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 →

NAM/NAAM Day 7: I’m Trying Not to Gloat, But….

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here is nothing worse than a sore winner. I’ve seen enough unpleasant people and organizations over the years gloat when they win. I thought I could avoid gloating tonight, but I can’t. As someone who has spent the majority of her life in Ohio, I am tripping tonight with the win of Issue 1 which enshrines abortion rights in the state constitution.  With 95% of the vote counted, it passed 56.6% to 43.4% Continue Reading →

NAM/NAAM 2023 Day 6: How to Say Nobody Cares About Adoptee Rights Without Saying They Don’t

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Yesterday I did a few legislative updates, and it really struck me while doing them–as if I didn’t already know this–that hardly anyone cares about adult adoptees or adoptee civil rights–especially those who have the “authority” to fix things legally such as policy and lawmakers. When compared to the speed which Safe Haven Baby Box legislation passes, records access for adults, even with the successes of the last couple of years, runs a very poor second. Continue Reading →

NAM/NAAM 2004 Day 5: Adoption Agitprop, Annette Kicks It! and I Comment

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November 3rd’s video on the subject of adoption propaganda really struck home with her discussion of among others, the adoptprop myth: “Your mother loved you so much she gave you away.”  While most adoption mythology and adoptprop bounce off my insensitive self, (that is, I don’t take it personally), this one always sets me off. It makes no sense. The height of cognitive adoption dissonance. The height of adoptee commodification. A weird binary of generosity and greed. How is this trope supposed to make someone, especially children, feel secure or good or ultimately safe and loved? Continue Reading →

NAM/NAAM Day 4: Spam. This is what happens if you don’t check your blog

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Due to NAM/NAAM/NaNoPoblano, however, I’m back here. Much to my horror I discovered, as of this moment, 10,428 “comments” await me. 99% of them will be spam.  I thought I had a good spam catcher. Guess not.! Most of them are in Russian, which I know to a certain extent, and are about shoes, CHATbots, and sex. Gotta love those troll farms. Continue Reading →

NAM/NAAM Day 3. It’s About Time: Adoption Oversight, Protection, Transparency Bill Hits Congress

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The Adoption Deserves Oversight Protection, and Transparency Act of 2023  (ADOPT Act), a direct attack on the unlicensed adoption intermediary industry and its “services” hit the House hopper today…Unlawful intermediary practices will be criminalized.  Continue Reading →