So many people like to think the days of newborns being stolen under the guise of telling women their babies died are long past. They’re not. Such tactics are as close as this week’s headlines:

Doctors, five others held in Mexican stolen babies case

Here is a brief excerpt-

Mexican authorities have arrested three doctors, a nurse and a receptionist accused of stealing newborns at a private hospital and selling them, the Mexico City attorney general’s office says.

A married couple and a woman also were arrested on charges that they bought two newborn girls and registered them as their own offspring, said Luis Genaro Vasquez Rodriguez, an official with the attorney general’s office.

The doctors and hospital personnel would tell parents from whom the children were stolen that their babies had died, authorities said Wednesday.

One of the abducted babies, Diana Fernanda Castillo, has been reunited with her biological mother. Authorities who found the baby and confirmed her identity through genetic tests handed her over to her mother, Vanesa Edith Castillo Guzmán, on Thursday.

Authorities said they arrested Drs. Victor Manuel Mancera Gonzalez, 74; Jorge Adalberto Guerrero Bustos, 55; and Alfredo Ortiz Rosas, 52. Nurse Maria Guadalupe Castro Morales, 58, and receptionist Leonel Rodriguez Mondragon also were arrested, the attorney general’s office said in a statement posted on its Web site.

All the suspects were charged with trafficking in minors, using false documents and organized crime.

Other suspects arrested were married couple Antonio Merino Hernandez, 46, and Maria de la Luz Ruiz Padilla, 39, as well as psychologist Cinthia Nayeli Perez Ortiz, 37, officials said. In both cases, authorities said, they were sold babies born in Mexico City’s Hospital Central de Oriente.

The full article is well worth the read.

Would that I had insightful (or “incite-ful”) commentary to add. Sadly it’s just another day in adoptionland, business as usual.

Bastard Grannie Annie has been researching sealed records history in Illinois and how such merely provided a new mechanism for continuing Illinois’ long and ugly history of black market adoptions.

Her blog post is an important brief overview of some of the IL history, and a vital backgrounder.

Black Market, 1945 Illinois Adoption Act & Sealed Records Illinois: a Black Market Haven

(an important backgrounder to all Illinois adoption related legislation such as 2010’s IL HB 5428.)

As time allows, I hope to do some writing around this Baltimore Sun article that just hit. For the moment, I merely wanted to point readers at the article itself.

Three decades after adoption, DNA test reveals painful truth

More than three decades after Ryba and Butler gave up their baby son to Catholic Charities of Trenton, N.J., for adoption, and four years after the agency facilitated their “reunion” with Bloete, genetic testing revealed last year that none of them are related.

Lisa Thibault, a spokeswoman for Catholic Charities of Trenton, acknowledged that the situation is “tragic,” and that a “mistake” was made somewhere. But she said the agency has done all it is legally able to do for them.

That has shaken Ryba’s lifelong faith in the Catholic Church, or at least in those who lead it. And, it has launched him on a thus-far fruitless quest to find the son he believes Catholic Charities has “lost.”

The only genuine answer to such systemic corruption is a full disclosure: restoration of access to authentic documentation such as original birth certificates to those directly affected.

Only the State sanctioned cloak of secrecy the State itstelf extends to middlemen such as Catholic Charities enables such false narratives devoid of any genuine genetic reality to be extended through decades like this.

False matches, such as this offered by “facilitating” organizations such as Catholic Charities are not aberrations, they are a natural byproduct of a system with more interest in offering A story, ANY story, than any genuine biologically based reality.

Adoption itself is all too often based upon the lie that biology is irrelevant, or at minimum highly malliable, that a State assigned identity (buttressed by intermediary organizations such as Catholic Charities) is ‘as good as’, or at times even marketed as ‘better than’ actual historically based reality.

Clearly false narratives instead offer only false hopes and deceptions, and leave both adopted people as a class and their families (both biological and adoptive) as easy prey for those who would market ‘solutions’ to their State based deprivation of authentic history.

The intermediary vultures and ‘private investigator’ reunion promisers are enabled by this State created lack of access to authentic history that other citizens simply take for granted, basic self knowledge.

So am I surprised to read headlines such as todays in the Sun? Not in the least. Certainly not in relation to Catholic Charities and New Jersey, a state where genuine open records legislation was circumvented, protecting interests such as these.

For those who insist a “safe haven” babydump box in every hospital would ensure their mythical ‘no dead babies,’ think again.

