“If there had only been a baby box…” Musings on the Marygrace Trinidad Case

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The case is getting play with the baby box folks, who are convinced if there had only been a handy hole-in-the-wall baby box, the story would have had a happy ending. (Translation: Trinidad could have picked the baby out of the toilet, dropped him in a baby box, and then courageously bled out alone behind Pep Boys blameless, shameless. and nameless.) Not surprisingly, Baby Boxers turned the tragic story of a mentally disturbed woman and her baby into an anti-abortion cause celebre showing an appalling ignorance about newborn discard, mental illness, poverty, and abortion, peppered with Christian vitriol against the very women in “crisis pregnancies” they claim to want to “help.” All to pimp their boxes and their politics. So much for the “love them both” approach. Continue Reading →

What Would Orwell Do? Who’s confused in Missouri? (HB 1599 and HB 1822)

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The idea that bills are some kind of state secret–or should be– is silly. Bills are public information, posted on webpages, and open for discussion and lobbying by anyone. Any attempt to tamp down discussion, especially of opposition efforts, makes MARM, especially among serious OBC activists, look politicaly naive. The general public could care less about our issue. Catholic Charities and Lutheran Family Services does care. A lot. And they make sure that the people they need to support their vile, reactionary bill know about it. Trying to make the bill invisible makes no sense. I’m betting a lot of people who would have opposed it didn’t know about it until it was too late. If there was no need to publicly dennounce the Bad Bill, then how did it pass? Continue Reading →

Repost from Access Connecticut: Action Alert – Support introduction and hearing of OBC access bill

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We have received the following Action Alert from Access Connecticut. Bastard Nation is not involved in this legislative action and has no relationship with the organiztion, but we support its effort to equalize unrestricted OBC access for all Connecticut adoptees. The bill in question will be a clean bill to close the current gap in Connecticut law that deprives those adopted before October 1, 1983 from unrestricted OBC access. It deserves a hearing. Access Connecticut 2016 Position Statement

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I urge all of you contact your legislators IMMEDIATELY and ask them to contact the Co-Chairs of the Public Health Committee and urge them to RAISE our proposed bill.

The bill must be introduced by the Public Health Committee or it will not be considered in the 2016 legislative session. We have received feedback that the bill may not be introduced. (In short sessions like this one only Committees can raise bills, not individual legislators.)

Continue Reading →

Baby Drop Boxes: a short intro and a big KABOOM!

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Kelsey’s “safe haven baby box” organization has been joined by The Hope Box, a new sketchy “baby saving” group tied to the franchise cult church International House of Prayer-Atlanta (IHOP) and other Atlanta-area ministries , many of them advertised as anti-sex trafficking non-profits. The Hope Box plans include the construction of a medical receiving center with a 24/7 staff to process abandoned newborns, complete with anonymous baby drop box with similar intake centers throughout the state. It also plans to organize an “extraction team” dedicated to removing newborns from “dangerous situations” and getting them adopted in to worthy families through their IHOP-affiliated adoption agency, Embracing Life. The Hope Box conflates sex trafficking with neonatacide and newborn discard and makes the bizarre and faulty assumption that women who discard or kill newborns are part of the forced (or unforced) sex trade. The Kelsey contingent see drop boxes as a remedy for abortion. Both organizations believe they can by-pass current safe haven laws that require safe havened babies be handed over to actual people, not stuffed in a cat carrier stuck in a wall Continue Reading →

Bastard Nation: Testimony in support of Missouri HB 1599

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Missouri’s current OBC access laws do not reflect current adoption best practice and culture, and as we’ve noted above, the reality of technology and social media which has been eagerly embraced by adoptees and their families in search of information that is rightfully theirs, denied them by the state.

Consequently, over the years the Missouri legislature has heard many bills regarding OBC access. Some have gone nowhere and others have further complicated the already complicated access process. This time, however, HB 1599, its sponsor Rep. Don Phillips and its nearly 40 sponsors got it right. HB 1599 creates not only equal access for all Missouri-born adoptees but treats the state’s adoptees as equal with the not-adopted, who unlike the adopted are not forced to undergo an onerous legal process simply to get their own birth certificates. HB 1599 reflects the simple inclusive OBC access process that five states have enacted. (Oregon, Alabama, New Hampshire, Maine, and Rhode Island.) Kansas and Alaksa never sealed records. Continue Reading →

Bastard Nation Action Alert: Missouri HB 1599: Write today to support unrestricted OBC access

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Please submit your written testimony (especially if you are connected to Missouri) or letter of support for HB 1599 as written without restriction to bill sponsor Rep. Don Phillips and to committee members now. Your message need not be long. Let them know that the era of sealed birth certificates is over and that Missouri adoptees should be treated the same as the not adopted. Ask them to vote YES for HB 1599. Continue Reading →

Bastard Nation Testimony on Indiana SB 91 – Vote No

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SB 91 is not an adoptee rights bill. It is a flawed bill that does nothing to address the right of all Indiana-born adoptees to access their own original birth certificates, without restriction or condition upon request. Instead of offering a simple non-bureaucratic access procedure, the bill expands an already over sized bureaucracy placing burdensome “legal” obligations and requirements on adoptees, birthparents and adoptive parents. (Under current law, these obligations and requirements are mandated for only some) The bill, in fact, doesn’t even allow for OBC release, only release of information taken from the certificate Continue Reading →

Bastard Nation Action Alert: Indiana SB 91 – Oppose

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All Indiana-born adoptees, over the age of 21 will be required to join the Indiana Adoption Medical History Registry to access “identifying information,” but no OBC would be released.. Those under 21, are required to have their adoptive parents join the registry. All biological parents listed on the obc must join the registry and submit proof that they are who is listed on the obc. Once joined, the biological parent has the option to sign a DV thatcan extend past death. Neither the DV nor the CPF/DV distinguishes between “identifying information” released. That means either the biological parent releases ALL of the “identifying information” (including being able to “inspect” the obc) or they release none. The CPF/DV is effective even if pre-adoptive siblings indicated, upon registration, that they want contact with each other and not with the biological parent. If either biological parent indicates that information may not be released, the State Registrar will not release any information. Continue Reading →

My Letter to the Pennsylvania Senate: Vote NO on PA HB 162

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HB 162, in fact, does not meet the standard of OBC access practiced in other states. The bill does not authorize the release the OBC to the person to whom it obtains, but instead creates a “birth summary” of selected pieces of information from the certificate to be sent off to the adoptee. It also authorizes birthparents, upon request, to have their names redacted from the summary, Moreover, HB 162 demands that adoptees be high school graduates or the holders of a GED to access this parsed summary! Ironically, there may already a good number of pre-1985 adoptees with in-tact OBCs in their possession, legally obtained Continue Reading →

Bastard Nation Action Alert: PA HB 162 – Continues to deny OBC access for all. VOTE NO!

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The amended version violates adult adoptees’ rights to due process and the equal protection of the law by allowing a birth parent to redact their name from the original birth certificate record. Adults should not be required to get permission from our birthparents to obtain our unaltered birth record.

The amended version mandates that in order to receive the birth record information, one must be at least age 18 AND be either a high school graduate, have their GED, or be able to prove they have “legally withdrawn” from school. The subjects of school dropouts and birth certificate access are not related. Continue Reading →