Monday, December 27, 2010

Bastard Nation Letter to NJ Gov. Chris Christie - Please Veto S799/A1399

I'll be blogging on the current situation in New Jersey in a couple days, as well as posting a Bastard Nation Action alert regarding S799/A1399. In the meantime, here is the letter BN sent to Gov. Chris Christie asking him to veto the bill if it's hits his desk.

Governor Chris Christie
Office of the Governor
PO Box 001
Trenton, NJ 08625

PLEASE VETO S799/A1399: the Adoptees' Birthright Bill

Dear Governor Christie:

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization, the largest adoptee civil rights organization in North America, opposes S799/A1399: The Adoptees' Birthright bill. We ask you to veto it if it comes to your desk. The bill is currently awaiting a vote on the House Floor on January 6 or 20, 2011.

If passed, this bill will permit some of New Jersey's adopted adults to receive their true and accurate original birth certificates. Others, through the compromise language of this bill, will receive only a false and mutilated certificate with the name and address of the parent(s) bureaucratically excised by the Department of Health and Senior Services by order of the birthparent(s).

Bastard Nation rejects this newly created special right of birthparents to remove their names from the birth certificates--the public record-- of their own adult offspring. No other parent has that right. Why should birthparents have different rules?

Since 1999 four states have restored to adoptees the unrestricted right to records and identity access: Oregon through ballot initiative, and Alabama. New Hampshire, and Maine through legislation. Kansas and Alaska never sealed records. New Jersey should not buck the tide. New Jersey should not pass a bill that continues to treat adoptee access to their own birth certificates as a favor, not a right--a right that the not-adopted enjoy without a second thought.

S799/A1399 is not an Adoptees' Birthright bill. It does not restore the right of unrestricted birth certificate access to New Jersey's adoptees. Instead it encodes "special rights" for some into state law where it did not exist before. Please veto this discriminatory legislation.

For the record, Bastard Nation also opposes an alternate bill (no number assigned as of this writing) introduced in the House and supported by the New Jersey ACLU, New Jersey Right to Life and other organizations opposed to the restoration of adoptee rights, which offers a favor-based system of birth certificate access.

Yours truly,



Marley Greiner
Executive Chair
Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization

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Saturday, November 20, 2010

We Lose Another One: B J Lifton

At 11:45 tonight B J Lifton died. I don't have the details but I know she had been hospitalized with pneumonia for the past week. I haven't seen any details yet, but I'm sure some will be forthcoming tomorrow.

I first read BJ's books in 1980, right after I got I got my obc. I took Lost & Found out of the Ohio State University Library. It was old and beat up having undergone numerous readings. I was stunned that somebody was actually writing about adoptees from an "us" POV. " Although I didn't agree with everything she said, I was hooked. For the longest time I was convinced that nobody else would ever write about adoption, at least not that way. In a way I was right.

I didn't meet BJ until about 17 years later during the AAC Seattle conference. She had joined Bastard Nation. And boy, were we excited to have such a prominent member. Alfie and I were in the hospitality suite. Alfie was dressed as a cow and I was wearing a big red devil's tail. Shea was with the band. BJ took my hand. I didn't know what to say. All I could think of was, "I'm sitting next to BJ Lifton in this silly costume and she's holding my hand"

Over the years I recovered and we became friends. She was convinced that someday I'd come around and get interested in the psychological problems of adoptees. I never did.

Every time I saw BJ the first thing she'd say was, "And how are the Bastards?"

The last time I heard that familiar question was at the ASAC conference at MIT this summer. She'd had health problems for some time. She seemed better, but looked frail. (Bobbi Beavers, BJ, Maryanne Cohen, MIT)

BJ brought so manly of us into the movement. She was exasperating sometimes, but never dull, and she always cared.

We'll miss you, BJ!

I should have some old pictures. If I do, I'll post them later.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Belated Tribute to Annette Baran

Pioneer adoption reform pioneer and adoptee rights advocate Annette Baran died on July 11. Due to my unplanned writing hiatus, I am only posting our Bastard National Memorial today.

Annette Baran was one of those rare people in adoption: she listened to bastards and learned. She abhorred adoption secrets and lies. Going against her social work training, she worked for decades, with much opposition from "professionals," lobbyists, and adoption bagmen, to undo the damage caused by the adoption industry. She may have been a traitor to them, but she is a hero to us.

No one enjoyed kicking Annette around more than Bill Pierce, founding president of the National Council for Adoption. His NCFA Factbook 3 (no longer online) is full of attacks on Annette's "junk science" of adoption openess and honestly. Annette was, in fact, one of the most radical thinkers in AdoptionLand I have ever known. In her lifetime she moved from being the keeper of adoption secrets, to advocating open adoption--and records--to promoting guardianship and simple adoption over the closed secret system. Annette believed in adoptee dignity, integrity and identity. She believed that each of us have a right to our own identity, history, and documents. She believed the industry must take responsibility for the damage it has caused and continues to cause.

