Category Archives: Adoptee Rights

Pennsylvania: “Creating another generation of victims is not the answer.” A letter to PA Coalition Against Rape from Kristi Lado

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One of the worst aspects of sexual violence is being treated like a “thing” with no feelings. Those of us who were conceived by rape deal with the same issue. We are called the “product,” “rape babies,” and worse names that imply we are something less-than-human. By suggesting that it is acceptable to strip us of a right that every other PA citizen enjoys, not only contributes to this myth but is an endorsement of discrimination. All of this based on the idea that a fraction of relinquishing mothers may not want to know their children? Continue Reading →

Fight Back Against Surveillance Day: Implications for Adoptee Rights

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This over-arching state snooping is not lost on bastard activists. The very forces that confiscate and seal our own birth records, and replace them with forged “amended” replacements–then go to extremes to keep adoption secret, insisting that birthparents must remain anonymous and unknown from their own family members–monitor our cellphones, emails, and other digital communications rooting out dangerous words and ideas that could be critical of the state. Continue Reading →

Georgia: HB 524 update and Bastard Nation Action Alert

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Georgia Adoptyees Need Your Help Today! On Monday, January 27, HB 524 was heard in the Welch Subcommittee on Juvenile Justice. Due to the enormous amount of contact to committee members from Georgians and people across the country, the bill was discussed and the hearing continued to (probably) later this week. As you will see from the report by Georgia activists Kat Stanley below, leggies are taking this bill quite seriously and have been influenced by our voice. Continue Reading →

Georgia HB 524: Bastard Nation Testimony in support of original bill; opposed to Welch Amendment

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We are disturbed greatly by a proposed amended by Rep. Welch scheduled to be introduced on January 27. We have not seen the amendment. We understand, however, that it would give the “option” of a “contact preference form” by which a birthmother could ask the state to redact her name from the OBC. If there is no CPF on file, the adoptee would not get tis or her OBC. At all. A genuine “contact preference form” such as used in Oregon, Alabama, New Hampshire, Maine, and Rhode Island is simply a voluntary statement by which a birthparent expresses a preference for contact. It has no legal standing and does not stop the release of the intact OBC to the adoptee. Continue Reading →

In the Eye of the Storm: My Interview with the Weekly Standard. The enemy got it right.

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fterwards I fretted. In my weather-distracted state, what in the world did I tell the Weekly Standard? How stupid did I sound? I knew the writer was also interviewing Bill Pierce and he’d be probably call BN a bunch of ungrateful hippie commies. He once assucsed Bastard Nationals of wearing Birkenstocks. Bill was like that. How I miss those days! Maybe the writer thought I was tripping, with my talk green sky and flying tree limbs.

Much to my perverse pleasure the article came out (online and print) as hit piece, but the best article ever written about Bastard Nation and the adoptee rights movement up to that ptime. Every one of our points made it in. The hit piece was a hit. We forwarded it around. Hey, the Weekly Standard gets it, even if they don’t like us! Reading it again 13 years later, I still think that, despite a couple of small errors. BN has never promoted the movement as a medical history issue nor are we left-leaning. We are no-leaning. Continue Reading →

Our Bastard Moments: Real everyday adoption awareness, not just for November

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We’re having a discussion today on the Bastard Nation Facebook page on The Bastard Moment. Those times when as an adoptee you are insulted, embarrassed, patronized, degraded, demeaned, dishonored, silenced due strictly to your adoptive status. It’s part of the legislative process, but it’s also part of the personal process in the construction of Class Bastard.

Bastard Moments often occur out of no where when bumblers make rude, gratuitous. yet genuinely clueless and innocent remarks about your adoption, usually built around the theme of gratitude. My favorite is, “aren’t you glad you weren’t brought up in a trailer park?” Actually, I know adoptees in rural southern Ohio who were! I call them Bastards on Blocks) Continue Reading →

Demons of Adoption 2013: The suspense is over and the winner is…

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.…Raymond Godwin and Nightlight Christian Adoption aka Capobianco, Inc. I’m not surprised.  I can’t remember ever running into a more despicable gang of adoptahugs than the Cs and their entourage of baby grabbing lawyers,  adoption agents,professional media whores,PR hacks, racists, haters, religious nuts, and crybabies. They make the DeBoers look sane. The Demons of Adoption Award is a response to the annual Angels in Adoption Award sponsored by the Congressional Coalition for Adoption Institute (CCAI).  Ironically,  in 2010, Godwin and his wife Laura, the head of Nightlight Christian, received an Angels of Adoption. Award.  They were nominated by former Senator Jim DeMint (SC-R), now president of the conservative Coors-family founded Heritage Foundation and long-time friend of Bill Pierce, founding president of the National Council for Adoption.  A few years ago, a writer for the Heritage suggested that women be allowed by law to sell their parental rights. (not online; document in my possession.) Announcing the latest Demon, Pound Pups Niels and Kerry write: : Knowingly starting an adoption procedure that can reasonably be expected to be contested, is immoral. Adoption, when practiced, should increase a child’s stability in life, not lower it. Raymond Godwin and his wife  [director of Nightlight Christian]Laura Continue Reading →

James Lane for NYC Public Advocate: Vote for one of us. This is how we win

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I don’t live in NYC, but if I did I’d vote for James Lane on Tuesday. James is the Green  Party candidate for New York Public Advocate,  He is also an LDA (Late Discovery Adoptee) who learned in his early 20s that he was adopted, but  that under New York law, he was  prohibited from getting information about his biological family or his adoption. Being barred from accessing his own birth records propelled James into  lifelong social justice activism  for adoptees and others; From James’ campaign webpage: From that moment, his fight for justice through political activism formally began, with the hope that laws such as denying a person’s right to know about their origins will be removed from our society forever. James has been active in adoptee rights movement for years. I can vouche for that! He won’t remember this, but we ran into each twice, once at an AAC conference a few years ago and again in 2011 at  the Times Square  Hard Rock Cafe.  Ramping up activism to electoral politics, James has made  the restoration of OBC access  the centerpiece of his Public Advocate campaign (with election reform especially involving third parties and re-allocation of tax money “back Continue Reading →

Hard Rock Manifesto: Whose side are you on?

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We have proven that focused, energized civil rights campaigns can win. Yet, today we are sitting in the midst of corporate America–the Hard Rock Cafe– amongst a sea of adoption tweakers, self-defeaters, self- promoters, and neocons, who have never passed a “clean bill,” having a bizarre discussion over what we can learn about adoption (or open records?) from Oprah Winfrey–or so it was billed. This is the most bizarre adopta meeting since Ron Morgan, Bill Pierce, and Troy Dunn hooked up in LA to go on the Dr. Laura Show. We know how to restore adoptee access to our OBCs.. The only question now should be: why isn’t everybody following the model? Continue Reading →