Category Archives: Adoption legislation

Bastard Nation Letter to Louisiana Senate Judiciary: Kill HB 1028

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I have read the bill and its amendments several times, and frankly don’t see how this restores the right to anything for anyone. Registries, redactions, birthparent consents! They all continue to infantaize, degrade, and insult adopted adults who simply want a state-generated and held- document that records their birth information. A document that any non-adopted Louisianan can get for the asking and a small fee.

HB 1028, in fact, will make it more difficult for the state’s adoptees to obtain their OBCs and information about their pre-adoptive lives than it already is. As states throughout the country move to restore OBC access, Louisiana should not be making attempts, no matter how well intentioned, to make access more difficult. Continue Reading →

UPDATE. Bastard Nation Action Alert: Stop Louisiana HB 1028 from being heard in the Senate

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It is basically a registry that now has automatic redactions, further restrictions on access and is based on the premise that one can get their OBC only if their parent has contacted the registry, joined it (hoops and hoops) and given their consent for release. If only one parent contacts and gives consent, then the other parent is automatically redacted. A parent can deny access completely and can redact. I could go on but it is just awful. Continue Reading →

CHIFF: Puts aside US international adoption obligations–Stanford Law Review

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Online published The Children in Families First Act: Overlooking International Law and the Best Interests of the Child. The author Nila Bala currently a Yale Public Interest Fellow. deconstructs CHIFF in accessible language, articulating the tension between the US adoption industry, evangelicals, and other special interest proponents and best interest of the child doctrine and international law. CHIFF comes up sadly short on both. Continue Reading →

CHIFF: Mary Landrieu insults Kerry; throws foster children under train

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What Landreiu forgot to mention in her letter is that this “crisis” was (1) created by sleazy adoption agency practices that forced the Congolese government to shut down all stages of cross border adoption at least while it investigates corruption and regroups and (2) the “crisis” is mainly a crisis for folks of privilege who have spent a lot of money on exotica and have been burned. Hubris. Continue Reading →

Petards Anyone? CHIFF Mouthpieces Hoist Themselves on Twitter

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It all started on March 21 when Ms. Osborne took it upon herself to rant up an adoption academic tweeting under #STOPChiff, accusing her of criticizing the bill in order to sell her forthcoming book. (Ms. Osborne has obviously never published a scholarly book.) As usual, anyone opposing any crack-brained adoption or child welfare deform such as legalized baby dumping or global child snatching has some pecuniary interest to protect. Unlike the open-armed and -hearted multi-billion dollar/$60,000 a kid US adoption industry that pimps CHIFF in the “best interests of the child” .and would no doubt do adoptions for free if they could. Continue Reading →

Azerbaijan Shuts Down Cross Country Adoption; CHIFF weeps

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Jay complains that since 2007 when Azerbaijan signed on to The Hague. that the flow of Azeri children into the US has dropped, accusing the State Department of having “no idea how to use the Convention for its intended purpose, which is to get orphans into adoptive families.”

Surprise!

According to the The English language AzeriNews, the State Department and Azerbaijan, are using the Hague exactly as it is supposed to be used by keeping children in their own family, culture and country whenever possible. Azeri children are only available for cross country adoption if an Azeri adoptive family cannot be found to adopt them. Continue Reading →

Welcome to the Battle: Green Party Adoption Reform!

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Yesterday James introduced GreenPartyAdoptionReform.com and its platform which reads in part:

Due to current laws millions of adults that were adopted as children are now being denied access to vital records regarding their births. This is a basic human right that Green Party should be committed to help in abolishing the secrets and lies that surround many adoptions around the world by creating necessary transparency between adoptees, their mothers and adoptive parents. Continue Reading →

Pennsylvania: My personal testimony in support of HB 162

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For 60 years, the original birth certificates of Pennsylvania adoptees were available to them upon request. Up until 1985 all Pennsylvania adoptees were relinquished into an adoption system that guaranteed them the right to their own OBC. Unfortunately, the legislature that year decided to void that right retroactively, creating a legal class of citizens once permitted, then barred from owning an intimate public document about themselves that the state’s not-adopted can get for the asking. Some of those disenfranchised in 1985 may be at this hearing today. Continue Reading →

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 →