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 →

PENNSYLVANIA: Bastard Nation Letter to Rep. Oliver: Please schedule hearings for HB1978

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This is the post I sent to Rep. Oliver today on behalf of Bastard Nation and myself. Please feel free to post your letters here on on the Bastard Nation blog http://bastardnation.blogspot.com/2010/08/pennsylvania-bastard-nation-letter-to.html Thank you all. Marley **********Dear Chairman Oliver: I write today to urge you to schedule hearings for HB 1978, a bill that if passed would restore the right that all Pennsylvania adoptees once enjoyed: the right to his or her own original birth certificate (obc) with no conditions or restrictions. That is, to authorize the state to treat the adopted on the same legal level as those who are not adopted. HB 1978 is an important bill. It is being watched by adoption advocacy and reform groups and individuals across the country. The sealing of birth records is an archaic hold-over from an age when adoption was held shameful. That day has passed. The restoration of the right of adoptees to their obcs is the keystone of ethical adoption practice not only in Pennsylvania but throughout the country. . As someone whose birth and adoptive families have deep Pennsylvania roots (Pittsburgh, Greenville and Bucks County), I would love to see Pennsylvania join the ranks of states that believe Continue Reading →

BASTARD NATION ACTION ALERT: Monday is "Contact Chairman Oliver Day" (Pennsylvania)

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Please distribute freely! BASTARD NATION ACTION ALERT Give Pennsylvania unrestricted HB 1978 a hearing! Monday, August 16, 2010:“Contact Chairman Oliver Day for Adoptee Rights” HB 1978 is a short, simply written bill to restore the right of all Pennsylvania adoptees to their original birth certificates without restriction. For months, the bill has been stalled, with no hearings, in the House Health and Human Services Committee chaired by Rep. Frank Louis Oliver. To move this bill into hearings, Pennsylvania Adoptee Rights (PAR) is sponsoring “Contact Chairman Oliver Day”–a day dedicated to asking Rep. Oliver to schedule hearings. Read HB 1978 here. Read about Pennsylvania’s current access laws here. Read the entire PAR action alert here. You do not have to be from Pennsylvania to help. Please join activist around the country and contact Rep. Oliver. Messages shouldn’t take more than two sentences. HB 1978 deserves a hearing! Restore adoptee civil rights in Pennsylvania in 2010! Call, fax, or email Rep. Oliver now. Rep. Frank Louis Oliver, ChairPennsylvania House Health and Human ServicesPO Box 202195Harrisburg, PA 17120-2195Phone: 717-787-3480Fax: [email protected] Bastard Nation is not affiliated with PAR and HB 1978 is not a Bastard Nation bill. We, however, support the action and endorse Continue Reading →

NCFA Names Chuck Johnson Permanent Prez

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The National Council for Adoption today announced the appointment of Chuck Johnson as its permanent CEO and president. Johnson has been Acting President since April when Mary Robinson, after a few inglorious months in office, left the position unannounced and from my perspective, unmissed. Johnson also held the post of acting prez after Tom Atwood resigned in November 2008. He is the former director of NCFA’s Infant Adoption Training Initiative. Johnson’s appointment marks the end (so-to-speak) of NCFA’s transformation into the nicer kinder NuNCFA, bereft of Piercian existentialism, angst and cranksterism. NuNCFA, for better or worse (it’s easier to kick them around for worse) is more concerned with international and foster adoption and Beltway politics than calling Bastard Nation anarchists and terrorists and “birthdads” drive-by sperm donors, and locking pregnant unmarrieds in closets. We seriously doubt that Johnson has been booted out of Congressional offices or in times of high snit, has orchestrated a dirty tricks campaign against John McCain or other blowhard politicians. As Johnson said to me at one point ,”Folks want to work with us again.” Well, not everyone, Chuck! But enough to take NCFA off the endangered species list. In other words, NuNCFA has corporatized and Continue Reading →

Support Bastardette’s Family! Blatant Plug for Mark Jennings Reese

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This isn’t about adoption …but… I’m making a blatant plug here for my nephew, comedy writer and comedian Mark Jennings Reese. Marko is the son my late bio brother, Mark Reese, and one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. Of course, he wasn’t performing when I met him, but if he’s that funny in real life, I figure he must be funny on the stage, too. Marko will appear on the Tobyriffic Show Friday night on Albuquerque Cable Access 27. You can watch him live if you’re in the area, or on the ‘net, if not. Here’s his invitation from Facebook: Mark invited you to The Tobyriffic Show and says “Friday night at 8PM MDT / 10PM Eastern, you can see me bring the funny LIVE. If you live in Albuquerque, you can see this from COMCAST Cable Access Channel 27. Anywhere else, you can see this from http://www.facebook.com/l/baf2a;quote-unquote.org.” (The last link takes you to the live stream) Support Bastardette’s Family! It took long enough to find them! Watch Marko live and for free.When he’s rich and famous and doing the Bellagio, you can say you saw him when…

Erggkkk! Bastardette is Back! I Think…

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July has been unintended down time. It didn’t start out to be that way, but travel, the horrible heat ( air conditioning only in my bedroom and I hate typing in bed) and a yukky mystery ailment that’s kept my hands, arms, legs and feet (but not my middle) red, welty, blistery, scratchy, and scabby, reduced me to spending my time developing a relationship with re-runs of of Bones, NCSI and Mad Men marathons. I’m back now. I think. The mystery ailment is not as severe and the weather is cooler. If Don Draper can come back, then I can. I don’t even need a prostitute to slap me around to get me here. Besides, there’s is so much to say. I’ve been mulling over where to begin on my review of the Evan B. Donaldson’s double dealing For the Records 2, Then, there’s my trip to the Annual National Council for Adoption Conference (beware of Elizabeth I’m-a-Progressive Bartholet, the Evil Witch of Harvard). And how about that nutty op-ed in the Times of Trenton under the signature of the troglodyte New Jersey Coalition to Defend Privacy in Adoption: Open birth records will mean fewer adoptions that is almost enough Continue Reading →