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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

BASTARD NATION'S LETTER TO THE CAL ASSMB. APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: ADOPTEES ARE NOT PART OF A CALIFORNIA ECONOMIC STIMULUS PACKAGE

Dear Honorable Assemblymember:

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization is the largest adoptee civil rights organization in North America. We advocate for the full human and civil rights of adult adoptees. We believe people everywhere have a right to their unaltered and unfalsifed birth records. This means opening government documents pertaining to the adoptee’s historical, genetic, and legal identity, including the unaltered original birth certificate (obc) and adoption decree. Our membership includes adopted adults and first and adoptive parents. We have substantial membership in California.

BN was behind the 1998 Oregon Ballot Measure 58 which restored the right of the state’s adult adoptees to access their original birth certificates. In 2000 Bastard Nation sponsored legislation in Alabama which restored access there. In 2004 we worked in a coalition of adoptee rights advocates in New Hampshire where adoptee civil rights were restored on January 1, 2005. We are currently working in other states to restore records access. Bastard Nation leaves no one behind. We do not support legislation that restricts even one adopted person from receiving his or her own information.

Bastard Nation does not support AB 372. Our submitted testimony is in the official Assembly Judiciary legislative analysis.

AB 372 is not a true equal access bill. It continues to treat adopted persons differently than the not-adopted, which effects costs and appropriations.

Instead of opening access to birth records, the proposal subjects California adoptees to egregious new restrictions on that access which do not exist under current law. AB 372 contains a disclosure veto which gives birthparents, whose parental rights were terminated years before, a new and special right that no other parent has: the right to stop release of the original birth certificate upon request, to her or his offspring. AB 372 creates a state bureaucracy to track down birthparents to inform them of that new and special right and to seek their written consent for release. AB 372 contains an opt-out clause that would permit one or both birthparents in the future the even newer and more special right to deny obc access to their adult offspring for reasons of “rape.” “incest,” “religion” or undefined “personal reasons.” AB 372 is about as far away from a real records access bill as California is from Bulgaria.

As if the bill weren’t bad enough, AB 372 has now been amended by the sponsor Assb. Fiona Ma with a proposed fiscal note/fiscal effect of $16,000,000 for the first two years and a projected $2,000,000 each year thereafter. This outrageous amount is allegedly for “start-up” costs--$8,000,000 for the first year: the creation of a new database and hiring of 34 staff to “man” the tech and administrative bureaucracy to track down birthparents (usually women) at a “best match address” (whatever that means), through certified or registered mail, to get consent for release.

How this snipe hunt is to be accomplished has not been revealed. Last known address of parents taken from records 30, 40, 50 years or older? Google? Intelius? Social Security records? Paid, privately operated databases? Will California access other states’ private governmental records if the search turns up empty at home? (We doubt it!) Does the state intend to contract out searches to secrecy-obsessed adoption agencies, for-profit adoption searchers, or private investigators? How about talking to snoopy neighbors and tracking down rumors?

Who is to foot millions for this murky state snooping project: already burdened taxpayers who are currently facing curtailment of crucial state services or adoptees who have committed no crime other than to have been born and sealed in California? Both are unacceptable.

The justification for this outrageous expense is based on a strange and erroneous extrapolation of data from Oregon where obcs were unsealed in 1999.



The Oregon law, passed by a 1998 ballot initiative, contains only a voluntary non-binding, contact preference form, no disclosure veto or other veto, and the state does not track down women to seek consent for release. If there were an initial cost involved in implementing Oregon’s law, it was because of the 18 month legal battle which went all the way to the US Supreme Court (denied cert) to keep records sealed and the ensuing backlog of thousands of uncompleted requests that accumulated during the time when the law was in abeyance.

The fact is, states that have unsealed obcs—Oregon, Alabama, New Hampshire, Maine—have not incurred any significant cost (if any) in re-opening and distributing obcs to adoptees upon request. They treat adoptee requests for their birth certificates just like they treat not-adopted requests. There is no extra cost. Neither taxpayers nor adoptees are dunned an extraordinary fee nor treated like potential criminals.

