Actions Speak Louder than Words: The Evan B. Donaldson Strikes Out on HuffPo

Wednesday (January 12) the Huffington Post published a blog, A Civil Right: Adoptees Have a Right to Access Their Own Birth Certificates by Adam Pertman, director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. In it, Mr. Pertman calls for the restoration of the right of adoptees to their own original birth certificates. Or does he? Only after 3 1/2 paragraphs, in which Mr. Pertman discusses slavery, suffrage and DADT, does he get around to adoptees (not bastards) and our obcs. To the casual reader, with little or no background on deformist history, the piece may make a good read. Unfortunately it isn’t. Mr. Pertman simply continues the Donaldson’s spurious claim to support obc access for all, while it happily works for passage of bills that restrict access for some, leaving classes of bastards behind to float in a black hole. For instance, last year Mr. Pertman delivered eloquent testimony before a New Jersey House committee hearing declaring the right of all adoptees, without restriction, to their original birth certificates Unfortunately, he was testifying in support of A1406, a deform bill that contains disclosure and contact vetoes (even worse, used interchangeably; that is, a poor bastard with a contact veto slapped Continue Reading →

Orwellian Adoption Deformers: a quote

I am struck more and more by the Doublethink of adoption deformers. The ability to speak out of both sides of their mouths proclaiming “truths”to reputuate at will, and back again. I’m not going to write an essay here post a quote from 1984: The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them….To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth. …Orwell, George (1949). Nineteen Eighty-Four. Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd, London, part 1, chapter 3, pp 32 You’ve taken something solid from meGive me something to call my Continue Reading →

WHAT IS DEFORMED: A Response to the Passage of Illinois HB 5428 by Maryanne Cohen, guest blogger

Maryanne Cohen sent the following as a comment to Bad Day in Illinois, regarding the passage of HB 5428. I posted it there, but thought it was so good, and voices what many of us feel right now, I am posting it, with Maryanne’s permission, as a separate guest blog. I am working on a long piece on Illinois and not sure when it will be finished. There is much to say about this travesty. ****** I am so disgusted over IL signing a terribly deformed bill into law, and all these other bad bills popping up like warts all over the country. This has really made me understand the term “Adoption Deformer” used by some to describe the people who push these bills. What is deformed? The notion that convoluted compromise bills are “fair” and consider the “conflicting rights” of adoptees and birhparents. This ignores the fact that birthparents gave up ALL rights around the adoptee when they signed a surrender. There are no “conflicting rights” until deformed bills with vetoes write them into law. Some Deformers have the nerve to say bad bills are “better” than clean ones, and to eagerly offer to advertise them far and wide Continue Reading →