The Saturday in May prior to Mother’s Day on Sunday has been designated “Birthmother’s Day,” apparently begun in 1990 by a group of Seattle self described Birthmothers who felt it was important to cleave a day of their own off from “(normal) Mother’s day” in recognition of how that second Sunday in May tends to be a painful day for many Original Mothers.

Much of the language surrounding the day deals in stoic and mythic terms such as ‘honoring their “ultimate sacrifice.” Which to my ears says more about the lifetimes of loss and trying to cope with those realities than anything wonderful.

Does anyone really think reading bad adoption poetry and inviting Adoptive Mothers to share their experiences is really a particularly healthy way of dealing with the year in and year out realities that so many womyn locked behind a sealed records system, never to see their child (again, if they even did in the first place) have to deal with? A lifetime’s worth of not knowing whether the child you gave birth to is alive or dead hardly strikes me as something ‘celebrate.’

Far as I’m concerned, Original mothers are still Mothers; just Mothers who whether by consent or force were unable, unwilling or outright prevented from raising their children. They deserve Mother’s day just as much, if not more than most Mothers.

After all, your typical Mother thinks, “oh isn’t that nice, a day for me; maybe I get breakfast in bed, some nice flowers, taken out to dinner by my husband and kids, oh look, a Hallmark card.” Original Mothers on the other hand, get to spend not only their average day in and day out wondering but then get a special day of anguish.

For those for whom the birth and adoption is a secret buried even after all these years, their Mother’s day secret sounds more like their own private hell. Even years later, even after going on to have other kids, the ‘secret’ haunts each Mother’s day.

Sealed records Mothers get no flowers, no Hallmark cards, no (adopted) kid. Even Original Mothers in reunion often run headlong into the language obstacle of whether they’ll ever hear the child they lost to adoption call them “Mom.” Mother’s Day even for those in reunion can be a day of divided loyalties on the part of their children, and feeling like a third wheel or ‘the other womyn’ for Original Mothers.

Which is not to say Adoptive Mothers and the non-consensually non-Mothered, are off the hook either. Mother’s day for couples dealing with infertility, or miscarriage, or simply not having a child but desperately wanting one are no picnic either. Even for those who were able to adopt Mother’s Day can be painful as they may feel like second class Mothers, or it can be a difficult annual reminder of their own inability to birth a child, leading to feelings of being a ‘failed womyn’ as in American culture “womyn” and “sooner or later giving birth” are viewed as synonymous. Inability, or even refusal to do so, results in many assumptions about the very core of one’s ‘womynhood’ or ‘womynly nature.’

Linguistically, I feel most comfortable when using the “Mother” terminology with “Mothers” and “Adoptive Mothers,” just as you would “Mother” and “Step-Mother.” The first is the default setting, the only/basic way by which people join the living, by way of biology, by way of Mothers. The modifier then goes on the social structure that deviates from that baseline. (Which is why it irks me to no end when people insist upon using terminology like “Mothers and BirthMothers” thus making the Adoptive appear the norm and the biological reality appear the ‘special situation.’)

Let it NEVER be assumed that just because a child exists a womyn wanted to bear that child, further, let it NEVER be assumed that just because a child was placed for adoption that the Original Parents necessarily consented to that action.

People use terminology like ‘her choice” to cover over many things from lack of access to affordable birth control to lack of access to the financial resources necessary to raise a child. Adoption does not directly correlate 1:1 to consent.

In a world where adoption is so often a product of dire poverty, particularly internationally, the assumption that everything must have been fine, that consent MUST have been there, is simply denial of reality.

Does that mean no adoption is ever the outcome based on consent of Original Parents? Certainly not.

But that consent must be examined with an eye towards what consent means in relation to many factors, not just is there a signature on a piece of paper. Then there are good solid questions relating to just what exactly it was the Mother or Parents thought they were consenting to at the time, perhaps an “open adoption” without any force of law behind it, that went on to evaporate before their very eyes?

So all that said, by way of honouring those who had the opportunity to raise their children stolen from them, particularly so many Original mothers internationally, those who often have the least voice in all this, I share the following by way of personal commentary, because sometimes, a picture is worth a thousand words.

(I know it’s a few days after Children’s Day, please bear with me)

Photo by Kim Bong-gyu/The Hankyoreh

A Day Without Adoption

Members of Adoptee Solidarity Korea, an adoptee-led organization based in Seoul, place coins around an airplane displayed at the Han River Park in western Seoul on Children’s Day, May 5.

ASK, which aims to raise awareness to issues related to intercountry adoption and advocate for change in South Korea’s social welfare system, celebrated Children’s Day by calling for A Day Without Adoption, a day on which no children are sent abroad for adoption. Instead, the group advocates for providing single mothers and underprivileged families with the opportunity to stay together.