Since I knew Annette mainly by reputation I can't speak to any deep personal relationship. We emailed occasionally, and I met her only once: at the 2004 Kansas City AAC conference. During her opening keynote address, Annette, much to my surprise, took a few moments to acknowledge and celebrate Bastard Nation and our leadership in the struggle to regain our rights.

Longtime adoption reform activist and poet Maryanne Cohen knew Annette well and wrote the following memorial, posted with Maryanne's permission, below.

Annttte's obit from the LA Times is here. A memorial page for Annette is here.

Annette

A small bright bird
Filled with life
she graced the space she filled
Always moving, never still
except to listen to a friend
which she did with full heart
Her kind eyes saw you
her silence let you fill the cup
Her words were milk and honey
on any hurt or fear

I knew her as grey but never old
Her spirit ever young, eager
for the next adventure, the next laugh
the next delicious shopping trip

Annette knew what to buy, and where to find it
What to read, I loved every book
she led me to, her wisdom
carried on, oblique, in other's words.
She showed me the lipstick that won't wear off
said, "it will change your life"
Her sense of style impeccable, unique
A joy to see
A joy to follow

My Yiddishe Mama, witty, wise
down to earth, a true friend
Annette stood before a crowd
at an adoption conference once,
and said "I am sorry
for what my profession has done,
for what I have done"
That's all, no excuses, no justifications,
No Big Buts......

Just courage, integrity, intelligence and class
She laughed at fools, the pompous, the self-righteous
She cried with those who truly grieved

Now we grieve her, her valor, her light gone from this world
But she shines on
In blessed memory
In her work we take up
In the quest for truth and justice
Still undone

She shines on.......



Mary Anne Cohen
July 2010
Rest in Peace, Dear Annette
The good race is run.


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Monday, August 16, 2010

PENNSYLVANIA: Bastard Nation Letter to Rep. Oliver: Please schedule hearings for HB1978

Dear Chairman Oliver:

I write today to urge you to schedule hearings for HB 1978, a bill that if passed would restore the right that all Pennsylvania adoptees once enjoyed: the right to his or her own original birth certificate (obc) with no conditions or restrictions. That is, to authorize the state to treat the adopted on the same legal level as those who are not adopted.

HB 1978 is an important bill. It is being watched by adoption advocacy and reform groups and individuals across the country.

The sealing of birth records is an archaic hold-over from an age when adoption was held shameful. That day has passed.

The restoration of the right of adoptees to their obcs is the keystone of ethical adoption practice not only in Pennsylvania but throughout the country. . As someone whose birth and adoptive families have deep Pennsylvania roots (Pittsburgh, Greenville and Bucks County), I would love to see Pennsylvania join the ranks of states that believe that the adopted and not-adopted should be treated equal under law. As an adoptee rights advocate, I am happy to see legislators in Pennsylvania come to the forefront to achieve that equality.

Please join us . Please schedule hearings for this most important bill.

Thank you.

Sincerely yours,

Marley Greiner
Executive Chair
Bastard Nation: the adoptee rights organization



Bastard Nation is dedicated to the recognition of the full human and civil rights of adult adoptees. Toward that end, we advocate the opening to adoptees, upon request at age of majority, of those government documents which pertain to the adoptee's historical, genetic, and legal identity, including the unaltered original birth certificate and adoption decree. Bastard Nation asserts that it is the right of people everywhere to have their official original birth records unaltered and free from falsification, and that the adoptive status of any person should not prohibit him or her from choosing to exercise that right. We have reclaimed the badge of bastardy placed on us by those who would attempt to shame us; we see nothing shameful in having been born out of wedlock or in being adopted. Bastard Nation does not support mandated mutual consent registries or intermediary systems in place of unconditional open records, nor any other system that is less than access on demand to the adult adoptee, without condition, and without qualification.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

BASTARD NATION: New Jersey A1406/S799 - Submitted Testimony in Opposition

This is yesterday's submitted testimony in opposition to H1406/S799. I did not post this until this morning because I didn't want our testimony to be read by NJCare and supporters
beforehand.
Unfortunately, the bill passed out of committee. More on that later.

New Jersey House Human Services Committee

SUBMITTED TESTIMONY
A1406/S799: Adoptees Birthright Bill

OPPOSE

Privilege is the opposite of right

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization is the largest adoptee civil rights organization in the United States. We support full, unrestricted access for all adopted persons, upon request, of their own true, unaltered original birth certificates (OBC). We oppose A1406 and its companion bill S799 already passed in the Senate.

A1406/S799 permits some New Jersey adopted adults to receive their true and accurate original birth certificates. Others, through the compromise language of the birthparent disclosure veto, will receive only a false and mutilated government document with the name and address of the parent(s) bureaucratically excised by the Department of Health and Senior Services by order of the birthparent(s).

Bastard Nation rejects this special veto right of “birthparents” to remove their names from the birth certificates of their own adult offspring. No other parent has that right. Why should “birthparents” have different rights and rules?

