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Bastardette and I continue to write about the legalized child abandonment laws (so called baby dunp, or baby Moses/safe haven laws,) their ongoing failures, and how babies are still consistently turning up dead and women are still consistently going to jail.
I’ve written repeatedly, that rather than legalized child abandonment, there could, and must be other more constructive ways of dealing with these situations.
Child abandonment in other parts of the world is understood to be tangled up in a knot of social and psychological issues:
poverty
immigration and fear of deportation
domestic violence
underage parenting
already parenting multiple children
cultural and individual shame
desperation
fear of rejection
dissociation
to name just a few.
These are merely the tip of the iceberg.
Here in America, child abandonment is treated as a form of false binary
either one uses the legalized child abandonment programs (which strip parental rights and in many cases the child’s identity) but it affords the “affirmative defense” against prosecution (though prosecutions in some jurisdictions are still certainly possible)
or they abandon outside the program and are instantly branded criminals and potential murderesses (or murders)
No acknowledgement of the complexities involved or the societal infrastructures or mental health services necessary to support these families is made.
If one has come to the point of abandoning a child, it’s either avail yourself of the legalized abandonment system (and) or criminal charges, your “choice”.
Neither of which even begin to address the root issues that drove said person or persons to the act of child abandonment.
Naturally some turn up alive, others turn up dead.
Fear of women committing neonatacide is what was utilized as justification for legalizing child abandonment, and those who advocated for these laws offered them as a “solution” assuring politicians the days of dumpster babies would end.
Now all 50 states and DC have the laws on the books, but the dead babies just keep on coming.
All at the cost of the human rights of the kids who are legally abandoned and the direct cost to the health and potentially life of women who attempt to deliver in secret hoping to legally abandon.
Emily Portellos, 30, received a sentence of 10-20 years in the death of her newborn daughter.
Judge Daniel Ryan pointed out the sentence was half of what the prosecution asked for, noting that the father of the child, Robert Murphy, and his mother Marilyn Murphy, both disagreed with the prosecution’s request for a longer sentence.
The Murphys spoke on Emily’s behalf and sat with members of Emily’s family, and hugged and embraced after the sentencing.
Clearly, Emily’s case is complicated:
Christos said Portellos is not mentally retarded, but does have a learning disability and testimony showed she had difficulty making decisions under pressure, a point Ryan seconded in his verdict.
Shipping her off to jail for 10-20 years isn’t going to help anyone.
The prosecutor, leaning heavily on archetypical bad mothers, argued Portellos killed the baby out of personal “selfishness”:
…out of fear of her mother’s disapproval and shame in the eyes of a conservative Greek Orthodox community.
The defense argued the death an accident:
A Wayne County jury took four days after a two-week trial to convict Portellos of second-degree murder and child abuse. She had been charged with first-degree murder for the death of the child on Oct. 15, 2008, in her bedroom in the home she shared with her mother and brother.
Defense lawyers countered that Portellos did not realize she was pregnant and that the child most likely bled to death through an unclamped umbilical cord.
The baby was found wrapped in towels in a garbage bag in Portellos’ blood-smeared room.
From there, it only got more complicated:
Weingarden said Portellos had to be aware of her pregnancy, especially since she had given birth before. That child was immediately given up for adoption.
The prosecutor, Lora Weingarden, then proceeded to co-opt the “voice” of the dead baby, arguing that Emily should be imprisoned throughout most of her remaining fertile years, thus stripping her of her reproductive capacity as punishment perhaps not merely for this child’s death, but in some sick version of two strikes and you’re out.
Weingarden said she was speaking on behalf of the dead child. Weingarden had argued for the longer sentence that would keep Portellos behind bars almost through her childbearing years, and would send a strong message not to kill babies.
“Most of all we ask you to do justice for this baby,” Weingarden said.
Perhaps that’s because this is viewed not merely as a women’s crime, but of the very act of women negating “women’s essentialist nature.” After all, what could be a greater crime in a hypernatalist culture such as modern day America than a woman perceived to be rejecting her “maternal instincts?”
It doesn’t matter that the perception is so often completely at odds with the details of the realities women who abandon face.
Is it any wonder then, that a female prosecutor argued the case?
Had a male prosecutor gone after Emily he could have been perceived as a bully, cruelly hounding her. A female prosecutor, on the other hand, could take on the role of the “good” woman chastising and accusing a “bad” woman; a ‘murderess who had been given another chance’ and that having resulted in a dead baby.
If neonatacides are societally viewed in America as the very act of women negating “women’s essentialist nature” then who better to argue for the harshest penalties than another woman?
The prosecuter then becomes an appropriate model of womanhood in the eyes of the state, not a woman who feels solidarity or empathy with the woman on trial, but one who stands uniquely poised to demand as cruel a sentence as this hypernatalist culture can contrive.
off_with_her_head
Nope, not “off with her head,” it’s ‘off with her ability to (hopefully) ever bear a child again!’
When a female prosecutor co-opts the dead baby’s “voice” more than merely invoking the presence of the victim, she also retains inherent to her as a woman an embodiment of (potential or otherwise) maternal nature itself.
Outside court, Weingarden said she is disappointed by Ryan’s decision: “The sentence doesn’t reflect the seriousness of the crime.”
“I hope young women don’t take this as a license” to emulate Portellos’ actions, believing they will face a potentially lenient sentence, she said.
Some days it’s hard to even fathom the complete and utter stupidity flowing from certain people’s mouths.
Does Weingarden genuinely think for one minute other young women will read about Emily’s 10-20 year sentence and say to themselves,
‘Cool! I think I’ll go out and get pregnant and see if I can deliver a baby and have it bleed out, only to leave it wrapped in towels in a garbage bag in my blood-smeared room! After all, she got off so easy, I’m sure I can too! Nothing to worry about, I’m peachy-keen.’
While small town America can indeed get pretty boring on any given Tuesday night, somehow, I just don’t think there are girls sitting around their rooms concocting plans to come up with dead babies of their own so as to ‘only’ spend 10-20 years in prison.
Can anyone tell me with a straight face that other young women will run out to go enjoy their “license” in this manner?
The women who find themselves at the center of these cases don’t set out to end up in these circumstances because they court watch to see what kind of sentence they’d be likely to get, or for some sick version of fun.
They find themselves here more often than not when they’ve found some point beyond the ends of their ropes.
Rather than pointlessly locking them away for decades, we as a society need to do better by them.
Much as I am sick to death of seeing headlines refering to adults as perpetual “children,” some of the reporting on Olivia Pratten’s suit has otherwise actually been fairly good.
Pulling but two examples from earlier today:
This Vancouver Sun piece goes into a fair amount of detail, shining a momentary spotlight on the lives of donor conceived (dc) people, what’s at stake in the trial, and many of the issues they face, particularly in trying to reconstruct their family histories:
Pratten contends that those born through “gamete” donation of sperm and eggs should have the same rights to information about their biological parents as adopted children when they reach 19.
She wants to have B.C.’s Adoption Act struck down as unconstitutional.
She wants it replaced with legislation that will preserve the records of gamete donors, which now only have to be kept for six years, so they can be revealed to gamate offspring when they turn 19
By way of a second example, one I’ll spend a bit more time on, see:
As I briefly mentioned in my last post, Olivia Pratten is a pioneer, bringing a suit in an attempt to establish a fundamental right to identity.
The strategic arguments her attorney is utilizing form a multi-pronged attack:
from the right to know ancestral history,
to the need to access personal medical history (which is an argument I have written about a great deal and utimately reject. I’ve argued such is not necessarily pertinent, as it lies in the realm of the interpersonal rather than anything the state can grant an individual. I.e. a familial medical history is usually not included in documents that reveal parents or donors identities, that history instead, is usually gathered inter-personally, in the context of consensual conversations with the individuals or other family members themselves.)
to the critical importance of equal treatment under law,
on through to the core claim of the fundamental identity right of individuals.
Lawyer Joseph Arvay argued before a B.C. Supreme Court judge Monday that Pratten, 28, and thousands of others who are offspring of anonymous sperm or egg donors have a “fundamental” right to know the identity of their biological parents.
Denial of that fundamental identity right of individuals has led to an unequal protection status and default second class citizenship for entire classes of people:
Pratten’s lawsuit against the provincial government — believed to be the first of its kind in Canada — seeks to amend the B.C. Adoption Act to require physicians to keep permanent records of all egg, sperm or embryo donors and to allow offspring to access those records when they turn 19, if they so choose.
If adopted children have the right to know about their birth parents when they turn 19, then offspring of “gamete” donors should have the same right to know about theirs, Arvay said.
Not having that right relegates Pratten to “second-class citizen” status and represents the province’s “wholesale abandonment” of equality rights, said Arvay, who is a veteran constitutional lawyer.
It is important to note that even if her case succeeds, her records appear to have been destroyed years ago.
Even if she wins, it is most likely she will still be left with no history or match of her own. Thus she is now fighting for the right to identity for others.
Central to her legal efforts is the demand that records be kept and not destroyed so other donor conceived individuals will not be left permanently identity-less as she has been.
The B.C. attorney general and the B.C. College of Physicians and Surgeons had previously tried to argue that the case was moot because the records Pratten were seeking had been destroyed.
But B.C. Supreme Court Justice Miriam Gropper ruled Sept. 15 the case could proceed, saying that Pratten’s systemic challenge stands to affect others conceived through gamete donation.
For the moment, though, the court has taken a pause due to the “reprehensible” actions of the B.C. Attorney General’s ministry:
The trial got off to a rocky start Monday when Pratten’s lawyer complained to the judge that he received 90 pages of written arguments from the opposing side 10 minutes before the trial began.
Arvay called the actions of the B.C. attorney general’s ministry “reprehensible.”
The judge stopped the proceedings until Monday afternoon to allow lawyers to review the document.
Sitting far on the sidelines yet watching the case closely, I suppose you could say, I find myself simply stunned.
This is a case of vital importance to the human rights of an entire class of Canadians and yet the B.C. A.G.’s office has left the impression of ‘doing it’s homework on the playground mere minutes before the start of class bell was rung.’
As there is little regulation of this industry and standards vary wildly reproductive tourism has been the result, with infertile couples researching and then crossing borders to buy what services and raw genetic materials they seek.
