The Daily Bastardette

Missouri: Bastard Nation Testimony on HB 1137--Oppose

2012-01-26T22:19:00.000-05:00

I'll be writing about the latest Missouri situaiton later, but i the meantime, here's our testimony that was submitted to the Judiciary committee on January 25, 2012.

HB 1137:

access to identifying information for adoptions original birthcertificate

Missouri HouseJudiciary Committee

January 25, 2012

OPPOSE

Privilege is theopposite of rights

BastardNation: the Adoptee Rights Organization is the largest Adoptee civilrights organization in the United States. We support full access forall adopted persons to their original birth certificates (OBC)without restriction.. HB 1137 is not an unrestricted bill and weoppose it.

Under currentMissouri law, the original birth certificates of all MissouriAdoptees are sealed and cannot be released to the adoptee without acourt order.

Missouri's current “identifyinginformation access” law is a confusing, convoluted labyrinth thatserves only a handful of adoptees who successfully navigate itsbureaucracy. Those few who do succeed receive only “identifyinginformation” without the release of the OBC. .

HB 1157 makes no substantial changesin that law. It simply substitutes OBC release for the currentinformal identifying information forwarded to the adoptee, keepingthe rest of the bureaucracy in place. It,fact, this bill actuallyincreases the bureaucracy by adding the Department of Social Servicesto the list of agencies that can be involved in the release.

HB 1137 reinforces outdatedadoption secrecy present in the current law. It includes themisnamed “contact preference form”which enables biologicalparents, upon request, to prohibit the state from releasing to theOBC. A genuine “contact preference form”as Oregon, Alabama, NewHampshire, Maine, and Rhode Island have enacted permits abiological parent to state a preference regarding contact,with the adoptee, with no legal ramifications. The “contractpreference form “in HB1137, is simply a softer name for the“affidavit of nondisclosure form” in current law, and continuesto let third parties legally bar the adoptee from receiving the OBC—aprivilege or “special right” that no third party, not even aparent, can evoke against the not-adopted.

Furthermore, the submission of a medical history form, mandated for biological parents who file aveto, is invasive and may be in violation of the federal HIPAA. Law. While family medical histories are desirable for everyone, no onehas a right to anyone else s, and adoptees should not be theexception. The entire impetus for adoptee rights, in fact, is thatadopted people need to be treated the same as everyone else, nothingmore and nothing less.

Sooner or later Missouri, and everyother state that has not opened OBC’s unconditionally to adoptees,are going to be forced to d so. The issue isn't going away. This isnot a matter of if, but when.

Adopted adults, especially since9/11, are increasingly denied passports, driver’s licenses,pensions, Social Security benefits, professional certifications,security clearances and other entitlements due to discrepancies ontheir amended birth certificates, and their inability to produce anoriginal birth certificate to answer the problems.

Adopteeswithout a genuine original birth record could soon be barred fromrunning for public office. At least 10 states, including Missouri(HB 283; ss Lyle Rowland, Mike Kelly) haveintroduced legislation requiring presidential and vice-presidentialcandidates to present their original birth certificates toappropriate authorities to prove citizenship eligibility for office.Some of these bills go farther, mandating anyone running for officeto prove citizenship through an original birth certificate. It is nostretch to think that someday soon adoptees could be barred fromvoting due to lack of “legal” identity over problematical amendedbirth certificates, and the perpetual sealing of theoriginals.

Kansas and Alaska have never sealed original birthcertificates. Since 1999 five states have restored to adoptees theunrestricted right to records and identity access: Oregon throughballot initiative, and Alabama, New Hampshire, Maine, and RhodeIsland through legislation. No statistics are available for Kansasand Alaska, but approximately 17,000 OBCs in the former states havebeen released with no reported consequences. (Rhode Island won'topen until July 1, 2012)

Rights are for all citizens, notfavors doled out to some. Missouri does not segregate rights byreligion, ethnicity, age, or gender. It should not segregate rightsby birth, adoptive status, or third party “preference.”

HB 1137, as it is currently written does nothing to restore the rightof all Missouri adoptees to their own original birth certificates. Unless this bill is amended –basically re-written to restore therights of all, we urge you to vote DO NOT PASS. All Missouri Adopteesmust enjoy equal protection, due process, and dignity. MissouriAdoptees deserve better than HB 1137!

Submitted by MarleyGreiner
Executive Chair
Bastard Nation: the Adoptee rightsorganization
January 25, 2012

Bastard Nation is dedicated to therecognition of the full human and civil rights of adult Adoptees.Toward that end, we advocate the opening to Adoptees, upon request atage of majority, of those government documents which pertain to theAdoptee's historical, genetic, and legal identity, including theunaltered original birth certificate and adoption decree. BastardNation asserts that it is the right of people everywhere to havetheir official original birth records unaltered and free fromfalsification, and that the adoptive status of any person should notprohibit him or her from choosing to exercise that right. We havereclaimed the badge of bastardy placed on us by those who wouldattempt to shame us; we see nothing shameful in having been born outof wedlock or in being adopted. Bastard Nation does not supportmandated mutual consent registries or intermediary systems in placeof unconditional open records, nor any other system that is less thanaccess on demand to the adult Adoptee, without condition, and withoutqualification.

Ohio Adoptee Rights Historical Document: HB 419 (1995-1996)

2012-01-25T23:58:00.000-05:00

In conjunction with Ohio Adoptee Searches I have started a new blog: Ohio Adoptee Searches: News and Views on Ohio Adoptee Rights, Search, and Reunion.

