tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23849669470846021582024-03-13T23:46:37.803-07:00FAMILY PRESERVATION not Adoption Separaration...a place to stimulate discussion, exchange views, enlighten, explore and educate one another on issues of mothering and open and honest alternative child care...Mirah Ribenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13626873757236976251noreply@blogger.comBlogger1287125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2384966947084602158.post-38534820682539165462017-12-15T21:23:00.000-08:002017-12-25T09:12:42.153-08:00Mothers as "Relinquishers"<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small; font-weight: normal;">Revised 12/21/17</span></h4>
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Open Letter to MADDeline Hauter aka Julie,</span></b></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">Julie, you and I have gotten off to a bad start and I would like to remedy that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have been accused of trying to silence you. It is true that I posted on Facebook suggesting people block you. This was the result of my encounters with on Facebook and your use of the VILE, dehumanizing term “relinquishers.” When I tied to engage you in discussion, I felt you were snippy, not open to dialoging. I was thus concerned that others mothers would be triggered as I was by your choice of vocabulary. It was not an effort to silence you, since you have your own bog.</span><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "ms mincho" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">As you are likely aware my post led to lengthy discussions. I learned that you are newly “out of the fog” – about a year. And I learned that your writings have garnered you friends, supporters, and admirers.</span><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">I share their admiration of your courage and your outspokenness on issues of adoption. <u>I am a huge supporter of adoptee's speaking their truth to power. </u>I admire your ability to honestly express your anger. Adoption sucks and permanently wounds and scars those torn apart.</span><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">Adoptees have – as a group – been late “coming out” of the shadows of the secrecy that adoption is cloaked with and appear to be ungrateful. The societal expectation of gratitude is monumental and has kept many trapped. Over the past 3-1/2 decades, I watched many adoptees wait until their adoptive died or search surreptitiously.</span><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">But rather than attempt to speak about what I have witnessed and read about adoptees, I much prefer to help by using whatever means I have to allow them to speak for themselves.</span></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 24.0pt;">Who am I? - <span style="color: #420178;"><a href="http://mirahriben.blogspot.com/">Check out my Bio Here</a></span></span></u></b></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">I am a mother, and activist, and author.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am a MOTHER! Nothing anyone can say can change that. In an effort to let you know a bit more about who I am and my claim that I honor, respect, and give voice to adoptees, the following are books and films <u>by adoptees</u> I have reviewed on HuffPost (in addition to the ones I reviewed on Amazon):</span><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mirah-riben/adoption-creates-a-split-_b_7861790.html"><span style="color: #420178; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Adoption Causes a "Split at the Root"</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"> (7/24/15), <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mirah-riben/voices-from-adoptionland_b_7561818.html"><span style="color: #420178;">Voices From Adoptionland</span></a> (6/15/15), <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/592a2aa0e4b0a7b7b469cb2d"><span style="color: #420178;">The History of Child Adoption: Two Views </span></a>(3/27/17), and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/you-dont-look-adopted_us_58dde9f9e4b04ba4a5e25298"><span style="color: #420178;">You Don't Look Adopted</span></a> (3/31/17)</span><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">I have written about adoptees in imminent danger of being deported:</span><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mirah-riben/adam-crapser-adopted-abus_b_7005562.html"><span style="color: #420178; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Adam Crapser: Adopted, Abused and Facing Deportation</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"> (4/8/15), <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mirah-riben/stop-this-injustice-save-_b_9298942.html"><span style="color: #420178;">Stop this Injustice: Save Adam Crapser</span></a> (Internationally adopted, facing deportation) (2/14/16).</span><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">I have also written about adoptee’s right to access the original, authentic birth certificate:</span><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">•<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #420178; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mirah-riben/should-adult-adoptees-hav_b_8500620.html"><span style="color: #420178; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;">Should Adoptees Have Access to their Birth Certificates?</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(11/9/15)</span><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">But, most importantly, <b>I – more than any other person in the adoption community - have given adoptees a platform to tell their truth, as no one else can!</b></span><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">•<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #420178; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/5a0f5989e4b0e6450602eaba"><span style="color: #420178; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;">National Adoption Awareness Month 2017: Hearing and Honoring Adoptee Voices</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"> (7/17/17)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">I don’t tell you these things to “brag” but to have you understand how strongly I feel about allowing adoptees to speak their truth. <b><u>No one else that I know of has done more to support that goal!</u></b></span><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="color: red;"><b>When I say that I honor and support your right to your truth, it is heartfelt and sincere</b></span>.</span></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">BSE Versus More Recent and Current Mothers Who Lose Children to Adoption</span></u></b></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><a href="https://maddelinehattuer1.blogspot.com/2017/12/beware-or-at-least-be-aware.html"><span style="color: #420178; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">You wrote the following</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">, Julie: </span><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">"Relinquishers: Birth mothers. They like to call themselves by all different titles, trying to garner sympathy, but they all boil down to one simple word: relinquishers. I daresay most of them will claim they were trucked, coerced, deceived, or had their children stolen. Fact is, very few of them had no choice. They almost all had a choice about laying down and spreading their legs. They all had forty weeks to figure their shit out. For some reason they chose to allow themselves to be convinced to go along with this.</span><span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: "ms mincho" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"> </span><span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">"Don't say this to them, though, if you value your head, because they will attempt to remove it. They are absolutely ruthless in defense of their powerless victimhood. They claim to stand for adoptee rights, but very few of them actually care about us. They stand on our backs like they always have to further their own legislation and agendas. They torpedo adoptee-centric legislation and organizations that aren't 'sympathetic enough' to relinquisher desires.</span><span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: "ms mincho" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"> </span><span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">"They expect us to be sympathetic and understanding of the reasons why they didn't raise us. They expect us to bear the emotional burden, to forgive their bullshit and fix their pain. Cribmates, that's not our job."</span></blockquote>
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">First, I absolutely, totally agree with you that no child (or adult child) adopted or not – should be made to feel responsible for any of their parent’s issues or problems. NEVER!</span></b><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">As for the use of different names, it is not for sympathy. Just as I honor adoptees’ right to their truth and their voice, I believe that races, ethnicities and LGBT and all of us have a right to self-identify! Being called a “bio or biological mother” I personally – and many other mothers -<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>find very cold and offensive. Relinquisher, worse still.</span><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">Julie, adoption effects at the very least two people: a mother and her child. No child – adopted or not – comes into the world without at least one mother. For nine months, they are a single unit. Mother and child. Adoption disrupts the prenatal bond and tears the single unit apart causing BOTH parties trauma.</span><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">To acknowledge that both mothers and babies traumatized is not for sympathy. It is simply a fact. (With the exception of some sociopathic, drug-addicted, or otherwise impaired, mothers – even those who “chose” and/or planned an open adoption – do not know how they will feel once their baby is a reality!)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nor does recognizing this invite a competition as to who is hurts more, who is traumatized, or who is victimized more.</span></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 24.0pt;">Then and Now</span></u></b></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">I have been told that though you do not make the distinction in the above quote, you exclude mothers of the BSE in your assessment of, and anger, toward mothers....even exclude them from the dehumanizing term "Relinquishers"?</span><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">I imagine you make this distinction because you’ve been told and/or read that “times were different” and “unwed” mothers-to-be were treated as a disgrace to their families, hidden away and has only two options: relinquish or get married.</span><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">This is true.</span><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">However, the primary difference between then and now is that fewer women consider adoption now. That means the pool of expectant mothers for the money-makers is very small but the demand today is far bigger than it was in the BSE because more women delay childbearing today and also because same-sex couples are added to the demand.</span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><b>Fewer babies + more demand = increased pressure! Increased, not less. If you think today's mother make free choices you have bought into the industry propaganda hook, line and sinker. </b></span><br />
<span style="color: red; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">The lies have also changed to meet the current situation. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">Today, shame</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy exists in only small pockets of very religious communities. For the most part, adoption practitioners who need a steady supply of babies to fill a constant demand (150 individuals and couples for each baby) now use “open adoption” as the bait, allowing naïve expectant moms to believe they will be Sunday parents! Some of these women, I agree, simply don’t want to be parents. Some selfishly do choose to put their education or careers first. But many others are simply brainwashed and pressured just as much – albeit with a different script – as BSE mothers! The demand is high and the only way to fill the demand it to pressure, coerce and exploit as many pregnant women as possible.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">"As someone who was on the ground in the Measure 58 the full page ad of generations of birth mothers in the Oregonian was important. The full page ad was in the response to a Today show interview with Helen Hill. . . Within 48 hours we had 600 birth mothers, and some had been victims of rape. It was a blow to the campaign. . . We call on birth mothers, but birth mothers responded because "Cindy" insulted birth mothers by putting it out there she represented them and she needed to be in the shadows. The ad ran in the opinion section the Sunday before the election. It featured a picture a many generations of birth mothers. . . No one can say definitively how the ad effected the vote. No one can say it was decisive in the campaign for the same reason no one can say it didn't. . . . No one can take away from those 600 birth mothers who took part in the ad. I will always remember how it came together and how I felt reading it when it came out. It was important and appreciated. Like all struggles, adoptee rights benefit all in the triad and benefit our system overall. Sealed records punish birth mothers because the assumption is that they did something shameful that deserves protection.. ."</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">But here’s the thing. Whatever era, whatever methods used to coerce babies from mothers – there are basically three kinds of birth moms:</span><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 24.0pt;">Three Mothers</span></u></b><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">1</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">There are those such as drug addicts and other mentally or emotionally impaired mothers who simply <i>don’t care</i>. Some have birthed and let go of multiple babies; some who don’t even remember where or when they gave birth. These are mothers we don’t see in the adoption community because they have no interest in adoption. They are however occasionally found by their adopted-out children and the reunions are often disastrous. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">There are also mothers who have their children taken on claims of abuse or neglect, some true and some not. </span><b style="color: red; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"> </b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="color: red;"><b style="color: red;">However, when adoptees initiate search and reunion, they are welcomes approx. 90% of the time! </b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">2<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are mothers of the BSE who bought the brainwashing hook, line, and sinker and “put it behind” them and “went on with their lives” as if “it” never happened – which is what we were told to do. When you are told that what you did was shameful and needs to be kept a deep dark secret, it is very self-image destroying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many mothers bought what they were told to the point of not even telling their husbands and many more live in fear of their subsequent (or prior) children finding out and thinking badly of them. These mothers have a hard time when they are found and many cannot come to grips with their “secret” and thus deny their children reunion or even deny medical information or the father’s name. <span style="color: red;"><span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;">Again, part of that small percentage! </span>That means that MOST come around. Thye put their own fears aside and welcome their long-lost adult children.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">3 </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">But there is a third group of mothers, Julie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those who are involved members of the adoption community. These are mothers who are longing to be found and have a reunion, or some who like me initiate a search. These mothers read all they can about adoption, blog, post on Facebook, attend conferences. They march, write letters, visit legislators and do whatever we can to help adoptees have equal access to their birth certificates. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">It was the power of mothers that helped pass the Oregon ballot initiative, Measure 58, for unfettered access. </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">Measure 58. Denise Fuller Castelucci recalls the events of 1998 (pre- Facebook and Twitter):</span><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="color: red;"><b>Mothers are your biggest allies!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b></span>These mothers are as outraged as are adoptees at the injustice! These are MOTHERS, Julie. Broken-hearted mothers who realize they were duped in the BSE or yesterday! These are mothers who love and care about their adopted children and want to see them get the rights they deserve. <u>These are mothers who do not deserve to be called anything but mothers!</u></span><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">The voices of these mothers are crucial in dispelling the myth that keeps records sealed: the alleged mothers’ right to privacy!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are VITAL to get access legislation passed. It behooves adoptees such as yourself to work to NOT alienate them by generalizing them and painting them with the same broad brush as mothers who dump and run. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="color: red;"><u><i>Most importantly, Julie, there are NO mothers who seek any legislation for themselves, never have been!</i></u></span> </span></b><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">I don’t know where you got that misinformation from, but <b><u>it is absolutely false, untrue, utter BULLSHIT! </u><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b>Nor are there any mothers trying to "torpedo" or block access with the exception of 2 or 3 ALLEGED mothers who used to get dragged to legislators by the NCFA. The facts speak for themselves: In states that have granted mothers the option to veto or redact their names, less than 1% do! </span></div>
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<b style="color: red; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">One in 2,000 mothers </b><b style="color: red; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">want no contact.</b><b style="color: red; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"> How can we label them "relinquishers?</b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">Mothers are not the enemy, Julie! Quite the opposite. We are your staunchest supporters of <i>your </i>rights!</span></b><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><i><span style="color: red;">I am not trying to silence you</span></i><span style="color: red;">, Julie or any other adoptee. On the contrary, I encourage you to continue working through your anger. You are a valuable asset!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span>But I hope that you will focus your anger on the true enemy: The mega billion-dollar adoption industry to whom adoptees are mere commodities and mothers the disposable wrappings the gifts come in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are struggling through our PTSD and hoping for reunification and to help with adoptee rights.</span><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">The #MeToo movement is teaching society to BELIEVE and RESPECT women. Blaming women for "spreading their legs" is vile and counter-productive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><u>Why would you insult and alienate your allies?</u></span><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "ms mincho" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">I hope you meet some mothers. Perhaps, Julie, we could even work together to reduce the number of adoption separations by helping more mothers who want to find the support </span><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">resources</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"> needed to keep their family intact. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">I offer you a copy of <a href="http://mirahriben.blogspot.com/p/stork-market.html"><span style="color: #420178;">my book</span></a> to help you get a better understanding of the real demon – the industry. Simply drop me a note with your mailing address!</span><span style="font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Most of all I hope you continue on your path to get beyond victimhood. It's an unhealthy place to dwell too long. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>UPDATE: 12.21.17</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XBDSZfAT4eA/WkEw3BN8IbI/AAAAAAAAC3c/WOy7BCyZqXIIUMl7SmQWM6SBOML8hlMpACLcBGAs/s1600/pain%2Bbehavior.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="736" data-original-width="736" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XBDSZfAT4eA/WkEw3BN8IbI/AAAAAAAAC3c/WOy7BCyZqXIIUMl7SmQWM6SBOML8hlMpACLcBGAs/s320/pain%2Bbehavior.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Subsequent to this, on 12/18 being posted, Julie posted "An Open Letter (and the laat tim eit will be pubically [sic] addressed." <a href="http://maddelinehattuer1.blogspot.com/2017/12/an-open-letter-and-last-time-it-will-be.html#comments">You can read it here</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I replied the following via comments on her blog (typos edited):</span><br />
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<div class="comment-header" id="bc_0_2M" kind="m" style="color: #292929; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4;">
<cite class="user" style="font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: 700; line-height: normal;"><a href="https://draft.blogger.com/profile/13626873757236976251" rel="nofollow" style="color: #292929; cursor: pointer; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-decoration: none;">Mirah Riben</a></cite><span class="icon user" style="font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: 700; line-height: normal;"></span><span class="datetime secondary-text" style="bottom: 0px; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.541176); display: inline-block; font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; margin-left: 8px;"><a href="http://maddelinehattuer1.blogspot.com/2017/12/an-open-letter-and-last-time-it-will-be.html?showComment=1513744405183#c4900463464532067311" rel="nofollow" style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.541176); cursor: pointer; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: 700; line-height: normal; text-decoration: none;">December 19, 2017 at 8:33 PM</a></span></div>
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<div class="comment-content" id="bc_0_2MC" style="color: #292929; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-top: 6px; word-break: break-word;">
Adoption sucks. I hear your pain and wish it on no one.</div>
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<div class="comment-content" id="bc_0_3MC" style="margin-top: 6px; word-break: break-word;">
Julie, I do 't care if you post this or not. But I want you to know that I HEAR you and I feel your pain. and I am sorry. I am sorry for the hand you were dealt. I wish you peace, Julie.<br />
<br />
I overacted to your words. They are YOUR words and you have every right to say whatever you want to say.<br />
<br />
One of the reasons I was concerned is because I fear mothers who have relinquished will read your animosity and refuse reunion for fear that they will be the targets of such explosive anger. But, whatever. It’s your right to say whatever you wish to. I hope that it helps you. to vent.<br />
<br />
You said you don’t feel sorry for me/us. That’s cool. I never asked you to. I seek no pity. I Loathe pity. I also do not ever play victim. I am a survivor! Like you, I survived the death of a child and barely ever talk about it except to close friends. If you were to read my books or articles you would see that NONE are autobiographical. I do not talk about my own personal situation. I do NOT seek sympathy!!</div>
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<img src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-80hEY_p3mtk/WNMTT1fmPaI/AAAAAAAACPQ/wzvafQ1HRBkom8-_7K5EumpphZxOTAKmwCK4B/s35/*" style="border-bottom-left-radius: 50%; border-bottom-right-radius: 50%; border-top-left-radius: 50%; border-top-right-radius: 50%; border: 0px;" /></div>
<div class="comment-block" id="c3207868174950758351" style="line-height: 1.4; margin-left: 60px; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px;">
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<cite class="user" style="font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: 700; line-height: normal;"><a href="https://draft.blogger.com/profile/13626873757236976251" rel="nofollow" style="color: #292929; cursor: pointer; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-decoration: none;">Mirah Riben</a></cite><span class="icon user" style="font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: 700; line-height: normal;"></span><span class="datetime secondary-text" style="bottom: 0px; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.541176); display: inline-block; font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; margin-left: 8px;"><a href="http://maddelinehattuer1.blogspot.com/2017/12/an-open-letter-and-last-time-it-will-be.html?showComment=1513788801857#c3207868174950758351" rel="nofollow" style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.541176); cursor: pointer; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: 700; line-height: normal; text-decoration: none;">December 20, 2017 at 8:53 AM</a></span></div>
<div class="comment-content" id="bc_0_4MC" style="margin-top: 6px; word-break: break-word;">
You said: "You changed some stuff. For yourselves. Mothers aren't treated the way they were in the sixties."<br />
<br />
We did not do this, Julie, society did. Feminists had a part in it. Birth control access had a lot to with it. Murphy Brown and Title IX. WE didn’t do any of that. Even if we had done it, Julie, it wouldn’t have changed anything for those of us, because as you yourself say…<br />
<br />
"Children are still relinquished and redistributed like cattle. " And this is mypointn about BSE and now not being much different!<br />
<br />
Julie - I never had any intent to silence you. I regret that my blocking you felt that way. But that was just on my FB page. You have this blog and I see your comments on many other FB pages. You have not been silenced and shouldn't be. You - like everyone else - is entitled to your truth! </div>
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<img src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-80hEY_p3mtk/WNMTT1fmPaI/AAAAAAAACPQ/wzvafQ1HRBkom8-_7K5EumpphZxOTAKmwCK4B/s35/*" style="border-bottom-left-radius: 50%; border-bottom-right-radius: 50%; border-top-left-radius: 50%; border-top-right-radius: 50%; border: 0px;" /></div>
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<cite class="user" style="font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: 700; line-height: normal;"><a href="https://draft.blogger.com/profile/13626873757236976251" rel="nofollow" style="color: #292929; cursor: pointer; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-decoration: none;">Mirah Riben</a></cite><span class="icon user" style="font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: 700; line-height: normal;"></span><span class="datetime secondary-text" style="bottom: 0px; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.541176); display: inline-block; font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; margin-left: 8px;"><a href="http://maddelinehattuer1.blogspot.com/2017/12/an-open-letter-and-last-time-it-will-be.html?showComment=1513788952085#c2204390206865017398" rel="nofollow" style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.541176); cursor: pointer; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: 700; line-height: normal; text-decoration: none;">December 20, 2017 at 8:55 AM</a></span></div>
<div class="comment-content" id="bc_0_5MC" style="margin-top: 6px; word-break: break-word;">
You aksed what we've done in 30 years.<br />