This has in turn, produced a global marketplace wherein human eggs have become a much valued comodity (as they are far more complicated to obtain than sperm) but even the quest for “top quality” sperm or certain genetic characteristics has led to shopping for desired donors.
The implications for women in poverty and their rights has been staggering.
Sitting where I do, as a reproductive autonomy advocate AND a Bastard, all of this is where the going gets weird.
The Costa Rican ban was essentially, at the behest of the catholic church. The infertile couples seeking to legalize IVF have been represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights.
While at first glance one might think it’s very cut and dry where I should stand on all this, unfortunately, it’s far more nuanced, because I also stand with IVF and donor conceived individuals and work for their rights (as they are not altogether dissimilar to the global fight for adoptees’ rights. We have many areas of overlap.)
At times the rights of the people resultant from assisted reproductive technologies can come into conflict with infertile couples themselves and their quests for children, (both in the adoption realm and the in the assisted reproductive realm.)
The bottom line for me is that I support the absolute right to authentic, reality based/biologically based identity/personal history for all people.
No one should be stripped of their identity or their origins.
While donor conception does not intrinsically HAVE to violate that right, the way it is commonly practiced here in the U.S. often does. Globally, identity is often the first casualty of the process.
Donor conceived individuals often face constructed roadblocks to accessing their authentic identities, such as being legally barred from learning the identity of their donor or donors, or when sperm samples are mixed prior to artificial insemination as a means by which to intentionally obscure and obstruct donor identification.
Anonymous donation circumvents those rights and the sale and substitution of reproductive material disconnecting the raw material from any identification with an individual has further muddied the waters, so to speak.
Here in the U.S. at least, you have the further complicating factor even for couples who utilize their own genetic material of “leftovers” from the process and what to do with them?
Decisions must be made or processes created pertaining to long term storage, the legalities of destruction, donation for medical research, or donation to other couples. Unless of course one happens to live in Louisiana, which offers the Louisiana conundrum that both bans destruction and donation for research purposes AND prohibits thawing unless the embryo is to be implanted in a woman’s uterus with the potential for it to grow to term.
This forces couples to either implant every embryo created into the woman for whom they were created or, pay long term storage fees in hopes that eventually the embryos become no longer viable (but as we just saw, we have at least one case where an embryo was still viable after 19 years), or donate their embryos to other couples, (as to whether they want to or not, simple economics may force that decision.)
The catholic church may oppose IVF, but this Louisiana granting of a legal status equivalent to personhood on potentially viable embryos is merely another side of the theologically based coin. Once constructed, the catholic church wants to ensure they are brought to term, not for example, utilized in stem cell research.
To say we’ve already wandered into a quagmire would be an understatement, and this barely scratches the surface.
My guiding beacon through this ultimately comes out to what I believe to be the human rights of the people who are the result of this process. They have a right to their truth, to their identity and to their origins, no matter what those might be.
No state, no law, nor even any international convention nor treaty should be able to override that which other people simply take as their birthright.
Yet sadly, even the few places in international agreements that have tried to tackle these issues have ultimately been corrupted by an ongoing valuing of adoption itself over the human rights of adoptees themselves.
The people who are the end result of these reproductive processes and a result of the adoption process are those who are ultimately treated as exceptions when it comes to human rights. Special procedures are in place for us. We live under special rules, separate from the rest of humanity, we are the exceptions.
There are two classifications of people, those who potentially at least, stand to enjoy the full protection of international human rights agreements, and those of us who endure the second class status of living somewhere in the clauses and special conditions placed on those rights.
1. The child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality and as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents.
Article 8 contains a similar flaw (emphasis added):
1. States Parties undertake to respect the right of the child to preserve his or her identity, including nationality, name and family relations as recognized by law without unlawful interference.
2. Where a child is illegally deprived of some or all of the elements of his or her identity, States Parties shall provide appropriate assistance and protection, with a view to re-establishing speedily his or her identity.
Which is to say, so long as that interference in our identities is “legal”, our rights are still not protected.
Article 9 continues in the same vein (emphasis added):
1. States Parties shall ensure that a child shall not be separated from his or her parents against their will, except when competent authorities subject to judicial review determine, in accordance with applicable law and procedures, that such separation is necessary for the best interests of the child. Such determination may be necessary in a particular case such as one involving abuse or neglect of the child by the parents, or one where the parents are living separately and a decision must be made as to the child’s place of residence.
2. In any proceedings pursuant to paragraph 1 of the present article, all interested parties shall be given an opportunity to participate in the proceedings and make their views known.
3. States Parties shall respect the right of the child who is separated from one or both parents to maintain personal relations and direct contact with both parents on a regular basis, except if it is contrary to the child’s best interests.
4. Where such separation results from any action initiated by a State Party, such as the detention, imprisonment, exile, deportation or death (including death arising from any cause while the person is in the custody of the State) of one or both parents or of the child, that State Party shall, upon request, provide the parents, the child or, if appropriate, another member of the family with the essential information concerning the whereabouts of the absent member(s) of the family unless the provision of the information would be detrimental to the well-being of the child. States Parties shall further ensure that the submission of such a request shall of itself entail no adverse consequences for the person(s) concerned.
This again, provides an override. When the state can “legally” determine a child’s so called “best interests” are best served by severing ties, our rights to identity become expendable.
While articles such as Article 11 might at first appear to protect kids from inter-country adoption, again, so long as the transfer is not deemed “illicit” but rather legal, our rights to identity mean nothing.
1. States Parties shall take measures to combat the illicit transfer and non-return of children abroad.
Obviously, the Convention goes on, but these few examples make my point.
Rather than ultimately protecting our right to identity, even in core human rights documents such as this, adoption trumps our rights.
Is it really so much to ask for a single standard? A one size fits all version of human rights?
Is identity only a human right to be enjoyed by those fortunate enough not to have been subjected to an override by the state?
Apparently it is, as to do otherwise would be to stand to threaten that most sacred of sacred cows, adoption itself.
These exceptions place all right to identity at risk, as at any time, once made legal, any given state can utilize those overrides on any child, any set of parents.
The infertile, on the other hand are granted at least certain protections.
IVF and donor conception have been interpreted as being covered for the infertile couple by the UN Declaration of Human Rights, Article 16.1 (emphasis added)
“Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family“
This is interpreted to be a core reproductive right.
Note however, that that ‘founding a family’ does not inherently entitle people to the children of OTHER parents, (despite what Australia asserted.)
Ironically, Article 25 while certainly not a reality in American society, nor even in the UN’s own Convention on the Rights of Child does at least pay lip service to adoptee equality (emphasis added):
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
Again, merely taking this as a statement of what human rights ideally would be, Bastard equality got at least a mention.
But as to how the actual rights of Bastards, traditional adoptees, and people resultant of reproductive technologies plays out in the here and now? It’s a mess.
A mess that only gets messier the more states reduce an ownership model of personal genetic material and produced embryos and instead increase the state’s ownership over such treating such as more a pooled national resource. Once produced, embryos though coercion, economic necessity, and other mechanisms can be confiscated and redistributed, rather than given at will via donation by the couple in question.
So in the midst of all this, what’s a radical feminist Bastard to do in relation to the Costa Rican situation?
Well, for starters, admonish Costa Rica to listen carefully to self described “artificially created bundles of joy” see, Confessions of a Cryokid (and explore her links for the voices of many others.)
There is a window in time here where unlike other countries whose programs have evolved in relation to the market, Costa Rica has an opportunity to learn from the mistakes of other countries and put in at minimum a few protections up front.
To list but a few potential considerations, (not saying I agree with nor want all of these, some are merely offered as “what ifs”):
Costa Rica could write the absolute, inalienable right to one’s own genetic identity into law.
It could make it illegal to in any way tamper with or obfuscate the identities of those who provide the raw genetic materials that go into bringing this new person, who is deserving of their own identity rights, into being.
It could make buying or selling these genetic materials illegal.
It could mandate a process whereby IVF and donor conceived individuals’ perspectives about some of what will likely be the realities of their lives become core to required counseling for couples considering the process. Those who want a donor conceived child, for example could have to listen to what it’s like for other donor conceived people to grapple with realities such as having potentially hundreds of half siblings.
It could require step by step authentications of identity throughout the process.
It could require open and fully accessible registries of donors and half siblings be made available to the resultant individuals.
It could ensure that personhood status is reserved for people. (I know, I know, I can’t believe I have to state things that feel this obvious sometimes, but when it comes to the catholic church, what should be obvious, is more likely to become long drawn out court battles over decades.)
It could set criminal penalities for implantation in a woman other than the intended recipient.
It could ensure the legality of embryo disposal and build in a consent process.
It could explicitly state that embryos produced as a result of this process disposition are solely in the hands of the couple who had them created in the process of their effort to “found a family.”
(or) It could create a means by which to deal with “abandoned” embryos, as avoidance of what to do with leftovers and indecision sometimes occurs.
It could explicitly ensure that “leftovers” can be donated for scientific research purposes.
It could make it illegal to utilize the “leftovers” in a religio-political staged “funeral” event, or illegal to bury such in cemeteries.
It could make it illegal to utilize the “leftovers” in political quasi-religious rituals.
It could create a process by which custody is determined or destruction mandated in the event of divorce.
It could make it illegal to release “leftovers” to individuals.
It could require disposal in warm liquid solutions where they essentially disintigrate or that they be disposed of and regulated like bio-waste product.
It could ensure that no embryo could be implanted in another woman without explicit consent of the couple who had them created in the process of their effort to “found a family.”
It could require a two year cooling off period and counseling between an infertility diagnosis and beginning IVF.
It could ensure that “concurrent” efforts such as simultaneous adoption efforts with IVF treatments are instead made chronologically sequential or separated.
It could require that every donor commit to a half hour visit at some point in their lifetimes with each child who results from the process.
Again, all of these barely scratch the surface of what lies ahead if Costa Rica DOESN’T get this explicitly nailed down, asap.
How do I know?
It’s quite simple, really. All of these “issues” are the stories that constitute the day to day headlines I deal with everyday.
More to the point, these barely scratch the surface of the “issues” that IVF and donor conceived people deal with every day of their lives for a lifetime.
If this industry is going to start up in Costa Rica, the voices and experiences of these people should be at the core of that process, not the unregulated for profit industry that churns these people out as product.
