NEBRASKA: SCAVENGERS LAND IN LINCOLN, OMAHA!

The scavengers landed in Lincoln last Friday. Baby Safe Haven New England’s Jean and Mike Morrisey, and their teen baby dump diva Renee Marcou pecked their way into the zippity-do-dah session of the Unicam, where leggies couldn’t wait to pass LB 1, normalize child abandonment, and be out the door. Here’s a picture of Mrs. Morrisey in her notorious white suit, “safe haven” spokesinger Ms. Marcou, and Sen. Arnie Struthman, who started the whole Nebraska Fiasco with LB 157. From the look on Struthman’s face, he can die a happy man now. It’s not everyday a fella can wreck his state’s child welfare system AND get a thankful hug from an up-and-coming pop star hottie. Maybe they submitted testimony, twisted arms, or wagged appropriate cleavage behind closed doors, but neither the Morriseys nor Marcou testified during the Special Session, That would hardly keep them from the photo op, though. with the hint that they were important players in baby dump 2.0 According to a thinly veiled press release distributed by Baby Safe Haven Maharishi Mike Morrisey. (compare the November 23 press release on Marcou’s MySpace blog page to the article in the November 25 edition of Marcou’s hometown paper, the Continue Reading →

NEBRASKA: BN LETTER TO GOV. HEINEMAN–AGING DOWN DID NOTHING TO CHANGE THE MESSAGE THAT IT’S OK TO DUMP YOUR CHILD

Bastard Nation sent this letter to Nebraska governor Dave Heineman today. It is also going out to the Unicam and selected Nebraska media. Dear Governor Heineman: Bastard Nation, the Adoptee Rights Organization, is deeply troubled by the decision of last week’s Special Session, to repeal LB 157 and replace it with the equally odious LB 1. By doing so, Nebraska, institutionalized child abandonment, making it just another normal choice for parents unable or unwilling to fulfill their responsibilities to their children. Since their inception in Texas in 1999, Bastard Nation has opposed all so-called “safe haven” laws, which we call “baby dump laws. The causes of child dumping are social isolation, fear, family dysfunction, mental illness, substance abuse, poverty, and lack of social services or ability to access those already in place. LB 1 and its previous bill, don’t address these deep-rooted social and economic problems. They just make them “go away,” out of sight out of mind. The problems of parents, whether they are a frightened 15-year old mom of a newborn or a 55-year old grandpa caring for a mentally ill grandson, are very real, and they cannot and should not be solved by a quick-fix, government facilitated Continue Reading →

NEW BLC UPDATE ON NEBRASKA

I’m back home. One of the Bad Cats dumped a cup of Earl Grey into my laptop as I was writing this morning. Hopefully it will dry up. In the meantime, I”m working on slower computer which is hampering my efforts to get my letters out to Nebraska leggies today. Sabina offers an update on yesterday’s hearing here Apparently our baby dump friends now think that women suffering post-partum depression should be encouraged too dump their kids to avoid killing them. It goes on and on, while, as you will see from Sabina’s report, the social welfare system of the state staggers along into oblivion. Sabina should be awarded Bastard Maschocist of 2008 for listening to this without throwing a haame through her computer.

NEBRASKA: NOTE AND UPDATE

I am out of town and have been unable to do much original blogging right now. I’ve been working, though on a press release (below) and contacting leggies and media. Sabina is doing a bang-up job on monitoring events in Nebraska. She’s very painfully is listening to all of the Nebraska special session hearings–and pain is not a strong enough word to describe what is going on there. Please go over to Children of the Corn to read her updates. Also, just under the wire, another dump occurred yesterday. I wonder how many more there will be before Friday. Sabina has also reported on it.

NEBRASKA: BASTARD NATION PRESS RELEASE–REPEAL LB 157! STOP CHILD DUMPING NOW AND DON’T BRING IT BACK!

PRESS RELEASENOVEMBER 18, 2008 BASTARD NATION TO NEBRASKA: REPEAL LB 157!STOP CHILD DUMPING NOW!AND DON’T BRING IT BACK! CONTACT: Marley Greiner, 614-571-2999 or [email protected] Nebraska had it right the first time. It was the last state to pass a “safe haven” law. Nebraska can be the first to repeal this misbegotten law before any more families are harmed or even destroyed. Nebraska can lead the rest of the country in dragging itself out of this moral quagmire. Bastard Nation Testimony, Nebraska Judiciary Committee, November 17, 2009 Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization yesterday called for the permanent repeal of Nebraska’s LB 157, which permits anyone to abandon any child of any age at a licensed hospital in the State of Nebraska. The special session of the Nebraska Unicameral was called this week to revise the age limit on children eligible for abandonment, is looking at two bills, LB 1 and LB 3. Bastard Nation believes that dumping a child of any age is no solution to social isolation, fear, family dysfunction, and mental illness. The problems of parents, whether they are a frightened 15-year old mom of a newborn or a 55-year old grandpa caring for a mentally ill grandson, Continue Reading →

NEBRASKA: URGENT UPDATE! ACT NOW. CONTACT NEBRASKA SENATORS NOW!

