Bastard Nation’s Letter to Missouri Governor Jay Nixon: Please Veto SB 351. This is not an adoptee rights bill!

Dear Governor Nixon: 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, upon request, of their own true, unaltered original birth certificates (OBC). We do not support SB 351 and ask that you veto this badly flawed legislation. Under current Missouri law, the original birth certificates/identities of all Missouri adoptees are sealed and generally cannot be released to the adoptee except by court order and only with the consent of both the biological and adoptive parents. This 4-signature consent is the most restrictive OBC/identity access law in the United States. For as long as we can remember, Missouri adoption reform advocates have been attempting to free the state’s adoptees from these onerous restrictions. Unfortunately, SB 351 is not the bill to overturn the current law. SB 351 makes superficial changes to access structure, removing adoptive parent sign-offs, while maintaining retrospectively and prospectively the other restrictions which keep Missouri adoptee birth records and identity a state secret. The bill also allows adoptees under certain conditions to access identifying information about siblings, and permits adoptees’ lineal descendants, under certain conditions, to access identifying information if Continue Reading →

ACTION ALERT: Support Adoptee Rights for All, Not Privilege for Some. Tell Gov. Christie to Veto A1406

Please Distribute Freely BASTARD NATION ACTION ALERT Support adoptee rights for all, not privilege for some Write New Jersey Governor Chris Christie today Ask him to veto A1406/1399/S699 A1406/1399/S699 is on its way to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie for signing. Gov. Christie’s views on the bill are unknown. Please take a few minutes to write the governor now and ask him to veto this flawed legislation and to support a clean bill that includes the restoration of the rights of all the state’s adoptees. For information on the bill go here: Letters should be short, around 200 words. Hard copies are preferable. Governor Chris Christie Office of the Governor PO Box 001 Trenton, NJ 08625 609-292-6000 You can also use this template http://www.state.nj.us/governor/contact/ Below is Bastard Nation’s letter: May 11, 2011 Governor Chris Christie P.O. Box 001 The State House Trenton, NJ 08625-0001 RE: Please Veto A1406: Adoptees’ Birthright Bill Dear Gov. Christie: Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization, the largest adoptee civil rights organization in North America, opposes A1406: The Adoptees’ Birthright bill, which passed the General Assembly earlier this week. Please veto this bill. A1406 will permit some New Jersey adopted adults to receive their true and Continue Reading →

Attention Columbus Area Bastards and Friends! Free Press Second Saturday Salon. The War Against the Adopted

I’ll be speaking at the Columbus Free Press Second Saturday Salon on May 14. Here’s the information: Day: Saturday, May 14 · 6:00pm – 9:00pmLocation: 1021 E. Broad St (side door, parking in rear) Columbus, Ohio Phone: 614-253-2571 [email protected] I’ll be discussing: The War Against the Adopted: Ohio and Beyond. Join with other progressives to network, socialize, eat, drink and have fun. Music by Steve Dodge, presentation by Marley Greiner, the Executive Chair and co-founder of Bastard Nation the Adoptee Rights Organizations, the largest adoptee rights organization in North America.

Sad Day for New Jersey Bastards: A1406/1399/S799 Passes. Adoptees Sold Down the River

A few minutes ago, the New Jersey General Assembly, as expected, passed A1406/1399/S799: 44 Yay26 Nay2 Abstain The Speaker chastised NJ Care proponets for applauding. Shame on NJCare for selling out the rights of those it claims to represent. Shame on NJ Care for creating new classes of anonymized adoptees: those wiped clean by third party vetoes and state-pimped “safe haven” victims. Shame on NJ Care for protecting the state’s adoption industry from liability for illegal and unethical practices. We do not begrudge anyone who accesses their Original Birth Certificate under this abomination, but they need to remember that their privilege is built on the continued disenfranchisement and erasure of their fellow Bastards. We have no idea what Governor Christie will do when the bill hits his desk. Bastard Nation will be in contact with his office again. We urge those who object to the legislative quarantine of non-qualifying bastards to contact him as well. More information shortly. Bastard Nation thanks everyone who saw this through with us and wrote and called the NJ General Assembly with our objections. Read about the bill here and here.

URGENT: STOP NJA 1406/S799 – FLOOR VOTE SCHEDULED FOR MONDAY, MAY 9, 2011.

