MINNESOTA DEFORM MEASURE GOES DOWN

Recently, Minnesota Senate File 3193 passed the legislature. It would have opened original birth certificates to all adoptees unless a disclosure affidavit (veto) is on file. Currently anyone adopted before 1977 is blacklisted. Anyone born after that date has access unless a birth parent has filed a veto--a very active veto. In Minnesota, you see, whenever an adoptee requests their original birth certificate, the state (or its contractor) hunts down natural parents to see if they consent or object to their bastard's request. If they object, or if the state's super sleuths can't track them down--then their poor bastard gets nothing, unless he or she....goes to court for a "review." The veto remained in 3193.

Governor Tim Pawlenty vetoed the bill. Of course, Bastardette is happy that he did. But not for the same reasons. Pawlenty isn't happy when the state breaks promises to desperate and hiding middle aged natural parents. Bastardette doesn't like it when the state forges government documents about her friends.

Pawlety's veto message is in pdf form, and I'm not sure if this will get you there, but try it: Ch.%20330%20Veto%20Message.pdf Here's what Pawlenty (or NCFA) wrote:

This bill would erase the long-standing presumption of confidentiality for adoptions occurring before 1977 and make those records accessible in the same manner as more recent adoptions....sealed and confidential.... Although many birth parents may not object to the release of the pre-adoption birth certificates a significant number choose to preserve confidentiality. Statistics available from Lutheran Social Services indicate that, on average, 23 percent of the birth mothers contacted declined to release identifying information,. Releasing this information without their knowledge or consent has the potential to undermine the law and promises that existed for pre-1977 parents....Before 1977, the law supported a birth parent's expectation their identity and birth records would be forever sealed and confidential. Breaching the promise of confidentiality previously given to these birth parents is not appropriate. Any change of their legitimate expectation of confidentiality must include meaningful notice of the change to the law and an opportunity to protect confidentiality.

Two quick comments:

(1) I'm unsure if Minnesota contracts out search and destroy missions to Lutheran Social Services or if Pawlenty is using their "statistics" as an example. But, why would anybody want to talk to a stranger--a snippy social engineer with a fancy job title from Lutheran Social Services? Why perpetuate the harm done 20 or 30 or 50 years ago by another snippy stranger social engineer?. Natural parents and adult adoptees are all grown up. We can handle our own affairs. Why don't you go handle yours? Maybe you'd like it if I told your husband about you and Guy Noir.

(2) What promise of "confidentiality"? Did NCFA plunk its magic twanger and produce some promissory document signed by a functionary placing parents in the Minnesota Birth Parent Protection Program?

Good riddance to bad bills, but let's be realistic!

Outside of compromises that give favors to some, not restoration of rights to all, there's a little practical matter. It still won't pass muster with the Axis of Evil. No matter how much deformers remain compliant, roll over, and take whatever they think they can get (but won't) why do they continue this Kabuki show? The Axis of Evil finds disclosure vetoes, contact, vetoes, white outs, black outs, CIs or anything else you can come up with to subvert your own mission, unacceptable and will continue to kick sand in your face. Maybe a Charles Atlas makeover would help.

Thanks to J for the update!

OHIO: STATE SECRETS PROTECT DEADBEAT DUMPERS

On May 13, Erik Smith and I testified before the Ohio Senate Health, Human Services, and Aging Committee in opposition of SB 304 which will expand the time "desperate parents" can legally dump their baby from three days to thirty. This was the fifth hearing. I've been unable to attend the others, but I wanted to get a few words in before the inevitable happened. Ohio isn't exactly adoptee friendly. (see blog below)

Oddly, I was told that no one had presented oral testimony either for or against the bill, though the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services and Ohio Right to Life (who else!) supported it. After our testimony on Wednesday, Greg Kapcar, Assistant Leg Director for the Public Children's Services Association of Ohio gave proponent testimony. (Jim McCafferty, director of Cuyahoga County CS who loves safe havens, is on PCSAO's board). Kapcar was especially excited about an amendment added at Wednesday's hearing to authorize baby dumping promotion, though when asked what kind of promotion was planned he didn't know--exactly. Prompted by my earlier testimony that there was no evidence that babies 72 hours or older were being abandoned or killed in the state (which falls right in line with the Centers for Disease Control report on infant homicide), a member of the committee asked if he had any figures on that. Well...no, he didn't, but "it's better to err on the side of safety." (Mr. Kapcar also referred to adopton as the "final solution." I wish my anti-adoption mom friends had been there!)