Case in point?

Glendale, AZ, where a 15 year old gave birth in the hospital bathroom, leaving a baby boy in the bathroom trash can, “about 100 feet from a Safe Haven” dumpbox.

(first reported September 30th.)

Newborn found dead in Glendale hospital bathroom

Glendale police are investigating a baby found dead in a hospital, allegedly in a trash can.

The baby was found on Saturday in the emergency room at Banner Thunderbird Hospital, only about 100 feet from a Safe Haven drop-off location.

A teen went to the emergency room with her mother complaining of stomach and back pains.

The teen then allegedly gave birth in the ER bathroom and did not tell anyone. A member of the cleaning crew found the baby boy in the trash. Police have not confirmed the details.

(Be sure to see the video segment attached to the article, in which the usual refrain of ‘more marketing, more ‘education’ in schools’ is repeated.

Just another in the long sad saga of how these babydump programs (and in this case, specifically, the dumpbox managed to) fail, spectacularly.

My partner and I photographed the Glendale Thunderbird dumpbox, back in May of 2003. At the time, it was located at “Thunderbird Samaritan Medical Center” (now Banner Thunderbird Hospital,) and at the time lamely named the “Thunderbird Nest.

As you can see, the dump site is almost impossible to miss from the emergency room entrance from the parking lot.

Naturally, (for a state that doesn’t offer genuine sex-ed) the ‘who to turn to for help’ listings off the Banner Thunderbird babydump webpage is a who’s who of compulsory pregnancy/anti-abortion coercive pregnancy indoctrination centers and other christian organizations, with Planned Parenthood tucked in as if to offer up some sick version of “fair and balanced” pro-babydump advice.

Apparently everyone’s answer to a program that simply does not work is to throw yet still more resources and effort into it, even as it (to tragic result), fails yet again.

Can anyone doubt that this 15 year old, (now facing down possible prosecution) will now be more than willing to recite precisely what the dump pushers need to have her say, as if on cue?

Of course more education would have helped… if only someone had told me before it was too late! Etc.

Will we be surprised to hear such? Not in the least, we’ve heard it time and time again. What better way to escape prosecution that to do ‘community service’ with the babydump law pushers?

***UPDATE***

Naturally, there’s always more to the story and Marley, over on her Daily Bastardette blog has dug out still more pertinent details. Please see her piece

ARIZONA: MORE “SAFE HAVEN” FANTASY; BLC LINK,

for more details concerning Kimberly Marshall, from the video piece, quoting Marley:

…who is not a physician as labeled in the news report , but the RN who manages the hospital’s Pediatric Ed Clinic,

and sure enough,

Ignored by the press, at least in this specific report, is the fact is Kimberly Marshall is the head of the Arizona Safe Baby Haven Coalition pimping tragedy to pimp her agenda.

is this nonsense getting predictable or what?

The Columbus Dispatch (Columbus, Ohio) has done a very important article,

about the way boarder babies, those born at hospitals and left there after birth are being systematically folded into babydump, or so called “safe haven” statistics in Ohio.

While this is nothing new, it’s good to see another article pointing out the failures of the “safe haven” legislative schemes (similar to the article about New Jersey doing the same that I blogged earlier, New Jersey- Boarder Babies being folded into “Safe Haven” statistics.)

While “safe haven” legislation pimps continue invoking images of desperate pregnant teens secretly giving birth and claim the legislation is vital, lest these women murder their newborn offspring, and insist that only legislation will keep these babies “SAFE” (from their mothers) clearly border babies, born in hospitals and left when the women check out are not exactly fodder for choking, drowning, suffocating headlines.

Conflating these two scenarios goes beyond disingenuous.

The dump pimps with their pet legislation get to relabel babies born safely in hospital “saves,” the states get to move babies out of their border babies columns and into the “safe havened” column in their statistics, making them look good (and potentially changing their financials as well) but at what cost?

That women who deliver in hospitals and then leave the child at the hospital are now viewed as “safe haven” mothers, or there but for this (et-hem) “Lifesaving” legislation (cough, cough) she may have turned to infanticide?

That the infant themselves will be permanently stripped of biological and family ties, their individual cultural and heritage, and most importantly, their authentic identity all in the name of sliding them into a new class of eventual adoptee or foster child, the anonymized by the state “havened” dumpees?

What does this say about how we as a culture view women and the lifelong genuine needs of the children themselves, in whose name this damnedable legislation was passed in the first place?

