Here’s some news out of the midterm-elections on people we either love or hate who are involved in our adoption affairs. There are no doubt many others to add, but these are the campaigns I followed. THE GOOD GUYS MASSACHUSETTSDEVAL PATRICK (Democrat). Until a few days ago, Bastardette had paid little attention to the Massachusetts governor’s race, noting only that the odious Republican Kerry Healy was hoping to succeed her boss Mitt Romney who for some reason thinks he can be the next President of the United States. Then the Morriseys rushed off a letter to MetroWest Daily gnashing that if Healy’s opponent Deval (or is that Devil?) Patrick were elected, he’d “extinguish” the state’s “Baby Safe Haven” law, which they had so lovingly, just a couple years ago, jammed down the throats of the public. Now, I have no intimate knowledge of Mr. Patrick’s views on safe havens, but if he upsets the Morriseys then that’s good enough for me. Obviously my blog “Vote for “Deval Patrick and Baybeees Will Die” (see below and also read the attached comments) swung the election. Congratulations, Deval! We’ll talk later! NEW HAMPSHIRELOU D’ALLESANDRO (Democrat) was elected to his 5th term in the Continue Reading →

Carrying on with a previous theme… The Massachusetts Morriseys are at it again, reving up their pretty little paranoid machine just before mid-term elections to flog their choice for governor, Lt. Governor Kerry Healy. In Sunday’s Metro West Daily our favorite identity thieves sent a dire warning to Metro Boston: vote for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Deval Patrick, and baybees will die. According to the Morriseys, “Baby Safe Haven” will be tossed into Boston Harbor if Mr. Patrick is elected. Mr. Patrick you see, unlike the Morriseys’ Barbie Doll, Karen Healy who openly encourages teenagers to abandon their babies, has made the serious mistake of not only remaining silent on BSH with the media, but refusing to discuss his thoughts on the law with them; thus endangering the lives of every newborn-to-be in the Bay State I guess it’s not occurred to the Morriseys that Mr. Patrick just doesn‘t want to talk to them. God knows even politicians who supported BSH went into lockdown during the Morriseys abundant Beacon Hill walkabouts and accompanying letter/phone/email bomb campaign. Ordinarily, this breach of etiquette would make no sound but static. Since their beloved and branded “Baby Safe Haven” law is up for sunset in Continue Reading →

Yesterday it was confirmed that Leslee Unruh (go here for my recent Unruh blog) once charged with wrangling baybees from teenagers and copping a nolo for unlicensed adoption and fosercare practices, wrote the first draft of HB 1215, now Referred Meaasure 6. The measure, if passed tomorrow, will ban all abortions in the South Dakota and pave the way for, in anti-sex Unruh’s wet dreams, the overturn of Roe. You can read about it at The Well-Timed Period’s Leslee Unruh Admits She Drafted South Dakota’s Abortion Ban Law . Though the revelation is hardly a surpirse, it’s another indication of how much cranksterism has been legitimized in the US. Here’s a summary: Leslee Unruh, a person with no legislative or medical qualifications, drafts a law governing the medical care of female patients in South Dakota. She is also the the chief of the pro-ban campaign. Alan Unruh, Leslee Unruh’s husband, a chiropractor, sits on the South Dakota Task Force to Study Abortions, and is tasked with studying and evaluating medical evidence, reporting the findings, and making recommendations on the need for any additional legislation governing ob/gyn medical procedures. Of note (emphasis mine): Though it was designated a bipartisan committee, the Continue Reading →

…this one from today’s Galveston Daily Record. A no comment moment. The article speaks for itself. Richard Price, International Family Services “Indiana Jones of adoption”: IFS clients come from all over the state, drawn by their compassion for these needy foreign children and encouraged by the speed of international adoptions. Many also feel more secure because of the distance international adoption places between themselves and their adoptive child’s birth relatives…. Domestically, some fear becoming entangled with the birth family, Price said. Later in the article, Pastor Fred Willis of Texas City First Untied Methodist Church slams open adoption. Enjoy!

November is National Adoption Month, so we’ll be getting lots of soppy stories about natural mother courage, adoptee gratefulness, and adopter generosity. If I were you (and I’m not) I’d keep a barf receptacle close by, rev up my keyboard, and send off letters to the local editor whenever MSM lunges one of these cowpies across your doorstep or screen. Our official first lunger, of course, is former pap George W. Bush. His annual National Adoption Month Proclamation hit the streets on November 1 setting the tone for the remainder of the month: During National Adoption Month, we pay tribute to the parents whohave opened their hearts and homes and helped provide love andstability for young people. By caring for the youngest members of oursociety, these families are helping our children grow into successfuladults and building the future of our country. Note the disappearance of producers (natural, birth, first, original biological parents) and products (hapless schmuck bastards) and the emphasis on consumers (white picket fencers with disposable incomes, unless they’re queer, but we won’t go there today) whom he praises for “helping our childen grow into successful adults.” Unless, that is. “our children” grow up to be angry, sullen adoptees Continue Reading →