Distribute Freely BASTARD NATION ACTION ALERT! STOP DISCLOSURE VETO/WHITE OUT LEGISLATION IN NEW JERSEY!!! ASK THE NEW JERSEY ASSEMBLY: VOTE NO ON A1406/S799 Read full text of A1406 here.Read full text of S799 here A1406 (companion to S799 already passed in the NJ Senate) is scheduled for a floor vote on MONDAY MAY 9, 2011. Please contact Assembly members immediately and urge them to VOTE NO ON A1406/S799. (Contact information below.) If you are from or in New Jersey or have a New Jersey connection, mention it in your communication. Be sure to put: “Vote No On Adoptee Birthright Bill “in the header Bastard Nation’s letter to the Assembly is here (and directly below this alert) A1406/S799 is: restrictive, discriminatory, creates a new, special and temporary ”right” for “birthparents,” and exempts the state’s adopted adults from equal protection and treatment regarding the release of the government-generated public record of their births. THE BILL *includes a 12- month open enrollment period, starting after the Department of Health releases regs for A1406/S799 implementation, that allows “birthparents,” to file disclosure vetoes (DV) before obcs, past and future, are unsealed *authorizes the state to replace the original birth certificat, of those subjected to the Continue Reading →

Bastard Nation’s Letter to the New Jersey General Assembly – May 7, 2011 – VOTE NO on A1406

RE: Please vote NO on A1406/S700: Adoptees’ Birthright Bill Privilege is the opposite of right 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, upon request, of their own true, unaltered original birth certificates (OBC). We oppose A1406/S799: the Adoptees’ Birthright Bill. A1406/S799 permits some New Jersey adopted adults to receive their true and accurate original birth certificates. Others, through the compromise language of the birthparent disclosure veto, will receive only a false and mutilated government document with the name and address of the parent(s) bureaucratically excised by the Department of Health and Senior Services by order of the birthparent(s). Bastard Nation rejects this special veto privilege of “birthparents” to remove their names from the birth certificates of their own adult offspring. No other parent has that right. Why should “birthparents,” whose parental rights were terminated decades ago, have different rights,privileges, and rules? A1406/S799 is promoted as an “adoptees’ birthright” and OBC “access bill.” Unfortunately, it is neither. The bill reinforces out-dated adoption secrecy through the disclosure veto. It also seals by default, the OBCs of babies surrendered under the state’s “safe haven” Continue Reading →

Bastardette’s Back!

I’ve been pretty much wiped out this month with bronchitis (again) I went to the Hard Rock with it, came back with it, and kept it. I’ve wasted nearly the whole month reading my collection of James M. Cain novels and playing computer games on FB. I think this are better, so I’m back. I’ve got plenty to say. And don’t get me started on Obama’s bc and Donald Trump. Actually, I am started, and that’s what I’ll be writing about.

Rhode Island: Bastard Nation Testimony – in Support – H5453

TESTIMONY SB 5453 an act to permit adoptees to obtain a non-certified copy of their original birth certificates Rhode Island House Judiciary Committee April 12, 2011 SUPPORT 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, unrestricted access for all adopted persons, upon request, of their own true, unaltered original birth certificates (OBC). We fully support HB 5453 and its companion S0361. We support no other bill in either chamber. ****** Bastard Nation is delighted to endorse and support SB 5453, a bill that restores the right of all Rhode Island adopted persons, without restrictions or conditions, to access their original birth certificates upon request. SB 5453 is inclusive. The bill, as written, is a simple-to-understand measure that recognizes the presumed right of all Rhode Island adults–adopted and not adopted– to unrestricted access and ownership of their true birth certificates. SB 5453 is about rights not reunion. It is about the relation of adoptees to the state. Search and reunion are personal matters outside of government control and mediation. SB 5453 maintains the current level of adoption “confidentiality” and practice. Adoption records are Continue Reading →

Bloodline

I don’t care if this IS a commercial! I’m waiting for the professional adoption class to file a complaint about it. After all, if the Care Bears and Anne of Green Gables offends…and Who’s Your Daddy and Orphan (and here) will kill off adoption, (no pun intended) …this is bound to make adopted clean slates feel like second class citizens. Bloodlines indeed! “It’s my turn.”