I'm old enough to remember when adoptee rights and search were two sides of the coin, and search tended to lead to activism. (Special thanks to BJ Lifton, Florence Fisher, and Jean Paton) No later than the mid-1980s, though, search had been co-opted by therapists and so-called reform organizations who packed the hearing room with nose blowers with beggars' bowls, who despite their use of "rights" language, chose reunion over rights. And still do.

The Internet, in many ways, has reinforced this victimization, through hundreds preaching-to-the-choir-misery-loves-company forums, Facebook pages, and blogs. Because I'm so damned old, this strikes me as nonsensical. Back in the day search was subversive. Today it's become the dead end of change.

To cut the the chase my OAS blog is a forum to stir the pot: educate Ohio adoptee searchers on issues, the politics and language of open records, the history of sealed records in Ohio and past attempts to rescind our tiered system to bring all adoptees under the pre-1964 open access law, practical knowledge on how to navigate the current Ohio system, while at the same time energizing and recruiting people into the movement.on a state level. ( snagged one today!) To bring subversion back into search.

Nothing is happening in the Ohio legislature so far this year. John Kasich is our governor and the majority of legislators are walking around in the pockets of the exact people who engineered the destruction of the last serious attempt to open records here with HB 419: Ohio Right to Life, Janet Folger Porter, and Dr. John Willke, the latter two now heading up Ohio ProLife Action. passing out teddy bears with built-in heartbeats to pols, and pushing the Hearbeat Bill, which if passed, will be the most restrictive anti-abortion law in the country. Need I say more?

Over the next few weeks I'll be posting historic Ohio documents on the OAS blog. Below is an entry I posted tonight on the 1996 defeat which amended unrestricted access out of HB 419 and created our third access tier that keeps Ohio from ever being a true free state.I'm cross-positing it here for a wider audience and the hope that it can be helpful to Ohio readers and bastards in general as we continue to break open the vaults and let our rights fly free.

I won't be cross-posting everything from OAS, but anything important, like the piece below I will. Ohio Adoptee Searches has a Faceboook page. I'd love you to: like" it and get some discussion going about Ohio-- and for you to spread the word that an Ohio adoptee rights blog and FB page is now up.

******

In 1995, HB 419, (not online; in my personal possession) an omnibus bill to reform Ohio adoption and foster care law was heard in the Ohio Legislature. One very short section of the bill restored the right of all Ohio adoptees to their original birth certificates by rescinding the post-1963 prohibition. If passed, the state would have once again recognize the right of all Ohio adoptees to equal treatment and due process under state law.

Unfortunately, this didn't happen. Instead of eliminating the two-tier system which had plagued post-1963 adoptees for over 30 years , by making those OBCs available by court order only, the bill was amended to create a third tier which not only kept post 1963 adoptees in their black hole, but gave adoptees born on or after September 18, 1996 the ability to access their OBCs as pre-1964 adoptees can--unless a birthparent had filed a "disclosure veto" with the state to bar access.

Willke and Folger Porter 2011, Coumbus

Although the original records access section of HB 419 had wide support among the adoption reform and legal communities, state agencies, and adoptees, birth and adoptive parents, it was opposed by Ohio Right to Life (Janet Folger (now Porter and Dr. John Willke--founders of the current Ohio Pro-Life Action)) which claimed that OBC access for adult adoptees would drive women to seek abortions. Conflating "confidentiality" and '"anonymity," OBC access and abortion, and implying, as Pat Robertson did a few years later, that adoptee rights advocates are stealth "choice" advocates, Folger Porter wrote in her autobiography True to Life:

...we fought the effort to make "open adoption records" the women's only choice. We didn't want those women who felt they needed confidentiality and wanted their records to remain closed to be driven to abort their child, and so we fought the very strong 'open records" adoption lobby and won. Women were given an option to choose, something my opponents from NARAL fought against.

Folger Porter fails to note that her demand that new records be sealed by default and open only by in opt-out "permission" was replaced with an open default and an opt-out disclosure.

The end results was the name, though. Adoptees remained second class citizens.

With a desire to "get something passed" Ohio adoption reformers agreed to the ORTL compromise and pushed for the opt-out disclosure to 'save" what they could. The result was the creation of a new access tier, a new level of OBC bureaucracy, and a strengthened status quo, The compromise, with its "special rights" for third parties, has made it virtually impossible for Ohio adoptees ever to regain full and equal access that HB 419 offered.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer covered the HB 419 hearing at which I testified. If only wish I knew then what I know now! The article is not available on line, but the text is below:

Bill would drastically change adoption laws

By Mary Beth Lane(Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 11, 1995)

COLUMBUS - A sweeping bill aimed at improving Ohio adoption laws by speeding up children's placement in permanent homes is expected to he on the house floor for a vote next month.

The House Family Services Committee is continuing to hold hearings on adoption, an emotional subject that evoked tears yesterday from some of the Ohioans who told their stories and from others who listened"Anything to reduce the wait is good," said Terri Kowaliw, a Galloway woman who adopted one of her foster children, now 12, after enduring a long wait. "We have tried to fill a hole in him left by 5 1/2 years in and out of the foster-care system."She wiped away tears as she spoke. "I'm sorry" she said. "It's a very emotional thing for me."

Marley Elizabeth Greiner, a 49-year-old-Columbus woman who was adopted as a child, told the committee of her prolonged search to learn her birth roots. She strongly supports provisions of the bill to open more records to adult adoptees."Is there anyone here today who can look me in the eye and say I do not share the right of the rest of the people of Ohio to know who my mother, father, sister and brother are?" she asked.

The bill. sponsored by Rep. Cheryl J. Winkler, a Cincinnati Republican, and drawn from a report issued by an adoption task force named by Gov. George V. Voinovich, has drawn broad support from a variety of groups involved in adoption.