<br />
I personally have testified in NY and NJ, and helped get adoptee rights legislation in NJ, CT, PA, OR and many other states by writing letters to newspapers and to legislators - as requested by various state coordinators. I have also written Huffington Posts about the right of adoptee to equality in general. I – and many other mothers – do whatever we can to counter the major opposition to access which is the false claim that we, mothers, want anonymity.<br />
<br />
I don’t know if any of that matters to you. Paige Moss posted on AN&E that you have no interest in legislation, so I don’t know…<br />
<br />
But whether you care about adoptee rights or not, many mothers do care and do whatever we can to help adoptees get what should be theirs – their OBC.<br />
<br />
We got nothing out of it, so it is very odd that you say: "You. Yours. Your rights. Your needs. Your desires. "<br />
<br />
But again, these are your feelings! Disagreeing and/or clarifying is not silencing, Julie.</div>
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<cite class="user" style="font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: 700; line-height: normal;"><a href="https://draft.blogger.com/profile/13626873757236976251" rel="nofollow" style="color: #292929; cursor: pointer; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-decoration: none;">Mirah Riben</a></cite><span class="icon user" style="font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: 700; line-height: normal;"></span><span class="datetime secondary-text" style="bottom: 0px; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.541176); display: inline-block; font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; margin-left: 8px;"><a href="http://maddelinehattuer1.blogspot.com/2017/12/an-open-letter-and-last-time-it-will-be.html?showComment=1513789269114#c5127299288816980921" rel="nofollow" style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.541176); cursor: pointer; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: 700; line-height: normal; text-decoration: none;">December 20, 2017 at 9:01 AM</a></span></div>
<div class="comment-content" id="bc_0_7MC" style="color: #292929; margin-top: 6px;">
I don't want to hurt you or have any need to. I wish you WELL! I truly have no reason or desire to try to hurt you or shut you up. </div>
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Julie/MADDeline replied:</div>
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<cite class="user blog-author" style="font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: 700; line-height: normal;"><a href="https://draft.blogger.com/profile/07521988727190210165" rel="nofollow" style="color: #292929; cursor: pointer; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-decoration: none;">Maddeline Hattuer</a></cite><span class="icon user blog-author" style="font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: 700; line-height: normal;"></span><span class="datetime secondary-text" style="bottom: 0px; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.541176); display: inline-block; font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; margin-left: 8px;"><a href="http://maddelinehattuer1.blogspot.com/2017/12/an-open-letter-and-last-time-it-will-be.html?showComment=1513865449780#c8903385610850159344" rel="nofollow" style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.541176); cursor: pointer; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: 700; line-height: normal; text-decoration: none;">December 21, 2017 at 6:10 AM</a></span></div>
<div class="comment-content" id="bc_0_7MC" style="color: #292929; margin-top: 6px;">
Mirah, I suppose if you really want to talk, you can take down your slam post, write a public retraction, publicly apologize on FB, and unblock me. Then we can talk. In the mean time, I have nothing to say to you. I will not bog down my blog with this 'dialogue'.</div>
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~~~~~</div>
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I reminded that I had already stated I didn't care if she published my comments or not. I told her that I do not feel comfortable unblocking her. I said that she a right to her anger and whatever she wants to say and I have a right not to be a target of her vitriol. </div>
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I see no need to apologize more than I did in my comments to Julie above. There is nothing in this post that requires an apology, nor is there any need to take it down. I did take down my Facebook post.</div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="color: red;"><b><span style="color: red;">She has her truth and I have mine! Disagreeing is not silencing one another, </span>nor is it slander<span style="color: red;">.</span></b></span></div>
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Mirah Ribenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13626873757236976251noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2384966947084602158.post-90294683769038784482016-06-26T19:47:00.004-07:002016-07-02T15:31:55.873-07:00I HATE THE WORD ADOPTION!<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 17.6px; margin-top: 29.9px;">
Back in the 1980s MaryAnne Cohen wrote the following poem. It is published in my first book <i>shedding light on...The Dark Side of Adoption, </i>(1988):<i> </i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 17.6px; margin-top: 29.9px; text-align: center;">
<b><i>ADOPTION SICKNESS</i></b></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 5px; text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 5px; text-align: center;">
<i>I wish the word "adoption"</i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 18px; text-align: center;">
<i>were just a word, again, to me—commonplace,</i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 18px; margin-top: 0.3px; text-align: center;">
<i>like "chair," or "sink"—</i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 18px; margin-top: 0.3px; text-align: center;">
<i>a thing, an object</i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 18px; margin-top: 0.3px; text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 6.1px; text-align: center;">
<i>Devoid</i></div>
<div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; text-align: center;">
<i>of emotion, or shades of meaning.</i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 18px; margin-top: 0.3px; text-align: center;">
<i>Or, more exactly, I wish</i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 17.6px; text-align: center;">
<i>The word "adoption" were a concept</i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 18px; text-align: center;">
<i>so abstract, so ephemeral, like</i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.7px; text-align: center;">
<i>"Transubstantiation," or "Relativity" . . .</i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 18px; margin-top: 6.1px; text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 18px; margin-top: 6.1px; text-align: center;">
<i>That it could not wound, or stain, or</i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 18px; margin-top: 0.3px; text-align: center;">
<i>work its poison into every</i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; text-align: center;">
<i>corner of my life—</i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; text-align: center;">
<i>A curiosity, a game for the mind . . .</i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 18px; margin-top: 6.5px; text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 18px; margin-top: 6.5px; text-align: center;">
<i>I wish</i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 17.6px; text-align: center;">
<i>The word "Adoption"</i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 17.6px; text-align: center;">
<i>were to me what it is to most people</i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 18px; text-align: center;">
<i>someone else's problem, from which</i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 17.6px; text-align: center;">
<i>most people</i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 17.6px; text-align: center;">
<i>turn away . . .</i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 17.6px; margin-top: 5.4px; text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 17.6px; margin-top: 5.4px; text-align: center;">
<i>From which I wish I could turn,</i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 17.6px; text-align: center;">
<i>could run, could hide,</i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 18px; text-align: center;">
<i>could erase the word</i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.7px; text-align: center;">
<i>"Adoption"</i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 18px; text-align: center;">
<i>From my personal vocabulary</i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 18px; text-align: center;">
<i>of pain.</i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 17.6px;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px; text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px; text-align: center;">
<i>—Mary Anne Cohen, Co-Founder, ORIGINS</i></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Mary Anne no longer feels this wa but I do. Her words totally sum up how I feel. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">I truly wish the word did not exist. Did not invade my consciousness; ruin the moment, the day, the mood. Crash me back to an ugly reality that changed the course of my life irrevocably and forever.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">I try to go about my life as if it were devoid of the vile poisonous cancer that eats at my soul.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Some days - most days - are fine and I succeed in getting through without any pain.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">But then, sometimes when I least expect it.....when I'm at a social event of some kind, having a perfectly good time, enjoying myself - like a "normal person" - suddenly, totally unexpectedly, the word pops up into an otherwise normal and perfectly fine conversation and I feel the pain cursing through my body and soul. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">It is most always brought up as a joyous, positive thing. Something to celebrate to, be proud of. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Funny, that is never the case for someone suffering physical cancer, is it? They might be told that they are "brave" but they are not subjected to anyone telling them how wonderful it is to have cancer or extolling the joys of chemo or radiation...</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px;">
Suddenly, however I am catapulted from enjoying the occasion as everything <span style="font-family: "times new roman";">comes crashing to a halt. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">My stomach turns and tightens up as I debate what to reply, wishing that the word simply didn't exist and did not inject itself into my life when I least expect it....didn't </span><span style="color: #500050;">creep into EVERY aspect of life. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px;">
<span style="color: #500050;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px;">
<span style="color: #500050;">Sometimes, I just try to ignore it and smile as my peers delightedly show off pictures of their adopted grandkids, or tell me stories of going overseas to have gotten their adopted offspring. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px;">
<span style="color: #500050;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px;">
<span style="color: #500050;">I hate the word. I hate the </span><span style="color: #500050;">concept. I hate the family separation every adoption creates in its wake. I hate knowing the pain it causes and most of all I hate how no one else wants to recognize the suffering and the loss and instead just focus on the joy. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px;">
<span style="color: #500050;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px;">
<span style="color: #500050;">I bleed - internally - but those around me extolling the joys of adoption cannot see it, and even when I try to tell them, they are unable to comprehend it. My pain - and that of all mothers who lost children to adoption - is inconceivable because it clashes with society's deep held belief that adoption rescues "unwanted" children....and helps everyone - including the mothers who it desperately want to believe "chose" it. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px;">
<span style="color: #500050;">We cloak adoption loss in secrecy exposing only a flat one-sided, one-dimensional snap shot of the happily-ever-after family who won the prize....and we extoll them with accolades of nobllity and altruism to boot!</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px;">
<span style="color: #500050;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px;">
<span style="color: #500050;">The adoptee in the "perfect family" photo is expected to smile and be grateful and we are expected to DISAPPEAR like "sperm donors" who simply jacked off in a jar. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px;">
<span style="color: #500050;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px;">
<span style="color: #500050;">I wish adoption and all talk of it would disappear from my life. I wish the shadow it has cast and the ripples it created were all gone and could never hurt me again. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px;">
<span style="color: #500050;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 18.4px; margin-top: 4px;">
<span style="color: #500050;">I wish it never existed.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #500050;"><br /></span></div>
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Mirah Ribenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13626873757236976251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2384966947084602158.post-49739511908093578262016-05-20T19:27:00.000-07:002016-05-22T11:40:36.483-07:00Swan Song<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i><span style="color: #10131a; font-family: "helvetica";">"D</span><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "gentiumbookbasic";"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">espite
your years on this cragged sphere, your many books penned, your many battles
fought, and your countless death threats received, your feminism is now a
draughty hump of nothing and the best you can do to remain of use is to quietly
avoid impeding upon the current agenda.” <a href="https://transcritical.wordpress.com/2016/04/12/old-women-shut-the-fuck-up/"> </a></span></span></i><span style="color: #10131a; font-family: "helvetica";"><a href="https://transcritical.wordpress.com/2016/04/12/old-women-shut-the-fuck-up/">“Old Women, Shut the Fuck Up!</a>” </span><br />
<span style="color: #10131a; font-family: "helvetica";"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i><span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #707070;">I believe I've passed the age of consciousness and righteous rage,</span><br style="color: #707070;" /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #707070;">I've found that just surviving was a noble fight</span><br style="color: #707070;" /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #707070;">I once believed in causes too, had my pointless point of view</span><br style="color: #707070;" /><span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #707070;">Life went on no matter who was wrong or right. </span></i></span><br />
<span style="color: #10131a; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i><span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #707070;"><a href="https://play.google.com/music/preview/Tvvxdcyginsj26evjcobn6ocraa?lyrics=1&utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=lyrics&pcampaignid=kp-lyrics">Angry Young Man</a>, Billy Joel</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">I have spent all of my adult life, since the 1970’s
when I was in my late twenties/early thirties until now, in my seventies -
researching, writing, speaking, marching, advocating to reform adoption. I devoted
my life to exposing and denouncing abuses, exploitation, coercion, and
profiteering in the redistribution of babies and children, and advocating to
end antiquated laws that deny adopted citizens equal access to their own
original birth certificates.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">In all that time the biggest changes I have
witnessed in adoption are:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 40.25pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Fewer American mothers being pressured to
relinquish, while corrupt practices abound deceiving and exploiting indigent
mothers in other parts of the word or out and out kidnapping their babies at
gunpoint or through trickery. While the vast majority of American adoption
reformers will use the phrase “child trafficking for adoption” few, if any, DO
or even write anything about issues beyond the borders of the USA (or even
beyond the borders of their own state).<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 40.25pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">The method of pressuring mothers domestically changed
from shame to promises of openness and the new big lie is that expectant
mothers are in “control” cause they get to “pick” their child’s new parents! They
are lied to, conned, scammed and duped into believing their adoption would be
“open” with no explanation of what exactly that meant and no legal protection
to enforce such agreements. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 40.25pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Fathers have joined the ranks of the deceived and disenfranchised
thanks to Putative Father Registries and little is being done to change laws
that so wantonly disregard constitutionally protected parental rights.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 40.25pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Despicable practices like pre-birth matching
abound, and even pre-birth CONSENTS to adoption in some states! <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 40.25pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Child protective services continue to overstep and
not just remove children from suspected harm, but have them adopted out to
strangers even when there are grandparents or other family members willing,
able, eager and begging to care for their kin. Families being destroyed instead
of assisted through a rough patch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">The
bottom line is that the demand for babies has not changed – in fact it has
increased</span></b><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Adoptees and birth parents always have and continue
to “get involved” for help with their own personal search and maybe some advise
on reunion, especially if they were found. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Some stick around providing much needed shoulders
to cry. Much needed, but in itself changes nothing. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16pt;">Others become search angels. Another much needed
and appreciated service provided freely. (I too did my share of searches,
facilitating hundreds of reunions all throughout the eighties, risking prison
to do so without the aid of public online records).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Then there are those who stick around to tsk tsk
and write scathing blog posts or share memes on Facebook about the horrors of
adoption trauma, and agree with one another that “Adoption sucks!”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Another group of individuals who I highly respect
are those who get involved in state legislation in their state. I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">greatly</i> admire their tenacity, devotion,
knowledge and ability it takes to get a bill introduced, through committees,
revised and signed into law. In NJ it took 35 years of dedicated hard work. I
have nothing but the highest regard and respect for those who work tirelessly,
giving up their own personal time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">But at the same time, I am disheartened by the lack
of unity between the states and of course, the slow progress and the number of
states who have compromised on true equality with restrictions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">And then there are outliers, the ones who take off with with grandiose
ideas like petitions to the President. Ideas that MIGHT have a chance if they
were started from a base of a strong national org that we do not have.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">We each do what we can. Together I think we could
do a lot more, but that has never seemed to happen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">The tears, the support, feeding the vitriolic anger or facilitating and
celebrating search and reunion are all necessary. But alone
they are <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>ambulances at the bottom of
the cliff</u></b>, picking up the wounded and commiserating while a
never-ending pack of of lemmings jump or are pushed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">We have never in all my years neck deep in this movement – even TRIED to
do any collective fund-raising to form a cohesive national organization to support
state legislation, educate the public and lawmakers, and prevent future
adoption loss. Nor has there been any effort to TRY to raise money for a lawyer
to sue any state for falsifying our VITAL records!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">The AAC leadership is in trouble – AGAIN – and even at its best it is a
self-serving pro-adoption organization that does nothing but USES (exploits?)
adoptees and birthparents to speak – without compensation of even registration
fees – at their conferences which bring in money from aps. Come! Cry and be
angry. Share your stories of grief and shame and loss and hardship and we will
charge attendees to listen. We will DO nothing to change the pain from
happening in the future, cause then we would cease to exist, not unlike
adoption agencies!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">As opposed to American
“bastards” who believe adoption is A-OK as long as they get their records at
the age of majority, foreign born adoptees, in largest numbers from Korea, have
formed a very strong adoptee community that is actually doing family
preservation work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">In Australia, too, family preservation is a major
focus. Yet here in the USA the very term “family preservation” is negatively
labeled “anti-adoption” as if being against tearing families apart unnecessarily
to meet a demand for their children is a bad thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only real adoption reform “work” being
done here is the state by state efforts to reclaim birth certificates.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">In the
end little has changed in all my years.</span></u></b><u><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;"> </span></u><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Seven states
according to BN have unrestricted access. AAC lists eight because they include
Colorado which became an access state in 2014, which BN does not (not sure why
not). Two of these access states – Alaska and Kansas - never sealed adoption
records, so really the adoption reform movement achieved unrestricted access in
five states in my lifetime - about 70 years since Jean Paton started the
movement in the 1940s. Another 11 states have partial or restricted access. Not
equality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And all the rest are exactly
where they were all those many decades ago. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">I cannot help find it depressing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Even if we were seeing more accelerated progress in terms of access –
which we are NOT - so what?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">NO ONE has ever challenged the fact that
adoptee birth certificates continue to be FALSIFIED!</b> And little more than
lip service is given to the continuation of child trafficking for adoption.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">The public remains convinced that adoption is a good thing that rescues
orphans and continues to promote and encourage it despite evidence to the
contrary. Obtaining kids by ANY means – adoption, surrogacy, purchased
anonymous eggs and sperm are all considered “choices” or even rights with no
regard for rights the children being produced or purchased.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">The demand is not about to go away. Not in my lifetime because same sex
couples have have now joined hetero infertiles vying for their “right” to buy
or create a child of unknown heritage, or with some of their own genetic
material.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Th future seems to be on of children with little or no biological connection to immediate, much
less extended, family or the human race. Yet, ironically, money will continue
to be made by providing DNA testing for those who want to find their biological
progenitors. Back to square one. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
self-indulgent who find their OWN kin and do nothing to stop the proliferation
of others being separated or created and denied their truth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">I’m DONE!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Burnt out. Finished.
Done everything I can. Written every word I can write. It’s changed precious
little. I cannot keep spinning my wheels watching more families destroyed to
“build” new ones; children treated as objects to be bought and sold or created
from purchased genetics and rented body parts.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">The Bigger Picture</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;">It's not just adoption. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I</span> <span style="font-size: large;">see so many of the social justice causes I have put my life – my heart,
soul and so much time and effort into - getting worse not better and I feel my
candle burning out in despair. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">For Goodness sake there are still segregated schools! <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/18/us/cleveland-mississippi-school-district-desegregate.html?_r=0">A Mississippi school district is still fight integration. </a>IT'S 2016!!! Something as simple as being able to breastfeed in public, that I protested 40 years, is STILL an issue!</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I’m too tired to go on beating my tired, worn out drum. I
feel the toll physically of carrying around the angry passion that drove my
life’s works – be it small, local issues or the insurmountable world terrorism
and climate change ones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">I struggle now with
how to “let go” and wonder who am I if I am no longer the hippie, rebel fighter
of injustice and the voice for the poor, the marginalized and stigmatized, the mothers
and babies in crisis.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I thought what I was experiencing was burn-out but I see it
now as more like mellowing and fading out. We are often cautioned to pick our
battles. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I now find it more productive
for myself and my body and soul to put into deeper practice the wisdom of
knowing that the only thing I can change is myself and accepting all rest that I
cannot change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I gave it my all and I
know that I changed many lives, reuniting families and supporting mothers in
crisis.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I am not dropping out, or losing my ideals … just stepping
down and accepting gracefully and graciously that I am not indispensable in any
of my areas of service.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I step aside and
make room for the next generation, while still here to add my two cents. But,
who I if I am no longer an activist being passionate about the injustices of
the world?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: large;">
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UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
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<span style="font-size: large;">My life is in transition and transitions are seldom easy. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know what lies ahead for me. Time will
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">I don’t know what will fill the void in my life.