The Ohio stats begin to tell the ugly story:

Lucas County Children Services in Toledo has handled six cases since Ohio’s Safe Havens law took effect in 2002, Executive Director Dean Sparks said. All were infants born in hospitals and left there by mothers…

and

Franklin County documented three Safe Havens babies this year, two of which took place in the hospital where the babies were delivered.

Cuyahoga County has had two this year, both in the hospitals where the babies were born.

Neither of those counties, the state’s most populous, could provide details on how and where all of their Safe Havens cases have occurred since 2002.

Due to the lack of reporting requirements (that opponents of the dump laws like myself wanted at the time this terrible legislation was initially passed) the counties , who apparently are unable to account for their dump cases, are the primary form of ‘statistical reporting’. The state only collects the data these counties inadequately report.

The bottom line is, no one CAN know how many of these kids have been created. Even the state itself has no idea.

The state doesn’t know, either. The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services cannot provide a statewide breakdown on how Safe Havens cases occur, because it doesn’t keep track, said Jennifer Justice, chief of the Bureau of Family Services.

The raw numbers it reports have varied from 52 to more than 70 since the law went into effect. Justice said the discrepancy probably is due to a new child-welfare computer system.

Michigan and Kentucky’s “stats” tell the same story of border babies routinely reclassified as “safe havens:”

In Michigan, a large majority of the 76 babies given up under the state’s “Safe Delivery” law have been born in hospitals and left there, said Jean Hoffman, a consultant assigned to the program.

In Kentucky, 22 of 24 babies given up since 2002 under that state’s safe-haven law were surrendered in the hospitals where they were born.

The “safe haven” scam is that ultimately these are border babies being given a new more palatable narrative and marketing scheme.

There is already a technical classification for these babies born in hospital, “border babies.” Only lack of awareness of said terminology allows those advocating such schemes to get away with this rebranding.

None-the-less, true believers continue to intone their broken mantra “if it saves just one”, or we need this legislation, otherwise women will kill!

Those of us critical of the emerging babydump industry can’t help but take one look at drivel such as this from an adoption lawyer,

Columbus lawyer Thomas Taneff, who handles many adoptions, said some women incapable of parenting need the option that safe-haven laws afford.

and can’t help but point out that the dump laws provide a new source of (largely information-free, or “as-is”) kids, infusing them into a landscape wherein wanna-be-adopters are a dime a dozen, whereas actual kids to adopt, particularly healthy, white infants, are not surprisingly, utterly scarce. Naturally adoption lawyers, those who earn income from adoptions, are going to be supportive of any law that frees up more “product” to the adoption marketplace.

In the end, the dispatch article points out precisely what critics of the laws have said all along,

On one point, the sides agree: The nation needs reliable data on safe-haven laws, which now are in effect in all 50 states.

Sadly (though not surprisingly,) no. Those who have advocated enacting these laws DO NOT support accurate data collection, they have consistently, actively worked to have any amendment requiring data collection stripped from the final versions of the bills.

They continue to oppose data collection requirements even now after the bills have passed, insisting that reliable data is unnecessary, after all, it allows their claims of ‘thousands of babies saved’ to go unsubstantiated, and unsubstantiatable.

Mind you, when their ‘saved” babies are nothing more than born in a hospital, and remaining in a hospital until children’s services come to pick the kid up and enter them into the foster system the whole scheme sounds far less dramatic than the “saved (from ‘potentially murderous mothers’) babies!”

But then that’s the babydump laws for you, marketing and rebranding at it’s best, (well that and a paycheck for the dump pimps.)

(Each of these three days entries should be viewed within the broader context I’ve been describing here for some time now. Please explore my Guatemala tag for further details on the previous hunger strike pertaining to these girl’s cases as well as its outcome, and my previous entry on the Three Days for Three Daughters campaign that serves as somewhat of an introduction to this series.)

***

September third has been designated the day to focus on Arlene Escarleth Lopez’s case by the Three Days Three Daughters campaign.

Quoting the campaign page about her case:

Olga stepped out to the nearby store, leaving her daughter in the care of her grandmother. An aquaintance came in and said she was sent by Olga, the mother, to get the baby. The grandmother believed the stranger and gave the baby up. When Olga returned and learned what happened, she knew her baby had been kidnapped and ran into the street to try to find the kidnappers, but with no luck, and she has not seen the acquaintance since. Arlene was only one month old at the time of the kidnapping. It is believed that Arlene is now living in the midwest, having immigrated in December, 2006.

