BASTARD NATION PRESS RELEASE: MAINE RESTORES RIGHT OF BIRTH CERTIFICATE ACCESS!

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BASTARD NATION PRESS RELEASE PLEASE DISTRIBUTE FREELY! ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST! MAINE RESTORES THE RIGHT OF BIRTH CERTIFICATE ACCESS! LD 1084 PASSES OVERWHELMINGLY—GOVERNOR SIGNS Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization congratulates Maine on becoming the fourth state since 1998 to restore the right of original birth certificate access to adult adoptees. Following in the footsteps of Oregon, Alabama, and New Hampshire (Kansas and Alaska never sealed records) Maine’s activist organization OBC for ME has shown that through focus, perseverance, and a refusal to compromise the rights of all for the privilege of a few, that a clean unconditional access bill can be passed. Overwhelmingly passed, Despite naysayers, on June 18, near the close of the legislative session, the Maine House overrode and over ran the LD 1084’s “Do Not Pass” recommendation from the Joint Standing Committee on Judiciary, 104-39. The next day, the Senate followed, passing, the bill 20-15. On June 20, the bill returned to both houses and passed “by the hammer” with no amendments. Bim! Bam! Boom! Bastard Nation was highly critical of the 2006 records access campaign which began with a clean bill and finished threatened with compromises that made it unrecognizable. This time, OBC for Continue Reading →

MAINE RESTORES ADOPTEE RIGHTS–UNRESTRICTED ACCESS

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Yippee!!! Bastard Nation is happy to welcome Maine as the 6th state to recognize the rights of adopted persons. Today Maine Governor John Baldacci signed HLD 1084, restoring the right of identity and birth certificates without restriction to adoptees 18 and older, born in Maine. The law takes effect January 1, 2009. LD 1084 passed both houses last week by a huge margin. Although there was some talk of the bill on a couple lists, OBC for ME, the Maine adoptee rights organization, asked Bastard Nation to sit on the news until the governor signed it into law and they could make their own announcement first. You can read about it here http://www.obcforme.org/ Bastard Nation congratulates Bobbi Beavers and OBC for ME for a job well done. They held the line and won. BN’s official statement will be released tonight and posted here and elsewhere.

MACADAMIAS: OPPOSITION TO HAWAI’S’ SAFE HAVEN BILL GROWS

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For weeks now, we’ve been hearing from certain corners how “this woman” (Bastardette) and a handful of loons are the only opposition to Hawai’i’s safe haven scheme. Tonight I’m posting letters of opposition to HB 1830 sent to Gov Linda Lingle by other macadamias: The American Adoption Congress and Adoption Circle Hawai’i. Also check out Anita Field’s letter to Linda Lingle on her blog. If you have letter you’d like to go up here, send it to me. I’m publishing the AAC and ACH letters separately as the evening goes on. And remember: it’s not to late to get your voice heard.

AMERICAN ADOPTION CONGRESS OPPOSITION LETTER TO HB 1830: "’SAFE HAVEN’ BILLS ARE MISGUIDED…"

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Text of the letter of opposition to HB 1830 by the American Adoption Congress. It is published hon the ACC webpage. [pdf]**********American Adoption CongressPO Box 42730Washington, DCwww.americanadoptioncongress.org June 7, 2007 The Honorable Linda LingleGovernor, State of Hawai’iExecutive ChambersState CapitolHonolulu, Hawai’i 96813 RE: HB1830 – Safe Haven Proposed Legislation The American Adoption Congress (AAC) founded in 1978, is a national organization committed to adoption education and reform. Our membership includes adoptees, birth parents, adoptive parents, and adoption professionals across the Untied States and several foreign countries. The AAC urges you to veto HB1830 for the same reasons that you vetoed HB133 in 2003. Although AAC supports the lifesaving intent of “safe haven” bills, we continue to oppose their passage. All relinquished or abandoned children are entitled to the truth about themselves, including birth, histories, family medical histories, and social, ethnic and religious histories. Medical histories in particular are essential for the health of the children and their descendants. While HB1830 requires that the person leaving the newborn provide written information on the family medical history, it is unrealistic to expect a birth mother in a crisis pregnancy to do more than hurriedly leave the baby on the doorstep of the hospital Continue Reading →

ADOPTION CIRCLE HAWAI’I STATEMENT OPPOSING HB 1830: "WILL DISRUPT OUR RICH CULTURAL TRADITIONS…"

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Letter of opposition to HB 1830 from Adoption Circle Hawai’i. I received a copy of this in pdf form and am having trouble transferring it to Blogger. The spacing may be a little off. This letter is not on ACH’s website at this time. If it goes up, I’ll add the link. ACH is here. Here is the text. *************************** Adoption Circle Hawai’iP.O. Box 61723 Honolulu, HI Voicemail: Website: adoptioncirclehawaii.com To: Governor Linda LingleSenate President Colleen HanabusaSenator Suzanne Chun-OaklandSpeaker of the House Calvin K.Y. SayRepresentative John Mizuno Re: Testimony in opposition to HB1830 HB 1830 does not effectively address the problem of child abandonment. Studies indicate that, in those states with “safe havens,” babies are still being dumped in trashcans. (1) Research indicates that women who discard or kill their newborns show they do so in a state of panic or fear, denying or concealing the pregnancy, usually experiencing labor and delivery alone. (2) Safe haven laws are not designed to affect the decisions and actions of these women because they are unlikely to be calm enough to consider dropping off their babies at a designated safe place; and they are not necessarily worried about being prosecuted. (3) Because we Continue Reading →

