Nature versus Nurture

The eternal struggle between nature and nurture has at long last been resolved, folks!

Here is how it goes:

Good traits, such as Steve Jobs becoming a "genius" and billionaire and successful innovative businessman are attributed to adoption saving his life from an abortion his loving parents never considered.

But Joshua Komisarjevsky, the adoptee turned mastermind monster house intruder, rapist, murderer, arsonist?  What about people like Joshua who, despite being "saved" by adoption don't turn out too well?

Well, folks...here is the answer to this dilemma. It's really quite simple!

It's only "nature" or "in the blood" when it's bad. 

When it's a good, well then it's obviously "nurture".

Thats how DNA works, don't ya' know?

See. the environment in which Komisarjevsky was raised - an environment that allowed him to be raped by a foster sibling - known to is adopters and ignored, who then likewise chose to ignore that by 9, he was peeking into girls' dressing rooms, peeping into the windows of people's homes and stealing panties off clotheslines. Finally, the did nothing when he molested of his sister...the environment that sought no psychological counseling for any of those events or his decent into burglary, preceding his monumental headline garnering act of monstrosity...ignored it all and PRAYED....none of that is responsible for his actions.

David Kirschner who reviewed the forensic psyche evalualtion for Joshua's trial said that there was  "not a word about adoption, no analysis of [adoptive] family dynamics (and pathology), not a clue, re; motivation for the killings, etc., etc.

"This case is all about adoption pathology, and a bizarre [adoptive] family. I'd bet the ranch that his [adoptive parents] raised him to be born again (tabula rasa, re: any birth parents) into their born again delusional system."

But, on the other hand.... Steve Jobs - and the world - should to be thankful he wasn't aborted by parents who cared so much about his well-being they put caveats on his adoption regarding a college education for their son - an act they were forced into by being disallowed to marry.

 Abulfattah Jandali and Joanne Schieble Simpson

Jobs' father, Jandali, was born in  Syria to a wealthy landowner. At 18, he left Syria to Beirut to continue his studies at the American University of Beirut. He later immigrated to America and attended school in Wisconsin where he met and dated Jobs' mother, a German-Swiss woman, Joanne Carol Schieble. Her her conservative father refused to allow her to marry Jandali. They married a few months after Jobs' adoption and a year later had his sister, Mona.  After a trip back to Syria to find a job, Jandali returned to the US where he was employed as an assistant professor at Michigan University and later Nevada University. He later owned and operated a restaurant and was the Vice Chairman of the Boomtown Casino and Hotel in Reno, Nevada, displaying both book knowledge and a sense of business.

His adoptive father, a mechanic. His blood sister, Mona Simspron, a nocelist.

And let's just ignore the fact that:

The results of this study indicate that genes significantly influence white matter density of the superior occipitofrontal fascicle, corpus callosum, optic radiation, and corticospinal tract, as well as gray matter density of the medial frontal, superior frontal, superior temporal, occipital, postcentral, posterior cingulate, and parahippocampal cortices. Moreover, the results show that intelligence shares a common genetic origin with superior occipitofrontal, callosal, and left optical radiation white matter and frontal, occipital, and parahippocampal gray matter (phenotypic correlations up to 0.35).
These findings point to a neural network that shares a common genetic origin with human intelligence. Thus, it seems that the individual variation in morphology of areas involved in attention, language, visual, and emotional processing, as well as in sensorimotor processing are strongly genetically influenced.

As per Time Magazine, March 11, 1940:  A few years ago a psychologist named Harold Manville Skeels, a professor at University of Iowa, was assigned by the State to advise the State orphanage. He found that the orphanage was sending babies (mostly bastards) born of feeble-minded parents to highly intelligent families for adoption. Horrified, Dr. Skeels hurried forth to see how much damage had been done. He gave the adopted children intelligence tests. To his surprise, their average I.Q. was 115, well above normal (100). Not one was dull.


Adoption is built on lies and fantasies and has nothing but more lies an fantasies to support its continuation!  Yet the public buys it as a "win-win" and refuses to peak behind the smoke screen curtain or admit that the emperor of adoption is naked as a jay bird...and selling lies along with babies!

I just have one question for all the die-hard kool aid drinking "believers" of these fantasies:  If adoption is so wonderful, why doesn't everyone give their children away to be raised by others???

I mean especially the poor...why not take every child from a welfare family and give it to a working family?

Then take all the children of the working class and give them to the upper middle class?

Any child riding to school in a mini-van deserves a chauffeur driven limo!  Children deprived of music and dance lessons - well, that's simply unacceptable and selfish of their parents when adoption could offer them"better lives"! And chores? they should be done by the "staff" not chidlren.

It's "win-win" -- especially for those whose livelihood depends on the redistribution of children!

So let's just keep white-washing the pain, and grief, and loss....the feelings of abandonment...the rejection...the identity crisis...and all the other harm of adoption....ignore the vital medical histories that are lost....turn a blind eye to the children who are stolen or kidnapped, or their mothers coerced or duped, lied to, told their kids are going to America for an education...just ignore all the negatives and focus instead on pretend "advantages."

Yeah, that's the ticket. And remember, if you adopt and your kid turns out to be a killer, it's not your fault. It's "bad blood." But if he's a genius or a really good, noble altruistic person, then all praise to you! For you who adopt - it truly is a "win-win." You can't loose. You get praise and if it fails, you get sympathy. After all, everyone would know you did your best with what you had to work with.

For those who are adopted and loose their heritage and have their losses buried and never recognized - just be GRATEFUL - you weren't aborted! 

Parents who lose their kids to adoption also need to be thankful that someone else took their "problem" off their hands!  They need to remain silent and stop any complaining because after all, their kids are being given a "better life" with far better material advantages than they could have given them.

Hallelujah!  All priase adoption!

Charges in the Kidnap and Adoption of Anyeli Liseth Hernandez Rodriguez

As you may recall, Timothy and Jennifer Monahan, of Kansas, have been ordered by the Guatemalan government to return the child they adopted. They have been stalling, and the US has failed to force the issue.

 Anyelí Liseth Hernández Rodríguez, reported kidnapped in Guatemala in 2006, 

was tracked to an orphanage, then to the US where she had been adopted.

After months of hiding from the press, the couple, have come forward on the CBS Early Show.  

They are making claims of physical abuse, implying that her mother, Lyoda Rodriguez, is unfit to have her kidnapped child returned. An absurd claim since the child was in the hands of kidnappers for more than a year and likely was hurt by them.

The reason for this desperate act now?    The arrest of those involved in the kidnapping the Monahan's call "alleged":

(AP)  GUATEMALA CITY — A Guatemalan court sentenced two women to 16 and 21 years in prison on Monday for trafficking a stolen baby who was given for adoption to a U.S. family.

