IT'S BAAACKKKK!!!!!!! CALIFORNIA POLS ATTEMPT TO EXTEND SAFE HAVEN AGAIN

Perennial clownster California Assemblyman Alberto Torrico is back

Recently our favorite Kalifornia Kollectivist and his prankster friends Assbs Bonnie Garcia and Todd Spitzer introduced AB 81, described as "almost identical" to last session's Schwarzenegger-vetoed AB 1873, a bill which expanded the test drive time…er I mean, age of kids that parents can no-muss -no-fuss drop off anonymously at the neighborhood fire station. Currently babies no older than 3 days are eligible for legal dumping. Torrico wants to raise the age to 30 days to give moms time to decide if sleep deprivation, dirty diapers, and post-partum depression are worth it. (Be careful what you ask for Al!) If you don’t believe me, go to Stupid things Californians Say about Baby Safe Haven Laws. By the time AB 81 is over with, there will probably be enough material for Volume 2.

It’s one thing when the CranksRUs at Bastard Nation and other uppity adoptee and adoption reforms groups oppose a safe haven bill. What else can you expect? We’re selfish, spoiled, and ungrateful that we weren’t dumpsterized.

But AB 1873 was opposed by the heavy hitters of the California safe haven movement: impeccably credentialed LA County Supervisor Don Knabe and Debi Faris-Cifelli keeper of the Garden of Angels baby cemetery in Yuicapa. They, along with the LA County District Attorney, LA County Sheriff, California State Welfare Directors Association, and California Department of Social Services strenuously opposed the age expansion fearing that it would dilute the whole point of the original law which was a "safe haven" for mothers is a so-called "crisis" situation and keep babies in a dangerous or neglectful environment. They even used OUR argument that safe haven would be used as a way to get around traditional surrender. (heh! heh!) As Faris-Cifelli wrote to Schwarzenegger, “[AB 1873] changes the dynamics of the law." No kidding! And Schwarzenegger agreed.

The extension of age limits is a natural growth of safe haven law. Dr. Pierce saw newborn legal abandonment as the nose nudged through the door for legal older child abandonment. If California lets this AB 81 pass, it will shove that door wide open.

BTW, inquiring minds want to know: Where does the National Safe Haven Alliance stand on this bill?

ALABAMA DAD DROPS DIME ON MOM: BABY SAVED FROM SAFE HAVEN MILL

Beautiful! This just in from Andalusia, Alabama: Baby's mom found, no charges filed.

Last Friday police were called to investigate the attempted safe havening of a newborn girl at Andalusia Regional Hospital. Normally, safe haven desperadas are met with open arms and blind eyes. In this case, though, the authorities blinked. The baby, wrapped in "soiled beach towels" and with her cord still attached, was suffering from abnormally low body temperature, a condition that led authorities to believe (reason not stated) that she had been left in an abandoned building for 12 hours before the hospital turnover. After emergency treatment in Andalusia, the baby was transported to Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola where she was listed in serious condition.

Here's the "good" part:

"[Andalusia Police Chief Wilbur] Williams said that investigators learned the woman's identity on Saturday after receiving a tip from her husband. He said the woman cooperated with their investigation. She was questioned by law enforcement authorities, including the district attorney, on Saturday."Williams said the man suspected his wife was pregnant, but that she had led her husband to believe that she had a tumor for which she was being treated. She delivered the baby at home while her husband was at work, Williams said.

If this isn't a clear case of how safe havens trash the parental rights of fathers, I don't know what is. The husband of a mother is the presumed and legal father of her child. His relinquishment consent is mandatory for a legal adoption to proceed--except when safe haven is evoked. Sorry Charlie! With safe haven "protections" mothers can lie and commit fraud legally and in secret--with the encouragement of the state--to strip husbands and dads of their parental rights and due process. In the Andalusia case, only through an investigation spawned by the the dumb "luck" of a sick baby was the father, who suspected his wife was in pregnancy denial, located quickly and the baby retrieved from the jaws of the safe haven mill.

Of course, safe haven promoters will say that this case illustrates how "the system works." Spare me! The only reason this baby wasn't dumped without comment is because she wasn't dropped off nice, warm, clean, and comfy. If she'd been hand-delivered wearing a fashionable Susan Lazar cable knit Egg layette and snuggled to an Alvin & Sparky pink bunny nobody would have batted an eye. It's a mother's "choice." It's that or kill it!