Among its key elements are:

Reducing the four years it now commonly takes to remove children from foster care and other publicly funded placement and give them a permanent adoptive home. Public children's services agencies currently have custody of about 3,300 children who could be adopted.

Hastening the process by ordering courts to render a decision in permanent-custody cases within 200 days.

Helping foster parents who decide to adopt by counting time spent in foster care toward the six-month probationary period before an adoption is considered final..

Prohibiting public agencies from delaying adoption based solely on the race of theprospective adoptive family..

Opening adoption and birth certificates to adopted children when they turn 21 unless birth parents deny access.

Currently, adoptees have no access to adoption records unless they and their birth parents have registered with the state.

Although there is general agreement on opening adoption records, if the birth parentapproves it, the issue of how to open them has created a dispute that may put substitute provisions in the bill.

Adoption groups now support a process, now in the bill, by which the birthmother would have to specifically decline to release the records. If she didn't decline, the records would automatically be open.

The Ohio Right to Life Society wants to substitute a "yes" or "no" box the birthmother would check off.Voinovich aide Jacqui Romero Sensky said the governor has not decided which process he would support."I don't think anyone is backing away from open records," she said. "The trend is to more and more openness. We just want the birth mother to make a conscious informed decision."

Roe Turns 39; Columbus Protests

2012-01-24T02:51:00.001-05:00

This now appears in the Columbus Free Press ins a slightly different form.

Monday marked the 39th anniversary of Roe v Wade. While most local anti-abortion big shots were doing their annual March for Life in Washington with accompanying photo ops, Greater Columbus Right to Life held down the fort here with a 45 minute rally on the steps of the statehouse.with few photo ops. Except for me, Channel l0 appeared to be the only local media covering the event, but there's nothing on the station's news site.With Occupy Columbus camped out on the corner of S. High and E State, I was looking forward to interesting possibilities, but the occupiers, unlike the Occupy folks in Washington, DC, who disrupted a "youth event" held by anti-abortion moguls Brian Kemper, Patrick Mahoney, Lila Rose and friends, decided to sit this one out.

I've attended several of these January outdoor events in the last few years. Usually, within 10 minutes my fingers, even in two pairs of gloves are ready to call it off This year, however, the temperature was in the lower 50s and the crowd knew it . About 175 adults and a couple dozen small children celebrated as Grove City State Rep.and keynoter Cheryl Grossman (R H23) ran off a list of abortion-curbing bills that either passed last year or are now in the hopper. Ohio ProLife Action's Heartbeat Bill, (HB 125), which aims to ban virtually all abortion in the state, got special props. While Ohio Right to Life and Ohio ProLife Action duke it out over for turf n the press and in the lobby , GCRTL and Grossman, gave big hugs to the state organization and the Ohio Pro-Life Action break-offs. .No seams showing..

Speaker Denise Salyers a self-defined "victim of the abortion industry," following the de riguer line of "abortion harms women"" described with great detail and occasional tears how her 1984 abortion ruined her life with drugs, drinks, and suicide until she was redeemed by God 24 years later.

The rally, as usual, embodied ecumenical catharsis. The Protestant element of Parsley-type exurbanites and parents with neatly turned-out daughters in Modest Apparel jumpers were joined by three nuns uncharacteristically dressed like nuns, and a gaggle of deSales High School jocks and cheerleaders. But this year, adults ran the show. Unlike past January Roe events, billed as youth events, there was no throng of girls and boys from Fostoria and Marion comparing Planned Parenthood to Hitler and making euphemistic prayer huddles;.and no middle school adoptees at the podium pimping adoption as a cure for abortion. Strangely, adoption wasn't mentioned at all.

All photographs by the author

Washington: Bastard Nation Testimony in Opposition to HB 2211/suggested amendments

2012-01-16T23:38:00.000-05:00

TESTIMONY

HB2 2211

Adoptee access to theirown original birth certificates

Washington HouseCommittee on the Judiciary

January 16, 2011

OPPOSE

Privilege is theopposite of rights

OurWashington representative cannot attend the hearing today so we aresubmitting this testimony via email.

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee RightsOrganization is the largest adoptee civil rights organization in theUnited States. We support full, unrestricted access for all adoptedpersons, to their original birth certificates. (OBC).

Bastard Nation's roots are inWashington State, and we would like nothing more than to support HB2211. Unfortunately we cannot.

The sticking point is HB 2211's “affidavit of non-disclosure,” otherwise known as a disclosureveto. This veto creates a special third party privilege forbirthparents that no one, parent or otherwise, possesses: tobypass state law and to personally bar release of another person'sbirth certificate to the person to whom it pertains.

Already in place for adoptionsfinalized on and after October 1 1993, HB 2022 would expand thisonerous and discriminatory veto privilege to cover all adoptions;thus expanding the pool of segregated adoptees unable to accesstheir OBCs, even when the vast majority of the state's adopteescould..

Interestingly, HB 2211 expires on July1, 2012, all current vetoes on file. Those birthparents wishing toremain on the veto books would be required to file a new disclosureveto limited to two years duration, and subject to continued filingsevery two years.

It appears that the sponsors of thebill have it half right. They are willing to permit the state'sadopted class OBC access—unless a third part objects—but limitthat third party objection to two year increments. That is, thesponsors appear to find something inherently wrong with vetoes, butfeel some sort of obligation to the keep them going .Such an attitudemay justify past bad legislation but does not justify denying theadoptees of Washington State the restoration of their civil rights. There is no middle way when it comes to rights: a right exists or itdoesn't, and it is not contingent on third party approval.