Special prosecutor Lorena Maldonado said the sentences handed down to a lawyer and the legal representative of an adoption agency will reinforce the birth mother's bid to get her daughter returned from the United States.

"Even though the criminal proceedings are separate from the adoption process, these sentences help, and confirm the argument of the mother, Loyda Rodriguez, that this girl is her daughter and was stolen from in front of her house, and that there is a criminal structure in Guatemala that steals children," said Maldonado.

The Eighth Penal Tribunal sentenced lawyer Beatriz Valle Flores to 21 years in prison for human trafficking, criminal association and using false documents. She signed papers in the adoption.

A 16-year sentence went to the legal representative of the adoption agency, Enriqueta Noriega Cano, where the girl spent a year before being adopted. The girl left the country on Dec. 9, 2008.

Both women were also ordered to pay 100,000 quetzales ($25,600) apiece to the mother for damages.

Rodriguez, the mother, obtained a Guatemalan court order in July for the return of the seven-year-old, but it is unclear if it can be enforced.

The girl, Anyeli Liseth Hernandez Rodriguez was born Oct. 1, 2004, the second child of Rodriguez, a housewife, and her bricklayer husband, Dayner Orlando Hernandez. The girl disappeared Nov. 3, 2006, as Rodriguez was distracted while opening the door to their house in a working class suburb, San Miguel Petapa. She turned to see a woman whisk the girl, then two, away in a taxi.

If U.S. authorities intervene to return the child as the Guatemalan court has asked, it would be a first for any international adoption case, experts say.

In August, a construction-paper sign taped to the door of the girl's U.S. address, a two-story suburban Kansas City home, read: "Please respect our families (sic) privacy during this difficult and confusing time. We ask that you not trespass on our property for the sake of our children. Thank you."

Guatemala's quick adoptions once made this Central American nation of 13 million people a top source of children for the U.S., leading or ranking second only to China with about 4,000 adoptions a year. But the Guatemalan government suspended adoptions in late 2007 after widespread cases of fraud, including falsified paperwork, fake birth certificates and charges of baby theft — though they still allowed many already in process.

The International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, a U.N.-created agency prosecuting organized crime cases in Guatemala, has reviewed more than 3,000 adoptions completed or in process and found nearly 100 grave irregularities.

The U.S. still does not allow adoptions from Guatemala, though the State Department is currently assisting with 397 children whose adoptions were in process at the time of the ban.

Update on Steve Jobs

Earlier this month, I wrote about Steve Jobs and how he's been shamelessly used as a poster child for anti-abortionists, without anyone knowing if he was pro-choice or pro-life (though being part hippie-free-thinker-rebel, my guess is the former).

Tonight, 60-Minutes, CBS, aired a segment featuring the author of Jobs' biography, Walter Isaacson, with excerpts of tapped interviews in Jobs own voice.

He spoke of the the first time he told someone he was adopted.


JOBS: I was, I remember right here on my lawn, telling Lisa McMoylar from across the street that I was adopted. And she said, "So does that mean your real parents didn't want you?" Ooooh, lightning bolts went off in my head. I remember running into the house, I think I was like crying, asking my parents. And they sat me down and they said, "No, you don't understand. We specifically picked you out."

ISAACSON: He said, "From then on, I realized that I was not — just abandoned. I was chosen. I was special." And I think that's the key to understanding Steve Jobs.
Isaacson relates much of Jobs personality and behavior to his feeling abandoned on one hand, and special and chosen on the other:  a rebel who took LSD and went to work barefoot and traveled to India to find spirituality.... he was also abrasive and lacking compassion. He denied his firstborn, born out of wedlock, for many years.

60 Minutes' STEVE KROFT: Explain to me how somebody who was a hippie, a college dropout, somebody who drops LSD and marijuana goes off to India and comes back deciding he wants to be a businessman?

ISAACSON: Jobs has within him sort of this conflict, but he doesn’t quite see it as a conflict between being hippie-ish and anti-materialistic but wanting to sell things like Wozniak’s board. Wanting to create a business. And I think that’s exactly what Silicon Valley was all about in those days … And Steve Jobs wasn’t all that eager to be an employee at Hewlett-Packard.

He is also described as the quintessential "Reality Distortion Fielder."  Could that not be because he lived a life of distorted reality as an adoptee??

I found out tonight that it was Jobs who initiated the search for his parents in 1980. He met his mother who introduced him to his full sister and they hit it off. He learned about his father and discovered he had actually met the restaurant owner, but decided he "didn't like what he found about him" and thus chose to never meet him.

Advice for an Expectant Mom Considering Adoption

I volunteer for an online advise service called Elder Wisdom Circle.  Elder, 60 and over, reply to questions submitted from advise-seekers of all ages. Many are broken hearts, some are teen troubles, many are marriages on the rocks, parenting issues and issues with parents, school, or even how-to advise. Some are seriously hurting, in abusive relationships or families, even suicidal. Some are very much down on their luck financially as a result of job layoffs and the economy.

Yesterday, I replied to a 22-year-old woman who is pregnant. The father of her baby was a long-time friend who was regrettably using drugs. albeit promising to stop. Her family and his were supportive of her keeping the baby, and yet she was considering placing I for adoption.

I wrote the lengthiest reply I had ever written in the year or so I've been doing this.  I took a risk in telling her all the reasons she might adoption because all of our letters are reviewed by a quality control team before being sent and I feared they night see it as "slanted" against adoption; lacking "balance."

I referred "Sara" to Origins-USA, Inc. and in particular their list of resources for expectant moms.  Here's what I wrote:

You have explained the situation very well and I understand. I understand very well.

You need to separate issues. The three do not have to be connected.

1. You are a mom-to be. You are expecting a baby.

2. The father of the baby is an addict who may or may not get clean.

3. You and your best friend may have outgrown one another.

The baby is the most important part of this equation, so I will deal with that first. Your baby is the only one here who is totally innocent and who needs you! You have family support; you can do this!

The very first thing you need to do is get healthy prenatal care. Take care of yourself and that baby growing inside you. You do not need to make any decisions about adoption until you meet your baby and hold him in your arms. Right now, it is not a reality, and you cannot and should not make any decisions that will impact both of your lives for ever.

You are considering adoption and many people may tell you that it is the most unselfish thing you can do. They will tell you how many loving couples would love to have your baby. That is true, but not your problem. People may tell you that it is selfish of you to keep your baby; that he or she deserves a mother and father who can provide more than you can.

The first thing you need to know is that adoption is a multibillion dollar industry. Your baby is a much sought-after "commodity"! As a result you will be getting a lot of pressure from many sides.

It is not selfish to want your own baby. It is natural. Further, adoption does not guarantee a "better" family for your child. Adoptive parents die and divorce and can leave your child with a single parent, while you may be married and stable. The fact is that there are no guarantees in adoption.