The campaign featured the construction of an approximately 4-by-4-meter airplane, around the edges of which were placed 2,000 100-won coins symbolizing the exchange of young Korean children for various currencies both tangible and intangible.

Each 100-won coin was representative of 100 children adopted abroad since the mid-1950s to the present day, a total of over 200,000 by some accounts.

Here’s a link to Adoptee Solidarity Korea (ASK) (Korean and English languages.) I’ll be adding them to my blogroll as well.

The ASK press release pertaining to the Day without Adoption is poinent and worth the read as well.
________________________________________________

Oh, and as for Mother’s Day proper? Hah! Have I ever got a blog entry for you. Stay tuned same bat time, same bat channel.

Bastardette has blogged about the latest hearing on Ohio’s substitute bill for HB7, LSC 127 0671-3.

Yes legislators walk out on hearings frequently, but I think it’s pretty clear by this point that those of us shut out of the system, left with nothing other than begging for equality are being viewed as a non-vital waste of time by some and dismissed out of hand.

To those of familiar with the ongoing open records fight in Ohio, it’s always been clear that there’s been ‘more to it’ than just the surface level day to day politicking and genuine political disagreement. Time after time, as open records are proposed and worked through legislatively, we find ourselves thwarted, dismissed and ignored.

There has always been more to adoption in Ohio than what’s evident on the surface. Decisions are being made in places far from public scrutiny.

And then there’s the direct personal involvement of some legislators themselves, creating conflicts of interest the likes of which would simply not be tolerated in most other fields.

Bastardette points out how Rep. Huffman apparently in the course of doing adoptions, made promises of (eternal) secrecy to original mothers, promises clearly without the force of law behind them:

(BTW, Huffman told the January hearing that when he handled adoptions he told women whom he feared would abort that records would remain sealed and their identities hidden.)

These promises were not his to make.

Now, as he sits on the committee, he utilizes his power to ensure that his own actions in relation to adoption will not come back to haunt him.

Huffman is a part of the adoption pentagon (Original Parents, Bastards, agencies/lawyers/intermediaries/etc, the State, and Adoptive Parents,) he is an interested party with a stake in the outcome.

How the hell are we as Bastards supposed to get a ‘fair hearing’ out of someone using his political office to cover his own ass?

Again, to quote Bastardette:

What dank political swamp have adoptees tripped into?

None of this is a mess of our own making, this is simply the landscape we are forced to contend with, a landscape littered with conflicts of interest and political back room deals that for decades now have kept us dis-empowered.

Even on the face of it (never mind the intrigue for a moment) we’re left in a politically untenable situation, we’re a minority to begin with, and always will be.

For those of us who have left the states we were adopted in, we are left in the position of contacting legislators who hold the keys to our records in states we have no vote in. These people don’t answer to us, and one really has to wonder if contacts made with an out of state address mean anything other than paper airplane fodder on the way to the ‘circular file’.

We’re outsiders, with nothing left other than to plead to all too often deaf ears about the plight we are trapped in. There are committee members who do hear us, but without the ability to move the committee to restore access, their support fails to change our situation.

I am an adoptee from the time period within the first few years after the law changed. I am one of the ‘early kids’ born of the sealed records system. We were some of the first affected (afflicted!) We’ve spent all our lives with nothing more than a question mark.

And we are left with no other political recourse other than to return year after year, begging people like adoption lawyers for our rights. This is laughable on the face of it.

The intentional stripping of records access off Ohio HB7 is merely the latest in a long line of indignities and denials of rights Ohio Bastards have been forced to endure.

When a legislator cannot even be bothered to take to the time to listen to our apparently pointless begging, we’re really left with one question, where can we turn?

What recourse are we left with?

But again, as Bastardette has so clearly pointed out, they can wait us out:

If they wait long enough we’ll just die off.

We’re a sandwiched middle generation with no access, in time, we too shall pass.

While that may be time the existing system can certainly afford, for the directly affected, every moment of every day we’re denied access is a moment of rights denied. For those to whom search matters, every moment wasted is a moment of the ground shifting beneath them, opportunities lost, never to be regained.

But clearly, in the end, Rep. Huffman’s lies to womyn, guaranteeing them something that he simply could not, outweighs us every time.

(Just another little story that deserves more attention than these kinds of things tend to get.)

This from the Australian Broadcasting Corp-

Baby traffickers arrested on China-Vietnam border

To quote just a little:

The two babies were turned over to a social welfare centre, the officer said.

“This is the third baby trafficking case we have detected this year, bringing the number of rescued babies to five,” he said.

Vietnamese police busted a trafficking syndicate in February, which sold babies to China for adoption, reportedly charging about $US500 each for girls and $US1,000 for boys.

___________

Late addition-

Ethnically Incorrect Daughter has more details, “6 Vietnamese suspeted of trying to sell babies arrested.”