A1399/S799 is promoted as an “adoptee birthright” and OBC “access bill.” Unfortunately, it is neither. The bill reinforces out-dated adoption secrecy through the disclosure veto. It also seals by default, the OBCs of babies surrendered under the state’s “safe haven” program (apparently whether they are adopted later or not) even though a good number of these children are born to identified parents. What name and “official” state identity papers those never adopted will have is not addressed in the bill.

A1406/S799 requires birthparents, under specific circumstances, to submit a medical and health history to the state, a requirement that is most likely illegal under HIPAA and other privacy laws. No one has a right to anyone’s medical history. Medical histories have nothing to do with birth certificates and have no connection to right of all adopted persons to their own OBC.

Finally, A1406/S799 includes a fiscal bill of $90,000 to advertise the law if it is passed. At a time when Governor Christie is proposing massive cuts in education and social welfare programs and instituting wage caps, this advertising campaign is an unconscionable waste of taxpayer money.

For nearly three decades we have heard the claim that biological parents have been promised anonymity from their own offspring who were placed for adoption, yet not one document has ever been presented in New Jersey or any other state to show that so-called promise.
In fact, courts have found that “birthparents do not have any legal expectation of anonymity.” (Doe v Sundquist, 943 F. Supp. 886, 893-94 (M.D. Tenn. 1996)) (06 F.3d 703, 705 (6th Cir. 1997)) (Does v Oregon, Summary Judgment Oregon State Court of Appeals) (Does v. State of Oregon, 164 Or.App. 543, 993 P.2d 833, 834 (1999)). Moreover, OBCs are sealed at the time of adoption finalization not surrender, and the birth certificate of any child not adopted is left unsealed and available not only to him or her but to the public at large. If an adoption is disrupted, the birth certificate is unsealed.

Kansas and Alaska have never sealed original birth certificates. Since 1999 four states have restored to adoptees the unrestricted right to records and identity access: Oregon through ballot initiative, and Alabama, New Hampshire, and Maine through legislation. No statistics are available for Kansas and Alaska, but approximately 17,000 OBCs in the latter four states have been released with no reported ill consequences. Why should New Jersey buck the tide and pass a bill that continues to treat adoptee access to their own birth certificates as a privilege not a right--a right that the non-adopted enjoy without a second thought?

Rights are for all citizens, not favors doled out to some by government and special interest groups. A11406/799 does not restore the right to the OBC once enjoyed by all New Jersey adoptees.

Please go back and create a clean bill that restores the rights of all adoptees to full citizenship or kill this discriminatory bill that does nothing but grant privileges to some and blacklists others. New Jersey does not segregate rights by religion, ethnicity, age, or gender. It should not segregate rights by birth, adoptive status, or parental preference.

Vote DO NOT PASS on A1406/S799. All of the New Jersey's adoptees must enjoy equal protection, due process, and dignity. New Jersey adoptees deserve better than this!


Submitted by Marley Greiner
June 2, 2010
Executive Chair
Bastard Nation: the adoptee rights organization


Bastard Nation is dedicated to the recognition of the full human and civil rights of adult adoptees. Toward that end, we advocate the opening to adoptees, upon request at age of majority, of those government documents which pertain to the adoptee's historical, genetic, and legal identity, including the unaltered original birth certificate and adoption decree. Bastard Nation asserts that it is the right of people everywhere to have their official original birth records unaltered and free from falsification, and that the adoptive status of any person should not prohibit him or her from choosing to exercise that right. We have reclaimed the badge of bastardy placed on us by those who would attempt to shame us; we see nothing shameful in having been born out of wedlock or in being adopted. Bastard Nation does not support mandated mutual consent registries or intermediary systems in place of unconditional open records, nor any other system that is less than access on demand to the adult adoptee, without condition, and without qualification.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

BASTARD NATION: RHODE ISLAND SUBMITED TESTIMONY, S2759


Rhode Island Health & Human Services Committee

SUBMITTED TESTIMONY
S2759
OPPOSE

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization is the largest adoptee civil rights organization in the United States. We support full, unrestricted access for all adopted persons, upon request, of their own true, unaltered original birth certificates (OBC). We oppose S2759 and its companion bill H7877 already passed in the House.

S2759 is misleading and inimical to the right of all Rhode Island adoptees to access their own original birth certificates. The measure is promoted as an “adoptee rights” and OBC “access bill.” It is not. The bill reinforces out-dated adoption secrecy through the “do not release” disclosure veto option for “birthparents” and other biological family members. S2759 does not restore the right to the OBC once enjoyed by all Rhode adoptees. Instead, it makes adoptee access to their own birth certificates a state/”birth family” conditioned privilege separate and unequal from the right enjoyed by Rhode Island’s not adopted.

S2759:
1. denies equal protection to the state’s adopted adults by (a) maintaining different rules for birth certificate access for the adopted and not-adopted and (b) creating new and different rules for access between the adopted themselves through the use of disclosure vetoes.

2. rescinds Rhode Island General Law § 15-7-7: Termination of parental rights. – (a) The court shall, upon a petition duly filed by a governmental child placement agency or licensed child placement agency after notice to the parent and a hearing on the petition, terminate any and all legal rights of the parent to the child, including the right to notice of any subsequent adoption proceedings involving the child) and replaces it with a new state-constructed “special right” for “birthparents” that no other parent has: barring their own offspring from the state-held document of their birth.

