Bastardette's Back!

I've been pretty much wiped out this month with bronchitis (again) I went to the Hard Rock with it, came back with it, and kept it. I've wasted nearly the whole month reading my collection of James M. Cain novels and playing computer games on FB. I think this are better, so I'm back. I've got plenty to say.

And don't get me started on Obama's bc and Donald Trump. Actually, I am started, and that's what I'll be writing about.

Rhode Island: Bastard Nation Testimony - in Support - H5453

TESTIMONY

SB 5453

an act to permit adoptees to obtain

a non-certified copy of their original birth certificates

Rhode Island House Judiciary Committee

April 12, 2011

SUPPORT

Privilege is the opposite of rights

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization is the largest adoptee civil rights organization in the United States. We support full, unrestricted access for all adopted persons, upon request, of their own true, unaltered original birth certificates (OBC). We fully support HB 5453 and its companion S0361. We support no other bill in either chamber.

******

Bastard Nation is delighted to endorse and support SB 5453, a bill that restores the right of all Rhode Island adopted persons, without restrictions or conditions, to access their original birth certificates upon request.

• SB 5453 is inclusive. The bill, as written, is a simple-to-understand measure that recognizes the presumed right of all Rhode Island adults--adopted and not adopted-- to unrestricted access and ownership of their true birth certificates.

• SB 5453 is about rights not reunion. It is about the relation of adoptees to the state. Search and reunion are personal matters outside of government control and mediation.

• SB 5453 maintains the current level of adoption "confidentiality" and practice. Adoption records are sealed upon finalization, not relinquishment. If an adoption petition is rejected by the courts, or the petition is withdrawn, the birth certificate remains unsealed. If an adoption is overturned or disrupted, the birth certificate is unsealed. Even in traditional closed adoptions first parent identities are often recorded on court documents given to adoptive parents without first parent consent. Similarly, legal advertisements with identifying information are often published, and courts may open adoption records for “good cause” without first parent consent. Most significantly, if a child is never adopted the birth certificate is never sealed. Thus, if sealing birth certificates was meant to hide parental identities absolutely, records would be sealed upon relinquishment, not finalization

• SB 5453 does not open original birth certificates to the public. Original birth certificates are unsealed only to the adoptees and designated persons, not the public.

Access Access to original birth certificates guarantees that adopted persons can prove their citizenship status and "legal identity." Adopted adults, especially since 9/11, are increasingly denied passports, drivers licenses, pensions, Social Security benefits, professional certifications, and security clearances due discrepancies on their amended birth certificates, and their inability to produce an original birth certificate to answer the problems.

Adoptees without a genuine original birth record could soon be barred from running for public office. At least 10 states have introduced legislation requiring presidential and vice-presidential candidates to present their original birth certificates to appropriate authorities to prove citizenship eligibility for office. Some of these bills go farther, mandating anyone running for office to prove citizenship through an original birth certificate. It is no stretch to think that someday soon adoptees could be barred from voting due to lack of “legal” identity over problematic amended birth certificates, and the perpetual sealing of the originals.

Kansas and Alaska have never sealed original birth certificates. Since 1999 four states have restored to adoptees the unrestricted right to records and identity access: Oregon through ballot initiative, and Alabama, New Hampshire, and Maine through legislation. No statistics are available for Kansas and Alaska, but approximately 17,000 OBCs in the latter four states have been released with no reported ill consequences.

Rights are for all citizens, not favors or privileges for some. Rhode Island does not privilege rights by race, religion, ethnicity, age, or gender. It should not privilege rights by adoptive status.

SB 5453 gives Rhode Island lawmakers the opportunity to lead the country in positive adoption reform by restoring adoptee civil rights in the state. The bill will harm no one, but will restore equality, dignity, and fairness to adopted persons and their biological and adopted families Please vote YES on SB 5453. It's the right thing to do!

Bloodline

I don't care if this IS a commercial!

I'm waiting for the professional adoption class to file a complaint about it. After all, if the Care Bears and Anne of Green Gables offends...and Who's Your Daddy and Orphan (and here) will kill off adoption, (no pun intended) ...this is bound to make adopted clean slates feel like second class citizens. Bloodlines indeed!

"It's my turn."

Missouri SB 351: Passes Senate; Bastard Subservience in the Name of Protection and Shame Continues

Really bad SB 351 passed the Senate yesterday. I don't have the count right now. While the passage of this bill is enough bad news for one day, new language has been added to the perfected bill to make the day even darker:

If the biological parents have consented to the release of identifying information under subsection [11] 10 of this section, the court shall disclose such identifying information to the adopted adult or the adopted adult's lineal descendants if the adopted adult is deceased. If the biological parents were married to each other at the time of the request for identifying information or at the time of death of one of the biological parents, the information shall not be released until the death of the surviving biological parent, unless the surviving biological parent consents to such release.

In other words: more restrictions, more red tape, and more third party consents to keep bastards subservient to the state and our birth records locked up.

It's worth noting that SB 351 and its companion HB 427 are supported by Missouri Catholic Charities. Below is a comment we received on Bastard Nation's testimony entry posted on the Daily Bastardette:

Yes, SB 351 and the HB 427 companion bill are both search-based not rights bills crafted by MO's Catholic Conference and MO paid searcher, Laura Long, and sponsored by lawmakers who, no surprise here, happen to be Catholic.

Laura Long is a court CI and has her own search business on the side with a different email addy from her court business with a "pay now" link. She's announced at her blog if law is passed it will be like winning the lottery. For her, of course.

