You can listen to the HB 5428 Senate floor debate at the link at the bottom of this blog. The debate is about 33 minutes long.
What I find interesting is that many of the senators theoretically “got” the idea of our “rights”–but failed to grasp that the bill, with its multi-layered “consents,” forms “information exchanges” and liabilities obviated those rights, kept the state in control, and gave adoptees and their families nothing but a big messy pile of obtuse rigmarole that can only be sussed out with a pitchfork.
On June 10, 1919, Illinois ratified the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution, which gave women the right to vote. What if Illinois leggies that day declared:
All women have the “basic right” to vote. However, we are concerned about the affect female voters will have on male reputation and status in the community. We need to protect the rights of those husbands who believe that the marriage contract promised them that their wives would never be allowed to vote.
To balance the right of women to vote with the right of husbands to protect their reputations and status, we are mandating a mutual consent voter registration law, which authorizes husbands to dictate what level of franchise their wives can practice: full, limited and/or’s (school board, municipal, state, national, initiative, referendum, tax) and, of course…none at all.
Actually, that scheme would have made suffrage reactionaries quite happy as the passage of HB 5428 has made our current crop of bastardphobic reactionaires and adoptahacks happy.
http://media.doughney.net/2010/illinois-hb5428-20100421.mp3
Brilliant!
I agree, BRILLIANT!!
May I repost on my blog?
I noticed too, across the board, that many people grasped the “rights” aspect of this but failed to understand the bill. Some of the adoptee apologist supporters of the bill who weren’t necessarily in cohoots with the corrupt CI system were there because they were absolutely desperate for reunion. They were willing to sacrifice their rights as people and failed to understand the bill because they were so blinded by their desire to “find somebody.”
It’s sad because they have no clue that their support actually made their rights AND their reunion WORSE. If you don’t understand Adoptee Rights, you should sit back and let the pros do it–sorry, that’s just the way it is. Meanwhile Triona et. all were working their butts off to undo the damage that others had no idea they were doing. Another huge set back as if things weren’t bad enough already.
Sure. Please feel free to repost or link anything I write here. Just be sure to source it.
As to the sacrificing of the mother to the litiginous crowd part of this, there were other mothers willing to throw themselves and the rest of us under the bus to get this piece of whatever passed.
You have to read it and read it well, all 84 pages of it, to pick out the bits that make it a bad bill. Though it isn’t in the name of adoptee rights, the mothers of SMAAC are totally against this bill and many of us are contacting the Gov. of IL urging veto.
Well-written and compelling, Marley.
I’ve been focusing on the adoptee angle, of course, but there’s enough in this piece of trash to piss of everybody. This is a politicians bill nothing else. I’ve not heard of one single person who supports this bill outside of Feigenholtz’s small circle of friends, but I suppose there are some. If 5428 is so great, why was it hidden and snuck through?
I don’t believe for a moment that the fact that this thing was the size of the Titanic was accidental. That many didn’t read it nor have read a lot of the law that is already in place in IL is understandable, because of the sheer volume! Add to that that it was obviously written to confuse!
Exactly Sandy. It was torture to read, and it was meant to confuse. I’ve heard stories that those of us who are fighting this bill are being called “too stupid” to understand what the bill is “really” about. I don’t think for one moment most of the leggies actually read the bill. But then Melisha and Sara have always been wordy and nonsensical. The big question is what’s the pay-off.
We had to fight against a “Mother, may I?” bill here in California recently. It would have given parents who relinquished their children (and their parental rights) a new right that they currently do not have – the right to keep their adult offspring from having access to their own birth records. I used the suffrage analogy several times in discussing the issue. But, of course, we too were dealing with adopted persons who were so desperately focused on the hope of reunion for most that actual rights took a back seat.
If suffragists had been short-sighted enough to agree to privileges for some, or even most, rather than rights for all, I believe we’d still be fighting for the vote for everyone. When you create a disparate law, it’s hard to go back to try to get rights for all. Not only do legislators feel that the issue has been handled, but new rights have now been created for the group that gets to decide for the other group. As it stands now, relinquishing parents in California have no right to keep their relinquished adult offspring from accessing their own birth records. (Currently, the state seals records to all adopted citizens, unless a court order is obtained by the adopted person.) Relinquishing parents have no say in whether or not an adopted person gets access to the OBC. A bill like HB 5428, however, creates this new right for parents who’ve relinquished, as long as the relinquished offspring has been legally adopted. Of course, if their offspring were never adopted, they don’t have a say, as the birth records aren’t sealed.
Those behind HB 5428 reach a real low in terms of sneaking a bill through and trying to hide every step of the process from those who have an interest in equality for all adopted citizens. It’s so disheartening. It is even more disheartening to see adopted persons who are willing to give into such bills.
Good analogy, Marley. Permission is permission and if you need permission it is not a right. That seems easy enough to comprehend.
Robin, would this bill be ok with you and the senior mothers if mothers were included in the people who could not be sued by the adoptee?
That piece is of no concern to me, but as Marley said there is something to hate for everyone in this awful bill.
“”It is even more disheartening to see adopted persons who are willing to give into such bills.””
As well as some *birth mothers* who want to *appear* as supportive and a great friend to adult adoptees, when they never even take the time to REALLY read and COMPREHEND what these bills are really about. These type of *birth mothers* not only throw the adoptees under the bus, but other nmothers as well…who have taken the time to read, to comprehend and question what they don’t comprehend in these bills. So much eagerness to tell one and all…”I eat the Plum Pudding so ignorantly, What a Good Birthmother Am I’! PFFFFT!
i, too, would like to re-post this post on my website, and as you said, with sources citation. The more readership, the better.
Great post!
I really wish that people understood that the “mother, may I” kind of legislation is NOT what we mothers are wanting. This is industry speak and they try to speak for us. Unfortunately, when we get out the megaphones to tell the truth, they get out the bullhorns. More of ’em…better funded. Don’t get mad at us for something someone else says we want, especially when it isn’t true.
I am so frickin’ sick of being a target to deflect the bullets that should be hitting the industry.
It still has too many loops and whorls for me, as well, Maryanne. A simple OBC access bill would be acceptable but not one that puts any of us, mothers or adopted people, in the way of lawsuits, fines, interference or Big Brother-ism. I think that most of us can handle our relationships or lack of them on our own, quite well. Also, the exchange of any information, medical (which is a red herring, anyway) or otherwise, should be voluntary and private and between the mother and the adult adoptee.
Which state was it that wanted to require the permission of the adopters in order for an ADULT adoptee to access their OBC? I know I read it somewhere. In natural families, our raised children would laugh themselves into a seizure if it were intimated that they had to have our permission for anything.