A true equal access bill is about the right of the adopted to own a simple piece of paper-- their own birth certificate-- not search and reunion. What any person, adopted or not adopted, does with that piece of paper is her or his business, not the state’s. Yet AB 372, by the mere fact that it mandates search for consent, is a reunion bill that makes the State of California and its taxpayers the broker of personal and family relationships. This kind of state intrusion has no business being part of civil rights discourse much less law.

Adoptees, their rights, and their records are not part of a California economic stimulus package. The best thing to do with AB 372 is deep six it. Fast.

California needs to clear this abomination out of the way to open the path for a real equal access bill that treats all California adoptees as full responsible citizens who are grown up enough to own their own birth certificates, Just give adoptees their obcs without state interference or extraordinary cost to anybody. The taxpayers will thank you. And adoptees will, too. Please vote DO NOT PASS on AB 372.

Yours truly,

Marley Greiner, Executive Chair, Bastard Nation

BASTARD NATION TESTIMONY AGAINST CALIFORNIA AB 372: LEAVE NO ONE BEHIND!

Below is Bastard Nation's testimony in against AB 372. It was submitted last week for today's haering. You can read the official legislative analysis of the bill here. (It's not very good.) Note that CARE has no certified proponents except it\self and the bill has no co-sponsors.

WRITTEN TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION TO AB 372 ACCESS TO ORIGINAL BIRTH CERTIFICATES FOR ADULT ADOPTEES Assembly Judiciary Committee, April 28, 2008 Submitted April 21, 2009

POSITION: OPPOSE

Honorable Members of the Assembly Judiciary Committee:

Below is our submitted testimony on AB 372:

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization advocates for the full human and civil rights of adult adoptees. We believe people everywhere have a right to their unaltered and unfalsifed birth records. This means opening government documents pertaining to the adoptee’s historical, genetic, and legal identity, including the unaltered original birth certificate (obc) and adoption decree. Our membership includes adopted adults and first and adoptive parents. We have substantial membership in California.

BN was behind the 1998 Oregon Ballot Measure 58 which restored the right of the state’s adult adoptees to access their original birth certificates. In 2000 Bastard Nation sponsored legislation in Alabama which restored access there. In 2004 we worked in a coalition of adoptee rights advocates in New Hampshire where adoptee civil rights were restored on January 1, 2005. We are currently working in other states to restore records access. Bastard Nation leaves no one behind. We do not support legislation that restricts even one adopted person from receiving his or her own information.

Bastard Nation does not support AB 372. Although, as of the date of this submission, the bill is without conditions, except for age, Assb. Ma has issued a memo (April 15, 2009) outlining amendments she plans to introduce which would severely limit access and gut the alleged purpose of the bill. These amendments, according to her memo, include:
* An expansion forwards and backwards of the 1984 “birthparent” disclosure veto. This veto would seal all California obcs by default and would require unsealing only by individual “birthparent” consent. Such an amendment would take away the right that some California adoptees have enjoyed for decades to receive through the courts, without birthparent consent, their ob

* A state-run search system whereby state employees or contractors, at taxpayer expense, would track down individual “birthparents” at a “best match address” with a certified return receipt letter to seek consent for the release of the obc. If after 6 months the “birthparent” has not been located or does not return the state’s request, the obc will remain sealed.

* In the case of one “birthparent” consenting to release and the other one not (through default or request), the identifying information of the non-consenting parent would be redacted.

* For prospective adoptions starting January 1, 2010 an opt-out clause would permit one or both parents to deny obc access to their adult offspring for reasons of “rape.” “incest,” “religion” or undefined “personal reasons.”

These proposed amendments are egregious, insulting, and antithetical to the purported purpose of AB 372 and gut the entire bill of any meaning.

We also object to limiting access to the obc to adoptees 25 years and older. Access should be allowed at the age of majority. Anything else is the continued infantlization of adoptees as a class. The idea that one is old enough to fight for his or her country, buy a house, drink, and be married, but not capable of owning an original birth certificate is absurd.

