The Chicken or the Egg: Deformers Feed Their Opponents

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There’s been a lively discussion on my New Jersey: Deborah Jacobs lobs another foul blog. Ms. Jacobs, the executive director of the New Jersey ACLU, has been brave enough to enter the fray. One comment that has scored a sour note amongst our comrade mothers-in arms is her allegation that she has received scads of letters from anonymous “birthmothers” begging for anonymity. Ms. Jacobs writes: I also have a stack of letters in my office, most sent anonymously, from birth mothers thanking me for the ACLU-NJ’s work on this issue, talking about their experiences with adoption, and explaining why they desperately wish to remain anonymous. They include rape and incest victims, among others. They express terror at the prospect of an unwelcome knock at the door that will force them to revisit painful personal traumas of the past. I’m sure Ms. Jacobs meant well. I don’t think she’s a bad person at all. But, save for whistleblowers, Wikileaks and secret groups fighting Hitler, anonymity has no place in honest political and policy discourse, especially when it’s about one of the country’s most murky and controversial social policies. Adoption, though, with its built-in secrets and lies, makes anonymity acceptable for the Continue Reading →

Congratulations Dan Chaon: Ohio’s Adoptee Laureate Racks Up Another Award!

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Congratulations to Dan Chaon! Ohio’s unofficial adoptee laureate is the recipient of the 2010 Ohio State Library’s Ohioana Award in fiction for Await Your Reply: A Novel. Last year the book was named to Publisher’s Weekly Top 10 Best Books of 2009. In March, the American Library Association’s Reference and User Services Association cited it on its “best” list along with work by Margaret Atwood and Toni Morrison. Dan’s 2001 collection of short stories, Among the Missing described as “a gripping account of colliding fates, the shifty nature of identity in today’s wired world and the limits of family” was a National Book Award finalist. It was also named one of the year’s best books by the American Library Association, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, and Entertainment Weekly and made the New York Times Notable Book List. You Remind Me of Me (2004), Dan’s first novel, is an adoption-related (and so much more) examination of identity, fate, and circumstance. It was named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and San Francisco Chronicle. Dan, was born, adopted and reared in Sidney, Nebraska and lives in Cleveland Heights Ohio, He is the Pauline M. Delaney Continue Reading →

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The Fall 2010 issue of The Bastard Quarterly is now online. Go here. In this issue: The Animal Farm in IllinoisLetter from the Executive ChairKicking and ScreamingLegislative Review: Winter 2009-Summer 2010“Orphan”–The MusicalBastards on the MarchThe Other Korean ChickBastard Nation Statement on HaitiRemembering AnnetteBastardly Blog Review

Attention Pittsburgh-area Bastards, Families and Friends: Elizabeth Samuels to speak at Pitt on the history of sealed records at Pitt!

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Pittsburgh Consortium for Adoption StudiesUniversity of Pittsburgh School of Arts and SciencesSchool of LawWomen’s Studies Program Present: Elizabeth Samuels Professor, University of Baltimore School of Law Adoption, Identity, and Confidentiality:The History of Closed Records Thursday, September 3012:30 pm G-20 University of Pittsburgh Law School3900 Forbes Avenue Currently, when children are adopted, they are usually issued new birth certificates in which the names of adoptive parents replace the names of birth parents. Copies of their sealed original birth certificates have been unavailable to adult adoptees in most states for varying numbers of years. But recently many states around the country have considered, and some have passed, legislation restoring adult adoptees’ right to receive uncertified copies of their original birth certificate upon request. House Bill 1978, now in the Pennsylvania House Health and Human Services Committee, would restore this right, overturning the 1984 law that foreclosed access. Another bill in the House, H. B. 1968, takes a different approach: it would establish procedures by which a court or agency must locate birth parents and obtain consent before providing identifying information to an adoptee. Against the backdrop of these bills, this talk will discuss the surprising, often misunderstood history of adoptee birth records Continue Reading →

New Jersey: ACLU’s Deborah Jacobs Lobs Another Foul

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A few days ago, the Parsippany Daily Record published a letter from Peter Franklin, a supporter of New Jersey’s hugely flawed “Adoptees Birthright bill”, ie, what passes for adoptee rights in the state. Mr. Franklin pointed out that while the American Civil Liberties Union protects the rights of “criminals and terrorists” (a practice Bastardette supports completely) it refuses to even entertain the thought that the Adopted Class has a right to its own original birth certificates. Mr. Franklin then turns the screw, observing that the NJ-ACLU board, which constantly yabbers about transparency in government, bars its great unwashed general membership from attending, much less speaking, at its meetings. Sunday, Deborah Jacobs, the NJ-ACLU’s bastard phobic executive director, wh onever met an adoptee who shouldn’t be duct taped, responded to Mr. Franklin with a snooty letter in which she banged the ACLU’s drum loudly proclaiming its grand authority in rights, implying that bastards are just dumb non-nuancing clucks who should be grateful somebody took us in. The ACLU’s experience negotiating tensions between competing rights has established the organization as an authority on the nuances of the law with respect to individual rights and freedoms. Jacobs, who knows as much about adoption Continue Reading →