Looks like I’m not the one paying attention.

Today was yet another hearing in Ohio by the Health Committee on the substitute HB7, labeled LSC 127 0671-3. (*A* pdf of which can be found here 127_LB_0671_3.pdf, although it may differ from the current version of the bill. You can at least begin to get a feel for the strike outs pertaining to our records access. As well as a more general feel for the bill.)

Despite the ongoing grassroots campaign of letters, phone calls, e-mails, and submitted testimony, from adoptees and other supporters, it appears the committee may have decided to leave the substitute bill “as is”. Which is to say, it takes the original HB7 that had adoptee access to our own records included, and then guts those portions of the bill, thus actively stripping the access that would have been returned to us.

As I’ve so often said, when it comes to adoption, we are the experts, we ARE adoption.

We constantly hear the refrain “for the sake of the children” well, we as adult Bastards were those one time children. We know what’s best for us.

It’s time State legislators put their legislation where their noise is.

To genuinely “care” about children in adoption means to also care about us as we reach adulthood, and to give us the tools we need to conduct our lives as any other citizen would, not enduring lifelong hindering by unnecessary State interference and records confiscation.

Our personal information has been transformed from something originally held and protected for us, to be returned to us as we reach adulthood, into perpetually State held dossiers, records locked away from the very people they pertain to, such that the State knows more about me in some ways, personal and intimate than I do about myself.

Worse, the State as part of records ‘modernization’ can outsource my authentic records to a data-entry firm oversees where Jayani Q. Typist can read about me, while I myself am prohibited from so much as seeing my own authentic birthday. For all the endless noise about ‘privacy’ in relation to adoption, the simple fact remains, we as Bastards apparently ‘aren’t deemed worthy’.

As for promises in adoption? Some of us were promised the day we turned 18 we could head down to the courthouse and get a copy of our original records, unfortunately that too was a promise made without the force of law behind it to ensure such was ever a genuine possibility.

The Buckeyes for Equal Access testimony on the bill shows that even the architect of the 1964 law that sealed Ohio adoption records, William Norris, understood that it was a disaster and went much too far. He himself testified against it, in a failed attempt at stripping his mistake back out of the Ohio code.

I quote the BEA testimony:

This is especially well documented in Ohio. William Norris, author of the 1964 law, later worked to undo it. Several years ago he testified before the House Human Resource Committee in favor of HB 457, that would restore access:

In doing what I did on this 1960s legislation, I was unable to see the impact this would have on my adopted children when they became adults. Subsequent events have taught me that we went too far. While it was appropriate for the 1964 law to foreclose access to adoptees’ birth records maintained by the Department of Health as far as the general public was concerned, I now recognize that closing those birth records to adoptees whose adoptions were finalized after January 1, 1964 was a grave mistake. This has resulted in unnecessary discrimination by denying to a special group of citizens the right to have access to their original birth certificates.

It is now obvious to me that the 1964 legislation produced an absurd anomaly in Ohio, and it is painful to reflect on the fact that these changes in the law were made in the belief that they were in the best interests of the entire adoptive process. …The 1964 law has not worked out in the way it was originally intended and it should be changed by the passage of a new law such as HB 457. (5)

Representatives had before them an opportunity (not exactly a great one, as the rest of substitute HB7 gets pretty ugly, but an opportunity none-the-less) to end the secrets, lies, and false promises made year after year. Instead it appears they are choosing to maintain the system of dual systems- one for ‘normal’ Buckeyes, and a separate system of locked away secrets for those of us adopted. ‘Sealed for my protection’- how thoughtful.

Apparently adoption needs protection from adoptees, for the ‘sake of the children’ (or the adoption industry and its often dirty hands.) This is lunacy, let me assure you the reader, speaking as an adoption expert myself, it does not serve our best interests.

Leaving the substitute bill “as is,” i.e. without records access, is not a passive stance. It is to support a bill that once had access in it, only to have it struck out and eradicated in the substitute bill. This is an ACTIVE erasure of adoptee right to equal treatment under Ohio law.

Rather than continuing to buttress the existing (and failed) status quo, which fails adoptees daily, legislators need to support adoptees, step up to leadership, and do what’s right. Clean out the mistake, (clearly recognized as a “grave mistake” by the very author of the law itself,) restore equity and fairness.

If legislators only want to ‘support adoption’ when we the adoptees are too young to speak on our own behalf/protect our own interests, then it’s long since time we as adult adoptees began to call it like we see it. Legislators who thwart adoptee equality are anti-adoption.

It is not ‘pro-adoption’ to increase marketing of adoption to teens as HB7 will. Adoption should be a last resort, not marketed as some way to ‘make the problem all go away, just like Juno.’

