Missouri: Bastard Nation Testimony on HB 1137–Oppose

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I’ll be writing about the latest Missouri situaiton later, but i the meantime, here’s our testimony that was submitted to the Judiciary committee on January 25, 2012. HB 1137: access to identifying information for adoptions original birth certificate Missouri House Judiciary Committee January 25, 2012 OPPOSE Privilege is the opposite of rights Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization is the largest Adoptee civil rights organization in the United States. We support full access for all adopted persons to their original birth certificates (OBC) without restriction.. HB 1137 is not an unrestricted bill and we oppose it. Under current Missouri law, the original birth certificates of all Missouri Adoptees are sealed and cannot be released to the adoptee without a court order. Missouri’s current “identifying information access” law is a confusing, convoluted labyrinth that serves only a handful of adoptees who successfully navigate its bureaucracy. Those few who do succeed receive only “identifying information” without the release of the OBC. . HB 1157 makes no substantial changes in that law. It simply substitutes OBC release for the current informal identifying information forwarded to the adoptee, keeping the rest of the bureaucracy in place. It,fact, this bill actually increases the bureaucracy by Continue Reading →

Ohio Adoptee Rights Historical Document: HB 419 (1995-1996)

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In conjunction with Ohio Adoptee Searches I have started a new blog:  Ohio Adoptee Searches:  News and Views on Ohio Adoptee Rights, Search, and Reunion.  I’m old enough to remember when adoptee rights and search were two sides of the coin, and search tended to lead to activism.  (Special thanks to BJ Lifton, Florence Fisher, and Jean Paton) No later than the mid-1980s, though, search had been co-opted by therapists and so-called reform organizations who packed the hearing room with nose blowers with beggars’ bowls, who despite their use of “rights” language,  chose reunion over rights.  And still do. The Internet, in many ways, has reinforced this victimization,  through hundreds  preaching-to-the-choir-misery-loves-company forums, Facebook pages, and blogs. Because I’m so damned old, this strikes me as nonsensical. Back in the day search was subversive.  Today it’s become the dead end of change. To cut the the chase my OAS blog is a forum to stir the pot:  educate Ohio adoptee searchers on issues,   the politics and language of open records, the history of sealed records in Ohio and past attempts to rescind our tiered system to  bring all adoptees under the pre-1964 open access law,  practical knowledge on how to Continue Reading →

Roe Turns 39; Columbus Protests

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This now appears in the Columbus Free Press ins a slightly different form. Monday marked the 39th anniversary of Roe v Wade. While most local anti-abortion big shots were doing their annual March for Life in Washington with accompanying photo ops, Greater Columbus Right to Life held down the fort here with a 45 minute rally on the steps of the statehouse.with few photo ops.  Except for me, Channel l0 appeared to be the only local media covering the event, but there’s nothing on the station’s news site.With Occupy Columbus camped out on the corner of S. High and E State, I was looking forward to interesting possibilities, but the occupiers, unlike the Occupy folks in Washington, DC,  who disrupted a “youth event” held by anti-abortion moguls Brian Kemper, Patrick Mahoney, Lila Rose and friends, decided to sit this one out. I’ve attended several of these January outdoor events in the last few years.  Usually, within 10 minutes my fingers, even in two pairs of gloves are ready to call it off  This year, however, the temperature was in the lower 50s and the crowd knew it . About 175 adults and a couple dozen small children celebrated  as Grove Continue Reading →

Washington: Bastard Nation Testimony in Opposition to HB 2211/suggested amendments

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                                                     TESTIMONY HB2 2211 Adoptee access to their own original birth certificates Washington House Committee on the Judiciary January 16, 2011 OPPOSE Privilege is the opposite of rights Our Washington representative cannot attend the hearing today so we are submitting this testimony via email. Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization is the largest adoptee civil rights organization in the United States. We support full, unrestricted access for all adopted persons, to their original birth certificates. (OBC). Bastard Nation’s roots are in Washington State, and we would like nothing more than to support HB 2211. Unfortunately we cannot. The sticking point is HB 2211’s “affidavit of non-disclosure,” otherwise known as a disclosure veto. This veto creates a special third party privilege for birthparents that no one, parent or otherwise, possesses: to bypass state law and to personally bar release of another person’s birth certificate to the person to whom it pertains. Already in place for adoptions finalized on and after October 1 1993, HB 2022 would expand this onerous and discriminatory veto privilege to cover all adoptions; thus expanding the pool of segregated adoptees unable to access their OBCs, even when the vast majority of the state’s adoptees could.. Interestingly, HB Continue Reading →

Bastard Nation in Slate

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Yippie!  Bastard Nation got a nice and extensive plug yesterday in Slate::   Luke  Marci and Me:  After 34 years the Internet gave me a sister I’d never known.  in which writer Luke O’Neil recounts the discovery of his sister, he knew about, but had remained illusive. Luke discusses BN and sealed records about mid-way through the first page.  Comments are mainly good, but contain a number of expected snarks in two categories. (1)  It’s a Pandora’s box.  You’re better off not knowing (2)  Searching betrays adoptive parents. I’ll  be commenting  there later today. Thanks, Luke!