Sooner or later Washington and everyother state that has not opened OBCs unconditionally to adoptees aregoing to be forced to. The issue isn't going away. This is not amatter of if, but when.

Adopted adults, especially since 911,are increasingly denied passports, drivers licenses, pensions, SocialSecurity benefits, professional certifications, and securityclearances due to discrepancies on their amended birth certificates,and their inability to produce an original birth certificate toanswer the problems. Proposed changes in passport applicationregulations will make it literally impossible for some adoptees toever receive a passport without an accessible paper trial to the OBC.

Adoptees without a genuine original birth record could soonbe barred from running for public office.‭ ‬Last year, at least‭‬10‭ ‬states, introduced legislation requiring presidential andvice-presidential candidates to present their original birthcertificates to appropriate authorities to prove citizenshipeligibility for office.‭ ‬Some of these bills go farther,‭‬mandating anyone running for office to prove citizenship throughan original birth certificate.‭ ‬It is no stretch to think thatsomeday soon adoptees could be barred from voting due to lack of‭“‬legal.‭”birth certificates.

Should these rights and entitlements beabrogated for adoptaees because OBC access might make some people“uncomfortable?”

As I said in the beginning, were it notfor the disclosure veto in all it;'s forms,, including modified, weand our members would happy to support HB 2211.

We recommend that Washington State makehistory, and simply expire permanently all vetoes currently in place. Amend HB 2211 with the following:

remove the expansion of the disclosure veto
vacate all disclosure veto language from the current law
unilaterally expire all vetoes currently on file on the effective date of HB 2211

Kansas and Alaska have never sealedoriginal birth certificates. Since 1999 six states have restored toadoptees the unrestricted right to records and identity access:Oregon through ballot initiative, and Alabama, New Hampshire, Maine,and Rhode Island through legislation. No statistics are available forKansas and Alaska, and Rhode Island's records won't be opened untilJuly 1, 2012, but approximately 17,000 OBCs in the latter five stateshave been released with no reported ill consequences.

Rightsare for all citizens, not favors doled out to some. Washington doesnot segregate rights by religion, ethnicity, age, or gender. Itshould not segregate rights by birth, adoptive status, or third partypreference.

Unless you amend HB 2211 to aclean bill to recognize the right of all of the state's adoptedpeople to their own OBC without restriction, then vote DO NOT PASS. Washington adoptees must enjoy equal protection, due process, anddignity, not favors.

Submitted by Marley Greiner
ExecutiveChair
Bastard Nation: the adoptee rights organization
January16, 2011

BastardNation is dedicated to the recognition of the full human and civilrights of adult adoptees. Toward that end, we advocate the opening toadoptees, upon request at age of majority, of those governmentdocuments which pertain to the adoptee's historical, genetic, andlegal identity, including the unaltered original birth certificateand adoption decree. Bastard Nation asserts that it is the right ofpeople everywhere to have their official original birth recordsunaltered and free from falsification, and that the adoptive statusof any person should not prohibit him or her from choosing toexercise that right. We have reclaimed the badge of bastardy placedon us by those who would attempt to shame us; we see nothing shamefulin having been born out of wedlock or in being adopted. BastardNation does not support mandated mutual consent registries orintermediary systems in place of unconditional open records, nor anyother system that is less than access on demand to the adult adoptee,without condition, and without qualification.

Bastard Nation in Slate

2012-01-10T10:50:00.002-05:00

Yippie! Bastard Nation got a nice and extensive plug yesterday in Slate:: Luke Marci and Me: After 34 years the Internet gave me a sister I'd never known. in which writer Luke O'Neil recounts the discovery of his sister, he knew about, but had remained illusive.

Luke discusses BN and sealed records about mid-way through the first page.

Comments are mainly good, but contain a number of expected snarks in two categories.

(1) It's a Pandora's box. You're better off not knowing

(2) Searching betrays adoptive parents.

I'll be commenting there later today.

Thanks, Luke!

Adoption Noir: A Review of Ed Lynsky's "Ask the Dice"

2012-01-08T19:37:00.000-05:00

I'm a fan of adoptee noir, so it was a pleasant surprise to find Ask the Dice a member of that growing subgenre. No doubt some adoption deformers will get the vapors at the thought of a hit man who just happens to be adopted (hit man, might be too benevolent--from the way Tommy Mack Zane tells it, the number of dead pile up in the hundreds), but as a Bastard I found it refreshing and so un-PC. Even better, he's a TRA hit man, black and adopted by a white Washington DC couple out of an "orphan home" in Champagne's Folly, Texas, his landing point after his parents mysteriously committed suicide, giving him an extra layer or two of adoptee angst and screwed upedness. He clearly loves his adoptive parents Amanda and Phil Zane, but feels apart, different. Being 5 or 6 years old and finding his mother Nela hanging in the kitchen a week after his father Bradford shot himself doesn't help.Thankfully, Tommy Mack suffers no primal wound and doesn't blame his career choice on adoption.

But back to the book. Tommy Mack is a contract killer for the blind, dirty-minded, and mysterious Watson Og (love the name!) the crime boss of the WDC area who lives in a crappy bungalow in order to keep a low profile and resembles (n my mind) William Burroughs in green aviator glasses. He has two hot-to-trot nieces, Gwen and Rita, in his charge (more or less) which is where the trouble starts.

See, Tommy Mack is...well...getting tired of his job. After all, he's been whacking skimmers, cheats, witnesses for the prosecution, snitches, thugs a boxcar of plain troublesome people for Mr. Og since he was 18, and now at the age of 54 he'd like take down his shingle. Mr. Og has other ideas, or shall we say, he's planning to take Tommy Mack's shingle down himself. It was a little unclear to me just why Mr Og has a hard-on for long time trusted employee Tommy Mack, other than he has one on for everybody, and the dice shook out Tommy Mack this time around. I mean, this is a guy who will knock off his own family if they "misbehave" or even if they don't. He seems to be in to object lessons. Besides, Tommy Mack has a tendency to act up sometimes even to the point of fudging a hit.he deems unfair.