WHY WE OPPOSE: BASTARD NATION’S POSITION ON AB 372 AND UNRESTRICTED ACCESS TO OBC ACCESS IN CALIFORNIA.
Unrestricted obc access in California is about rights not reunion. It is about the relation of adoptees to the state. It is about the absolute natural right of identity and the civil right to a true unfalsified birth certificate for all California adoptees not just a select few. The not-adopted need not justify why they want their vital records nor are they forced to ask their parents permission, appear before a judge, join a government-run registry, seek mental health counseling, or spend years getting a bill passed to get their birth record. The not-adopted have a presumed right to their birth certificates and can do with them what they please. All arguments for unrestricted access must then flow from the presumed right of all adults to unrestricted access and ownership of their true birth certificates, not just some. If adoptees are not equal legally to the not-adopted in terms of access, then the right of anyone to possess their own birth certificate is not a right but a state favor. The real question, then, is who owns your identity? You or the state?

Unfortunately, in California today, the birth and identity records of thousands of its citizen adoptees are owned and held hostage by the state. AB 372, which purports to loosen state ownership, in fact, tightens it with its massive restrictions and hoop jumping.

Unrestricted obc access in California should be inclusive and create birth record access equity between the adopted and not-adopted. Unrestricted access acknowledges and codifies a legally, morally, and ethically correct one-size-fits all standard of birth record access rights for all people born in California, not just the not adopted. Unlike AB 372, a genuine obc access bill would restore the right of ownership and access, legislatively rescinded in 1935, to all California adoptees.

Unrestricted obc access in California would abolish a nearly 75-year old state-constructed blacklist of worthy and unworthy citizens whose birth record access is based on a protectionist, paternalistic, discredited social system of adoption secrecy that died decades ago. Restrictions established legislatively in 1935 and expanded by the 1984 “birthparent” disclosure veto, grossly discriminate not only between the adopted and the not-adopted, but between vetoed and non-vetoed adoptees. For adoptees born in 1984 and beyond, (which AB 372 may expand to cover everyone) access is dependent on first parent permission, that gives people whose parental rights were terminated years ago, a special right that no other parent or adult has over another adult—the special right to block access to and ownership of a person’s vital and court records. If expanded back to cover pre-1984 adoptees, older adoptees will lose the right they now enjoy to receive their obc through the courts without “birthparent” consent.

Recognizes adoptee autonomy, rights, and responsibilities as full citizens who can be trusted to own their personal information. Adopted adults should not be denied their birth records to protect someone else’s comfort zone. With the growing demand for “proof of identity” through state and federal laws such as Real ID, it is imperative that all of us prove we are who we say we are. Adopted adults are routinely denied drivers licenses, passports, and security clearances because amended adoptive identities cannot be linked to original birth identities. AB 372 will do nothing to correct this.

Unrestricted obc access in California would not change adoption procedures. Adoption records are sealed upon finalization, not relinquishment. If the court denies an adoption petition or the petition is withdrawn, the birth record remains unsealed. If an adoption is overturned or disrupted, the birth record is unsealed. Most significantly, if a child is never adopted the birth record is never sealed. Thus, if sealing birth records was meant to hide parental identities absolutely, records would be sealed upon relinquishment, not finalization. Even in traditional closed adoptions first parent identities are often recorded on court documents given to adoptive parents without first parent consent. Similarly, legal advertisements with identifying information are often published, and courts may open adoption records for “good cause” without first parent consent. Moreover, California’s Birth Index, which includes the names of “birthmothers,” has been open and available to the public for decades. It was even sold on the Internet by the State of California and is routinely available on eBay. Though closed a few years ago, thousands of copies of the index remain available through legal sources.

Unrestricted access to obcs in California would unseal obcs only to the adopted persons to which they pertain. Allowing adoptees access to information about their origins is NOT a violation of anyone's privacy rights. Adoptee access to their own original birth certificates is not the same as public access or disclosure to the public. It is not "outing" anyone. The records would remain sealed from the public.

Unrestricted access to obcs in California would reflect best practice adoption standards. Unrestricted obc access is a priority of every genuine adoption reform organization, national, state, and local, in the US today. The Evan. B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, The Child Welfare League of America (which sets best practice standards), The National Association of Social Workers, and The North American Council on Adoptable Children, the National Adoption Center, and Ethica: A Voice for Ethical Adoption all support unrestricted access.

