The Daily Bastardette

Informed Consent v Informed Consent: Redux

Posted on November 5, 2011 by [email protected] — Leave a reply

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

Posted on November 4, 2011 by [email protected] — 5 Comments ↓

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

Posted on November 3, 2011 by [email protected] — 3 Comments ↓

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 →

National Adoption Awareness Month: Shilling for Adoption

Posted on November 2, 2011 by [email protected] — 2 Comments ↓

Today the adoption industry launches the 2011 edition of National Adoption Awareness Month. (NAAM) Bastardette knows you’ve been looking forward to this great event as much as she has. Coincidentally, today also marks the first day of November NaBloPoMo . No, that’s not an unspeakable sex act. It’s the November edition of National Blog Posting Month, a blog ritual for over-zealous bloggers who promise to blog every day on a designated topic each month. Topics that only the most abstract students of 19th century British literature can appreciate fully, such as “return” and “between,” November, however is the open month, which means we can choose our own bloviation. My subject, naturally is adoption. I successfully completed the 2009 November NaBloPoMo none the worse for wear but full of wonderment that I succeeded. . You’d be surprised, though, at the topics that land in your brain when you are desperate to cross the finish line. 2010 November NaBloPoMo was more difficult.. I finished exhausted, but finished. This year, due to my summer hiatus I feel up to it–so far. There is so much to write about that surely I can fill up 30 days as easily as filling up water balloon Continue Reading →

Adoption is the Trick: Where’s the Treat?

Posted on October 31, 2011 by [email protected] — 2 Comments ↓

Courtesy of FauxClaud – Thanks!

Update on Artyom Saveliev: Attempt to Exclude Media Postpones Hearing

Posted on October 28, 2011 by [email protected] — 3 Comments ↓

Things just got more complicated in WACAP v Hansen, (see entry directly below.) Bedford (TN) County Circuit Court Judge Lee Russell called a postponement in the hearing scheduled for yesterday, after Torry Hansen’s lawyer, Sandra Smith, filed a last minute motion to exclude the press and public from the hearing. Smith argued that proceedings and filings in juvenile court are confidential. While this is true, the current case is filed in circuit court and not under seal. I can’t find the motion online, but Shelbyville Times-Gazette reporter John Carney quoted Smith’s argument: The mere fact that the matter may be newsworthy should not override the parties’, including those of the minor child, right to confidentiality. Of course this is laughable. Torry Hansen and her mother Nancy are concerned about Artyom Saveliev’s “confidentiality” after their antics plastered his story and picture around the world, turning the boy into an international incident that nearly shutdown cross-country adoption between Russia and the US? Concerned about somebody’s confidentiality for sure, but not his. WACAP;s Nashville attorney Larry Crain said it best: It is indeed ironic that the same parent who recklessly abandoned her child by placing him on a one-way flight to Moscow would Continue Reading →

Artyom Savelyev Update: World Associaiton of Children and Parents v Torry Hansen gets trial date in January, hearing today

Posted on October 27, 2011 by [email protected] — 2 Comments ↓

I need to do some backtracking on the Artyom Savelyev/Justin Hansen case The 8-year old Russian abandoned by his adopter mother, is still in care somewhere in Moscow. Here’s what happening stateside. The lawsuit filed by World Association of Children and Parents, the adoption agency that placed Artyom with his forever mother Torry Hansen, has been scheduled to be heard in Bedford County (TN) Circuit Court court on January 3, 2012, a year and a half after it was filed. Two motions will be heard later today, though,, one to dismiss; the other to amend the petition. The case is under seal and there are no other details. Sheriff Boyce during press conference The WAPAC suit was filed in May 2010, a month after Artyom was COD’d back to the Russian Ministry of Education, via American Airlines, when Torry Hansen and her mother Nancy decided the boy wasn’t a good fit. WACAP filed asking to be appointed temporary guardian out of frustration because no one in Tennessee, the boy’s “home state,” was investigating claims that the Hansens had abandoned and endangered him there. Bedford County Sheriff Randall Boyce argued that there was no evidence to indicate that the boy Continue Reading →

Theoconia: My Other (Adoption-Related at times) Blog

Posted on October 24, 2011 by [email protected] — Leave a reply

Reproductive libery in Ohio is currently under attack by well-funded national and local organizations and individuals. They’ve had a lot of bills in the legislatlure this year, including Janet Folger Porter and Jack Willke’s Heartbeat bill , which would virtually outlaw abortion in Ohio. Leggies goobbled up even if it is unconstitutional. and will hit the courts the day it’s signed. IF is the operative world. I’ll write more about the bill at a later date. For the non-initiated, Folger Porter and Willke are the chief reason original birth certificates remain sealed in Ohio, another topic I’ll be writing about.. We also have Dr. Patrick Johnston organizing the attempt to get a Personhood Amendment on the November 2012 ballot. . While not exactly about adoption, the usual suspects beyond Folger Porter and Willke, are involved in these schemes, but not particularly together. Wingnuts don’t always get along with each other. In fact, the Heartbeat bill has split Ohio Right to Life (more on that later, too). As some of you know I have several blogs. One of them, Theoconia: a Central Ohio Theocon Report, is not related directly to adoption, though sometimes it is. I’ve been away from Theocnia for Continue Reading →

Twitter Fail – Why is this considered "convenient?"

Posted on October 20, 2011 by [email protected] — 1 Comment ↓

OK. I give up. Twitter has defeated me. After repeated attempts for months to access the Daily Bastardette Twitter account I’ve thrown up the white flag. First I don’t exist. Then I do, but my password doesn’t. Sometimes my Twitter email account for Bastardette doesn’t exist. Sometimes I don’t exist, but then I’m adopted. I’m keeping Twitter since I get hits from it, I’ve been forced to open a new account. I can’t delete the old account because it won’t let me in. For those so inclined please go to the left Twitter thingamajig and subscribe. I can also be found under marleygreiner in the Twitter directory. I wanted to use “Daily Bastardette” but Twitter wouldn’t let me. Figures. Now if I can just figure out how to add the new Google “share this” icon. It went up automatically on one of my blogs, but not the rest.