To bemoan the small number of infants available for adoption is to step outside the ‘what’s right for the child and the original parents’ models and into only seeing adoption through the eyes of those seeking to adopt, those who over and over again find a shortage of the ‘right kinds’ of kids available to them. It is buyer centric adoption, not need-based adoption.

Adoption must always ultimately serve to help the child who needs a home, not the home that desperately wants a child.

That desperation leads to market demand, which leads to the creation of an industry to fill and profit off that demand, which leads to marketing to increase supply, which in turn not only works to fulfill demand, it also serves to increase profits of the intermediaries. That hamster wheel of a system has lost all sight of what adoption needs to be. It creates all manner of other outcomes and financial gyrations, but ultimately means a child for those demanding one.

That is an altogether different process from a child who needs a home.

Children who need homes, “waiting children” don’t need marketing to pregnant teenage girls.

“Child-Centered Adoption” doesn’t need to market to pregnant teenage girls.

Only those demanding a child need marketing to pregnant teenage girls.

Need-based adoption is genuinely centered on the needs of the adoptees themselves, both in childhood and adulthood.

So increasing adoption marketing to teens as LSC 127 0671-3 does, right down to turning social workers into adoption marketeers is the opposite of need-based adoption, it is the opposite of “child-centered” adoption, it is instead, a legislative expression of demand-driven adoption. As the adoption market demands infants, preferably provided by womyn who are young, healthy, and not swimming in competent legal counsel.

LSC 127 0671-3 writes the genuine need for equity of real adoptees out of the bill and writes in marketing, designed to only support market driven adoption, not need based adoption and adoptees themselves. It is an anti-adoptee bill, worse, in the primary place it addresses the needs of “waiting children”, it puts their needs and interests into the hands of those same marketers and agencies, not into the hands of the experienced experts, adoptees themselves, (see below as I address the “child centered recruitment task force,” a term that I as an adoptee am simply incapable of saying with a straight face.)

All such marketing to vulnerable populations does is attempt to increase the pool of children available to the adoption process. Children who will eventually grow up only to find themselves treated unequally by the State. Yet another new generation of adoptees trapped behind the walls constructed by the Ohio sealed records system. The system that was supposedly designed to help us, in our adulthood is failing us.

How can LSC 127 0671-3 actively work to even make more kids in needs of homes, when the Ohio legislature hasn’t even cleaned up the mess they’ve made for those already in adoption? It’s unconscionable. But the answer is simple, the legislation is driven by those demanding more children, not driven by those who were at one time adopted children or the genuine needs of children currently awaiting homes.

The remedy for a mistake is not to inflict that same mistake on a greater number of people. The only real answer is to clean up the mistake.

Shoving what has shown to fail in terms of pregnancy prevention, so called “abstinence education”, into health programs adopted by the State Board of Education as LSC 127 0671-3 requires only continues the trajectory of ensuring that not only will girls continue to get pregnant, but that there will be plenty of adoption marketing opportunities matched to her.

LSC 127 0671-3 continues these patterns of failure. It fails to emphasize genuine pregnancy prevention, thus in absolute effect, it only serves to increase the numbers of children potentially entering the adoption system, while simultaneously failing adoptees ourselves, our equality and our fundamental knowledge of the historical realities of our own lives.

The bill goes further still, creating an perversely named “child-centered recruitment task force” made up of the (Ohio) Director of Job and Family Services, adoption professionals, and at least one professional from a public children services agency, private noncustodial agency, and private child placing agency for the purposes of creating a “Uniform Child-Centered Recruitment Model” geared towards children already in custody but with no adoptive family identified for them yet.

Hint- any task force made up of adoption professionals seeking to recruit more adoptive parents, i.e. going to find new and better ways of marketing children is NOT child centered.

This is a clean up task force, a group formed to create a document for those placing children to deal with the ‘surplus’ kids, the ones available for adoption that to date no one has wanted to take home. Essentially, here’s how they intend to deal with the leftovers. (Yes, we’re talking genuinely “waiting kids”, all while the endless march of infant adoption demand goes on unabated, both domestically and internationally.)

While the idea of finding solid homes for waiting kids is not intrinsically wrong, the bottom line is this is being done ‘for the sake of the children’ without listening directly to the experiences of the kids and former kids who have been in that very situation. Once again, it’s industry professionals being granted the guise of “child centered” by the State.

Our voices and needs are being cut out of the process, while false labels like “child-centered” are being entrusted to agencies, so that they may ‘speak on our behalf’ as we ourselves remain either voiceless, or voices falling on deaf ears.

The only way to remedy this failure is to once again, let the adoption experts speak. Listen to those who have been those kids, listen to adoptees. The last thing we need is yet another “child centered task force” that insists it knows what’s best for us without listening to us.