Friday Florida’s Attorney General Bill McCollum announced that the state would not be appealing the recent appellate court decision that declared Florida’s gay adoption ban unconstitutional- YET, or shall we say, at least on the basis of this case.
While the Queer community has been popping the champagne corks and acting as if the ban is dead, a few are beginning to take a closer look at McCollum’s actual wording.
It turns out Creative Loafing‘s David Warner has already more or less written the post I had in mind, so rather than reinvent the wheel, I’ll simply point readers across to his post,
McCollum’s statement included this bet-hedging quote: “No doubt someday a more suitable case will give the Supreme Court the opportunity to uphold the constitutionality of this law.”In other words, the law ain’t off the books yet, and if the right case comes along…
A case is pending, Keen reporter Dana Rudolph points out — that of a lesbian, Vanessa Alenier, who was allowed to adopt her infant cousin in January. The Department of Children and Families hasn’t decided whether to drop its appeal.
Read the rest of his piece for punchline part 2, it’s worth it.
It should be more than clear at this point, considering the Florida Family Policy Council’s ratfucking antics, the wingnut community is gearing up for the case and feels it’s much more likely to get the result they want next time around.
Furthermore, right on schedule, Queer adoptions are now an important differentiating issue in key political races in Florida. Had McCollum appealed, who’s to say what role the issue would or would not have played in the elctions.
But as always, no matter which way this went kids in the foster system have been used as a political football.
For now, one thing is certain, this ain’t over ’til it’s over.
(Florida specifically, but everwhere more generally) Queers should enjoy the moment, but be gearing up for what’s coming next.
Note the picture of Gill and the boys. It is a rare and sensitive photo in that while the case was ongoing, the boys faces were not splattered all over the media in the course of this long case. Don’t expect any media statements from the boys either.
Gill said he and his partner have tried to protect the two boys, now six and 10, from the publicity surrounding the legal challenge. But he said “they do know they’re part of an important court case.”
Because they were still in the foster system, the faces of the boys, who were known as NRG and XXG, were never shown in public. Only the backs of their heads were seen when they appeared on television, for example.
Even though the boys have enjoyed certain perks such as being invited to the White House Easter egg roll and their adoptions now will become final, Gill said he still intends to protect their privacy.
As I wrote at the time, referring to Arun Dohle’s efforts to gain his adoption file:
….when it comes to establishing the absolute right of Indian adoptees to their documentation, the high court finally gave over full access, rebuffing arguments by the agency/NGO claiming adoptees have no right to such or that their files should be covered by “confidentiality”or “mother’s privacy.”The judges flatly dismissed such arguments, ruling:
it is not a national secret that will cause a `maha yudh’, adding that “nothing is private here”
“Show it to him. He is entitled to it”
“No national secret is involved in it and the days of privileged documents are over.”
The HC was hearing a petition filed by Daksha Van Dijck, 35, and Anjali Pawar-Kate of the international NGO Against Child Trafficking.
We’re back to the government hiding behind ALLEGEDpromises of “confidentiality” as a means by which to prohibit access to one’s authentic documentation:
A Netherlands-based clinical psychologist who was adopted in Mumbai has lost her almost 10-year old battle to find her mother. The Bombay High Court ruled on Friday that a promise made to an unwed mother while she was handing over her child, allegedly born out of an illegitimate relationship, cannot be broken.
In other words, we’re right back where we were befor the ruling in Dohle’s case:
The bench also agreed with Shraddhanand Mahilashram on the point of concealing the identity of the unwed mother and hence dismissed the petition.
Of critical importance in both these cases, is that both adoptees are basing their arguments on what they see as potential criminal wrongdoings in the course of their adoptions.
The “abandonment” stories at the core of both adoptions simply don’t add up when examined closely.
Both adoptees seek the information for a number of reasons, including to try to retrace whether or not their adoptions were via the black market or otherwise entangled with criminal behaviors.
When the court denies a full investigation of the circumstances by which they became available to the adoption process, the court’s rulings have the effect of potentially protecting criminals and criminal interests.
Until the light of day is shed on these circumstances and all documents pertaining to these cases, the very real possibility of criminal entanglements remains, lingering like a shadow, yet any evidence is kept intentionally out of reach.
The days of privileged documents are most certainly, still upon us.
The high court had earlier directed the prothonotary and senior master of the court to trace the 1975 records pertaining to Van Dijck’s adoption, which was granted with the high court’s permission.
Daksha had sought action against Shraddhashram Mahilasharm in Matunga from where she was adopted. Her advocates Pradeep Havnur and Shabana Ansari told the court that there is no police inquiry report in terms of the adoption but a mere affidavit saying the child (Van Dijck) is free for adoption.
Dismissing the petition, the court, however, said adoptive parents should also be held responsible if the adopted child feels that the adoption procedure was faulty. “Why are the adoptive parents not made a party to this petition,” the court asked.
Each of these paragraphs are interesting and important.
The first, in that at first, the high court was asking the adoption records be traced, before later denying Van Dijck access.
The second, in that the paperwork is simply an affidavit asserting Van Dijck was available to the process.
Finally, the third, in that the court brings up the obvious, if there was what in this country might be considered a “wrongful adoption” then why are the adopters themselves left off the list of people being held responsible?
The court has issued a notice to the agency, asking it to appear in court, through an advocate, on September 13.
Daksha, a clinical psychologist, had filed the petition alleging that she was most likely kidnapped as an infant and placed for international adoption by the agency. The court has also asked the police to check their records on whether they have a complaint filed about an abandoned baby, who was taken in by the Aashram.
“If an abandoned child was found outside the Aashram, there must have been some police report. If not abandoned, then someone gave the child up and so the Aashram must have the records,” said Khanwilkar.
Dinesh Adsule, additional public prosecutor, who is representing the state, which is one of the respondents, said officials have visited the Aashram but not found any records.
Daksha was adopted by Johan Van Dijck in 1975 through Hague-based Wereldkinderen, a Dutch adoption agency. Her advocates, Pradeep Havnur and Shabana Ansari, said after her first visit to India in 2001, she tried to search for her biological parents through the Dutch agency. However, its file “did not have any details about her biological parent(s), nor any kind of abandonment declaration, nor a relinquishment document.”
Daksha returned to India in 2007 with her husband and approached Shraddhanand Mahilashram, which did not co-operate with her or with Wereldkinderen, after which they lodged a complaint at Matunga police station, Ansari said.
The lack of abandonment documentation and the lack of a relinquishment document should have raised red flags long before she was allowed out of the country, as essentially, there is no paper trail of consent ever having been given for her to be adopted or parental rights to be cut.
Shraddhanand Mahilashram was the Ashram where she originated, Wereldkinderen was the Dutch agency that handled the adoption.
Finally, I also found an earlier article from last June, Dutch moves court to trace Indian roots, which reconfirmed that the agency at the center of Van Dijck’s case is the Hindu Women’s Welfare Society Shraddhanand Mahila Ashram, (basic contact info, address etc can be found here.)
A 34-year-old Dutch national has approached the Bombay High Court for help in locating her roots in India, alleging that she was probably kidnapped as an infant and given up for international adoption. Daksha Van Dijck, a clinical psychologist who worked as a scientist at Maastricht University,
has filed a petition saying she suspected she was kidnapped in 1975 and given up for adoption by Shraddhanand Mahilashram in Matunga.A division bench on Tuesday directed the state to file a reply in two weeks. Dijck was adopted by Johan Van Dijck in 1975 through Wereldkinderen, an adoption agency in Hague.
After her first visit to India in 2001, Dijck tried locating her biological parents through Wereldkinderen. She returned to India in 2007 with her husband and approached Shraddhanand Mahilashram. “The office bearers were totally uncooperative in furnishing any details about her [Dijck] adoption and her biological parent/parents,” her petition alleges.
Dijck then approached Wereldkinderen, which allowed her to see her file. The file, however, did not have details about her biological parents or any declaration that she had been abandoned, the petition says.
Pradeep Havnur, Dijck’s advocate, said Wereldkinderen had registered complaint with the Matunga police on February 2, 2009 because Shraddhanand Mahilashram was not cooperating.
To say Shraddhanand Mahilashram is politically connected would be an understatement.
Today, I almost feel done with words. (For the moment at least.)
Every time I try to string words together about this, I end up erasing them back out of this post.
I am angry.
Ahead of what was happening in media reports, I watched as the bits and pieces were coming in on Twitter.
I read what people on the ground were tweeting, and saw the pictures they posted.
I am angry.
As early reports from yesterday like this AP piece flatly stated what demographically, some of us knew was a very likely scenario unfolding,
Most are reportedly children.
I am angry.
I’m furious at what the global lack of attention span and genuine empathy for Haiti’s well over a million left homeless has come to: precisely what we all knew it would unless drastic changes came quickly. Drastic changes that didn’t come in time for far too many, and have yet to come at all.
Land restructuring, debris removal, housing, and long term solutions, not stop-gap band-aids were and are neccessary, but instead the people of Haiti got… well this.
I don’t delude myself into thinking that even if every penny promised had shown up in a timely manner that it would have fixed things, or that there’s any element of any ability to control anything in this.
I am angry.
Because ten months under these conditions is simply beyond measure.
Everyone knew things were not going to even begin to come together overnight, but still… .
I am angry.
Because rebuilding Haiti has been left primarily to those who capitalize on disaster: profiteers and evangelists. Both of whom view Haitians and Haiti itself as little more than a means to an ends for their own purposes.
There are others there, trying to do right by the people, but in many ways, it’s been left to whomever wants a piece.
I am angry.
Because Haiti is not alone in suffering.
As always around the world, there are kids going to bed hungry, people homeless due to natural disasters, wars… .
We humans whittle the completely overwhelming magnitude of it all down to what we can even begin to fathom at any given point in time.
I am angry.
Once the decision to not decide about how to go forward was made, this simply became a matter of time.
I am angry.
(Because I know this will only drive would be adopters and the adoption industry into an even higher frenzy, ramping up pressure still further to remove Haitian children for adoptions, though I haven’t the stomach to look at such just yet.)
I am angry.
By the time I post these, they will already be out of date.
