Living Adoption: Life -long issues in the Birth Parent Experience: A Short Review

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Earlier today it was my great pleasure to attend the first anniversary meeting of the Ohio Birth Parent Group (and Facebook). . The event. Living Adoption: Life-long issues in the Birth Parent Experience,  was held at Camp Mary Orton just north of Columbus and Worthington and featured Brenda Romanchik as facilitator and guest speaker. The first session was open only to “birthparents”, so I can’t report on that. The second session was a two-hour talk.open to the public including social workers who got CIUs,  and Q& A led by Romanchik.   About 19 attended the fist session (including one woman all the way from New York City!), about 60 the second. The group was mufti-generatinal and included parents in closed an open adoptions. Unfortunately I am sick with some kind of stomach bug (worse as the day goes on, and I’m going to bed in a few minutes) so and didn’t take notes. To make it worse, the shutter on my camera stopped shuttering, and I only got one picture.So here is a general review and some thoughts. I met Brenda online about 18 yeas ago on the original alt.adoption. Her son, Matt,  was a relatively little guy back then, and Continue Reading →

Florida: Questions about "Safe Haven" and Adoption Agency Privilege

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Back on November 4, Al Neuharth, old newspaper man and founder (of among other things USA Today) wrote a rather unnotable piece in Florida Today, “Chosen Children” in which he extols National Adoption Awareness Month. Neuharth is a longtime advocate of adoption, so the essay isn’t surprising. . Left hand couple:  Fornes & Neuharth Neuharth, 87, and his wife, Dr. Rachel Fornes have transracially adopted six children between the ages of 11 and 20. Fornes, in fact,  founded the not-for profit adoption agency Home at Last located in Cocoa Beach, FL. and is a former board member of the National Council for Adoption. About half-way through the otherwise routine adoptaarticle, these curious paragraphs pop up:  [Rachel] has special contacts with schools, churches, hospitals and police who put her in touch with pregnant women who cannot or don’t want to take care of their offspring..I In Florida, women with newborn babies can leave them at any of those locations for caretaking, no questions asked. Then, instead of desertion, they are in good hands while the adoption process proceeds. Remember that in Florida, babies dumped off at “safe have” stations do not, as in most other states, go through the state system.  Continue Reading →

Adoption Not Abortion: Pimping Adoptees for a "Higher Purpose""

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I did not intend to write as much as I have about abortion in this month of National Adoption Awareness but the subject just keeps getting in the way. Abortion is the wild card that pops up in even the best laid plans of reformists and activists. In some weird fit of cognitive dissonance, anti-aborts claim that the  fetus shares the same rights as the already born, but reject the notion that if this sacradotaled fetus is brought to term, born and adopted that it should be treated equal under law once it is secularized. In other words, once the word becomes flesh, it’s on its own.  Adoption and abortion, of course, have little in common, though the increasingly Gospelized adoption industry and the anti-abortion corpos make a seamless fit.  Together they present adoption as a  happy win-win-win solution for the principals involved, when they are actually  manipulating, propagandizing, redeeming and reconstructing these principals for the higher purpose of political pimping. It’s bad enough as is, but  during National Adoption Awareness Month (NAAM), we get a booster shot of happy-dappy juice from the evil twins. STUDENTS FOR LIFEJust as NAAM was gearing up, I received a tweet from Students for Continue Reading →

Glenn Beck: Redux

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Ohio Right to Life now has a collection of pictures up on YouTube of the Glenn Beck’s  art project I reported on last week. Go below for a closer look at Beck, his faithful chalkboard, and 2500 fawning fans . Beck, like Herman Cain, the soon-to-be-dumped-wannabe-prez, is a performance artist –or tries to be. He lacks the irony to pull it off except for the artless crowd that represents American culture today.. Here, for instance, is Beck a few months ago on Fox, calling for a pre-emptive US strike on England to prevent it from re-colonizing America.. It’s all about the Beatles, doncha know: The Brits are in cahoots with the Chinese. They’re aligned with the Islamo fascists who also want to take over the world. Together it’ll spread into India, which Britain also used to own. The Brits, the Chinese, the Arabs and the Indians, everyone in this caliphate cabal is a tea drinker—that’s the link that ties the conspiracy together, they use tea as a form of mind control.” Beck said. “The fall of Egypt is not about freedom, it’s not about democracy, it is about an Islamic state, too much tea and rock and roll.” Although I Continue Reading →

Bastardette Poll: You Decide: Does Michele Bachman Support Adoptee Rights

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The blog I’d planned to post today won’t be finished in time to meet the NaBloPoMo deadline, so I’m offering a survey today. A few days ago I tweeted Michele Bachmann: @MicheleBachmann . Do adult adoptees deserve the restoration of the right to our original birth certificates or are we 2nd class citizens? I’m shocked, I tell you, shocked, that  President Mrs.  Bachmann hasn’t replied.  With 6,000,000 potential Bachmann voters waiting breathlessly in the wings, you’d think she would understand the Power of the Bastard to swing an election.. Perhaps she’s busy launching her biologicals.or lecturing fosterparents on the harmful sexual identity effects of The Little Mermaid. Or perhaps she’s just too reticent to offer an opinion  You know how shy  she can be. So, in lieu of  Ma Belle Michele’s response, I’m now turning to Daily Bastardette readers to speak for her with a poll at the top left corner of this blog Does Michele Bachman support adoptee rights?  The poll will remain open for the remainder of National Adoption Month and you can give more than one answer. Vote early and often.