It’s long past time to end these systematic failures and instead pull out what’s broken. LSC 127 0671-3 is an anti-adoptee piece of legislation. It needs to be replaced with legislation that responds to the genuine needs of adoptees- of all ages.

Stop failing adoptees.

Stop defining adoption in terms of what the market demands.

Listen and lead instead.

Yesterday’s Denver Post carried a warning (in the consumer protection model) about Colorado adoption agencies entitled “Adoption agencies under fire.”

Nearly half the international adoption agencies in Colorado are losing money, five are at risk due to debt and one has generated so many complaints that state officials warned potential clients that they might want to look elsewhere for help with a foreign adoption.

Those findings, contained in a state audit of 22 licensed international adoption agencies, have prompted Human Services Department officials to propose new rules and policies they say are designed to protect prospective parents.

The recommendations come as the state attorney general’s office is investigating five unidentified international adoption agencies.

One of the first recommendations being made is that agencies be made to carry proper insurance:

• Requiring licensed agencies to be bonded and carry appropriate liability insurance.

I found this particularly interesting as several years ago I was sitting in the National Council for Adoption (NCFA’s) conference, listening to agencies being advised specifically NOT to carry liability insurance, as to do so might encourage lawsuits against the agency. By purposefully NOT carrying insurance, it was hoped the agencies would look like less of a target as there would be little to get, thus making it not worth the time and effort to sue them.

Not surprising, considering NCFA was created by the industry for the industry. They are no friend to Bastards. Clearly they understood the implications of what the spectrum of adoption related lawsuits could mean to their member agencies- thus the preemptive advising that agencies make themselves ‘not worth the effort’.

The article continues:

In addition, the department wants to expand its oversight so it can monitor the business practices and financial health of adoption agencies operating here.

This in theory at least strikes me a a damn good starting place, considering the (if you’ll pardon the phrase, particularly in relation to CO,) ‘wild wild west atmosphere’ that pervades to much of the adoption industry. Now admittedly, this is being done in the name of consumer protections for Prospective Adoptive Parents (PAPs), but clearly we’ve come to the point where even those with power and money in the adoption structure have been screwed so deeply and so often that states like CO are considering stepping in.

The department initiated the review after it received complaints about agencies that arrange international adoptions and after the arrest of Lisa Novak, director of the Claar Foundation, based in Boulder County.

Since June 2006, four international adoption agencies have closed in the state. In addition, the state temporarily suspended the license of one agency, Charitable St. Philomena, in March because it improperly completed adoptions, didn’t have a qualified director and refused to allow the state to conduct inspections of its business operations. That agency has since corrected the problems and is again licensed, according to the audit.

McDonough said she did not know the exact number of complaints that sparked the investigation.

“It was not massive, but it was large enough to be concerning” and involved multiple agencies, she said.

Complaints against one agency were serious enough that in February, the state sent letters to five families it knew to be working with that agency.

The state wrote, in part: “This letter is to advise you that this department has received several complaints concerning Adopt a Miracle.”

The letter, signed by Beye, included a list of other licensed international adoption agencies.

Adopt A Miracle, based in Lakewood, did not respond to a request for comment Monday.

Several other agencies likewise did not return calls seeking comment.

CO has been unable to even review the salaries at 8 of the 22 agencies:

The state had hoped to include a review of agency salaries in the audit, but eight of the 22 agencies did not disclose salary information.

Clearly more details on the existing situation are yet to come out, as the preliminary hearing for the director of the Claar Foundation, Lisa Novak, is set to begin later on this month.

Of the 14 agencies that did, the Claar Foundation reported paying the highest annual salary: $169,350.

Claar’s director, Novak, has been charged with two counts of theft and one count of fraud, and the agency has closed. She was accused of taking thousands of dollars from prospective parents but never completing adoptions. A preliminary hearing is scheduled May 19 in Boulder.

Bottom line is PAPs, who drive the market need to understand that adoption, and yes even their own adoption processes is not all sweetness and light. There are scoundrels operating in the field, many states do little oversight and regulation, and particularly in international adoptions that ‘orphan’ being marketed to you may be anything but.

More to the point, the adoption industry itself recognizes that it has real problems, after all, why else would agencies go to the NCFA conference to receive advice on the importance of not carrying insurance?

Off the BBC today, Guatemala halts foreign adoptions.

The authorities in Guatemala have suspended the adoption of some 2,300 children by foreigners for at least a month to check for irregularities.

…

The government had been under pressure to curb a controversial trade where intermediaries could be paid thousands of dollars to arrange an adoption.

Guatemala’s attorney general, Baudilio Portillo, said the cases being put on hold were already in the system before the new legislation took effect.

Mr Portillo said the cases would be checked “one by one” to see if the children being offered up for adoption were really the offspring of the parents whose names appeared on documents supplied by private lawyers.

If there were any doubts, DNA tests would be carried out.