Most domestic adoptions in the US today are "open adoptions." I think that is also true in most of the UK as well. There are degrees of openness, however, so there are many questions you need to clarify. Getting to pick adoptive parents from photos and bios is pretty much standard today. But choosing them and even getting to meet the adoptive parents prior to the birth and adoption is merely an "identified" adoption. Be aware too, that it can complicate your ability to make an informed objective decision by getting too enmeshed with prospective adopters. Many mothers report that they went through with adoptions they didn't want to to because they felt "obligated" and "indebted."

Beyond identified adoption there is semi-open adoption which involves contact via letters and photos from the adoptive parents on various schedules such as yearly. Fully open adoption consists of actual visits with you and your child with his new family, again on preset schedule that the adoptive parents decide upon.

Adoption experts all agree that openness and honesty is healthier for all the parties in adoption, as opposed to closed, secretive adoption - which is still a choice. But these arrangements are not without problems that you need to consider.

First, open adoption contact agreements are unenforceable in most US states. Please be sure to check the laws in your locale. Even when agreements are legally drawn up and notarized, they are merely promises. Open adoption is not joint custody as takes place in divorce. In divorce both parents maintain parental rights and interfering with visitation is a criminal offense. Every adoption - even open adoptions - begins with you signing a relinquishment of parental rights. You give up ALL of your rights as a parent and the adoptive parents have all the rights. Thus, if they decide not to continue allowing visitation, they can stop them. They are the parents and you are not.

Also, often times mothers who relinquish their babies in open adoption, find that they cannot continue with visitation. They find it too painful to watch their baby calling someone else Mommy and running to another when they're crying. Others have to stop because of the distance and cost of traveling to visit, or it simply interferes with their schooling or career.

Much has been written about the feelings of rejection and abandonment adoptees suffer in traditional closed adoptions, in addition to difficult identity crisis. It adds an extra burden to the teen years and beyond. Little has been studied about children growing up in open adoptions. In the days of closed, secret adoptions adoptees were told that their mothers were generally too young to keep them. As they grew they learned to understand that back in the previous generation single parenthood was not accepted. It was shameful and society demanded "unwed others" be sent away and place their children.

But today things are different and children - your child - will have to deal with understanding why a capable 22 year-old with family support CHOSE not to keep them. What will you tell him or her when he or she asks that? If you are fortunate enough to have any subsequent children later on, what will you tell them?

What will you do if you are promised an open adoption, and then as often happens, it fails to remain open? Many mothers to whom this has happened feel devastated and deceived. Or, how would you feel if you find it too painful to see your child with another mother?

These are the serious issues you need to think about. Remember that there are many sharks out there seeking babies for adoption. The average fees paid to adopt today are approximately $40,000. Adoption agencies advertise online pretending to want to help you. They will offer to pay all of your medical expenses and more. Be cautious!

To speak with mothers who have been through this and can offer you insight without any agenda, contact: http://originsusa.memberlodge.org/. They have a direct link to support services for mothers-to-be and single moms that will help you without trying to persuade you in any direction: http://originsusa.memberlodge.org

/Resources_to_Help_You_Keep_Your_Baby. You can also find support at: Family Preservation.blogspot.com and for assistance in Canada, contact http://www.originscanada.org/. In New South Wales: http://www.originsnsw.com/

As for Z, it is his baby too. Hopefully, he will get clean and stay clean, but maybe he won't or won't for many years. You need to do what is best and your baby and make that plan not expecting much from Z. His addiction is his and you cannot help him. It is too easy for you to fall back into his charms and wind up enabling him. If he stays in your life in any capacity, I strongly urge you to attend some Al-Anon 12-steps meetings and find out about enabling behaviors to avoid. Find a local meeting in the US at: www.al-anon.alateen.org/. In the UK: www.al-anonuk.org.uk/

But, regardless of whether he cleans up or not, and regardless if you stay with him or not, it is his child, too, and any decision about adoption concerns him. He must also consent. It is also your parents grandchild.

As for you friend, R, it sounds to me like you have outgrown her. It happens. You see her reliance on you now. Hopefully, you and she will be able to reshape your friendship in a different way.

I hope I have given you some food for thought and offered you some resources for support. There is a lot of support for you and your baby! I wish you both the best! Please feel free to write again.

Best Regards,

I pressed send and crossed my fingers that it would not get bounced, or I'd not get asked to tone it down...

And then I got this reply from "Sara":

Thank you so much for your advice. I've read it several times and I am continuing to absorb it. I will think very hard about the things you have mentioned. This website is wonderful and the advice is very helpful. Surely I will email again! I'm happy these sorts of places exist because there are truly so many people who just need an outside source to give them some form of input.

Thanks again!!!!

One such save makes my day, month, year!  If you are over 60, competent with the computer and want to help others, consider volunteering at Elder Wisdom Circle. I find it very rewarding!

P.S. I hope "Sara" - and others in her situation - find this site, this post and me. It was very helpful having so many resources all in one place, at Origins-USA, to give mothers in need of this information.

I hope you will bookmark this page and the resource list.

Greed and Grandchildren: The Madoff Legacy

Bernie Madoff has been called on the world's most hated people for the $64 billion he stole in his major ponzie schemes. But that just money. I've felt minimal sympathy for his victims who were looking for a get rich quick scheme.

The real crime and suffering he caused was to his own family, and the ripples have left his two grandchildren fatherless and without contact with their paternal grandfather or grandmother. All for greed.

Stephanie Madoff Mack, 37, was married to Bernie's son Mark. Widowed with two children, she is releasing  a book in which she describes the pain Bernie's crimes - or more accurately his scandalous admission and imprisonment for 150 years - caused his son. Mark was so devastated he killed himself leaving a note making it clear that it was a direct result of his father's actions.

"I hate Bernie Madoff," said the Madoff Mack widowed daughter-in-law. "If I saw Bernie Madoff right now, I would tell him that I hold him fully responsible for killing my husband, and I'd spit in his face."

hanged himself in December 2010 inside their SoHo apartment while their 2-year-old son, Nicholas, slept nearby. Mark Madoff, 46, had committed suicide while Mack and their daughter Audrey were away at Disney World.

Mack wrote that her husband struggled to keep it together emotionally -- although he had previously tried to kill himself in 2009 by trying to overdose on Ambien sleeping pills after the Ponzi scheme had been uncovered in December 2008.

She also said she has cut all contact with the children's grandmother, honoring her late husband's wishes.

How sad that these innocent children who already lost a parent are also being kept from their grandmother. How sad the toll being paid by Ruth Madoff, Bernie's wife of 52 years who divorced Bernie in August. She had not visited him since Mark took his life.

I would hope that with all the pain this family has suffered that grandmother and grandchildren could be reconciled. Ruth, who has already lost her son, does not deserve the punishment she is being dealt to be denied access to her grandchildren, nor do those children need to loose her.