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Mirah Ribenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13626873757236976251noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2384966947084602158.post-43434929088865667232015-10-10T19:23:00.002-07:002015-10-15T08:36:39.887-07:00The Demonization of Mothers<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"><b><u>Women's Inhumanity to Women</u></b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"><b><br /></b></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">Traditionally, it was social workers - the vast majority of whom are female - saw it as their job to encourage mothers to relinquish. They told mothers it was the loving thing to do. they did this because they JUDGED the expectant mother in need as a "slut" and unfit based on her age, marital status and financial situation. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">Most adoptions today pit women of means against women who are indigent or in crisis. Adopters have all the power because they have all the money. They have attorneys, the expectant mother may think she has an attorney but if it that lawyer is being paid for by the ap, that is conflict of interest and her interests are not being represented.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">Now...in addition to all of this, we have anonymous trolls attacking and demonizing mothers.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">UPDATE: Pound Puppy Legacy removed the offensive posts on its site that attacked a mother.</span></span><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">When we started the Demons of Adoption Awards, 9 years ago, the goal was to shame those affiliated with the adoption industry, who don't put a child's best interest as a top priority.</span></i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Over the years, we have maintained this rule. None of the Demon of Adoption Awards was ever granted to a private citizen who happened to be involved in adoption.</span></i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">So far, this year, many of the nominations we have received have included personal/vicious attacks made against adoptive parents or birth parents. In fact, so many have been added to this page, we have decided to clean up the nominations, and remove all posts that focus on individual private citizens, with vitriol.</span></i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">We want all readers and posters to remember, when making a nomination, PPL requests a short fact-based explanation as to why this candidate is so deserving of this award, without the use of personal attacks against individual birth/adoptive parents.</span></i></blockquote>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am pleased that <a href="http://poundpuplegacy.org/">Pound Puppy Legacy</a> refused to allow a witch hunt and public shaming of a mother to take place on their venue.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have long admired PPL for its fierce attacks on the adoption industrial complex, baby brokers, coercive and corrupt adoption practices and practitioners as well as evil, abusive, murderous adopters! It is all of these who are generally the recipients of the PPL annual "<a href="http://poundpuplegacy.org/nineth_demons_of_adoption_nominations">Demons in Adoption</a>" award.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This year, however, a mother who is battling for the return of her son has been nominated by one or more anonymous posters who accused her of "scamming." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We in the adoption community should be helping and supporting one another and giving mothers the benefit of the doubt instead of acting CATTY women attacking a woman. Call Nancy Grace!</span><br />
<br />
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>No is No</u></span></b></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If adoption is a loving, selfless, brave CHOICE...a "plan" made by an expectant mother....than why are women forced to go through with adoption when they have decided not to??</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You don't have to LIKE the mother nor do you have to agree with her lifestyle or every choice she made. Life is messy. Few of us are the PURE "faultless" virgins who got pregnant via rape or the very first time we had sex. Few of us are teenager forced into relinquishment by our parents. I do not fit that mold. I am NOT perfect or without flaws and imperfections in my messy life. And unless you are, you ought to think twice before casting stones. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What else matters in regards to any mother - or father - fighting to reverse an adoption? Her morals? How many men she slept with? At what point in time she "changed her mind" about the adoption??</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Think about date rape. Does the victim's previous sexual experience matter? Does the fact that she "got herself' into the situation matter; that fact that she kissed him or more? No! What matters is that she said NO! </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anything else is a character assassination and he who is without fault should partake in that. I don't throw stones at others' bad decisions because every mother who lost a child to adoption made bad decisions. I know I did! </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Are all mothers equal? No. Neither are are all saints. </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">Who is the demon in this adoption??? </span>Gentle Care.</span></span><br />
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<br />Mirah Ribenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13626873757236976251noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2384966947084602158.post-40806198337443224932014-11-21T11:36:00.002-08:002014-11-21T11:36:24.946-08:00The Legacy of In-Fighting in the Internet Age<span style="font-size: large;">I've written much about in-fighting in the adoption reform movement. It's not unique to adoptionland. In-fighting exists in all grassroots movements, in entertainment, sports, in academia, and in the business world. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Often, people on the same team with the same goals disagree about how to achieve those goals. The more passionate the issues, the more likely there will be differences of opinions. And our issues are often very personal and emotionally charged. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Disagreements are a part of life and likely there'd be little progress without a heated debate, now and then, as to how accomplish a desired outcome. Compromise is not easy when strong feelings are involved.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In the case of adoption we have people coming at the issues from different perspectives and with vastly different levels of education (both formal and knowledge of adoption issues and history), varying levels of awareness and insight, varying levels of tact, and varying levels of </span><span style="font-size: large;">hurt and healing. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Obviously there are going to be disputes. We cannot expect everything to just go along rosy. <b>The issue is, how we deal with these disagreements, </b>especially in the Internet age.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">We all know that once a naked picture or sex tape gets on the Internet or the cloud it is there to stay. Permanent. (Irrevocable, like a relinquishment of parental rights!) No do-overs. And no apology can ever erase it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Case in point: I googled "B J Lifton" adoptee, distinguished author, lecturer, and highly regarded figure in the history of adoption reform and this is, sadly, what came up. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">First two "hits" on the first page:</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pHNxegzcMq8/VG-BAjrCM1I/AAAAAAAABgA/DimNG-COaRU/s1600/BJ.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pHNxegzcMq8/VG-BAjrCM1I/AAAAAAAABgA/DimNG-COaRU/s1600/BJ.png" height="320" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This is a huge embarrassment! For one thing, the whole rift was RESOLVED, but of course that, like retractions in newspapers is buried or non-existent.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Secondly, that it happened in the first place is ridiculous. Trifling!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It was wrong and that is why the conference organizers reascended their banishment of BJ from the conference. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I posted about it as well because it so WRONG and i cna tell you that controversy "sells." My blog posy about this incident got more comments than ANY ever!! And BNs nearly crashed the stratosphere. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">We WILL disagree. Connecticut, which is getting ready to introduce a bill closing up the gap of the years not covered in the first bill that granted adoptee access, will prove once and for all that laws can and WILL be passed incrementally! Hopefully (though I must admit doubtfully) it will end the name-calling and ruckus made by a small vocal (though not well known or recognized) group of adoptees who put more effort into dissing the hard work of others than trying to get any meaningful legislation passed. Hopefully, it will end their (fear-based) claim that "imperfect" or "unclean" access laws will never be changed. </span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4FVv374A05M/VG-OUO1U50I/AAAAAAAABgg/_rIc1WpLf4A/s1600/lead.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4FVv374A05M/VG-OUO1U50I/AAAAAAAABgg/_rIc1WpLf4A/s1600/lead.jpg" /></a><span style="font-size: large;">Of course the argument ignores the fact all access laws change</span><span style="font-size: large;"> the existing status quo of laws created to close records that were originally unsealed...and ignores prohibition that came and went. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Laws come and go and are changed and amended all the time. It was never an argument that made any sense but it was - and is - the argument against "accepting compromises" - as if any of us want to! (And if those who complained the loudest actually did any </span><span style="font-size: large;">work on legislation, they'd know that compromise is the name of the game and you try for as little as possible</span><span style="font-size: large;"> but have to give in order to get anything!) </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">But I digress.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">My point here is, and <b>the lesson I hope we can all take from this is that when we disagree let's try to do it in PRIVATE </b>message exchanges and not blast the Internet with our dirty laundry that will remain long after the issue has been resolved. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Before pressing "POST" remember that you are not just hurting the individual or group you disagree with, but you are hurting the movement and our progress. And try to disagree with dignity and respect. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">As another example, if you google my name, or my name +adoption you will find thousands of "hits." One adoptive mother who got her panties in a crunch because I called her on the FACT that she adopted from the same convicted baby broker - <span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; line-height: 16.5454540252686px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Lauryn Galindo</span></span> </span><span style="font-size: large;"> - used by Angelina Jolie. The ap in question apparently has the money and the inclination to keep her scathing reply to me among the first page of google results! So there it is. The world can see that when you are a mover and shaker and make waves, you upset people! Well shucks. I ain't a "well-behaved" woman, I'm an activist! </span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Eo66TCcI5B8/VG-HCSVnGwI/AAAAAAAABgQ/wiSiM3Nq9_U/s1600/well%2Bbehaved.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Eo66TCcI5B8/VG-HCSVnGwI/AAAAAAAABgQ/wiSiM3Nq9_U/s1600/well%2Bbehaved.jpg" height="400" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>While we want to be outspoken and HEARD in our activism and NOT silenced, respect among and between us is always a good thing. </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Think long and hard before posting what you want YOUR legacy to be as well as the legacy of others of us. BJ did not deserve to be treated this way and surely does not deserve to be remembered for one of the ugliest scars on the entire history of adoption reform! It was all much ado about nothing but has left it's mark for time immemorial.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">And <i>respect </i>also goes to the heart of the BJ incident - respect for the language we use. None of us want to use language that would hurt another of us, but we also need to be left to use the language we ourselves are perfectly comfortable with,knowing full well the arguments against its use. I see it as exactly the same issue as Black vs African American. To each his own! And even those old-timers who cling to using negro, as the NAACP retains its original name. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">All oppressed groups of people demand and deserve to SELF-IDENTIFY, that often is very individual. </span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uT2EHhadw2M/VG-TvQJQfNI/AAAAAAAABgw/LVsZoOvfDmw/s1600/adoption%2Bsucks.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uT2EHhadw2M/VG-TvQJQfNI/AAAAAAAABgw/LVsZoOvfDmw/s1600/adoption%2Bsucks.png" height="400" width="400" /></a><span style="font-size: large;">These are blots on our history and hopefully though they remain have receded from the foreground and allowed us to focus our limited time and precious energy on the far more important issues of equal access, ending corruption, profiteering, coercion, exploitation and commodification. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>Mirah Ribenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13626873757236976251noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2384966947084602158.post-49123117451645486872014-10-22T09:43:00.001-07:002014-10-22T09:43:11.788-07:00HUFFINGTON POST<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>TO ALL MY FRIEND,S FANS AND FOLLOWERS....</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>PLEASE FOLLOW ME AT <a href="http://huffingtonpost.com/Mirah-Riben">http://HuffingtonPost.com/Mirah-Riben</a></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>I will likely still come here to VENT in ways that would be inappropriate for a more formal and more public venue....</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>But PLEASE do follow my Huff Posts because they are IMPORTANT issues that will benefit greatly from LIKES, SHARES and comments.</b></span></div>
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Mirah Ribenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13626873757236976251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2384966947084602158.post-4302475881915104682014-10-16T19:59:00.000-07:002014-10-16T20:32:29.127-07:00Private Adoption: White Knights or Flesh Peddlers<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In the late 1980s Geraldo Rivera had a talk show. It was shortly after the world was rocked by the Joel Steinberg trial for the death of his adopted daughter Lisa. See all four short segments of the show to see Aaaron Britvan and Bill Pierece square off on private adoption. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Part I of the four-part video of the program introduces the audience to Rebekah Dulik, a minor who was lured out-of-state and coached no to tell her parents where she was or that she was pregnant and having her child adopted. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Judi Cochran of Children's Right of PA addresses Rebekah's situation. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In Part II Adopters, Lisa and Earl who obtained a child by placing over 100 ads in newspapers. A home study was done a week after they took the baby home from the hospital.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Aaron Britvan</b>, notorious adoption attorney and <b>Bill Pierce</b>, NCFA, who speaks out AGAINST private adoption. Britvan claims the Joel Steinberg case was not an adoption. Pierce and Cochran both set him straight.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Part III Aaron Britvan talks about baby brokers and slipshod adoption attorneys.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Britvan and Bill Pierce of NCFA debate whether Joel Steinberg adopted or abducted Lisa.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I speak out on behalf of the rights of the child in adoption, against private advertising, and for more regulations.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Part IV Aaron Britvan, Judi Cochran and Bill Pierce of NCFA discuss the usage of advertising for babies. Bill Pierece defends Edna Gladney agency. Pierce also compares ads for babies for sale to ads for escort services that are ads prostitution. </span><br />
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Mirah Ribenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13626873757236976251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2384966947084602158.post-49651472358450712152014-10-10T22:08:00.000-07:002014-10-10T22:08:40.674-07:00How I Came to Meet Joan Rivers<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">As the nation mourned of the
death of the beloved comic icon, I recalled my meeting with Joan Rivers when I
was guest on her short-lived a daytime talk show, in March 1990.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">But the story of how that
came about began in 1987 with a horrific tragedy that garnered headlines of a
“house of horrors” and a six year old girl called Lisa, who died after years of
abuse. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">In the dimly lit, filthy
Greenwhich Village home of attorney Joel Steinberg and Hedda Nussbaum where
Lisa had endured unspeakable abuses, police discovered a toddler boy tethered
to a table leg in soiled diapers with a bottle of rancid milk. He, like Lisa,
had been illegally adopted by the couple. Hedda, who once wrote children's
books, was badly abused, and drug addicted. She was given immunity to testify
against Joel who was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 8-1⁄3 to 25
years in prison. He was denied parole
twice and released after serving his time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">The media focused on how
Lisa’s abuse had occurred for six years and no one, even in Lisa's school, had
known or reported it. It was portrayed as an anomaly in terms of adoption that
"slipped through the cracks."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">I was writing articles, speaking at local and national conferences, and
appearing on talk shows such as Geraldo, and the Morton Downey Jr. Show, twice
addressing the need to unseal adoption records. Lisa’s death sent shock waves
through the adoption community. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Adoptees of all ages
identified with the two victims while mothers who had been persuaded to
relinquish children for adoption in the hope they would be provided a better
life, worried about the safety and well-being of their children. Could such a
tragic end befall their children? How could this have happened?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">These two adoptions were
labeled “illegal” because Steinberg had failed to file final adoptions papers.
Other than that, there was really not much difference between these adoptions
and any other privately arranged, independent adoption. It was not then, and is
still today, not uncommon or illegal for doctors and attorneys to arrange the
transfer of custody of infants without an adoption agency involved in the
process. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">In order to bring light to
the loopholes in the adoption process, I organized a candle light vigil from
Lisa's home to her Greenwich Village elementary a school. The march was televised
and garnered news coverage we hoped would help prevent other such tragedies.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">At the same time, I worked
with the attorney general's office to identify and locate the mother of the
toddler boy called Mitchell. I discovered that his mother was a teenager named
Nicole Smigel who had kept her pregnancy a secret from her mother who had just
hours to deal with finding out about the pregnancy and a baby being born.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The doctor who delivered the child said he
had a friend (Joel Steinberg) who would adopt the baby. Nicole's mother, Grace
Ann Smigel made all the arrangements.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">I contacted Grace Ann and
she was initially extremely vested in maintaining the secret. She had done
everything so quickly. She never told her husband, Nicole's father or Nicole's
grandmother. Nor did the baby father's know anything about his son or the decision
to have him adopted. Grace Ann couldn't bear to break it to them that the baby
in the headlines was THEIRS! She wanted to keep it all buried and just allow
the child to be re-adopted by another family.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">I called Grace Ann over a
period of weeks. Every time we spoke I
impressed upon her that she and her grandson were given a second chance and
that the only way she could be assured of his safety and well-being was to
reclaim him. Finally, she and Nicole told the family the truth and reclaimed
Nicole's son who she named him Travis.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">My 1988 book, “shedding
light on…The Dark Side of Adoption” was published with a dedication to Lisa.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">And so, Joan Rivers, looking
for hot trendy news issues for The Joan Rivers Show invited Grace Ann to
describe how her grandson wound up in the midst of this front page horror
story. Joan also wanted an "expert" to address adoption laws and
explain how this was allowed to occur, and Grace Anne wanted me to be there
with her. And so the two of us were
guests on the show along with Joyce Johnson author of “What Lisa Knew.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Also appearing on that same
Joan Rivers Show was Joan’s friend Howard Stern who recently spoke at her
funeral and Angela Bowie, former wife of David Bowie who had just written a
tell-all that included how she caught her husband in bed with Mick Jagger! (I remember being concerned for her young
daughter was there with her, backstage, as she revealed this.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">My sister attended the
taping with me as did some colleagues.