CONCLUSION
Rights are for all citizens, not favors or privileges for some. US and California law does not privilege rights by race, religion, ethnicity, age, or gender. The law should not privilege rights by adoption. Bastard Nation cannot think of any other judicial procedure where records are sealed from those to whom the procedure pertains. But in California adopted adults are discriminated against daily due to their adoptive status. AB 372 not only continues the gross discrimination, but threatens to expand it. It is, in fact, the worse “adoption reform” bill Bastard Nation has seen since its 1996 inception.

A true records access bill in California would not harm anyone. It would instead restore legal equality, dignity, and fairness to adopted persons and their biological and adoptive families. Bastard Nation, therefore, cannot support AB 372 with its continued and additional harm to California’s adopted citizens.

Bastard Nation recommends that the Judiciary Committee votes DO NOT PASS.

Don’t leave anyone behind!

MORE THOUGHTS ON THE COMING CALIFORNIA FIASCO

There are a lot of problems with CARE's proposed access bill in California: elitism, compromise, rejection of rights and grassroots, and its decision to go for a bill in the midst of California's economic dissolution.

After several comments posted in my earlier blog entry regarding the so-called constitutionality issue in records access in California, I intended to a make relatively short comment, but decided that topic and some other thoughts really need a separate entry. Below I discuss the constitutionality issue and make a couple observations on the coming California Fiasco.

This is not meant to be a definitive response. My comments are mine only, and do not represent CalOpen, which is perfectly capable of taking care of business itself.

WHY DOES CARE BELIEVE THAT AN UNRESTRICTED ACCESS BILL WON'T FLY?
The California Adoption Reform Effort (CARE) has shown little inclination to learn the history of past California records access campaigns, organize California adoptees outside the Amen Corner, build long-term relationships with leggies, or learn the lay of the Cal legislature, even with their pricey navigator…er... I mean lobbyist... at the helm.

Judging from CARE’s past disinterest in constitutional studies (see BB Church) and its recent lame de facto attempt to acquire a CalOpen-commissioned legal study (now in the possession of Bastard Nation) on state constitutional repercussions of a clean bill, suggests that it hasn’t commissioned research of its own, nor does it really care what research might say anyway. Seasoned rights-based activists working access bills know that CARE’s cry that pols have already evinced “privacy concerns” is a given. Pols hate controversy. “Privacy” is always “controversial.” (except when the government wants to snoop on us). It is always an issue when adoptee records access is concerned. Good research and preparation are what good activists do before they jump into the fire. CARE won’t win over everybody, but the hat they're holding in their hand won’t go up in smoke either, if they know what they're talking about.

CARE poobahs, however, just “know”that a clean records bill won’t pass state constitutional muster, a rather strange decision from an organization that claims its arguments are "non-emotional" and based on "statistical and empirical data.” Perhaps they’ve contracted Sylvia Brown to save them the trouble of actually paying for a study of their own (which may or may not back them up) and publishing the document for their supposed constituency to read and decide for themselves. Or maybe they're just lazy.

DEFORMER LOGIC
According to deformer logic, the way to pass a bill is to scissor out this and this and this until the bill is one big black hole in which to shove certain classes of unworthy adoptees. The bill has no value to anyone but the people who want their names on it. Those who fail to meet deformer criteria-- born the wrong year, lack parental consent, or some other arbitrary standard are, in the vernacular, shit outta luck.

If the bad bill fails, the same old deformers come back with the same old bad bill, with the same old "strategies" the next year and the next and the next and the next.

If the bad bill actually passes, riddled with exclusions (tiered access, disclosure vetoes, white-outs, mandated CIs, a registry, and whatever other sell-outs they can come up with), deformers claim victory, ignoring that they have eviscerated rights and created a vested interest in secrecy where none existed before, that most likely cannot be divested. In other words, certain classes of adoptees are screwed. If it saves just one....

How do deformers explain their logic to the shut-out and disenfranchised? They don’t.

A couple years ago the Massachusetts ABC group conveniently removed their names and contact information from their webpage, when, with their consent and support, their bill went south, excluding about 33 years of adoptees from access under their proud “access” law.