3. extends that new special veto “right” to the parents and siblings of deceased or permanently disabled/incompetent “birthparents,” some of the very people who may have forced the adoptee to be surrendered for adoption to start with and who have never held any rights over the adoptee at any time.

4. assumes that the legal right to access a birth certificate equates with the interpersonal decision of search and “reunion” for adopted person

5. denies the right of free association and autonomy of adopted adult by creating an intrusive parens patriae relationship between the state and adults where none is needed or desired.
For nearly three decades we have heard the claim that biological parents have been promised anonymity from their own offspring who were placed for adoption, yet not one document has ever been presented in Rhode Island or any other state to show that so-called promise. In fact, courts have found that “birthparents do not have any legal expectation of anonymity.” (Doe v Sundquist, 943 F. Supp. 886, 893-94 (M.D. Tenn. 1996)) (06 F.3d 703, 705 (6th Cir. 1997)) (Does v Oregon, Summary Judgment Oregon State Court of Appeals) (Does v. State of Oregon, 164 Or.App. 543, 993 P.2d 833, 834 (1999)). Moreover, OBCs are sealed at the time of adoption finalization not surrender, and the birth certificate of any child not adopted is left unsealed and available not only to him or her but to the public at large. If an adoption is disrupted, the birth certificate is unsealed.

Under normal circumstances, competitive rights and their balancing is a problem only when there is a conflict of rights. Since there is a presumed right for all adults to access their birth certificate, and there no “right” to anonymity from one’s own offspring, there is nothing that needs balanced. S2759 and H7877 in their current restricted form are pointless.

Kansas and Alaska have never sealed birth certificates. In the last 10 years, Oregon, Alabama, New Hampshire and Maine have restored the right of all its adopted adults—without restriction-- to access their own original birth certificates. Approximately 17,000 birth certificates. Other states are moving in the direction. S2759 and H7877 not only maintain the status quo but create new roadblocks to the restoration of the civil rights of all adoptees in Rhode Island and the US.

US and Rhode Island law does not privilege rights by race, religion, ethnicity, age, or gender. The law should not privilege rights by adoption. A true records access bill in Rhode Island would not harm anyone. It would instead restore legal equality, dignity, and fairness to adopted persons. Bastard Nation, therefore, cannot support S2759 and H7877 with their continued and additional harm to Rhode Island’s adopted citizens.

Don’t leave anyone behind. Please reject S2759 (and H7877) and replace it with a clean OBC access bill that treats Rhode Island’s entire adopted population equal to its not-adopted. A clean bill will have universal support from adoptee rights advocates and adoption reformers across the country. Please vote DO NOT PASS on S2759.

Bastard Nation is dedicated to the recognition of the full human and civil rights of adult adoptees. Toward that end, we advocate the opening to adoptees, upon request at age of majority, of those government documents which pertain to the adoptee's historical, genetic, and legal identity, including the unaltered original birth certificate and adoption decree. Bastard Nation asserts that it is the right of people everywhere to have their official original birth records unaltered and free from falsification, and that the adoptive status of any person should not prohibit him or her from choosing to exercise that right. We have reclaimed the badge of bastardy placed on us by those who would attempt to shame us; we see nothing shameful in having been born out of wedlock or in being adopted. Bastard Nation does not support mandated mutual consent registries or intermediary systems in place of unconditional open records, nor any other system that is less than access on demand to the adult adoptee, without condition, and without qualification.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Bastard Nation Letter to Illinois Governor Pat Quinn: Please Veto HB 5428

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization urges you to veto HB 5428, a so-called “adoptee rights” bill promoted as a progressive piece of legislation to correct Illinois’ long-standing Draconian treatment of its adoptees and their families of origin. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The bill’s stated purpose and its final product are diametrically opposed.

The introduction to the bill reads: The General Assembly recognizes that it is the basic right of all persons to access their birth records, and, to this end, supports public policy that allows an adult adoptee to access his or her original birth certificate. The rest of the bill guts the “recognition of that “basic right,” putting unreasonable and outrageous restrictions on that “basic right:”

HB 5428 separates adoptees into two classes by date of birth and then into numerous subclasses of “access” and “contact” eligibility dependent on parental and state “consent.”

HB 5428 “grants” rights to some at the expense of others.

HB 5428 criminalizes adoptees that use information from the Illinois Adoption Reunion and Medical Exchange to locate and contact families of origin.

HB 5428 dictates relationships between adults.

.HB 5428 is a bill that adopted persons and their families of origin did not ask for and do not want. It has virtually no support from adoptee rights and adoption reform organizations in Illinois and throughout the country.

HB 5428 is NOT an original birth certificate access bill. HB 5428 is NOT an adoptee rights bill. HB 5428 is NOT an adoption reform bill.

Instead HB 5428 is an abomination that stalls genuine adoption reform in the state for decades.