The Joan we met was professional and obviously wanting to be seen as
more serious than her usual comedic persona by conducting an interview about a
hot, but unpleasant topic as child abuse, as part of a series she was doing on
secret-keeping.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">When Joan interviewed Grace
Ann, she was initially incredulous that her 17-year-old daughter had
successfully hidden a pregnancy for more than nine months, especially from her
own mother. Nicole had worn loose clothing and pooh-poohed questions about her
modest weight gain. Joan, whose own daughter Melissa was not more than a
teenager at the time, appeared sincere in her empathy with Grace Ann’s dilemma
in trying to protect everyone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Apparently, the public
preferred Joan as a jokester, however, and the show was soon cancelled. Grace
Ann and Nicole kept in touch with me, sending holiday cards and photos of
Travis, and updated me until he got into college. My second book, THE STORK
MARKET: America's Multi-Billion Dollar Unregulated Adoption Industry (2008) tells
the story with photos.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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WCBS-TC News coverage of the candlelight vigil for Lisa</div>
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Mirah Ribenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13626873757236976251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2384966947084602158.post-29084001559193940942014-09-27T12:30:00.001-07:002014-09-30T18:03:14.509-07:00The Tangled Web of Entitlement, Resentment and Justification<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Entitlement is often spoken and written and blogged about in the adoption community. We know it fuels adoptions. But...do we recognize how deeply it motivates through justification.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was watching a re-run of an old crime show on TV. The detective on a murder case commented on how feelings of entitlement - I <i>deserve</i> it (whatever "it" is) - especially when combined with feeling it unfair that others have what you feel entitled to, can lead to justifying most anything. The "it" could be a promotion, a husband or wife, wealth, fame... or a child.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Think about it. Rapists often it feel it unfair that women tease or simply say no after feeling they were led on. They feel entitled and take what they want, even with force. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Child molesters justify their action because the children <i>want</i> their "affection." They believe they are being "good" and loving to the their victims.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thieves, too often feel a deep sense of injustice that others have wealth and possession they cannot afford but feel entitled to. Same with white color criminals. they're just - in their justification - leveling an unfair playing field. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Men who feel their wives are not giving them enough sexually, feel entitled</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> and justified cheating. Women who catch their husbands cheating likewise use it to justify their doing likewise. It's only fair!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Injustice, unfairness, entitlement.... put them together and they justify taking anything by any means.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Infertility builds strong resentments and immense feelings of unfairness. Why can other women get pregnant so easily, even when they don't want to or are not ready, but they can't? UNFAIR! Monumentally unfair when you "know" you would make as good or better a parent than teens who get pregnant... Infertile women and same sex couples hear about women aborting and they think how UNFAIR! They read about mothers who abuse, neglect, abandon and they know it is UNJUST! Entitlement is joined by it's first cousin: resentment, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 15.6000003814697px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">bitter indignation at having been treated unfairly.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In adoption, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">this attitude and way of thinking is what allows prospective adopters in </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finding Fernanda</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> to ignore </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">blatant</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> signs of corruption and illegalities such as seeing multiple photos of the same child</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> with different names or seeing the same name labeling photos of different children. They know it's not right and they ignore it because it might harm their chances</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> of getting what they want, what they lust for and feel entitled to.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> illustrated vividly</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> in the documentary <i><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">Wo Ai Ni</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"> (</span>I Love You), Mommy </i>that follows a woman as she goes to China to adopt. And there, in a hotel room, she counts out piles of cash on her hotel bed and says: "I know this looks wrong, but it's just how things are done." The essence, the very definition</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> of justification!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Adoption differs however from crimes that are committed based on entitlement, resentment, envy and justification because adoption is not just socially accepted, it is encouraged and promoted. Those who adopt are treated as heroes. . </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Bonus - adopters not only get what they long for, they initially receive compassion for the loss of their fertility and after adoption, society's admiration for rescuing an 'unwanted' child! Win-win for them!</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Society buys into "the ends justifies the means" hook, line and sinker. It matters not what bribes are paid, how mothers are coerced, how children are trafficked, or who is exploited... We - actors and society - ignore the exploitation of "them" as "other." "They" - destitute and desperate mothers are not "us." The public can identify with the longing for a child to parent and care for, but cannot identify with being coerced or pressured, or merely lacking the resources to provide... They become "other" -- dehumanized - like enemies in war. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And their children? The end up going to "better" homes. Our social mores and our laws put their seal of approval on anything goes tactics because the end justifies the means - any means.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The US State Dept even turned a blind eye when Guatemala revoked an adoption after affirming that Anyeli was kidnapped from her mother, Olga Rodriguez. DNA testing to deny or confirm the kidnapping allegation and was never orders and the adoption of Anyeli Hernandez Rodriguez by <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/24/adoption-wars_n_1028665.html">Timothy and Jennifer Monahan's</a> of Missouri was declared "legal."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/missouri-couple-silent-order-return-adopted-daughter-guatemala/story?id=14234379">Kidnapping justified </a>by not just the perpetrators, but by the highest law in the land. Kidnapping justified by ethnocentric enlistment and the belief that the end - an American life - justified the means. (</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Similarly, many contested adoptions involve two states fighting for entitlement.)</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Reversing these motivators is no easy task. Simply exposing the exploitation and corruption has proven to have very limited effect. One country closes, another is targeted. Nothing will stop until the social justification ends. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Reducing infertility would also help reduce demand, but we as a society do virtually no preventive education. Why bother, when you can "always adopt"? Why prevent a problem that supports two multi-billion dollar industries - infertility and adoption? certainly those profiting have no reason to help with prevention of infertility or family preservation.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The severest cases of adoption entitlement are seen in contested adoptions. The audacity of adopters to go to the lengths they do to fight loving, capable parents. The become obsessed in their belief of themselves as superior and more entitled to the child than th child's blood mother, father or both. They seem never to think how they will justify it to the child later in life when the child eventually reads the details and/or meets the loving/capable parents who fought to keep their child.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And the cause of many contested adoption are are broken openness promises once the adoption is finalized.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Mirah Ribenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13626873757236976251noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2384966947084602158.post-6058386064986536452014-08-22T13:20:00.003-07:002014-08-22T13:20:47.158-07:00Birth/First Moms: Do you have an adopted child?<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Moms, when you speak of your interest in adoption are you ever asked these two questions?:</span><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Are you an adoptive parent?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Are you adopted?</span></li>
</ul>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It happens to me often because of my activism and because I am an author. When I am asked these questions it is almost always JUST THESE TWO questions. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The third, and correct, option that makes adoption of personal interest to me is never considered....or is it that I don't fit the stereotype of a teenager or drug addict or impoverished woman?</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I usually use it as an education moment. But today I was asked by the neighborhood gossip and just answered NO to both questions. But the I got to thinking...</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>She did not ask if i was an adoptive parent, she asked if I had an adopted child.</b> .If she asked if I was an adoptive mother, that requires no thinking. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But I'm a very literal person and I was asked if I have (had) an adopted child. Did I? Do you?</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All of us have children who were adopted. Does that mean we have children who are adopted??</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a sense yes.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Do you ever say that you have a child who was "adopted out"? Do you hate that phrase? is it as bad as "given up" for adoption - a phrase which BTW was used on the fairly new TV show "<a href="http://www.cbs.com/shows/mom/">MOM</a>."</span></div>
<br />
<br />Mirah Ribenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13626873757236976251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2384966947084602158.post-87334574666417543172014-07-16T15:03:00.002-07:002014-07-16T15:03:22.714-07:00Threats to Family PresevationMoney. Demand. Lack of regulation of adoption"professionals," facilitators, and adoption agency business.<br />
<br />
Exploitation. Coercion. Secrets and lies.<br />
<br />
All of these are threats to the sanctity of families, particularly families in crisis and those lacking affluence.<br />
<br />
Demand is a major part of the problem and demand will continue until such time as we face infertility as a major health problem and add information on reducing infertility risk to high school health education classes. of course, this is unlikely inasmuch as infertility supports several multi-billion dollar industries: infertility treatment and adoption... and now surrogacy. Until we stem the tide, nation after nation will be stripped of their children to meet the demand.<br />
<br />
However there is another very important underlying cause of family disruption that is seldom if ever addressed: <b>The doctrine of "best interest." </b><br />
<br />
Best interest can be used to justify taking <i>any</i> child and placing him or her with a wealthier family who can provide more "advantages." As long as we as a culture place more value on material "advantages" than on connectedness, we will continue on a path of family destruction and recreation.<br />
<br />
We see the very dangerous effects of this "best interest" doctrine in contested adoptions. Instead of being treated as kidnappings - which illegal, fraudulent or coercive adoptions are - the courts too often look at the "best interest" of the child...or at least those who hold the child captive from his or her family hope they will, and use delays and postponements to increase their boding time with the captive child.<br />
<br />
In conjunction with this misused premise is the underlying belief that <b>the end justifies the means</b>.<br />
<br />
<b>This end-justifies-the-means belief is extremely dangerous in terms of adoption custody transfers as it can be used to condone a great many illegalities. When end-justified is applied in adoption, it becomes OK to lie to mothers, dupe them, coerce then... all in an effort to remove their children to be raised by those deemed "better."</b><br />
<br />
End-justifies-means has left Loyda Rodriguez's daughter, <a href="http://fox4kc.com/2012/05/15/missouri-couple-to-keep-allegedly-kidnapped-child/">Anylie with Jennifer and Timothy Monahan</a> despite Guatemala demanding the return of this kidnap victim.<br />
<br />
End-justifies the means causes "desperate" for a child, prospective adopters top ignore blatant red lights, such as those delineated in the book <a href="http://findingfernanda.com/">Finding Fernanada</a> and to condone paying bribes, as seen in the film <i>Wo Ai Ni (I Love You) Mommy</i>.<br />
<br />
Entitlement? Yes. But entitlement is a personal feeling. But it takes the cultural acceptance of best-interest and end-justifies-the-means to uphold policies and court decisions that support personal beliefs of one party's entitlement over another's.<br />
<br />
And the underlying prejudice in play in all of this is that wealth equals entitlement and less affluent parents are less fit and less able to provide for their child's "best interest" based on their financial status.<br />
<br />
Biology, blood, genetics sadly seem to hold no sway in weighing a child's best interest. We as a society put no importance on these factors except when a doctor asks our medical history or when a baby is born and relatives debate who the newborn resembles most or parents want to take credit for their offspring's abilities or talents.<br />
<br />
<br />Mirah Ribenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13626873757236976251noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2384966947084602158.post-70726272888441209232014-06-21T09:37:00.003-07:002014-06-21T13:05:34.620-07:00Buying is NOT Adoptiing<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14.545454025268555px; line-height: 20px;">Russell D. Moore identifies himself as an "</span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.545454025268555px; line-height: 20px;">Ethicist" though he is obviously an ethicist with strong "Christian" beliefs and a single-minded purpose to defend certain "Christian" world views, in particular Southern Baptists, including adoption <a href="http://www.bpnews.net/42809/politics-gay-marriage--embryo-adoption-focus-of-ethics-panel">expressed here</a>. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.545454025268555px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.545454025268555px; line-height: 20px;">Had Moore been around before the Civil War, he most assuredly would have found ETHICAL arguments in favor of the buying, owning and perhaps even torturing human beings. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.545454025268555px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.545454025268555px; line-height: 20px;">Regarding homosexuality, Moore says it's Ok to welcome them into your home, but not to attend their weddings. He cautions pastors to recognize that: "</span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.545454025268555px; line-height: 20px;">more than likely people in your congregation that struggle themselves or love people that struggle or have a neighbor who walks in that lifestyle" suggesting that all gays struggle. (Wonder how he feels about transgendered folk at his dinner table, or Jews, or atheists?)</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14.545454025268555px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.545454025268555px; line-height: 20px;">But when it comes to Snowflake babies, he is not just accepting of embryo adoption, he ENCOURAGES it! Hallelujah: More soldiers for Christ! A totally helpless source of converts up for grabs for those who can pay the price tag for high end, high quality merchandise rather than accept into their hearts and homes the children of poor, unwed, possibly addicted mothers. Just as Christ himself would have encouraged! Amen, </span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.545454025268555px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.545454025268555px; line-height: 20px;">Moore says: "A</span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14.545454025268555px; line-height: 20px;">dopting an embryo is the exact same thing morally and ethically as adopting a child in any other way."</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14.545454025268555px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.545454025268555px; line-height: 20px;">REALLY? Choosing an embryo is exactly the same as taking a child foster care? Even having a child of one's own, naturally, is not the same as taking a child from foster care. And this man calls himself an ethicist! </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14.545454025268555px; line-height: 20px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14.545454025268555px; line-height: 20px;">Me thinks the man greatly confuses legally the same with morally and ethically the same,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.545454025268555px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.545454025268555px; line-height: 20px;">Missing the point totally Moore goes on:</span></span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14.545454025268555px; line-height: 20px;"><i>"[S]ometimes people will say, 'A Snowflake adoption is the wrong thing to do because of the ethical problems with in vitro fertilization.' That is not the case, because what is happening with Snowflake adoption is not the creation of new people through in vitro fertilization. This is actually rescuing already conceived persons who are locked away in cryogenic storage units. So adopting an embryo is the exact same thing morally and ethically as adopting a child in any other way."</i></span></blockquote>
"The exact same thing morally and ethically as adopting a child any other way." YES, if you judge ALL adoption as unethical and immoral!<br />
<br />
In my moral and ethical view not all adoptions are equal - not by a long shot!<br />
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Adoptions run the gamut from downright illegal black market trade is trafficked, kidnap victims, to children who were coerced from mothers with lies and false promises ranging from telling mothers who cannot read English that their children are coming to america (or Western Europe) for an education, to falsely promising American mothers an "open adoption" or threatening that they will have to repay medical expenses if they do not go through with a relinquishment. <br />
<br />
Far too many adoptions involve coercion and exploitation and profiteering. Far too few adoptions are in the best interest of the child. Every child has a right to be remain with a capable parent or relative before being placed with unrelated strangers and given a new identity.<br />
<br />
Any and every adoption - even necessary placements - that falsifies a child's authentic identity and denies him access to that information, is an act <i>not </i>that child's best interest, and that includes step-parent adoptions in 49 of 51 states in this country.<br />
<br />
Every child who is taken from a perfectly capable mother who has been convinced that she is too young or too poor or simply not of the "proper" martial status to raise a child, is immoral and unethical. Every child taken by the state to meet a quota or gain increased federal funding is immoral.<br />
<br />
Moore and his ilk are not ignorant to the fact that children are priced by skin color, age and health and thus frozen embryos of WHITE babies from non-addicted parents are of value. They are also not ignorant of the corruption and child trafficking for adoption that has closed countries like Guatemala or the abuse of adopted children that closed adoptions from Russia.<br />
<br />
Moore and others of his persuasion turn a blind eye to all of these despicable practices not out of ignorance that they exist. After all, Southern Baptists and other fundamental Christians are all well aware of the uproar over failed adoption attempts of over-zealous missionaries in Haiti. And, they are all now aware of Kathryn Joyce's expose, <i>The Baby Catchers</i>. <br />
<br />
No, it is not ignorance of the lack of regulation in the multi-billion dollar adoption industry and the commercialization of "Snowflake" embryo selling... it is the firm conviction that the end justifies the means. <br />
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In their case, the end justifies getting a convert by any means possible. But make no mistake about it. This same "end justifies the means" logic is what keeps the entire public blind to every dark aspect of adoption practice! The average person - as well as our most prestigious adoption organizations (AAC) and think tanks (Evan B. Donaldson) remain firm that DESPITE abuses, adoption is to be supported and encouraged, because in the end, the child is getting a good life...probably better economically, than what he might have had otherwise.<br />
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These pro-adoptionsist will stand loud and proud and declare that "THE MAJORITY" of adoptions are in fact happily ever after, DESPITE a few ugly "anomalies" and despite recognizing that adoption is "the wild west" and anyone can hang a shingle" and arrange adoptions, not one piece of legislation has been proposed to reign in on the unregulated industry.<br />
<br />
In adoption practice "ethical" is undefined making the term "ethical adoption" and oxymoron on a level with "civil war", "friendly fire" and "peacekeeper" bombs. Embryo adoption, like sperm or egg "donor" is an exact equivalent of "paid volunteer" - a classic oxymoron. Selling is NOT donating; <b><i><u>buying is NOT adopting</u></i></b>!!!<br />
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We have slipped so far down on morals that we have come to totally accept that "fees" are justifiable and paying $40,000 or more to adopt is ethical and makes sense...so it's a very easy slope from that to buying eggs, sperm and embryos, without a thought to the moral imperative against buying and selling human beings! <br />
<br />
<u>Adoptions are not all equal and they are certainly not all ethical.</u><br />
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Every adoption that pressures a mother to relinquish a newborn, every international adoption and every embryo adoption (or surrogate birth) .... is one more adoption for the purpose of filing a demand and NOT for the purpose of finding homes for children who COULD be adopted from US foster care. How are they moral equivalents, Mr.Moore?<br />
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How is <i>buying</i> yourself a white blue-eyed baby from parents who had the wherewithal to pay for IVF to begin with, in any way, shape or form equal to opening your heart to an older child or sibling group? How is taking a child from his culture and heritage equal to helping a child to have his needs met within his own nation by donating to charities that build schools and provide water and medical care where needed?<br />
<br />
I wonder where Mr. Moral stands on the sale of egg and sperm and commercial surrogacy? After all, if life begins at conception then surely these practices involve selling the building blocks of life and should be far more egregious than organ selling, which is illegal because of it preys on the poor and vulnerable as does adoption. But the again, masturbation: spilling. wasting and MURDERING the seed of life has never been condemned as abortion. Yes, spare the unborn - they are marketable commodities.<br />
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And, after all, all these methods have the added bonus of being able to actually BIRTH a baby. So tell me again ho this is "exactly the same as adoption by any other means'?<br />
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Not only does one get the entire pregnancy and delivery experience, but it very conveniently makes it all to easy to never feel any necessity reveal to ANYONE - not even the human being being manufactured - that he or she is not EXACTLY THE SAME as any child created totally naturally by you, the way God intended babies to be created...(even in "wrong" tummies, sometimes).<br />
<br />
Where is YOUR moral and ethical compass Mr. Ethicist? Mr. Ruseel D. (have a gay to dinner and buy white babies) Moore.<br />
<br />