Stephanie is understandably angry. Suicide leaves a legacy of anger and blame. In this case the blame is clear and justified as is the intensity of her anger. But why extend it to Ruth when the two women could instead help one another cope with the loss of the man they both loved, Mark and enjoy his children.

More importantly, why make the children suffer additional lost?

Book Give-Away!

Well, practically being given away....

Get in on this incredible deal of overstocked copies of this groundbreaking expose!

Copies of THE STORK MARKET: America's Multi-Billion Dollar Unregulated Adoption Industry are being made available at LESS THAN HALF PRICE through Amazon.com at: http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/1427608954.

Click "Used" and then look for Direct-2-You and find BRAND NEW copies for just $7.50!!

Just in time for National Adoption Month you can obtain copies to send to lawmakers or donate to libraries.

Accompany your order with a reply here, and get your copy personalized AUTOGRAPHED.

For:

• Anyone personally touched by adoption, or who knows someone who is

• Anyone planning or considering adoption in their lives, or the lives of a love done

• Social workers, attorneys, adoption facilitators and anyone working in the field of adoption

• Teachers, psychologists, therapists, counselors who come in contact with adoptees, adoptive mothers and mothers who have relinquished for adoption

• The general public, tax payers

• Anyone interested in child protection and family preservation

The Stork Market is an in-depth examination of the corruption in the adoption industry: the fine line between black and gray market adoption; scams, coercion and exploitation in a market based on supply and demand with prices based on quality (i.e. age, skin color) of the merchandise and set as high as ‘desperate’ consumers are willing to pay.

The Stork Market exposes international trafficking where children are a commodity bought and sold to the highest bidders, including pedophiles. It challenges convention wisdom and myths that abound in regard adoption.

The Stork Market is extensively researched, documented and including interviews with the top adoption experts. The Stork Market asks if adoption can be fixed - the money aspect removed and government controls and regulations put in place - or abolished in favor of permanent guardianship, or informal adoption that does not involve the issuance of a falsified birth certificate present in current adoption to fortify myths of replicating creation.

The Stork Market foreword is by Evelyn Robinson, social worker, author from Australia, who brings with her an International perspective.

The Stork Market goes further and is more current than Riben’s groundbreaking, award-winning expose of the adoption industry, “shedding light on…The Dark Side of Adoption” (1988) which was excerpted in Social Issues Review Series, Utne Reader and Microcosm USA. The Stork Market reveals, for the first time in print, Riben’s role in the notorious Joel Steinberg murder case.

Read synopsis, contents and reviews at:
http://www.advocatepublications.com/index.php/the-stork-market/

Please feel free to share this notice with all adoption lists, etc.

Adoption Loss and PTSD

Many mothers who have lot children to adoption - especially in the past when there was so much shame attached to an unintended pregnancy - suffer PTSD.

First was the fear of being pregnant and then the shock and disbelief of finding out their worst fear was true! Then came having to tell their parents, knowing thy had committed what was considered THE WORST thing any "good girl" could have done, even if they were raped.  We were subjected to tirades of anger, shock, tears, disappointment and told that we were shaming the entire family!

May were denied marriage, some even denied to see their boyfriends again. others were deserted by boyfriends who denied the child was theirs or turned their backs on young women who loved them and believed their promises of forever love and marriage.

Some of these mothers were locked in their rooms for months. Others were shunned and sent away. many were imprisoned in unwed mothers' homes and forced to use an alias, never  revealing their real name to the other "inmates."  Some were sent to work houses or treated as maids in exchange for housing during their "term." 

When they went into labor, mothers report being tied down. Many were insulted by cold, cruel nuns who told them this is what they deserve for not keeping their legs closed!

At the time of the birth some of these mothers had drapes up so they could not see their own child or even know its gender!  Others had them torn from their arms.

They were told they were undeserving to be mothers and that their child deserved better. And, they were told by clergy of all denominations and social workers to never tell anyone lest they be rejected.

They then spent untold decades wondering if the child they bore was dead or alive, well card for or not...Looking at children who were the same age their child would then be...Annual anniversary depression....fears around having other children....tenseness every time asked the simple every day questions asked every woman: Do you have children? How many?

Many took very seriously the warning to keep their secret and never even told husbands, certainly not subsequent children, if they were able to have any.

Now, a study based on a survey of 566 patients concludes that survivors who had been diagnosed with cancer "can leave lasting psychological scars akin to those inflicted by war" or, in other words they suffer PTSD with symptoms from feeling jumpy to emotional numbness.  One in 10 patients also said they avoided thinking about their cancer and one in 20 said they steered clear of situations or activities that reminded them of the disease.

Researchers estimated that 12 of the 566 patients had "full blown PTSD" involving a trio of symptoms, including avoidance, arousal and flashbacks and many more had one or more symptoms.  Overall, half the patients had PTSD symptoms 13 years after diagnosis and symptoms worsened in 37 percent.

The study echoed the work of Condon who found that for some mothers their anger increased with time.

“A most striking finding in the present study is that the majority of these women reported no diminution of their sadness, anger and guilt over the considerable number of years which had elapsed since their relinquishment. A significant number actually re-ported an intensification of these feelings, especially anger.”

J. T. Condon, Psychological Disability in Birth Mothers. 

“As I grew older, I gradually gained a cruelly clear perspective on what I had done. As I matured enough to think of myself as a possible parent, the ramifications of my youthful act – giving away my child – took on tragic proportions.”

Margaret Moorman, Waiting to Forget, p. 128

For the cancer patients many likewise seemed to have worsening PTSD with time.

It's just very stressful for people to be told that they have cancer," said Bonnie L. Green, a trauma expert who pioneered the study of PTSD in breast cancer survivors at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., told Reuters Health.

Sophia Smith from the Duke Cancer Institute in Durham, North Carolina said she had added concern for those with less support resources.

Which do you think is worse - being told you have cancer or discovering you are pregnant in a time when it was totally unaccepted and being told you you cannot keep your child and must give it away and never know anything about your child ever again, and you are expected to simply forget it ever happened and never speak of it again.... Which seem to inflict more powerful devastation to one's psyche?

The patients studied were cancer SURVIVORS. That means their cancer is now in remission or their tumors no longer can be seen on scans. For mothers who loose children to adoption, it never goes away. Our loss is akin to a mother whose child has been kidnapped, albeit, with the kidnapper's assurance that he or she will be well taken care of but with no way to know that it's true. Would anyone expect that kidnap victims have not suffered a trauma and one that would leave lasting effects.

And yes, for mothers ho lose children to adoption there is more loss than just her child. There is the eternal guilt of knowing, in the majority of cases, that she actually signed the papers. And it the loss of her self-esteem and self confidence having been told she shamed her family, needs to keep part of life a secret, and is not fit to parent her own child - without ever being given a chance to in most cases.