(Consider this a personally posted action alert of sorts. Please forward freely with contact information attached.) Lots of VERY IMPORTANT, and very bad things are happening to Nebraska’s legalized Child Abandonment law right now. See Amendments 10 and 11 below in particular. This is the Nebraska page on LB 1, and its evolving amendments can be found listed down the right hand side. I’ve already written about Amendments 1 and 2 on the Nebraska related blog Marley Greiner and I are co-authoring- Children of the Corn These are new; AM 4– sets the cut off at 1 year AM 5– 30 days AM 6– four months AM 9– sets an expiration date- June 4, 2009 but the latest amendments are exactly what I suspected were coming;AM 10– insert “The person leaving such child may remain anonymous.” (emphasis added) and AM 11– insert “The hospital shall not require the person leaving such child to provide any medical history of the child or the child’s family. The person leaving such child may voluntarily provide medical history of the child or the child’s family.” (emphasis added) These last two amendments will have GRAVE lifelong consequences for Nebraska’s next set of State enabled abandoned Continue Reading →

BASTARD NATION TESTIMONY: REPEAL NEBRASKA LB 157 PERMANENTLY

Bastard Nation submitted testimony to the Nebraska Judiciary Committee for inclusion in yesterday’s hearing. It’s is rather long, so instead of posting it all here, I am posting a portion of it The entire testimony can be found here. I hope to have it on the BN site soon. Section 1 of testimony: REPEAL IS THE ONLY SOLUTION TO LB 157Bastard Nation calls for the immediate repeal of LB 157. We oppose LB 1 and LB 3 and any other bill that continues the “safe haven” concept of legal abandonment in the State of Nebraska. THE NORMALCY OF CHILD ABANDONMENTBN was the first organization to condemn “legalized” baby dumping as a public policy solution for newborn abandonment and neonaticide. We, along with many others in adoption reform, were initially incredulous that in the late 20th century baby abandonment would be promoted by the government. But with the 1999 passage of the Texas Baby Moses Law, and the interest evoked in other states for similar measures, we saw that the US was taking a backward turn in child welfare, which had struggled over the last 100 years to build a child-centered environment of rights, responsibility and education. Child abandonment, a heinous Continue Reading →

BASTARD NATION ACTION ALERT: URGENT! PERMANENT REPEAL OF LB 157–REJECT ALL ATTEMPTS TO AMEND!

BASTARD NATION ACTION ALERT IMMEDIATE ACTION NEEDED RE: NEBRASKA SAFE HAVEN LAW REPEAL IS THE ONLY SOLUTION TO LB 157. Members of the Nebraska Legislature convened Monday, Nov. 14 for a Unicam special session to address Nebraska’s disastrous safe haven law, LB157. This law allows any person to abandon any child up to the age of 19 to a state- designated safe haven. Since its passage last summer, this law has turned the safe-haven concept on its head. 34 children have been abandoned to state designated safe havens since Sept. 1st. It is urgent that you contact the Unicam legislators at once because bills introduced on the opening day of the Unicam session, Nov. 14th, will be eligible for final passage as early as this Friday, Nov. 21st. Bastard Nation calls for the immediate and PERMANENT repeal of LB 157. Furthermore, it calls for the defeat of LB 1, LB 3 and any other subsequent attempts by the Unicam to impose any baby dump/Baby Moses, safe haven bill on the people of Nebraska. LB 1 and LB 3, two alternatives to LB157, were introduced on Nov. 14th. LB1 would change the safe haven law to apply to infants 72 hours Continue Reading →

NEBRASKA LEGISLATIVE UPDATE: 2 NEW DUMP BILLS INTRODUCED

So far, Nebraska lawmakers have introduced two bills in response to the Governor’s call to revisit LB 157 and change the age of children eligible for “legal abandonment.” LB 1 limits the age of children who can be abandoned legally by their parents without prosecution to 72 hours. LB 3 creates a 2-tired system of legal abandonment: one for infants of up to one year of age; the other for children between the ages of 1 and 16. The second tier also creates regional and state “intervention teams” to assist families in abandonment crisis enabling them to access services and to avoid abandoning their children. There is no intervention team for infants. Apparently babies don’t mind being tossed away with no fuss or muss. Only Big Kids do. Both of these bills are unacceptable. Repeal is the only solution. For your convenience, we have placed links in the Children of the Corn sidebar to those bills More later.

NEBRASKA UPDATE: INDIANA, FLORIDA, TIME MAGAZINE

Here’s a quick update for this afternoon. Things are popping so fast, it’s hard to keep up. I’d like to write about what happened yesterday on Day One of the lame duck special session of the Unicam, but I’ve absolutely got to finish my testimony today. In the meantime: The Tate-Mote case continues to be in the news.Ronnie Tate, (left) father of the 8-year old dropped off in Omaha last week, has announced his intention to seek custody of the boy He is well aware that his 1988 child molestation conviction will hinder his chances of getting custody. Tate maintains he was innocent of the charge. The article and a video of Tate are here. Tate’s case bring up the untouched subject of what are the rights of the non-dumping parent. Yesterday Tate and his ex-wife Stephanie Mote and Mote’s father appeared in Wabash County Juvenile Court for a hearing to determine temporary custody of the boy. Mote’s attorney, not surprisingly, said that “it is extremely unlikely” that any of the boy’s relatives will get custody. Juvenile Court Judge Robert McCallen III has barred the press from the courtroom and ordered all parties in the case to halt interviews with Continue Reading →