Records access is “non-partisan.” We would all love to support a clean bill in California, no matter who promotes it, as long as we know it is put forward by principled activists who know when to hold 'em and when to to fold ‘em. New Hampshire Senator Lou D’Alessandro knew. Sen. D demanded an up or down vote and got it. So did California Assembly Member Anthony Pescetti a few years ago, who pulled a bill. With CARE we know this won’t happen.

WHO IS TRYING TO MAKE A STATEMENT?
One of the most bothering declarations from CARE, outside of its claim that records access is not about rights, is its trivialization and marginalization of experienced, successful rights-based legislators and activists, articulated in its letter (see previous blogs below).

The Shut Up We Know What's Good For You Principle practiced alike by "friendly" deformers, the National Council for Adoption, the ACLU and anybody else who rejects adoptee autonomy is well articulated here:

There is going to be little room for debate on this if the time comes - we are being represented by a legislator who is in this to pass the legislation, not to make a statement.

Did Alabama Representative Jeff Dolabare fight a rights-based, no compromise campaign just to “make a statement”?

Did New Hampshire Senator Lou D’Allesandro and Representatives Janet Allen and Mike Whalley fight a rights-based, no compromise campaign just to “make a statement”?

Did Maine’s Representative David Farrington and Senator Paula Benoit fight a rights-based, no compromise campaign just to “make a statement”?

Did California Assembly Member Anthony Pescetti, sponsor of CalOpen’s AB 1349 (2001-2002) (and here) who had the integrity and moral fortitude to pull the bill rather than see it ruined, fight a rights-based, no compromise campaign just to “make a statement”?

Did Helen Hill in Oregon, Alabama AWARE , the New Hampshire coalition, and OBC for ME fight rights-based, no compromise campaigns just to "make a statement"?

Did CalOpen fight a rights based, no compromise campaign and give up its much-loved bill "just to make a statement"?

To say that the ideology of inclusion is merely a "statement" reduces the very real sacrifices of time, money, energy, family, friends and jobs that these pioneers and heroes made to nothing more than stunt status--a sideshow. I was at the statehouse in Sacramento the day that CalOpen decided to pull its bill. I saw the frustration, the anger, the open weeping of some who had worked so hard to get their bill as far as it had come. This was no stunt. This was courage.

CARE tells everybody outside of the anything-is-better-than-nothing crowd to go piss up a rope. We’re “professionals.” We know best.

CARE ignores both the historical successes in Oregon, Alabama, New Hampshire, and Maine and repeated deformist failures across the country including Minnesota, Connecticut, and bleeding New Jersey. It writes adoptees and bastards out of their scenario.

CARE has admitted that it will gut its clean bill to get something passed—hardly something that makes sense under a rights-for-all-based process (but then theirs is "wish based," anyway) or will gain the support of everyday bastards and adoptees.

This begs the question:

Who is really “making a statement’?

Why?

And what is it?

WE'VE SCREWED UP YOUR STATE, NOW WE'RE COMING TO SCREW UP YOURS: CALIFORNIA ADOPTION REFORM EFFORT--IF YOU DON'T LIKE COMPROMISE GO AWAY!---COMMENTS

A few minutes ago I posted a long blog, We've screwed up your state, now we're coming to screw up yours--California Adoption Reform Effort: if you don't like compromise, go away. After it was up for a few minutes the entry seemed too long. I have gone back and divided it into two parts: (1`) The Letter and (2) Comments. I have now posted The Letter first, followed by this. I suggest you go below and read the The Letter First.

Zen fascists will control you

100% natural
You will jog for the master race
And always wear the happy face

...California Uber Allies. Jello Biafra, Dead Kennedys

For the past few weeks we've been watching the formation of a new "adoption reform" organization in California: California Adoption Reform Effort (CARE). CARE consists of a few Californians, lead by adoptee author/filmmaker Jean Strauss who lives in Washington State and Stephanie Williams, a pricey lobbyist formerly with the Cal Trucking Association. It's advisory committee is cattle car Who's Who of mostly deformers, industry hacks, and out-of-staters.

According to CARE's webpage, the organization is "dedicated to providing adult adopted citizens access to a non-certified copy of their original record of birth."

Unfortunately, for Cal Adoptees, the CARE webpage shows us that it is just the same old deformer hag prettied up in a prom dress and talking from a commitee-written script.