As of Friday morning October 22, 2010; there have been more than 2000 cases of acute watery diarrhea and 160 deaths reported at the facilities in St. Marc, Petite Riviere d’Artibonite, Mirebalais, Lascahobas, and Verretes…
I’ve barely scratched the surface of writing about the history of the residential schools and how First Nations peoples in both the United States and Canada have undergone generations worth of the forcible removal of their children.
For my part, I hope to see more in the adoptee, Parents, and Bastard communities educating themselves, spending some time listening, in order to gain at least some understanding of both the history and the ongoing work that must be done to put an end to these crimes. It is long past time we add our voices to those demanding an end to such abuses.
Perhaps more importantly still, would-be-adopters need to stop coveting, fetishizing, and buying Indigenous children, (same could be said for any targeted population of kids, for that matter.) Market demand remains the underlying driving engine.
With that as a mere starting places to gain context, we turn to this article from The Province,
Aboriginal kids in government care: ‘It’s an epidemic’– Our Growing Challenge: More than half of children taken into government care in B.C. are aboriginal, and this childhood development manager says the situation is getting worse
Just more of the same under a new name, aboriginal kids being taken from their families and raised raised in non-Native foster or adoptive contexts, just now falling under the “child-welfare” system rather than the “residential schools” system. The kids are being de-contextualized one by one, rather than en mass, but the ultimate effect is still very similar.
(Emphasis added by me.)
In October 2009, according to government figures, 4,642 — or 53 per cent — of children in ministry care were aboriginal, even though aboriginal kids make up only eight per cent of B.C.’s children. The proportion is highest in the Fraser Valley, where almost 60 per cent of children in care are aboriginal, said Gagne.
A study conducted by Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, B.C.’s representative for children and youth, found one out of five aboriginal youth had either been in care or in the home of a rel-
ative compared with less than one in 30 for non-aboriginals.
Aboriginal children are more than seven times more likely to be found in need of protection and 12.5 times more likely to stay in care. If they leave the system, it’s usually because of their age.
There are more First Nations children in child-welfare care now in Canada than there were in residential schools at the height of the system.
This is unconscionable.
(Again, emphasis added by me.)
Gagne, who is Metis of Cree, French, Iroquois and English heritage, said the current situation is, in fact, a de facto continuation of that system, in which students were separated from their parents and elders, sometimes by force, and estranged from their heritage and culture. Many came away with emotional and psychological trauma that undermined their ability to become good, nurturing parents.
“When we talk about residential schools, people ask why we don’t just get over it, but they don’t realize it’s still happening today in a different capacity,” said Gagne, noting most aboriginal children are placed in non-aboriginal homes because there aren’t enough aboriginal foster parents.
“Our kids are still not with us.”
As always, this is tangled through a web of issues such as poverty, bias, access to housing, education, reproductive care, addiction etc.
But the lack of investment and effort towards tackling these root issues, results in a set of default settings, settings that lead to the removal of children.
With no alternatives in place, removing a child may become the default solution, a report by the Canadian Council of Provincial Child and Youth Advocates warned.
The problems are systemic, and reach far beyond the individual.
Turpel-Lafond said there’s too much knee-jerk response and not enough prevention. And while there are efforts to work on the issues, they do not match the magnitude of the problem.
The disproportionate number of aboriginal children in ministry care is but one of the symptoms of an “economic dependency trap” that limits the potential of aboriginals, says Calvin Helin, a lawyer and author who has been running a martial arts program for inner-city kids in Vancouver for 10 years.
Helin, who advocates greater self-reliance for aboriginals, says there are “damn well good reasons” why so many are stuck in a treadmill of poverty and misery, but “you can say that until you’re blue in the face and it won’t make a difference to your situation.”
Which of course then begs the question, does an “apology” for a problem that is still ongoing, ( just shifted to a different means by which the same ends is ultimately accomplished) really mean anything?
Or does it become a sort of placeholder, for where justice should have gone?
Does it provide those not on the receiving end of the injustice an excuse to simply go forward and consider that “over and done with”?
As the article notes, there are those who can’t understand why Native peoples ‘aren’t over it yet’ (what with the “apology” and all.) There are those who become almost exasperated, feeling that ‘issue’ was ‘dealt with, why are you still bringing that up?’
The answer is simple, it’s being done differently now, but the process is still ongoing, soaring to whole new levels of child confiscation.
Those willing to settle for mere “apologies” will never see justice done.
If readers wonder why I’m more than cynical when it comes to Government apologies, it’s because I try to learn from the experiences of others, I look at what comes the day after an apology and in the years after that.
Beyond any “apology” what is required is at a bare minimum, a dismantling of the system.
Aboriginal communities in Canada are still fighting for their children.
Today MORE children have been confiscated than at the height of the previous system of cultural genocide.
Ultimately, does it matter if new stickers are slapped on the same process, rebranding it, as the former brand no longer enjoys a wonderful reputation?
I think it does. I think it matters a very great deal. I think we have to peel back the shiny new stickers and show what’s still underneath.
No matter what the label, families are still having their children taken.
Flinging mere words at that process didn’t make it go away.
This is another of those “coming in in the middle” sorts of posts.
I’m not going to attempt to rehash the history of Mothers’ and Adoptees’ activism in Australia leading up to the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry Into Adoption Practices, which was a watershed event with global implications. Instead I’ll simply point readers at ONE particular retelling of the process leading up to it finally coming into being as told through the eyes of Dian Wellfare “on behalf of the Origins Committee and Members.”
Citing Dian Welfare, or Origins (Australia in this case) more generally, presents its own bit of a backgrounder I should write, but that would mean coming in on the middle of the middle, and I’m not going to get there tonight. Suffice it to say, I have issues with some of the strategy, tactics, and presentation issues involved in their work, but find that when they stick to the legal arguments that much at least is usually more solid.
Other aspects of their work rely on essentialist notions of womanhood, or motherhood specifically, and go down the lines of supposedly intrinsic “maternal bonds,” “attachment” quackery, “body wisdom” or “psychic trauma” which as any of my regular readers could likely predict, I find highly problematic (to say the least) if not an outright biting down on the false structures being offered by those in the industry itself (as in the attachment pseudo-science) and a sidestepping from or distraction to the human rights violations that are core to what they hope to accomplish.
(This is not to say that Mothers have not suffered, particularly psychologically, or that Bastards have not had to endure as well, but these are not universal across ALL of this class of Mothers and Bastards. Some people spend decades haunted by these experiences, others have some ability to put iat least some of it behind them and these events are not core components of how they self identify.)
So bearing those caveats in mind, I will be pointing at some of Origins (AU) work in this post. Obviously there is more I could write but I’ll leave that for another day.
Which leads us to yesterday’s so called “apology” process for the crimes against families and their children that have left almost no corner of Australian society unscathed.
Several female MPs have told State Parliament that they have been personally affected by the forced adoptions of last century.
The Liberal MP, Liza Harvey, says her mother was forced to give up her baby.
“After a long, traumatic and difficult birth she had my sister taken from her to be adopted out,” she said.
Ms Harvey says her sister was returned to her mother five weeks later, when she married the father.
The Member for Fremantle, Adele Carles, says her 53 year old mother only recently discovered she was adopted out.
“She had been removed from her teenage birth mother in New Zealand in the 1940s,” she said.
Sue MacDonald was 16 when she had her baby taken from her in 1968.
She says she has been waiting a long time for this day.
“Finally women are going to be acknowledged for the pain and suffering that we endured back then, hopefully it will help our children to understand that they weren’t given away, they weren’t abandoned or given away and I think that this can only set people free,” she said.
One of the MANY problems with the apology model is that it fills a vacuum where justice belongs.
When there is a gap left, nothing other than the crimes committed, some prefer to fill that space with words rather than the long overdue criminal charges that belong in those spaces.
Those wronged feel so desperate for any acknowledgement that what occurred even took place that some will be bought off and placated with any words in which they are able to find any reflection of what they endured, even if those words ultimately pass the blame and serve as a sick form of substitute for a more genuine effort to bring the perpetrators of the crimes to justice.
Nothing can bring the years and lost children back.
Reunions can’t erase the lost years. Important though they are.
All that is left is to not let the criminals (still living) get away with it.
To drag it out into the light of day, write it into the history books, listen to those who lived through it, break the hold shame has on so many, and help them understand that far from some notion of an individual trauma, this was a societal crime systematically carried out against classes of people. Most importantly to learn from it, as a people, a nation, and a world.
By criminals, of course, I implicate the very system itself, not merely a few individuals here and there perhaps offered up as token scapegoats.
Mere “apologies” from government, churches, and private hospitals then would serve to fill that vacuum ensuring that the matter must be considered “dealt with,” “closed,” and “behind us now” by polite society, leaving those few still calling for a full investigation of the crimes, left crying in the wind, now relegated to “fringe figures who will not be satisfied.”
Those willing to settle for mere “apologies” will never see justice done.
Labor MLA David Templeman, who originally raised the issue of a Parliamentary apology, called for a formal inquiry by a standing committee into the practice and said churches and private hospitals should also issue their own apologies to single mothers.
“The broader Australian community would never have accepted this method… that is no excuse, what happened was wrong, we need to acknowledge and state it as wrong,” he said.
Which is not to say the demand for apologies does not not come from Mothers themselves, as clearly they do.
But words alone are not enough. They do not begin to cover the magnitude of what was done, and no one should be satisfied with mere words in light of these crimes.
NSW-based Apology Alliance founder Christine Cole had been campaigning for national and state apologies since 1994.
She echoed the call for an inquiry, saying her research had uncovered collusion between the social welfare and maternity departments of hospitals, marking certain children for adoption before they were even born.
“Often before a single mother was admitted to a hospital she was sent to the social welfare unit to be assessed,” Ms Cole said.
“Her file was then marked with a secret code like UBFA, which meant ‘unmarried, baby for adoption’. Those files indicated how she was to be treated by the medical department, she wouldn’t see her baby and this was all decided for her before she went into labour.”
Ms Cole said women had gathered in Sydney and Brisbane to watch the WA apology through the online live stream.
“One has to ask why have we, as a group who were so brutalised, why have we been left out (of getting an apology) up until now? I would suggest that we are opening a Pandora’s box.”
She said there was evidence of women being forced to give up their children in WA as early as 1927, although they were able to wean their children for two months before they were separated.
“In the 1920s and 30s 66 per cent of single mothers kept their babies, so to say that all these policies that came to the fore-front in the 50s and 60s was a result of social mores at the time is just wrong,” she said.