But what can we expect from a group who defended slavery - even quoting bible versus to support their argument. <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/1992/issue33/3324.html">I</a></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.333332061767578px;"><a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/1992/issue33/3324.html">n one Baptist minister’s words</a>, </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.333332061767578px;">slavery</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.333332061767578px;"> “stands as an institution of God.” They claimed slaves were treated with kindness and slavery<span style="font-family: inherit;"> brought</span></span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 17.333332061767578px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> "heathens to a Christian land where they can hear the gospel" just as adoption does today.</span></span>Mirah Ribenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13626873757236976251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2384966947084602158.post-45929002500450214132014-05-27T20:39:00.004-07:002014-05-28T20:27:23.867-07:00Golden Cradle<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">She was 23 in a long term unmarried relationship and pregnant. </span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><i>They forced a closed adoption on us, we wanted open, and we decided on a adoption as I was in labor, not a day before that did this cross our minds, so we were NOT educated in any way shape or form. We didn't know we had a choice. </i></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">An adoption lawyer told me that she and her colleagues always brings bagels or doughnuts to the nurses . . . .</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">That is wrong. And it should have been a concern to the whole medical department, including my doctor, who knew how excited I was and etc about my son. I was very ready for him, yet a day or two before I said I wanted an adoption. <b>I only got to meet with the agency for an hour and while I was medicated, then I did change my mind the day I was discharged but I still went through with the adoption because I was panicking and not sleeping, disoriented and very confused.</b> And now, even though I am in my right to revoke it, they are coming up with a million and one reasons why they cannot return him. I know I will have my son back. I KNOW it. And I am sure after this, I will be helping out as many women as I can so I can prevent them from going through this.</span></i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">This is the kind of stuff women get into when they get hormonal and are not properly educated and get scared. My son did NOT need to be placed for adoption.</span> </i></b></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;">This did not happen in the 1960s or the 70s or 80s. It did not happen inn the 20th century.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">It happened in APRIL, 2014 in the USA, not a third world country. It happened in<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Gegisinger Wyoming Valley Hospital, in Wilkes Barre, Pa.</span></span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><i><b><u>The agency, <a href="http://www.goldencradle.org/">Golden Cradle</a>,</u></b> is located in [Cherry Hill] Nj, and they basically performed a Pa adoption except that the termination of parental rights was through Nj. The adoptive parents were an hour away from me. They didn't need an ICPC paper because [the baby] wasn't leaving the state, etc. The Nj paper just allowed me to have "irrevocable" parental rights. When I served them court paper for the release of my son, they panicked. Said he was in Nj with the parents I picked and was assured were in Pa, that I signed the 100a form, and it was Nj legal. But at court yesterday, they admitted the family and my son were in Pa, but that Nj had jurisdiction because their office is in Nj and I singed the ICPC contract and my termination of my rights. Basically, they did a Pa adoption and didn't think I would fight it, so they didn't do the correct paperwork. And when they noticed I would fight it, they panicked, forged a 100A paper, and now even filed for the adoption to be finalized in NJ 3 months after my son's birth. And from my understanding, also 3 months before they are allowed to, as in NJ they need 6 months of placement with the adoptive parents to finalize the adoption. </i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><i>under PA law, I have revoked the consent for adoption, several times already ( I am in my right to do so, since I am a resident of Pa, I gave birth in Pa, my son is still a resident of Pa with his adoptive parents, I signed in Pa and was Pa notarized, only thing I did was sign an Nj paper that said my parental rights would be terminated through Nj). </i></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>T</i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><i>he dad signed after me at the coercion of the agency, because I already singed away so it was basically "a done deal, and he didn't really want full custody of a newborn". Their words to him. He was just as hesitant as I was about this.</i></span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Why are predatory practices like this allowed? We do not allow funeral directors to solicit business to families of terminal patients in hospitals, why do we as a nation allow adoption agencies to prey on women in labor???</span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">They HAVE committed fraud, and I am on my way to undoing it, but I know that having testimony against them will help in every way possible. Anything helps. </i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><i>I am of course going to have to go back again to court to fight this (already went yesterday for the first time), and it was even found that they have falsified my signature on an 100A paper for the ICPC (because they claimed my son was not in Pa, but at least they admitted that he was).</i></span> </blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>You can help this mom and dad get their son back. </b></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>If you have dealt with Golden Cradle or have any documentation of a pattern of coercive/deceptive adoption practices by Golden Cradle please contact me.</b></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">In a recent discussion of this case, while at linch with senator Diane Allen (D:NJ) after the bill signing, the senator's aid said some babies need to be signed away immediately in the hospital or they'd just be abandoned. But this was not the case. Mothers can be discharged and babies can remain until decisions are made. Foster care can be provided until a mother can think with a clear head, and discuss option with her family and the bay's father and his family, perhaps, if appropriate. CARE of the baby is certainly necessary, but that does not neccesitate or justify pressuring a mother into a lifelong IRREVOCABLE permanent decision for herself, the child, and many other extended family that will be affected by the loss....in a moment of confusion! </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><b><u>PROSPECTIVE ADOPTERS BEWARE!!!</u></b></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">You need to know about such predatory and coercive policies and avoid agencies that utilize them because if you engage in a slipshod adoption like this, you risk bonding with a child who may be returned to his or her rightful blood kin who want him and are capable of caring for him!</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">We have known about the sleazy, aggressive practices of Golden cradle since car part salesman Artie Elgart started it. I wrote about it in the Dark Side of Adoption in 1988.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">This agency started out with billboards and fast food tray liner MARKETING campaigns. their goal was always clear: Finding babies to meet the demand of paying clients. they commonly housed expectant mothers with would-be adoptive parents. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b><u>UPDATE:</u></b></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">A mother who relinquished through Golden Cradle in 1982 wrote in response to this blog post of her experience in an effort to help:</span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial;">"</span><span style="background-color: #f7f7f7; color: #3e454c; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 12.288000106811523px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Promised open.....never happened. Promised she would go to wealthy family that owned mansion and chain of restaurants....they lived in one berm apartment, were waitress and bartender...</span><span style="background-color: #f7f7f7; color: #3e454c; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 12.288000106811523px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Drugged me up so much that I thought insects were crawling one me....</span><span style="background-color: #f7f7f7; color: #3e454c; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 12.288000106811523px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Was bullied by attorney at hospital bedside and threatened with huge hospital bill....</span><span style="background-color: #f7f7f7; color: #3e454c; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 12.288000106811523px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Called me a birth thing from day one and counseled me constantly in infertility, baby was never called mine...many things...</span></i><br />
<span style="background-color: #f7f7f7; color: #3e454c; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 12.288000106811523px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>They said I could not take her home that she would have to go to foster care because contemplating adoption makes one unfit in the eyes of the law...</i></span><span style="background-color: #f7f7f7; color: #3e454c; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 12.288000106811523px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>I already had a child and they said that child would be taken from me too. He was twenty one months old..."</i></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is a long, clear PATTERN of coercive practices. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Golden Cradle's F</span><span style="background-color: #f7f7f7; color: #3e454c; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 12.288000106811523px; white-space: pre-wrap;">ederal 990s up until recently said that they were non profit to "prevent cruelty to children". </span>Mirah Ribenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13626873757236976251noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2384966947084602158.post-23958404311573621642014-05-03T06:29:00.001-07:002014-05-04T20:48:58.055-07:00Adoption Activism History: The ORIGINAL ORIGINSBefore there was Origins in Australia or the UK, and LONG before Origins-USA .... back in the pre-Internet dark ages ...<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000;">In 1980, five women from New Jersey found one another and formed the original <b><u>"ORIGINS: an organization for women who lost children to adoption."</u></b></span><br />
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We put out a national bi-monthly newsletter and held local in-person meetings for more than a decade.<br />
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We were pioneers! I was on the Mort Downey Jr. Show twice with adoptees and adoptive parents bringing light to the issue that was never even spoken about before. I was later on the Joan Rivers Show talking about the Joel Steinberg case, with Grace Smeigel.<br />
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<b>The five founders of <span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000;">The Original ORIGINS </span></span>were: MaryAnne Cohen, Allison Ward, Lucy Pare, Evelyn Ziemtez and myself. </b><br />
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<a href="http://poetsonadoption.blogspot.com/2011/04/mary-anne-cohen.htm">Mary Anne Cohen is the poet laureate</a> of adoption reform.<br />
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Lucy Pare gained national infamy in a "sting:" set up by a TV news network to catch evil mothers trying to find and "stalk" their lost children by paying money to an "underground" searcher. They sent a couple pretending to be birthparents to infiltrate one of our meetings! The news reports of her being "caught in the act" made her look like a dug dsealer exchanging money for information in a parking lot. But, when they made it known it was a sting and shone lights and cameras on a stunned Lucy, she stood her ground and compared her work to the underground railraod that helped slaves escape and let them know it was CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE to disobey laws that kept mothers and their children apart! <br />
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Left to right: MaryAnne Cohen, Sherry Chait, Mirah Riben, Washington DC, 1989. </div>
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First national Match on Washington DC to unseal adoption records. </div>
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We are holding our ORIGINS quilt made with patches for our lost children and our logo in the center.</div>
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This hearty group including Marilyn Bursen, Judy Taylor, Sharon Bell, and Joe Soll...</div>
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marched from NYC to Washington where they were joined by hundred of others of us.</div>
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This entire March and SpeakOut at the Washington Memorial was organized by Origins, the AAC and Council for Equal Rights in Adoption (CERA), without the Internet! We were a powerful and strong network of support group across the country! </div>
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<br />Mirah Ribenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13626873757236976251noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2384966947084602158.post-12907358051940763582014-02-11T12:51:00.000-08:002014-02-11T13:14:41.270-08:00WE BELIEVE YOU, Dylan Farrow!I believe you first and foremost because, as Mackenzie Philips said: Why would you lie? What you did in speaking your truth to power took incredible courage and strength of character. I wholeheartedly believe you and applaud you, support you and defend you.<br />
<br />
Woody Allen became officially labeled a pedophile in my book the day his affair with Soon Yi was exposed. I personally have not seen a Woody Allen movie since. Their continued affair and subsequent marriage removed any and all doubt in that case!<br />
<br />
My refusal on principal to see his films has led, over the years, to many passionate discussions of his creative genius to which I reiterate my firm conviction that I personally will not ever spend one red cent out of my pocket to support this incestuous pedophile.<br />
<br />
The argument that it was not "technically" incest, or that she MAY have been - or he may have THOUGHT she was older than she was...are all irrelevant. Their age difference alone, and his money and power, made it INAPPROPRIATE!<br />
<br />
Those who defend Allen's actions with Soon Yi as not incestuous - are they saying that it is OK for all adoptive fathers to seduce their adoptive daughters/ What about step-fathers? That's OK too? It wasn't so OK in the movie <i>Precious</i> - nor is it ever in real life OK for a mother's boyfriend to rape or even carry on a consensual relationship with his girlfriend's child.<br />
<br />
His relationship with Soon Yi's MOTHER, Mia Farrow, made him Soon Yi's psychological step-father at the very least, and their relationship - no matter how log lasting - inappropriate in its origins and indicative of his lack of healthy boundaries.<br />
<br />
<b>Woody Allen's Women</b><br />
<br />
At 19 Allen married a 16-year old named <span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">Harlene Rosen. He then married Louise Lasser and </span></span><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">never</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;"> married again until Soon Yi. Diane Keaton - whose given name is Annie Hall </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">- was chosen to replace </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mia_Farrow" style="background-color: white; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: inherit; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; text-decoration: none;" title="Mia Farrow">Mia Farrow</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;"> in the co-starring role for </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Murder_Mystery" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Manhattan Murder Mystery">Manhattan Murder Mystery</a>. </i><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">Allen and Farrow were on the rocks </span></span><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">professionally</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;"> and </span></span><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">personally</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;"> and Keaton stepped in in both roles. Their </span></span><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">romantic</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;"> relationship over, they reportedly remain friends</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">He next had an affair with but did not marry, Stacey Nelson, </span></span><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">who</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;"> like the others was featured in his films. </span></span></span>Woody has such power over young, impressionable and powerless GIRLS that his former young lover, <a href="http://www.etonline.com/news/143281_Woodyhttp://www.etonline.com/news/143281_Woody_Allen_s_Ex_Girlfriend_Assesses_Allegations/_Allen_s_Ex_Girlfriend_Assesses_Allegations/">Stacey Nelkin, recently went public</a> -- not prove his pattern of sick behavior (which he displays in some of his mvie plot) - but to defend the man who at 41 was in a relationship with her when she was just 17. Power is indeed corrupting, and this unattractive, nerdy creep mesmerizes young. impressionable women by putting them in his movies!<br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">Woody's infamous relationship with Mia Farrow began approximately 1980 and ended in 1992 whens the proverbial shit hit the fan in the form of photos taken by Allen of her daughter Soon Yi.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;"><b>I Am Not Alone</b></span></span></span><br />
<br />
I am far from the only one who believes Dylan's accusations are factual and Woody Allen's actions less than stellar. Bravo to Perez Hilton for her piece, <a href="http://perezhilton.com/2014-02-10-woody-allen-dylan-farrow-molestation-accusation-facts#sthash.vhPKkADA.dpbs">Woody Allen's Molestation Accusations From Dylan Farrow: 10 Facts You Need to Know!</a> A must read.<br />
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Many who live with and have studied the intricacies of adoption and the effects on those whose lives are touched by this circumstances KNOW that absence of kinship reduces the technical or legal taboo on incest and puts adoptees - including those in step-parent adoptions - at higher risk than non-adoptees for sexual abuse, not just by adoptive parents but also by siblings. We know and recognize this dynamic on foster care but somehow wish to turn a blind-eye to it in adoptive families.<br />
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The reasons lie in the entrenched belief of adoption as a "good" in our society with the lobbying power of a mega billion dollar industry to promote it as such. Adoption is romanticized as a win-win where in a homeless unwanted orphan is rescued by a childless couple desperately yearning for a child to love and complete their family and lives. It is also, as a publisher once told me, our 'fall-back' position for child care and we need cannot afford to see its flaws.<br />
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And, after all, part of believing in the myths that surround adoption are the one that assure us that those who adopt are carefully screened and vetted in addition to being highly motivated to begin with. After all, they didn't just have a child by chance or accident.<br />
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Those of us in the know, however, know all too well of the "forever" families that abandon their kids, re-home them or send them off to ranches or boarding school. We know of ALL kinds of unspeakable, incomprehensible abuses that adopted children have endured at the hands of their "saviors" - being caged, burned, starved, forced to drink hot sauces and take cold showers, left to live outdoors... We know of the sexual abuses and, yes, even the murders that have taken place at the hands 'noble' altruistic adopters.<br />
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We know, a<a href="http://www.salon.com/2014/02/11/why_dylan_farrows_adoption_matters/">s Nicole Soojung Callahan writes, that in the case of Dylan Farrow her adoptive status matters</a>, and matters very much both in the horror she lived through and in the public's ability to believe her or not.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16.363636016845703px; line-height: 20px;"><i>“Because adoption involves children moving from a family of lesser privilege, that move is often seen as an unequivocal good,” Gretchen Sisson told me. “These children are avoiding whatever circumstances of their birth — poverty, a teen mother, a life in a developing country, etc. — have been deemed unsuitable. This makes adoptive parents into rescuers; they are providing their child with a ‘better life.’ Abuse is incompatible with this idea, as is the idea that adopted people should speak out about their abuse. After all, might they not still be better off if they hadn’t been adopted?”</i></span></blockquote>
We believe you! Allen is a pedophile and adoption is a breeding ground for non-technical incest.<br />
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We know what a farce home studies that are paid for by prospective adopters are and that salaries of those who work for adoption agencies are paid for only by completed adoptions. We know of all the other pedophiles such as <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/International/story?id=1919036">Mancuso and William Peckenpaugh</a>, and we know the sordid history of the agency though which you were adopted, almost as notorious as the Baby Seller, Georgia Tann who also served the rich and famous.<br />
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We know that money talks in adoption and buys adorable, curly blonde-haired, blue eyes prizes liek you were -- looking just like A Shirley Temple version of Little Orophan Annie!<br />
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Dylan you are not alone. The adoption reform community stands with you as you expose just one of many ugly truths of the scared cow that is adoption. Too many of us have walked a mile in your shoes, abused by those entrusted to care for us... raped by those who committed to our care and protection... You are not alone!Mirah Ribenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13626873757236976251noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2384966947084602158.post-38163499129038922112013-12-30T10:27:00.006-08:002013-12-30T10:27:55.523-08:00More on Adopter Self-Centered SELFISHNESSA few days ago I posted on the subject of <a href="http://familypreservation.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-self-centered-hubris-of-adopters.html">hubris and narcissism in adopters</a>. This is a follow-up, and i suspect there may be more to come...<br />
<br />
Today's example of comes from<a href="http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-maharashtra-adoption-body-too-slow-foreigners-1942619"> an article out of India</a> describing American and British couples complaining about having to wait "several MONTHS" to adopt!~ Yes, you read right...months, not years, and they are complaining.<br />
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the average wait is just TWO MONTHS! Now last I calculated that's a helluva lot shorter wait than it takes to have a baby the natural way! <br />
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Also.. there are people who have waited YEARS to adopt internationally.<br />
<br />
We used to joke about Baby's Are Us - before the chain of stores actually opened. but now I am thinking what is "needed" (read wanted) by these folks is McBabies! With a DRIVE THROUGH window.<br />
<br />
You pull up to the microphone and put in your order: One Female, please. Hold the illnesses and no need to supersize. One bottle of formula and extra diapers please.<br />
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Then at the first window you hand over your CASH ONLY payment. And voila!<br />
<br />
At the next window, your baby is handed to you!<br />
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SERIOUSLY - What is wrong with these people and this whole picture? Is there no understanding for the fact that it takes time to ENSURE that the child has not been kidnapped, or her parents deceived in any way? Or is the rush to get it all done before any background checks can all come back? Just <b>GRAB N' GO!</b><br />
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But to be fair, all the blame is NOT on the part of the consumers. From the article cited above;<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: MuseoSlab500Regular, helvetica, arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><i>State adoption agencies claim that Sara officials ask for unnecessary documents which leads to delays. “They want to know how many Indian parents a child has been shown to before putting him/her up for international adoption and rejection slips ascertain that,” said the head of a Pune-based adoption agency.</i></span><i> </i></blockquote>
Mirah Ribenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13626873757236976251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2384966947084602158.post-70783960428032859682013-12-28T15:16:00.001-08:002013-12-31T18:13:49.471-08:00Why Adoption is Mired in Secrecy<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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TAO, The Adopted One, asks: <span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-bidi-font-size: 27.0pt;"><a href="http://theadoptedones.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/why-is-adoption-still-mired-in-secrecy/">Why is adoption still mired in secrecy? </a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-bidi-font-size: 27.0pt;">Why does secrecy still
prevail when it was based on the shame and stigma of being illegitimate which
is as outdated as Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a pre WWII value still imposed in
the 21<sup>st</sup> century, so why, TAO wants to know, and proposes these "what if" scenarios: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">If</span></i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"> there is nothing shameful in being adopted, then
there is no reason to keep our original birth certificate sealed under lock and
key, a lock and key that for many adoptees – was applied retroactively.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">If</span></i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"> some adoption practitioners have misled their
clients that they can remain anonymous forever, and ever – then have the guts
to stand up and say you were wrong. That the adoptees are what matters
most in adoption, and right now they are being treated as second-class citizens
in many states – whether in open or closed adoptions.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">If</span></i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"> the adoption industry is afraid of the scandal
of how mothers were treated – stand up, come clean and apologize, it’s
good for the soul.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">If</span></i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"> the adoption industry is really about what is best
the child – then for Pete’s sake – act like it, children grow up to be adults
and being denied the right to their original birth certificate doesn’t meet the
standard – it makes them less-than the non-adopted.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">If </span></i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">the adoption industry wanted to correct the
wrongs of the past that are still in effect today – they would ask the Adoptee
Rights Groups in each state how they can help, no conditions, just support for
full equality, whatever it takes to make it right. They would stand
behind the adoptees as they lead the way to restoring the right taken away –
simply because they were adopted.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">If</span></i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">
the adoption industry wanted to ensure the mistakes of the past stop being
repeated and never happen again – they would require every adoption
practitioner to educate their clients that the adoptee is the most important
member in adoption, and how their rights should never be compromised to make
others feel comfortable. Your job is to do right by the adoptee first and
foremost, whatever it takes.</span></i></div>
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<b>TAO i<i><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">s RIGHT! *IF ONLY** But...</span></i></b> “IF” the queen had balls she be king! “IF” The Pope wasn't Catholic he wouldn't be Pope!<br />
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The adoption industry doesn’t care about anything other than
making MONEY, and that’s why!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Why? Because adoption is an INDUSTRY, not a charity!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A multi-billion dollar a year INDUSTRY.</span></b></div>
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- Because the industry lobbyists and spokespersons represent
attorneys, practitioners and adoption agency BUSINESSES who prefer to operate
under a cloak of SECRECY rather than with transparency. In fact, that is the
reason the records were sealed to begin with. And they will continue as long as
they can.</div>
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<br /></div>
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- Because like any import/expert buying and selling INDUSTRY
they serve their paid clientele who want it this way. Adopters want to be able
to BUY KIDS WITH NO STRINGS ATTACHED! It's why they prefer IA to domestic!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some chill and develop some
self-confidence later on after adopting, but at the time they are a mess of
FEAR, anxiety and inferiority of loosing the kid they want to the
"real" mommy!! The industry knows that and CATERS to it!! You want
kids with no strings, we give you kids with no strings. End of story.</div>
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- Because the same attorneys, practitioners and adoption
agency businesses who protect ADOPTERS FROM evil birth moms -- then also CHARGE
adoptees and moms for post adoption services! A little side cottage industry
for the baby brokers!</div>
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- Because many of the legislatures working on adoption
voting on adoption bills are ADOPTERS, know adopters, side with them and buy the
bullshit the industry lobbyists put forth while we are kept out of the
discussions, because who cares what perennial CHILDREN and SLUTS have to say?</div>
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- Because these largely WHITE MALE FOLK are protecting all
their peers who might have kids 'out there'<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>who could find them and burst their career bubbles and/or marriages, or seek a piece of their inheritance.</div>
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So, <b><u>stop being BITTER</u></b> (wink, wink) and get with the program, like the rest, who ALLOW these atrocities to continue to be perpetuated:</div>
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- Because too few adoptees have any BALLS to stand up and DEMAND their rights as the gays do!</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
- Because this movement has not had its MILK moment...</div>
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- Because we lack a cohesive national organization that coordinates state efforts and works on educating the public, and adoptees, many of whom don't know and don't care...</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
- Because we don't have paid lobbyists (except in Ohio).</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
- Because adoptees are far too mired in gratitude, FEAR of REJECTION, or fear of hurting the hand that has fed and educated them, so they perpetuate secrecy by searching in secret or waiting till their aps die. NO BALLS TO STAND UP FOR THEIR OWN RIGHTS! Adoption has given them a clear message that they <i><u>are</u></i> second-class and deserve whatever CRUMBS they get...</div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“IF” the industry cared about social justice they would fail
to exist, that’s why!</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span>They would
help mothers in crisis not exploit their temporary problems in order to grab up
the product of their “mistakes.” </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>If they didn't lie to mothers, and dupe fathers, even kidnap babies, who would provide them with provide them their bread and butter?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Von, commenting on TAO's blog says:<br />
<br />