The attorney general’s move was prompted by concern expressed by Guatemalan legislators and the newly created National Adoption Council over possible anomalies and manipulation of DNA results in some cases.

Unfortunately, even in cases where the DNA tests are accurate, DNA tests are no measure of genuine consent, and no measure of whether or not the biological parents were paid for the child.

But for what it’s worth, I’m very pleased to see this case by case review, because as recently as last November, I was deeply concerned these adoptions were simply going to go forward without any detailed investigation. You can see my earlier frustrated blogging on Guatemala titled “The post I can’t write- Guatemala” where I said:

This is where my post on the unfolding Guatemalan adoption disaster was going to appear. But that’s not what you’re going to get. The more I dug into Guatemalan adoptions, the more I researched the personalities, structures, and organizations at the center of the firestorm was the more I knew I could never write the real post.

My personal opinion: I’ve become convinced Guatemala is being used as nothing short of a baby farming system.

I had just spent several days doing research on what all had been happening, and while there was much I would have like to have put in that post, mere allegations are not enough. A careful investigation was what was going to be really necessary, and at the time, it appeared such was unlikely.

It’s a mess, so to no small degree I’m glad to see Guatemala’s attorney general had the good sense to hit the pause button and decided to give it the careful scrutiny that is so desperately needed.

No doubt there are plenty of people who disagree with me on this. But as I said in my earlier post- rather than learning from history, some prospective adoptive parents (PAPs) appear not to give a damn whether the kid they are adopting was kidnapped, sold etc, OR are in deep denial that such could happen to them, not them, not their agency. When the sad fact of the matter is these tactics are far more widespread than anyone wants to come right out and admit.

The screaming is already well underway, the endless mantra of “I want what I want and I want it right NOW!”, or, to paraphrase, ‘I’ve already paid so much, I’m already so invested, I want what I paid for, how dare anyone stand in my way!’

Which, while not representative of ALL PAPs, is clearly representative of a noisy segment of said population ( We were treated so a small taste of such at the Adoption Ethics and Accountability Conference‘s Guatemala Forum last Autumn.)

For the kids’ sakes, I can only hope the circumstances, whatever they may be, come to light quickly.

Considering what I’ve found in my research on Guatemalan adoptions, allow me to add, I hope any(/the) perpetrators and their crimes also come to light quickly and are dealt with swiftly and appropriately.

This is one of several posts that I made private between May 31rst 2008 and July 22, 2008. (This represents the time period between my resigning from working on the Adoptee Rights Demonstration / Day for Adoptee Rights, (ARD / DAR) and it actually taking place in New Orleans.)

The piece below was originally posted May 5th, 2008.

I changed its status to public view with this disclaimer added July 22nd. Now that the event has passed I am restoring my earlier writings towards the purposes of restoring the historical record.

They were taken down as they reflected my original support for and work towards ARD/DAR prior to my resignation. In late May, I resigned, and I did not wish these pieces to be mistaken for active recruitment to the event in the period between late May and the event in July.

Part of my reasoning was due to a technical quirk of blogging itself; each post stands alone, decontextualized from the larger narrative. As these older pieces could be viewed via web searches etc. as distinct and apart from the context that I had since resigned, I made them private until after the event had passed.

My single post history of ARD/DAR and the events leading up to it can be found here. The post below should be viewed in the context of the events explained in it. Additional posts concerning ARD/DAR particularly from July 22nd forward can be found by utilizing the Adoptee Rights Demonstration tag (results will appear in reverse chronological order, from newest to oldest.) They too, should be understood within that larger context.

Original text of the post, as it appeared prior to being made private appears in full below.

Bastard Nation has put together a blog specific to BN involvement in the Day for Adoptee Rights events in New Orleans.

The blog contains the latest BN DAR info and plenty of good links, even if you’re not able to attend the Day for Adoptee Rights/Adoptee Rights Demonstration in NOLA. (Also remember there are plenty of other ways to support if you can’t attend, from adding your name to the Times-Picayune ad to just plain old fashioned donating.(link disabled 7/22/08))

A mere 77 days left.

I’ve previously written about this year’s legislative quest for open records in Ohio and Buckeyes for Equal Access (BEA) as well as BEA’s action alert on HB7 with contact information for Ohio Health Committee members.

Bastardette has an entire series of posts (read from the bottom up to understand the chronology) detailing the ongoing saga of the removal of the open records provisions from the original HB7, resulting in a “substitute bill” that is completely silent on the matter of adult adoptees’ access to our own documentation. In response, Bastards have mounted a grassroots campaign counter offensive, attempting to restore the open records provision to any version of the legislation that passes out of the Committee.

This afternoon was the latest hearing on Ohio HB7. Bastardette is aiming for an update to her page later tonight with details about what happened today. I’d urge BLC readers to check in there later on.