I won't spoil the fun--too much. After Mr. Ogg frames Tommy Mack for the murder of his niece Gwen, the cast of characters grows. Old friends D Noble from the 'hood who's been playing dead from AIDS for the last few years and Esquire, a gay hulk of a car upholsterer who favors hammers and knuckle dusters if he must; and new friends Danny, a female Northern Virginia gun dealer and Big Jamal, a midget with a Glock, join Tommy Mack's crew to eliminate Mr. Og permanently from the WDC scenery. As they join forces, To pepper the pot, Tommy Mack, starts to draw the dots together and comes up with some startling revelations about his own life. The denouement--well think of Red Harvest.

Tommy Mack is a traditionalist. He abhors cell phones and has a rolodex in his head of phone booths in DC Metro. In his off-hours, he listens to old school jazz, (especially Bird) watches vintage black-produced film noir, and writes poetry. As someone who misspent much of her youthful should-be-sleeping time listening to XERB and XERF blasting all the way from the Mexican border to Canton, Ohio, I especially like his (and Lynsky's/ *6E0 X Radio Station: Texas 1940s.

Some of the writing in Ask the Dice is a little clunky; some of the plot and narrative improbable, but you can say the same about Chandler, Hammett, and Cain (anybody ever actually read Double Indemnity?) all of whom Lynsky seems to draw on. I was hoping that Mr Og was shagging his nieces, but alas! That is, as far as we know. Tommy Mack should have been younger by 10 years younger to tighten up the timeline. Mr. Og is supposedly only a "person of interest" to the WDC police (and I assume the FBI) when he's a crime boss in the nation's capital connected to "the Baltimore family." In real life, WDC, has plenty of criminals, but no traditional crime family unless you count Congress. The idea that he can maintain a low profile and that Tommy Mack, even with a clean record, isn't on John Law's radar doesn't make sense unless District law enforcement is more lax than my local doughnut munchers. I also found Tommy Mack less street smart that he should be, but then ,he's used to being the hunter, not the hunted. Thank goodness for Esquire! Despite the flaws, some of them minor, it's a great read, especially for those of us who enjoy noir and creepy crime bosses.

Tommy Mack's adoption story was left open ended, even if it appears to be closed in the book. There's a lot more going on there that we don't know, but our protagonist has other things on his mind--sorta.--and says he doesn't care. He will. He's adopted and I've never known any adoptee to let their story hang. for very long. Tommy Mack's return to Champagne's Folly, during a road trip, courtesy of Mr Og, was handled with sensitivity. and I'd like to see more of that part of the story. A search for the truth that goes deeper than what's he's already done I hope Lynsky and Tommy Mack revisit and dissect the story a la James Ellroy's My Dark Places.

A sequel? Here's an idea: Tommy Mack Zane, after returning to Champagne's Folly to investigate his parents' deaths and uncover his adaption secrets, takes on the Texas adoption industry and the legislature and gets our records opened.. How Tommy Mack accomplishes this miracle we'll leave up to Ed Lynsky..

Central Ohio Support Group Starting

2012-01-07T22:00:00.001-05:00

New! General Adoption Support Group

Interested in learning about the life-long experiences of adoption?

Join Ohio Birthparent Group and Adoption Network Cleveland
for a new adoption support group forming in Central Ohio!

FIRST MEETING: Sunday January 22nd, 2012 / 2-4pm
Gahanna Public Library Community Room
310 Granville St. Columbus, OH 43230

Designed to create open dialogue across the spectrum of experiences with adoption, this support group is open to anyone who is touched by adoption or simply interested in learning more about adoption issues. Adult adoptees, adoptive parents, birthparents, prospective adoptive parents, spouses, partners and extended family members are especially encouraged to attend.

Co-Sponsored by Ohio Birthparent Group & Adoption Network Cleveland
Ohio Birthparent Group is excited to partner with to bring this much-needed General Meeting to the Central Ohio area. For those utilizing ANC’s Search Assistance programs, attendance at our Central Ohio meetings can be used toward ANC’s . This Central Ohio meeting is facilitated by peers who experience adoption as birthparents, adoptive parents and adoptees. There is no cost to attend and no RSVP is needed. For more program information, visit .

About Ohio Birthparent Group
What We Do Ohio Birthparent Group is a non-profit organization committed to supporting the life-long needs of birthparents through peer support, advocacy and community education. Learn more about us .		Upcoming Meetings Next Monthly Birthparent Meeting Sunday Jan 15th, 2-4pm Gahanna Public Library Visit our

Copyright © 2012 Ohio Birthparent Group, All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
Ohio Birthparent Group

P.O. Box 9791

Columbus, OH 43209

For Ohio Adoptees and Parents: Ohio Right to Life PAC Endorsements

2012-01-06T18:50:00.000-05:00

For more than 15 years, Ohio Right to Life has been the chief opponent of the restoration of the right of all Ohio adoptees to access their own original birth certificates For ORTL, adoption is the loving option; adoptees aren't.

Ohio Right to Life PAC, has published its list of endorsements for the March 5, 2012 Ohio primary. . The endorsements are for contested seats only. Since endorsement lists sometimes disappear from webpages after elections, I'm posting the list below for the record. .Incumbents are in italics.If you are in Ohio and any of these candidates are on your ballot, don't let them get in the door. For those who are in the door, give them your personal boot.