Why? Why not? I say: Because they CAN!<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span">Is there a Santa Claus, Virginia.... NO! Not in adoption! Just GREED and filling orders, meeting a demand! The only ones getting presents from the AdoptionClaus are those paying for his suit and sleigh and all the stuff he brings!</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span"><b>So SHUT UP because you are just a COMMODITY...and are supposed to be GRATEFUL!! </b></span></div>
</div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span">Mothers like me are just the wrapping the product comes in and are also supposed to shut up and be grateful we were helped out of our "situation" and gave our kids a "better" life!</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span">Records were sealed - <i><b>allegedly</b></i> - to protect adoptees from the stigma of illegitimacy. That no longer exists. the truth of the matter is that they were sealed to being with to protect ADOPTERS from "intrusion" and possible extortion by birth mothers. it's all about protecting the paid customer!! And that is WHY secrecy REMAINS in adoption. To protect baby brokers and adopters. PERIOD! Read the history of adoption and <i>The Baby Thief</i>. You will discover the tremendous influence of baby brokers like Bessie Bernard in the sealing of adoption records.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>"Adoption Loss is the only trauma in the world where the victims are expected by the whole of society to be grateful" - </b>The Reverend Keith C. Griffith, MBE </span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
<!--EndFragment-->Mirah Ribenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13626873757236976251noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2384966947084602158.post-89358676880970194352013-12-20T09:48:00.001-08:002013-12-21T15:33:13.340-08:00The Self-Centered Hubris of Adopters <b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">Disclaimer: The following comments do not relate to ALL who adopt, so please save yourself the trouble of pointing that out to me or telling me how NOT like this you, or your adoptive parents, are.</span></b><br />
<br />
REVISED: 12/20 6:56 pm<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.rageagainsttheminivan.com/2013/12/what-i-want-you-to-know-adoption-can-be.html">Adoption Can be Selfish</a> [Duh!] admits a guest blogging adoptive parent, identified as "Kathy" <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Nobile; font-size: 16px;">at <a href="http://www.rageagainsttheminivan.com/2013/12/what-i-want-you-to-know-adoption-can-be.html">Rage Against the Minivan</a>.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Nobile;">"</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">Adoption is not an unselfish act," she says. OK, no argument there. Kathy continues:</span><br />
<blockquote>
<i><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 22px;">We </span></span><span style="line-height: 21.988636016845703px;">didn't</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 22px;"> choose adoption because we wanted to help a child or save him/her from a terrible life. We chose it because it was the only way to grow our family.</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px;"> </span></i></blockquote>
Also, OK... Kathy even adds: <i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><b>"<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">Adopting our son was one of the most SELFISH things I’ve ever chosen to do." </span></b></span></i><br />
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"><br /></span></b></span></i>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">And she's not alone. The comments applaud her!</span></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;">"So much yes."</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;">"Yes and Amen. I could have written this post."</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;">"Yes!!!! Thank you!!" </span></li>
</ul>
BUT, Kathy's admission of selfishness is not the end of her very brief post. She adds:<br />
<blockquote>
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: pt-sans, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">It cost huge amounts of money, and five years later we are still dealing with the financial aftermath. We did it because it is what we wanted - not to be noble or selfless or save a child - but because the thing we wanted most was to be parents, and this was how it had to be done.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: pt-sans, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;"> </span></i> </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: pt-sans, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">If you offered me the chance to do anything else – travel the world, buy a brand new car– and told me it would cost as much as we spent on an adoption, I would tell you no because it would be too expensive, no amount of money was too much to bring our son home and into our family.</span> </i></blockquote>
Such unabashed WHINING or, is it bragging?!<br />
<br />
Who had a gun to her head? Kathy - like every adopter - had the option to adopt from foster care and save herself all of this expense. But she CHOSE not to, and CHOSE to pay the fees she paid.<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
With all her talk about selfishness, Kathy - and the vast majority of adopters - see it only in terms of themselves and miss the most selfish aspects of adoption:</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
</div>
<ul>
<li>that every person who pays the outrageous fees increases the demand and thus increases baby brokering and child trafficking to meet the demand</li>
<li>that a good portion of the dollars they pay go to bribes and unscrupulous baby brokers and child traffickers</li>
<li>that the same amount of money could be far better spent supporting charities that help FAMILIES in crisis and impoverished villages throughout the world by building schools, digging wells and helping to provide medical care and supplies....</li>
</ul>
But instead, adopters like this choose to bring home a prize to commemorate their liberalism, or their Christianity; their altruism and their humanitarianism. Kathy could have chosen - heaven forbid - to foster a family... or, to "adopt" a child on paper only and send money to help his entire family, not leave them behind ad she selfishly chose one to "rescue" as a prize....like a hunter who mounts his trophy.<br />
<br />
Worse still, she writes with total lack of thought, posts all of this in public where her child(ren), when they are old enough, can read it. Kathy displays utter, selfish disregard for how <i>any</i> adoptee reading it might be made to feel? The GRATITUDE! The indebtedness for the huge investment...the expectations they must live up to to warrant such an expense!<br />
<br />
Most of all...what about her adopted child? <u><b>I</b></u><b><u>f she writes this because this is how she feels, I don't doubt for one minute Kathy is not projecting it, AND saying it within earshot of her adopted child(ren)! </u></b><br />
<b><u><br /></u></b>
And here's the kicker! The blog which posted this guest blog post - without comment is Kristen<span style="font-family: Nobile; font-size: 16.363636016845703px;">, mom of four children "within four years via birth and adoption." But, </span>hold onto your hats. Kristen<br />
is not JUST a mom and a blogger (whose credits include Huffington post)...she also describes herself as.... get this: <b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A Marriage and Family Therapist!</span></b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uJS6lo0u3Qc/UrSFATN6KhI/AAAAAAAABLk/mesjj29dLiY/s1600/PSYCHO.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uJS6lo0u3Qc/UrSFATN6KhI/AAAAAAAABLk/mesjj29dLiY/s400/PSYCHO.JPG" width="280" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
And yet despite her education, her training and a certificate hanging on her wall... she posted Kathy's "all about me, me, me" essay without any without a one word of her own as a preface, a footnote or any commentary whatsoever.<br />
<br />
Does family therapist, Kristen care how this blogpost - posted on HER blog - sounds to adoptees? Is she unaware of all the jokes about Jewish and Catholic guilt from mothers who complain: "Oy, you should only know the pain I suffered to deliver you! Twelve hours in labor!"<br />
<br />
In this case money is the guilt-inducer. We could have had a new car or a vacation but instead we CHOSE YOU...because we love you so much! (Now be grateful!)<br />
<br />
No adopted child chooses to be taken form his family, his roots, his heritage. Kathy chose to do that TO him because SHE - selfishly - wanted to and has now let him know that loud and clear.<br />
<br />
Shameful.<br />
<br />
Kathy is far from alone, as the responses to her post indicate... and, as one can read every day on adoptive parent blogs.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">Why is it, I ponder, that SO MANY who adopt need to seek public attention and play victim? </span><br />
<br />
Why do they seek sympathy for their infertility, sympathy for their infertility treatments (and the cost), sympathy for the "imposition" of a home study and the "scrutiny" that they alone must endure and natural parents do not have to go through, sympathy if a planned <strike>abuction</strike> adoption falls through....and now this? Are we supposed to feel sorry for Kathy's choices as to how she spends her money, too?<br />
<br />
Why does the blogosphere just explode with so much adoptive arrogance, pomposity, entitlement and<u> need to play victim all at the same time</u>?? Even when they CHOOSE to terminate an adoption and DUMP their kid, they write about what a difficult choice that was FOR THEM, and expect - and get - SYMPATHY and understanding for doing the unthinkable to a vulnerable child they committed to caring for ! Outrageous!<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Is it a deep-seated RESENTMENT in paying these fees to adopt that gives them the haughtiness, the air of superiority that leads some to sue for wrongful adoption or return "goods" they find "unsatisfactory"? </span>Or to just <b><i>whine, bitch, moan and complain</i></b> about the cost.<br />
<br />
As a mother who lost a child to adoption I find it all quite disgusting, in very poor taste and THOUGHTLESS for the feelings of anyone but herself. Thoughtless to how her words might hurt the very child she selfishly took from his family and culture.<br />
<br />
Adopters like this need to look in the mirror and see and hear what they sound like.<br />
<br />
<i>We</i> were the ones victimized by adoption. We LOST in the alleged win-win process. Adopters use their money to grab our kids. They won and yet it is THEY who play victim and call us bitter. How ironic is that?<br />
<br />
You may seek my sympathy but you get my revulsion. My pity is for your adopted child or children, subjected to being raised by a <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">tot</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">al n<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; line-height: 16px;">arcissist</span>.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">And shame on Family Therapist, Kristen, for posting it without any comment whatsoever! In doing so her total agreement is implied.</span><br />
<br />
<br />Mirah Ribenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13626873757236976251noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2384966947084602158.post-70477416382276757382013-12-06T10:16:00.002-08:002013-12-06T12:54:45.779-08:00Journeys to Healing Adoption Loss and Devastation<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<!--StartFragment-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Laura Dennis writes <a href="http://www.laura-dennis.com/when-emerging-adoption-fog-secure-mask-first/">an interesting blog post about “Coming Out of the [Adoption] Fog.”</a> She uses an airline safety message metaphor to tell us to put on our own oxygen
masks first before helping others.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Circumstances, however, do not always allow for us to do
things in a neat and orderly way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I lost my firstborn to adoption in 1968. My first jolt out
of the stupor of "I did the right thing" brainwashing I had received
came just three years later when I met, by chance, an adoptee who had completed
his search and was taking his birth moms name. I was shocked. The words that
blurted out of my mouth that day were: "You don't hate your mother?"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t realize this is what I thought
until I said it. I was apparently living with so much self-incrimination about
having lost my child in this manner, that I naturally assumed SHE would hate me
for having let her go – not fighting harder to keep her (with no support and in
defiance of being told it was the “best” and “loving” thing to do and to not do
so would be selfish and hurtful to my child.)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That encounter led me to ALMA and a meeting with one other
birth mother, Mary Anne Cohen. I was thrust into the world of adoption reunions
and now had POSSIBILITIES. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I had absorbed well my brainwashed messages including that I
had “no right” to ever THINK of her again, much less seek her out and interrupt
her wonderful new life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My world
was turned upside down as I contemplated HER wanting or even needing to know
ME!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was among the first members of CUB and in 1980 Mary Anne
and I along with three other NJ birth moms formed the original Origins and I
was helping others AS I helped myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We held in-person meetings in those days and were able to give real live
hugs – not cyber ones – and help dry one another’s eyes. One by one women came
through the doors of our homes – or libraries – where we met and expressed the
ultimate relief in learning each of us was not ‘”he only one” this had happened
to, as we had lived with feeling.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">My healing came as I
helped others heal.</b> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was another decade after that – and after having
published my first book, <i><b>shedding light on…The Dark Side of Adoption</b></i> (1988),
that I had yet another major aha wake up moment. It came, appropriately enough,
from a book entitled <b><i>Wake Up Little Susie</i></b>. Ricki Solinger awakened me to a new
level of self-healing. Not only was I not “the only one” but what happened to
us, and our families, did not happen in a void. Not only was not our “fault” –
or our families’ fault – what happened was a sociological phenomenon that
occurred within in a far broader context of morality and social engineering to reduce
single households by punishing mothers for their sins and removing the children
we were judged as “unfit’ to raise.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My education into all of the forces that work to promote
adoption continues to this day. Awareness of the exploitation, corruption, deception
and commodification that underlies what is presented to – and believed by – the
public a noble, altruistic, saving grace simultaneously heals and enrages me. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">My healing comes to
me through my activism.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the introduction to <b><i>The Dark Side</i></b> I relate my passion to
reform adoption to the work of people like Cindy Lightner who founder Mothers
Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and the mom who got amber laws in every state to
help find abducted children. These mothers never had a spare second to
metaphorically put on their own oxygen masks before going to work to prevent
other losses. Their healing – like mine - IS in working to prevent other
atrocities through education.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Each of us has our own path through – and perhaps – out of
the fog of denial. Some never make it out. Some find the fog a warm blanket
that keeps them safe from the pain they might face if they lifted it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Like Laura Dennis, I too sometimes find myself wanting to
shake some free of their kool-aid (yes, kool-aid, not ade!) daze. (Sometimes it
infuriates me.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have fought for equal access for adoptees from the very
beginning back in the late 70s and early 80s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I signed the full page as in Oregon to help that state break
free of discriminatory laws…I testified at NJ hearings, met with congress
people, and have written more letters than I could count in our state’s thirty
year long battle to restore adoptee rights, wrongly denied them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thus want to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>scream</u></i></b> at adoptees
to break free of their fog of indebtedness and gratitude and stand up for their
rights!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I watch the gay equality
movement gain marriage rights in sixteen states while we have varying levels of
“open records” on eight – and we’ve been at it since the 1940s when they became
sealed and Jean Paton began the fight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I want to scream and cry and many days I want to throw in the towel and
give up. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But I cannot. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In <b><i>The Dark Side</i></b> introduction I write about Bonnie Lee
Black, author of Somewhere Child, <span style="letter-spacing: -.15pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;">about the abduction of her </span><span style="letter-spacing: -.3pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;">daughter by her estranged husband. When asked why she wrote the book, she
said:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="letter-spacing: -.1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;">". . . I </span><span style="letter-spacing: -.3pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;">want to live a normal life, but find I can't. Someone shot me </span><span style="letter-spacing: -.15pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;">in the back of the soul and made me a cripple from here </span><span style="letter-spacing: -.3pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;">down. The dead legs dangle from the wheelchair, lifeless— </span><span style="letter-spacing: -.25pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;">see? I can no longer dance or make love. Only the hands of </span><span style="letter-spacing: -.15pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;">my heart can move. They move along the smooth paper, </span><span style="letter-spacing: -.35pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;">dragging a pencil, leaving a trail of jagged marks that spell: I </span><span style="letter-spacing: -.15pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;">AM STILL HERE.”</span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="letter-spacing: -.15pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;">If “healing” means we get to live
a normal life, the answer for me is what is normal. I am forever impaired by
what happened to me in 1968 just as if I were run over by a truck and lost my
legs. Rather than oxygen, I found what I needed: crutches, wheelchairs and
orthotic legs – even some pretty nifty blade runners that let me run marathons
and speed races!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am a fighter! I
get it done! But at night I take off all the equipment that helps me through
the say and in my bed I am an amputee who lost her daughter and can never, ever
change that or what it meant for her life. And the next day, I get up and do it
all over again. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="letter-spacing: -.15pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="letter-spacing: -.15pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;"><b>That is my journey. All are
different.</b> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="letter-spacing: -.15pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="letter-spacing: -.15pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;"><b>Some run toward the fire in an effort to put it out and save whomever we can; some run from it to safety.</b> </span>Some find the loss to overwhelming to ever get out of bed, out from under the warm blankets and the peace of sleep. Some mothers - mostly older women - obediently go to their grave never telling anyone. Even some of my contemporaries never told their husbands until decades later - or until they were found! I cannot imagine living with the fear of having such a secret "found out" but such is the nature of denial. If I do not speak of it, it doesn't exist.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="letter-spacing: -.15pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: -.15pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;">I have known some of the many mothers who suffered secondary infertility - never able to bear another child after the loss of a child or children to adoption. Some tried and were crushed. Others have told me that they consciously refused to "replace" their lost child. They felt it disrespectful; like it would render their loss meaningless. I have also met double-surrender mothers who shared an after-the-fact hindsight awareness that they got pregnant almost <i>immediately</i> after their first loss in some subconscious effort to replace the lost child, only to lose another.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: -.15pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;">I heard one adoptee say their medical history was their adoptive family's medical history! That's beyond denial and into delusion - dangerous, life threatening delusion. I have also known of both adoptees and birth parents who go beyond denial and into justification. These are the adoptee/birth parent adopters and social workers who arrange adoptions. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: -.15pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;">Whether our choices are conscious or not, the underlying devastation is the same. Whether it happens to us with or without or knowledge that it is happening.</span></div>
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Beyond the sheer physical pain of loss there is the day-to-day reality of how much was lost to us when adoption severed us from our loved ones. The effect it has on our choices; the poor choices we make. We didn’t loose limbs; we lost huge chunks of our self-esteem! Adoptees are constantly reminded by societal messages that they are lucky not to have been aborted; mothers that we were shameful and unfit. Mothers can never heal as long as we worry about the well-being of our child(ren). For both us of us the loss is devastating to our souls. We all feel like damaged goods and effects all of our choices or creates an inability to make any decisions lest it be as wrong as that monumental “choice.” The ripples affect our families and all we come in contact with. We are forever wounded, even if we form layer upon layer of layer of scar tissue.... and with or without our conscious awareness.</div>
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Many of us wait for reunification to heal us only to find the sad reality that what is lost is lost and cannot be replaced. For too many reunion results in secondary losses or loosing again and again as the reunion open and closes; starts and stops for endless, painful periods of time lest we close ourselves up once again - protectively revert to lie under our safe warm covers in the dark. What else can one do? </div>
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For me, the answer is to fight back with activism. I am here now, 46 years later, still running back into fire-engulfed building. I am not "healed" and never will be, or can be, but I must keep on fighting because I didn't fight enough in 1968... and because if I ever stopped I don't know what would be left of me.<br />
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Much as I would love to see more soldier sin the fight against adoption discrimination and corruption, I understand that in terms of healing - as with religion - there is no ONE WAY.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->Mirah Ribenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13626873757236976251noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2384966947084602158.post-63694607242088514092013-12-04T11:53:00.000-08:002015-06-20T09:51:16.623-07:00The Philomena Penomenon: So Much More Than a Movie<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I am Philomena. </span></b><br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We all (birth parents) are Philomena, the mother portrayed in the film that bears her name.
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In the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2431286/%E2%80%8E">film</a> Judi Dench portrays Philomena Lee, an <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 16px;">Irish </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">woman who, never forgot the child </span></span><span style="line-height: 16px;">she birthed as a teenager and</span><span style="line-height: 16px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 16px;">she was for<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">ced to watch walk away from her while she was captive in a convent </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">in Sean Ross Abbey for 4 years, in the 1950s. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 16px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">It is loosely based on her true story and falls short of depicting the fact that</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><span style="line-height: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222;"> 10,000 women and girls as young as nine were punished for the "sin" sex outside of marriage - even those who had raped or incested. </span><a href="http://mannixflynn.wordpress.com/2013/10/20/the-politics-of-philomena/" style="color: #222222;">Mannix Flynn, Dublin City Councillor</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222;">, calls it </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">"</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; font-weight: 300; line-height: 24px;">sentimentalised through a naive catholic spiritualism" and </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 22px;">writes:</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #373737; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-weight: 300; line-height: 24px;">...Mr Coogan, producer, co-writer and star of the movie, didn’t really understand the politics of the issue of the banished babies and the criminal trafficking of children for profit out of Ireland and other countries that was perpetrated by the Catholic Church and religious congregations.</span></blockquote>
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...<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #373737; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-weight: 300; line-height: 24px;">Nobody so far has been held to account for this practice; there have been no Garda investigations or Interpol investigations; nobody from the national Airlines (Aer Lingus) or Pan Am airlines that actually trafficked the children out of Ireland have been confronted. Indeed, this whole issue has been slightly saccarined and turned into a warm human interest story rather than a story of organised, joint-venture criminality.</span> </blockquote>
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...<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #373737; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-weight: 300; line-height: 24px;">Despite the warmth of the film and the good reception that it received at all the film festivals so far (Toronto, London, Venice) somewhere, the real issues that are at the centre of this story, the hard cruel facts, that unheard story, that brutality, uncomfortable as it is, has to be heard, has to be owned has to be accounted for. It is not just the story of Philomena and Anthony Lee, it is the story of a society and as such the secret history of Ireland and the Irish State and religious institutions cannot be so simply packaged in a feel-good, heartfelt portrayal of real events that have not been dealt with so far.</span></blockquote>
<a href="http://mannixflynn.wordpress.com/2013/10/20/the-politics-of-philomena/">Read Mr. Flynn's full critique here</a>. <br />
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Every woman who lost a child to adoption can relate to this mother's tragic loss and irresolvable grief. Fathers too who struggle against a system designed to take their parental rights without their consent share her painful loss. Loss is loss. Grief is grief. <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/AdoptAuthor/grief">Both are universal emotions</a> suffered equally by mothers in Los Angeles and fathers in Sierra Leone. The loss to adoption has been called a limbo loss and the pain irresolvable. It is socially unacceptable to lose a child to adoption and thus has no ritual or comforting support as does the loss of a child to death or miscarriage. Mothers like Philomena have traditionally been told to keep adoption loss a secret and act as if nothing at all happened which adds to the shame. Rather than heal, studies (<a href="http://www.slideshare.net/AdoptAuthor/grief">quoted here</a>) indicate a mother's pain may exacerbate over her lifetime.<br />
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Other than intentional - and usually paid - surrogates (a practice which represents a who other level of exploitation), no woman becomes pregnant with the intent of "gifting" her child. Women do not chose to carry a child for nine months, risk their lives in delivery, with the fear of never being able to conceive or carry another pregnancy again…only to loose the current child.
