LET’S MAKE MORE ADOPTEES: ILLINOIS CHOOSE LIFE

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Oh dear! Jim Finnegan, president, Illinois Choose Life, demands his organization’s “civil rights under the first and fourteenth amendment, guaranteeing freedom of speech and equal protection under the law” to get his alleged “pro-adoption” Choose Life plate out of the Statehouse and on to the road. Well, what about the civil rights and equal protection of Illinois adoptees whom Finnegan claims to love so much that he wants to make more of us with his cheap license plate advertising? What about the civil rights of the thousands of adopted adults who are perpetually infantalized and anonymized by Draconian Illinois adoption law that confiscates, seals, and locks away the birth certificates, identities, genealogies, and histories of the state’s thousands of adult adoptees? Sorry! In a hierarchy of “civil rights,” the rights of adopted adults to their own identities and records trumps the specious right of a small loud band of Biblical Americans to tool around the state with their “pro-adoption” government-approved message tagged to their cars. Of course, this is the same “pro-adoption” crowd that routinely opposes adoptee civil rights in whatever state they drive in. Live adults have never been their strong suit. And we’re not so cute either. Choose Continue Reading →

THE BIRTHPARENT* PROJECT

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This morning Bastardette received an email about the newly formed BirthParent* Project, headed by long time adoptee and birthparent rights activist Mirah Riben with the assistance of Carole Whitehead. This is a long-needed project. The National Council for Adoption as well as the ACLU (see Bastardette’s April 24 blog ACLU slags adoptees again, Right to Life and other well-heeled anti-adoptee lobbies have long argued that open records (i.e. the right of adopted persons to access their own birth records and heritage) break promises made by the state to never reveal the identities of women who relinquish their children to adoption–even though in over 25 years none of these adoption industrialists has been able to present one single legal document that makes any such promise. The fact is that records are sealed at the time of adoption finalization, not at the termination of parental rights, so there is no way anybody could make such a promise, since there is no “promise” that the baby will be adopted. If the child is never adopted, then the records remain open and available for anyone to read. For a detailed rundown on why there can be no such thing as anonymity in adoption (unless Continue Reading →

THE FOX WATCHES THE HENHOUSE IN ILLINOIS

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An interesting tidbit came across in Friday’s Bloomington Pantagraph. In an editorial entitled “State’s safe haven law proven benefit for babies” the Pantagraph reveals that the safe haven advocacy group Save Abandoned Babies Foundation, is compiling baby abandonment stats for the State of Illinois. Huh? As a Beltway lobbyist friend of Bastardette’s pointed out, “Do you think the White House would let Planned Parenthood collect family planning data?” At this point, we can only go by what the editorial says, but this is not the first time this allegation has been made. An AP story in the May 17, 2005 edition of the Chicago Defender and other papers mentions that SABF “compiles information on the issue for state government.” If the merry band of amateurs at Save Abandoned Babies Foundation is collecting data for the state in an official capacity, it is a direct conflict of interest, since SABF is not only the leading advocate and “educator” for safe havens, but SABF gang banger, Chicago Fire Commissioner Cortez Trotter, has also been quoted as saying the safe haven law sunset needed to be repealed two years early, making the law permanent, so advocates could raise money for their organization. If Continue Reading →

SAFE HAVEN IN SOUTH CAROLINA: IT’S A GOD THING

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We’re all familiar with the idea that adoptees are God’s Gifts–to adopters that is. How many times do we read sappy stories in the newspapers, especially around Mothers Day and Christmas, about how we have fulfilled other people’s lives. Created their joy and happiness. Are God’s little gifts. I don’t remember my own adoptive parents talking like that. Ever! (As a sidenote my birth mother adopted two children and my birth father adopted his stepson, and neither of them ever treated these kids like they were little miracles either.) But then, that was back in the old days when adoptive parents didn’t feel they had to brag their good deeds 24/7, adoption wasn’t a major part of dinnertable discussion, and adoptees, if they were smart, kept their mouths shut. Alas! No more! Now adoption has been outted as THE celeb-trendy way to make a family. It’s as popular as Walmart with everybody boasting about their baybee saving–as if stranger infant adoption were about rescuing us from the jaws of the trash compactor. One of the more pernicious aspects of all this is the idea that we, as a class, were created by God for some good purpose–unlike the rest of Continue Reading →

BABY LYDIA: ADOPT HER OR THE STATE OF FLORIDA WILL KILL HER

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Back in April, around the time the media hog tied us with the Terri Schiavo Deathwatch, a disabled newborn girl, “surrendered” at a hospital in Miami, got pimped around the Internet. Baby Lydia, as she is now called, was born without most of both arms and only one leg. Part of her chin is missing. She breathes through a tube in her throat and she is fed through a tube in her stomach. According to a news article in the May 17 Miami Herald, Lydia’s placement was assigned to the Gift of Life adoption agency in Pinellas Park, the same location of the recently ended Schiavo Dog & Pony Show. On April 4, only a few days after “pro-life” demonstrators were hauled off to the slammer in Pinellas Park, Bastardette received an email from Leslie Tignor,director of the Associate Program of the anti-abortion/anti-gay/anti-science/anti-everything American Life League, an organization that, btw, signed on as an amica in Doe v Sundquist to keep adoption records sealed in Tennessee. Tignor implored her readers, at the behest of baby dump entrepreneur Nick Silverio, founder of Florida’s Safe Haven for Newborns to consider adopting Baby Lydia lest she be dealt the same state-imposed fate as Continue Reading →