(To be clear, I’m no great fan of HB7, although I feel it included some important provisions. I would far rather see a pure open records bill alongside other legislation putting ‘teeth’ into open adoption agreements, etc. But as is, it’s possible that some version of HB7 will be going forward. If it does, it is critically important that the open records provision be restored to the bill.)

In any case, I wanted to post a slightly edited version of my letter to Ohio Legislature’s Health Committee members as it points out the arbitrary and discriminatory nature of Ohio’s system as it currently exists and how Bastards such as myself are essentially trapped by that system:

[Address Block]

Dear Representative ___________,

I am an adult adoptee, born and adopted in Ohio in the late 1960’s and a former resident of ________, ________, ________, and ________ Counties.

I’m writing to strongly urge your support for restoring adult adoptee access to their own documentation, as was initially included in HB7 before the later substitute bill removed the provision. I ask you reject the substitution bill (LSC 127 0671-4) if access to our information is not included in the final version of the bill..

HB 7 as it was originally written, was in part, created as a remedy to Ohio’s existing law. Under the current system, Ohio not only treats adopted people and our historical documentation differently than it treats non-adopted people, it goes further, by creating a three tier arbitrary and discriminatory system of records access.

Under current Ohio law adoptees are sorted by birth date or date of adoption finalization into three tiers, thereby creating three different classes of adopted people (which are also not treated equally:)

* some with complete access to their original unaltered birth certificate
* some with no access except by court order
* and a third group with conditional access

Due to the arbitrary nature of the ‘cut off dates’ for each of the three tiers, access to my own unaltered birth certificate is thwarted merely by ‘accident of birth.’ Were I born a few years earlier or perhaps a number of years later, I would either have access or at least have a better chance at access.

As is, I fall into the 2nd category, I’m locked out. Despite my attempt to get a court order, the existing system has failed me. I am left with no recourse, other than to support changes to the Ohio law.

Other Ohio adoptees and I are depending on you to support nothing less than a clean open records bill to restore our rights. We do not need yet another attempt to slap still more plaster onto the current flawed system. What we need is the same access to our vital statistics and authentic history as all other Buckeyes.

The restoration of adult adoptee access to our own information originally in HB7, would have decluttered the existing jumble of the arbitrary tri-tier discriminatory system, restored our rights, and provided clarity and fairness. Such access is in line with what other states (Alaska, Oregon, Kansas, Alabama, New Hampshire, and Maine) have already done to promote fairness and equity in their adoption systems.

By comparison, the substitution bill is an anti-adoptee piece of legislation. Far from resolving the issue, the substitution bill only continues to attempt ‘reforms’ that fail to go to the heart of the matter; that Ohio adoptees are still arbitrarily receiving different treatment and denied equal access to their documentation. This failure then only ensures that these issues will continue to arise in the legislature again at some later date.

All I ask is simply to be treated like everyone else born in Ohio, I want equal treatment under the law.

End arbitrary discrimination against Ohio adoptees, please support restoring the adult adoptee access to our own information provisions of HB7 as it was originally written. If any version of HB7 is passed out of committee, it is imperative that it addresses the core issue of restoration of access, and does so in a way that ultimately supports adoptees themselves.

I would appreciate knowing your views on this legislation and hope I can count on your vote in support of restoring adoptees’ rights.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Respectfully submitted,

[Baby Love Child’s name and contact information block]

Note, The arbitrary and discriminatory tri-tier system goes by various names; sandwich adoptees, blacklisted adoptees, those left behind, ‘special’ bastards, triple threat legislation, and one of the terms I tend to use,”Black Hole Bastards”, or bastards who have been black-holed. You can read more about us Blackholers on Bastardette’s page by using these search results.

This is one of several posts that I made private between May 31rst 2008 and July 22, 2008. (This represents the time period between my resigning from working on the Adoptee Rights Demonstration / Day for Adoptee Rights, (ARD / DAR) and it actually taking place in New Orleans.)

The piece below was originally posted April 30th, 2008.

I changed its status to public view with this disclaimer added July 22nd. Now that the event has passed I am restoring my earlier writings towards the purposes of restoring the historical record.

They were taken down as they reflected my original support for and work towards ARD/DAR prior to my resignation. In late May, I resigned, and I did not wish these pieces to be mistaken for active recruitment to the event in the period between late May and the event in July.

Part of my reasoning was due to a technical quirk of blogging itself; each post stands alone, decontextualized from the larger narrative. As these older pieces could be viewed via web searches etc. as distinct and apart from the context that I had since resigned, I made them private until after the event had passed.

My single post history of ARD/DAR and the events leading up to it can be found here. The post below should be viewed in the context of the events explained in it. Additional posts concerning ARD/DAR particularly from July 22nd forward can be found by utilizing the Adoptee Rights Demonstration tag (results will appear in reverse chronological order, from newest to oldest.) They too, should be understood within that larger context.