We have no way of knowing that if the baby had been "surrendered" in traditional safe haven style that the incident would have been reported by the Alabama press; thus, hinting to a suspicious husband that his maybe pregnant wife maybe dumped a maybe baby. And if Mom dumped across the state line in Marianna or DeFaniak Springs or Pensacola or Bainbridge or Albany then Florida or Georgia would have tallied up another save with no connection made to Andalusia or Dad. How would he know what happened in another state? And if he did hear about an out-of-state dump, would he have connected it to his wife who maybe was secretly pregnant? The Andalusia dad can be faulted for not dragging his kicking and screaming wife to the doctor, I suppose, but husbands don't really like to think that their wives may be in pregnancy denial or practicing hidden pregnancy. It's well...nutty.

For now, the baby is in state custody. According to today's Andalusia Star-News, if she is determined to be in good health, no charges will be filed against the mother, proving that without a quirk of fate, the baby would could have been lost for good.

Whatever happens to this little one, at least we know she won't be anonymized in the safe haven baybee grinder. We hope she and her parents get the help they need. And we hope--though we doubt it--that this story will serve as a cautionary tale to safe haven promoters who think that dad's don't count and their rights can be flushed as easily as the rights of safe haven babies and the adoptees they're supposed to become.

*****
For more about dads' rights (or lack thereof) under safe haven check out Erik Smith.org, especially his articles on safe havens and "Smith v Hayes."

MASSACHUSETTS: POTENTIAL KILLER MOMS TAKE TIME OUT TO TURN IN MEDICAL AND SOCIAL HISTORIES?

Sunday, a curious post popped up on alt.adoption from our friends, the Massachusetts Morriseys. It appeared in an ongoing thread on what else but... baby dumps! I'm publishing the post in full, including the prior comment in which a poster discusses the difference between traditional sealed records and safe haven no records.

The difference is that a record does exist with closed adoptions and that the b-mom took some control of how the child she created, bore and delivered was relinquished. There is always the hope that those records will become available to the person they are about.

Raymond


Once again here's the record in Massachusetts. All 4 babies safely
surrendered under the Baby Safe Haven law have full medical histories,
and 3 have full family histories. Women are encouraged to give all of
this information at any time as they are fully immune from
prosecution. There's an ongoing effort to have women return following
a safe haven surrendering to give this info at any time.

Prior to passage of the law 3/4 of babies lost their medical history,
and heritage through death or refusal of women to give the info due to
possible prosecution. That data is absolute for the 4 year period
prior to passage of the law, and it goes back even further if need be
for research.

We're not going back to the days of deadly abandonments and heritage
stripping in Massachusetts due to inferior research and ill advised
opinions. We'll keep Baby Safe Haven.

Ms


(If you'd like to read the entire thread you can get alt.adoption through your newsreader or Google Groups. The thread is called "TEXAS - NEWS - Infant handed over at fire station.")


The Morriseys know jack about adoption (less than I know about video production), so it's hard to say what they are talking about exactly. What do they mean by "full family history"? I wrote that I found it "interesting" that 3/4 of Massachusetts' anonymous safe haven cases may actually be "disclosed," but the Ms response didn't respond to my response. I did, however, get the usual uppity-assed insinuation some kind of vague ungrateful adoptee activity on my part. All but one sentence of my original post was clipped from their response:

But the state wasn't facilitating the loss. There's a huge difference.

Marley

The numbers are the huge difference. You know them well. In the 4
years your groups fought the passage of the MA Baby Safe Haven law 6
of 13 babies abandoned died. Of the 7 who either barely survived or
were similar to safe haven surrendered more then half will have no
heritage of medical records because the Moms/Dads are to be
incarcerated/prosecuted.That's 3/4 of the babies in four years either dead or as you say
"stripped."

You are calling for the return of those kinds of statistics. And you
have no data or factual reports to back you up.

"There's a huge difference." We agree Baby Safe Havens works!

Ms


INQUIRING MINDS
Safe haven laws are marketed by the Morriseys and their ilk as a "safe and secret choice" for "desperate mothers" so afraid of being caught in the act of motherhood that they'll kill their babies unless the government lets them dump and run at an ER or police station. That three out of four Massachusetts dumpers, according to them, took the time to submit "full medical" and "full family" histories--and perhaps even identified themselves--then, doesn't make a whole lot of sense. These desperate moms sure don't sound like they're getting ready to play a game of Toss the Baybee in the alley behind the laundramat. Instead, they're doing a drive-by relinquishment--or as Dr. Pierce liked to say, "a nonbureaucratic placement." You know, for those clucks who find the way everybody else does adoption too burdensome. Or maybe they had no idea what they were doing, and nobody was about to tell them. Gotta keep that coffer full. Whatever. Let's hope these sensitive souls never want to buy a house. As far as I know squatting is still illegal in Boston, but perhaps the Morriseys, John Tobin, Barry Finegold and their socialist jackboots could fix that, too.

