as you would want it to be!  Perfection.  The IDEAL.

Now build a path to it with a strategic plan for each year along the way.

While the details will vary, there would be one commonality on that vision whether you are on the right, left or middle of the pro- anti- adoption continuum.  ALL adoption reform activists would envision one similarity and that is a world with no falsified birth certificates. A world where every person knew who they born - their original mother and father-  to just as they knew who raised and cared for them: their mom and dad. Where each and every individual had the exact same RIGHT to their identity, their heritage, their roots and genealogy EQUALLY. No restrictions. No hoops to jump through.

On this we all agree no matter how disparate we are on the details of how to get there.

WHAT IS NEEDED

What is needed to arrive at our collective nirvana is for the AAC and Donaldson and Ethica to step up and FOCUS their game and DEMAND THAT NO ADOPTION IS AN ETHICAL ADOPTION THAT BEGINS WITH A FALSIFIED BC!!! The AAC needs to organize demonstrations at their conferences like we did in 1989 and organize marches on Washington demanding our rights! Mobilizing adoptees, birth and adoptive parents to take to the streets like gays are and get the ear of the media and the attention of the public that this is a civil rights issue and as such cannot be compromised!!!
Acting JUST in states, for the most part in isolation of one another, is not enough without a huge NATIONAL media push behind us. State actions only get media within that state. The national needs to be made aware that NINETEEN states are battling this issue and there's more than need to! We need a unified, centralized FORCE!
 
Linda Stout worked with school children in New Orleans after Katrina. They told her of their school condition, even before the floods had destroyed many of their homes and schools. Their school bathrooms had no doors on the stalls, no toilet seats, no toilet paper. They had outdated text books that they shared and couldn't take home to do homework because there weren't enough. many sat on the floor or shared desks during their school day.

Linda got them new bathrooms, books, desks and chairs. They also got rid of candy machines and got salads and healthier choices for their lunches. And every new school built in NOLA now has a community garden. She changed their lives forever in many ways, not least of all by empowering them and teaching them the art of negotiation!
 
IMAGINE what we COULD ACCOMPLISH!!  Imagine our collective vision becoming reality. It CAN if we work together with a focus on the one thing we all agree on. Work with those we have had harsh words. Work with those who have hurt and offended us, those we think are boastful and those we think are "flakes" or just plain stupid! Those who annoy us and those who provoke us. IGNORE all that and focus on the VISION - the GOAL! If pro-lifers and pro-choice activists, who couldn't at first even decide to agree to what each other called themselves can work together on a common goal, surely we can put our petty bickering and in-fighting aside and get this done!

THE GOAL: REPEAL THE SEAL!

The simplest, most direct way to accomplish PURE, CLEAN, UNCONDITIONAL and UNRESTRICTED access AND and end to falsified birth certificates going forward is to see REPEAL of the laws that created these lies! The laws were created in a time when adoptive parents were told not to reveal the adoptive status of their children - to the children!  All such ideas about secrecy have been reversed and it is high time for the laws that enforced those lies to be ABOLISHED  It is the only way that would put all adoptees in all states on an even keel with those in Alaska and Kansas, and we ALL deserve NO LESS! !

Read more about repealing the seal in the upcoming AAC Decree.

NJ Senator Vitale, who sponsored the NJ legislation, has called it UNACCEPTABLE and PULLED IT!!

As disappointing as it is to see such a long and tedious effort destroyed by one man, I believe there is a silver lining in this travesty: the door was closed but there is a window of opportunity open to us now to introduce the first ever "repeal the seal" legislation in NJ and serve as a model for all states to follow.

That would be step one on the path to creating my vision.

The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Princeton Supports Adoptee Rights

The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Princeton Supports Adoptee Rights

The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Princeton (UUCP) passed a resolution to support the rights of adopted persons to unrestricted, unconditional access to their own original birth certificate. The resolution passed by overwhelming majority at the congregational annual meeting, June 2011.


The membership vote was taken after consideration of the issues and how and why the records of adopted persons were sealed in New Jersey, first in 1938 to the public and then in 1940 to all parties, including those named on the birth certificate and to whom it would otherwise belong.

Mirah Riben, UUCP member, author and long time adoption reform activist said she initiated the proposal because it seemed like such a natural fit with Unitarian Universalist focus on social justice and concerns of equality, civil and human rights.