At the Senate hearing this week the sponsor, an adoptive father of 3 kids all adopted from abroad, stated while the bill referred to us as adult adoptees he wanted us to be known as "adult orphans". (Honestly, you can't make this stuff up). He began by saying we want information about our adoptive parents LOL then later changed it to bpars.

For the past decade MO's CWLA agencies have done nothing to help change MO law, and one in particular has supported keeping the vetoes. On OBC bills, I no longer think CWLA has any credibility.

Signing out as a MO Adult Orphan though I wasn't.

SB 351 has moved to the House where it received it's first reading on April 7.

For more about about SB 351 read Bastard Nation's testimony.

Rhode Island: Providence Journal Supports Clean Bill S0361/H5453!

From the editorial page of today's Providence Journal:

People in the Senate have been blocking change on a number of fronts. For instance, the Senate leadership last year absurdly wanted to change the bill to allow access to original birth certificates only to those 18 or over and born after Jan. 1, 2011! That largely defeats the purpose of the clean bill above...

We implore the Senate to stop holding up this legislation. It should promptly pass Senate Bill 0361 (the sister House version is H 5453) and let adoptees know this vital information about themselves.

Read the entire editorial and voice your support at the link above!

H5453 will be heard in RI House Judiciary on April 12. Bastard Nation will submit our support testimony this week and later post it on Daily Bastardette and the Bastard Nation blog page.

For more information on submitting your own written testimony for H5453 contact:

Roberta Di Mezza

Committee Secretary

401-222-2258

Also contact Judiciary Committee members. Go here now for our action alert and committee contact information.

Make Rhode Island #7!

ADDENDA: I was in a hurry yesterday and forgot the add the caveat that the editorial stresses medical history--again. It is imperative that medical history never be used in any argument for records access. It has no relation to our right to our own OBCs. No one has a right to someone else's medical history. Stressing this potential "benefit" of OBC access dilutes the rights message, and can end in laws that create anonymous registries and other anti-rights legislation.

Medical history arguments are as specious as opposition claims that adoptees will "track down" parents and harm them. All rights have consequences, but cannot be restored, "granted" or denied on grounds of potential reactions.

April 1 News Flash: National Council for Adoption Disbands, Regroups as National Council for Adoption Abolition. Will Unseal all OBCs Immediately!

This just in!

The National Council for Adoption has announced that it has ceased its 31-year promotion of adoption. As of April 1, the organization will be known as NCFAA: the National Council for Adoption Abolition. It's first act will be to order states to open immediately, the original birth certificates of all adoptees with no condition.

"It's the least we can do. Our shameful acts have destroyed the lives of millions" says NCFAA president and CEO, Chuck Johnson. "We need to make amends. Whether they want them or not, we're going to make sure that every adoptee in the United States receives ASAP a certified copy of their OBC."

Johnson says that NCFAA is so excited about its new mission that it will pay the cost of reproduction, certification, and FedExing of all documents.

In addition to unsealing OBCs, within six weeks of April 1, NCFAA plans to open regional adoption abolition re-education camps for adoption agents, lawyers, and facilitators as well as Catholic Bishops, Mormons, civil libertarians, and coerced-pregnancy advocates. Special adoption abolition intensives for politicians are planned in each state starting with New Jersey, Missouri, Texas, California, Utah, and Florida. Utah politicians will receive special instruction on the rights of biological parents and will be sent to jail if they refuse to comply with new NCFAA rules.

Johnson says the NCFAA board is considering setting up a separate search and reunion non-profit to do free, searches for "the people we have so shamefully disenfranchised over the last three decades." Details will be announced in May.

Johnson is curious about the reaction of adoption deform groups, such as the American Adoption Congress, NJCare, and the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, to its re-branding. "We've never understood what these fools actually think about adoption--especially the OBC issue," Johnson told The Daily Bastardette in an exclusive interview. "What in the world do they actually want?"

"These deformers, unlike bishops, baybee lovers, liberal do-gooders, and politicians, never seem to have an agenda--a belief system. They say one thing, do another, and settle for what little they might get out of us. I mean, look at New Jersey for Pete's sake. If that's all those hosers can get in 30 years, and then we come in and open the records in a few minutes, how does that make them look? Snooki could have done a better job."

Johnson pointed to worries his predecessor at NCFAA (then NCFA) Tom Atwood had about the Donaldson.

"Poor Tom! He nearly choked on his microphone debating Adam Pertman on NPR a few years ago, when Pertman came out promoting a government-run federal reunion registry. That was bad enough, but then he started to ramble about how great adoption is--it just needs tweaked. It was a real WTF moment for Tom. I mean, why bother when the mediagenic "good guy" leaves you in the dust?"

Johnson says Atwood's flummox made him re-evaluate the role NCFA had played in promoting adoption. "If the wimpy Donaldson can out-adoption us, then what's the point? It's time for a change."

"We want to be on the right side of history," Johnson told the Daily Bastardette. He says the whole idea of confiscating children and then distributing them to the desperate and infertile and hiding the evidence always bothered him. 'It's downright Marxist," Johnson declared. "Don't' expect somebody to make a kid for you. Either make your own or spend your money on a Lexus."

Thrilled with NCFAA new mission, Johnson nevertheless worries that it might be pulled into another battle with deformers. "It will be interesting, for sure," Johnson says," for us to fight for bastard supremecy while deformers defend our old status quo."

Johnson believes however, that NCFAA will win in the end. "If they are as incompent as they were in "opening" records then they'l l be just as incompetent in keeping them sealed."

After the OBC question is settled, NCFAA plans to disband its infant adoption training program, shut down maternity homes and safe haven drop offs. "We realize we have a big job ahead of us, Johnson says, "but it's the right thing to do."