Sen. Joy Padgett was surprised--even shocked-- that anyone opposed safe havens . I told her there is a lot of opposition, and even major proponents of safe havens, at least in California--including Don Knabe (r) (and here), Debbi Faris-Cifelli, ICAN (Inter-Agency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect), California Right to Life Advocates, the LA County Sheriff, the LA County DA,, and California Right to Life Committee (all here) opposed expansion and that Gov. Schwarzenegger had vetoed expansion twice. (and here). I also attached a list of adoption reform organizations that oppose.

Erik's bombshell that the Ohio law had been ruled unconstitutional recently by Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court Judge Peter M. Sikora (though no injunction was issued) flew right over their heads. (re Baby Boy Doe, 145 Ohio Misc.2d 1, 2007-Ohio-7244.) It will be up on Erik's webpage soon.

To no one's surprise, the bill passed out of committee unanimously. The House has a similar bill, HB 485, but with a six day limit. (Note-cosponsors include a substantial member of the Health Committee). So, we shall continue the fight.

By the way, six of the twelve members of the Health, Human Services, and Aging Committee were sponsors of the bill. It's a non-partisan thing. When current ODJFS director Helen Jones-Kelley (l) was the director of Montgomery County (Dayton) Children Services, she personally named each safe havened baby after herself. Baby Kelley 1, 2, and 3. (Dayton Daily News, paid archives, January 8, 2003, December 15, 2004).

*****

My testimony is too long to post here. Here, though is the second section, which some readers some might find interesting., since it's about how difficult it is for even an experienced public records researcher to track down. Baby dumps are the gold standard of adoption secrecy. I've added a couple sentences that were not in the original. presentation.

SAFE HAVEN SECRECY
On July 3, 2003 the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services (r) issued a press release about a “survey” it had conducted in all 88 counties to determine use of the new safe haven law. The press release included basic information: the number of cases and the counties where newborns had been surrendered. but it offered no details of individual cases. Those can only be found in newspaper reports, which tend to be sparse. The Cincinnati Enquirer and the late Post have been the only papers to cover safe haven surrenders in detail. The Toledo Blade also covers them, but without much detail. So, it’s tough going for the researcher.

The ODJFS safe haven survey was not on its website, and I called to get a copy. I was initially told by ODJFS spokesperson Carmen Stewart that it would be dropped in the mail, and I’d have it in a few days. It never arrived. On August 14, 2003, I filed a records request with ODJFS asking for a copy of the survey, a copy of the questionnaire I presumed was used in the survey, and any supporting documents such as safe haven determination standards, data gathering criteria, and information on its promotion budget. I did not request identifying information on safe haven cases. I received nothing, not even an acknowledgment of my request. After my fourth or fifth request I received a letter dated June 10, 2004 from Carrie Anthony, Chief of the Placement Services Section of ODJFS regurgitating the content of the press release. She informed me that “each ‘designated Safe Haven’ was responsible for their own record keeping and reporting.” No survey or questionnaire was attached.

On August 16, 2004, I emailed Rep. Scott Oelslager, who in turn contacted ODJFS about its lack of response, cc’ing me.

Fourteen months after my initial request to ODJFS, I received a letter, dated September 14, 2004 from Dorothy Hughes, Section Chief, Office of Children and Families with about 1/5 of what I requested: A chart of county-by county cases, with a hand-written correction, plus copies of safe haven material already available on the ODJFS website. Ms Hughes wrote that the much publicized “survey” was actually an “informal survey.”

Perhaps the informality of the survey along with the earlier claim that each “designated “Safe Haven” is responsible for its own record keeping explains the discrepancy in the number of safe haven incidents reported. For instance, Katerina Papas, counsel for Summit County CSB, in the September 14, 2003 Akron Beacon Journal (paid archives) claimed that four newborns had been surrendered under safe haven specifications in that county, yet state survey press releases dated July 3, 2003 and November 15, 2004 list only one since the law went into effect. The Dayton Daily News (paid archives), doing its own survey of metropolitan-area children services offices, reported on August 1, 2002 that Stark County had one case, but ODJFS has never included it.

ODJFS’s stonewalling and confusion is emblematic of the secrecy that surrounds Ohio’s safe haven procedures. Certain legal “privacy” mandates are understandable. It is puzzling, though, that nothing but a yearly press release is available for public scrutiny—and that the public and the press is expected to accept what ODJFS says, with no proof of accuracy and no mechanism to check ODJFS “facts.”

