ACLU SLAGS ADOPTEES AGAIN

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For years fresh-faced adoptee rights activists have asked, “Why won’t the ACLU help us?” Bastardette freely admits that she, back in the days of yore, also asked that very same question. One would think that an organization that has long stood for the rights of individuals against the state would come to our aid and defense. Unfortunately, like their NCFA bed buddy, the American Civil Liberties Union does not consider adopted adults responsible or important enough to own our own personal information nor do they consider birth parents competent enough in the art of JUST SAY NO if they truly want to be left alone. After all, unlike ACLU elites who are always rational and in control, birth parents couldn’t even keep their pants on to start with, so what can you expect? As a typical liberal institution the ACLU, pretends to be sympathetic to upstart adoptees (we feel your pain) but acts as mouthpiece for the state (take a mutual consent registry and don’t call me in the morning, you ungrateful bastard!) The latest attack on adoptees comes from Deborah Jacobs, Executive Director of the ACLU-New Jersey in the April 21, 2005 edition of the Asbury Park Press. Responding Continue Reading →

PIMPING BABY MATTHEW–SAVE ABANDONED BABIES DAY

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Domestic tranquility continues to elude Bastardette. Did my parents ever have these problems? I think not! But then they were responsible adults. More catch-up today. It’s that time of year again. April 11. Pimp Baby Matthew….er, I mean Save Abandoned Babies Day. For the third year now, the Illinois-based Save Abandoned Babies Foundation has staged this laudatory dollar harvesting event where “saved” babies are paraded around like a new pair of Sunday shoes and their anonymous,invisible mothers who “legally abandoned” them through the state’s Abandoned Newborn Infant Protection Act, are back-patted by police, politicians, professional do-gooders, and adopters. Words such as “brave,” “courageous,” “loving,” and “responsible” get thrown at these unknown women faster than a sidewalk hooker works a traffic jam. It is assumed that if these unfortunate mothers didn’t possess one or more of those sterling Republican qualities they’d drown, smother, stab, shoot, bash, or garrot their “inconvenient” newborns. The term “adoption plan” never enters the heads of the bay-bee savers. Ditto the subversive idea that with help “desperate mothers” (the favored descriptor) could keep their babies if they wanted to instead of depending on the kindness of the nearest cop shop. In the weird Manachaen world view of Continue Reading →

RETURN FROM THE HEART OF DARKNESS

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Bastardette has been remiss in checking-in since her return from the Heart of Darkness last week. So much to tell, so little time. Unfortunately, she has been trapped in a Neverland of domestic duties which preclude rational thought at the moment. Oops! See what I mean! I’m not thinking straight at all. Rational thought and adoption? We may as well be mixing calico and rococo. If you don’t believe me, just ask “the right brain” marketing folks at Kenny & Associates. Commissioned some time back by the National Council for Adoption and The Family Research Council to develop innovative ways to talk recalcitrant women out of their babies, Kenny interviewed 30 birth mothers to learn why they placed their babies for adoption. The result, according to a Kenny consumer psychologist at a recent NCFA presentation on the subject, is that “rational thought” needs to be broken down and the debris restructured in an heroic self-narrative that empowers potential birth mothers to give the gift of love (their kid) to the desperate and deserving, who in grateful reciprocation will shelter him or her from the horrors of illegitimacy, a single parent home, and a chronically depressed–and no doubt dangerous–mom. All this, Continue Reading →

THE CHERRY BLOSSOM SPECIAL

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Bastardette is taking a few days off to hob-nob with minor Bushistas and to take in the sights and sounds of our national fortress–that is–Washington, DC in cherry blossom time. Hopefully she will be regurgitated safely from the Belly of the Beast and be little need of first aid outside of a good stiff Suffering Bastard–or should I say Bastardette? Call me Ishmael! Call me Jonah! Bastardette may or not may not have much internet access, but will report on the entire funfest when she returns next week. I bet you can’t wait! In the meantime, gnaw on this cute story for awhile: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 6, 2005Custody dispute takes odd turn in case of surrogate triplets: egg donor seeks parental rights It’s too long to post here, but it begins: A 23-year old Arlington Texas woman told a judge yesterday that although she has only once visited 16-month old surrogate triplets created with her eggs, a Cleveland man’s sperm and another woman’s womb, her parental rights should be preserved…. And it only gets better.

BIRTH CERTIFICATES FOR THE NEVER BORN

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Legislators in Minnesota are the latest to fall for birth certificates for the never born. Yes, that’s right. Under pressure from parents who have lost children at birth and fetus fetishizing “right to life” parasites who glom on to anybody’s grief to make the world safe for the preborn, unborn, and never born, the Minnesota House Health and Human Services Policy Committee recently unanimously endorsed a bill that would authorize the state to issue birth certificates for stillborns. “Infant loss advocates” (whatever that means–to my untrained ear they sound like housewives who promote the death of babies) claim that birth certificates give “validation to the child” or a “chance to mourn” or “a name” or “closure”….or my personal favorite, to be a “memento.” Apparently people don’t exist unless they’ve been certified and stamped by the state–an odd concept in itself–but one that adopted persons are well aware of. After all, we don’t exist legally except through our own state-constructed identity papers. Far be it for Bastardette to criticize parents who have tragically lost a much wanted child at birth (or before). But there is something really ironic about bleeding heart politicians rushing to push birth certificates for the never lived Continue Reading →

TOUGH DECISIONS: THE DUMPSTER OR THE ADOPTION AGENCY?

