After spending part of yesterday and half of today staring at my computer screen, fret- and guilt-ridden, I finally re-designed the Bastard Nation New York State Page. Continue Reading →
Compared to Uhrlaub, Bill Pierce and the National Council for Adoption in its anti-adoptee heyday were pikers. Uhrlaub claims irrationally that adoptees do not have rights– that adoptee access to OBCs and other state-held adoption documents is not a right at all, but a matter of tweaking adoption procedure and process! The ability to access our OBCs, etc. already exists, he claims straight-faced, and is recognized (for instance via court orders). Access, it seems, has just not been interpreted or utilized correctly by legislators, policy wonks, courts, and bureaucrats –or something like that. Using Uhrlaub’s logic, woman suffrage or the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were about legal tweaking, not voting rights. Continue Reading →
This past weekend the Libertarian Party held its annual Freedom Fest in Las Vegas. Reason Magazine has published a series of short interviews with attendees a la Humans of New York. Among them is Larry Sharpe, who recently announced his run for New York Governor on the LP ticket. (Sharpe, part of the”bleeding heart libertarians,” contingent came in second behind Bill Weld in his bid to run for VP with Gary Johnson in the 2016 presidential election.).
Sharpe is adopted, and he is not happy with sealed records. Here is what he says: Continue Reading →
Nice guerrilla action in New York this weekend. Not about adoption but close. The National Women’s Liberation Army hit five pharmacies in the Union Square area Saturday in search of Plan B (emergency contraception). According to Reality Check, some drug stores not only hide the Morning After Pill behind the counter, but keep it in a locked box! From Realitly Check: (emphasis (mine) During the action, group leaders would loudly announce to the store that the brigade was looking for the morning-after pill. Group members then would disperse, asking where the emergency contraception was and handing shoppers a letter to the pharmacy’s CEO. “The morning-after pill is locked in a box? You have to carry the box around the store?” protesters would say to each other. “Sure, so the whole store knows you had sex last night. That’s like wearing a dunce cap!” Indeed, many stores either keep Plan B behind the pharmacy counter, don’t stock more than two pills at a time, or keep the pill in a locked box that has to be opened by a store employee at the counter. Furthermore, employees are often confused about who has permission to open the box. NWL’s letter to pharmacy CEOs Continue Reading →