Safe Haven Baby Boxes Coming to Oklahoma!

Under Oklahoma’s traditional safe haven law, babies up to 30 days of age can be dropped off. Mrs. Kelsey, seems to imply in the article, though, that that age restriction isn’t adequate. Does she mean that parents need more than 30 days to decide if parenting is “right” for them? That safe haven laws pressure parents to decide early? I dunno. I’m old, and I remember when drive-by parenting was discouraged. Unthinkable. Condemned. Continue Reading →

Veterans Day 2022: Adoption, Stealing History, Stealing Family, Stealing Connections

My 6th grade class had to memorize the Gettysburg address. I wish I had known about Jesse Harrison and my family’s connection and tragedy to the battle and to him. It would have meant so much more to me than just a tiresome school exercise. This is what adoption steals from us. Continue Reading →

Students for Life America Has Plans for Adoption and It Doesn’t Include Adoptees

There is no mention of adoptee civil rights. Did you see a word about original birth certificates, adoption records and files, search and reunion, medical histories, the re-homing epidemic, adoptee abuse and murder, adoptee mental health issues, family policing, societal dysfunction vis a vis adoption, the foster-to-prison pipeline, racism, classicism, sex and genderism in adoption policy and practice, corruption, graft, neo-colonialism? The over-arching control of evangelicals-with-agendas in the adoption industry? Did SFLA even ask adoptees how they feel about their adoption demands? Continue Reading →

On Being “One of Those People:” Vote as if it matters

Voting is a civilized tool to keep order, or at least pretend to. It works well in the US despite its fakery and faults because people want it to. At least until Trump came along, lifted up the wormy rock, and crawled into the hole with the rest of the verminize. I honestly believe that we are in the last days of a civilized United States. The Darkness is coming, if not here. Continue Reading →

Adoptee-Only Online Network Event – November 16, 2022

On November 16, Bastard Nation’s friend and (various) adoptee rights coalition partner, The Adoption and Foster Care Family Coalition of New York is holding an online adoptee-only night of networking. It is open to all adopted people in any state–activists, search angels professionals in adoption and child welfare. Continue Reading →

Happy Day in Massachusetts: Black Hole is Gone! OBCs Unsealed for All!

Today, HB 2284/S1146 the bill that restores the right of all Massachusetts-born adoptees to obtain their Original Birth Certificates without the restriction, goes into effect. Until today Massachusetts adoptees born between July 17, 1974, and January 1, 2008, were tossed in a black hole by a series of archaic laws that kept their records sealed except by court order. Those born before and after those dates enjoyed full and unrestricted access to them.No reasonable explanation was ever given for this nonsense… Continue Reading →

Why is Safe Haven Baby Boxes Inc So Afraid of Adoptees?

Class Bastard—the Adopted—to the minds of the baby box tycoonery poses some kind of existential threat to their evangelical stampede through America to normalize baby-abandonment-by-box-in-the-wall. Class Bastard (and I) are not on their politically correct page. Objecting to baby boxes turns adoption saviorism of all creeds and colors on its head disrupting the adoption mythology and mythological uses of adopted people in a patriarchal culture. And for that, box pushers have no reputable answer other than to claim we are disturbed, had a “bad experience” in adoption, “just want dead babies,” or the most popular accusation, “hate adoption.” Now go stand in the corner, you ungrateful little bastard! Continue Reading →

Bastard Nation Stands in Solidarity: Transgender Day of Remembrance

No one knows the exact number, but thousands of queer and trans young people are lost, figuratively and literally, in the broken corrupt foster and adoption systems and what follows. They are subject to harassment, physical, sexual and emotional abuse, social isolation, incarceration, depression, suicide ideation, stigma, bullying, exploitation, violence, and rejection by bio families as well as foster and adoptive ones. They and their families, who do stand with them, are increasingly subjected to family policing through Draconian rules, regulations, and laws pushed by “conservatives,” Christian Nationalists, and traditional family values politicians and special interest groups. (Oten the same groups that oppose adoptee rights in general.) They are ignored by the very “child protective system” and so-called care communities–public, private, and increasingly corporatized– that are supposed to protect and nurture them. Continue Reading →

Don’t Poke the Bear! We Poke Back: National Adoption/National Adoption Awareness Month 2022

November! That time of the year again! The time for National Adoption Month otherwise known as National Adoption Awareness Month otherwise known as National Adoption Bewareness Month otherwise known as Adoption Sucks Month otherwise known as National Sealed Birth Certificate Month otherwise known as Be Grateful You Weren’t Tossed in the Dumpster Month ad infinitum. I am sure that some somnambulant adoptees are headed out to Party City for their celebratory hats and horns and cake decorations (you know who you are), but outside of that deviant minority, no one else is amused about being poked. We poke back and we don’t fool around. Continue Reading →