1. Ohio has been redistricted and some incumbents may currently represent a district other than what they are now running in.

2. Some incumbents may be term limited and are now running for the opposite house.
. Ohio Right to Life PAC Endorsements for the March 6, 2012 Primary Election

Ohio Senate Endorsements

Republican State Representative Randy Gardner - Senate District 2
Republican State Senator Peggy Lehner (Honor Roll Status) - Senate District 6
Republican State Representative Joe Uecker (Honor Roll Status) - Senate District 14
Republican Candidate Paul Hall - Senate District 14
Republican State Senator Jim Hughes - Senate District 16
Republican State Senator Tom Patton - Senate District 24

Ohio House of Representatives Endorsements

Republican State Representative Peter Stautberg - House District 27
Republican Candidate Mike Wilson - House District 28
Republican Candidate Lou Blessing, III - House District 29
Democratic Candidate Terry Tranter - House District 31
Democratic Candidate Daniel Troy - House District 60
Republican Candidate Randy Law - House District 64
Republican Candidate John Becker - House District 65
Republican Candidate Doug Green - House District 66
Republican Candidate Rick Herron- House District 66
Republican Candidate Nick Owens - House District 66
Republican State Representative Andrew Brenner - House District 67
Republican State Representative Margaret Ruhl - House District 68
Republican Candidate Rick Perales - House District 73
Republican Candidate Ron Hood - House District 78
Republican Candidate Monty Lobb - House District 78
Republican State Representative John Adams - House District 85
Republican State Representative Jeffrey McClain - House District 87

If you're in House District 78, watch out for Monty Lobb. A few years ago he was Ken Blackwell's shadowy chief of staff and mini-me. I wrote about him here: Ohio Christian Alliance: Ohio Asst. Sec. of State Monty Lobb and "Swiftboat" Jerry Corsi to Raise Money for Re-formed Christian Coalition of Ohio.

Happy New Year 2012: Thoughts on Adoption and New York City on New Year's Eve

2011-12-31T21:58:00.000-05:00

I am a New York City person. I know this for a fact, not only because I love Manhattan and feel at home there, but all of the theatre people I know in the city tell me I belong there.

Unfortunately, my life in the Big Apple was hijacked before I was born. My birthparents were inconvenient enough to have spawned me in a "tourist cabin" on the back Akron-Massillon Road (or someplace like that) and my adoptive parents, thoughtless of my needs, remained in Ohio. My amom, though, for reasons known only to her, decided I should be a copywriter or a graphic artist, neither of which I had much talent for. If I'd followed her command you'd be watching me, not Peggy Olsen on Mad Men--unless I decided to play out a Ronna Jaffe career girl and throw myself out a window or take bottle of Seconal after being used by Don Draper. It didn't help that I decided to get married when I did, cutting short any chance of ever having a real life. That last sentence is stupid, of course, but that's how I thought back then..

What does this have to do with New Year's Eve?

Every year I try to post a relevant New Year video--preferably old.--and Christmas and New Year for me has always been about New York City. That probably comes from watching The Today Show window crowd at Rockefeller Plaza every morning before I went to school. BTW, one of my unmet goals in life is to dine in the Rainbow Room, but it's gone now.. My parents always did that when they went to New York--except when they took me. Then, it was Sardi's and the Latin Quarter. Talk about ungrateful!

Anyway, this year I had problem finding something suitable for ringing in 2012, until I came across this rare video of Guy Lombardo's appearance on the (live from New York) December 31, 1950 What's My Line. He must have run over to CBS during a break from the Roosevelt Grill, another place I fantasized about. The very name sounds so sophisticated. I prefer, the older version. A good place to meet William Powell..

The What's My Line panel 61 years ago tonight was an All-Star New York lineup: Betty Furness Arlene Francis, Garry Moore (all of whom people of a certain age should remember), and as a special treat, the poet and critic Louis Untermeyer. Who says TV wasn't smart back then? (Actually the show had quite a few smart panelists!) I had no idea Untermeyer was a What's My Line regular--or on TV at all, having spent my formative years with his replacement Bennett Cerf who made me useless for any publisher other than Random House. Untermyer was later forced off the show by commie-hunters and commie-hating sponsors, despite a strong, protracted defense by Goodson- Todman. Gotta watch those poets!

OK, I've rattled on long enough, and as soon as I post this I'm going back to living vicariously through What's My Line. Happy New Year! I'd like to say the new year has to be better than 2011, but I won't count on it . Let's do try, though!

Lombardo is on the first half of this video, followed by a civilian who makes seltzer.

I suppose taking a 17-year old to the Latin Quarter would be grounds for endangerment charges today .

US Adoption's Dirty Little Secret: US Babies Exported Worldwide

2011-12-30T00:43:00.000-05:00

America's dirty little adoption secret (which one?) is out , but nobody is paying much attention.

Last month the US Department of State issued the 2011 FY 2001 Annual Report on Intercountry Adoption. It's only five pages long but full of "interesting" bick-a-brac Within the stats we learn than 73 US citizen children were adopted out of country; that is, they've, as State quaintly calls it,."emigrated" to another country via adoption. The largest receiving country is Canada with 31; the second is the Netherlands with 27.. It gets better: the largest sending state is Florida with 49 little Floridians packing their diaper bags for other parts of the world, . The second largest sending state is South Carolina with 12--all heading for Canada.. These two states far outstrip other states in outgoing shipments.