The birthmother's primary source of pain has been in the area of loss. She has not only suffered the loss of her child/ren, but the loss of her sense of wholeness, her sense of control over her life, and loss of self-esteem. In some cases she has lost a home or has lost or suffered damaged relationships with members of her family. Often she has lost identification with her mother as a role model. She has suffered loss of being accepted by society and loss of her adolescence, as well as loss of her sense of trust and self-worth.
This magnitude of loss is, to say the least, difficult for her to overcome. Sometimes the best a birthmother can do is to remain in denial and numbness for the rest of her adult life, unconsciously encumbered by her silent sorrow.

Davidson, Michelene K. Healing the Birthmother's Silent Sorrow. Progress: Family Systems Research and Therapy, 1994, Volume 3, (pp. 69-89). Encino, CA: Phillips Graduate Institute.

For more on the Lifelong, Unresolvable Grief of Loosing a Child to Adoption see: http://works.bepress.com/mirah_riben/23/

Help Stop Child Trafficking for Adoption

Reprinted from Ethicanet.org

This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee will be marking up the Trafficking Victim Protection Reauthorization Act of 2011, a lifesaving measure that establishes human trafficking as a crime in the

U.S.  Ethica supports this measure, but we also think it could be strengthened with a tiny, one-line amendment that includes trafficking for the purposes of adoption in its language.
It seems crazy, but trafficking for the purposes of adoption – procuring a child through force, fraud, or coercion, and then finding her a new home overseas – is not seen as trafficking in the eyes of U.S. law.
Although the tactics traffickers use are identical whether the child is destined for the sex trade or a new home overseas, current law sees them as very different.  Under current U.S. law, the ends justify the means.

Under current U.S. law, child traffickers like Lauryn Galindo, who brought almost 800 children into the U.S. from Cambodia on falsified paperwork, using such tactics as paying for the children with a bag of rice and telling their biological and adoptive parents lies about the children’s futures and histories, only go to jail for 18 months on charges of money laundering and visa fraud.  Money laundering and visa fraud were certainly committed, but children lost their entire identities, too.

This type of horrific malfeasance has no place in the U.S.  It is not an ethical adoption if the child was not intended to be adopted; it is not ethical adoption if the child or his or her parents were the victims of force, fraud, or coercion.  This type of fraud is the type of fraud that shuts down entire country programs, as it has in Guatemala, Nepal, Vietnam, and Cambodia.  This type of fraud must end.

Ethica believes this amendment can only strengthen intercountry adoption by giving federal authorities actual tools to prosecute offenders.  Please join Ethica today in calling on Senate offices to include this small but urgent amendment in the language of the TVPRA of 2011.  It is a tiny amendment meant to adjust the definition of trafficking, and it costs taxpayers no additional money.  The language we are proposing is also very limited in scope; it would be very difficult for the language to be interpreted to mean anything other than outright criminal trafficking activity related to adoptions.  Although we would be the first to say that this amendment is not a panacea for all that plagues intercountry adoption, it is a solid first step in the process to reforming the international adoption process.

Thank you for your continued commitment to ethical, transparent adoptions.

With gratitude,
Ethica Board of Directors
 
PLEASE CALL TODAY!  THANK YOU!

Senator Klobuchar’s office
302 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-3244
Fax: (202) 228-2186

Senator Leahy’s office
Washington D.C. Office
437 Russell Senate Bldg
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-4242
Fax: (202) 224-3479

Senator Grassley’s office
135 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-3744
Fax: (202) 224-6020

Senate Judiciary Committee
Majority side:  (202) 224-7703
Minority side:  (202) 224-5225

TALKING POINTS

For Klobuchar:
1)  Thanking her office for their commitment to children’s issues and adoption in general.  Emphasize that she is committed to adoption and we appreciate that.

For Leahy:
1b)  Thanking his office for their commitment to anti-trafficking efforts and the safety of women and children around the world.

For all:
2)  Emphasize that this is a tiny, tiny, three-sentence amendment that is really important, but very very tiny.
3)  Emphasize that you know it is very last-minute, but this is a critical amendment and we would really appreciate the time they take to consider offering it.
4)  Emphasize that you support Ethica’s amendment to the TVPRA to include trafficking for adoption in the definition of human trafficking.  Here are some reasons why:
a)  There is no law against trafficking for adoption currently, so perpetrators cannot be prosecuted for these crimes.  Instead, they are prosecuted for things like money laundering, which diminishes the gravity of what they’ve done.
b)  Trafficking for adoption is virtually indistinguishable from human trafficking as TVPA currently conceives it WHEN IT HAPPENS.  In both instances, children are abducted, or their parents are told that they will be getting an education and returning, offered money, assaulted if they try to object to the child’s removal from the home, or forced to sign a piece of paper that they can’t read.  In both instances, power is wielded over someone who is less powerful to attain a valuable commodity:  a child.
c)  This is not an adoption issue, it is a trafficking one.  It is not a legitimate adoption if the child was not meant to be adopted.
d)  (If applicable) – As a parent, can you imagine turning around and seeing your child whisked away into a car, never to be seen again?  What if you found out that there was no law in place to punish someone who did this?  Forcibly removing a child from her home, whether first or adopted, is a trauma.
e)  This type of adoption fraud shuts down country after country:  in recent years, it has shut down Vietnam, Guatemala, Cambodia, and Nepal.  It is threatening to close Ethiopia.  This type of fraud MUST STOP.
f)  This amendment will be a first step in securing the integrity of adoptions.
g)  This amendment will be the first step to ensuring that adoptions will remain an option for the children who truly need it.

An Excruciatingly Beautiful Poem

I am honored to have known Carole Anderson, a mother who lost one of her children to adoption, a past president of Concerned United Birthparents, and a visionary who called for adoption to be replaced with guardianship back in the 1990s.

She was a social worker and an attorney and a powerful spokesperson and writer, and one of my personal heroines and role models. I don't know if any other of her poems were published, but this one was in my first book, shedding light on...The Dark Side of Adoption (p 91).

PREREUNION PAIN

I am filled with hate:
a black, hot cancer of hate
I hide with a hearty grimace
I call a smile
while it consumes me.
I hate the evil agencies that say nature is nothing and mothers even less, 

that claim to create while they maim and destroy.
I hate those men of God
who use youthful faith as a sword
to sever hearts and souls,
who promise forgiveness
at the price of martyred lives.
I hate the grasping couples who pray to God to bless them by damning families He made, who self-righteously build greedy joy on the bodies of bleeding mothers.
I hate the foolish girl I was, who so despised
herself
she believed she was unworthy, whose choiceless trust in others' wisdom made her child a sold commodity. I am filled with hate for the agonies of adoption: its endless, aching injustice,
its everlasting spiritual torment,
and the festering of eternal emptiness.

