For some reason phone and fax numbers don’t show up on anything I do web-based without a lot of effort. All of the committee numbers, however, are on the BEA MySpace page. Look at the blog. I think you can access that area without having a MySpace account. If anybody can explain the mysterious workings of the ‘net to me, please feel free. I apologize for the inconvenience.
BUCKEYES FOR EQUAL ACCESS: OPEN RECORDS FOR ALL OHIO ADOPTEES PLEASE DISTRIBUTE FREELY OHIO ACTION ALERT BUCKEYES FOR EQUAL ACCESS SAYS:OHIO ADOPTEES NEED YOUR HELP NOW! SUB BILL ERASES BIRTH CERTIFICATE ACCESS BeaOhio: [email protected]://www.myspace.com/beaohio On April 16, 2008 a substitute bill for HB 7, an adoption/fostercare reform bill, which included original birth certificate access for all post-1963 adopted adults without restriction, was introduced in the Ohio House Health The sub bill, (also called LSC ), deletes all reference to obc access found in the original bill; thus, maintaining the current 3-tiered yes-no-maybe system that divides obc access by date of adoption/date of birth and first parent permission.* BILL INFORMATIONOriginal HB 7: http://www.legislature.state.oh.us/bills.cfm?ID=127_HB_7 (click on link at left)Sub HB 7: http://www.adoptionnetwork.org/filegallery.asp?f=270&linkId=1346 (2n square on right—pdf.) HEARINGA hearing on Sub Bill 7 bill is scheduled for 4:00 PM, Wednesday, April 23 in Room 017 (basement) of the Statehouse Testimony requesting the reinstatement of unrestricted obc access can be given. Bring 20 copies of your testimony for the committee. If you can’t testify, then come to support. If you plan to testify please call Kara Joseph in Rep. Tom Brinkman’s office at .We have been told that another hearing on Sub Bill 7 Continue Reading →
Yay! “I Placed My Daughter for Adoption,” by adoptablogger Jenna Hatfield, is featured in the new issue of Redbook. (May 2008–Helen Hunt on cover). Jenna writes poignantly about the “fine line between being her [daughter’s] birth mother and being her mommy” and her sorrow over the “amazing mom” she could have been to her. Jenna is a wonderful writer and chronicler. I met her at the ASAIK conference at Pitt last October and have been a fan ever since. You can read her blog, Chronicles of Munchkinland here. Scroll down a little bit and you’ll find her thoughts on hitting the big time! The article is online, too.
Recently Peggy Sue Hilt was featured in the WE documentary Women Behind Bars. Hilt was convicted of 2nd degree murder in the beating death of her Forever Russian Adoptee, Nina, born Viktoria Bazhenova. Vika was 2 1/2 years old when she died on July 2, 2005. She was adopted from a Siberian orphanage about 6 months earlier. We do not know who conducted the home study, but Vika was placed with the Hilts by Adoptions International in Dallas, Tx. owned by adoption attorney Jody Hall. The agency refers to adoption as “the best experience of your life.” After Viktoria’s murder, the couple’s older Forever Adoptee, Nataliya Oksana, (born Olga, last name unknown) adopted from Ukraine through an independent adoption handled by Cathy Harris, was placed in protective custody with an adoptive aunt. Last we heard, Hilt’s husband Christopher, who was not implicated in the murder, was divorcing his wife and seeking permanent custody of Nataliya. Peggy Sue Hilt was sentenced to 35 years in prison (with 10 years suspended and another 5 years of post-release probation). Her projected release date is 2022. The following is taken from the WE website. It is an account by First Sergeant John Buttner, Sup. Continue Reading →
Yesterday Samual and Donna Merryman were sentenced to 22 years each in the death of their Forever Russian Adoptee Dennis. Dennis, born Dennis Yuritsky was adopted in 2000 from an orphanage in Perm. The adoption agency is not known. Dennis, 8, died on January 22, 2005 of cardiac arrest brought on by starvation. The Merrymans claimed that Dennis’s condition was caused by cystic fibrosis. The couple are self-described born again Christians. They were home schoolers and also taught Sunday School. Since it will go away soon, I’m including today’s Baltimore Sun article on the sentencing hearing at the bottom of this entry. Notable excerpts from the article (if you can stomach it): (1) “All you need to do is look at the autopsy photos of Dennis,” Harford County Circuit Judge Emory A. Plitt said. “It has a striking resemblance to the bodies from the German concentration camps.” (2) Two older siblings described how Dennis spent nights in an unheated room, strapped to a crib without a mattress to cushion him. His hands were tied behind his back with an elastic band, and bells were attached to his body so his parents could hear him when he moved, the siblings testified.They Continue Reading →