Please veto HB 5428 and ask the legislature to come back with a clean bill that treats all Illinois adoptees as fully equal to non-adopted Illinoisans.


Yours truly


Marley Elizabeth Greiner
Executive Chair

Monday, April 19, 2010

Bastard Nation's Letter to Illinois Senators: Vote NO on HB 5428

Below is Bastard Nation's edited-down-from-testimony letter to the Illinois Senate asking members to VOTE NO. Please contact Senators and tell them to stop this travesty. Go to the BN Action Alert for more information, including contact information.

HB 5428 is misleading. The bill’s stated purpose and its final product are diametrically opposed. The bill simply beefs up the current confidential intermediary/registry system that controls adoptee access to their own public records and adds penalties for so-called “misuse” of information from the registry.


1. conflates rights with reunion. It confuses OBC access with contact with a parent. It retains the Illinois Adoption Registry and Medical Exchange (IARME), and currently outsources the registry process to the privately owned Midwest Adoption Center as the OBC gateway; thus, keeping the vital records of the state’s adoptees at the mercy and whim of “confidential intermediaries” and paid “searchers” in an inherently arbitrary system accountable to no one.

2. vacates, though parental disclosure veto power (see #4) 750 ILCS 50/10) (from Ch. 40, par. 1512) FINAL AND IRREVOCABLE CONSENT TO ADOPTION

3. divides Illinois’ adopted citizens into two arbitrary classes based solely on date of birth: worthy and unworthy. Worthies are born before January 1, 1946. Their OBC is released upon request--like the not-adopted. Unworthies are born after that date. Their OBC release is subject to a lengthy menu of regulations, restrictions and other people’s decisions about access, none of which are under the adult adoptee’s control.

4.subjects Unworthies to five subcategories of parental permission. These categories are no based in a public or civil rights /equal protection and treatment paradigmn. but on state-granted privilege. The bill predicates release on a “special right” for parents whose rights were terminated decades ago, which no other parent or adult has: a special right to deny another adult his or her own birth certificate.


5, forces adopted persons who have been denied their birth certificates, to wait FIVE years before they can appeal the decision.

6. levies a minimum $10,000 punitive damage claim, payable to the “sought- after relative against any individual—a CI, state employee, even the adopted person-- who uses information allegedly received from the IARME to identify the relative who has requested “anonymity.” How the source of information is to be determined is anybody’s guess.


7. includes a provision for a massive taxpayer funded public information This cost does not include the cost of retention of separate birth, adoption and registry records, general maintenance of IARME, and outsourced searches which the state has no legal or fiscal responsibility to pursue.


Under normal circumstances, competitive rights and their balancing is a problem only when there is a conflict of rights. Since there is also a presumed right to own one’s birth certificate, and no “right” to anonymity from one’s own offspring, there is nothing that needs balanced.

The Illinois legislature needs to put its money where its mouth is. The introduction of HB 5428 reads: The General Assembly recognizes that it is the basic right of all persons to access their birth records, and, to this end, supports public policy that allows an adult adoptee to access his or her original birth certificate. The rest of the bill guts that “recognition of that “basic right.”


Please make that that “basic right” a reality and come back with a real OBC access bill that treats all of Illinois’ adopted equal to its not-adopted. Please vote NO.




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Thursday, April 15, 2010

Bastard Nation Testimony HB 5428- OPPOSE

The Illinois Senate Judiciary Committee voted 6-3 to pass HB 5428 on to the Floor. This is one of the saddest days in adoption rights history Apparently proponents believe that something is better than nothing--and this sure is nothing. If the bill becomes law, Illinois is a dead state. Below is Bastard Nation's submitted testimony. It's full of facts. And we know, facts don't count.


SUBMITTED TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION TO HB 5428
ACCESS TO BIRTH CERTIFICATES FOR ADULT ADOPTEES
Illinois Senate Judiciary Committee
April 13, 2010


Bastard Nation: the adoptee rights organization is the largest adoptee rights advocacy organization in the United States. We support full, unrestricted access for all adopted persons, upon request, of their own true, unaltered original birth certificates (OBC). We oppose HB 5428 as we have opposed similar bills introduced in the Illinois legislature over the past 15 years.

HB 5428 is misleading. The bill’s stated purpose and its final product are diametrically opposed. The bill simply beefs up the current confidential intermediary/registry system that controls adoptee access to their own public records and adds penalties for so-called “misuse” of information from the registry. According to the bill’s introduction:

The General Assembly recognizes that it is the basic right of all persons to access their birth records, and, to this end, supports public policy that allows an adult adoptee to access his or her original birth certificate

Then, the second sentence immediately voids the “basic right” claim of the first, turning OBC access into a state-granted privilege:

The General Assembly further recognizes that there are circumstances under which a birth parent may have compelling reasons for wishing to remain anonymous to a child he or she surrendered for adoption.

The introduction ends with a mishmash of language that falsely equates “interests” with “rights. It then turns around and creates “special rights,” ungrounded in law, for biological parents based on the age of the adult adopted person, biological parent comfort, and a multi-level bureaucracy to control and restrict the outcome of what the bill claims is a “basic right.”