What, in fact, constitutes a legal “safe haven—at least the way it way intended to be used?” I ask this, since it appears that safe haven is routinely abused. As we all feared, instead of an “emergency solution” for panicked parents, it’s turned into a fast-track “adoption plan” for those who find counseling, paper signing and informed adoption surrender tiresome. Of the cases I’ve been able to research though public records and other sources, a good number of Ohio safe havened newborns appear to be born in hospitals to identified women, not women in hiding. Dean Sparks, director of Lucas County Children’s Services, was quoted in the December 1, 2005 Toledo Blade (paid archives) that all three of his county’s safe havened babies were born in hospitals. “The cases I’m familiar with are cases where the mother’s gone to the hospital, she’s delivered the baby in the hospital, and she said, ‘By the way, I don’t want this baby. I want to claim my Safe Haven privilege.”

By the way?…

Privilege?

Only the Juvenile Court can declare a case of safe haven, and information about safe haven cases, of course, is never available. Docket numbers are not released and hearings are closed except to “interested parties;” thus, forcing parents to default their own hearings. County Juvenile Courts don’t even release the number of safe haven cases heard each year, nor do they release the number of cases that been have been actually adjudicated as safe havens and not neglect or abandonment cases.

How any of this protects “privacy” is a mystery.

How many babies have been returned to parents or other family members is another mystery. According to Columbus Dispatch (paid archives) reporter, Catherine Candisky, by the end of 2005. four out of 8 Franklin County cases ended in infant retrieval. I know of one other Franklin County case—in 2006-- in which a safe havened boy was returned to his natural mother about 3 months after his birth. It appears that the baby was born to an identified teen mother at a local hospital. In Dayton, a woman went to court to try to reclaim her son, safe havened on Christmas Eve. The Juvenile Court judge put a gag order on the proceedings for among other reasons, that a mother re-gaining custody of her child might discourage other women from using the safe haven law. (Dayton Daily News, paid archives, March 28, 2002).

I am, skeptical of ODJFS statistics. Though some county prosecutors and hospitals have developed their own safe haven promotional material, the state has only offered brochures, posters, and a website. Yet a reported 54 babies in seven years have been safe havened. That is an astounding number for a state the size of Ohio and a program that isn’t advertised. Compare this to Pennsylvania, which has had five cases in six years--and a 28 day timeframe. A Florida adoption lawyer who has worked pro bono to help parents retrieve children from the safe haven system told me that nearly all safe haven mothers in that state are identified. “There are only enough walk-ins to make it look like it works,” she says.

Some safe haven cases appear to be nothing more than old-fashioned boarder baby incidents, in which babies, usually born to identified mothers, are left at the hospital after the time of discharge due to the unwillingness or inability of parents to care for them. In 1998, according to the National Abandoned Infant Resource Center at UC-Berkeley, there were 13,400 boarder babies. These babies are sometimes retrieved; some are adopted, and some go into fostercare. Their parents are seldom if ever prosecuted for abandonment and the state picks up the often hefty tab for their care. Due to educational efforts by federal and state governments, the boarder baby population has decreased substantially in recent years. The high number of safe haven surrenders in Ohio suggests that the safe haven system is being abused and that the safe havened are the new boarder babies.

Moreover there is growing anecdotal evidence nationwide that women are advised to safe haven their babies rather than go through an adoption plan or to seek services to assist them in parenting. The director of a San Antonio adoption agency, for example, told me last year that nurses in every hospital in her city advise women undecided to parent and considering adoption to subvert ethical relinquishment procedures. “Just safe haven it. It’s easier.” Even more disturbing are stories coming out of some states in which safe haven advocates claim to work with women throughout their pregnancies, with every intention of carrying to term and doing no harm to their children. In 2004 I appeared on the John Walsh Show with a woman who began to work with the New York safe haven program AMT Children of Hope when she was two months pregnant. She she was hardly "in crisis." We can only wonder where these kitchen-table "crisis pregnancy" and adoption counselors got their training. NCFA's old 2-day Infant Adoption Awareness Training Program? A California blogger writes proudly about how she researched options when pregnant and decided to anonymously abandoned her daughter, whom she claims to love, because she didn’t want to be treated poorly by an adoption agency and end up “bitter.” If so, this is a gross abuse of the law—which was promoted as a way to save newborns from death and their panicked and frightened mothers from jail. It is highly unlikely that a panicked girl or woman contemplating killing her newborn is going to make plans ahead of time to deliver at a hospital or worry about being made bitter by an adoption social worker. Safe havened babies were never in danger of discard or death....