The right of adopted people to be treated equally to non-adopted persons under the law regarding access to their birth certificates is grounded in the values of Unitarian Universalism and its principles of the inherent worth and dignity of every person; justice, equality and compassion in human relations; and, a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.

The passage of this resolution comes at a time when a bill restoring the rights of New Jersey adoptees is awaiting the signature of Governor Christie, having passed the both the state Assembly and Senate after three decades.

Despite efforts of grassroots activists to secure unrestricted access, the NJ bill offers a compromise that provides a one-year period during which mothers and fathers who relinquished their parental rights or had them terminated can file a certified letter requesting their names are redacted from the birth certificate before being released.

---------------------------

NOTE: The NJ bill is the first step for NJ adoptees and the passage of this Princeton resolution is the first step in a four-year process to get the UUA (the governing board of all American Unitarian Universalist congregations) to approve a similar resolution. 

UPDATE:  Are you a UU who is touched by ADOPTION? An adoptee, adoptive or birth parent? An adoption professional? Or are you concerned with adoptee rights as a civil rights issue?  If so, you are invited to join a new UU List Serve to discuss adoptee rights.

You can read all about it and sign on at:

http://lists.uua.org/mailman/listinfo/Adoptee-Rights

OR, you can join by sending a "subscribe" email to:  adoptee-rights@lists.uua.or 

National Adoptee Rights Day

July 28 - National Adoptee Rights Day

1. More signatures are needed on the petition. People should send a request to everyone in their address book and tell them this is personally important, not just a "forward."
http://tinyurl.com/adoptee-rights-day 

2. Plan to hold local or state-wide demonstrations, marches or anything to get press attention on Thur., July 28.

• Organize a "Sit-In" at vita records

• Have a group of people with ABC in hand turn themselves in at a police station for having altered, fraudulent ID

3. SEND OUT PRESS RELEASES whether you will hold an event or not, tell the press about National Adoptee Rights Day.

•     Use the words "unconditional, unrestricted access" and "repeal" of antiquated laws that DISCRIMINATE.  

•     Use the words EQUALITY, CIVIL and HUMNAN RIGHTS.

Some good, useable quotes are available from as article by Adam Pertman on adoptee rights as a civil right, at <http://tinyurl.com/civilright>.

All such info and more are available at: http://www.EqualAccess4Adoptees.org/

Idea sharing welcomed!

COPY, PASTE and SHARE this message widely via blogs, FB, email, etc.!!

Tellin' Like it IS!!

 Did ya' ever wish you could be a fly on the wall and hear what PAPS and APS really think when they are not putting on the pretesne? Like hearing what bigots really think when they are not being PC!

Well someone gave us that window of opportunity.

THIS IS A LINK WE NEED TO SHARE WITH ANY AND ALL 

EXPECTANT MOMS CONSIDERING ADOPTION!!

The blog is called AdoptiveParentsSpeak...and do they ever!!

[Social worker] seemed too sympathetic of the mommies having babies that were having a hard time giving them up than she did the parents trying to adopt… it was like she was confused as to which side she needed to advocate for.

Infant adoption is a catch 22. Mothers of good genetic stock aren’t screwed up enough to give thier [sic] newborn babies away to strangers…..If a mother is unfit enough to give away her baby she is unfortunatly [sic] not only unfit enough to parent but is also unfit where she shouldn’t be breeding and spreading her inferior genes....Birthmothers tend to come from families with drug abuse and alcholism [sic]....With donor eggs and surrogacy thier baby comes from a genetic legacy of beauty, health and intellegence [sic] and is born by the miracle of science and a strong healthy surrogate.
With adoption the baby is born with a genetic legacy of underachievers, family abuse and irresponsiblity [sic].  Note: This comments also contains: "trailer park white trash" and "Jerry Springer"yet note all the miss-spellings by the genius who wrote it!

There's lots more where this came from!  Make sure you bookmark it to share with anyone considering adoption!

I shared it on an email list I'm on with adoption professionals and adoptive parents and thy went BALLISTIC!!

"Cutting and pasting nasty and insensitive comments of adoptive parents collected from here and there promotes peace and love..." DUH.