If we take the Morriseys' claim at face value, all sorts of questions arise, the basic being: why bother with anonymity if you're gonna give it all away? All adoptions in Massachusetts are confidential and closed legal proceedings anyway. How can an anonymous abandonment not be anonymous and still be called anonymous? It's confusing.

Here's some more questions:

Did the parents (who I assume are all mothers) receive professional counseling?

Were parents informed that all adoptions are confidential?

Were parents told that by using safe haven that they were not surrendering their child for adoption, but instead providing evidence to be used in an adversarial proceeding in which they have a right and duty to appear? That by using safe haven they would default their hearing?

Were fathers identified? Or even involved?

Were the dumpers really potential killers who blackmailed the state into negotiating with them?

Were these cases genuine safe haven relinquishments or run-of-the-mill hospital abandonments flipped into the safe haven pot to cook the stats?

If Massachusetts ever passes a real open records law, will the safe-havened be exempt from receiving identifying information on their parent(s) if it is on file? Will they even get non-identifying information if available?

If the safe-havened are not adopted, will they be able to access their birth records, including identifying information? They can't' go through life being called Baby Girl Dumped or Baby Beacon Hill. (Or maybe they can!) Will the safe-havened-but-not-adopted be denied an official identity?

What exactly is a safe haven in Massachusetts--not what the laws reads, but how it's practiced?

Why do the Morriesys know so much about these cases if all information is embargoed by the state? Shouldn't their kitchen table hotline gossip be "confidential"? Oops! I mean anonymous! Did the Ms or their hacks in low places tunnel their way into the file room and grab the files? Is there a mole in Farnsworth Street?

SAFE HAVENS ARE THE NEW SEALED RECORDS ONLY BETTER
The National Council for Adoption has made no secret about its safe haven interest: secret, sealed adoptions. Here's a snippet from NCFA's press release after the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute issued its Unintended Consequences report in 2003:

The strongest opponents of Safe Haven laws are the same activists and academics who advocate eliminating the option of privacy in adoption. Highest on their agenda is allowing adopted persons to open confidential adoption records unilaterally and retroactively without the knowledge or consent of birthparents, despite the birthparents’ having been promised privacy at the time of their placements. Among the Donaldson Institute’s top priorities is "educating policymakers and the public about the importance of giving adopted people access to information about their origins." Because Safe Haven laws allow women to relinquish their newborns anonymously, these opponents see the laws as a new threat to their agenda of opening all adoption records.

What's so amusing about this all is that although NCFA has stated repeatedly the purpose of safe havens is to maintain the sealed records status quo for industrial moneymuckers, the Morriseys and their friends deny it. Barring the possibility that the entire safe haven pack is illiterate, why do they continue this charade? NCFA president Tom Atwood is the president of the National Safe Haven Alliance and the Alliance operates out of NCFA's address in Alexandria. How hard do wannabe social workers need be hit in the head before they figure out this is not about baby saving, but manipulating adoptee identity, keeping bastards in their place, and maintaining a closed unaccountable adoption system.

At least NCFA is honest about that it's up to. What the rest of the pack chewing on?

BABY DUMPING TEXAS STYLE

I'm in the middle of writing two cumbersome out-of-control blogs, but this lovely story from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram crossed my screen (relevant parts posted here) that I just had to share:

A woman dropped off a baby Thursday at a southwest Arlington fire station, the first such incident since the city put up signs advertising that parents can drop off unwanted infants with no questions asked.

The 5-pound, 14-ounce boy, only a few hours old, was dropped off about 3 p.m. at Fire Station No. 10 on Southwest Green Oaks Boulevard.

Firefighters looking through window blinds had noticed that a woman had driven into the station's parking lot, sat in her car for a few minutes, then drove off, said Battalion Chief Mark Reichert.

About an hour later, he said, she came back, walked to the station's door, handed firefighters the baby in a blanket and said she found him in a trash bin.

Firefighters asked her no questions, Reichert said.

