MASSACHUSETTS: ADOPTEES BLACKLISTED BY BEACON HILL

I’d rather vote for something I want and not get it than vote for something I don’t want, and get it.,,,Eugene V. Debs

A sad day for Massachusetts adoptees: Governor Deval Patrick signed SB63. The ABC crowd couldn’t be happier. Though they have made no formal statement this was posted on their website this afternoon (September 6):

We thank Governor Patrick, Senator Frederick E. Berry, Senator Karen E. Spilka, Representative John Lepper, Representative Stephen P. LeDuc, the Committee on Children, Families and Persons with Disabilities and the Massachusetts Legislative Children’s Caucus for making this bill law. We are also grateful to all the supporters in the adoption community who worked with us to get his bill signed into law.

AND THEY WONDER WHY WE CALL THEM DEFORMERS!
ABC* has done what no other “adoptee rights” organization has done. In its eagerness to “stop the clock” and play the hero, ABC lobbed an entire generation of adult adoptees into the great “dustbin of history.” It has (1) “legitimized” the false doctrine of ‘implied promises” promoted by NCFA et al for nearly 30 years ; and (2) acceded to the demands of blockhead politicians, adoption “professionals” and special interests to sell out the adopted class. ABC, top-heavy with industry know-it-alls and short on common sense, pimped a bill that age-segregates adoptee access to birth records and retains industry and state control over us .

Anita Field eloquently writes that SB63 divides adoptees into the Blessed and the Blacklisted.
To be Blessed one must have been born on or before July 17, 1974 or are yet to be born (on or after Jaunary 1, 2008.) The Blacklisted, adoptees born between those politically correct dates, are placed on a government watch list and forced, if they want their original birth records, to wallow before a judge for a court order. But don’t be discouraged! ABC and their industry friends have thrown blacklistees a leaky life raft upon which some can escape the onerous gaze of the law:

Senate Bill #63 further stipulates that evidence of birth parents willingness to provide information about their identity to the adopted person in the adoption record shall serve as sufficient evidence to grant access to the birth certificate.

Q: And what might this evidence be?
A: Whatever some adoptacrat wants it to be.

Q: And where is this evidence located?
A: In your adoption file at your adoption agency, of course–(if you can find out what agency it is) supervised and vetted by the very bottom feeders who for years have worked their pointy tails off to to keep your identity and records locked away in a government vault, far away from your greedy, ungrateful fingers.

I wonder how much they’ll charge to look for your file?

Again, from ABC (emphasis mine):

In 1986 the Commonwealth of Massachusetts passed a law that allowed Birth Parents to give written permission to release their identity to the child or children they relinquished. Every effort will be made to have all Adoption Agencies submit the names of all those in their files who meet this standard. This would include those involved in “Open Adoptions,” as well as those who have received letters with permission to release information.

Excuse me while I ROFLMAO, PMSL, ROLF, and LOL. And then cry. Sorry Charlie! Apparently, none of those ABC self-promoters was born after the cut-off date. More importantly, are the SB63 pimps even adopted? Does this bill effect them directly? Apparently not! The laundry list of adoption parasites…er, I mean practitioners, therapists, and social wreckers who supposedly promoted this bill is a who’s who of Massachusetts adoption option social engineers.

Desperate and undocumented blacklistees can sign up for a “subject to appropriation” state-run contact information registry that hasn’t been set up yet. We all know how useful, efficient and popular state registries are.

Finally, the truly up-the-creek-without-a-paddle can always “access accurate information about their history” by requesting their non-ID. (NOTE: When Bastardette requested her birthfather’s non-ID in Ohio she was told he was (1) a man; (2) Protestant; (3) blue collar, and (4) a high school drop-out. And it’s not like he was some stranger who chanced upon her mom at the Alibi Bar and then drifted away into the night from whence he came).

RESPECT THE LIE
Of course, this is the way it was supposed to be. ABC spins its duplicity as favor, the greater good, with nary a serious concern for the blacklisted.

Earlier this year, ABC admitted that its strategy had always been to take what it could get. A statement now MIA from its page reads:

Passage of a bill, which covers access to as many adopted people in the Commonwealth as possible has been our sole priority since its inception ten years ago!