For some time I’ve been meaning to write about Leslee Unruh who runs the tax-exempt National Abstinence Clearing House (aka Abstinence is the Only Answer Club) and the Alpha Center CPC located in Sioux City, SD. I just haven’t had the time nor the stomach to do it. (Do I really want write about a woman who teaches that masturbation is the gateway to “sexual addiction” and that emergency contraception causes infertility?) Luckily, somebody has done my work (and more!) for me: repro rights blogger “moiv,” whose research and writing skills I’ve admired since she wrote about shennighans in Ohio a few months ago. I don’t intend to re-write or re-hash moiv’s blog here. You need to read it yourself, but here’s a snippet from Inside Leslee Unruh to whet your appetite: Local observers have taken note of Unruh’s political connections since 1987, when she paid a nominal fine and walked out into the sunshine after pleading nolo contendere to five misdemeanors, instead of facing a much more severe sentence for ten other misdemeanors and multiple felonies with which she was also charged. The center was fined $500 in 1987 after pleading no contest to five misdemeanor charges of unlicensed Continue Reading →

The National Council for Adoption has weighed in on the Madonna Melodrama. In the October 24 op-ed page of NCFA’s paper of record, Te Washington Times, NCFA president Tom Atwood complains that Malawian adoption law “sacrifices the orphan’s interest in a family to a nation’s interest in holding onto its children.” Apparently curmudgeon countries that object to sending their children to First World Worthies simply suffer from misplaced national pride. Atwood complains that Romania shut down cross-country adoption 5 years go. He fails to mention that the corrupt and illegal actions of US adoption agencies and their sub-contractors working there caused the shut-down. He complains about a “past [adoption] moratorium” in Russia (Russia has never placed a moratorium on US adoptions, though members of the Duma have pushed for it). He fails to mention that the murders of 12 Russian adoptees and the physical and sexual abuse of numerous others at the hands of their US forever parents, unaccredited US agencies operating willy-nilly inside Russia, and the failure of US adoption agencies and adoptive parents of Russian children to follow-through on adoption agreements required by Russian law caused the threats. He complains about quotas in China, a proposed shut-down in Continue Reading →

I have no inclination or time to get into a discussion on the attempted adoption of David Banda by Madonna and her husband Guy Ritchie. There’s more than enough media coverage on it. But….there is an article in Salon today, “Don’t Justify My Love” by adopter Mary Kane. Some very good comments follow the article. Posts by “london chic,” “Vedora” and “Naijamama” are particularly good. I also posted one, “Adoptees are second class” and may post more tomorrow. “london chic” posts about “ownership adoption”– a term I’d not heard before, but describes traditional adoption in the US-vs. non-western models such as extended or kin. It’s a term I’ll be using in the future and would like to see moved into our own adoption lexicon. Go here to read the “Don’t Justify My Love and comments. If you’re not a paid subscriber to Salon you’ll have to sit throughthe ad first, then click on “enter salon” at the top. Uncivil ads are removed by Salon.

OK not a great blog, but here goes…. Sometimes I’m amazed at what Bastardette has unleashed in the past 6 weeks. The reaction has been informative for me and I’m sure other people. I agree often with the sentiment, but not always with context (or lack thereof) or strategies. And, as an equal opportunity hater, I can also dismiss everybody (including myself) as a crackpot if I feel like it Some comments are overly harsh and even cruel, but I don’t think that is particularly bad in the long run, though knowing many of you on some personal level, I wish you’d be kinder to each other. Reading comments in a detached and non-personal manner, however, remind us of what Mirah Riben calls “the dark side of adoption”–a side that activists can never afford to forget if we want to succeed. I am sure most of us are reasonably nice people in real life. Our personal adoption narratives however, have created alter-personas of anger and frustration. We are treated by the state and its client adoption “professionals” as insignificant and invisible. If permitted to grow out of our arrested development stage we get in the way of the “experts”” grand Continue Reading →

Yesterday (October 17) we learned that New Jersey’s S 1087 “open records” bill cleared the Senate Health, Human Services, and Senior Citizens Committee but still needs to pass the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee, the full Senate, and the Assembly. Governor Jon Corzine appears favorable to passage. S 1067 is not an unconditional access bill, but contains a disclosure veto AND weirdly a contact preference form, provisions for counseling referrals and intermediary services and a whopping $90,000 media fund to advertise the new law. I have great respect for the NJ people who have spent literally 25 years getting this far–particularly Pam Hasagawa–but why is this garbage attached to what should be a simple identity/records restoration bill? Talk about big government! BN, of course, continues to oppose the S 1087 as a reunionist sop that characterizes adoptee identity not as a right, but a favor. Supporters like to claim that disclosure vetoes will affect only a few so what’s the big deal. Well, the big deal is that under S 1087 some adoptees are more equal than others. Losers, whose birthparent(s) file a veto, remain state chattel expected to remain content sucking their thumbs, grateful they weren’t dumpsterized. Even worse, Continue Reading →