Rhode Island: My Letter to the Providence Journal Published Today

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Below is my letter published today in the Providence Journal regarding S478 Sub A. Note that the first commenter brought up abortion. (what else is new?) Please go to the link and comment. Rhode Island adoptees need our help today. The vote is Wednesday. An action alert will be posted shortly. Thanks. Marley E. Greiner: Adoptees are owed thisJun 20, 2011 We urge the passage of Rhode Senate bill S478 Sub A, which would restore the right of all Rhode Island adoptees to access their own pre-adoptive original birth certificates (OBCs). We cannot, however, support limiting that access to adoptees age 30 and above. We urge the Senate to extend access to all adoptees when they reach the age of majority. The age of majority is defined as “adulthood in the eyes of the law.” At majority, a person is permitted to vote, make a valid will, enter into binding contracts, marry, enlist in the military and buy alcohol. In most states, including Rhode Island, the age of majority is 18. In no state does majority exceed 21. The not-adopted of Rhode Island are not required by statute to be 30 years of age to access their own birth certificates. Continue Reading →

Isaac Jonathan Dykstra Update

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I’m starting to catch up on some old stories I neglected over the last few months. This is one of them. This is cross-posted from my Russian blog Nikto Ne Zabyt — Nichto Ne Zabyto Over a year ago I reported that Brian Dykstra, charged with 2nd degree murder in the death of his adopted Russian son, Issac Jonathan Dykstra, 21 months, had waived his right to a speedy trial. He wasn’t joking. According to May 13, 2011 DesMoines Register, Dykstra’s trial, scheduled to begin May 23, has once again been postponed. (Trial delayed for former Iowa City man charged in infant death) On May 5, 2010, just days before his trial was to begin last time, (after at least one earlier postponement), the prosecution and defense filed a joint motion requesting a new trial date due to the complexity of the case. According to their motion, more than 130 witnesses may be called. No reason for the latest delay has been given, and no new trial date set. Isaac died on August 14, 2005 the day after he was admitted to the hospital with severe brain injuries. Brian Dykstra, however, was not charged until August 7, 2008. Dykstra remains Continue Reading →

Rhode Island S 478 Sub A: Bastard Nation Statement of Support

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Bastard Nation, the Adoptee Rights Organization conditionally supports Rhode Island S 478 Sub A. This bill is an amended version of the earlier S 478, which included a disclosure veto. The bill also had provisions that limited original birth certificate (OBC) access to adult adoptees born after Jan. 1, 2012, or to those who are 40 years or older after the effective date of the bill. None of those provisions restored the right of OBC access guaranteed until 1944, for all Rhode Island adoptees. Senate Majority Whip Maryellen Goodwin, whose sister has two adopted children, and supported this bad bill, took a lot of heat after she told the Providence Journal she wanted to limit OBC access to older adoptees because “I want them to be able to find their records in an appropriate and meaningful kind of way, not because they want to get back at their adoptive parents.” After heavy public and private criticism from the Rhode Island adoption community and reformers, Goodwin backtracked, the prospective provision and vetoes were removed and the age limit reduced to 30. On Wednesday the bill passed the Senate Health and Human Services Committee unanimously with a Do Pass recommendation to the Continue Reading →

BUSTED: Adoptive Parents Speak

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NOTE: Formating is off a little due to the transfer from Blogger to WordPress. The other day, someone on the Adoption News and Events Facebook page found a interesting blog, Adoptive Parents Speak. No, it’s not one of those warm and cuddly aparent gagfests about Biff, Buffy and their pony in the suburbs waiting for a child. This is a cut-and-paste job of actual pap and adopter comments taken from forums, blogs, and websites. We’ve all run across these kinds of comments (and worse) while on our (WARNING: adoption industry term ahead) “adoption journey.” A pap, on alt.adoption who actually became a good friend after she got off Clomid, once declared unashamedly that she had “a Constitutional right to a baby.”Another alt.adoption regular liked to explain how adoptees tend to suffer from compulsion disorders since their “birthparemts” had a compulsion to take their pants off outside the bounds of holy matrimony–unlike chaste paps and adopters. Reading these comments individually from people you know, is, however, quite different from reading them in aggregate from people you don’t know. Obviously, the ‘net has incumbered people’s self-protection, privacy, and skills of logic–not to mention etiquette. Even the most venal adoption agent at Little Continue Reading →

