Category Archives: Adoption

This morning  Dusten Brown showed his stuff as a father and a man.  In a press conference in Tulsa he announced that he and the Cherokee Nation will no longer pursue custody of  his 4-year daughter Veronica Brown:. His sad surrender was done not as a sign of defeat but of love for Veronica. He surrendered to save her from further confusion, pain, and public intrusion:.  Veronica is only 4 years old, but her entire life has been lived in front of the media and the entire world, and I cannot bear for that to continue any longer. I love her too much to continue to have the spotlight on her. It is not fair for her to be in front of the media at all times. And her safety, happiness and well-being have always been my number one priority.  Brown, said in his statement:  The most difficult decision of all was to let Veronica go with Matt and Melanie Capobianco last month. But it was no longer fair for Veronica to be in the middle of this battle. It was the love for my daughter that kept me going all this time. But it was also the love for Continue Reading →

Good news from Oregon! While Washington state lawmakers continue to sweep  its state’s bastards under the rug like pesky little dust bunnies dirting up the Statehouse. the Oregon House today unanimously  passed SB623.  Enacted in the spirit of Bastard Nation and Helen Hill’s Ballot Measure 58, the bill expands the right of all Oregon adoptees to acquire, upon request, the contents of their adoption file-– a right that no other state (so far!) recognizes. In other words, Oregon has swept away statutory adoption secrecy  by opening the files and trusting the parities involved to leave their axes at home. Adoptees:  the age of OBC access will be lowered from 21 to 18.   the entire adoption file, except for the Home Study, will be made available to the adoptee upon request at the age of 18 without a court order.  the Home Study may be released by court order for “good cause”.  Birthparents:  original parties to the adoption may view and copy documents in the court adoption file to which they were signatories. Under existing law birth parents must petition the courts to gain access to documents they were required to sign, and often are rejected by courts under the onerous and undefined “good Continue Reading →

 This profile of Aaron appears in the latest issue of the Campus District Observer in Cleveland.  Aaron, as the profile says, is:a police officer for the Third District Community Service Unit in Cleveland. He works from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. patrolling various neighborhoods within the 3rd district, which extends from the river in the flats to Little Italy and includes the Campus District. Aaron is passionate about ensuring the safety and quality of life of Clevelanders. We share a favorite Cleveland location:  Playhouse Square. Must run in the family! Aaron is the son of my late brother Rob–and grandson of my bio dad, the remarkable and fabulous  Jack Reese.  Aaron is one of the people who need protected from me.  I’m adopted and you know how we are. Aaron Reese (right) with fellow officer and mentor Frank Sanchez, taken a day before Sanchez’s retirement. Photo provided by Aaron Reese.

Hell froze over again in Ohio yesterday when the Catholic Conference endorsed HB61 which if passed will unseal the OBCs of thousands of Ohio adoptees born between Jan 1, 1964-September 17, 1996. HB61 sailed through the House Judiciary Committee unanimously 12-0 and is now on it’s way to the House Floor. I have to go to work and can’t write anymore at the moment.  More later.

The Washington State legislature  is currently running two OBC access bills:  HB 1525 and SB5118. (original bill)  These are not Bastard Nation bills. Originally both contained language that maintained current Disclosure Vetoes in place and continue the option for future use.  Last week the Senate amended its bill and removed all DV language current and prospective.  (Sub bill)  The House has not followed suit. Washington State activists have  asked for immediate action from to urge the Washington House to amend its bill bu removing all DV language as well. The House offers a template on the HB 1525 bill page  to send your opinion.  Posts are limited to 1000 characters, so it has to remain short.  Here is what Bastard Nation sent: Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization urges sponsors of HB1525 to amend the bill to align with SB5118: remove current language (and law) that authorizes biological parents via a Disclosure Veto, to bar the state from releasing the OBC to his or her adult offspring.. HB1525 sponsors have it half right. They find something inherently wrong with vetoes, yet feel an obligation to maintain them. This may justify bad past legislation but does no justify denying WA State adoptees the restoration of their right Continue Reading →

The US House of Representatives! Now that’s a big chunk of Adoption, Inc to chew on.  While we were pulling for our own nominee (Adam Pertman) we couldn’t  be more pleased with this august body of hacks, crooks, sycophants, boodlers, and hypocrites has taken the grand prize this year. I mean, is there anybody who likes these people?  The House-Session 112 was Demonized ostensibly for its overwhelming support and promotion of HR   1464 popularly known as tne North Korean Refugee Adoption Act of 2011.    I admit I’ve not followed this bill as closely as I should, so  I’m going to nick some information from Pound Pup Legacy: (from link above). In a devastating analysis of this bill, Catherine Hong makes the following observation: Modeled on a failed series of North Korean human rights bills that stretch back to 2003, the North Korean Refugee Adoption Act of 2011 proceeds from an outdated portrait of on-the-ground conditions and distorted premises. Empirically speaking, the bill misrepresents the reality of the children whom it purports to help. As a placeholder for children who are, by and large, not North Korean, not refugees, and not orphans, the “North Korean refugee orphan” is a Continue Reading →

As some of you  know I’ve been forced  in old age to take a job as an  :”inventory associate.”–that is, I count inventory at  mostly chain  stores– Penney’s ,Victoria’s Secret, Party City,,  Tractor Supply, Hollisters.  For the last two days  I’ve worked at the Lowe’s in Mount Vernon, Ohio. . Today I counted over 16,000 pieces of merchandise, everything from screws and  light bulbs to planks of lumber. It’s tiring.  Afterwards, I trudged  back home, and after nursing my decrepitude with a bag of White Castle double cheese sliders I promptly fell asleep There. in Dreamland, I dreamed  the most interesting message:  Martin Scorsese hired me to write a screenplay on  the history of adoption reform..  I envisioned it as a bourgeois Gangs of New York with Bill Pierce as Bill  the Butcher, and me as Amsterdam Vallon. –but  probably less compelling.  Thankfully this screenplay will never make it to Marty’s mailbox. This dream however, reminded  me of other adoption- related dreams I’ve had  through years. Theyonly stopped when I  (for you pop psych fans) I integrated my adoptive and non-adoptive  self. ***** I come home from school and find my amother has been “sent away.” Nobody , including my Continue Reading →

 Call for Papers Mothering from the Margins: New Philosophical DirectionsEditors: Amrita Banerjee and Bonnie MannSubmission deadline: July 15th, 2013. The last two decades have witnessed growing philosophical scholarship on pregnancy, birth, and mothering – areas in which the discipline of philosophy has hitherto remained largely silent. Scholarship in these areas is philosophically important since it takes women’s embodied experience and maternal practice (a practice that has been historically placed in the realm of ‘feminine’ work) as serious domains of philosophical reflection and, more importantly, recognizes the potential of these domains for generating new knowledge in ethics, epistemology, ontology, etc. While this work constitutes an important new development in feminist and philosophical inquiry, there are a number of critical gaps in the new literature. While reviewing some recent work on the topic for the Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, Shelley M. Park notes the absence of the voices of “non-normative maternal subjects” (Park, 2012), that is, maternal subjects that are not “straight, biological, middle-class, able-bodied, white, western mothers of infants and very young children.” (Park, 2012) Social, cultural, economic, and political arrangements (such as race, nationality, sexual orientation, etc.) that anchor ‘non-normative’ maternal subjectivity, as well as ‘non-hegemonic’ contexts of mothering (such Continue Reading →