"...out of the many thousands of adoptive families they found half a dozen who said some crass things! Most adoptive families are wonderful people, and most birthmoms are good people making what seems to be the best possible decision for their child that they can make under the circumstances."

REALLY??? The best possible decision? That's just a more polite insult than the other more direct one's!  And what about those who are duped, coerced, pressured, exploited? Is it their "best possible decsion" to be treated thusly?

One honest attorney adoptive and foster parent wrote: "...if you haven't heard similar things from more than 'half a dozen' people you haven't been paying attention. Frankly, if you are an adoptive parent and you haven't said something hurtfully similar in private discussions, then you are a saint." 

THE TRUTH IS IMPORTANT

I am well aware that enlightened people do not speak this way. Polite people don't speak this way.

However I feel while it is hurtful, it is also helpful and informative to see behind the curtain every now and then. We need to be aware that
racism, anti-semitism, sexism, etc still exist even if they are not spoken aloud, lest we become too complacent and lulled into a false reality that we live in a kinder world than really exists.

It has been pointed out in several studies reported in the Journal of Social Distress and Homelessness special issue on "Adoption across race, culture and class" (*that I HIGHLY recommend you all get) that it is not helpful and actually counterproductive to hide our heads in the sand and pretend interracially adopted children aren't going to be subjected to discrimination because the world is now "color-blind."  It is more helpful to face these issues honestly and help prepare children to deal with the ugly realities of life.

Expectant mothers, likewise, need to know that some think this way of them!   It is the ugly, raw truth!  Better they learn it beforehand because I can guarantee you they will be faced with hearing these comments all of their lives! I know because I do! i have been told "any dog can give birth." And I cannot count the number of times some self-righteous single mother told me she'd NEVER give away her own child - "How could ANYONE!!" I live with this discrimination and know it's true. I know that we are thought of as crack whores - it's an on-going joke amongst us all! Claudia D'Arcy even has a tee shirt that says This is what a Crack Whore Birthmother looks like, or some such. You can see it here.

Why did BN take the name they did? Why does DMC sing "I'm LEGIT!" We all know what is said behind our backs and sometimes to our faces!  We need to get real and face these ugly truths.

The only way to educate against such sentiments and misconceptions is to first face up to them honestly and admit they exist!!

*Vol. 7, Special issue 1 & 2, Feb 2008. Eds: Rafael Art, Javier and Amanda L. Baden, Psycke-Logo Press. ISSN 1053-0789

 

Mirah's Reflections: OFF TOPIC

MISTAKES

Recently Brooke Shields stumbled and fumbled on her lines at the Tony Awards.  You can see it on video here.

THAT is a mistake!

Sexting racy photos of yourself is NOT a mistake! 

Neither are bigoted rants, as most recently heard from Tracy Morgan.

The most insincere apologies are, IMO, made by people saying they "miss-spoke" or that it was a mistake and is not who they are.  "I'm a comedian" is not an excuse for hate speech. Weiner said in his tearful apology that he had no cop out like being drunk, but now he is going for the "treatment" cop out.  Men seem tho think they can do any outrageous irresponsible, unthinking sexual thing that pops in their tiny little pea brains (I didn't say their heads!) and then when CAUGHT go to sex rehab!? Why not just say ten Hail Mary's?  

What ever happened to responsibility?  I was taught not to do or say anything I'd be ashamed of my parents seeing or hearing.  Public figures should not so anythign they'd be shamed of having on the front page because that is where it will wind up.  A talk show personality was asked recently if they thought what Congressman Weiner did was "cheating."  She replied that he hadn't told his wife, and that makes it cheating.

When one makes an actual mistake - as in the case of Brooke Shield's blooper - one apologizes IMMEDIATELY. Not after it's called to their attention that it was inappropriate or after their sneaky actions - and lying cover-ups - are CAUGHT.  Tracy Morgan didn't suggest stabbing gay people to death and follow it at the moment with: "Ooops, I didn't man that." 

In both Morgan's case and Weiner's what they are sorry for is being caught and called on their bad behavior and are apologizing to save their carers. There is not an ounce of sincerity in either apology. Yet the American public is well known for its short memory and embracing such offenders. It's been said that Weiner is simply waiting it out until the next big headline news cycle distracts the public from him. 