Ms Cole estimated that as many as 200,000 babies were adopted out across Australia using the aggressive practice.
Opposition leader Eric Ripper called it a fundamentally flawed government policy that didn’t allow mothers to give informed consent when giving up their children because some were drugged, never allowed to see their baby or were told the child had died.
Many MPs told personal stories, including Labor MLA Michelle Roberts, whose sister-in-law’s only child was regarded as an unnamed baby after nurses told her it was pointless to name him because his adoptive parents would rename him.
This headline, WA Government apologises to unwed mums forced to adopt, of course being filled with grim irony in that it was “unwed mums” who were systematically stripped of their parental rights, not forced to adopt children.
Their labor produced the “raw material” for a generation of other people’s adoptions, but they themselves were left with empty arms, not homes with newly adopted children.
The headline, more than a mere gaff, shows how little media understanding there really can be in relation to the complexities of what these women endured.
Ms Kashin was sent to a home in NSW where she gave birth prematurely to a baby boy in May 1963.
She was told that if she tried to escape the home, the police would arrest her.
“I was handcuffed to the bed because they knew I would do a runner,” she said.
“That was the most traumatic part … I thought I was going to die.”
Ms Kashin eventually moved on with her life and finally met her son in 1996, 33 years after he was adopted out.
But, she said, she remained upset over the “indignity” of being incarcerated and she continued to wear a bracelet on her right wrist to remember the injustice.
Ms Kashin said it meant “a great deal” to receive an apology from the government.
“It’s like being given back your selfhood because adoption, forced adoption, any adoption, robs you of your selfhood, and it robs your child as well,” she said.
But even the headlines that get it right, Apology to mothers forced to give up babies, as Mothers were forced to give up babies, still belies the banality of the notion of an apology. How can anyone, a government, an institution or an individual apologize for forcing a mother to lose her child?
Well, ultimately, it appears, you don’t.
First you lie, then you deny all responsibility, then you recast your institution’s role, then you pass the responsibility off. (Emphasis added by me.)
Dr Hames has told the ABC that government policies at the time were unsupportive of unmarried women.
“We’ve got to remember that as a government we weren’t directly responsible but I think parliament has a great role to play at recognising things that were wrong,” he said.
“Certainly when you look back at those practices of the day, and they were in public and private hospitals, that they were wrong and they treated women very, very poorly.”
Alright, so let’s dissect this.
Lie- The first claim, Government policies of the time were unsupportive, is a lie. The Origins materials I will link below will spell this out in more detail, but the short version is there were government support mechanisms potentially available to these Mothers, but as a class they were denied knowledge of what support did exist, and were never given the opportunities to avail themselves of it.
Deny- The Australian Government was directly responsible, as I’ll show below, again through the Origins materials.
Recast- now, via this linguistic sleight of hand, it is no longer the government’s role to acknowledge its own culpability, nor to prosecute the crimes committed, rather it is simply supposed to play a great role “at recognizing things that were wrong.” “Recognitions” are an altogether different animal than prosecutions.
Pass the responsibility off- finally attempt to shift blame to public and private hospitals- both of which were part of the Australian government’s adoption program at the time as, again, you’ll see below in the Origins materials.
All of which is to say, even if one values apologies and feels them appropriate in situations such as this, the actual structure of the so called “apology” is not an apology, it is a reframing of the very core questions themselves such that the entire matter is now being played out against the new framing.
The reality is there were policies and programs supportive of pregnant and unmarried women and their eventual children, they were simply systematically kept from women and out of their reach.
The Australian government was DIRECTLY responsible.
Today’s government must decide between maintaining those lies, even while going through the motions of publicly “apologizing,” or whether it will own up to the full ramifications of its own direct role in these crimes, probe this open wound in Australian society, and bring charges and suits against what structures and individuals complicit in these crimes that remain.
Or to put it more simply, open that Pandora’s box and own its own role in this clusterfuck.
A clusterfuck, which by the way, some parties benefited from, while others endured losses beyond words. Just as there were those who lost in this system, there were also those who gained.
Understand that these were not to be dismissed as “practices of the day” or lay blame at hospitals, hospitals, which of course, were part of the government’s own program, this was an intentionally set about systematic program designed to strip mine pregnant women of their babies, and that is beyond anything mere words can cover over, it is a crime against humanity.
“The trauma is so deep, so complex that over 40 per cent of us never risked having another child. Children have suffered believing their own mothers callously gave them away,” she said.
“Hearts have been shattered. Lives have been taken.”
Sue said the rights of mothers were ignored.
“Single, unsupported mothers were treated like breeders, denigrated, dehumanised and de-babied.
Not to worry though, the “apology” was tightly scripted and things are clearly under the government and it’s unnamed “others'” control.
“Dr Hames said lawyers had scrutinised the apology to ensure it “doesn’t take us into areas the government and others don’t want us to be”.
“There are a lot of people with different views on how the apology should be worded, who it should recognise,” he said.
“People who adopted children are feeling sensitive as though this is some criticism of them and I can assure them this is nothing to do with those who were adopted or who adopted children.”
He said none of the mothers he’d spoken to had wanted to seek compensation for their hardship.
It will be the first time the generations of Australian single mothers hear a formal acknowledgement of their suffering. Health Minister Kim Hames said it was also the first time such an apology was made anywhere in the world.”
The second fragment I emphasized, “…this is nothing to do with those who were adopted or who adopted children” is another stunning revelation.
For how can Mothers having their children forcably taken from them have “nothing to do with” those children/eventual adults who were adopted?
Further how can that have “nothing to do with” those who bought those children, and who formed the market demand in the first place?
For Hames himself to be insisting this is somehow limited in scope to words flung at Mothers (so as not to have to offer any form of justice or redress) is to say this “apology” is vacuum filler, nothing more.
We are talking about the genuine lives of many people and how they were affected by the government program.
Jan Kashin, 68, flew to WA from Brisbane to witness today’s apology after a horrific ordeal lead to her being strapped to a NSW hospital bed during the birth of her son in 1963.Mrs Kashin became engaged to a Russian man the year before and when her father refused to allow their marriage she got pregnant in the hopes it would sway him.
“My father was a business man and he just said you think you’ve got this situation sewn up but you’re not going to get married and you’re going to Sydney and that will be that,” Mrs Kashin said.
She was sent to a Church of England home in NSW, where she lived until the premature birth of her son, 7 and a half months into the pregnancy.
Mrs Kashin said she was told that if she tried to leave the hospital the police would be called in to find her.
“Eventually I gave birth and I was handcuffed to the hospital bed because they knew I would do a runner, that I would go, so that was the most traumatic part of it because I passed out,” she said.
“I thought they were going to kill me, by giving me an accidental overdose. I endeavoured to make some attempt to get my child back but I was rebuffed.”
She said she asked hospital staff to see her son four times but was rejected. Her grandmother eventually saw the boy by posing as a relative of the adoptive family.
She married her fiancé three weeks after giving birth to her son.”
Decades later,
“She was reunited with her son in 1996 at his Sydney home and described it as a phenomenal moment.”
Some are connecting this out to a call for a broader national inquiry, but then fall back into apology language.
David Templeman was one of the architects of the apology and says the next step should be a national inquiry.
“These practices and policies of adoption took place across the country and to really make sure that we lift a lid on this issue and to make sure we get to the real truth, the real stories, we need a national inquiry, and there should be a national apology in the federal parliament,” he said.
The Greens MP Alison Xamon has told parliament her colleagues will introduce a motion in Federal Parliament next week for a national inquiry and an apology to the women.
“I hope that WA’s example is just the beginning,” she said.
The reaction to the “apology” by some Mothers has been less than warm (to put it mildly.)
Labor MP David Templeman said WA needed to acknowledge the great injustice done to the women, who have not sought compensation.”We need to acknowledge there were state-sanctioned adoption practices that were wrong, often brutal and in many cases illegal,” he said.
This admission of illegality has been a crucial turning point, one that other bloggers have been examining as well, see They admit it was illegal!
So stepping away from the news accounts, I am going to get in to some of Origins materials as their legal arguments and personal histories form the case studies and ultimately a catalogue of sorts of the crimes that were committed in the course of these adoptions.
I’ll begin with the Response of Origins Inc. to Apology of Western Australia to Unmarried Mothers video.
As I mentioned above, I have my reservations, particularly in relation to the format and the use of imagery (as well as some of the concepts presented) but I still think it’s important for people to hear their response.
I do want to pull just a quote or two out in relation to the Lie, Deny, Recast, & Pass the Responsibility off set I laid out above.
It must be made very clear that until 1967 two thirds of all adoption arrangements were carried out by the state government agencies. The other third were made up of what was known as independent baby traders who were ultimately outlawed when the state took control of all adoptions in Australia in 1967 by licensing only reputable agencies to arrange adoptions.
We are not speaking of those privately arranged baby traders, although they are included. We are speaking of the abuses carried out by the licensed adoption agencies and the hospitals to which they were associated.
-Dian Welfare
and
Excuse Number two
These past practices reflected the views of society at the time and were supported by the then Western Australian State Government”
-extract of a letter from Mr. Hames to Origins Inc, 12 April 2010, ref: 25-11676
Origins has compiled a list of some of the crimes committed and what charges would be appropriate.
Even if you don’t take the time to follow any other link off the article, go across to this list and read what women endured.
I’ll pull just a few examples, although it’s nearly impossible to chose any subset to give the overall flavor, again, please see the full post.
7. Forbidding mothers to leave the hospital until their records were marked with the term “socially cleared” indicating that they could only leave the hospital after they had signed a consent.
9. Forbidding mothers either to see or touch their babies until they signed a consent.
Ultra Vires Law, Unconscionable Behaviour, Coercion, Violation of Human Rights, Violation of Statutory Rights, element of Conspiracy to Defraud.
…
11. Violently interfering in the primal act of birthing procedure, snatching infants from the mothers womb before birth was complete, whilst bound in stirrups and awaiting the expulsion of the placenta.
Unconscionable Behaviour. Ultra Vires Law. Element of Conspiracy to Defraud. Violation of Human Rights.
…
14. Preventing lactation by using the synthetic hormone Stilboestrol, known to be carcinogenic since 1971, or by the method of breast binding, all without written consent.