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A few days ago employees in the pick-through room of a thrift shop in Birmingham, Alabama found the body of a newborn. The unfortunate discovery was met with the usual vexation and confusion amongst the town’s metro types. An exception, was Tammy Gardner, a book pricer at the store. Upon discovery of the body, Miss Tammy, who also holds prayer meetings and Bible study for employees. threw an impromptu prayer service at the facility. “I just told them that it’s a terrible, awful thing, but we don’t have to worry about the baby anymore (she’s) in the hands of the Lord,” she told the Birmingham News. “She’ll never feel pain or hurt or fear….We prayed for justice. God says vengeance is His and He will repay.” Bastardette, having lived a couple of years in a small deep south town during her misspent youth, finds this gothic response to the tragedy familiar and comfortable–a simple response that doesn’t flog the air with theoretical arguments and professional meddling. A thoroughly unmodern attitude. A few days later, a letter appeared in the Birmingham News. Tom Cook, Director of Catholic Family Services, prompted by the tragic discovery, wanted to remind people–especially women–of services to Continue Reading →

THE BABY DUMP STORE

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We owe a debt of gratitude to Fox News blow hard John Gibson. A couple weeks ago, in the midst of a bad hair spray day, Gibson, took a hissy-fit over gay adoption. Nothing new there we yawned as we began to install our Fox Blocker. But then, to our surprise and our ever-lasting gratitude, Gibson made a startling revelation: the queer agenda behind baby dump laws! Gay’s can’t have kids–other than going to the abandoned kids store and getting one or two…. Of course, it all makes perfect sense once you think about it. How else could pediacentric gays and lesbians hope to compete with church-wed exburbanite paps with deep pockets and CPCs but to set up an alternative source of supply? And all along I thought it was the National Council for Adoption and its string of “safe abandonment” franchises run from the kitchen tables of America’s heartland, that were filling up the baybee coffers and stuffing our rights down the garbage chute. Mea Culpa! Coming to a location near you soon: The Baby Dump Store! Look for it!

WHAT’S IN A NAME–part 2

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I wanted to stay away from the Terri Schiavo case. Really. But then I read a column in the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel that really ground this proud bastadette’s gears. “Conservative” syndicated talk radio bloviator Glenn Beck, on a show broadcast March 15, the article claimed, referred to Michael Schiavo’s children by his fiance Jodi Centonze as “bastard children.” Whoa! Nelly! These are small children. Very small: 2 1/2 years and 1 year old. Does Mr. Beck really believe that it’s OK to call toddlers a name which is traditionally considered a dirty word–especially by rightwingers of his ilk? You bet! When called on his boorish behavior, Beck responded, “I’d feel real terrible about calling them that if I wasn’t so technically correct.” If you think I’m exaggerating–that the pious ghouls gathered down at the Woodside Hospice would never talk like that about arrows to the future–children, that is– like they belonged in a separate part of town away from good clean-livin’ folks, then think again. The St. Petersburg Times reports that Mr. Schiavo has received dozens of hate letters, some threatening the lives of his “bastards,” no doubt written by the same zealots who never met a fetus they Continue Reading →

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

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It has come to my attention that Mr T, a resident of the alt.adoption House of Dysfunction, objects to my name. Bastardette. He complains about Americans “hijacking the world’s languages,” and claims that the “word” Bastardette simply doesn’t exist–since after all, the word, derived from French is a feminine noun. Personally I think he’s pushing it a bit. The word comes from Middle English, via Old French, and is probably of Germanic origin; akin to Old Frisian “bost” (marriage), and the Old English “bindan” (to bind.) If Mr.T would type “bastardette” into Google he’d come up with 477 hits including a definition from The Urban Dictionary. But that’s beside the point. An aa, housmate, Mr. J, jumped to Bastardette’s linguistic defense pointing out that the term “ette” is perfectly acceptable in the US citing the words dinette, layette and barrette. I could have chosen Bastardess, of course. (Don’t even suggest Love Child!) A power positive word, it unfortunately conjures up, for reasons I can’t explain, the image of Judith Anderson’s Mrs. Danvers batting around the mansion in “Rebecca.” Worse, it’s too close to “adoptress” a word favored by the anti-adoption birthmother crowd as in “My son’s adoptress gets her hair Continue Reading →

ABANDONING YOUR BABY: "IT’S SUCH A SIMPLE THING TO DO"

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You gotta hand it to the folks in California. When they’re not busy enacting Word of Faith legislation (see “Facts Don’t Matter”), they’re complaining that not enough parents are anonymously handing over their newborns to the state’s at-a-location-near-you baby dump. The reported 33 (or 32) babies in “non-bureaucratic placement” in Los Angeles County since the state’s Safe Haven law went into effect in 2001 isn’t good enough for Safe Haven cheerleader LA County Supervisor Don Knabe (pronounced kuh NAH bee.) Quoted in the March 18, 2005 issue of the Torrance Daily Breeze, Knabe lamented that turning over a baby shouldn’t be a tortured decision for mothers. “It seems like such a simple little thing to do, but it’s such a struggle for these mothers to do this.” Perhaps Mr. Knabe should consider slerking around a fire station in the middle of the night and dropping off one of his kids anonymously. Or better yet, at his age and with California’s new designated dumper law–a grandchild. It would be such a simple gesture for a parent (or grandparent) who cares–and would certainly help with the family budget. If it saves just one…. Happily, help is on the way! The folks at Continue Reading →