Hold it! Hold it! Hold it! Let me get this straight. A woman walks into a fire station, babe in arms, claiming she found it in a trash can, and nobody asks her any questions, not even her name? Nobody attempts to hold her--or even encourages her-- to stick around to talk to the cops. After all, she's a witness to a heinous crime. If this same woman had delivered a 55 year old man to the fire station, claiming she'd found him hanging out of a nearby dumpster, wouldn't firefighters be a tad bit curious, ask questions, and try to hold her for the police? Wouldn't she, in fact, as a good citizen, want to talk to police and do her part to see that justice is done? I know I would.

But safe haven laws make all the difference. Arlington firefighters knew that this woman was lying. Yet, she was permitted by law, to lie to them, make a false crime report, and walk out the door with no threat of prosecution.

This latest baybee dump episode gives Texas Justice a whole new meaning.

SAFE HAVENS, ABORTION, HYPOCRISY, AND NEW HAMPSHIRE'S PARENTAL NOTIFICATION LAW

New Hampshire anti-abortion politicians Rep Fran Wendelboe and former State Rep Phyllis Woods have gotten their socks in a bunch over HB 184. The bill repeals the state’s 2003 parental notification law that requires doctors to notify at least one parent 48 hours before performing an abortion on a minor. The other day the two Republican warhorses tossed a couple of tired chestnuts at repeal supporters: minors need parental consent to get their ears pierced or get an aspirin from the school nurse. It follows, they argue, that parents should have a right to a "say" in their minor daughters' decision to get an abortion.

Wendelboe and Woods, however, haven’t always been so concerned about that parental "say." In 2003, while they were busy saving fetuses, Woods sponsored and Wendelboe backed HB 104, New Hampshire’s Safe Haven newborn abandonment law that encourages these minor daughters to hide pregnancies from their parents, forgo prenatal care, and give birth alone and in secret in places like bathtubs or hotel rooms. The law lets these "desperate mothers" then anonymously drop-off their newborns at the neighborhood fire or police station or hospital, or even at a church with no questions asked-- and return home to mom and dad as if nothing has happened. No name. No shame. No blame.

What kind of twisted legal system requires a minor to inform her parents about her unwanted pregnancy if she wants to terminate it, but encourages her to keep that same unwanted pregnancy a secret from her parents if she intends to carry to term, give birth unattended, and anonymously abandon her baby?

Wendelboe and Woods need to put their money where their mouths are. If they are genuinely dedicated to parental notification, they should demand that their Safe Haven law be repealed immediately. After all, don't parents have a right to a "say" in their minor daughters' reproductive decisions?

NORTH CAROLINA: SAFE HAVEN "IT CAN'T GET ANY WORSE" FILE

Lately, Bastardette, has been derelict in blogitating. While agit-prop is fun (most of the time) I've spent an inordinate amount of time this past week researching, writing and tweaking testimony for some upcoming legislation. I'll keep this eloquent gem under wraps until it's actually submitted. We don't want to give the enemy a heads up, do we?

Over the next week I'll try to catch up on some half-written bloviations and get back to a modicum of regular posting.

Starting off-- this comes under the heading of "just when you think it can't get any worse."

North Carolina media reported yesterday the discovery of two dead newborns, one in Rocky Mount the other in Warsaw. Officials, of course, are "stunned" that "young desperate mothers" aren't using the state's "safe surrender" law. WRAL (print and video) reporter Christi Lowe says either "not enough women know about the law -- or if they do, they're not using it." Try Door #2, Christi.

Here's what stuns the unstunnable Bastardette: Social worker Regina Wesley tells Lowe that she and other social workers at the Cumberland County Health Department counsel every woman who comes in for a pregnancy test about safe havens. Does she also counsel them on how to locate local abortion providers? This is North Carolina. Why do I think not? (Bastardette once lived in Jax).

Miss Regina rattles on, "People need to know there is a safe solution to leaving your baby or killing your baby."

Has neglect, abuse, and murder become the default for North Carolina mothers? Are women who avail themselves to pubic services a suspect class? Are all women child killers at heart? I guess so if you work for the Cumberland County Health Department.

Can there be anything more insulting and demeaning for a just-informed mom-to-be than to be lectured by a state-paid social worker (or should I use the anti-adoptionst term "social wrecker"?) on the ins and outs of "legal" baby abandonment. "Don't worry about a thing, dear. We know you'll want to kill your baybee once its here, but you can save yourself the trouble-- and a possibly long vacation at NCCIW --by anonymously abandoning your the little tyke to a 'responsible person'--preferably at a hospital fire station or police department. Or me! Here, take this flyer that explains it all. Give me a call if you have any questions. "

Why is teaching women how to abandon their children an acceptable government practice?

I know. If it saves just one....