Common Assault. Trespass to the Person. Violation of Natural Law. Violation of Human Rights. Unconscionable Behaviour.
15. Sedating mothers during labour with what was known as lytic cocktails (used medically to obliterate feelings). These cocktails consisted of Phenobarbitone, Pethidine, Sparine, and Largactyl. Post-Hypnotic memory altering barbiturates such as Phenobarbitol, Sodium Amytil, Methadone, Heroin and Chloral Hydrate were also the order of the day.
Criminal offence under s38 of the Crimes Act, Unconscionable Behaviour, Conspiracy to Defraud.
…
17. Transporting mothers by ambulance, whilst heavily sedated to different hospitals without their babies, and without their permission.
False Imprisonment (common law offence), Element of Conspiracy to Defraud.
18. Shackling mothers to bedheads during labour with either leather straps attached to chains or bandages. Physically restraining mothers from seeing their babies immediately after giving birth.
Common Assault, False Imprisonment, Unconscionable Behaviour, Ultra Vires Law, Violation of Human Rights.
19. Informing mothers their babies had died at birth when in fact they had been adopted.
Fraudulent Misrepresentation, Unconscionable Behaviour, Element of Conspiracy to Defraud, s91, Taking a child with intent to steal, s90 Kidnapping. Violation of Human Rights, Intent to Deprive Owner Permanently.
…
21. Taking consent from mothers prior to or upon birth and post dating the date the consent was taken- to the legally required day five.
23. Inducing mothers to sign incomplete documents of consent to adoption, to fill in further details later.
Fraud. Unconscionable Behaviour. Ultra Vires Law.
…
25. Expecting an unskilled minor to sign a legal document without an adult or legal advocate present and without them understanding the legal interpretation of the document they were signing.
Unconscionable Behaviour. Breach of Statutory Law.
26. Not informing the mother of the thirty day revocation period.
Unconscionable Behaviour, Fraud, Intent to Deprive Owner Permanently, Breach of Duty of Care, Breach of Statutory Standard.
27. Employing non-skilled and non-licenced staff to conduct legal transactions, prepare legal documents and interview unmarried mothers without knowing the law. (To shift the blame away from themselves, Social Workers are now declaring that as many as 80% of people working in the adoption industry were non-professionals)
Ultra Vires Law, Breach of Duty of Care.
Origins has also written a response to the “apology”
The Apology is really a poor exercise in rhetoric- a backhanded insult to unwed mothers – justifying their subjugation in retrospect to those who unlawfully arranged the removal of their children at birth
The magical construction of an “inalienable right to a child” by adopters when their name came to the top of the list, thus children were needed to fit the demand, which served as a supposed “justification” for what these families of origin endured.
The McLelland Report admitted that the true purpose of the Adoption of Children Act of 1965 was based on the premise that a couple not unsuitable to adopt had an inalienable right to a child when their name on the adoption register came up.
An example of religious collusion in the protection of the socially powerful and”respectability” of families:
“One of the most charitable aspects of the work of St. Anthony’s is the safeguarding of the good name and reputation of highly respectable families. Many good daughters of the best of parents have found themselves needing the shelter and protection of the Home, far from the critical eyes of self-righteous society. From here they have been enabled to return to their parents without the slightest danger of their situation being revealed.
-K. Burford, St Anthony’s History Book, 1989:8)
The Origins materials on the webpage are a trove of data important to understanding not merely the Australian situation, but also the global adoption situation as well as the situation and some of the history pertaining to the U.S..
At first glance, what might appear a bit of “good news,” America’s refusal to participate in the Guatemalan adoption pilot program, turns out to be just another call to “resolve” the so called “pipeline” cases.
Essentially, the U.S. is saying regular imports of Guatemalan children will not resume until this backlog of cases from before the country closed are dealt with.
No new outlays of cash or ongoing business until this old business results in whatever number of kids being adopted here in the U.S..
For a country looking forward to an influx of American dollars, that can be one hell of an incentive to get those cases moving.
The new Guatemalan Attorney General looks to be just the man for the job, (but we’ll get to that a bit further down in the post.)
The pilot program was announced back in 2008, as a means to move certain cases, but the child trafficking networks remained firmly in place, if anything moving those with ties to the criminals into key government positions.
…human rights groups are worried.
”We are against the reopening of international adoptions now because the same structure of organised crime that generated a major international market to which the country exported between 5,000 and 6,000 children a year is still in place,” the head of the Survivors Foundation, Norma Cruz, told IPS.
In 2008, the National Adoption Council suspended foreign adoptions, which were mainly to couples in the United States, to shut down a thriving business that profited lawyers, judges and doctors.
Until the suspension of foreign adoptions, Guatemala was the fourth country in the world in terms of the number of children placed in adoption, after Russia, China and South Korea, according to UNICEF. But in proportion to the population, it was the global leader.
Adoptions were suspended in compliance with the new adoption law in effect since 2007, which created the National Adoption Council and banned ”undue benefits, material or otherwise, to accrue to the persons, institutions and authorities involved in the adoption process.”
It also put a priority on placing children with Guatemalan families and established that ”the poverty or extreme poverty of parents is not sufficient reason to put a child up for adoption.”
According to United Nations figures, half of the population of this Central American country of 13 million people is living in poverty, and 17 percent in extreme poverty.
Activists say that behind the booming adoption market in Guatemala was a ”mafia” of lawyers, notaries public, ”jaladoras” or baby brokers who entice poor young women into placing their children in adoption, so-called ”casas de engorde” or ”fattening houses” where the expectant mothers’ pregnancy and birth-related expenses were covered, officials in civil registers, pediatricians, adoption homes and foster families.
To soothe the fears of other countries, or at least to maintain some semblance of doing due diligence, DNA tests will be administered in all cases begun post 2008, with the samples being handed by the Forensic Anthropology Institute this time.
The U.S. State Department says Guatemala hasn’t provided enough details on how cases will be processed under a system enacted in 2008 and corruption remains a concern.
Guatemala suspended international adoptions in 2007 after discovering some babies had been stolen and others had fake birth certificates. Guatemala had been the world’s second-largest source of babies to U.S. citizens after China.
On the face of it, it first looks like the U.S. actually did the right thing for once. But a much closer examination is warranted, because as always, first impressions can be dead wrong.
Again, the U.S. is concerned that this limited reopening will not be up to the standards laid out in the Hague Convention on Inter-country Adoption, as for the U.S. the Hague has become some mythic gold standard by which so long as everyone follows the ‘rules’ no one is left to blame, (or the industry and their outsourced, private regulator, the Council on Accreditation rationalize.)
A: The U.S. Central Authority, under the Hague Intercountry Adoption, Convention withdrew its letter of interest in the pilot program because of concerns that adoptions under the program would not meet the requirements of the Hague Convention. Specifically, the United States is concerned that the CNA has not yet addressed and resolved vulnerabilities that led to widespread corruption and ultimately to the 2007 moratorium on intercountry adoptions. Specifically, the United States believes that more safeguards for children should be in place before the CNA could start processing new intercountry adoptions.In addition, the Guatemalan Government has not yet provided specific details for how adoption cases under the pilot program would be processed under Guatemala’s new adoption law.
The job of investigating complaints was given to the Council on Accreditation, a nonprofit organization in New York that also handles accreditation duties. Only the state of Colorado will investigate its own cases. If an investigation confirms that an agency violated standards, it can lose its accreditation, shutting it out of the 77 treaty countries.
But in an interview, Richard Klarberg, the council’s chief executive, conceded that the council isn’t prepared to conduct international inquiries into complaints of corrupt adoption practices. Baby stealing or other fraudulent adoption practices have been alleged in Vietnam, China, Liberia, Guatemala and India. Some countries halted adoptions after such revelations.
“The reality is that the Council on Accreditation lacks the resources, either in staff or financial resources, to send someone to China to review a complaint. … We lack that capacity,” Klarberg said.
and
Klarberg said the council has just three staff members to investigate complaints against U.S. adoption agencies. They can question U.S. agencies and gather documents related to their foreign activities. So far, the agency has opened at least 17 investigations, but no agencies have been sanctioned. The council will leave the more complicated job of investigating foreign conduct to foreign governments or the State Department.
That’s not good enough, said Gina Pollock, an adoptive mother and board member of Parents for Ethical Adoption Reform, a group that lobbies for changes in federal laws. She said the job of investigating international wrongdoing should be the government’s, not a nonprofit organization’s.
That outsourcing is precisely part of the problem. The very same non-profit agency that provides accreditation to agencies is also responsible for investigating their crimes. On the very face of it, that’s laughable at best.
But the FAQ also addresses the ongoing question of the “pipeline” cases, the real core of the matter as far as the U.S. is concerned.
These represent the adoptions that were already in process when adoptions from Guatemala were closed. (Emphasis added by me.)
Q: How will this withdrawal affect active “grandfathered” cases that are already in the pipeline?
A: The United States is only withdrawing its interest in participating in the pilot program at this time. This means that the United States does not wish to begin NEW adoption cases. Withdrawal of U.S. interest in participating in the pilot program should not impact the processing of active “grandfathered” adoptions in progress.In fact, we hope that our withdrawal will result in a shift of resources by the Government of Guatemala towards resolving these pending cases.
This is the key, and the portion of the FAQ that adoption industry lobbies and would-be-adopters of Guatemalan children are also pulling and utilizing.
“Resolving these pending cases” is highly problematic, as these “pipeline” cases were kids who were offered to the adoption process in the midst of the all out babyselling when the 2007 moratorium went into effect.
These cases then, are products of precisely the circumstances of fraud and corruption that led to the closure in the first place.
Sorting out who these kids genuinely are, how they came to enter the process, whether or not they have relatives searching for them and whether or not adopting them could ever be considered any version of “ethical” has already taken years and in a number of cases, there may simply be no way to resolve how the child became available to the process.
Going forward with these adoptions then would be little more than the all out acknowledgement that when it comes to U.S. foreign adoption policy, ends justifies pretty much ANY means, including murder, kidnapping, bribes, etc, etc, etc.
Not that many of these American would-be-adopters care. They want what they want, and have no qualms about bullying their way right over anyone who dares stand in their way.