SPIRITUAL BIRTH CERTIFICATES

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So you think you’ve got problems because you’re adopted and the state won’t let you have your own original birth certificate? Imagine the serious bummer for someone who reaches the Gates of Heaven only to be turned away by St. Peter personally due to a lack of a “spiritual birth certificate.” You think I jest? Billy Graham’s father-in-law, Dr. L. Nelson Bell, published just such a scenario in the April 1962 issue of The Presbyterian Journal. A man had a dream and found himself at the portals of Heaven. When he demanded admission, search was made and the reply came back: “The rolls of Heaven have been searched and there is no record of your birth.” Perhaps it was destroyed by that fire back in 1937. Dr. Bell, unfortunately, doesn’t mention if the Devil requires an unspiritual birth certificate or even a ratty electric bill to enter his domain. We suspect not. He’ll take anybody. Hitler, Caligula, Franklin Roosevelt, Lee Atwater, Bessie Bernard, Bastardette’s high school typing teacher, and no doubt numerous and assorted adoptees all must be taking High Tea every afternoon with their Master who doesn’t have the sense to Just Say No! So, forget adoptee rights if Continue Reading →

OH, MY! OH, MY! IT’S APPLE PIE: MOTHER’S DAY!

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Once more, we in AdoptionLand are accosted by Mother’s Day. What does it mean? Who is it about? Bastardette even wonders: why bother?–but then she’s mean-spirited and hateful. And since she is not a mother of any sort (praise be to Kali!) she does not feel qualified to discuss the qualities of motherhood in general. The term “mother” and all of its associated emotions, however, is a flashpoint in adoption. Just what and who is a mother? What is the correct terminology for women who gave birth and, willing or unwilling, “relinquish” their children for adoption. Birthmother? Natural mother? First mother? Biological mother? Real mother? Mother? And for women who have adopted the children of these women, what is the correct term? Adoptive mother? Adopter? Real mother? Or the ever-grating “adoptress? which almost rhymes with adultress. For what it’s worth, nobody ever hardly asks adopted people what they think about this schezoid naming ritual, which is probably for the best. Many birthmothers (and I’m using that term strictly as a generic accepted term within the adoption industry) feel disenfranchised by Mother’s Day. Thus, a few years ago a new “holiday” was created just for them: “Birthmother’s Day complete with special Continue Reading →

MORE: THE GREAT WHITE NORTH SNOWS ADOPTEES

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Bastardette received a post this morning from her favorite adoptee activist and shit kicker, Ron Morgan, director of the Adoptee Rights Organzing Project in San Francisco and organizer of the “notorious” Honk if You’re My Daddy event at Studio City in LA last January. Referring to Bastardette’s The Great White North Snows Adoptees, (see below) Ron brings up excellent points regarding the ethical implications of Mr. Anonymous Adopter’s secrets and shame letter and Member Klees’s reading of it into the record. Since when should personal pathology be elevated to public policy? With Ron’s permission I am posting the entire letter below. —– Original Message —–From: “Ron Morgan” Sent: Thursday, May 05, :32 PMSubject: ] Appalling testimony in Ontario Legislative Assembly > Hello everyone,>> I’m writing tonight to bring your attention to testimony read into> the record during a debate in the Legislative Assembly of> Ontario, Canada, over a bill that would change regulations> regarding access to adoption records.>> Personally, I don’t support the bill in question, neither does> Assembly Member Klees, who introduced the letter into the> record. However, I find the letter deeply troubling. Here is the> URL for the portion of the debate that contains the letter:> http://www.ontla.on.ca/hansard/house_debates/38_parl/Session> Continue Reading →

THE GREAT WHITE NORTH SNOWS ADOPTEES

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Ya gotta hand it to those folks in the Great White North. Ontario, that is. With a white-gloved right hand they promise to neatly guide Ontario adoptees along the slippery slope of legal equality then left hook ’em down just when they think they’re safe as a lego. Bill 183, currently residing in the Ontario Parliament’s Social Policy Committee, at first glance appears to be a “progressive” piece of open records legislation. Technically it is. If passed, adopted persons 18 or older will receive an uncertified copy of their original birth certificate, information in tact, upon request. Birth parents can also receive information, including the amended birth certificate, after the kid is 19. But there’s a catch. Birth parents and adoptees alike can submit a contact veto–a de facto restraining order to prohibit contact– against the other, sight unseen for no good reason–which in effect criminalizes the ill-bred bastard or pushy birth parent who has committed no crime other than to be biologically related to the other. I guess nobody wants to perch on a pissed-on porch on Christmas morning. And don’t get them started on the axe wielding proclivities of adoptees. Oh, and adoptive parents can also file a Continue Reading →

PIZZA FOR BABY DUMPS

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Well stick Bastardette’s head in a pizza oven! On May 10, just in time for Mother’s Day, the Morriseys–the Massachusetts Baby Dump People–have joined forces with Alexander’s Pizza and Nick’s Place in Lexington–to raise money to teach new mothers how to painlessly abandon their bay-bees. According to the April/May 2005 issue of Lexington’s Colonial Times Magazine,the restaurants will donate proceeds from all pizza and sub sales after 4 PM that day to support the Morrisey’s “Baby Safe Haven Yes” propaganda machine….errrr…..we mean….advertising campaign to convince “desperate mothers” to enthusiastically and anonymously turn their “unwanted babies” over to the state for redistribution to equally “desperate” paps looking for newborns unencumbered by pesky birth parents. According to the article, the latest blitz will include more PSAs, lit-drops, and transit advertising. While the article is not online, it can be Googled on the Internet newsgroup alt.adoption via the good offices of the Morriseys who never miss a chance to crow their own. This deeply American couple has single-handedly huckstered their way into the media and turned the tragedy of baby abandonment into a commercial sideshow heretofore unknown outside of guided tours of 875 S. Bundy Drive, excursions to the Lindbergh home, and Sam Continue Reading →