Expectant mothers are subject to social, cultural and religious pressures to do so. Some are coerced, exploited, and deceived; alone, without any support, their lack of resources exploited.<br />
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In many parts of the world natural disasters or wars leave families vulnerable, as we saw in Haiti. In industrialized nations, poverty, youth and marital status are factors in judging who is and who is not deemed “worthy” of motherhood. Those on the losing side of that equation are persuaded that others are more "deserving" of a child than they themselves, they are told their baby deserves more than the love and continuity of heredity that they alone can offer.<br />
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In 1980 I co-founded of Origins, a NJ-based national organization for women who lost children to adoption. I was also involved with the AAC (as Director) and CUB. Through those organizations, as well as later online support groups and social media that connect adoptees and birthparents and blogs where they share their concerns...I have had my finger on the pulse of this marginalized population who were called the invisible side of the adoption triangle.<br />
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<b>What happened to Philomena is not at all unique. It happened - and still happens - </b>to women of all faiths throughout western Europe and here in the US as documented in Ann Fessler's book, "The Girls Who Went Away." In homes for unwed mothers in every state in the union during the 50s and 60s American woman tell of being spoken to <i>exactly</i> as the nun in the movie spoke to Ms. Lee during labor....with utter disdain, blame ans shame. Nuns, priests, ministers and Rabbis told us to lie to the men we might marry lest they wouldn't have us. We were stained and damaged. Today in America, the Religious Right that preaches love for fetuses shows similar contempt for the single mothers who bear them and deems them unfit to raise their own children.<br />
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<b>Back then it was sin and shame.</b> The stigma of "unwed" pregnancy has dissipated in the US since the post WWII years known as the "Baby Scoop Era" because of the large number of forced adoptions. Yet today, women who are deemed to young or too poor are still pressured, coerced, their temporary crisis and lack of wherewithal exploited. Fathers have their rights abrogated daily. The headline grabbing story of Baby Veronica is unfortunately not uncommon.<br />
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Currently, Allesandra Pacchieri, an Italian woman living in the UK is currently fighting for the return of her child and suing for having had a <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/03/pregnant-woman-surgery-baby/3856957/">forced cesarean birth in order to take her child from for adoption</a>. This flashback to the days of lobotomies occurred in the industrialized world in 2013 and <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2518417/Alessandra-Pacchieri--I-feel-baby-kicking-inside-I-crying-I-begged-cut-open.html#ixzz2mcQmiHQH">warranted this observation:</a><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The scale of public outrage has once again thrown the spotlight on family courts, which authorise the adoption of thousands of children, many forcibly removed from their mothers at birth, under strict secrecy.</span></blockquote>
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Many forcibly removed....and many of those for questionable "cause" in the UK and the U.S.<br />
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Adoption is admired as a win-win that rescues orphans and "unwanted" babies. The truth is that it is a billion dollar demand-driven industry that is far too loosely regulated, lacking in ethical guidelines and rampant with corruption and child trafficking. Adoption is racist and classist. In what has been called "Reverse Robinhoodism" it takes the babies of the poor and provides them to those willing to pay an average of $40k per child. Children are a highly sought commodity and there are not enough being placed truly voluntarily to meet the demand so the pressure is still on with adoption agencies spending millions on "marketing" to young women, inducing them with promises of openness. Some even offer college tuition. Expectant mothers are matched with prospective adopters who befriend, enmesh, and woo them with gifts, then hover over them at the moment of delivery denying new moms any time to bond...all orchestrated to create obligation and indebtedness, diminishing the mothers' ability to refuse to hand their child over despite strong natural inclinations not to.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>I am Philomena and every day Philomena's are created to meet the demand of the adoption industry.</b></span>Mirah Ribenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13626873757236976251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2384966947084602158.post-83562824017290468922013-11-26T13:19:00.001-08:002013-11-26T13:30:15.677-08:00Holiday Giving: Preserve Families and Prevent Unnecessary Adoption LossEvery year at this time we are inundated with donation requests. I know I am. I have in the past used this forum to recommend some good charities like SOS for Children, Feed the Children, UNICEF who help provide for families in crisis and thus avoid them being snatched by baby brokers or "well-meaning" missionaries.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">This year I am very pleased to share a very special and unique giving opportunity that will help support <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 16px;">5 mothers and 16 children who have been saved from the adoption industry....and hopefully provide </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 16px;">enough funds for Lynne Johansenn to continue this most valuable work.</span><br />
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Every year (as applicable) I also award a Family Preservation Hero of the Year Award. And this year it goes to Lynn Johansenn:<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kX_D3JWdEJU/UpUPqwWh06I/AAAAAAAABJo/k_J_P7RBD9g/s1600/2013+hero+johansenn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kX_D3JWdEJU/UpUPqwWh06I/AAAAAAAABJo/k_J_P7RBD9g/s400/2013+hero+johansenn.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I commend Lynn for putting her beliefs into action! I personally housed two moms keeping them and their chidren from becoming victims of adoption rhetoric. Their stories are told in <i>The Stork Market</i>, chapter 9: Preserving Parenthood, pages 163-170. Also on those pages is my most proud "save" - the rescue of the toddler found in the squalid Steinberg NYC "house of horrors" where illegally adopted Lisa was murdered after years of abuse. In addition to reuniting hundreds of families, these are my proudest moments!</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Not all of us are blessed with the opportunity to be able to physically rescue families in needs, but we </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 16px;">can give $5, $10 or $100 to help these families and others like them.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 16px;">Please donate as you are able. It will make YOUR holidays brighter as well as theirs.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 16px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/216183481887706/">Help save a family! Make a donation!</a></span></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 16px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/216183481887706/">Read their stories.</a></span></b></span></div>
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Mirah Ribenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13626873757236976251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2384966947084602158.post-11488046400596180322013-11-26T10:22:00.001-08:002013-12-17T14:18:33.469-08:00Pro Adoption = Family DissolutionThe adoption reform community is well aware of - and grateful to - the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute (EBDAI) for their support of open adoption and equal access for adult adoptees.<br />
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Most (some?) are also aware that besides fixing those two issues and giving lip service to ending corruption and exploitation that is endemic in adoption, EBDAI is totally pro-adoption.<br />
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The American Adoption Congress (AAC) is likewise pro-adoption as long as it is open and adult adoptees get their birth certificates. Both organizations rely heavily on the financial support of adopters.<br />
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The AAC holds warm-fuzzy support groups workshops at all its conferences, which along with membership are the source of the organization's self-sustaining existence. Such support groups are very helpful and always needed as long as there continues to be a steady flow of new adoptees, new LDAs and new birth parents, siblings etc.<br />
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Both EBDAI and AAC are very good ambulances at the bottom of the cliff....there to dry your tears and bandage you up after you were torn apart by the very thing they promote. Just like adoption agency businesses who also provide fee-paid post adoption support, preventing the tragedies, the loss, the grief, the guilt, the shame, the lack of self-esteem...would put them out of business.<br />
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They are both as disingenuous as BP oil company which runs TV ads on how they are restoring the Gulf - without mentioning that it was they who destroyed it! They are analogous to cigarette companies running anti-smoking campaigns and state lotteries adding a note at the bottom of their ads that if you have a gambling problem call 1-800-GAMBLE!<br />
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The facts are very clear and they are not hidden. Donaldson Institute owes its existence to Spence-Chapin Adoption Agency which founded the "think tank" and is still a <a href="http://www.adoptioninstitute.org/media/partners.php">partner</a> along with the Cradle adoption agency. <a href="http://www.adoptioninstitute.org/about/history.php">See "History" under "About"</a>:<br />
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The Adoption Institute was established in 1996 through the initiative of the Board of <a href="http://www.spence-chapin.org/" style="color: #3b4190;">Spence-Chapin Services to Families and Children</a>, which saw a need for an independent and unbiased adoption research and policy organization. </blockquote>
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<strong>Evan B. Donaldson</strong> was a member of the Spence-Chapin Board of Directors continuously from 1977 on, serving as president from 1986 until her death in 1994. She was energetically involved in the planning of the Institute. Dedicated to the value of families, Evan Donaldson worked tirelessly to enable infants and children to have permanent loving homes.</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.adoptioninstitute.org/media/partners.php">All EBDAI partners here</a>.<br />
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(A bit less transparent, is the story of EBDAI's Executive Director, Adam Pertman's personal adoption journey. Read on...)<br />
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But first, be aware that EBDAI also receives support from <a href="http://www.adoptioninstitute.org/events/TOS_2013.php">Hugh Jackman and his wife</a>, the Aussie couple who adopted from the US and are well known for trying to overturn Australia's family Preservation policies:<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">HUGH JACKMAN's actress wife DEBORRA-LEE FURNESS is <a href="http://www.express.co.uk/news/showbiz/442760/Hugh-Jackman-s-wife-fighting-for-changes-to-Australian-adoption-laws">challenging politicians in her native Australia to relax adoption laws so more prospective parents can take in orphans</a></span></blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Jackman's wife, Deborah-Lee Furness<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 17px;"> serves as executive director of the Worldwide Orphans Foundation in her native Australia, and wrote </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 17px;"><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/16/opinion/international-adoption-deborra-lee-furness/">an opinion piece for CNN.com, detailing her frustration at the "global orphan crisis."</a></span> </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Of course the real crisis is the FAMILIES failing to receive the support and resources they need, whether it is a single Mom of three in California (see below), an AIDS victim in Africa, or street urchins in Mumbai. But why prevent a "crisis" when it can be exploited to the advantage of so many "deserving" couple and those who earn their livelihood in transferring kids...and come off as saviors at the same time? What a win-win adoption is -- for all but the children and their families -- for whim its a trade off a material possessions and advantages for heritage, truth....</span><br />
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Click "Adoption Gear" tab above to get your own sticker and more.</div>
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How does a mother of multiple children - or her other children - benefit from losing one of their kin? One less mouth to feed in exchange for a lifetime of guilt and grief? And the public applauds the Jackman's and the Pertmans (read below) and the Joneses and the Smiths as "heroes" and "rescuers" for nobly snatching a child they covet, lust after and feel entitled to because they are somehow judged as "better." And our laws continue to promote and encourage more and more family deconstructions and recreations.<br />
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<b>What Has EBDAI <i>Done</i>?</b><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Adam Pertman has been quoted as calling American adoption practice "The Wild West" referring to the lack of governmental oversight and regulation. </span>Ann Babb, in her book <i>The Ethics of American Adoption</i>, states that adoption agencies in the US are less regulated that nail salons. <u>What has the Donaldson Institute done or suggested be done - as think tanks do - to change this</u>? What does EBDAI suggest needs to be done and by whom?</div>
Why is it that Real Estate brokers and agents have a code of ethics, but none exist for child adoption agencies and their employees and contractors as well as adoption attorneys who are adept at finding loopholes and state-directing clients? What has EBDAI to SUGGEST any such ethical guidelines within the adoption industry?
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="border-collapse: separate; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="border-collapse: separate; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Adam Pertman's reaction to the recent Reuters report on re-homing was to call for more help for families who adopt troubled children. Again - attempting to "fix" life altering problems rather than prevent them. <u>Why did was not more and better vetting beforehand suggested</u>? Does not having adopters pay for their own home studies create a conflict of interest? Why has EBDAI not set guidelines for adoption agencies to ensure that prospective adopters understand the difficulties they may face? And <u>why were no penalties suggested for those who re-home</u>?</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="border-collapse: separate; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="border-collapse: separate; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">There is also a conflict of interest - and distorted expectations - in domestic adoption when adopters pay the legal fees and expenses of expectant mothers. Could this not be resolved by having such funds held in escrow or in state repositories rather than used to intimidate, coerce and instill feelings of indebtedness? </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="border-collapse: separate; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="border-collapse: separate; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Who protects the best interests of the children being transferred via adoption that is entrepreneurial and caters to the one paying client? Does EBDAI see a need for more protection for the children? What are they doing in that regard?</span></span></span></div>
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</span>The EBDAI supports adoptee access to their original birth certificate, but the institute has been silent on the falsifying the <i>vital</i> record of their birth in the first place. When a child needs extra-familial care, is falsifying their birth certificate - sometimes changing date and place of birth - in their best interest or should that practice be stopped as well?<span style="border-collapse: separate; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="border-collapse: separate; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="border-collapse: separate; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">The institute favors open adoption but are not open adoptions in most states a disingenuous promise to make to an expectant mother since there is limited enforcement in a limited number of states? Does EBDAI support enforcement of such contracts?</span></span></span></div>
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</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="border-collapse: separate; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="border-collapse: separate; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="border-collapse: separate; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="border-collapse: separate; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Where was EBDAI stand on cases of fathers' rights abrogation such as Baby Veronica and now Deserai? Why have they not submitted briefs to the courts denouncing these practices?</span></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">FINALLY, what is the relationship between the Evan B. Donaldosn Adoption Institute and Spence-Chapin Adoption Agency, and The Cradle Adoption Agency? Do these relationships not create a conflict of interest for this "think tank"? Is Adam Pertman, the Exec Dir of EBD, a paid spokesperson for the adoption industry and its member agencies? </span>
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<b>Adam Pertman the Executive Director of EBDAI:</b> </div>
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With all due respect for the venerable top US media go-to "expert" on adoption today - with no training or credentials in social work or anything related... The following were his thoughts, his words, in 2001 when he adopted his second child - taking her from her Mom and two siblings in California, and leaving her to explain to explain their baby sister's disappearance from their family: </div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">"...after bonding with a pregnant Erin in 1997, the [Pertmans] leaped at the chance to attend Emmy's birth and spend a week with Erin and her two kids. "Zackie played with his sister's siblings, who aren't his siblings," says Pertman. "It's a modern American family."</span></span></blockquote>
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Pertman was one of the early "open" adopters in what seems to be - or were - in actuality identified adoptions.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">"We can now tell him things about her."</span> </span></blockquote>
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Read it all in <a href="http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20134693,00.html">"One Big Happy Family" by Joanne Fowler in People, June 18, 2001, Vol. 55, No. 24.</a><br />
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The justification for taking a child such as this from a family is that if they don't, someone else will. NOT if the family was fostered. All they need is a year or two help. It's so doable. See <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/216183481887706/">Sponsor a Family.</a><br />
<ul>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because his conscience tells him that it is right. ~ Martin Luther King</b></span></li>
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<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. ~ Unknown</b></span></li>
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<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b><span class="sqq"><span class="sqq">I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. ~ Elie Wiesel, Nobel Price for Peace, 1986</span></span></b></span></li>
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We all have to chose to be part of the problem of part of the solution. Holding hands and lamenting is not a solution.<br />
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It's amazing how when adoptees or birth parents speak out we are called bitter or it is noted that we have an agenda. But adoptive parents such as Pertman - <i>with credentials no different from mine</i> - personal connection to adoption, passion about it, and an ability to write articles and a book (or two)...is given a title and a salary and backed by an "institute" as their paid spokesperson.... and the media looks to him as "THE expert" on all things adoption! Just a guy who got two kids he wanted and made a career of it.<br />
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Mirah Ribenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13626873757236976251noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2384966947084602158.post-6778301444384255502013-11-11T21:58:00.002-08:002013-11-13T09:09:39.725-08:00The Truth About Veronica Brown Capobianco and her Daddy Dusten BrownAs if they have not caused enough harm, Matt and Melanie Capobianco have named 4-year-old Veronica - the child they took from her loving father - as defendant in their million-dollar lawsuit.<br />
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They - incredibly - seek repayment of legal service that were reportedly performed pro-bono, and child care costs for the period of time Veronica was in her father's custody!<br />
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I am told that Veronica is named tin order for the Capobiancos to get a judgment against her estate<br />
to control any money due her in the future as a movie about the case is likely.<br />
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I encourage all bloggers to <a href="http://ftpcontent.worldnow.com/griffin/NEWSon6/PDF/1310/capobianco_lawsuit.pdf">share this link</a> and expose this injustice to show these people for what they are and to leave a trial of their unending vengeance for Veronica to find.... these people who sat on Dr. Phil saying that they were all getting along and having visitation now that it was all over.<br />
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UPDATE: Ya' gotta be kidding! Reportedly the Capos are trying to get all social media to remove all photos of Dusten and Ronnie. What a joke. The photos are in the media which covered this story. And, they are on <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=veronica+and+dusten+brown&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=8sCCUv6PDdGq4APa3IHgBQ&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=805&bih=326">Google Images</a>!!! Good luck with all those lawsuits to have them taken down.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_GIS_nhTfA0/UoK986n9qhI/AAAAAAAABFo/mlo2rVCBY6w/s1600/veronica1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="199" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_GIS_nhTfA0/UoK986n9qhI/AAAAAAAABFo/mlo2rVCBY6w/s320/veronica1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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And Dusten's website, <a href="http://www.keepveronicahome.com/">Keep Veronica Home</a> has ALL their photos </div>
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and I hope it's never taken down! </div>
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This blog post will FOREVER be here for Veronica to find. </div>
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I used her adoptive name to help her find this page.</div>
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Other resources with details of the case:</div>
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<a href="https://www.facebook.com/StandingOurGroundForVeronicaBrown">Standing Our Ground for Veronica Brown</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqEVMnVUKcw%E2%80%8E">Standing Our ground for Veronica on YouTube</a></div>
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<a href="http://KeepVeronicaHome.com/">KeepVeronicaHome.com</a></div>
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Share <a href="http://familypreservation.blogspot.com/2013/11/matt-melanie-capobianco-named-4-year.html">the link to this page</a> and feel free to REBLOG!!! PLEASE!</div>
Mirah Ribenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13626873757236976251noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2384966947084602158.post-88432818844447460102013-11-05T11:48:00.001-08:002013-11-09T11:33:05.792-08:00National Adoption AWARENESS Month: Myths and Facts<b>Lauren Casper is an adoptive parent whose National Adoption Month blog post, <a href="http://www.laurencasper.com/2013/11/07/national-adoption-month-it-all-starts-with-ashes/">It All Starts With Ashes</a>, exhibits her sensitivities to the losses that precede adoption.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Recognition of the loss, pain and trauma that precedes every adoption is a very good FIRST STEP. Reunification with original family, whenever possible, is a far more important step for adoptees and the families they are born into. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>But, we cannot simply recognize the losses of adoption and continue to perpetuate them. All of us who have become enlightened have an obligation, I believe, to educate others to PREVENT as many future losses, pain and suffering as possible. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>We can either be part of the solution or part of the problem. To see wrong and not do right is to be party to that wrong. Far too many adoptions begin with good intent on the part of the adopters, but are accomplished with corruption, coercion and exploitation on the part of those meeting the demand for children for adoption - unbeknownst to well-intentioned adopters.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>We who are enlightened about the truths of adoption need to educate those who are still in the dark. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b>What better time than National Adoption Awareness Month to help dispel the myths and bring light to the lies perpetrated by the adoption industry and its practitioners whose livelihood depends filling a demand for children. Adoption is romanticized and glamorized (as smoking once was in our society!). It's encouraged, promoted and supported by laws and policies including tax breaks. Yet, by and large the children used as the face of those in need are left behind as adoption serves its paid clients' desire for young babies, or children from overseas.</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b> </b></span></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<u><b>MYTH</b>: </u><b><u>Adoption is a win-win. It matches unwanted children with families who want them</u>.</b><br />
<br />
<b>FACT</b>: Unplanned is not unwanted, nor is being pressured to relinquish your rights, or coerced to. No woman - American or foreign born - dreams of conceiving a child, carry and birthing that child, and giving it away. The vast majority of adoptions are a result of the exploitation of a temporary crisis, most often poverty that could be resolved in ways that help the entire family and allow them to remain intact.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“Unwanted” is a euphemism applied to children and their families who are too poor and have too few social supports. The making of money as a prerequisite for parenthood in a society that privileges the White heterosexual individual is a key component of the continued disenfranchisement of the least powerful. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><a href="http://www.conducivemag.com/2009/08/editorial-trading-in-babies/">Trading in Babies by So Yung Kim, Aug. 13, 2009, Conducive Magazine</a></span></blockquote>
<b>FACT</b>: Worldwide adoption exploits natural disasters, war, and unstable governments.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 26px;">“Regrettably, in many cases, the emphasis has changed from the desire to provide a needy child with a home, to that of providing a needy parent with a child. As a result, a whole industry has grown, generating millions of dollars of revenues each year . . .” </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 26px;">The Special Rapporteur, United Nations, Commission on Human Rights, 2003.</span></span></span></blockquote>
On an individual basis, adoption exploits poverty and ignorance, taking advantage of people's inability to read or understand english to even the concept of adoption as permanent. Parents are lied to and deceived to believe their children are coming to the US for an education and will be returned to them.<br />
<br />
Domestically, mothers are given unenforceable promises of open adoption and are pre-birth matched getting them enmeshed in relationships with those vying for their child in ways that make them feel indebted and obligated.<br />
<br />
<u><b>MYTH</b>: <b>There are 140-150,000+ orphans available for adoption.</b></u><br />
<br />
<b>FACT</b>: <a href="http://www.brandeis.edu/investigate/adoption/docs/FPFinalTheLieWeLove.pdf">Nearly ninety percent (88.7%) of the children in orphanages worldwide are not orphans</a> but have at least one living parent and/or extended family. Families in many nations use orphanages to provide services for their children such as education and medical care that they cannot afford but have no intention, however, of having their child taken for permanent adoption. Nor are these children available for adoption.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"...95 percent of orphans are older than 5. In