....

And finally, please ask yourself this question:

As a matter of policy, should Ohio be making it easier for parents to give up their children anonymously?

SB 304 is open season on Ohio children and their families....

OHIO: BAD NEWS FOR BUCKEYES

Ohio adoptees and their families got a double kick in the teeth this week.

On Wednesday Sub HB 7 was voted out of the Health Committee and on to the House floor without the restoration of access language from the original bill. The ringleaders of this abomination got a real cheap thrill out of pulling the carrot away and then beating the bastards with the stick. Committee members received hundreds of emails and phone calls asking them to restore the language. What does it take to be worthy in Ohio?

While this was going on down in the tunnels, the Senate Health, Human Services, and Aging Commitee was sharpening its claws on us by approving SB 304--a safe haven expansion bill that will permit "desperate parents" to dump their up-to-30-day-old problem child on the state. Up from the current 3 day limit.

Erik Smith and I testified against the bill. Later tonight I'll be posting some of my testimony and some comments.

If it saves just one....

Don't mourn! Organize! Throw the bums out!

DENNY GLAD: ANOTHER LIGHT GOES OUT

We lost one another of our shining lights Monday with the passing of Tennessee rights activist Denny Glad.

Denny reunited hundreds of Georgia Tann's victims and knew the rot of the Tennessee Children's Home Society inside out. Trained as an historian, Denny brought the historian's passion to her work. You can read about her marvelous energy and activities in Barbara Bisantz Raymond's expose of Georgia Tann, The Baby Thief.

In the 1990s, Denny was one of the key people in the passage of Tennessee's semi-records access law which led to Doe v Sundquist. While we disagree with the contact and veto provisions of the law, and I believe Denny did, too, the court decisions that came out of it have become an important marker for us. The lawsuit broke the back of NCFA bullyhood. (Oregon was the coup de grace.)

I met Denny only once--at the infamous March 2001 baby dump conference-that-never-was at the University of Memphis (see "Quick exit following opening remarks at symposium on unwanted babies"--Tennessee Commercial Appeal, paid archives, March 25, 2001) but we occasionally emailed and talked on the phone. She was a walking talking history book.

Today's Commercial Appeal published a lovely article about Denny. Her"partner in crime" adoptee activist Caprice East is quoted: "I've never seen anybody that so many people revered and that nobody vilified. She was just absolutely incredible."

She was. And is!

Holly Span, Tennessee AAC rep sent the following message about Denny's passing:

Tennessee lost its most prominent Angel in Adoption – Denny Glad of Memphis, this week. It is a terribly sad time for us and we are crushed. For many, many years, Denny was a bright beacon of inspiration. She wore many hats, including her association with the AAC as the Tennessee Representative and the president of Tennessee’s Right to Know organization.

Denny helped thousands trace their biological families, many of whom were adopted out of the Memphis Children’s Home operated by baby stealer Georgia Tann.

Marianne (Denny) Glad is at:
Memorial Garden's
5868 Poplar Ave.
Memphis, TN 38119
901-767-8930

Visitation is Thursday 5:00-7:00 pm
Service Friday at 11:30 am

In lieu of flowers, her children (Tony and Keith) have asked for donations to the American Adoption Congress.

Cards may also be sent to Denny's home:
5182 Oak Meadow
Memphis, TN 38134

Holly Spann
AAC - Tennessee Rep

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY FROM A CHILD'S WAITING

This morning I was eating breakfast on my front porch, reading our neighborhood newspaper, The Booster. Past the news of the Clintonville Area Commission elections, police reports, and way too much high school sports comes a full page Mothers' Day ad: Thank You Mom...for Life. The ad contains a couple pictures of white newborns and a long list of Northwest Columbus Catholic Churches and individual members in each parish who "proclaim our commitment to the sanctity of Human Life" The page is paid for by Columbus Right to Life, Bethesda Post-Abortion Outreach and A CHILD'S WAITING. Yes you read that right! A Child's Waiting. Who knew that the Skank Sisters, Jenny and Crissy (owners of ACW), were so devout? I bet they go to Mass five times a week: Give us your baybees, lest our business die!