It is altogether fitting that these are referred to as “pipeline” cases as that’s precisely what adoptions from Guatemala were, a structure for resource extraction of kids. Just another form of trade, large sums of cash for “product” i.e. kids.
Once those on the ground saw the lucrative amounts of money to be made, extra-legal structures were rapidly built to satisfy that market demand.
The “pipeline” cases then, those American families demand be “grandfathered in” are products of precisely that context. Again, turning to the FAQ:
Q: What does it mean to be a “grandfathered” case?
A: Guatemala’s new adoption law to implement fully its obligations under the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption was approved on December 11, 2007 and went in effect on December 31, 2007. A new Guatemalan Government agency to serve as the “Central Authority” for adoptions, the CNA, was created at that time. Notarial adoption cases that were in process before December 31, 2007 would be permitted to continue but only if the cases were registered with the CNA by spring 2008. Cases that were registered with the CNA would be considered “grandfathered” and allowed to continue their notarial adoption process under Guatemala’s previous law. For relinquishment adoption cases to continue, the CNA and PGN were also required to interview the birth mother by August 2008.
However, it is important to note that any irregularities found in the notarial process of a particular case could negate the “grandfathered” status and prevent the case from being able to proceed.
In their pursuit of these kids, Americans continue to ignore the broader context adoptions from Guatemala took place within.
To name just a few facets, all set against a backdrop of grinding poverty, which seems to always be key:
* The murders of thousands of women, more than 3,800 women and girls since the year 2000. Amnesty International characterizes the climate thusly:
“the brutality of the killings … reveal that extreme forms of sexual violence and discrimination remain prevalent in Guatemalan society”
All of which brings who new meaning to words like “Guatemalan orphan.”
Kids were/are offered to this adoption process in the aftermath of the murders of their mothers.
(American and other) adopters benefited directly from this process.
* The Guatemalan army itself procuring kids for adoptions- Guatemalan Army Stole Kids for Adoption (go read the Firstmother Forum contextualization, here are but a few paragraphs)
The number of corrupt adoptions–333--involving stolen children in the government report came from examining a mere 672 adoptionsbetween between 1977-89, the time of peak adoptions from that country. Those numbers mean that roughly half of all adoptions examined during that period involved stolen children sold through state-run agencies. So the 333 number has got to be the mere tip of the iceberg. During the country’s protracted civil war, about 45,000 people disappeared from 1960 to 1996, about 5,000 of which were children.
The story also noted that Guatemala has the world’s highest per capita rate of adoption and was one of the leading providers of adoptive children for the United States: “Nearly one in 100 babies born in Guatemala end up with adoptive parents in the United States, according to the U.S. consulate in Guatemala. As we reported earlier on E. J. Graff’s piece in Foreign Policy, many, if not nearly all, adoptions from poor nations are suspect.
Guatemalan adoptions can cost up to $30,000, providing a large financial incentive in a country where the World Bank says about 75 percent of the people live below the poverty level. The report concludes that the lawyers and notaries who were the middlemen for this human trafficking (yes, it is human trafficking) were the driving force for the babies stolen from their parents. Many induced the women to give up their babies, or simply paid soldiers for product, i.e., a baby–because they knew they had a place to market the kid.
In Guatemala, research reveal that the child-finders were, too often, using suspect methods to acquire children for international adoption. In some cases, families were approached and offered money for their children. In other cases, women appear to have been getting pregnant and giving birth serially to earn money. In still others, women were coerced out of their children: for instance, women were offered free places to stay while pregnant, but later were told that they owed back rent—and could either give up the newborn or owe impossible amounts of money. Women in these coercive situations may have allowed DNA to be taken and may have signed the relinquishment forms.
In still other verified cases, children were kidnapped for adoption. The U.S. government instituted DNA tests and birthmother exit interviews because “relinquishment” adoptions were tainted by fraud, coercion, and criminality. However, recent evidence suggests that the chain of custody of these DNA tests may also include fraud. In some unknown percentage of these cases, DNA tests appear to have been falsely verified; some of the doctors who were allegedly taking and certifying DNA samples may have lied about who was tested, and about when and where these tests were done. For instance, Ana Escobar’s child Esther Sulemita had passed both DNA tests somehow and was going to go to Indiana; only because Escobar kept daily watch on the relevant ministry offices did she see her child in line and insist on fresh DNA testing, which showed that the Escobar was in fact the real birthmother. Similarly, an American prospective adoptive parent named Jennifer Hemsley discovered that the DNA test filed for her prospective daughter included falsified dates; she refused to accept the test as valid. Other Guatemalan women whose children were kidnapped believe they have found their children’s pictures in the Guatemalan government’s immigration visa files. If their beliefs are correct, those tests (of children who have already been adopted to the U.S.) were also fraudulent. Dr. Aida Gutierrez, who signed off on Esther Sulemita’s and the Hemsley’s prospective daughter’s DNA tests, also certified hundreds of other tests. Such results cast doubt on the entire DNA testing process.
Mr Manrique believes the fact that a third of the mothers involved in the adoption process give up more than one child supports the claim that they are motivated by financial reward, with $2,000 rumoured to be the going rate.
The clear implication being that even if you have a DNA match and even if you have a mother testifying that she willingly gave over her child for adoption, that does not mean she wasn’t outright coerced for her “consent” or outright paid for the kid.
The problem is not any one given individual though, it’s been the whole damn system.
In fact, attorney general Telesforo Guerra Cahn alleges that 20 local gangs are engaged in buying or stealing children and that one of the biggest illegal- baby-trafficking lawyers is the current president of the Supreme Court, Juan Jose Rodil Peralta. “We’ve tried to prosecute him, but it’s hopeless because he controls the court system and the judges,” says Cahn. “He’s also protected under parliamentary immunity.”
“There is evidence to show that Mario Castañeda Fernando Peralta committed the crime of human trafficking, abuse of authority, dereliction of duty and prevarication,” said Rony Lopez prosecutor against organized crime.
The official referred to two cases: that of Karen girls Abigail López García, given up for adoption on December 10, 2008 to a family and that of Naomi Yahaira Muyus, both stolen from their biological mothers. The latter investigates the whereabouts and the date it was given to another family. It is assumed that the real name of the former is Aniely Hernandez, daughter of Loyda Rodriguez.
However there are at least 20 more cases that are investigated.Thus the section called yesterday to the Administrative Center for Management of Criminal Judiciary (OJ), which started a process against the preliminary judging. According to the MP, there are documents which indicate that Peralta Castañeda is involved in a network used for the trafficking of children.
*The response has been primarily Guatemalan, with few here in the U.S. giving a damn.
See my posts about the Mothers hunger striking to regain their stolen children.
But again and again, these are only starting places. When you begin looking at adoptions from Guatemala you pull a string and you rapidly find you’re unraveling a seemingly endless sweater of child trafficking, fabricated paperwork and DNA samples, Government corruption and outright murders.
All of which is what I referred to all the way back in November 2007 when I wrote my first post about the situation in Guatemala: The post I can’t write – Guatemala.
If there was ever a poster child for what not to do in Inter-country adoption Guatemala would have to be it.
So what do the adoption marketing weasels at the The Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (CCAI) do?
Give those trying to shove through the pipeline cases an award.
I kid you not.
This year, one of the “Angels in Adoption” awards went to one of the couples behind the “Guatemala 900″ campaign (i.e. those demanding an additional “900 kids” who were “in process” as the corruption was coming to light and Guatemalan adoptions were being ended be grandfathered in.)
The Guat900dotorg would-be-adopters with their ongoing tactic of utilizing photographs, both of themselves and their existing families & of usually wide eyed photos of the kids they were “matched” to, were promised, or in some cases essentially put the down payment on, form nothing short of an ongoing political lobby demanding these Guatemalan adoptions be rammed through, regardless of the process by which the kids became available.
Where does one even begin?
With the kids of course.
There are genuine issues (of privacy among other such) in using photographs of kids in another country who one has not adopted and has no legal right to in a political campaign.
These would-be-adopters appear to have missed adoption 101 whereby a picture either sent to them or from the internet can mean any number of things. Multiple families may be “matched” to a single kid’s photograph. The kid in the picture may be nothing more than a child trafficker’s niece. In some of these cases, you simply have no way of knowing.
Even when families have been to other countries to spend initial visits with what they all too often term “their” kid, many couples have come up sorely disappointed down the road when learning who that child actually was, or that they were never available for adoption in the first place.
But none of that seems to bother these folks. Their website, their efforts, even photobooks used in talking with politicians are plastered with pictures of kids. The pictures form sort of a background wallpaper to their campaign.
Much as they insist this is about the individual kids, the way they utilize the kids’ pictures reduces them to little more than objects in an intercountry tug of war, they treat the kids in the photos as mere props.
The Trib local article, of course fails to mention the extent to which some of the Guatemalan courts were in on the scam.
So when one reads details such as,
Over the past 3 years the Guatemalan courts determined that the raid was illegal and that the children’s adoptions were to proceed.
in the article, it’s important to keep in mind that a number of courts were in on the game as well.
So how bad is it really?
Bad enough for the Spanish judge leading a United Nations commission charged with fighting Guatemala’s corruption, to simply gave up last June.
What brought him to this point?
The New Attorney General’s ties to adoption child traffickers and drugs.
Carlos Castresana, the Spanish judge leading a United Nations commission charged with fighting Guatemala’s corruption and impunity, has given up in frustration. After two and a half years at the head of the commission, known as Cicig, Mr. Castresana, above, resigned on Monday, saying that Guatemala had failed to keep promises to follow the panel’s recommendations. The catalyst for his resignation was the appointment of Guatemala’s new attorney general, Conrado Reyes. Mr. Castresana accused Mr. Reyes of having ties to illegal adoption rings and drug traffickers.
…authored the original complaints filed in the name of the Progressive Union of Prosecutors against the Military Junta in Argentina and Chile in 1996, with which the “Pinochet Case” was opened before the National Court of Spain.
For him to resign in “frustration” is pretty telling.
Anyone who thinks they are going to get fair or just rulings in the “pipeline” cases in this climate, let alone going forward towards any kind of reopening, even under the Hague is either naive or lying.
Not to worry though, Americans have found their own way around the adoption closure.