In an effort to balance these interests, the General Assembly supports public policy that releases a non-certified copy of the original birth certificate to an adult adopted person upon request unless a specific request for anonymity has been filed with the Registry by a birth parent upon request unless a specific request for anonymity has been filed with the Registry by a birth parent named on the original birth certificate.”

The bill’s introduction is followed by 80 pages (pdf) of convoluted, confusing definitions, rules, and regulations that only the politically astute and experienced I adoption legislation can understand. The bill offers a bureaucratic cornucopia of original OBC “permissions” “information exchanges” and controls reflecting the individual personal “preferences” and desires of “birthparents,” and collateral “birth family” members—all with appropriate state forms to fill out--and bureaucrats, geared to override the “basic right” the General Assembly claims adopted people have.

Parts of this bill have already been enacted into law; some are new sections. Although there is much to object to, we limit ourselves to a brief overview with comments on eight egregious points. The term “parent” throughout the testimony refers to the biological parent HB 5428:

1. conflates rights with reunion. It confuses OBC access with contact with a parent. It retains the Illinois Adoption Registry and Medical Exchange (IARME), and currently outsources the registry process to the privately owned Midwest Adoption Center as the OBC gateway; thus, keeping the vital records of the state’s adoptees at the mercy and whim of “confidential intermediaries” and paid “searchers” in an inherently arbitrary system accountable to no one.

2. vacates, though parental disclosure veto power (see #4) 750 ILCS 50/10) (from Ch. 40, par. 1512) FINAL AND IRREVOCABLE CONSENT TO ADOPTION which states in part:
That I do hereby consent and agree to the adoption of such child. That I wish to and understand that by signing this consent I do irrevocably and permanently give up all custody and other parental rights I have to such child. That I understand such child will be placed for adoption and that I cannot under any circumstances, after signing this document, change my mind and revoke or cancel this consent or obtain or recover custody or any other rights over such child.

It also contradicts its own language:
“Surrendered person” means a person whose parents’ rights have been surrendered or terminated but who has not been adopted.” (p 11)

3. divides Illinois’ adopted citizens into two arbitrary classes based solely on date of birth: worthy and unworthy. Worthies are born before January 1, 1946. Their OBC is released upon request--like the not-adopted. Unworthies are born after that date. Their OBC release is subject to a lengthy menu of regulations, restrictions and other people’s decisions about access, none of which are under the adult adoptee’s control.

4. subjects Unworthies to five subcategories of parental permission. These categories are not based in a public or civil rights /equal protection and treatment paradigmn. but on state-granted privilege. The bill predicates release on a “special right” for parents whose rights were terminated decades ago, which no other parent or adult has: a special right to deny another adult his or her own birth certificate.

5. Parents (referred to as “birthparents in the bill) are given five “preferences” to choose from:
a. Agree to full release; parent prefers direct contact
b. Agree to full release; parent prefers contact through a personally designated third party
c. Agree to full release; parent prefers contact through IARME
d. Agree to full release; parent prefers no contact
e. Prohibit release of the OBC or certain designated information on the OBC. Depending on the parent’s “preference” the prohibited adoptee may receive the OBC with specific information deleted. In other words, the State of Illinois will deliberately mutilate its own public record at the request of a private individual—in most cases a virtual stranger to the requester--to abrogate the right the “basic right” state says the adoptee has.

6. forces adopted persons who have been denied their birth certificates, to wait FIVE years before they can appeal the decision. At that time, IARME, upon petition, can search for the parent to request an updated medical history and/or confirm the continuance of the prohibition.

7. levies a minimum $10,000 punitive damage claim, payable to the “sought-after relative” against any individual—a CI, state employee, even the adopted person-- who uses information allegedly received from the IARME to identify the relative who has requested “anonymity.” How the source of information is to be determined is anybody’s guess.

8. includes a provision for a massive taxpayer funded public information campaign including a website, press releases, and printed notices about the law enclosed with drivers license and vehicle renewal applications. This cost does not include the cost of retention of separate birth, adoption and registry records, general maintenance of IARME, and outsourced searches which the state has no legal or fiscal responsibility to pursue. We have seen no fiscal note at this time, but under the current state government budget slashes, such expenditures are irresponsible and wasteful.

For nearly three decades, we have heard the claim that biological parents have been promised anonymity from their own offspring who were placed for adoption, yet not one document has ever been presented to show that promise. In fact, some parents say they were promised reunions when their surrendered child became an adult—reunions that never materialized. If anything, courts have found that parents do not have any legal expectation of anonymity. (Doe v Sundquist, 943 F. Supp. 886, 893-94 (M.D. Tenn. 1996)) (06 F.3d 703, 705 (6th Cir. 1997)) (Does v Oregon, Summary Judgment Oregon State Court of Appeals) (Does v. State of Oregon, 164 Or.App. 543, 993 P.2d 833, 834 (1999)).