It takes real chutzpah for an adoption agency with 40 violations and a 3-week ODJFS licence revocation hearing coming up in June, not to mention the Bennett lawsuit (and here and here), to link itself to Columbus Right to Life. Have they no shame? (You don't have to answer!) Does Columbus Right to Life have a clue to ACW's troubles with the law? Whether they do or not, as a non-fan of "right to life" I can only celebrate this bit of hubris.

ACW is no stranger to Ohio "right to life" organizations. My best friend Google and I did a quick search this morning and found A Child's Waiting is:

• listed as a "Pro-Life Business that Supports" Summit County (Akron) Right to Life
• linked by Cleveland Right to Life
• a member of Hands of Hope, a Cleveland-area coalition of 30 organizations that "promote[s] a culture of life which values, supports, and sustains the life and health of all human beings." You'll also find a list of ACW events in their calendar, including a March 28 workshop on Birth Parents Grief and Loss at Akron City Hospital. (We doubt if Stephanie Bennett was invited to speak.)
  

I bet there's more connections if I feel like digging.

Hypocrisy has never been in short supply with these people. Just look at the horror with which so-called "pro-lifers" meet unashamed, angry natural mothers and their uppity bastard offspring--most recently with Ohio's HB 7. Abortion Bad! Adoption Good! Seal adoption records! Keep them sealed! Never let Mom and Kid know each other. Be grateful! You saved a life, what more do you want? You were saved from the dumpster, what more do you want? Shut up! We know what's best for you!

Mothers Day is no exception. If anti-aborts really cared about mothers they'd get their noses out of their wombs, their fingers off of our records, and let us all go about our business free of their hectoring.

And if they really cared, they wouldn't be cavorting with A Child's Waiting.


Picture by author: ORTL Life Chain, Ohio Statehouse, October 6, 2006
__________
Also posted at Theoconia

OHIO UPDATE: SEALED AND SECRET GENERATION SHAFTED AGAIN

On April 30, the Ohio House Health Committee held another hearing on HB7. The hearing was dedicated to the testimony of the state’s "special class," the Sealed and Secret Generation (1964-1996) of adoptees and natural and adoptive parents from that era who support the restoration of obc access language to the bill.

MEA CULPA!
It’s taken a long time to write this promised entry about that hearing. Perhaps because of the sheer overwhelming anger that I and the people involved on the right side of HB 7 feel right now.

I originally intended to write a review of the testimony, quoting significant parts from some. (Much of the testimony is archived on the Adoption Network Cleveland HB 7 page, and quotes below comes from those documents.) But the real story lies in the dismissive behavior of prominent Health Committee members, particularly Matt Huffman (R-Lima, right). Only in office since January 2007, Huffman appears to wield an awful lot of influence, or at least acts like he does so that people hop-to at his whistle. I've been told, but not heard it from Huffman directly, that he's claims if the Sealed and Secret Generation get their records, the Republicans will lose the House in November. Who knew? Apparently Cincinnati and Ohio Right to Life (other paper tigers) will be so aggrieved if their wishes aren't followed that they will throw their support to...liberal pro choice Dems. Who knew?

I have attended records access hearings in California (2002), New Hampshire (2004), Massachusetts (2005), Maine (2006) and Ohio (1995, 2008). Each hearing has its own mood, character, and quirks.

In other states, committee members understood the significance of the debate--even if they disagreed with us, and voted us down. They listened. For the most part they asked intelligent questions. But Ohio is "special." From the reported eye-rolling of Rep. Huffman during my testimony (I was unaware of it, but Dawn Friedman who also testified that day, blogged about it*) to the April 30 walk-out of most committee members, which began in mid-testimony of the first witness, Ohio adoptees and their families were given a pat on the head (if we were nice) a lecture (if we weren't) and finally shoved off the plank.

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they DO understand our significance, and just pretend they don't, so they won't have to deal with us and "our" bogus political "consequences." If they wait long enough we'll just die off. Or maybe we're just easy scapegoats.

Whatever is going on, what can I say about a posse of elected officials who find us so insignificant or selfish or dangerous or vile that they can’t even sit through their own hearing with us. By the end of the hearing, I doubt if a quorum were present. If it weren't for the aides who stuck around, witnesses would have been chatting up themselves. (NOTE: I want to make it clear that not all committee members are jerking us around. But the significant number who are, and make no bones about it, make the access passage impossible this term.)

