Tag Archives: Publication

Radiance Foundation: what’s bad for the goose is good for the gander

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A few days earlier I published a post about the hypocritical lack of support for adoptee rights from the adoption-pushing Radiance Foundation. I mentioned that I’d been blocked from reading its tweets for asking politely if the christo-right Radiance and its CEO Ryan Bomberger, a very vocal happy adoptee, supported adoptee rights. (And no, I didn’t address Ryan as “christo-right!) You’d think Radiance would weigh in on this since Ryan, Inc considers adoption the cure-all for abortion and has made it a keystone of the foundation’s ideology. I fail to see how anti-aborts anywhere can not support adoptee rights without looking like a hypocrite ,but they do and get away with it, and Ryan Bomberger is one of the biggest scofflaws out there. Barely a day goes by when a unicorn doesn’t sprout from Ryan’s brow, but I’ve never seen an OBC or court record spout from his fingers Continue Reading →

God Bless the Child Who’s Got His Own

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Unlike legislators, policy wonks,and paid lobbyists, who sell their labor for big bucks and usually have no dog in the fight, those of us in adoptee rights live the cause. It is our civil rights, narratives, histories, relationships, and health, that are affected adversely by archaic sealed records laws. We don’t have aides to do our scut work. We don’t have the luxury of going home at night and forgetting it all. We squeeze in time between work and personal responsibilities to get the work done. Continue Reading →

Does the Radiance Foundation Support Adoptee Rights? Apparently Not.

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Abortion is about not wanting to be pregnant. Adoption is about not being able or wanting to parent. The link between abortion and adoption has been totally debunked except for anti-aborts who need it to,ball gag adoptees, an activity increasingly more difficult to accomplish. In the example above, though, the Radiance plea goes farther than false linkage. Not only must these “babies” be saved from the abortotorium, but family preservation and mother and child relationships and affection aren’t even in the organizational vocabulary. Radiance views abortion at any state of pregnancy as murder. It also assumes that women caught in unplanned and unwanted pregnancies will opt for abortion unless they can be “saved” through adoption.. Thus, any pregnant woman in the “right” circumstances is a potential murderer.

It is not enough then for babies to be “saved.” We need to pray that adoption rates increase. That is,”saved” and “safe” babies, need to be ripped from their mother’s wombs and transported into the aching arms and gated homes.of the Worthy Class while courageous relinquishing mothers bask in the radiance of selflesness. Radiance has several projects going, and the closest that comes to actually recognizing biological mothers is Sally’s s Lambs, which gives out baskets to newly de-babyed women that include Bibles, lotions candles, restaurants gift cards, and a book of poems by Helen Steiner Rice. to “help her feel cherished and remind her of the beauty of her decision.” I gave my baby away and all I got was this lousy basket. Continue Reading →

Sojourner Truth Speaks to Adoptees: If my cup won’t hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn’t you be mean not to let me have my little half-measure full?

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What is really ironic is that Bastard Nation is considered “radical,” for demanding restoration of adoptee civil rights, and making Class Bastard the co-equal of the majority Not Adopted Class. But who is the real radical?

What is more radical than the goverwnment confiscating and sealing the public birth records of 6 million Americans because they are adopted?.

What is more radical than …. Continue Reading →

National Adoption Month and National Adoption Awareness Month. Is there a difference?

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After reading the article three times, the only difference I can see is that NAM is government sponsored (paid by you know who) to educate the public and celebrate adoption. NAAM, is the privately sponsored brainchild of adopta evangelical gadfly Mardie Cardwell (funded by you know who) to educate the public and celebrate adoption. Ms Cardwell, enjoys the additional distinction of being the only adoptee I know of who has ever been nominated for the Demons of Adoption Award (2013). Continue Reading →

Minnesota: A brief commentary on agency post-adoption service incompetence

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I won’t quote a length here, but this selection from “Observations and Recommendations” sets the dismal tone on the status of adoption agency search requests In Minnesota and highlights two” problems” which we as adoptee rights activists throughout the country hear continually about from individuals who contact us directly or who write about their frustrations on discussion forums and Facebook: payment demands (pay to play) and agency “inability” to locate records.” Do adoption agencies still claim records were lost in a fire or flood? Continue Reading →

Adoption Searches as humanitarian intervention: an adoption industry cash cow

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Catholic Charities charges $500 for a search because they use an online service that costs $175 a month and some searches can take thousands of staff hours, said Matt Kerr, spokesman for the Diocese of Allentown, Catholic Charities’ parent organization.

Thousands of staff hours on a search?. Is the CC internet powered by tin cans and a string?

This is well….crazy,and dare I suggest a lie. Continue Reading →

Adoption Swag: Are Adoptees Immaculately Conceived?

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Until 1980 when  I read BJ Lifton’s Lost and Found   I felt like I’d been dropped out of the sky like Clark Kent, only without his super powers.I knew I had a “mother” out there somewhere who for some reason couldn’t “take care of me.” I pictured her as a no-nonsense  business woman in a brown suit. I have no idea where that came from except the  idea revealed itself shortly after I watched Katherine Hepburn in Desk Set. A couple years later, my sophomore year in high school to be exact, I was horrified when a classmate mentioned to me casually, as we lolled against the gym wall eying boys at a school dance, that her parents had married a year after she was born. I was not as much horrified for her as I was for her icky parents who had had sex before marriage. I think I kept my facial composure.  I actually wondered what I’d do if I learned my parents (adoptive, I suppose) had had sex before they were married. I was a slow learner. Only later that year did it occur to me that I might be the product of two icky parents who couldn’t Continue Reading →

Welcome to National Adoption Awareness Month, Again. Getting ready for the collective upchuck.

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It’s that special time of year again when adoptees young and old, are objectified, commodified, homogenized and monetized by the media, the adoption industry and its special- interest hangers-on– consumers, lobbyists, politicians, anti-aborts, evangelicals, white saviors, neo-colonialists, social engineers, nation builders, and kitchen table entrepreneurs–rallying ’round the flag chanting their good works. Note the invisibility in this celebratory circle jerk of producers (natural, birth, first, original biological parents) and products (hapless schmuck bastards) and the emphasis on white picket fence consumers with disposable–or crowd funded– incomes in need of “a child” to make them “complete.” With their stories dripping in sentiment, personal drama, and public theatre, you’d never know that the adoptee rights movement is well into it’s 7th decade or that not all adopted people are enamored for a myriad of reasons, with adoption in general or their adoption in particular. Hell, most people outside of AdoptionLand don’t even know that our original birth certificates are sealed. NAAM, in essence, is a time for hard core primal woundies and reunionists, and hard core political organizers and activists, often at odds, to issue a collective projectile upchuck. Continue Reading →

National Adoption Awareness Month Prequel: Blessed by Adoption

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Life is a gift, NAAMsters proclaim, and adoptees are a gift, nonetheless erased curiously +from the adoption narrative, snuggled safely and quietly inside “the family”–or in the case of Blessed by Adoption hoodies, between two hearts. An odd position for the symbol of” life” they purport to cherish. Continue Reading →