Currently ABC takes a more reactionary approach:

Senate Bill 63 strives to gain access to as many adopted persons as possible, as well as respecting all parties involved.

Respecting what? According to its current faq:

Senate Bill #63 recognizes the deeply held conviction of some that during the period in which access to birth records has been limited [mid-1974-present] some birth parents may have relied on this confidentiality.

It’s previous faq no longer online, for a near identical bill, was more explicit as to what MUST be respected:

Senate Bill #959 acknowledges an “implied promise” of confidentiality to some birth parents. These birth parents, who relinquished between July 17, 1974 and the present when all adoption records and birth certificates were sealed under Massachusetts law, believed that the adopted person would never have access to a birth parent’s identity.

So according to ABC, “implied promises” of confidentiality, debunked years ago by activists, legal scholars, judges, and many adoption professionals–and despite NCFA rhetoric, have never been demonstrated –is now accepted by Massachusetts deformers as “fact”– a lie we must “respect.” Does this mean if I hold a deeply held belief that my cats speak French, that they do? Perhaps ABC will be so kind as to pull out those implied promises and share them with their new best friend, NCFA to spread around in other states.

BENEDICT BASTARDS
We know the usual hacks: The National Council for Adoption, “right to life” nuts, the ACLU, religious whack jobs, prissy feminists, and whatever group decides to beat up on adoptees this week. They are predictable, with their predictable arguments, their predictable power suits, their predictable testimony, and their predictable defense of their predictable agendas. Unlike us, they usually have no personal stake in what they do, outside of holding on to their salaries. They trudge through their day finger-wagging ungrateful adoptees, heroizing birthmothers, and fawning adopters They pull absurd “facts” and justifications for keeping birth certificates sealed, out their ass to pass along to dull-minded politicians who would rather do dog-talk with Michael Vick than give an adoptee an identity; thus offending some important colleague or rich constituent.

We know these enemies. We accept them. Sometimes, we may even respect them.

But there should be no respect for the Benedict Bastards, who slither their way through the statehouse–the compromisers, the apologists, the people pleasers, the industry-identifiers, the cowards who happily sell the birthright of their fellow bastards and adoptees for their little mess of pottage.

Several people have written us tonight asking who these Benedict Bastards are. They want them called out. Not surprisingly, the ABC website has taken down the names of its leadership team, leaving them as appropriately anonymous as blacklistees. I have a hard copy list of ABC leaders, but we have heard that some left over compromise disputes. We hope this is true. If we can verify current names, I will post them. These people should be held accountable for their misdeeds

In the meantime go over and read the names of the “supporting” organizations. If that doesn’t give you the adoption creepy crawlies, I don’t know what will. There is nothing wrong with institutional support, but no genuine records access bill has passed in any state except through the dedicated leadership and control of adopted persons.–not “professionals” who make their money off of adoption and the misery of others. As my colleague BB Church wrote tonight on the BN BEST list: “Where is the voice of the adoptee in this? What adoptee would say, with a straight face, that we must “Stop the Clock!” They didn’t stop any clock, they froze it, freezing out adoptees born in the Twilight Zone. “

As a side note, several months ago leaders of two organizations on the current ABC list told me that their groups did not support the compromised legislation. They said they would ask their names be removed from the list, but they are still there. To the best of my knowledge these organizations still do not support SB63, but it’s up to them to say so.

ABC says that SB63 is about “respect” and “restoration.” It is about neither. It is about the continued state regulation of adoptee identity. This abomination. can have far reaching effects in other states where compromise is only a motion away. It is a shame that adopted persons throughout the US and Canada may have to pay for the reckless behavior of the anything-at-any cost ABC Gang. But the larger shame lays on the head of ABC, who co-opted the rights of all for favors for some.

As long as there is a lower class I am in it As long as there is a criminal element, I am of it As long as there is a soul in prison I am not free…Eugene V. Debs

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I will be writing more about this later, but I wanted to get something out tonight.

* all ABC quotes, unless specified, are taken from the current ABC webpage. These quotes and similar quotes are spread redundantly thoughout the page