HOW INSIGNIFICANT, SELFISH, DANGEROUS OR VILE?
Here are the people the committee walked out on:

WITNESS: Carol Snook, Strongsville, natural mother, Class of 1968

• Gave birth alone and unattended in a Cleveland hospital after being shuttled around from hallway to hallway.
• Separated from other mothers in the maternity ward.
• Refused information on condition of son who was separated from other babies in ward.
• Refused to leave hospital until she could hold her son; one nurse listened to her.
• Forced to sign document promising she would never look for her son.

QUOTE: It is time. It is time to bring truth and honesty to a topic that has been shrouded in secrecy fear and even deceit for too many years. It is time to loose the bonds of injustice pertaining to adoption birth records and afford all adoptees easy access to their heritage. It is time to open the files.

CRIME: Called adoption "the ultimate deception of my life."

WITNESS: Jennifer Scott, Willoughby, natural mother, Class of 1987

• Closed adoption only option available to her by law.
• Told by Cleveland Catholic Charities caseworker Mary Ellen Anderson, and signed paper to affect, that when her son reached majority he would have access to her personal information, in event that "privacy laws" changed.
• Said Anderson told her Catholic Charities would hold any letters and birthday cards she sent to her son through them until his 18th birthday when the "adoption would be opened."
• CCC offered no assistance or counseling for depression and other problems.
  
• Called CCC just before son's 18th birthday with address update and to ask that his file be prepared for release on birthday. Asked when she would have contact information for him. CCC told her it could not legally release any information to either of them.

QUOTE: Don't take away the rights of the children who did not make the choice to be given up for adoption; in the only type of adoption offered at the time.

CRIME: Dissed Catholic Charities and named names.

WITNESS: Molly Elizabeth Bellman, Granville, adoptee, Class of 1986/1987

• Recently reunited with birth family; sister searched for 7 years.
• Pro-life but pro records and identity rights.
• Birthparents have given up all rights.
• End "cycle of shame and secrecy."

QUOTE: Should we be stripped of our rights to our own biological information in favor of "protecting" the privacy of the birth parent; the number of people who are also stripped of their rights is exponential. I do not believe that restricting our access to our own records "protects" anyone nor does it guarantee any sense of "privacy;" there are other ways to locate a birth parent. All that restricting our rights as adoptees does is to leave a minority group emotionally scarred and disenfranchised.

CRIME: Being pro-life and pro-adoptee.

WITNESS: Susan L. Smith, adoptee and natural parent, Washington Court House, Sealed and Secret Generation

• Surrendered at birth for medical reasons; has no social or medical history.
• Continues to have medical issues as does daughter.
• Surrendered 2 daughters for adoption to protect them from husband's abuse; records sealed.
  

QUOTE: No written testimony available

CRIME: Who knows?

WITNESS: Howard Pipes, Fredericktown, natural father, Sealed and Secret Generation

• Broke into sobs during first sentence of testimony; couldn't continue.
• Reunited son comforted him at podium and read remainder of testimony.
• Talked about sadness an anguish of not knowing what happened to his son due to sealed records.

NOTE: Reunited son is also natural father. (I didn't catch his name, but he also testified).

QUOTE: Sobbing

CRIME: Big boys don't cry; like father like son

WITNESS: Margaret Haskell, natural mother, provenance unknown, Class of 1967

• Focused on medical histories.

QUOTE: No written testimony available

CRIME: Who knows?

WITNESS: Jake Teschler, Columbus, adoptee, Class of 1968

• Member of Reunite.
• Reiterated January 16, 2008 testimony.
• Discussed disparity of access.

QUOTE: (From first hearing) I could petition the court, but depending on the judge's interpretation of the "good cause" portion of the post-1964 access law, I run a real chance of wasting my money and time. There are 88 courts in Ohio and 88 opinions on what constitutes "good cause.

CRIME: Being adopted after 1963.

WITNESS: Nancy Taylor, Columbus, natural mother, class of 1986

• Closed adoption only option available to her by law.
  
• Signed release of information document with lawyer who handled private placement of daughter; lawyer is deceased and files were destroyed.
• Rep. Huffman tells her document should be at Probate Court; just go down there and talk to court. Adoptee rights advocates laugh out loud.

QUOTE: No written testimony available

CRIME: Doesn't know what she is talking about

WITNESS: Betsie Norris, Cleveland, Unsealed Generation

• Director of Adoption Network Cleveland; has worked extensively on HB7.
• Discussed Contact Preference form system.
• Submitted cpfs from Oregon, Alabama, and New Hampshire.