Adoption Noir: A Review of Ed Lynsky’s "Ask the Dice"

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I’m a fan of adoptee noir, so it was a pleasant surprise to find Ask the Dice a member of that growing subgenre.  No doubt some adoption deformers will get the vapors at the thought of a hit man who just happens to be adopted (hit man, might be too benevolent–from the way Tommy Mack Zane tells it, the number of dead pile up in the hundreds), but as a Bastard I found it refreshing and so un-PC. Even better, he’s a TRA hit man, black and adopted by a white Washington DC couple out of an “orphan home” in Champagne’s Folly, Texas, his landing point after his parents mysteriously committed suicide, giving him an extra layer or two of adoptee angst and screwed upedness. He clearly loves his adoptive parents Amanda and Phil Zane, but feels apart, different. Being 5 or 6 years old and finding his mother Nela hanging in the kitchen a week after his father Bradford shot himself doesn’t help.Thankfully, Tommy Mack suffers no primal wound and doesn’t blame his career choice on adoption. But back to the book.  Tommy Mack  is a contract killer for the blind, dirty-minded, and mysterious Watson Og (love the name!) Continue Reading →

Central Ohio Support Group Starting

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New! General Adoption Support Group Interested in learning about the life-long experiences of adoption? Join Ohio Birthparent Group and Adoption Network Cleveland for a new adoption support group forming in Central Ohio! FIRST MEETING: Sunday January 22nd, 2012 / 2-4pm Gahanna Public Library Community Room310 Granville St. Columbus, OH 43230 Designed to create open dialogue across the spectrum of experiences with adoption, this support group is open to anyone who is touched by adoption or simply interested in learning more about adoption issues. Adult adoptees, adoptive parents, birthparents, prospective adoptive parents, spouses, partners and extended family members are especially encouraged to attend. Co-Sponsored by Ohio Birthparent Group & Adoption Network ClevelandOhio Birthparent Group is excited to partner with to bring this much-needed General Meeting to the Central Ohio area.  For those utilizing ANC’s Search Assistance programs, attendance at our Central Ohio meetings can be used toward ANC’s . This Central Ohio meeting is facilitated by peers who experience adoption as birthparents, adoptive parents and adoptees. There is no cost to attend and no RSVP is needed. For more program information, visit . About Ohio Birthparent Group What We Do Ohio Birthparent Group is a non-profit organization committed to supporting the Continue Reading →

For Ohio Adoptees and Parents: Ohio Right to Life PAC Endorsements

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For more than 15 years, Ohio Right to Life has been  the chief opponent of the restoration of the right of all Ohio adoptees to access their own original birth certificates  For ORTL, adoption is the loving option; adoptees aren’t. Ohio Right to Life PAC,  has published its list of endorsements for the March 5, 2012 Ohio primary. . The endorsements are for contested seats only. Since endorsement lists sometimes disappear from webpages after elections, I’m posting the list below for the record. .Incumbents are in italics.If you are in Ohio and any of these candidates are on your ballot, don’t let them get in the door.  For those who are in the door, give them your personal boot. 1.  Ohio has been redistricted and some incumbents may currently represent a district other than what they are now running in. 2. Some incumbents may be term limited and are now running for the opposite house..     Ohio Right to Life PAC Endorsements for the March 6, 2012 Primary Election Ohio Senate Endorsements Republican State Representative Randy Gardner – Senate District 2 Republican State Senator Peggy Lehner (Honor Roll Status) – Senate District 6 Republican State Representative Joe Uecker (Honor Roll Continue Reading →

Happy New Year 2012: Thoughts on Adoption and New York City on New Year’s Eve

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I am a New York City person.  I  know this  for a fact, not only because I love Manhattan and feel at home there, but all of the theatre people I know in the city tell me I belong there. Unfortunately, my life in the Big Apple was hijacked before I was born.  My birthparents were inconvenient enough to have spawned me in a “tourist cabin” on the back Akron-Massillon Road (or someplace like that) and my adoptive parents, thoughtless of my needs, remained in Ohio. My amom, though, for reasons known only to her, decided I should be a copywriter or a graphic artist, neither of which I had much talent for. If I’d followed her command you’d be watching me, not Peggy Olsen on Mad Men–unless I decided to play out a Ronna Jaffe career girl and throw myself out a window or take bottle of Seconal after being used by Don Draper.  It didn’t help that I decided to get married when I did, cutting short any chance of ever having a real life. That last sentence is stupid, of course, but that’s how I thought back then.. What does this have to do with New Year’s Continue Reading →

US Adoption’s Dirty Little Secret: US Babies Exported Worldwide

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America’s dirty little adoption secret (which one?) is out , but nobody is paying much attention. Last month the US Department of State issued the 2011 FY 2001 Annual Report on Intercountry Adoption.  It’s only five pages long but full of “interesting” bick-a-brac  Within the stats we learn than 73 US citizen children were adopted out of country; that is, they’ve, as State quaintly calls it,.”emigrated” to another country via adoption.  The largest receiving country is Canada with 31; the second is the Netherlands with  27.. It gets better:  the largest sending state is Florida with 49 little Floridians packing their diaper bags for other parts of the world, . The second largest sending state is South Carolina with 12–all heading for Canada..  These two states far outstrip other states in outgoing shipments. I got curious, so I went back and found reports for 2009 and 2010 and found even more alarming figures  The number of American children  removed, renamed, and remodeled  abroad has more than quintupled  in three years, from 26 in the 2009 report to142 in the 2011 report. (According to the 2009 report these figures go from October 1, 2008-September 30, 2009.  The other reports don’t give Continue Reading →