NAM/NAAM Day 17: More on Michigan. Read Rudi Owens’ Legislative Review

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Rudi Owens, author of the memoir “You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are” and a Michigan adoptee rights activist, has published a good account of the November 8 public hearing and passage of the bills the next day in the House…I knew what our side’s testimony would be, so I appreciate Rudi’s summary of the irrational discriminatory and adopteephobic testimony presented by Michigan Catholic Charities lobbyist Rebecca Mastee (gee! surprise! Don’t they ever give up?) and attorney Heath Lowry, representing the Michigan Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence. Both presented archaic claims of secrecy, anonymity, state promises,” and adoptee stalkers that were disproved decades ago. Rudi writes: Continue Reading →

NAM/NAAM Day 16: Welcome Back Pound Pup Legacy

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After a long hiatus, Pound Pup Legacy, one of the best–if not the best–online document sources on contemporary adoption corruption is back online… kicking ass with a beautiful new website…Go over and take a look, The site is huge, streamlined, and easy to navigate. I’ve only looked for a few specific topics so far, and am glad to see that everything is intact. Continue Reading →

NAM/NAAM Day 14. Safe Haven Baby Boxes Juggernaut Continues

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Nothing says National Adoption (Awareness) Month more than the current SHBB national janggernaut.  We are just about half-way through this dreadful month, and seven new boxes have been opened–excuse me, blessed–so far. Another is scheduled to open this week.  Who knows what’s in store for us for the rest of the month? Adoption is beautiful! Especially with no pesky parental strings, best practice, and ethics attached. Continue Reading →

NAM/NAAM Say 13. Michigan: On the Winning Track

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n November 8, less than a month after the bills were introduced, both bills were voted favorable out of the Committee on Families, Children, and Seniors. The next day, the House passed both bills,  99-8, and it was transmitted to the Senate. The Michigan legislature, for all intents and purposes, is now in recess so we will have to wait until next year to seal the deal. Continue Reading →

NAM/NAAM 2023 Say 12: Michigan: Bastard Nation Letter of Support for HB5248 and HB5149

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We support HB5148 a “clean bill” that allows all Michigan-born adoptees, their descendants or legal representatives to obtain the adoptee’s original birth certificate without restrictions or conditions upon request at the age of 18, The bill contains a voluntarily optional Contact Preference Form which allows biological parents to record if the would like contact, but does not control the release of the OBC.

We support HB5149 which eliminates current court and Central Adoption Registry control over the release of the OBC. It retains biological parent denial of identifying information requests already on file, BUT that request does not restrict OBC access. No release vetoes can be filed after July 1, 2024. Continue Reading →

NAM/NAAM Day 11: The Adopted Remember, Veterans Day 2023.

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Adoption severs legal ties, but more importantly, it wipes out identity, genealogy, and historical memory– the right to historical identity and knowledge. Sure some adoptees, moreso today than in the past, can have an easier opportunity to learn where they came from, their history, their context,  and their place in the great family. But do we really? ( So much is missing. (and of course, some bio families disregard those same identity markers. I have been astounded at the people know who have no idea who their grandparents were. much less anyone else.  But, at least they have a path to learning, unlike The Adopted who are just left at the end of a weedy road without a sythe. Continue Reading →

NAM/NAAM Day 10: Hutchinson, Kansas Gets 2 Baby Boxes–from Canada. What’s Up With That?

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The City of Hutchinson, Kansas issued a media release the other day to announce that 2 “Safe Haven Baby Boxes” will be coming to Hutchinson as soon as $50,000 can be raised. Only, they aren’t “Safe Haven Baby Boxes.”  They are “Hope’s Cradles” from Gems for Gems a Canadian non-profit that has installed a couple of their own boxes in Alberta and Manitoba and has a few more locations lined up for Ontario. Continue Reading →

NAM/NAAM Day 9. It’s Out! Susan Kiyo Ito’s “I Would Meet You Anywhere”

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Susan’s words remind me that adoption by design builds secrets– a tangled wall of family, state, and internalized personal rules of identity, history, and self-worth that for some reason are never expected to be broken, without pain to us and others. That’s how adoption works, even in the “best.” Continue Reading →

NAM/NAAM Day 8: Angelika’s Corner: Save Haven Baby Boxes are Amenities?

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Maybe Mrs. Kelsey, in her peripatetic journey across the US to make it a Jesus-approved easier place to abandon your baby, has been staying at upscale hotels with an upscale mobile check-in where she doesn’t have to mess with bothersome registration cards and printouts and can move directly into her comfortable and secure room. Come to think of it, mobile check-in sounds like a 2nd cousin of the baby box procedure, where “desperate moms” can just walk up to the box, drop in Baby Bumble, and hi-tail it back to her own comfortable and secure space.  Maybe she’s even got a bottle of Scotch. Continue Reading →