QUOTE: This method actually gives birthparents more voice than they currently have in Ohio’s closed records system. Under the closed records system, birthparents have no method of having their wishes known and successful searching adoptees, of which there are many, do not have a way of knowing their birthparent’s wishes until they are stated directly upon
contact.

CRIME: Dedicating her life to adoption accountability, transparency, and adoptee civil rights; owns her own obc.

WITNESS: Gabe Koshinsky, Columbus, adopted through fostercare; Sealed and Secret generation

• Chair, Capital University College Republicans; President, Capital University College Conservatives; Ohio Youth Advisory board member.
• Unable to attend; testimony read by his sister Grace Hilliard.
• Birth certificate is adoptees' personal document that affirms their identity.
• Doctoring birth certificates causes adoptees to lose history self-esteem and right to identify biological family.
• Adoption should not erase truth.
• Parents are responsible for their child and adoption doesn't void truth behind responsibility.
• Calls sealed records a "suburban solution" to pretend that everything is OK.

QUOTE 1: Distorting factual information in favor of the parents makes children of abuse and abandonment not only victims of our parents, but victims of state bureaucracy as well.

QUOTE: I find it a grave disservice to our democracy, when the government distorts factually historical information. I reject the notion of changing history in order to protect the "rights" of parents who have abused and neglected their children. Clearly, the child is the only one who loses and it is a sad state of affairs when the state continues to exploit the rights of children who have already experienced abuse or abandonment.

CRIME: Calling out fellow Republicans

WITNESS: Grace Hilliard, Columbus, adopted through foster care, Sealed and Secret Generation

• Gabe Koshinsky's sister.
• Sealed records are a "horribly constructed band-aid of a lie."
• Those who engage in procreation should be held accountable; have forfeited a "right" to privacy.
• Sealed records permit adoptive parents to lie because they feel threatened or insecure.
• Sealed records create destruction of established family; siblings are no longer related.
  

QUOTE: What does this (abc) look like on paper? It means the parental names, information
and age are fraudulent. To a bystander this may not appear to have deep consequences for a baby. I assure you there are. For an older child, for me who'd accumulated ten years of history prior to being adopted, this piece of paper resonated as insulting and absurd. In this situation and others where the child knows very well the identity of biological parents and siblings the violation feels much more preposterous.

CRIME: Claiming amended birth certificates are government lies.

SPEAKING OF RESPONSIBILITY...
Health Committee members have received hundreds of emails, letters, and phone calls in support of the restoration of adoptee rights in Ohio. Not one individual or organization has testified at a hearing against access. That's the way it is in Ohio. Cincinnati and Ohio Right to Life and their cronies sneak behind the public, sneak behind closed doors giving no opportunity for "official" rebuttal or face-to-face discussion. Why are special interests that have nothing to do with adoption calling the shots? Why do politicians let them call the shots? Do the people of Ohio have any input into lawmaking? What dank political swamp have adoptees tripped into?

Anger always bubbles just below the surface at obc hearings, but there was something very different about the April 30 anger. I've been putzing around for the right words for days to describe it, which is why it's taken me so long to publish this. All I could come up with was something along the lines of "In other states we are supporting a bill already in place, that (unless amended) will restore our rights. Sub HB 7, with no explanation, inexplicably removed the possibility of that right presented in the original bill and nobody will say why. The Health Committee, for secret reasons, made a deliberate decision to delete adult adoptees from the political landscape--removed hope." Not real articulate.

My good friend and colleague, Baby Love Child, however, has come up with exactly what I spent days trying unsuccessful to formulate:

Leaving the substitute bill “as is,” i.e. without records access, is not a passive stance. It is to support a bill that once had access in it, only to have it struck out and eradicated in the substitute bill. This is an ACTIVE erasure of adoptee right to equal treatment under Ohio law.

Yes, the Health Committee, or more concisely Matt Huffman and a few ORTL mouthpieces jackbooted OUR rights for their own agenda. (BTW, Huffman told the January hearing that when he handled adoptions he told women whom he feared would abort that records would remain sealed and their identities hidden.) The committee made it quite clear last week that in Ohio adopted people and their families don't count. Access is a dead horse.

UPDATE
OBC access should never have been included in HB 7. It and its substitiute bill are big bills, a hodgepodge of adoption and fostercare reform. This same jumble happened in 1995 with the omnibus HB 419. These large bill contain a lot of things that many of us strenuoulsy object to. The HB 7 situation is no different with its addition of adoption marketing schemes and natural parent recruitment. (Not enough newborns have hit the market lately). We want accountability for all. We don't want future generations to run on our hamster wheel.