Her adopted name has been changed to Cindy Garcia. She is believed to be currently residing in Illinois with her American adoptive parents.

Her Guatemalan Mother is Olga Lopez.

Arlene was taken from her Grandmother almost three years ago, on September 27, 2006.

Again, I encourage readers to do further research on the case.

Pound Pup Legacy has a good overview page on the case.

Arlene Escarleth disappeared on september 27, 2006 when she was 1 month. Believed to be adopted abroad.

Olga recognized her daughter’s picture, and according to Survivors Foundation, they know the US location of the girl and are waiting DNA tests. See quote possibly under the name Cindy Colwell Thomas.

The PPL profile also contains a number of links for further research.

(Each of these three days entries should be viewed within the broader context I’ve been describing here for some time now. Please explore my Guatemala tag for further details on the previous hunger strike pertaining to these girl’s cases as well as its outcome, and my previous entry on the Three Days for Three Daughters campaign that serves as somewhat of an introduction to this series.)

***

September second has been designated the day to focus on Heidy Sarai Batz Par’s case by the Three Days Three Daughters campaign.

Quoting the campaign page about her case:

Raquel Par boarded a bus from her town to Guatemala City to visit an Aunt and do some domestic work for money. She was approached by a friendly woman on the bus who spoke to her about God. She trusted the woman, who offered her a purchased drink when the bus stopped. Raquel passed out from the laced drink the woman gave her. When she woke up, Heidy was gone. It is believed Heidy came to the US in November, 2007 and is now living in the midwest.

Her adopted name has been changed to Kimberli Azucena Jimenez. She is believed to be currently residing in Iowa with her American adoptive parents.

Her Guatemalan Mother is Raquel Par.

Her daughter was taken from her almost 3 1/2 years ago, on April 04, 2006.

Once again, I would encourage readers to do further research on the case.

Pound Pup Legacy has a good overview page on the case.

…Heidy was 1 year old when she was stolen. Par visited every police station she could to file a report. In summer 2006, with pressure from the Sobrevivientes Foundation, police found the kidnapper.

In late 2007, Sobrevivientes investigators and a team from the Guatemalan national police department found a passport and adoption documents, issued by the Migration Department, to a girl Heidy’s age, under a different name. Investigators recognized the girl in the passport photo. It was Heidy, now known as Kimberly. …

PPL also lists the facilitators involved in the case:

Ana Beatriz Vasquez, Luis Emilio Orozco (lawyer)

(Each of these three days entries should be viewed within the broader context I’ve been describing here for some time now. Please explore my Guatemala tag for further details on the previous hunger strike pertaining to these girl’s cases as well as its outcome, and my previous entry on the Three Days for Three Daughters campaign that serves as somewhat of an introduction to this series.)

***

September first has been designated the day to focus on Anyeli Lisseth Hernandez Rodriguez’s case by the Three Days Three Daughters campaign.

Quoting the campaign page about her case:

Taken while playing in the front courtyard of her home on November 3, 2006

Allegedly a DNA test was administered and the child did not “pass” and she allegedly was placed in Hogar Associacion Primavera. Investigators believe the abandonment process began, and she was declared abandoned by Judge in Escuintla. Anyeli was identified by her mother Loyda Rodriguez from passport photos and documentation, and is understood to be adopted by a family in the midwest who brought her to the US in December, 2008.

Her adopted name has been changed to Karen Abigail Lopez Rodriguez. She is believed to be currently residing with her American adopters in Missouri.

Her Guatemalan Mother is Loyda Rodriguez.

This November will mark three years since her daughter was taken from her.

As my time getting this post up this evening is limited, I’d advise readers to do further research on the case.

Pound Pup Legacy‘s page on the case makes one useful starting point.

It lists the Facilitator and Agency that handled the case:

Agencies

Organizations: Main Street Adoption

Persons: Nina Heller (Nina Vizitei-Heller), Robert J. McClenaghan (Bob McClenaghan)

Facilitators

Persons: Luis Estuardo Cruz Trujillo

I will also leave readers with this August 26th, 2009 article from Prensa Libre pertaining to the latest DNA tests:

DNA test confirms relationship of woman who claimed a child given up for adoption

and via Google Translate (Spanish into English)

A DNA report presented at the Sixth Court of Criminal Instance confirms the maternity of a woman who claims her daughter, who was given up for adoption to a U.S. partner.