Losing My Adoption File

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 Today I had to renew my driver’s license.  I say “had” because my license expired on my birthday a couple weeks ago, and although Ohio gives a big grace period in renewal, I want to vote in tomorrow’s state election..  I  was afraid, the way Ohio runs its crooked vote, that without a current’ “proof of identity”  I’d be forced to do a highly questionable “provisional ballot.” (I suspect that expired legal IDs are invalid so the self-perpetuating state can dun you–in this case $22.00– for another ID that will eventually expire so the state can dun you again..)  While I generally believe that  the fix is in, and voting is a waste of time, there is no way I’m going to not put my X where my mouth is and vote against Issue 2–Gov K-sick’s attempt to bust Ohio public unions.  (For a good breakdown of what K-sick is up to read Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman’s latest on the measure, Will the !% steal Ohio’s labor rights referendum?  It can happen in your state, too, and it’s about a lot more than unions.) But I digress.  According to the Ohio BMV  webpage, since my license expired less than Continue Reading →

Michele Bachman Wants to Adopt You

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…well, maybe not you specifically , but she wants you to adopt somebody. . Here’s her PSA for National Adoption Month (She leaves out the “awareness” part.)  As you’ll see in the video and in her House Resolution, she’s pushing foster adoption.. Oops, link went bad the first try)  It’s OK now. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with foster to adopt for genuinely familyless kids, but Ma Belle Michelle. a 20x + foster care provider of girls (she originally wanted to take in unmarried pregnant teens)  has a hidden agenda. See, according to our fav presidential has-been,  it’s not abuse, poverty, crime, neglect, family breaks-ups, foster home-hopping, and prominent dysfunctional foster mothers who cause problems for kids in fostercare.  It’s exposure to the public school system. ****** After I viewed Bachmann’s video, I tweeted her back: @MicheleBachmann . Do adult adoptees deserve the restoration of the right to our original birth certificates or are we 2nd class citizens?  Ya think she’ll reply? RELATED POSTS Beltway “Orphan” Wingnut Update Michele Bachman Named to “Most Loathesome List;” Carries on National Council for Adoption Tradition And you Think Sarah Palin’s Bad:  Meet NCFA’s Fried, Michele Bachmann

Informed Consent v Informed Consent: Redux

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Hypocrisy boiled to the top yesterday as Ohio Right to Life client-in-chief,  governor John Kasich, signed HB 63. The bill, sloganeered to “protect parental rights and save lives” was designed to “tighten” Ohio’s parental consent loophole that allows  unmarried underage  women to get the juvenile court’s permission, rather than, their parents, to undergo an abortion. Hypocritical because the same politicians who cry foul over the judicial bypass for abortion, claiming it interferes with family communication and the ability of parents to oversee their daughters’ medical needs, also support Ohio’s “safe haven” law, which encourages teen women to carry a secret pregnancy to term with no parental knowledge or  medical monitoring, give secret birth alone under dangerous conditions, and then anonymously abandon the secret baby at an ER or fire station with no questions asked. Nobody will ever have to know you had this baby. ORTL director Mike Gonidakis celebrating its latest victory told the Columbus Dispatch: Ohio is witnessing the blessings of having the most pro-life governor and general Assembly in our state’s history working together to save lives. Ya mean like this  (from my earlier Daily Bastardette and Theoconia blogs) Mike: In the bizarro world of Ohio Right to Continue Reading →

Brian Dykstra Acquitted in Death of Adopted Russian Son Isaac Dykstra

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Thursday, after only a few hours of deliberation  a jury in Iowa City (IA) acquitted Brian Dykstra of all charges in the death of his Russian adopted son Isaac Jonathan Dykstra (no original name known.) The 21-month  old  was admitted to the hospital on August  2005, with severe head trauma and died the next day after being taken off of life support. His injuries were reported consistent with shaken baby syndrome. Dykstra claimed that three days earlier  the boy had fallen down steps head first on to a concrete floor, but had not required hospital treatment.. Doctors and police believed that while Isaac did fall a few days earlier, the injuries that caused his death happened in a separate incident the day before he died. After a prolonged police investigation, in August 2008, Dykstra  was charged with 2nd degree murder. His  former wife, Lisa DeWaard,. (divorce final August 1, 2011), now  an assistant professor of Spanish  at Stetson University, wasn’t home at the time and wasn’t charged.  Brian Dykstra, if found guilty, could have been sentenced to as much as 50 yeas in prison. The trial opened last week with strong testimony from prosecution EMTs, hospital personnel and police  witnesses Continue Reading →

Hangin’ with Glenn Beck So You Don’t Have To

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NOTE:  A slightly different version of this  was published by Columbus Free Press in the next day or so. I have written about Glenn Beck previously on the Daily Bastardette here, here,and   here.  Ohio Right to Life is the chief reason obcs remain sealed in Ohio. Glenn Beck is more dreadful than you think. Thursday night (October 27)  I attended Glenn Beck’s performance piece at Vets Memorial.  His appearance was sponsored by Ohio Right to Life to kick off its annual state conference and fill its operating budget (according to Beck) for next fiscal year.  Just buying a ticket wasn’t good enough. In a word of faith moment,  Beck ordered us to pull out the donation envelopes from our programs and hold them tight for the next couple hours as he  inspired us to stuff them with cash, check or credit card number.  From the looks of the beg buckets held by ORTL volunteers standing  beneath the exit signs when it was all over, Beck had indeed miraculously  turned envelopes into cash. Lying in bed the next morning I wondered just what I could write about Beck.  There must have been something in his 90 minute one man show Continue Reading →