This is not to say that I think Weiner's actions are necessarily reason for resignation. They certainly pale against other sexual scandals that involve actual contact with prostitutes, staffers, under age persons...and are less offensive to me in terms of morality and trust than such acts when they are committed by those who preach "family values."

On another subject altogether....

Doesn't Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords look YOUNGER?

God bless her!

She gives me courage to let my hair grow out to it's natural color!! 

I think she looks YEARS younger...more like a college student than  "professional" woman.

Would we have wanted the shooter who did this to Congresswoman Giffords and killed six others to simply say he's sorry and go about living his life?  Would we have accepted an apology or his saying it was a "mistake" and he didn't mean it?  

Neither Morgan nor Weiner killed anyone, but clearly Morgan's comments could lead to that.

Matricentic Feminism

Kay Beck writes about Matricentic Feminism: Feminism That Prioritizes The Needs Of Mothers. You can read it here.


Problem is, like all of feminism, it is created by the upper echelon FOR the upper echelon and turns a blind eye to the needs of powerless and marginalized women and mothers.

If the subject of adoption is mentioned, it is from the point of view of those WANTING children to adopt!  Those who see them as commodities and their mothers as uncaring, incapable or pathetic.

I am a twice published author on adoption and a mother who lost my first child to adoption in 1967 when societal pressures caused many young, white women to relinquish their rights.

Adoption as a loss for mothers is a subject that with two rare exceptions (Phyllis Chesler and Rickie Solinger) feminists have blatantly ignored.  I and my colleagues have been rebuffed by feminist conferences and publications because our words cause discomfort for those who see adoption as a "cure" for infertility and a source of parenthood that should be available to single mothers by choice and for same sex couples.

While there is some debate among feminists whether prostitution is exploitation or a choice, for the most part those arguing the debate are not likely customers profiting from another's exploitation. 

Adoption - and surrogacy - pits women against women and the voices of the paying customers over shadow the cries of the victims. Just today China.org is reporting how the cash donations made to adopt a child from China support the black market trafficking of children for adoption there, as it does all over the world as poor women are used as brood stock HandMaids for more affluent Westerners.

if we are going to really look at feminism from a truly matricentic perspective, we MUST recognize and being to support ALL mothers - every women who given birth.  We must protect the right of women and the children to remain together. hat means supporting family preservation programs and recognizing that adoption is often corrupt and encourages stealing, kidnapping and trafficking to fill a demand.

It is also inherent of feminists to work at the root causes of infertility to help stem the tide instead of taking others' children as an after-the-fact "cure." high school health ed curriculums needs to include preventative infertility.

We cannot continue to tell young women to secure their graduate education and a career before beginning to contemplate motherhood realistically and expect that delaying childbearing is without serious consequences, or that one can "just adopt."  

Instead we need to see that education and careers can more easily be delayed and resumed after one has procreated closer to women's physical peak for safe, healthy pregnancy,

We need to stop demonizing young mothers, poor mothers, single by chance - not choice - mothers and instead help them to be the best mothers for their children they can be!  We need to stop seeing the third world as a shopping mall for eggs, wombs and babies.

We are not safe a women until ALL of us are safe. Feminism - matricentic or otherwise - need to be equally for ALl women all over the world and protect all women from exploitation and protect their children from commodification.

Stop Margaret Atwood's fictional vision from being so real, right now, today.

Mirah Riben, author, THE STORK MARKET: America's Multi-Billion Dollar Unregulated Adoption Industry

Neil Patrick Harris" Twins

 

Harper (the girl) and Gideon were created by purchased eggs fertilized by Harris and his partner and carried by a gestational surrogate Harris called "the oven" on David Letterman last night. 

 

 

 

TWO cases of 14-year-olds RAPED By Foster Fathers!

Through bouts of sobs and pleas of “I am responsible” a Grove, Oklahoma man was sentenced Wednesday to eight years for raping and impregnating a 14-year-old girl in his legal custody.

Tim Mountford, 53, pleaded guilty in March to a 2007 second-degree rape and child sexual abuse charge. He has been free on a reduced bail of $15,000. His $150,000 bail was reduced on Oct. 12, 2009.

On the second-degree rape conviction, District Judge Robert Haney sentenced Mountford to 15 years and then suspended seven years. On the child abuse charge, Haney ordered Mountford to serve one year in the county jail and fined him $5,000. Both sentences are to run concurrently.