The document confirms that Loyda Elizabeth Rodriguez Morales, a mother of Anyely Liseth Hernandez, who disappeared when he was 2 ½ years.

The report was conducted by the National Institute of Forensic Sciences (INACIF) and is part of an early test against five lawyers accused of participating in adoptions anomalous.

The investigations indicate that the child was adopted by an American couple residing in Missouri, USA.

The girl’s mother reported that her daughter was stolen when he played in the courtyard of his home in Villa Hermosa, San Miguel Petapa, in 2006.

Over the next three days, the international Three Days for Three Daughters campaign will attempt to draw attention to the circumstances surrounding the plight of three Guatemalan girls, stolen and adopted by American couples:

Anyeli Lisseth Hernandez Rodriguez

Heidy Sarai Batz Par

Arlene Escarleth Lopez Lopez

and their Guatemalan families left behind.

For a number of reasons I will be focusing on the the girls and their families themselves, rather than the campaign itself.

I have a number of reasons, among them

• fasting as a tactic (particularly via an Internet campaign) often has more to do with INTERNAL changes in the participants themselves rather than external or political changes
• and the TDfTD campaign is rooted in the presupposition that adoption as an institution is not deeply problematic, re-characterizing it as (usually?) an “ethical and moral practice”, even a (formerly?) “humanitarian endeavor,” the campaign’s quibble then, is merely with what they view as essentially aberrations “tarnish”ing an institution they view as otherwise a societal good:

“Because we value and celebrate adoption done in ethical and moral practice, we call a strike to voice opposition to those that tarnish and ultimately destroy legitimate adoption practice, rendering legitimate orphans homeless, and profitizing a once humanitarian endeavor.”

(For the moment, I am willing to set aside assumptions inherent to terminology such as “legitimate orphans,” though I will point readers at what a can of worms using such can open, as there is the lay cultural definition of an “orphan” which is quite different from the legal definition of an “orphan” as it relates to a child made available to international adoption, a topic I have covered at length previously in this post.)

As some of those spearheading the campaign are adopters, it is hardly surprising that they would seek to maintain the institution. Nor is it surprising that they have decided to ‘call out’ those making their own participation in the social institution look bad, as the only way to maintain their own credibility as adopters is ultimately to come out to a position of the institution as a societal ‘good’ with the usual ‘few bad apples’ blamed for ‘ruining it for everyone else’. This is an altogether far too familiar paradigm.

I on the other hand, tend to view the institution from a more Bastardly perspective, that actions labeled “exceptions” or “abuses” may not be aberrations so much as inherent to the system as it currently exists. Children kidnapped and sold into adoptions far from some anomalily, may simply be an intrinsic facet of an adoption market wherein the creation of a class of adoptable children must be maintained for both profit and to meet the staggering demand.

It is deeply discouraging to see little to no Bastard-centered voice speaking out about these girls and their many peers, kidnapped and sold into adoptions. For the next three days, I too, will be focusing upon these girls and some of the harsh realities of the adoption marketplace, though I do so from a perspective that does not keep one hand tied behind my back, beholden to maintaining the institution of adoption itself.

As currently practiced, the institution itself must at minimum, undergo deep structural changes. These girls , and their stories are not isolated incidents. Sadly, they are but mere by-products, or even the logical outcome of a system dependent upon the international marketing of and marketplace in children. A State sanctioned system, which has become a cornerstone of American foreign policy.

Guatemala may no longer have the ‘open for business’ sign on the door, but the personalities and tactics have simply moved on to the next in a long line of countries once the flow from Guatemala was (for the moment at least) pinched off.

I remain unconvinced reorganization under the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption is a long term solution, certainly not for countries such as Guatemala and Vietnam.

All that said, drawing attention to these documented cases is important, as ultimately, these girls themselves, (as well as their families of origin) deserve a future built upon justice and fairness, not further lies and deceit.

While perhaps not directly adoption related, an important story none-the-less: a tangled web of abuse of power and custody issues.

See this article, Assigned to check abuse, social worker impregnates client, from last Thursday’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Also note that Theola Nealy’s older children who have since been removed from her custody, and are currently in foster care.

Nealy claimed in an interview that she agreed to have sex with Nelsen because he told her he could help her prevent the bureau from removing two remaining children from her home, a claim Nelsen denies.

“That is 100% not true,” he said.