Tag Archives: California Adoption Reform Effort

I don’t have a lot of time today, but wanted to get this out. More thoughts later. Wednesday, amendments to placeholder AB 372 were introduced by sponsor Asmb. Fiona Ma. The amended version is now online. CARE has also issued a memo, dated March 26, discussing the updates. The amended bill is clean but has problems. According to the CARE memo, CARE and the California Association of Adoption Attorneys (CAAA), which (surprise!) opposes access, met with Asmb. Ma on March 24 to hash out changes which now includes a pushback to 25, the age at which adoptees can receive their original birth certificates. It also includes a contact preference form, and an extensive medical questionnaire. How and why this age qualification developed is a mystery. I believe, however, it is related to the 1984 “birthparent” disclosure veto as well as young adult “reunification” concerns amongst paternalistic “child welfare” professionals who feel a dubious need to monitor their former charges and to protect them from reuniting with allegedly dysfunctional families at a legal, but “too early”age. Neither issues should concern the right of adopted adults to their own birth certificates, but apparently they concern the Professional Adoption Class, California Division. CARE Continue Reading →

On March 16, six CARE board members sent around an email to lists announcing their involvement with CARE and AB 372. The following day, Maryanne Cohen, a member with me, on one of those lists, asked these board members some questions about AB 372. To date, there has been complete silence, although at least three of the signatories to that email are members of “our” list. Last night commenting on the entry that precedes this entry, Maryanne posted these same questions With Maryanne’s permission I’m posting her entire comment below. The only changes Ive made is the addition of *** ****** In any state where I have followed legislation and written letters of support, up until now I have always been able to understand the messages put out by the sponsoring group. Whether I agreed or not, I knew what they were proposing. I also find CalOpen and Marley, Ron, 73Adoptee quite clear about their views. Not so with CARE. I truly do not understand what CARE wants to do or what kind of legislation they want to introduce.I tried asking some questions on a list where members of CARE offered to answer questions. I am still waiting for any Continue Reading →

Longtime Bastard activist and Marin Maven Denise Fuller Castellucci (center) has a great blog today: AB 372 Insults Adopted Persons Deni was part of CalOpen’s AB 1349 campaign in 2001-2002. Here’s a sample: My parents were told by the system that we would get all the information when I turned 18. It was a lie. Instead, I would get non-identifying information. What was blocked out with a black pen was completely arbitrary. An adult adoptee in Marin County got her non-id info on a small index card. It is hard to describe what it is like not being trusted with the facts of my own birth. It assumes as an adult I cannot handle the truth and be trusted to be responsible with it. In the eyes of the government I am either a perpetual infant or a potential stalker. Also check out BB Church’s latest on the California Catastrophe. Note on picture: not a single doctor or social worker in the bunch.

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past…George Orwell In the last 48 hours, the California Adoption Reform Effort’s Ministry of Truth has removed two CARE documents and their links from its increasingly anorexic website: (1) a letter dated February 24, 2009, to Cal Assembly Judiciary Chair Mike Feuer, in which CARE president Jean Strauss writes bastards and adoptees out of their own rights movement and history and (2) a memo dated February 26, 2009, from CARE’s pricey lobbyist cum Executive Director Stephanie Williams “explaining” to her constituency once more why AB 372 isn’t what it seems to be… and, oh, but the way, we may just have to send some of you down shit creek without a paddle. That’s the beauty of the Internet. Shazaam! History can vanish with the hit of a button, but it can also be rescued with another. Bastards aren’t stupid. As obsessive retrievers and collectors of our own stolen history, we rescue history from the dustbin and guard our treasures with the diligence of Mr. T. You can read what CARE doesn’t want us to read here (letter to Feuer) and here (memo to membership). BASTARDS NEED NOT Continue Reading →