Under normal circumstances, competitive rights and their balancing is a problem only when there is a conflict of rights. Since there is also a presumed right to own one’s birth certificate, and no “right” to anonymity from one’s own offspring, there is nothing that needs balanced. HB 5428 is pointless. It needs to die in committee now.

Kansas and Alaska have never sealed birth certificates. In the last 10 years, Oregon, Alabama, New Hampshire and Maine have restored the right of all its adopted adults—without restriction-- to access their own original birth certificates. Those bills were short and sweet. Approximately 17,000 birth certificates have been unsealed, with no “social unrest” that opponents claimed. Other states are moving in the same direction. Yet, here we are in Springfield arguing an 80 page monstrosity that does nothing but create an even thicker—and more expensive--bureaucracy than already exists. We’ve been at this for 15 years now, and I doubt if anybody here wants to do it another 15 years or 20 years, or 50 years. But if that’s what it takes, we will.

The Illinois legislature needs to put its money where its mouth is: The General Assembly recognizes that it is the basic right of all persons to access their birth records, and, to this end, supports public policy that allows an adult adoptee to access his or her original birth certificate.

Please make that public policy a reality and come back with a real OBC access bill that treats all of Illinois’ adopted equal to its not-adopted. Please vote DO NOT PASS.

Marley E. Greiner
Executive Chair
Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

ILLINOIS: MORE BAD NEWS

Sneaky Sara Feigenholtz's HB 5428, the Illinois Adoption CI/Registry Cash Cow Protection Act, has been assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

This is very bad.

Of the 11 members of the Judiciary Committee, two are Senate sponsors: Judiciary Committee Chair AJ Wilhelmi and Ira Silverstein.

Other powerful members of the committee are Majority Caucus Whips Terry Link and Don Harmon. Harmon is also the Assistant Majority Leader.

And don't forget, Sara Feigenholtz's mentor, John Cullerton, is president of the Senate.

HB 5428 could be a slam dunk for Sneaky Sara and her adoptee-soaking special interests unless its stopped now. If passed, while other states continue to unseal our original birth certificates and free them from pinch-nosed bureaucrats and politicians without controls and restrictions, Illinois adoptees will be tied up in a ball of red tape for decades. All to fill somebody's pockets.

So far, no Senate hearings have been announced, but then none in the House were announced either, though the bill in its earlier identical forms had huge opposition from adoptee rights advocates. This time around, without public announcement and airing, no one knew this travesty, introduced as a unctuous shell, even existed until it passed the House.

Sara Feigenholtz has kept HB 5428 as secret as a sealed birth certificate. She knows that adoptees, their friends, and families loudly oppose her scheme to shove the state's adoptees deeper into the infantilizing Illinois Adoption Registry and to accept, in some cases, legally mutilated state documents (redacted obcs) as the "real thing" She wants to gag us.

More information coming up!

In the meantime go to Bastard Grannie Annie's latest: How a bill becomes a law in Illinois

Also go to my Deja Vue All Over Again for comments on the bill. The second part of my blog, Sara Feigenholtz;'s Small Circle of Friends will up shortly.

Just because you are adopted, Sara, does not give you a pass to abuse your class.


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Sunday, March 21, 2010

BASTARD NATION LETTER TO NJ SENATE: VOTE NO ON S799


Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization, the largest adoptee civil rights organization in North America, opposes S799. We recommend that this bill be defeated on the Senate floor

S799 permits some New Jersey adopted adults to receive their true and accurate original birth certificates. Others, through the compromise language of the birthparent disclosure veto, will receive only a false and mutilated government document with the name and address of the parent(s) bureaucratically excised by the Department of Health and Senior Services by order of the birthparent(s).

Bastard Nation rejects the special right of birthparents to remove their names from the birth certificates of their own adult offspring. No other parent has that right. Why should birthparents have different rules?

We are also troubled that the bill requires birthparents, under specific circumstances, to submit a medical and health history to the state, a requirement that is most likely illegal under HIPAA and other privacy laws.

Since 1999 four states have restored to adoptees the unrestricted right to records and identity access: Oregon through ballot initiative, and Alabama, New Hampshire, and Maine through legislation. Why should New Jersey buck the tide and pass a bill that continues to treat adoptee access to their own birth certificates as a favor, not a right--a right that the non-adopted enjoy without a second thought?

Rights are for all citizens, not favors or privileges doled out by legislators and special interest groups. New Jersey does not segregate rights by religion, ethnicity, age, or gender. It should not segregate rights by birth, adoptive status, or parental preference.

Either go back and create a clean bill that restores the rights of all adoptees to full citizenship or kill this discriminatory bill that does nothing but grant favors to some and blacklists others.

All of the New Jersey's adoptees must enjoy equal protection, due process, and dignity. New Jersey adoptees deserve better than this.

Executive Committee
Bastard Nation: the adoptee rights organization

Anita Walker Field
Nina M. Greeley
Patricia Marler
Peter Mose
Marla Paul
Marley Greiner, Executive Chair

PO Box 1469
Edmond, OK 73083-1469
415-705-3166



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Thursday, January 28, 2010

CALIFORNIA AND NEW JERSEY BAD BILLS DIE!

