Bastard Nation’s Letter to Kathleen Strottman, CAAI: Your message is "we don’t count."

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Below is the email I just sent to Kathleen Strottman, executive director of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, regarding the organization’s neglect to include adoptees and first parents in the international adoption roundtable it is co-sponsoring with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, scheduled for February 16. (see blog entry directly below this for details.) .  If we get a response, I’ll post it here. ****** Dear Ms. Strottman: Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization is extremely disappointed  to learn that the Congressional Coalition’s roundtable on international adoption scheduled for February 16 has ignored the input of adoptees and our first parents. The list of roundtable invitees is packed with representatives of adoption agencies, policy makers, and adoptive parents, all of who make their living from adoption or otherwise benefit from current adoption practice. They do not represent the political and personal interests of adoptees or first parents either domestically or internationally. Unfortunately, the absence of adoptee and first parent voices at the roundtable is the continuation of a long pattern of neglect by the CCAI, federal, state, and local legislators, policy makers, and public and private agencies who dismiss the producers and products of adoption as stakeholders, when in Continue Reading →

BULLETIN from the Land of a Gazillion Adoptees! Contact the Congressional Coalition Today!

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 Just received this  bulletin  from Kevin Ost-Vollmers, the Land of a Thousand Adoptees, regarding the bureaucratic silencing of of adoptees and first parents by the US Senate Foreign Relations/Congressional Coalition for Adoption Institute. Of course, none of this should be surprising.  Adopted people and their first parents–the alleged beneficiaries of adoption policy, laws, and international agreements– don’t count. From past experience it takes a crowbar to break into federal and state) adoption roundtables, hearings,  and inquiries unless you are an adoption agency or represent an adoptive parent organization–and usually the latter aren’t even welcome.   I am shooting off a short email to Kathleen Strottman right now and will post it later today.  In the meantime, read Kevin’s alert and send Strottman an email. Adoptees are not silent pawns. We won’t shut up.    Thursday, February 16th the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and CCAI will host a roundtable on intercountry adoption. The voices of adoptees and first parents will not be at the table or solicited. Update: The initial post said February 14th.  The roundtable will be help on February 16th. It has come to the attention of Land of Gazillion Adoptees that the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (CCAI), along Continue Reading →

Gladney Booted from Honduras!

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Holy moley! I thought my eyes were deceiving me when this notice from the State Department hit my mailbox a few minutes ago, but it’s true.  Gladney has been kicked out of Honduras. Message for U.S. Citizens – Barring of Two U.S. Adoption Agencies by IHNFA (January 30, 2012) January 30, 2012 The U.S. Embassy in Honduras informs citizens that the Instituto Hondureño de la Niñez y la Familia (IHNFA ) has barred two U.S. adoption agencies from the local adoption process, effective immediately.  The IHNFA will no longer approve adoption requests filed by families  who utilized the agencies to facilitate the adoption of a local child, as the agencies are no longer registered in Honduras.  Only adoptions approved by the IHNFA can be processed for Immigrant Visas, as the IHNFA is the Government of Honduras’ Central Adoption Authority.The following U.S. adoption agencies are no longer accredited in Honduras:1.            Living Hope Adoption Agency, IHNFA’s resolution SG-016-2011 2.            Gladney Center for Adoption, IHNFA’s resolution SG-017-2011 Read the rest of the notice which doesn’t say to much at the link above. I looked around real fast to see what Dame Edna had done to deserve such treatment from such an unworthy country, Continue Reading →

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 →