Same corrupt business, same assholes, merely reinvented to meet with the changing times:
The crack down on inter-country adoption from Guatemala has put an end to a soaring export of infants to the U.S., but as it looks now, the baby producing industry has reinvented itself and continues business as usual through another form of infant export. It’s time for Guatemala to review its surrogacy legislation, before this new scheme reaches the same level the old one had.
This post must first begin with an expression of gratitude, because this post itself is little more than a compilation of the work Bastardette has done over the course of years with some technical support (and formatting help) from my partner, thrown in for good measure.
For years Marley compiled and authored the Baby Dump News (or BDN,) a weekly e-mailed round up of media reports and other information pertinent to newborn abandonment, infanticide, “safe haven”/”Baby Moses” legislation, and related matters.
As many states don’t compile statistics on these matters, and even those that do had numbers that time and again proven incorrect when compared with even newspaper reports, Marley’s tracking during this first decade of the dump laws provided critically important documentation.
In many ways, she tracked the rise and growth of the baby dump industry, it’s proponents, it’s opponents, and the week in and week out unfolding saga through webpages, blogs, emails, legislative hearings and newspaper articles. In the course of this tracking, she became somewhat an “inadvertent” expert on what was actually happening across the country in relation to such.
He response to my brief email stunned me, within mere hours of my request, she had come back to me with all the issues of the BDN with information about cases in Mississippi as well as additional places to search for cases. (This was more than I possibly could have hoped for.)
With the help of my partner, Mike, we went back through our digital archive of the Baby Dump News (as to date, only archives from 2007 are available online) and pulled these news reports.
Obviously these cannot by their very nature give a full picture of what has gone on in Mississippi as some untold number of neonaticides are simply never discovered.
In other cases, those of abandoned kids, or bodies found, again, it then becomes a question of whether or not the story was reported, or even if it was reported, whether the news article was found in the course of Marley’s research.
There may well be other cases that were reported on not cataloged below.
As to whether or not the state’s totals contain other oddities or not, we’ll likely never know. Reporters simply take them at face value.
These days, tools like google alerts (which first went live in 2003) have certainly made doing this kind of research much easier, but there’s still no substitute for solid research and looking beyond those numbers at what the genuine circumstances involve.
Unfortunately what we’ve found in other states is that even if border babies were not originally folded into “safe haven” statistics, over the years they may come to be.
So bearing in mind the limitations of what these links represent, here is what I’ve been able to mine back out of Marley’s work:
JACKSON– Conviction of Lindsay Kathryn Welch upheld by Mississippi
Court of Appeals. Welch was a student at Mississippi State when she
gave birth in her dorm room. Prosecutors claim she let baby die and
then put the body in the trash.
JACKSON–Six babies left in Mississippi hospitals since state’s safe
haven law went into effect more than a year ago. Four left in Hinds
County, one in Union County and one in Harrison county. (No mention
if these were authentic safe haven drops or boarder baby
abandonments.) One has been adopted and the rest are in fostercare
waiting for adoption finalization. Gloria Thornton Salters, of DHS,
says without any apparent authority, that if not for the law, the
children would have been left to die.
BILOXI–Longer version of last week’s article. Under law hospitals
can ask questions about child’ health, but cannot ask who the mother
is or where she is from. Law does not include mothers who give birth
in a hospital and decide to abandon their children there. In those
cases, mothers are required to be registered at hospital under their
names and to sign waivers to turn over their babies. If mother wants
to reclaim baby shortly after legal abandonment state reportedly will
work with her and have her attend classes. None of the mothers who
left babies under the state’s program have tried to get them back.
JACKSON–Mississippi Supreme Court refuses to hear appeal of Lindsay
Kathryn Welch in the death of her newborn found in a trashcan in
1999. Claimed illegal search of her garbage left outside of home
after police received tip about baby. Welch, a former U. of
Mississippi student is doing 8 years in prison.
CLEVELAND–Police search landfill for infant believed to have been
hauled there after being placed in dumpster. 19-year old Delta State
University student triggered search after she sought medical treatment
shortly after giving birth. Says baby was stillborn and born off
campus. Mother, described as distraught, is cooperating with
authorities. According to article, as of October 2002, 6 babies have
been dropped-off under the safe haven program.
JACKSON–Mississippi Special Assistant Attorney General Elizabeth
Carroll Hocker disagrees with EBD report. Says 9 infants, 6 of them
in 2002, have been safely anonymously abandoned in state. Feels that
they weren’t found dead is good sign. 7 have been adopted and 2 are
in prospective homes.
JACKSON–Review of state SH law and its history. Ol’ Miss Medical
Center clinical nurse Kelly Joyner says several infants have been
dropped off since law went into effect July 2001, including one in
March. Special Asst. AG, Elizabeth Hocker says that 11 babies “have
been turned over to hospitals instead of abandoned.”
JACKSON–Detectives following up tips received after Crime Stoppers
broadcast. DNA tests ordered on body. Jackson Police Department
planning funeral and burial.
OXFORD–Officials publicize state’s SH law. Baptist Memorial Hospital
in Jackson has had at least one drop-off. Hospital doesn’t offer
counseling services for mother but does referrals. Family Crisis
Services in Oxford says women who SH are “under a lot of stress” and
FCS would offer them counseling services. “We would ask them to sit
down and discuss the reasons why they’re doing this. We want to offer
them counseling before they make such a drastic decision.” Assistant
Police Chief says if women tried to drop off baby at police
station, they would be referred to FCS. Fire chief says he has never
had an abandoned baby case in 32 years with department.
JACKSON–Jackson-area residents continue to donate funds for funeral
arrangements for baby. Plot donated; Peoples Funeral home offers
services and other arrangements; music teacher purchases burial
outfit. Police chief believes baby may have come from Madison or
Rankin County.
JACKSON–Feature on Angela Washington, who returned home from hospital
after suffering miscarriage on day she learned of discovery of Baby
John Paul Doe’s body.
GULFPORT–Newborn boy, Baby Matthew, left on doorstep of St. Matthew
Evangelical Lutheran Church. County Prosecutor says he’s been in DA’s
office for 14 years and never heard of an abandoned baby
before. Police Lt. Alfred Sexton says that abandonment didn’t comply
with SH law, but may be in the “spirit of the law.” Child welfare
workers say it is usual for babies to be abandoned in public places;
usually left in hospitals.
GULFPORT–Rachel Nilsen, from Pregnancy Resources of Mississippi in
Ocean Springs hopes that authorities aren’t hard on person who left
baby at church. Admits it would have been better to drop off baby
in “the care of a responsible adult” but believes there’s a “real
possibility that this person felt that they could not care for this
child and they wanted to put this child in some good hands.”
GULFPORT–DA declines to press charges in Baby Matthew case pending
outcome of final investigation. Mother known but not yet named.
Unclear if she is asking Youth Court for custody and if charges will
be filed after Youth Court judge rules in case. Relative of mother
called Sun Herald on Saturday saying mother was very scared and
panicked and asked if she could be arrested for abandonment. First
baby abandonment in Harrison County since 1993 when a girl was found
dead on I 10. DHS says 14 babies have been SH since law went into
effect.
GULFPORT–Info piece on Mississippi SH law; complains that schools
don’t teach how to abandon your baby in the curriculum. Anon. caller
to Sun Herald asked where they could find poster and hotline number,
and paper finally learned that Attorney General is responsible for
publicity.
BABY DUMP NEWS, June 13, 2004, v 4,
#25
MISSISSIPPI
JACKSON–Information on state’s SH law. Says 14 babies have been
“saved” since law went into effect 7/2001. Beth Casey, counselor for
Harrison County Youth Court wants SH publicity to target high school
and college students. “Your high schoolers and college kids who
become pregnant all too often try to conceal their pregnancy rather
than tell someone. People need to know that churches are not a safe
place according to state law.”
JACKSON–Body of newborn girl found by workers sorting sheets at
University Medical Center; not full term and officials suspect it was
stillborn. Looking for parents.
JACKSON–Update on UMC case. (BDN v4 # 26). Body found in laundry
determined to be stillborn; may have been placed in laundry by
mistake. Investigation continues.
BELZONI–Lasalle Denise Brown, 24. arrested on Humphreys County
warrant in investigation of disappearance of newborn. State HS called
authorities when they learned that her newborn could not be located
after Brown’s boyfriend, Calvin Stowers, 39, removed baby from
residence and she had not seen the baby since. Stowers already
charged with murder and is in jail.
NO DATELINE–Feature on Mississippi anti-abortion radical Roy McMillan
who was found naked and abandoned at birth in a shoe box on the steps
of a church.
2006- still working on data.
2007- (online)– Marley appears not to have found any articles relating to Mississippi.
2008- BDN ceases publication. Marley was kind enough to search through her personal files for that year, but has found no articles relating to Mississippi (yet).
2009- still working, but did send across the sad case of Theresa Clincy who abandoned 2 kids: 1, a 3-month old on a porch. The kids were able to remain in the family, living with her sister according to the last few piece.
There are a number of articles about the case and WAPT in particular had a fair amount of coverage.
2010– I will handle this in a separate post (or posts) later this week as the latest cases certainly deserve a post (if not posts) all their own.
But the (at least) three cases I’ll be working with will be those of:
Linda Nash who stabbed her newborn to death. The baby was born at home; Linda says she didn’t know she was pregnant. She’s a Type 2 diabetic, and an adoptee.
Again, the post really represents the work Marley has done over the course of a decade. I simply wanted to provide some background context to the Mississippi piece I was writing. On any one of these cases there are a number of articles, some of which are listed here, some of which aren’t.
Mississippi is but one case study of how these laws simply have not achieved what they promised they would. Children are still abandoned and dead babies are still being found. Women are still going to jail and families are still being torn apart.
Kids are being stripped of their identities, family history, context, medical histories etc. in a gross violation of their human rights.
Even of those women who do bring their kids to a baby dump site, their post-birth health and safety, let alone parental rights, physical and psychological needs are all too often considered secondary to “catching” a kid (most of whom, in Mississippi at least, appear to be entering the adoption system.)
It’s a mess, but a mess far too many people are just fine with.
(At least until some of these kids grow up and are old enough to speak on their own behalf, that is.)
Perhaps that’s because this is viewed not merely as a women’s crime, but of the very act of women negating “women’s essentialist nature.” After all, what could be a greater crime in a hypernatalist culture such as modern day America than a woman perceived to be rejecting her “maternal instincts?”
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