For once we have some good news!

California AB 372 is officially dead! The January 22 deadline for it to pass out of committee and on to the Senate floor went by with no action. Although nothing official has come from sponsor Sen Fiona Ma, her office told CalOpen that the bill would "will not be pursued."

Astoundingly, CARE (California Adoption Reform Effort) as of tonight, has not seen fit to announce the demise of their bill on its website. It's last update is dated May 28, 2009. That's what we've come to expect, though, from fake reformers who scrub their website of their own history and embarrassing documents, dismiss an ideology of rights. embracing instead "non-emotional" wishes and desires", (whatever that means), and posit that adoptees need to be "navigated by professionals" rather than ourselves. Veteran grassroots bastard activists who have actually gotten clean bills passed were ordered to take a hike by the dilettantes of CARE.

We're sure CARE, like herpes, will come back. Jean Strauss and CARE are all over the March 18-21 AAC conference in Sacramento.

CalOpen and Bastard Nation continue to hold the line in California. There is much work to be done there, and it needs to be done by real bastards, not those of the Benedict sort, who (sorry to be trite), throw the baby out with the bathwater. If you're from Cali and would like to help, drop CalOpen a line.

On the New Jersey front, the veto-laden S611/A752 never made it through the year end process. It's dead.

Unfortunately, it's risen from the dead in the form of S799 and A1406, similar if not identical to last session's throw-away-our-rights-for-favors-for-some. What is this: Year 29 trying to get this piece-a-crap passed? I feel bad for those people.I know some of them and like them. Really. But, as BB Church likes to remind us, if this were a job, they'd have been fired a long time ago. I fear the adoption-happy ACLU, crotch obsessed RTL Marie Tasy and her croaky bishops will just have to croak before rights are restored in Jersey.

There are some other bills pending, but at the moment reside in a state of confusion. Once they straighten up, well let you know.


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Tuesday, January 19, 2010

BASTARD NATION STATEMENT ON HAITIAN ADOPTIONS AND "BABYLIFTS"

Please distribute freely

For the last week, Bastard Nation, like the rest of the world, has been watching the devastation of Haiti. The images are frightening, sad, and heartrending, especially those of the children.

We have also watched with alarm the rush to rescue Haitian children by adoption. Within three days of the earthquake, Catholic Charities of Miami had set up a scheme modeled on Operation Pedro Pan, a joint State Department-CIA-Miami Diocese project in the early 1960s to separate children from their parents, creating young pawns in the US war against the Castro government. Although “Operation Pierre Pan” in Haiti is on hold, at least for now, numerous evangelical churches and ministries, adoption agencies, secular organizations, unfinalized adoptive parents and other individuals--many with conflicts of interest--have joined the rescue mission call to remove children immediately, no matter what their family status, to the US for the purpose of adoption.

Haiti is still under rubble. Aid is slow to arrive. Survivors are spread out in shelters and camps, or live in the streets. The dead are unnumbered, unknown, and unnamed. Family members continue to search for each for other, and it will take weeks or even months for final conciliation.

The rush to relocate orphans, quasi-orphans, and potential orphans internationally is ripe for coercion and fraud. Adoption agencies, church agencies, and ministries especially--along with fraudulent and predatory “child welfare” agents--have much to gain from fast removal. The trafficking of Haitian children for sex, servitude, and adoption operated in Haiti before the quake. It certainly operates now. The unethical and possibly unlawful mass transfer of traumatized children, many with family status unknown, to foreign shelters, foster care, and adoption agencies, removed from their culture and language, with little hope of family reunification cannot be allowed or tolerated. We urge US State Department and other US authorities in Haiti to (1) remove private special interests and those with conflicts of interest, such as adoption agencies and ministries, from the child welfare decision-making process and (2) halt the evacuation of children and their placement for adoption in the US.

We also urge the State Department to suspend pending adoptions. Haitian paperwork is lost or destroyed. Rock Cadet, the judge most responsible and knowledgeable about pipeline cases, died in the quake. Though the US Embassy survived, US paperwork is probably unavailable for some time, if it still exists. Without proof of Haitian court or Embassy status, any adoption removal from the country, without thorough background investigation and due process, is illegal and not in the best interest of the child

Needless to say, no new adoptions should be processed.

In the post-quake chaos, children need protection from predatory snatchers. Bastard Nation, therefore, supports the expedited removal of Haitian children, orphans or otherwise, to credible and documented parents or family members in the US for temporary or permanent placement depending on the circumstances. These children must not be assumed adoptable and scooped up for fast-track adoption. They should be a top priority. We urge the State Department or other government or credible private and disinterested agencies to assist Haitians in the US to locate child kin and bring them to the US.

We understand why people want to open their arms and hearts to the children of the Haitian earthquake, but adoption is not emergency or humanitarian aid or a solution to Haiti’s ongoing problems. The immediate rescue effort in Haiti should focus on emergency services, individual and family care and family reunification, not family, community, and cultural destruction and the strip-mining of children.


This statement has been faxed to the US State Department.


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