Are you Adopted? Are you Sure?: LDA Survey

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Long time adoptee rights activist, bastard hero, and LDA Ron Morgan (he coined the term Late Discovery Adoptee) is updating his Late Discovery Adoptee survey. If you’re an LDA or know someone who is, please let them know about it. The Late Discovery Adoptee Survey is part of my ongoing research into the phenomenon of Late Discovery. I first developed the survey questionnaire in 1997 as part of my presentation “Are You Adopted? Are You Sure”. I have decided to renew the survey and invite you to participate. Responses will be posted on Late Discovery, without identifying information, and will help shed light on our experiences. I hope to use the information provided in the survey in a book for Late Discovery Adoptees, their loved ones and others who have an interest in our lives. CLICK here for the survey. Thank You All!Ron Morgan THE LDA page is

Build It and They Will Come: California’s Safe Haven Epidemic

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Remember when “safe haven” do-gooders assured the world that “safe haven” legalized baby dumping, would be “rare?” According to the June 30 Lodi News article, Mother safely, legally abandoned baby at Lodi Memorial that “rare” instance has reached epidemic proportion in California. Since the law went into effect in 2001, 348 newborns had been dumped anonymously on the state for their own good by parents who love their babies so much they’ll kill them if they can’t drop them on an ER counter with no shame, no blame, no name or molestation by pesky cops and courts. This article and a TV report from KCRA-TV , Mom: I can’t afford to raise baby give us some random stats for the state: San Joaquin County: 282001 statewide: 22009 statewide: 521st quarter 2010 statewide: 16The LA Times reported on July 6 in Mother surrenders newborn son at ER in Glendale, that since 2002, 79 newborns have been “saved” in LA County. Deanne Tilton Durfee, executive director of the Los Angeles Inter-Agency Council, waxed poetic about the Glendale dump: The word needs to be out there that there is a recourse, there is a resource. What next? Baby Safe Haven Rap? As for Continue Reading →

British Tabs Have Field Day with Omar bin Laden Surrogacy Story

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If this isn’t enough to make Osama bin Laden rise from the grave, nothing is. The July 10 London Daily Mail (NOT The Onion) published the heartwarming I’m carrying Bin Laden’s surrogate grandchild…but the baby’s parents have split up. To make a long story short, Omar bin Laden, 29, and his 54-year old, 6-times wed wife and grandmother of five, Zaina, (formerly known as Jane Felix-Browne) are having a little problem plopping their bun in the oven and hired Louise Pollard, 24, a personal assistant and self-described professional surrogate to bake it for them. Zaina and Louise have hit it off splendidly since the embryo implantation took. Omar, the 4th son of Osama bin Laden and his first wife, however, says since the procedure(s), at least according to Zaina, he’s been hearing his father’s voice in his head (no mention of what Osama is telling him, but we can imagine) and checked himself (or was checked into) a psych ward, leaving the girls to fend for themselves much to the delight of the British tabs. How the story first got out–Louise blames her brother– is confusing. Louise, however, takes pride in her work, seeing herself as an altruistic kinda girl Continue Reading →

Monday: Erik L. Smith on The Take Away!

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Advocate for natural parents in adoption and Bastardette guest blogger Erik L Smith will be a guest Monday morning (August 23) on NPR’s The Takeway. Erik will discuss the proposed federal Putative Father Registry bill currently in Congress. Go here to find your local schedule. The show starts at 6:00 AM edst. His segment is scheduled as of this writing for 6:49 AM. I believe it will also be available later online. You can read Erik’s work at ErikSmith.org UPDATE: Here is the link to The Takeaway discussion page on putative dads.

A Belated Tribute to Annette Baran

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Pioneer adoption reform pioneer and adoptee rights advocate Annette Baran died on July 11. Due to my unplanned writing hiatus, I am only posting our Bastard National Memorial today. Annette Baran was one of those rare people in adoption: she listened to bastards and learned. She abhorred adoption secrets and lies. Going against her social work training, she worked for decades, with much opposition from “professionals,” lobbyists, and adoption bagmen, to undo the damage caused by the adoption industry. She may have been a traitor to them, but she is a hero to us. No one enjoyed kicking Annette around more than Bill Pierce, founding president of the National Council for Adoption. His NCFA Factbook 3 (no longer online) is full of attacks on Annette’s “junk science” of adoption openess and honestly. Annette was, in fact, one of the most radical thinkers in AdoptionLand I have ever known. In her lifetime she moved from being the keeper of adoption secrets, to advocating open adoption–and records–to promoting guardianship and simple adoption over the closed secret system. Annette believed in adoptee dignity, integrity and identity. She believed that each of us have a right to our own identity, history, and documents. She Continue Reading →