NEWS FROM ANNE FESSLER: GWWA GOES TO PAPERBACK

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Hi to all on the GWWA UPDATE list! I¹m sending a quick note to let you know that the paperback of THE GIRLS WHOWENT AWAY will be coming out next week ­ on June 26th. I will be doing bookstore/library talks in four cities in connection withthe release of the paperback‹Providence (two readings), Raleigh/Durham, LosAngeles, and Minneapolis (two events). If you know someone who lives in anyof the cities listed who might be interested in attending a reading, pleasefeel free to forward this list or the link below. >From this point on — the book websitehttp://thegirlswhowentaway.com will be the best place to learn about bookstore readings and other talksthat are open to the public. I have pasted the updated list from the websitebelow. This list includes bookstore readings as well as artist talks. It isupdated periodically as events are confirmed. I will only send a GWWA updatein the event of a special/timely event. Hope you are all well and having a lovely summer!All my very best,Ann 6/26/07 PAPERBACK RELEASE OF The Girls Who Went Away Providence, RI Books on the Square (reading)………………..7:00PM6/26/07 471 Angell Street, Wayland Square http://www.booksq.com/ Durham, NC Center for Documentary Studies (reading)…7:00PM6/28/07 1317 Pettigrew Street http://cds.aas.duke.edu Durham, Continue Reading →

HAWAI’I HB 1830 REMINDER: LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD

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Just a reminder. Hawai’i Governor Linda Lingle has until June 23 to announce if she is considering vetoing HB 1830, the latest incarnation of baby dump legislation in that state. Gov. Lingle needs to know that the adoptee rights/adoption reform community on the Mainland does not support so-called “safe haven” laws which commodify newborns and their parents, promote anonymous baby abandonment as “just another choice,” and undermine hanai. Gov. Lingle vetoed similar legislation in 2003 and has been the target of a pro-dump gang since. Read this “open letter” to the governor from one baby abandonment advocate. WHAT YOU CAN DO: Read the bill Read Bastard Nation’s letter to Gov Lingle published here on May 22. Read Bastard Nation’s full action alert published here on June 9. Read Gov. Lingle’s 2003 veto statement posted by the American Adoption Congress here Contact Gov. Lingle and key legislators. TALKING POINTS: • HB 1830 is not needed; newborn abandonment/neonaticide in the state is nearly unheard of. Since 1996 there has only been one prosecutable case… • HB 1830 rejects and undermines the traditional Hawai’ian practice of “hanai”– extended family and community care which insures that children, unable to be reared by their biological Continue Reading →

ADOPTION.COM BOYCOTT: MEMBERS WALK; WILL ADVERTISERS FOLLOW?

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Got this today via the Green Ribbons and Fr. Jack Sweeley: Boycott Adoption.com. It’s alleged that adoption.com may have shut down its gay adoption forum in reaction to the recent court ruling that the discrimination suit brought against it by gay paps will move forward. I don’t know anything beyond what the press release says, and I’m posting it here for informational purposes only with a couple of observations. Closing down the “Non-traditional Families” board in order to “avoid” queer adoption issues and look as pure as Lillian Gish makes perfect stupid sense. It reminds Bastardette of when she lived in Albany, Georgia. She was there post-Albany Movement, but the scars on the city were apparent. The park system, though desegregated on paper, was in reality closed so nobody could use it. Better to shut down a public facility than let the N Word push its way on to a picnic table. The first Mr. Bastadette (Lance Corporal, USMC Bastard to you) and I liked to walk over to the zoo on Sunday morning to watch the alligators feed. I know, but hey…what else was there to do in Albany? One day we decided to take a short-cut through an Continue Reading →

"RADICAL ANTI-ADOPTION LAW TYPES" ON MY SPACE: WHO’S THE RADICAL?

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Cross-posted from BN MySpace. ********** (above) Radical anti-adoption law types – Maine. This weekend one of Bastard Nation’s opponents attacked us on their MySpace page calling us “radical anti-adoption law types.” We assume that they mean BN and our friends, too. Our crime was sending out an action alert in which we requested that you join us and Hawaii’s adoptee rights organizations in contacting Governor Linda Lingle to voice your opposition to HB 1830 and ask her to once more veto safe havens. (r) Radical anti-adoption law types – New Hampshire At the bottom of their outburst our opponents republished the alert in an attempt, I suppose, to show their readers what kind of wild-eyed unreasonable, souls oppose government facilitated anonymous infant abandonment and in the larger sense, oppose identity theft through sealed birth records. We hope that their readers were curious enough to hunt us out and visit our MySpace page where they can see for themselves the face of the “radical anti-adoption law types” who inhabit BN MySpace. We hope that they went to your pages, too, and read not only your thoughts on adoption, but saw that you are no different from them except that your life Continue Reading →