I got curious, so I went back and found reports for 2009 and 2010 and found even more alarming figures The number of American children removed, renamed, and remodeled abroad has more than quintupled in three years, from 26 in the 2009 report to142 in the 2011 report. (According to the 2009 report these figures go from October 1, 2008-September 30, 2009. The other reports don't give a FY date, but I assume this is it.for each report). The statistics. include all children no matter if the receiving county is a signatory to the Hague or not. I believe these figures are low, but they are the "official numbers."

I made a chart showing numbers, receiving countries, and sending states. If I were a pap on a waiting list, I'd be pretty peeved at this. I'm not a pap, but I am.anyway.

RECEIVING COUNTRY	2009 REPORT Sending state	2010 REPORT Sending state	2011 REPORT Sending state	TOTAL
Austria	New York - 1 TOTAL; 1	Florida - 1 TOTAL: 1	Florida - 1 TOTAL: 1	Florida -2 New York - 1 TOTAL 3
Canada	Florida – 1 Nevada – 1 South Carolina – 2 Utah - 1 TOTAL: 5	California – 1 Florida – 12 South Carolina – 5 Texas - 1 TOTAL: 19	Florida – 18 Nevada – 1 South Carolina - 12 TOTAL: 31	California – 1 Florida- 31 Nevada – 2 South Carolina - 19 Texas - 1 Utah - 1 TOTAL: 55
Curacao			Florida - 1 TOTAL: 1	Florida - 1 TOTAL: 1
Germany	California – 1 TOTAL: 1	New Jersey - 2 TOTAL: 2	New Jersey - 2 TOTAL: 2	California – 1 New Jersey - 4 TOTAL: 5
Ireland			Florida -5 TOTAL 5	Florida - 5 TOTAL: 5
Mexico			California - 1	California - 1 TOTAL: 1
Netherlands	California – 1 Florida – 13 Indiana – 1 New York - 2 TOTAL: 17	California – 1 Florida – 13 New Jersey – 1 New York - 3 TOTAL: 18	California – 1 Florida – 21 Kansas – 1 New Jersey – 2 Pennsylvania – 1 Texas - 1 TOTAL: 27	California – 3 Florida – 47 Indiana – 1 Kansas – 1 New Jersey – 3 New York –5 Pennsylvania – 1 Texas - 1 TOTAL: 62
Spain			Florida - 1 TOTAL: 1	Florida - 1 TOTAL: 1
South Africa		Nevada - 1 TOTAL: 1		Nevada - 1 TOTAL; 1
Switzerland			California – 1 Florida – 1 TOTAL: 2	California – 1 Florida - 1 TOTAL: 2
UK	Florida – 2 TOTAL: 2	Florida – 1 New Jersey - 1 TOTAL: 2	Florida – 1 Texas - 1 TOTAL: 2	Florida –4 New Jersey – 1 Texas - 1 TOTAL: 6
TOTAL	26	43	73	142

The US to Canada pipeline is no surprise. We already know that some US agencies specialize (or at least did a few years ago) in placing African-American or transracial children in Canada, but we can't help but wonder who's doing it since the Hague kicked in, and it's a little more difficult (in theory) to transport American children across country lines for purposes of adoption.

People Magazine ran an feature in 2005, Why are American Babies Being Adopted Abroad? in which two sending agencies were identified as sending children to Canada, but neither of them were in Florida or South Carolina.. In February 2009, 60 Minutes ran a news feature Born in the US: Adopted in Canada Lesley Stahl reported

one Florida adoption agency sent more than half its black infants out of the country last year. No one keeps count, but 60 Minutes was told it could involve as many as 500 children a year.

The agency wasn't identified, but immediately afterward Stahl segued into an interview with Walter O Gilbert, identified as the CEO of The Open Door, a "Florida adoption agency" that placed a lot of black children in Canada. Checks of the Georgia and Florida Secretary of State records indicate that the agency is incorporated in both states, but its main office is in Thomasville, Georgia, on the state line about 30 miles north of Tallahassee. It's 800 number is advertised in numerous online Florida directories.

From 60 Minutes:

Walter Gilbert, CEO of The Open Door, views these adoptions as a "win-win" situation for the children, and he has strong opinions about why. "Especially in Canada, people are just color blind," says Gilbert. "That's been our experience. We would tend to tell them [birth mothers] that our experience has been there's less prejudice. They know what they experience here."

For the record, this is the same agency that placed Russian adoptee Jacob Lindorff with his Forever Parents Heather and James Lindoroff who later beat and starved him to death, but walked on 2nd degree assault and child endangerment. James Lindoroff is presently doing 7 years for a murder-for-hire scheme to kill a prosecution witness during his trial.

There is no indication on the current Open Door website that it is still doing business in Canada.

After an extensive Internet search to find what agencies today are exporting American kids, I've come up with nothing except for Florida. There, it appears, but I can't say with certainty, that Adoption by Shepherd Care, is the sending agency.

Shepherd Care had quite a Canadian business pre-Hague, (original no longer online). According to an October 27, 2004 Christian Science Monitor article, Born in America; Adopted Abroad, 90% of the agency's African American babies were adopted in Canada. Currently, its webpage doesn't advertise Canadian placement services, but indicates it has a Canadian coordinator. I found a post-Hague Shepherd Care handbook online in pdf form,, but not, as far as I can tell, from the ASC website, It says that the agency is committed to serving Canadians who want to adopt from the US. I can't get a good link for this, but you can find it by searching for "Adoption by Shepherd Care, Canada" and clicking on "Adoption Canada."