On Wednesday April 16, HB 7 (as introduced) was replaced with Sub (stitute) HB 7 which removed records access altogether. (The sub bill is not posted yet on the Ohio Leg page but can be found here under LSC ). A vote on the sub bill was delayed a week to give interested parties and pols time to respond. The schedule for next week’s hearing won’t be released for a couple days. I’ll post it here and send it elsewhere as soon as I have it. It will probably be on Wednesday. BEAOhio and Bastard Nation are very concerned that even if access is returned to the sub-bill, the bill may end up compromised with a disclosure veto, beefed up CI/Registry scheme, etc. The Ohio Catholic Conference, for instance, recommended that the legislature create a new and improved active reunion registry (it is now passive) in which the state would have 18 months, after an adoptee requests his or her identifying information, to obtain birth parent approval or veto for release of the document. After that period, if there is no word from the parent(s) the obc would be released. Yeah, the under-staffed, under-funded and over-worked Vital Stats folks will Continue Reading →
Sad news out of Australia. On Tuesday, internationally renowned first mother activist Di Wellfare passed away reportedly after a fight with pancreatic cancer. Di was the founder of Origins-New South Wales. She was a pioneer, a fighter and a visionary. A woman and mother to be reckoned with. She changed the face of adoption Down Under and beyond. Di and I used to go at it on alt.adoption. She was really good at pissing off people on our side. I can only imagine what she did to the other side. But Di didn’t care what people thought–a trait we should all cultivate. Most of our clashes were about strategy and her occasional odd ideas about American history. One of Di’s most famous pronouncements on alt.adoption was about monkeys. It remains a running joke there: Don’t flatter yourself too much about parenting. It hardly takes intellect, just instinct. Even monkeys do it hanging upside down in a tree, scratching their bums at the same time. In case you still don’ get it, which you obviously won’t, it means: dont’ think you’re superior because you parent. Even monkeys do it. …you sure you can’t hang upside down in trees?……oh nevermind. You’d never Continue Reading →
A little over a year ago I posted an entry on Musings of the Lame blogger, Claudia Corrigan D’Arcy’s appearance on the Montel Show, Fauxclaud’s Montel Moment. She had blogged about the experience, convinced she’d blown it. Or rather, Montel had blown it for her. I wrote about my own TV experiences and how we all feel stupid and incompetent. We toss ourselves on to the killing floor under the naive impression that somebody might care about what we say, when in reality they only want us to sell Windex and Pampers for them. Well today, I was doing my usual mid-afternoon zone-out. Marlena and John had finished their phone-in DOOL performance for the day. I was about to get back to work but decided to check out who was on Montel. Oh, it’s a follow-up show. Oh, it’s a follow-up show on adoption scams. Oh, I wonder…I’ll stick around. Ohmygod! It’s Claud! Now I understand the original show, which I didn’t see, has re-run at least three times since it aired–and I’ve missed them all. I’m pretty sure this follow-up didn’t feature Claud’s entire appearance (I don’t remember seeing her kick Montel, for instance), but boy…was she good! Claud, Continue Reading →
Just as we’re recovering from the horror of The Silence of the French Fries on YouTube, Origins-USA puts up a new video: Pregnant? Thinking of Placing Your Baby? Now the video is a bit too essentialist for my taste. But a 4-minute video presenting the hazards of adoption to women and their children is a positive small step in debunking all the adoption-is God’s-gift industry agitprop burrowed in YouTube. The video treats women as intelligent, thoughtful human beings who can make decisions on their own without the mediation of the professional adoption class. It’s nice to see OUSA take a swing, even ever so gentle, at NCFA’s body slamming Birth Mother,Good Mother propaganda campaign. Anyway, the video was up only a few hours when somebody calling himself “badkjackcutter” (as in Jack Elam) decided to pipe up. Calling the video poster” hateful,” BJC describes himself as “an adoptee, a birth father, a father, an adoptive father, and a nationally recognized expert on adoption. But I am not who you probably think I am.” Well, gee, I don’t know who BJC probably is ( I am pretty sure I know who he’s probably not– and Bill is no longer with us!), but Continue Reading →
This morning Gaye Sherman posted a comment on my previous entry about conservative reaction to Illinois HB 4623. I started to write a response to that post, but decided to expand my reply and post it here as a new entry.Gayle wrote:Sounds like we’re still children in need of a spanking. They actually ADMIT that names on the OBC might be fraudulent?! So, in my mind, that’s an argument for opening the adoption records too – or at least being able to get the REAL names off the court or agency records. A lot of this seems like social worker speak – that ordinary citizens (adopted or not) can’t function without counseling. I 100% agree with Gayle that the Illinois Catholic Conference put its foot in its mouth by admitting that some obcs may contain fraudulent information. Amended birth certificates aside, placing false information on a birth certificate is illegal. We can only wonder at whose suggestion false information was placed on the obc document. Could this be one of the causes of adoption industry fear of unrestricted records access? Adoption professionals advised their clients to falsify government documents, and the chickens might be headed back to the barn? Oh Continue Reading →