“You had a duty not to do harm” Haney said during the hearing to Mountford.

Winston Connor II, Mountford’s attorney, argued for probation and weekend and night confinement at the county jail.

The presentence investigation report stated Mountford was a very low risk to offend again and that he took full responsibility and didn’t blame the victim [he gets points for that?] and he did not seek her out [because he didn't have to!], Connor said. Mountford testified that he waived his preliminary hearing and trial just so the victim would not have to testify. He also testified that he voluntarily entered a sex offender program.

Haney didn’t go along with Connor’s recommendation and said he was going to impose prison time.

“You can be a good guy, and pay your child support but I’m not letting a message go out the door you can have sex with your ward,” Haney said. “You are not going to get away with it.”

“It’s not her fault,” Mountford said of the victim. “I deserve to be punished, but I have been paying for this. I have lost my family, my home, and my job.”

“I am pleased with the sentence,” said the victim, who attended the sentencing with her mother [what mother? Natural? Adoptive? Foster?].

“It could have been longer,” said the victim’s mother about the sentence.

Mountford and his estranged wife Vicki, had cared for 10 to 15 foster children in the 22-year marriage. The Mountfords also ran a day-care center from Feb. 7, 2002, to July 15, 2006, according to the Department of Human Services. They stopped accepting foster children and voluntarily closed the day care. [One can only wonder ho many other victim there are!]

The Mountfords became the legal guardians of the victim after she was raped and impregnated at the age of 11. [OMG!!]

“He was supposed to take care of this child,” referring to the victim, “but instead he took care of his needs,” said Nick Lelecas, assistant district attorney.

In the first sexual abuse case, Tommy James Isbell, 38, of Jay pleaded guilty in 2004 to four counts of first-degree rape and 12 counts of forcible sodomy and was sentenced to life in prison. He had been having sex with the child since she was 9, [OMG!] according to a Jay Police Department report.

The victim’s first child, a daughter, was born with birth defects and died a few weeks after birth.

The victim’s second child, a daughter, turned 3 on May 28. A paternity test determined a 99.99 percent likelihood Mountford is the father of the child. Mountford is also paying $203 a month in child support for this child.

Matina Garner, Mountford’s stepdaughter, has adopted the child and has an open adoption with the victim. [Give me a BREAK!! The victim has to be re-victimized every time she visits her baby!!]

“I wanted her (Garner) to adopt her,” the victim said. [Oh, well, then!  She WANTED her! So that makes this insanity all well and good!]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

After having the courage to come forward to police about a foster father who had sexually abused her since age 11 and impregnated her at age 14, she also asked the court to lift the publication ban on the name of the abuser.

And yet the Sudbury and Manitoulin District Children's Aid Society of Canada fought to have the judge not only ban the name of Donald Klasges, but also asked Justice Patricia Hennessy to ban all reporting on the case.

Justice Hennessy said, "the irony is rich, that concerns for other foster children is most eloquently addressed by the victim."

Klasges, 65, was sentenced to seven years in prison for abusing the girl.

This young woman -- who is not only a survivor of horrendous abuse, is now also a single mother of a two-year-old -- told the court she would be willing to have her name published if it meant Klasges' name would also be published.

According to The Sudbury Star, the request by the teen was supported by the Crown but opposed by CAS. The lawyer for the CAS, Dawn Dubois, said revealing Klasges as a foster parent could have an adverse impact on the future lives of foster children who had been placed with him in the past. 

The survivor told Justice Hennessy it was that very reason that Klasges had been a foster parent to others, that she wanted the ban lifted.

I will go further than Justice Hennessy and say not only is the irony rich, but the CAS comes across as looking like it is protecting an abuser instead of supporting the survivor they placed with this man at the age of 11.

They CAS has said it is horrified by the case and quite shaken by it, and when Klasges was first charged in 2008, the society took six months to make it public.

There had been 42 children placed in his Levack home and officials needed time to investigate. Executive Director Collette Prevost said all 42 were contacted and there was no evidence of other cases of abuse. And apparently, the screening and training of foster parents has changed for the better since 2008 becoming more in-depth and exhaustive. Would it always have been so.

Who would gain by keeping Klasges's name private? Does it really help the other foster children who were placed with the abuser?