According to the CARE webpage (my emphasis):

California Adoption Reform Effort is united in opening as many birth records in California as politially feasible.

Nothing appears on its webpage about a rights-rooted campaign. Instead CARE refers to "wishes" and desires" which apparently the state has a duty to grant to the adopted and their "birthmothers." (QUESTION: has nobody told CARE that "birthmother" is considered "the N word" by a lot of people, especially mothers, effected by adoption?)

Not satisfied with modeling itself on the successful legislative Alabama, New Hampshire, and Maine campaigns (a ballot initiative as Oregon's is economically unfeasible in Cal), CARE promises to run a "different" campaign.

How different? It's all rather vague.

CARE says its arguments are "non-emotional" (bu, remember, are "wishful.") It's scheme is based on "statistical and empirical data," but CARE fails to elaborate on what this ""statistical and empirical data" may be. Its "non-emotional" arguments, though, seem to include pleas for medical information, which CARE claims is a "right" denied California adoptees, the protection of "birthmothers" and adoptees from "businesses and institutions who profit from the unconsented[(sic] representation of adults"...and protection from incest. (!)

The subheading on CARE's original webpage read: Striving to provide a bridge for adopted citizens and their families to information that could save lives.

It was recently updated to read: California's effort to compassionately open birth records for adult adoptees while respecting state privacy laws!

Inexplicably the graphic used to illustrate this bridge is that of the Brooklyn Bridge, not the Cal-iconic Golden Gate. Catch it while it's still up!

UPFRONT: CARE THROWS IT ALL AWAY!
Upfront: CARE tells us it will compromise-- will sell out the rights of all for favors for some. (It would be interesting to know just how many CAREists already have what most don't.) CARE says that two states have never sealed records. Kansas and Alaska, which is true. It says another seven unnamed states have unsealed their records which is untrue. Obviously Oregon, Alabama, New Hampshire and Maine have unsealed obcs for all adult adoptees upon request and without restriction. We assume that CARE is also including Delaware, which has a disclosure veto and Tennessee which has disclosure and contact vetoes. But, what is the 9th state? Whatever, it is clear that CARE considers states that give "birthparents" special rights over obc access and their adult offspring are "open" states. They are not.

Upfront: CARE declares the 1935 law that sealed California adoptee's birth certificates was "well-intentioned" and "seemed prudent at the time." Obviously somebody needs made aware of Georgia Tann's work in California.

Upfront: CARE infantalizes adult adoptees by confusing open adoption with adoptees' right to their obcs by saying that "CWLA and the Evan B. Donaldson Institute "advocate at least some degree of openness in adoption."

Upfront: in a letter (see text below) from CARE to a select group of potential members, CARE defines itself as "professional" not "grassroots" while claiming adoptees need to be heard. The just need "navigated" by professionals in suits who you pay to lead you around by your needy noses. CARE, in fact, tells non-compromisers to hit the road. BTW, membership in CARE costs $85 a pop.

Upfront: in this same correspondence, CARE claims that the opening of all obcs would violate the California State Constitution and bring on lawsuits, but fails to explain why. A "professional" organization, arguing rights, not reunion, would commission legal research to back up a rights argument before it started. CalOpen, in fact, did just that, but they refuse to give the document up to CARE.

Assemblywoman Fiona Ma has agreed to sponsor CARE's bill, which is being fast tracked. CARE is trolling for co-sponsors and endorsements. So far, CARE says it is a "clean bill" but virtually admits that it will be amended and watered down. The bill hasn't been printed yet. A hearing is scheduled for March, but no date has been set. I will write more about this bill in a separate blog soon.

ACTION
Jean Ulrich and a number of seasoned Cal acativists have revived California Open to hold the line on CARE and its "experiment" ( CARE's word for what they're doing.) In the early 2000's Cal Open's clean SB 1349 made its way up to Senate hearings. Under threat of the bill being compromised out of recognition, CalOpen and its sponsor took the high road and withdrew the bill. I was there when it happened. It was a sad day, but also an honorable day. We did the right thing.

