This is the latest in a series of posts I have done criticizing Nebraska’s legalized child abandonment laws. You can find my earlier posts via my Nebraska tag.

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Children of the Corn
A new blog in support of Repealing legalized child abandonment laws and chronicling the Nebraska dump law case study.

Reporting, Theory, and Opinion on Legalized Child Dumping in Nebraska

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As Marley Greiner (who blogs the Daily Bastardette) and I were both detailing the Nebraska disaster, we came to the conclusion that combining our shared blogging of the history into one common resource would be helpful to others researching the still unfolding mess. She and I both support nothing short of full repeal of all legalized child abandonment laws.

Our posts to date have often overlapped and referenced one another, going forward, we will likely each bite off separate pieces to tackle, or write from different angles about the same set of events.

For example, I am relying on her reporting this evening about the two latest teens who when taken to a Nebraska hospital ditched their dumper and ran-

BORN TO RUN! TWO ESCAPE SAFE HAVEN MOM

Children of the Corn will be the repository for our interwoven coverage from here on.

To be perfectly frank, I was honoured to be invited to join her. She and I are old friends. we have both spent years working, researching, and writing in support of adoptee rights and about the seemingly unending abuses kids and parents have endured in the name of what often passes for child welfare both in this country and internationally.

I’ve linked across to her coverage many times, but she’s long overdue a proper introduction for my readers here.

(This is one of my favourite older pictures of her.)

Marley’s background in American history brings a wealth of experience to her adoptee advocacy work.

As does her time spent abroad. As but one of many examples, her careful research and chronicling of the deaths of so many of the Russian adoptees, NIKTO NE ZABYT — NICHTO NE ZABYTO, Nobody is forgotten. Nothing is forgotten, is an incredible resource.

Marley is a maintainer of memory.

To all this, add her ongoing work and years of experience as Executive Chair and Co-founder of Bastard Nation and it readily becomes clear why she’s the right person to team up with. BN has been one of the strongest most consistent voices against all dump laws, from the very dawning of them back 9 years ago. Year after year BN fought the dump laws, building in the testimonies given state after state, perhaps the most clear articulation of why the dumps laws must be repealed. She is also the creator of the Adoptee Rights News Blog.

It’s her passion and unflinching tenacity that makes this a natural pairing. She through the years has shown again and again her willingness to turn over the rocks, and not turn away at what she finds crawling about beneath. Her realistic view of the current state of child welfare and adoption is a vitally needed counterweight voice in opposition to the so often Vaseline smeared lenses the adoption industry, dump marketeers and others would prefer we all look though.

When legislators or media fall for the marketing, Marley has been there time and again, bringing forth the facts that undercut the lies.

She’s been more than willing to do the legwork and follow through to look at what the kids themselves are really experiencing; homelessness, being passed around in the endless circle jerk of referrals to nowhere, kids who end up living on the streets, abused, even murdered. (Herein of course, I’m speaking more broadly, not merely about Nebraska.)

Perhaps most pertinent to the Nebraska situation though, is that for a number of years now, since 2001, Marley has been the creator and sole editor of the Baby Dump News, “a weekly e-chronicle of newborn abandonment, infanticide, safe haven legislation, and related issues.” E-mailed out week after week, very little of the BDN is online, but the 2007 index can be found here.

Marley has been case by case, article by article tracking abandonments and child dumps for years. In short, she has been nose down in the details of the dump laws for about forever.

She is also a board member of and writer for the (Columbus, Ohio) Free Press. She and I both share interests as activists and researchers writing about issues of womyn’s autonomy and those would impose their interpretation of theonomy.

When it comes to the things kids are enduring, from denial of equality under law to state encouraged abandonment, she understands the critical importance of holding those responsible’s feet to the fire, as well as both looking and working systemically at how interlocking aspects of systemic structures are broken and failing kids and families.

In short, I’m damn proud to team up with her. Honoured actually, that she wants to place my work alongside hers.
I hope regular readers here will understand the vital contribution she has been making and continues to make, both in relation to the Nebraska situation and dump laws more broadly, but also in her many years of tireless work on behalf of all dumped kids sitting alongside her work on for adopted people and their families.

If there’s anyone who should be listened to at this critical juncture in the Nebraska process, it’s Marley.

All of this of course, is a mere thumbnail sketch. Marley is all this and much more. But mostly she’s got a wicked sense of humour, historical perspective, and a particular way with penning a poem.

This is the CotC announcement she has added to Bastardette tonight, feel free to pass it along to others who are researching the Nebraska mess:

Lauren Sabina Kneisly (Baby Love Child) and Bastardette are happy to announce the posting of our new blog: Children of the Corn: Reporting, Theory, and Opinion on Legalized Child Dumping in Nebraska.

Since we were both writing so much on the topic of Nebraska child dumping law, LB 157, we decided it would be a good idea to put our work together in an easy-to-access format. The blog is a repository of our Nebraska writing, in chronological order, since the first “legal” abandonment took place in September. It is intended as a resource for those researching so-called “safe haven” or “Baby Moses” laws, Nebraska LB 157 , adoptee rights activists, adoption reformers, child welfare advocates, bastards, legislators, the media, and those who are just plain disgusted.

We may occasionally add the work of another blogger or scholar. Over the next week or so we add more links and other resources.

We will continue to post our Nebraska blogs on our individual blogs as well.

CHILDREN OF THE CORN

http://cornkids.blogspot.com

please distribute freely!