—C.J. Anderson

Originally published as "Adoption Agony," Origins, March/April, 1983.

Let Steve Jobs Rest in Peace!

As the world mourns the too soon death of Apple founder Steve Jobs at just 56 years of age, leaving behind a wife and four children, some are shamelessly exploiting this tragedy for their political agenda.

In the midst of his family's mourning and the world's loss, the pro-life community is disgustingly USING this tragedy for their own personal agenda!  The man is barely in the ground and they are politicizing the fact that he was adopted to spread vicious and specious lies connecting adoption and abortion.

Clara Matthews of LifeNews.com writes in "Steve Jobs’ Adoption Defied Planned Parenthood’s Abortion Agenda": 

"if Planned Parenthood had any say over his destiny, chances are he would have never been given the chance to live such an extraordinary life and lead the next generation of technological advancements.....Clara and Paul Jobs [his adoptive parents] valued the life of a child Planned Parenthood labels a “crisis,” and Steve Jobs did not become just another “problem” Planned Parenthood attempted solve."

A Bakersfield, CA Opinion Letter by Audrey Cochran echoes this belief that Planned Parenthood has the power to make decisions for mothers:

Steve Jobs and abortion

During an excerpt of one of Steve Jobs' news conferences that was rebroadcast the other day, he mentioned he was born to an unwed mother who gave him up for adoption.
This makes me wonder how many babies who would have turned out to be equally innovative and brilliant have been aborted, and how much better our world would be had they been allowed to live.
I believe Planned Parenthood, which provides abortions in many U.S. cities, is a liability, not an asset, and eliminating the millions of dollars we taxpayers give them each year would help balance the budget.

The title of that piece says it all. There is NO connection whatsoever between Steve Jobs and adoption anymore than there is a connection between any living human being and abortion unless they've had one personally (which I doubt in Jobs' case) or performed or recommended one!

Erick Whittington ponders, again in LifeNews.com, "Are Abortions Claiming the Lives of People Like Steve Jobs?"

What if Steve Jobs was conceived today?  Since his parents weren’t married and both attending college there is a much higher chance he would have been aborted.  Could his mother have withstood the pressure from her friends, her classmates and her family members to abort?  Would she of withstood the pressure of a Planned Parenthood abortion salesperson telling her pregnancy is just a blob of tissue & abortion is harmless?  

Hmmmm. what if....what if Steve Jobs had been born female instead of male? Would she have had the same opportunities to achieve what he did in the business world and particularly the It sector? I don't many female IT execs.  What if Steve Jobs had been gay? Why doesn't the gay rights movement get on the bandwagon as long as we are dealing with "what if' scenarios.

Donald R. McClarey of The American Catholic goes further and blames politics. In a piece entitled "Steve Jobs, Adoption and Abortion" McClarey:

I assume that he was a Democrat due to his large political contributions to that party, which is somewhat ironic considering one event at the very beginning of his life.

He concludes:

Abortion has robbed us of many geniuses such as Steve Jobs, some villians [sic] no doubt also, and a great many plain ordinary folks who never got their chance to show what love and work they could bring into our world.  We are immeasurably poorer for their loss.

Steve Job's adoption is a perfect case in point, as a matter of fact, of the fallacy of assumptions about attempts to connect two very different situations: adoption and abortion.

Job's mother and father were in love. Abdulfattah "John" Jandali, a Syrian, and Joanne Carole Schieble (later Simpson), an American of Swiss and German descent wanted to marry. They were forbidden to marry by their parents because of ethnic differences. They loved the child their love had created so much that when forced to relinquish him for adoption, they stipulated very firmly that the adoptive parents must be college educated and must promise to provide a college education for their son. These are all acts of pure love and concern, not the acts of anyone who had even for a second considered ending their son's life!!

Adoption and abortion have as much to do with one another as do marriage and joining a monastery or the circus.  They are choices available to all, but one who chooses one, has by no means ever considered the other.

Abortion is a reproductive right. It is a pregnancy outcome choice.


Adoption is NOT a reproductive right! Not for the expectant mother, nor for those who adopt because adoption does not involve anything whatsoever to do with the PREGNANCY. Adoption is the transfer of custody of living, breathing, human being.  Abortion, on the other hand, does not involve a viable, independent, sustainable human life that could be cared for by alternate care-givers. Aborted fetal matter could not be kept alive by any means.

Adoption involves two families and a child they ultimately share. Abortion involves a mother, her conscience, possibly her religious beliefs and her physician. No other living human being is involved in that decision before or after.

It is common PR practice to piggy back on news events. But this campaign to use the death of an adopted person is offensive to all adopted persons and their original parents, and is especially libelous to John Jandali, and Joanne Carole Schieble Simmons. How DARE anyone make publicly defaming assumptions about these specific people.

There is no more validity to claims of what John and Joanne may or may not have contemplated that to put into a print a claim that The Pope considered having sex before entering the priesthood!

Making any claims that any adoptee is lucky not to have aborted is discriminatory as adopted persons would be at no greater risk than any person! How many of us were the result of unplanned pregnancies? And how many married couples with or without children - of every faith including those who call themselves "good' Catholics" have considered, and had, abortions! Why single out adoptees as having been at a risk any human being in the world is at equal for.

The conjuncture of the pro-lifers is as absurd as to speculate that the world would have been a different place if Gandhi's mother had miscarried while pregnant with him, or if The Dalai Lama's parents had not had coitus on the night he was created. "IF."

But the pro-life campaign linking adoption and abortion relies heavily on lies. The Catholic Conference and other pro life groups lobby state by state to deny adult adopted persons equality in regard to access to their own original birth certificates, keeping them second class, discriminated against citizens.

They do this under the bizarre pretext that allowing such access would cause mothers to abort rather than place a child for adoption and fear being "found out" defying the following facts:

• The days of mother relinquishing out of shame of being pregnant "out of wedlock" are long gone with typewriters and phones with cords attached to the wall.

• Abortion is a very time limited choice that can only be made during the first trimester. Adoption, cannot be chosen until after the child is born!

• The majority of mothers who relinquish children to adoption, are more like Jobs' parents than women who are debating killing the child they are carrying. They are loving,  caring people caught in situations with few really good options, lacking sufficient resources to remain an intact family.

• The vast majority of mothers who lose their children to adoption or are pressured to or chose it as the best option available to them at the time, long to know their child is alive and well, as did Steve Job's parents and sister.

• Finally, the argument that access for adopted adults would create more abortions has been proven to be totally absurd and unsubstantiated. In states which have reversed the Draconian laws that forbid access and maintain secrecy in adoption, disallowing people access to information that could be a matter of life and death, there has been no increase in abortions or decrease in adoptions. this has been documented repeatedly and the pro-life contingent knows it full well yet continues to spew their lies and acts to harm the living in an effort to save a few "unborn" fetuses to increase the profits of those who earn their livelihood redistributing children through adoption.