CalOpen's new page went up over the weekend as well as a MySpace page. Facebook is forthcoming. Jean and CalOpen need help to stop this bill from being compromised, and if it is compromised to kill it. CalOpen will be partnering with other groups. It also need help from us--especially help from California adoptees, their families, friends and anyone with a California connection. We cannot let California bastards and adoptees be written out. We are not lab rats!

BB Church momentarily came out of retirement to blog on the upcoming California Fiasco. He also has posted the above letter. Go here to read his thoughts.

ADDENDA: 2/9/09, 3: 25 PM: BB Church has just published a stunning critique of CARE. Go to the link directory about this and read it.

WE'VE SCREWED UP YOUR STATE, NOW WE'RE COMING TO SCREW UP YOURS: CALIFORNIA ADOPTION REFORM EFFORT--IF YOU DON'T LIKE COMPROMISE GO AWAY!--THE LETTER

A few minutes ago I posted a long blog, We've screwed up your state, now we're coming to screw up yours--California Adoption Reform Effort: if you don't like compromise, go away. After it was up for a few minutes the entry seemed too long. I have gone back and divided it into two parts: (1`) The Letter) and (2) Comments. I am posting the letter first. I suggest you it first; then read the comments posted in the entry above this.

*****

INTRODUCTION
For the past few weeks we've been watching the formation of a new "adoption reform" organization in California: California Adoption Reform Effor (CARE). CARE consists of a few Californians, lead by adoptee author/filmmaker Jean Strauss who lives in Washington State and Stephanie Williams, a pricey lobbyist formerly with the Cal Trucking Association. It's advisory committee is cattle car Who's Who of mostly deformers, industry hacks, and out-of-staters.

Bastard Nation has obtained a copy of an email sent by CARE "president Jean Strauss" to approximately 20 potential supporters. Theirvague but very real ideology of compromise is laidout, politically correct language ordered, "privacy" deified, compromise flogged, and experienced grassroots activists told to jump off the Santa Monica Pier.

THE LETTER
----- Original Message -----
From: Jean Strauss
Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 11:12 PM
Subject: C.A.R.E.'s strategy moving forward...

Dear Everyone,

First off, thank you to all of you who were able to attend the Sacramento meeting this past Saturday. My apologies for taking so long to correspond to the entire group about what transpired at that meeting, and in the time since, but this is the first day I have had any free time.

The meeting was highly productive and positive. As we were able to inform those in attendance, in the last three weeks of January, the California Adoption Reform Effort grew from a concept to a reality. We are now a licensed professional organization with bylaws, an executive board and council, and a general membership. As of February 1st, CARE became a dues paying membership organization. We now have the structure in place to actively welcome full members, seek funding and support, and move forward with our legislative work. I'll be sending out a general invitation to join via our website in just a few days (probably this weekend). Your support (and the support of many others) will be the only way to achieve our goal of providing access to original birth records for as many California adult adoptees 18 and older as possible.

Our bill was submitted the third week of January, and we have an enthusiastic and very distinguished author in Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, the Majority Whip of the Assembly. In the next two days, a co-author who will be announced. We are currently involved in daily work in preparation of our first hearing sometime in March. We have been pursuing endorsements, and have begun district meetings.

Our effort is a professional one, not a grassroots one. We are being guided through the labyrinth of the California legislature by Stephanie Williams, a lobbyist with over two decades of experience walking the halls in Sacramento. Our strategy, language, and any ultimate success, will be largely due to her expertise and hard work. We would not be where we are without her, and supporting her is an important aspect of our membership.

One of the first hurdles we have to overcome as a group is how to educate others within the adoption reform movement about the strategy we are undertaking in California. It will be crucial to our success that people understand that our strategy in the California Adoption Reform Effort is solely based upon the legislative process that exists and what will work within that process. Hence, this is not an effort to 'right a wrong' or a 'fight for our Constitutional rights'. Our approach is a non-emotional one based upon statistical and empirical data. Thus, ours is 'an effort to update an antiquated and outdated policy established in 1935 (the sealing of adoptee birth records) so as to be able to provide adult adoptees with information about their origins so that they will have the ability to know their ethnicity, their nationality, their exact date and time of birth, and their original name as a protection against potential incest.'