Original text of the post, as it appeared prior to being made private appears in full below.

This is another bit I’ve been meaning to blog about here for a few days now.

Back in January, I blogged (see my post “See you in New Orleans!“) about both the strategic importance of and the organizing potential that the National Demonstration could have. But as I said back then, the event itself will only be as strong as the people who make it happen. Making these events successful will take both willpower and people power. Planning, working, and showing up. It will take time and dedication.

Now that the date is much closer, the folks spearheading the Adoptee Rights Demonstration, (set for July 22nd in New Orleans) have put out the call for event volunteers. With the Demonstration related events just over two months away, NOW is the time to personally commit, both to be there and to work to make it happen.

A number of events are planned as part of a strategic campaign, over the course of several days.

Bastard Nation, as co-sponsor, for example is planning a teach-in relating to the demonstration and will teach some basic methods by which to talk about our issues as adult adoptees (and allies!) advocating access to our own documentation. So even if you feel very new to advocacy work, the demonstration related events should prove to be a good way to ‘get your feet wet’. On the other hand, if you’re an experienced Bastard activist, you’ll find other experienced Bastard activists from other States to work with, teach, learn from, and commiserate with.

There will be a variety of opportunities to bring our issues forward, from a booth inside the convention itself, where adult adoptees will be interacting with and educating State legislators, to the march, and educational picket on the 22nd.

Not being one to merely shoot my mouth off, I’ve agreed to take on certain tasks myself.

I strongly urge those bastards who are able and are serious about gaining open records to make plans to be in N’awlins. As part of ensuring the success of the event, whether in NOLA or if you are unable to attend, seriously consider volunteering your talents and time(link disabled 7/22/08), and/or your financial support (link disabled 7/22/08), towards making the events in NOLA a success.

But whether physically present in Louisiana or back in their home districts, Bastards will be contacting State legislators, asking them for their support on pure open records legislation, asking them to sponsor pure open records bills in the States where records remain locked away, shame laden State secrets, and asking them to look past propaganda to instead understand that equity and an end to second class citizenship is what’s really at stake here.

Here’s the call for volunteers in its entirety:

Volunteers Needed!

Hi all,

I’m beginning to put together a list of volunteers for the Day for Adoptee Rights event. Please let me know if you can do any of the stuff listed below…

1. Transportation. Anyone driving to NOLA? We’ll need someone with a car or two to help us buying picket materials, bottled water, sunscreen, etc., and then the morning of the protest transporting everything to Lafayette Park.

2. Protest Monitors. Monitors will help with crowd control before and during the protest. Monitors will keep folks marching to the Morial Center from straying from the approved route, and once at the Convention Center will ensure that picketing is done legally. Monitor training and specific duties and instruction will be provided the night before the protest at the picket making party.

3. Clean up crew. I know, this is a shitty duty, but someone had to do it. Mainly making sure that Lafayette Park is clean after we leave. But a lot of it can be done by making sure that protesters dispose of their trash during the protest. House keeping announcements will be made during the protest.

4 Public Relations. Anyone with experience in dealing with the press or other media? Step on up, we can use you!

Ok that’s it for now. You can respond here on the site, by private message, or by email to me at bb_church@adopteerights.net (link disabled 7/22/08)

Thanks!

Ron

This AP piece by way of this morning’s Baltimore Sun-

Vietnam to end adoption program with U.S. after report

Quoting several excerpts:

HANOI, Vietnam – Vietnam is ending a child adoption agreement with the United States after being accused of allowing baby-selling and corruption, officials said today.

…

The decision was made following a report from the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi that was first obtained by The Associated Press, alleging pervasive corruption and baby-selling in Vietnam’s adoption system.

The report lists cases in which infants were sold or birth mothers were pressured to give up their babies. In some other cases it describes brokers going to villages in search for babies who could be possibly put up for adoption.

It also says some American adoption agencies have been paying orphanage directors for referrals, and some others have bribed orphanage officials by taking them on shopping sprees and junkets to the United States in return for a flow of babies.

In an angry response, Vietnamese officials denied charges, calling the U.S. side’s allegations “unfair.”

“They can say whatever they want, but we are not going to renew it,” Long said.

The decision also will lead to the closure of 42 U.S. adoption agencies operating in Vietnam, Long said.

The U.S. Embassy says it respects Hanoi’s latest decision but is confident about the accuracy of the report.

“The government of Vietnam has made their own decision, but we believe that our report speaks for itself,” said the U.S. Embassy’s spokeswoman, Angela Aggeler.

The thing to keep in mind here, is that even though the accusations are aimed at Vietnam, it’s the agencies and their practices we’re ultimately talking about here- often American agencies, that operate in many countries, not just Vietnam.