In memory of Sam "Butch" Reese

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My brother Butch died on Wednesday. I never met him, so there is not much I can say here. I know that he spent the last few years of his life in pain and sickness. He is now at peace. Butch is survived by his wife Margaret; son Jack and his wife Jennifer Doolan Reese; brother, John Jennings Reese; nieces Crystal Reese and Jasmine Reese-Claybrooks, nephews, Abe Reese, Aaron Reese, Jahmal Reese, Markus Jennings Reese; and grandchildren whose names I don’t know. RIP MY BROTHERS Robert Jennings Reese, April 8, 1953 – January 1, 2009 Mark Jennings Reese, October 19, 1955 – March 22, 2009 Sam “Butch” Reese September 14, 1946-June 7, 2011

Alliance for the Study of Adoption and Culture Conference 2012: Call for Papers

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The Alliance for the Study of Adoption and Culture announces: The 4th International Conference on Adoption and Culture Mapping Adoption: Histories, Geographies, Literatures, Politics March 22 – 25, 2012 The Claremont Colleges, Claremont, California Call for Proposal sFor our 2012 conference, we are expanding our concerns to include not only adoption in its many historical and cultural variations but also parallel institutions such as foster care, orphanages, and technologically-assisted reproduction, as well as various forms of forced relinquishment or family separation. We seek proposals that explore the cultural meanings and/or political locations of any of these practices, and we encourage analyses of relationships among them. We will include academic work from a wide range of scholarly disciplines and areas—literature, film and popular culture and performance studies, cultural studies, history, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, political science, law, women’s and gender studies, etc.—as well as artistic presentations of film, creative writing, graphic art, music, or productions in other media. We also encourage interdisciplinary panels, presentations, and productions.Proposals may address adoption or related practices or their representation in any way, but we especially encourage work addressing race, class, gender, nationality, and/or sexuality and sexual orientation, and/or investigations of topics such as state and institutional Continue Reading →

Baby Dump Pimps Remain Bold; Brag About Hospital Dumps

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NOTE: I originally intended to write only a short piece on the West Covina story below. But once I started I decided it was important for new readers, and those readers who might have forgotten, to go back and put the case in context from material I’ve written previously that I recently updated, but haven’t published. This piece does not cover how baby dump laws are used as a weapon against Class Bastard and the restoration of our right to our original birth certificates, which has been discussed in depth on this blog elsewhere. Baby dump pimps have no shame as they continue to widen their net, reframe language, and cook the books. Take this story from the May 23, 2011 Whittier Daily News (and other southern California papers) (my emphasis) WEST COVINA – A woman surrendered a newborn infant at a West Covina hospital – the first “safe surrender” in the county this year, a county supervisor said Monday. The woman gave birth to the baby girl at the hospital and asked to surrender the newborn on May 20, Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe’s office announced in a statement… …”This case could have ended in tragedy, but because Continue Reading →

Oh, No! Bethany Supports Baby Dumps

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You never know! According to Florida’s A Safe Place for Newborns Facebook page, Bethenny Frankel, late of The Apprentice: Martha Stewart, The Real Housewives of New York, Bethenny Getting Married, and now Bethany Ever After (how does one make herself that important and get away with it?) auctioned off three dresses and one set of ice skates worn by Herself on Ever After and Skating with the Stars (came in 2nd against All My Children’s Rebecca Budig.) We’re sorry we didn’t find this earlier. Bidding closed on May 23 with a total take of $2271. Recipients included Nick Silverio’s baby dump, A Safe for Newborns, and The Candie’s Foundation of Bristol Palin fame. Hit here for more information and links to the various eBay auctions. BTW, the skates went for $830.00. At least she’s not talking about adopting a saved-from-the-gutter refugee. Yet. A Baby for Bethenny?

Bastard Nation Action Alert: Write Missouri Governor Jay Nixon to Veto SB 351. This is not an adoptee rights bill!

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Distribute Freely BASTARD NATION ACTION ALERT! STOP RESTRICTIVE MISSOURI SB351 ASK GOV. NIXON TO VETO Read full text of SB 351 here. Please contact Missouri Governor Jay Nixon immediately and urge him to veto SB 351. (Contact information below.) If you are from or in Missouri or have a Missouri connection, mention it in your communication. Be sure to put: “Please veto SB 351 in the header Bastard Nation’s letter to Governor Nixon is here and directly below this blog. THE BILL SB 351 makes superficial changes to OBC /original identity 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. It allows adoptees, under certain conditions, to access identifying information about siblings, and permits adoptees’ lineal descendants under certain conditions, to access identifying information if the adoptee is deceased. The bill, however, does not even mention the term “original birth certificate” or what “identifying information” could be released and in what form. A letter from the court? An original birth certificate? SB 351 is convoluted. Below is the official legislative summary posted on the bill’s webpage: Current law allows for nonidentifying information, if known, Continue Reading →

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

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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 →