I attended the May 7 hearing. Sub HB7 was scheduled to be voted out of committee without access language. Flogging the dead horse I testified and invited interested legislators to work with us to craft a new separate bill. I also invited them to meet us in NOLA. Interestingly, since this hearing was really about other parts of the bill not us, nearly everyone remained seated and attentive. No one rolled their eyes at fostercare horror stories. They made intelligent comments. They didn't pat anyone on the head. The final vote was carried over until next week, however, due to a poorly worded amendment regarding "childs best interest" that confused everyone--except its author... Rep. Huffman.

Records access is dead in Ohio. . It could be revisited in the Senate version of the bill, but what's the point? There could be some big changes downtown after November, and that's what we have to work with.

Sealed records are anti-adoptee and anti-adoption. Until a final vote is taken, keep on contacting the Health Committee members and ask them why they oppose adoption.

______________
*Dawn's blog on the incident is gone (Dawn, can you give me a link) but Jenna Hatfield references it here in her blog, "And we wonder why ethics are hard to come by." Dawn has also blogged about current HB 7 mess with a good analysis of what Ohio politicians ae saying to women and adoptee adults. And it's not nice!

OHIO: Stephanie Bennett Update

Stephanie Bennett went back to court a few days ago. Musing Mother has an account.

Here's a snip:

This morning Stephanie went to court. Apparently, Todd Kolarik decided that he couldn't trust anyone who doesn't sleep with one of the sisters, so he went too. He had the nerve in court, to call Stephanie Bennett a liar. This from the man who is the attorney for the agency that has no less than 40 violations including Child Endangerment! This from the man who can lie in court and not blink an eyelash! In a way, though, it turned out to be a good thing, since it allowed Jennifer the opportunity to mention the a)polygraph test that Stephanie passed and b) the DNA tests that they are waiting for the results from. Oddly, Todd Kolarik had forgotten to mention those things. Hmmm is there such a thing in the law as lying by omission? There was at our house.

The Ohio Jobs and Family Services' hearing on a Child's Waiting is scheduled fr a 3-week run starting June 2. I plan to attend most if not all of them. Bobby Cutts's murder trial didn't take that long!

I wonder what Evelyn's paps think about this. Would they buy a used car from ACW after this?

Please visit the Bastard Nation Day for Adoptee Rights Protest page.

I'll be working more on it this coming week.

LAW REVIEW ARTICLE: "THE ONLY AMERICANS LEGALLY PROHIBITED FROM KNOWING WHO THEIR BIRTH PARENTS ARE: A REJECTION OF PRIVACY RIGHTS..."

There's a new law review article that blasts the argument for "birthparent privacy" rights.

Hughes, Susan Whittaker, “The only Americans legally prohibited from knowing who their birth parents are: A rejection of privacy rights as a bar to adult adoptees’ access to original birth and adoption records.” Cleveland State Law Review 53, 3 p. 429-461.

Here's an excerpt:

Constitutional privacy has two prongs. As the Supreme Court in Whalen v Roe explained, first, it involves an individual's freedom from governmental interference with fundamental rights such that the individual is able to make decisions surrounding important matters independently. Secondly, constitutional privacy includes an individiual's right to be free from government's gathering and disclosure of his or her personal information.

When examined against these two prongs, birth parent privacy assertions lack sufficient weight to be afforded the protection that they have enjoyed. Privacy assertions made under the first prong, for example, do not work because open access statutes will not impede the exercise of fundamental rights and because adoption rights, as statutory creations, do not give rise to privacy protections only afforded to fundamental rights. Privacy assertions made under the second prong fail because open access statues do not violate a birth parent's right to informational privacy. For these overarching reasons, and for the supporting reasons outlined below, birth parents privacy claims against open access statues should not given the legal weight that they have historically enjoyed , and adult should have unrestricted access to their original birth and adoption records.

On the downside Hughes discusses, though not particularly enthusiastically, the contact veto as an alternative solution to birth parent fears. I don't remember seeing reference to contact preference forms, and I need to go back and read the article again. Hughes also quotes Bastardette and Bastard Nation documents in footnotes in the last few pages.

Nonetheless, I find this article very positive, especially in its discussion of fundamental rights v statutory creations, and highly recommend it to anyone working to free our records from the state.