The difference in language (and emotion) will be necessary within the confines of the legislative process. The results will be what we want to achieve - even though we're not using the 'language' we're used to using to express our needs. This is not an easy thing to ask of all of you, and yet it will be an important contribution of each of you to this effort if you are able to master it. I realize the italicized text above doesn't verbally capture the emotional impact that sealed records have had upon adoptees who've faced a lifetime of secrets, nor does this language relay how those secrets have often eroded self esteem and contributed to a the feeling of 'second class citizenry'. I know many of you are interested in being involved in access legislation because you believe access to your original information (all of it) is your constitutional right, and the constitutional right of your children. I am with you. Yet I believe we must use tools that will help us get the job done. The language of 'constitutional and civil rights' commonly used in access legislation appeals stands in direct opposition to the California Constitution. If we use this approach, we will, I have become convinced, fail.

There are other, equally compelling reasons for adoptee access and they can be made from data and 'unintended outcomes' of the original code which sealed the records. It's less emotional, less sexy, less what we're all used to saying and feeling - but it's language that will work with legislators and their staff. After walking the halls of the Capital this week I am convinced of two things: we have a highly competent lobbyist representing our effort and her strategy for getting this legislation through this maze has the best potential for achieving legislative change to sealed records policy.

Many might say that this 'quieter' and very precise language and strategy was not needed in other states which have achieved openness, and many may wonder why Oregon, our neighbor, could succeed without having to play this 'game'. In Oregon, a single donor helped fund a statewide measure which was voted upon by citizens. To do that in California would cost between $3 and $30 million - and the result would most likely be the same as Oregon's: a lawsuit would be brought that the proposition is unenforcable because it would be unconstitutional. Oregon was able to prevail in their lawsuit, and much of the legal debate was elegant and helps our cause. But it does not address the very real difference between our two states constitutions. A similar legal battle in California would be far less likely to end in a positive outcome.

The first amendment of California's Constitution is all about privacy. Privacy is so important in our state that there are even privacy committees. We may be the only state in the Union with such a strict and overriding concern regarding privacy. To pass our bill, we will have to address the privacy obstacles that will be in our path.

We have submitted a clean bill (this means it has no amendments or compromises attached to it). We are asking for one thing and one thing only: that every adult adoptee over the age of 18 be allowed to have a non-certified copy of their original record of birth. It is a simple bill - but it is not an easy challenge. I know there are some for whom compromise represents a 'sellout'. You probably should not join C.A.R.E. We welcome your support, and we want a clean bill, but we are already facing very complicated maneuverings which will probably mean we are facing some compromise. There is going to be little room for debate on this if the time comes - we are being represented by a legislator who is in this to pass the legislation, not to make a statement. I say this after only one day of walking the halls. Privacy has already come up. It is not the concern of just one legislator, it's the concern of every legislator we've encountered.

I say all this not to be discouraging but to be honest and clear. Our author and lobbyist need our support for the path they see to success. They are interested in helping our group provide access to original birth records to as many adult adoptees as possible, and I believe we have a good shot at succeeding if we can achieve a broad understanding among triad members and friends for the need for this strategy, and for the nuances of language that will be necessary to succeed at our goal.

I know that many of you have taken the time to submit new language for our website and organization. Know we've been reviewing all of it and running it by the people who will be working this bill through the tricky seas ahead. What ends up on the website and in postings is going to be the result of legislative vetting.

I have often cited a quote of Thoreau's when trying to help people understand that triad members are the voices which should be listened to as adoption policy is revised. To highly paraphrase Thoreau,

To navigate an ocean we should seek the counsel of shipwrecked mariners rather than find our way based on the advice of those who've never been out of sight of land.

Our lobbyist and author are the mariners who must chart this course. They know, much better than any of us, how to navigate these waters. Only through their wise counsel and honesty will we arrive at our destination.

All that said, we also won't arrive there without the support of all of you, and many other friends. Please consider joining our effort and encouraging others to as well. We have an opportunity to do much good here. My apologies if much of this has sounded didactic and rather heavy. I'm just trying to relay what I have learned about the situation we face. I'm thrilled to be involved and honored to know each of you. I want us to succeed...

Many thanks to all of you for your time and patience and good wishes!

Sincerely,

Jean Strauss