Let Steve Jobs rest in peace. Stop using him as a poster boy for the pro-life agenda, especially when we have no idea if he was pro-choice or pro-life.  And stop insulting his parents and all mothers who made a loving choice, or were pressured, or given no alternatives but to let their child be adopted...a choice they are told is a LOVING choice.

If anything is going to increase abortion rates it is rhetoric that constantly makes the claim that mothers who make a loving sacrifice to carry a child for nine months will be forever labeled as someone who might have considered abortion!

The other thing that has a chance of increasing abortion is the secrecy of closed adoptions. More mothers today choose open adoption and report they would not have relinquished unless they were assured the adoption would be open.

STOP the insanity! Stop comparing apples and oranges. And for goodness sake stop WHAT IT scenarios about people's lives! What if Jesus was never born? What if Henny Penny is right and thee sky is falling or the hat if the hokey pokey really is all it's all about?  Makes as much sense as ridiculous speculations tying and innocent man's death and his loving, caring parents to a pro-life anti-abortion agenda.

Pro-lifers would decrease far more abortions if they stopped making mothers in crisis pregnancies choose between the devil and deep blue sea and were more supportive of helping them find the resources they need to nurture their children safely. THAT choice saves the unborn just as much as adoption!!!

Lorraine at FMF blogged about another interesting aspect of Steve Jobs life; his denial of paternity of one of his children. See it here.

UPDATE: Steve and his father actually met without knowing it! Steve frequently went to a reastaunat owned by his Dad, according to his forthcomin biography an excerpt reported on Huffington Post. 

Glee Raises Adoption Issues: Are they valuable or misconceptions?

Adoptive mom Amber Austin is so upset by the adoption story line on the TV show, Glee, that she's too patient and see it to its conclusion - which I predict will certainly maintain the "integrity" of adoption. Instead, she is protecting with a petition here that has in turn garnered news coverage.

The essence of Austin's concerns are:

In the current story line, Quinn, a teen mother who placed her daughter for adoption, is actively (and with malice) trying to "get my daughter back." And, Rachel, an adopted child, deals with the sudden reappearance of her birth mother.  In real, legitimate adoptions, a birth mother cannot simply take a child away from their family or pop back into a child's life, however this is one of most pervasive and harmful myths about adoption.  

Really? I believe the most harmful myths are the win-win myths and the myth of tens of thousands orphans waiting to be rescued.... or, how about the myth that adoption provides a child a "better" life, or that adoptive parents are somehow all wonderful people because they are motivated enough to adopt instead of just humans who are as flawed as any other and even abuse their adopted children on occasion.... 

For adopted children, the show raises the fear that they may be taken away from their adopted families. 

REALLY?!! How many adopted kids does Austin know who harbor such a fear? The ones I know all report fantasizing about being found. Additionally, any adoptees who know they are adopted mature, they come to know that they were born into one family and taken or given away. Any fear of being taken or abandoned or rejected already exists deep inside every adoptee. They don't need a stupid TV show to instill that in them.

And for adoptive parents and birth mothers, the show creates confusion about the nature of adoption - confusion that may prevent adoptions from happening at all...

Doubt that would ever happen.  People continue to adopt every day despite news reports of scams that rip them off for their money; despite failed adoptions - which Amber told me via private communication she experienced herself... Anyone fearful of a mother returning to snatch away an adopted child would be well assured by the adoption providers that it is rare to impossible and relieved, they'd go ahead.

Fact is, if a handful of people are discouraged from adopting because of a youth-oriented musical TV fictionalized show, OH WELL! They obviously were not really sure to begin with, AND... there would still be close to a hundred people and couples vying for each healthy, white child while ignoring the approximately 120.000 children in foster care who could be adopted.  So, no real concern is needed.

As for mothers in crisis being dissuaded or confused by the show - equally unlikely. Adoption themes loaded with misconceptions about adoption abound in movies such as Juno and TV shows from Parenthood (on which one of the characters wants to BUY to  an acquaintances baby) 16 and Pregnant to Brothers and Sisters to House...Dr. Phil...Rules of Engagement explores surrogacy and Happy Endings is exploring the aftermath of egg "donation."

It's FICTION. It's entertainment and the networks love controversy; the producers love shock content - it adds to their ratings!

The fact is that adoption has been a theme of entertainment since the days of early English literature: The Tempest; Canterbury Tales; Beowulf; Paradise Lost. It makes for interesting stories because of the mystery of it all. It's been depicted in horror films. most recently The Orphan and untold number of soap opera plots.  It has been and will continue to be...and is often the punchline of bad jokes and skits on SNL.

Those who want to get all upset about fiction can have a full time job doing so.

Adoption, like life and all interpersonal relationships, is messy.  It is filled with lots of ambivalence on the part of both the relinquishing mother before and after he  loss, as well as on the part of those who resort to adoption as  a last resort after years of frustrating and expensive attempts by most to conceive and carry a child of their own. Even once deciding to adopt, there are many choices and options that are explored: domestic, international, open, closed... Nothing is black and white and clear cut about adoption. it is messy!

The character Quinn is a confused, hurting teen who was abandoned by her family when she became pregnant. She is not a crazed stalker as portrayed by Austin and her petition.  I have not watched every episode, so please correct me if I have this wrong, but Quinn's placement of her child, while not an open adoption was an identified adoption. She chose this mother and knew who and where she is, since the adoptive mother is ironically, the original mother of Rachel, the star character of the show who, as a result of her adoption has two fathers.

The adoptive/original mother was not receptive at all to having a relationship with her beautiful daughter Rachel, despite their shared dark haired beauty, vocal talent and stage presence. Interesting that this rejection did not concern Austin enough to start a petition.

Mothers who relinquish children to adoption struggle with enormous ambivalence both before and after placement. Likewise those who adopt also struggle with their decision, most often made only after trying everything possible they can afford to have a child of their own. Once they finally resolve to their last resort - adoption - there are still many ebbs, flows and choices: domestic, international, open, closed, infant or older child, etc.

Nothing about adoption is black and white. It's messy.

Adoption is also laden with fear and it is fear-mongering that comes across most clearly in Austin's petition. 

What comes across most clearly in the petition is the fear - common among those who adopt - that their child's mother will come back into their lives, interfere in some way, or heaven forbid stake a claim on their child and seek to overturn the adoption.

Precious, precious few adoptions are overturned.  You can let yourself be crippled by fear or embrace the truth.

Truth...something missing in current adoption practice.

The fact is that such fears are the fears of adoptive parents who see adoption as their entitlement, their child as a possession, and do not see their children as separate human beings with fears, concerns, wishes, hopes, lives and rights of their own. In my 30+ years experience with those touched by adoption,

One of the best gifts any adoptive parent can give their child - short of opening a closed adoption - is to open the dialog aloud that their kids are thinking and wondering about. I think Glee and other dumb show that mentions adoption - even incorrectly - can be a wonderful jumping off vehicle for such conversations.