other words, unicef’s “millions of
orphans” are not healthy babies doomed to institutional misery unless
Westerners adopt and save them. Rather, they are mostly older children living with
extended families who need financial support." <a href="http://www.brandeis.edu/investigate/adoption/docs/FPFinalTheLieWeLove.pdf">E.J. Graff. The Lie We Love, Foreign Policy, Nov./Dec. 2008</a></blockquote>
<!--EndFragment--><br />
The numbers of 'orphans' are intentionally inflated by the adoption industry which uses terms such as "half orphan" or "social orphan" to tug at heartstrings, and encourage religious and humanitarian adoptions. A half orphan in the industrialized world is a single parent, who ironically can adopt!<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">"Defining the child as an orphan is frequently done by people who have a vested interest in the final outcome." <a href="http://sgo.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/11/14/2158244011428160.full#aff-1">In an Era of Reform: A review of social work literature on Intercountry adoption, Rotabi and Bunkers</a></span></blockquote>
<b>FACT</b>: If there were truly so many children in real need of adoption placement, why do nations such Guatemala, Vietnam, Russia, Nepal, Ethiopia stop International adoption (IA) because of corruption, specifically child trafficking for adoption to meet a demand? Worldwide, babies and children are abducted by child traffickers and passed off as abandoned to foreign orphanages. Consumers - and even reputable US adoption agencies - have no way of verifying that children being offered for adoption have not been stolen, kidnapped, or coerced from unwitting parents.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 26px;">"Over the past 30 years, the number of families from wealthy countries wanting to adopt children from other countries has grown substantially. At the same time, lack of regulation and oversight, particularly in the countries of origin, coupled with the potential for financial gain, has spurred the growth of an industry around adoption, where profit, rather than the best interests of children, takes centre stage. Abuses include the sale and abduction of children, coercion of parents, and bribery." </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 26px;">UNICEF's position on Inter-country adoption.</span></span></blockquote>
<b>FACT</b>: When nations have shut down their IA programs the number of orphans has not increased indicating clearly that demand creates the "supply." Adoption is market-driven and serves those who are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars for a child, not the children in need who remain behind in orphanages and US foster care.<br />
<br />
<b>FACT</b>: The average cost of an adoption is $40,000. If your goal is altruism, there are many better ways to help orphans rather than plucking them one at a time from their homeland, their culture and heritage while leaving their siblings behind in the same conditions. Donations to organizations such as save the children, Christian Children's fund and UNICEF provide much needed medical provisions, wells, schools and school books.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 26px;">"...overseas adoption is a kind of child abuse by the state. ....Overseas adoption is the forced expulsion of children from the society where they are supposed to live. In this sense, overseas adoption is a social violence against children. As humans, we exist as part of a gigantic ecosystem. The existence of the biological parents of adoptees can never be annihilated nor denied.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 26px;">"Overseas adoption is a forced separation of children from their natural ecosystems, as well as a way of forcing them into compulsory unity with settings different from and unnatural to their genetic and original social systems. Through this forced separation and compulsory unity, not only the adoptees, but also their biological parents, adoptive parents and their family members suffer trauma."</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 26px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 26px;">Pastor Kim Do-hyun, director of KoRoot</span> </span></blockquote>
<u><b>MYTH</b>: <b>Children who could be adopted from foster care are likely to be "damaged" in some way.</b></u><br />
<br />
<b>FACT</b>: There are half a million children in US foster care. More than 100,000 of those have no identified family to be reunified safely with and <i>could</i> be adopted. While these are in fact "older" children and some may have disabilities, the same is true of children adopted internationally although the truth of IA child's developmental problems are far more likely NOT to be revealed truthfully or fully.<br />
<br />
Many development delays and behavioral problems are not evident until after international adoptions have been finalized. Any child who has been institutionalized is "damaged" and many of the children form Eastern Europe suffer fetal alcohol syndrome. Utilizing foster-to-adopt programs prospective adopters can live with a child before making a lifelong, permanent commitment and it is also easier to obtain family medical histories which are non-existent on children claimed to have been abandoned.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">"There is an almost inexhaustible demand for very young children to adopt. People looking to adopt are generally looking to adopt children under the age of three, and preferably under the age of one. That's your essential problem. In America, which is the biggest importer, if you like, there are 23,000 children in the foster system waiting for adoption, but most of them will be aged five to 16. There's a very rich, powerful and well-resourced inter-country adoption lobby in the United States." <i> </i>Andy</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;"> Elvin, of <a href="http://www.childrenacrossborders.org/%E2%80%8E">Children and Families Across Borders</a></span></blockquote>
<u><b>MYTH</b>: <b>Adoption is the same as if the child were born into his family.</b></u><br />
<br />
<b>FACT</b>: While the system was aimed at creating and perpetrating this myth, even falsifying birth certificates to list adoptive parents as parents of birth, it is not the same. Adopted children have their own heredity and genes that effect their physical appearance and health as well as their psychological development.<br />
<br />
Even legally, adoptees are not equal to children born into their families as the vast majority of US states deny adopted persons access to their own birth certificate for all or part of their lives.<br />
<br />
<u><b>MYTH</b>: <b>Adoption provides children a better life because those who adopt are highly motivated, of higher socio-economic status and better educated, etc.</b></u><br />
<br />
<b>FACT</b>: Adoption is a trade-off which usually provides more material "privileges" in exchange for a loss of heritage and genealogical connectedness, often with feelings of abandonment and rejection.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Adoption Loss is the only trauma in the world where the victims are expected by the whole of society to be grateful"<b> - </b>The Reverend Keith C. Griffith, MBE </blockquote>
<b>FACT</b>: Adoptive parents die and divorce at at least the same rate as all parents and this often leaves a child in a single-parent home with the same disadvantages that brings.<br />
<br />
<b>FACT</b>: Because adoption in the US today is privatized, and entrepreneurial, home studies are paid for prospective adopters and are less than thorough. Children have been adopted by pedophiles and other abusers. Children have been beaten, caged, burned, starved, tortured, sexually abused and <a href="http://adoption.about.com/od/adoptionrights/p/russiancases.htm">murdered by adoptive parents</a>.<br />
<br />
<b>FACT</b>: Adoptees suffer a disproportionate rate of substance abuse, are disproportionately seen in all types of treatment facilities, and suffer a h<a href="http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_140481.html">igher rate of suicide than non-adoptees</a>.<br />
<br />
Read about "Post Adoption Issues" in <i><b>Impact of Adoption on Adopted Persons</b></i> from <a href="https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/f_adimpact.pdf#page=2&view=Postadoption%20Issues">the US government's Child Welfare Information Gateway here</a>.<br />
<br />
<b>FACT</b>: Approximately 10-25% of adoptions fail and adoptees are abandoned or given to total strangers as detailed in a <a href="http://www.reuters.com/investigates/adoption/#article/part1">5-part Reuters investigative report, Sept, 2013</a>.<br />
<br />
<b><u>The FACT is</u> that every adoption starts with a tragedy - a family who failed to find the resources they needed to remain together. To promote or encourage more loss is immoral. Chemo helps many people survive cancer, but we don't stop seeking a way to prevent this horrible disease and simply put more and more people on harsh drug, and radiation therapies or expose them to surgeries.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Humane societies need to regulate adoption so that it is safe for the most vulnerable of their citizens and enact <a href="http://familypreservation.blogspot.com/p/what-is-family-preservation.html">Family Preservation</a> measures to reduce the number of children redistributed.</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i><span style="font-weight: bold;">"The Convention on the Rights of the Child, which guides UNICEF’s work, clearly states that every child has the right to know and be cared for by his or her own parents, whenever possible. Recognising this, and the value and importance of families in children’s lives, UNICEF believes that families needing support to care for their children should receive it, and that alternative means of caring for a child should only be considered when, despite this assistance, a child’s family is unavailable, unable or unwilling to care for him or her...." </span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://www.unicef.org/media/media_41118.html">UNICEF's position on Inter-country adoption</a></span></b></blockquote>
<b><u>The FACT is</u> that adoptions based on lies and government committed fraud to promulgate those lies in the form of falsified birth certificates and denied access to the accurate vital record of the birth, are a violation of human and civil rights and need to be outlawed.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>How can any society promote what amounts to indenture and laws that discriminate, applying only to SOME citizens and not others, based solely on what was done TO these people without their knowledge or approval? </b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">"It should matter to everyone that adopted people, on reaching the age of majority, cannot automatically obtain their own original birth certificates like the rest of us. We should care, and we should feel outraged, for the same reason so many men supported suffrage for women and so many white Americans joined the civil rights struggle -- because we should find it offensive when any minority group in society is deprived of equal rights." “A Civil Right: Adoptees Should Have Access to their Birth Certificates” </span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">by Adam Pertman, </span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Huffington Post, 1/12/11 </span></span></b></blockquote>
<br />
<b>RESOURCES:</b><br />
<ul>
<li style="line-height: 19px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline !important;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 26px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Profit, not care: The ugly side of overseas adoptions </span></span></div>
</span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline !important; line-height: 19px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 26px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/profit-not-care-the-ugly-side-of-overseas-adoptions-2293198.html</span></span></div>
</span></b></span></b></li>
<li style="line-height: 19px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline !important; line-height: 19px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 26px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Adoption as Supply-and-Demand for Infertile Couples http://www.americanmamacita.com/blog/adoption-as-supply-and-demand-for-infertile-couples/</span></span></div>
</span></b></span></b></li>
<li style="line-height: 19px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline !important; line-height: 19px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 26px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Profit not care: the ugly side of overseas adoptions </span></span></span></div>
</span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><div style="display: inline !important; line-height: 19px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/profit-not-care-the-ugly-side-of-overseas-adoptions-2293198.html</span></div>
</span></b></span></b></li>
<li style="line-height: 19px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline !important; line-height: 20pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Orphaned or Stolen: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/schuster-institute-for-investigative-journalism/orphaned-or-stolen-the-us_b_825451.html</span></div>
</span></b></span></b></li>
<li style="line-height: 19px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline !important; line-height: 20pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Duped by Indian adoption agency, US family cautions couples. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/</span></div>
</span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline !important; line-height: 20pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Duped-by-Indian-adoption-agency-US-family-cautions-couples/articleshow/5964751.cms </span></div>
</span></b></span></b></li>
<li style="line-height: 19px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline !important; line-height: 20pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Julia Rollings story at: http://bittersweet-story.blogspot.com/</span></div>
</span></b></span></b></li>
<li style="line-height: 19px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline !important; line-height: 20pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The Lie We Love by E.J.Graff http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2008/12/11/the-lie-we-love</span></div>
</span></b></span></b></li>
<li style="line-height: 19px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline !important; line-height: 20pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The works of David Smolin on child trafficking: works.bepress.com/david_smolin/1/</span></div>
</span></b></span></b></li>
<li><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 26px;">The Child Catchers by Kathryn Joyce</span></b></li>
<li><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 26px;">Finding Fernanda by Erin Siegal</span></b></li>
<li><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 26px;">Romania: For Export Only by Roelie Post</span></b></li>
<li><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 26px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The Language of Blood by Jane Jeong Trenka</span></span></span></b></li>
<li><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 26px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Outsiders Within by Jane Jeong Trenka</span></span></span></b></li>
<li><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 26px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Fugitive Visions by Jane Jeong Trenka</span></span></span></b></li>
<li><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 26px;">The STORK MARKET: America's Multi-Billion Dollar Unregulated Adoption Industry by Mirah Riben</span></b></li>
</ul>
Many good articles exposing the underbelly of adoption are published at <a href="http://dissidentvoice.org/search/?cx=004699754223191941067%3Adjkep-0myaa&cof=FORID%3A11&ie=UTF-8&q=adoption&sa=Search">DissidentVoice. To see a complete list, use this link.</a><br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 26px;">RE CHINA:</span></b></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 26px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/10/world/asia/china-baby-trafficking-twin-girls/index.html?hpt=hp_t1</span></span></b></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 26px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">http://www.chinapost.com.tw/china/national-news/2012/06/17/344625/China-sentences.htm</span></span></b></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8939661/Chinese-police-rescue-178-children-after-mass-child-trafficking-ring-bust.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8939661/Chinese-police-rescue-178-children-after-mass-child-trafficking-ring-bust.html</span></a></span></b></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/nyregion/chinas-adoption-scandal-sends-chills-through-families-in-united-states.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2</span></b></div>
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</b>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/adoption-stories/200909/la-times-chinese-babies-stolen-foreign-adoption</span></b></div>
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</b>
<b></b><br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">http://www.mercatornet.com/family_edge/view/5824/</span></b></div>
<b>
</b>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">http://ouradopt.com/adoption-blog/jan-2009/juliafuller/was-baby-you-adopted-china-stolen-or-purchased </span></b></div>
<b>
</b>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 26px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://livingwithdeadhearts.com/">http://livingwithdeadhearts.com/</a></span></span></b></div>
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</b>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Re ETHIOPIA:</span></b></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 26px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">http://allafrica.com/stories/201208061002.html</span></span></b></div>
<b>
</b>
<b></b><br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> <a href="http://familypreservation.blogspot.com/2010/05/must-see-video-news-report-about-child.html">http://familypreservation.blogspot.com/2010/05/must-see-video-news-report-about-child.html</a></span></b></div>
<b>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 26px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6211026n</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">http://www.ethicanet.org/ethiopia-to-cut-foreign-adoptions-by-up-to-90-percent</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p> </o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rani-hong/human-trafficking-prevention-month_b_1199395.html" style="text-decoration: underline;">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rani-hong/human-trafficking-prevention-month_b_1199395.html</a></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 20pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Inside Ethiopia's Adoption Boom http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304811304577368243366708110.html</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">"<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;">To focus on these children without focusing on their families or communities thus becomes an ignoble hypocrisy; as if to say, 'give us your huddled masses–but only if they are cute children and can be indoctrinated from an early age'.” </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.necn.com/11/07/13/Ethiopian-girl-lands-in-Maine-after-long/landing.html?blockID=857139&feedID=11106">http://www.necn.com/11/07/13/Ethiopian-girl-lands-in-Maine-after-long/landing.html?blockID=857139&feedID=11106</a></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">RE RUSSIA:</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br class="webkit-block-placeholder" /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Nineteen Russian children have been MURDERED by American adopters.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">http://adoption.about.com/od/adoptionrights/p/russiancases.htm</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><br /></span></span></div>
</b><br />
<br />Mirah Ribenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13626873757236976251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2384966947084602158.post-49917410142864846492013-11-02T11:14:00.004-07:002013-11-02T12:10:50.828-07:00The Language of Respect<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.</i> George Orwell, 1984</blockquote>
As a nation, among the many things we are divided on is "politically correct" language. Some feel it is being shoved down their throats and it makes them defensive. We saw this in the Paula Dean bru-ha-ha. I like to say to those opposed to "political correctness" that PC stands for POLITE and CONCERNED. I think it's all a matter of respect. <br />
<br />
When I was told that referring to human beings as "Orientals", as had been accepted in the past, was no longer so...that rugs are oriental but people are Asian... I simply changed my wordage so as not to be offensive, albeit unintentionally. Others balk and act as if the mere suggestion of being respectful of how people wish be defined and addressed is a violation of their free speech. <br />
<br />
My Grandma felt she was too young to be a grandmother. We were asked to call her Molly and did. It never confused our relationship with her. If a neighbor's child tells you that it hurts his feelings to be referred to as retarded, would you persist in doing so? <b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000;">Bigoted slurs in conjunction with a brawl can change the legal dynamic of a simple assault into a federal hate crime.</span></b> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000;"><b>In the workplace as well discriminatory or sexist language can rise to a legal offense, civilly if not criminally. </b></span>Obviously the language we use is important and there ARE limIts on our freedom of speech.<br />
<br />
<b>Speaking of Adoption</b><br />
<br />
Within the adoption community labels have always been contentious. A young child, upon learning a playmate is adopted, will nine times out of ten blurt out a very simple and logical follow-up question: <b>"Do you know who your real parents are?"</b> It's as innocent and natural a question as asking a resident new to your community or a new classmate where they moved from. yet for adoptive parents - and adoptees - it raises issues and the hair on the back of their neck.<br />
<br />
If you are living with and being raised by people who ADOPTED you, then you were not born to them and obviously have some genetic roots elsewhere. Ten-year-olds know this quite naturally. yet adoptive parents get bent out of shape when adults ask them the same question, even when asked about their very obviously, racially different, child. Many adopters report finding the question invasive and offensive. Mostly it is the use of the "real" - as in "do you know your child's 'real' parents?" that is troublesome for adopters. <b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000;">They object to biological creation being - rightfully - described as "real" and "natural" thus making adoption unreal and unnatural, which it is is. </span></b> Many say they respond to such questions with a quick: "I am his REAL mother!" which of course is legally true and verified by a falsified birth certificate that says so. Step parents, it seems, even those who have raised a child since infancy, are far less defensive in revealing their step-parent relationship.<br />
<br />
The problem with this and so much sensitivity in adoption language is taking a real fact of the PROCESS of adoption and making it personal. Adopters take the fact that they are not the real or natural parents of their child as a slight against them, as if it makes them "lesser" instead of just having created their family <i>differently</i>. The roots of this defensiveness lie in unresolved feelings of inadequacy of having not been able to conceive and birth a child of their own...or, in other cases from wanting to paint a "color blind" attitude that portrays just how much they love all of their children - home grown and adopted - equally.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 11px;"><i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; letter-spacing: -0.2pt; line-height: 150%;">"Adoption is not identical
with producing one's own child into one's own family. Not to recognize this
reality is to </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; letter-spacing: -0.1pt; line-height: 150%;">romanticize adoption, and adoption literature abounds in
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; letter-spacing: -0.2pt; line-height: 150%;">such pretense." </span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 11px;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; letter-spacing: -0.2pt; line-height: 24px;">John Triseliotos, author of In Search of Origins<i>.</i></span></span></blockquote>
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<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: -0.2pt;">"The </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: -0.3pt;">traditional
blood-kin family is composed of one mother, one </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: -0.25pt;">father, and their child or children. The adoptive family
is composed of two mothers, two fathers and a child common </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: -0.2pt;">to them. Although society, and to
some extent adoptive parents, would like to pretend that it is exactly like a
tradi</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: -0.3pt;">tional family, it
is the differences that are extremely signifi</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"><i>cant in each member's life." </i>Dr. Herbert Wieder, Pyschiatrist with decades of experience working with adoptive families, testifying for Assembly Bill 2051 (Adoption) in Trenton, NJ, December, 1981.</span></blockquote>
It is recognizing these differences that are crucial to healthy inter-family relations in adoptive families. The reality that the world sees is that every child is born to a set of parents with whom he or she shares DNA that makes that connection very <i>real</i> in a way that cannot be denied by thought, wishes or language. The connection is one formed in nature and is thus <i>natural </i>as opposed to legal arrangements made for the care of children subsequently.<br />
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<b>The Flip Side</b><br />
<br />
Another aspect of hurtful language is the use of the term "bio." While I have never objected to being referred to as a birth mother, I find "bio" extremely and <i>intentionally</i> COLD and distancing. Recently I heard a euphemism that was new to me: LIFE GIVER. It doesn't seem too bad except that it was said repeatedly as LIFE GIVER - in caps - and never "my life giver." And, in context, it was clearly the female form of SPERM DONOR which was used in the same piece, also in caps. <br />
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As my Mom used to say: "It's not <i>what</i> you say, but <i>how</i> you say it." You be the judge <a href="http://offbeathome.com/2013/10/adoption-race-and-heritage">at this link</a>, to what is for me a clear case of she doth protest too much about not caring. (Note, too that as a child this woman yielded to her a-mother's tears and then in true "good adoptee" behavior she learned as a child, "obeyed" her husband's wishes as well to leave it all alone.)<br />
<br />
Some adoptees on Facebook were quick to defend that this is how they feel and thus they should be able to use language that expresses how they feel. Even if it is hurtful or offensive, I ask. Some defended it because they had never met LIFE GIVER.We all have ancestors we've never met. Some may be perfectly lovely folks and others may be horrid. But we don't disdain them. Others have met and dislike their original parents, for whatever reasons. Is it even then necessary then to use demeaning language to identify their connection to you? <br />
<br />
If I decided to refer to my firstborn child as GIVE AWAY, and said and wrote things about having met GIVE AWAY when she was sixteen and that then GIVE AWAY attended Syracuse university.... would adoptees not find that cold and a tad offensive??? What does it say about me? Does it indicate some unresolved issues? What if I called her DISCARD? or, "unwanted"?<br />
<br />
For some mothers, the child they lost or who was taken from them for adoption is their "kidnapped" child. Many feel very strongly that their child was abducted, not adopted. How would referring to their child as ABDUCTEE fly? "ABDUCTEE and I were reunited last year and I got to meet ABDUCTEE'S spouse and children." Does it sound warm and friendly, or as harboring of some UNRESOLVED ISSUES? If you were left with the task of writing an obit, or purchasing a grave marker for the person from you are adopted-separated, would you want it to read: here lies LIFE GIVER..perhaps next to a stone marked "SPERM DONOR." <br />
<br />
How about if mothers, not only spoke <i>about</i> our children this way, but addressed our children with these labels? <b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000;">Is it not depersonalizing and dehumanizing on the level of <i>A Boy Called It?</i></span></b><br />
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<div style="font: 16.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
Adoptive parents, and adoptees, can call us "birth parents" or "biological parents" and we may feel like or be strangers, but we maintain a unique blood and genetic connection to our children that makes us REAL and related in a way that adoption does not replicate. This reality must be recognized and dealt with. </div>
<br />
There is a balance between our individual and personal right to express how we feel toward others in our lives and simple respect. It is also incumbent upon us to recognize and work on the damage and in some cases havoc adoption has created in our lives; the deep irresolvable hurt.<br />
<br />
What a nicer world if we each did our work and tried to be respectful.Mirah Ribenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13626873757236976251noreply@blogger.com3