If it's true that no one else was abused by Klasges, according to the CAS, then what is the harm in releasing his name? Especially when the victim in this case was requesting it.

When staffs are worried about layoffs and they are overworked with huge caseloads, mistakes will happen. Perhaps the province should get off its high horse and allow the Ontario ombudsman to investigate the agencies so real changes can be made.

Of course, that still doesn't explain why the powers that be in the Sudbury agency decided to fight the publication of Klasges name. When Director Prevost was asked why the CAS fought the release of Klasges's name, she replied, "the public has the right to ask the question." I guess we have the right to ask, but we don't have the right to hear an answer that makes sense.

This Cat Tells it Like it Is!

Thanks to Jo Swanson!

Bloom Where You Are Planted?

Where did it come from and what does it mean?

It has been attributed to: Old Afghan Proverb, Nancy Reader Comipion's Aunt Grace, Mary Engelbreit, a song, as well as an "old garden saying"

Some have incorporated the phrase into song lyric, such as this Christian hymn:

And she said “BLOOM WHERE YOU ARE PLANTED
Honey, don’t be thinking that the grass is greener on the other side
Just give those troubles to the Lord, He’ll always understand
And help you turn those broken dreams into your greatest source of pride”

Various bloggers have shared their thoughts about this saying:

- "I took it to mean to be happy no matter where you physically lived."

- "I automatically began to think about how the Bible instructs us to be “fruitful”. I began to think about how God has placed us in the circumstances that we are in for a reason..."

- "I hate that expression. It is for people who are resigned to their fate; for people who think they are stuck where they are and have no feet."

- "You have to be the best that you can be, right where you are. Be grateful for where you live, even if its not where you want to be."

- "I find this phrase the perfect mantra for those who seek accomplishment."

- "I think it means there are certain situations in life that we cannot change - and if we can't change them - we have to make the best of what we have."

Some attribute it to 1 Corinthians 7:20-24:  "Stay where you were when God called your name. Were you a slave? Slavery is no roadblock to obeying and believing."  Others stretch further for a source of this quotations and refer to 1 Thessalonian 5:18 "Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."


I think it means a whole lot more and very different things to those of us in the adoption cumminity...

I immediately noctice that it does NOT command anyone to bloom where the are TRANS-planted!

Does this not speak to nourishing one's beginnings, no matter how humble? Nourishing, supporting, honoring your ROOTS? That's what it says to me.


WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?

Baby Factory in Nigeria: Trafficking for Adoption

LAGOS (AFP) – Nigerian police have raided a home allegedly being used to force teenage girls to have babies that were then offered for sale for trafficking or other purposes, authorities said on Wednesday.

"We stormed the premises of the Cross Foundation in Aba three days ago following a report that pregnant girls aged between 15 and 17 are being made to make babies for the proprietor," said Bala Hassan, police commissioner for Abia state in the country's southeast.

"We rescued 32 pregnant girls and arrested the proprietor who is undergoing interrogation over allegations that he normally sells the babies to people who may use them for rituals or other purposes."
Some of the girls told police they had been offered to sell their babies for between 25,000 and 30,000 naira (192 dollars) depending on the sex of the baby.

The babies would then be sold to buyers for anything from 300,000 naira to one million naira (1,920 and 6,400 dollars) each, according to a state agency fighting human trafficking in Nigeria, the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP).

The girls were expected to be transferred to the regional NAPTIP offices in Enugu on Wednesday, the regional head Ijeoma Okoronkwo told AFP.

Hassan said the owner of the "illegal baby factory" is likely to face child abuse and human trafficking charges. Buying or selling of babies is illegal in Nigeria and can carry a 14-year jail term.
"We have so many cases going on in court right now," said Okoronkwo.

In 2008, police raids revealed an alleged network of such clinics, dubbed baby "farms" or "factories" in the local press.

Cases of child abuse and people trafficking are common in West Africa. Some children are bought from their families to for use as labour in plantations, mines, factories or as domestic help.
Others are sold into prostitution while a few are either killed or tortured in black magic rituals. NAPTIP says it has also seen a trend of illegal adoption.

"There is a problem of illicit adoption and people not knowing the right way to adopt children," said Okoronkwo.

Human trafficking is ranked the third most common crime after economic fraud and drug trafficking in the country, according to UNESCO.