Austin wants PBS announcements to encourage adoption loss and separation.  Here are the ones I'd like to see:

• Public Service Announcements and education starting in HS about the preventable causes of infertility in order to reduce the demand for adoptable babies and children which supports global child traffickers who kidnap and steal children as well as the domestic agencies that pressure women and often deceive them.

• PBS announcements to educate young women starting in Jr. HS about access to birth control. And I see a need for PBS announcements that offer help to mothers in crisis to parent safely.

• PBS announcements to tell prospective adopters that taking children one at a time, at a price rag of tens of thousands of dollars per child, does nothing to ameliorate the poverty of that child's family, community or nation. That the real humanitarian thing to do is to spend those tens of thousands of dollars not to fill one wish to be a parent but to dig a well, build a school, or buy medical supplies.

• And I see a need for PBS announcements that encourage prospective adopters to adopt from foster care or simply to foster, rather than add to the demand that creates coercion and exploitation.

But the one thing I do NOT see a need for is anything that encourages or promotes the destruction of blood kin families to meet a demand for children.

You can:

• comment here
• discuss this issue on Adoption News and Events on Facebook
• comment at the LA Times article
• send a message to Amber Austin

Adopted and Abused: How Many More?

Teen kept in Florida bathroom, beaten by adoptive mother, Tai-Ling Gigliotti and boyfriend

2009. For three years, neighbors in a quaint, middle-class community scarcely saw the lanky 16-year-old boy who lived with his adoptive mother and her boyfriend.

Now, they know why: According to authorities, the teen was brutally abused and held captive in his own home. Most recently, he'd been confined to a bathroom, locked from the outside and sealed with a piece of plywood over the window.

By the time he escaped last week, the Florida boy had a broken forearm and scars, scabs and oozing wounds that investigators say mark years of abuse.

Retired hero cop William Fox busted in Pennsylvania on sex-abuse charges

A former hero NYPD cop who became a father to a troubled teen he coaxed out of jumping from a downtown flophouse 30 years ago was arrested in Pennsylvania on charges of molesting three boys.

William Fox, 65, was collared Monday at his Liberty Township home and accused of sexually abusing the juveniles between 1996 and 2009, the Sun Gazette newspaper reported Thursday.

Fox later adopted the boy and wrote a book about his experience. He also received the National Father of the Year Award. William Fox adopted 10 boys in total, three of whom filed complaints about sexual abuse.

Florida woman charged with murder of adopted daughter

The adoptive mother of a Florida girl found dead in a plastic bag in her husband's truck has been charged with first-degree murder, police said Saturday.
Carmen Barahona also faces seven counts of aggravated child abuse and seven counts of child neglect, the Miami-Dade Police Department said in a press release.
Authorities have said Jorge Barahona -- the 10-year-old girl's adoptive father and Carmen's husband -- parked his pest control truck alongside I-95 on February 14. A roadside ranger said he found Barahona beside the truck and his adopted son ill inside the vehicle, which was filled with toxic chemicals. The boy was taken to a hospital to be treated for severe burns.

The body of his adopted daughter, Nubia -- who is the boy's twin sister -- was later discovered in the back of the truck in a plastic bag.

Four days later, Jorge Barahona pleaded not guilty on charges of attempted first-degree murder with a weapon and aggravated child abuse with a weapon in the case.

At least two people tried to warn authorities about alleged abuse of the twins.

Teen kept in Florida bathroom, beaten by adoptive mother, Tai-Ling Gigliotti and boyfriend

2009. SPRING HILL, Fla. - For three years, neighbors in a quaint, middle-class community scarcely saw the lanky 16-year-old boy who lived with his adoptive mother and her boyfriend.

Now, they know why: According to authorities, the teen was brutally abused and held captive in his own home. Most recently, he'd been confined to a bathroom, locked from the outside and sealed with a piece of plywood over the window.

By the time he escaped last week, the Florida boy had a broken forearm and scars, scabs and oozing wounds that investigators say mark years of abuse.

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

Father Predatory monster who was allowed to adopt sentenced to 119 years for 'horrific' beatings of adopted son

An El Paso County man was sentenced Monday to 119½ years to possibly life in prison for what a prosecutor called “horrific” beatings of his adopted son that spanned two years.

Jeremiah Lovato, 41, showed little emotion as 4th Judicial District Judge Robert L. Lowrey rattled off the maximum penalty for many of the 18 counts of which Lovato was convicted in February.
Under Colorado law, one of the felonies, sexual assault, carries an indeterminate sentence of six years to life, based on the judgment of the Colorado Department of Corrections.

Before delivering the sentence, Lowrey described the abuse as “extraordinary” and mentioned the graphic photographs that depicted the boy’s infected wounds from being beaten with a stick.
Prosecutors said Lovato also hit him in the head with a meat tenderizer, punched and strangled him, and stomped on his testicles when the boy attempted to roll over or otherwise deflect the blows.
“I’ve never seen anything like this, Mr. Lovato,” Lowrey said.

The victim – now 16 – is living with a foster family. Lovato’s parental rights were terminated before his trial in February, authorities said.

The Gazette generally withholds the names of juvenile victims, particularly in cases involving sexual assault.

The abuse came to light in January 2010, when the boy jumped a fence and ran for help rather than submit to another beating by Lovato. Prosecutors alleged the abuse began shortly after the boy went to live with Lovato in Craig in 2008 and escalated after they moved to a subdivision east of Colorado Springs.

Addressing the court in a black striped shirt and dark tie, the teenager pushed for a stiff sentence against the man prosecutors described as his captor.

“I’d like to see Jeremiah Lovato locked away for a long time because of all the things he ended up doing to me,” he said.

Others were more strident in characterizing the abuse.

“Mr. Lovato earned every year that he received,” said Diana May, the chief deputy district attorney who led the prosecution. “The abuse he inflicted, both mentally and physically, is the worst I’ve seen in my 17 years as a prosecutor.”

Janae Houser, a mother of three who sat on the jury that convicted Lovato on 18 of 21 counts in February, said she wept throughout the trial as prosecutors described the cruelties inflicted on the boy.

“You just wanted to hug him when he was giving his testimony – to let him know that there are people out there who are ready to love him,” she said.

Of Lovato’s stiff sentence, she said, “Justice was served.”

Lovato’s attorney, Shimon Kohn, said he was disappointed by the severity of the sentence. He had argued that imposing the maximum on each of the counts, would push his client’s sentence beyond what some have received for cases involving a death.

He asked that a public defender be appointed to lead Lovato’s appeal because the former Colorado Department of Transportation worker is now “indigent.”