Finally, Christian Adoption Services, in Calgary, Alberta says that the procedure for US-Canada placements hasvechanged drastically since the US implement the Hague, and suggests that Canadians interested in initiating a placement contact Shepherd Care:

When considering this option, always ask the US agency that you are considering, whether they have the authority to place children out of the United States. Families have had success working with: Adoption by Shepherd Care, Inc. Florida 954-981-2060 www.adoptionshepherdcare.com and with Adoption attorney James Fletcher Thompson 864-573-5533 jfthompson@thompsonlawfirm.net. We will update this information with other US agencies as we determine which agencies are able to assist Albertan families.

This may all be moot soon, since the State of Florida is attempting to shut down Shepherd Care. after complaints were filed over coercive behavior against birthparents.

None of this,though explains South Carolina or the Netherlands.or those odd placements in Ireland.As for Texas, Gladeny admitted years ago that is places in Europe.

I put some feelers out to people who follow these things. None of them had any idea who's running kids, but I did get a couple leads. It will take awhile to dig, so in the meantime, I 'm posting this news for informational purposes and in the hope that somebody reading this has some suggestions.

NOTE: Currently, American children, even under the Hague agreement, can be adopted internationally, but with the consent of the biological parents only. Some children in DOS stats may be kinship placements. I am highly suspicious though, of 5 children being placed in Ireland out of Florida, and of course, the high number of kids general from Florida and South Carolina.

Merry Christmas Bastards!

2011-12-25T04:39:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas or whatever you're doing,to all my bastard buddies and readers. You're the best!

There's an adoptee message in this too - sorta. Love the Baby Box--and Kate Smith!

Ivan Skorobogatov : Cravers Lose Appeal

2011-12-23T22:34:00.003-05:00

The Cravaers were back on court this week . Both courts. The results were as expected.

Wednesday morning, York County Common Pleas Court Judge John S Kennedy, who presided at their trial, denied separate appeals from the Cravers for retrials. The couple, who earlier escaped death penalty specs, was tried for murder, but convicted on lesser charges of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of child endangerment, and conspiracy. They appealed their case on the flimsy grounds that their convictions were "against the weight of the evidence." The Cravers were charged in the death of their adoptive son Vanya Skorobogatov who died of severe beatings and malnutrition in 2009. In their appeals, the couple argued that with their convictions and probations hanging over their heads, they can't find work and have been forced to move in with friends. Michael Craver is reportedly an Air Force veteran and an engineer by profession..

Thrown into the pot (which I'd not seen published before) was the couple's request that their court costs of nearly $100,000 be cut half.

Some people just don't' know when to quit.when they're ahead.

I disagreed with the flop to involuntary manslaughter and the wrist-slap sentence. I thought Judge Kennedy equivocated when he said the verdict was appropriate and just. But he stuck it to the Cravers this time. It's too bad there's no online transcript. .From the York Dispatch, Cravers' manslaugahter convictions stand, judge won't reduce $98K court costs,"

Cravers' former home where Vanya was killed

Kennedy said he wished state law would allow him to order the Cravers to pay the costs of their defense as well.

But because the Cravers were represented by public defenders and court-appointed counsel, they cannot be billed for defense fees, chief deputy prosecutor Tim Barker said.

"The taxpayers of York County should be reimbursed" for defense costs, as well as prosecution costs, Kennedy said. He noted the Cravers have earning potential, unlike many other defendants who will never be able to pay off their court costs.

Defense attorneys declined to say how much defense fees totaled, and that information is not available to the public.

I'm surprised that the public defender costs aren't public information. They should be. After all, the public paid the bill. Over 30 years ago I was part of a defense team in a successful capital murder appeal in Ashtabula County, Ohio. Our costs were around $100,000 in 1978 money. It should have twice that, but a good part of the work was pro bono and the defendant went pro se. The state's cost was over $200,000 and came close to busting the county prosecutor's bank account. Of course, if the Cravers had been able to hire their own lawyers the costs would have taken them on a trip to Mars, and they might have gotten a worse.deal. . They got off cheap and lucky and should be happy.

The Dispatch doesn't mention what the Cravers plan to do now, but the next step, if they pursue it, would be to take their appeal to the Pennsylvania Superior Court.

Hours before the Cravers were in York County Common Pleas Court crying innocent, and poor, the Moscow City Court was busy upholding an earlier ruling refusing to issue an Interpol arrest warrant on the couple to haul them back to Moscow for a show trial. The article which appears in different forms from RIA Novosti and the Russian Legal Inforamtion Agency (scroll down and hit link) is awkwardly translated in English, and leaves a big hole in the story. According to both sources, though, the court also dismissed an appeal filed by Vanya's aunt. This is the first time we've heard of an aunt trying to bring charges.

Vaclav Havel, 1936-2011: He Had Things to Tell Us If We'll Listen

2011-12-18T14:48:00.001-05:00

Vaclav Havel, playwright, dissident, former Czech president died today at the age of 75. His obituary is all over the media. My favorites are the Christian Science Monitor's, Vaclav Havel: Remembering the Czech President, Playwright, and Peacenik David Remnick's, Postscript: Vlaclav Havel, 1936-2011 in the New Yorker online.

I have always believed there is a seamless line between art and politics (excluding Hollywood hacks, HuffPo progs, and Thomas Kinkade). I'm not sure if art or poliltics came first for me, but they have always been one in the other. Mississippi Freedom Riders, Tuli Kupferberg, Yippie! the early Yoko Ono, Merce Cunningham, Charlotte Moorman, Norman Mailer, Gene McCarthy, Gore Vidal, Beckett, Ionesco, Big Bill Haywood, The Velvet Underground, Randolph Bourne, Gilbert Seldes, Alfred Nock. Even Thomas Jeffrerson and Beethoven are part and parcel of my political package tied up in a big red ribbon by Emma Goldman. So, it's not strange that I came to Havel through theatre, not politics. I'm hardly an expert on him so I won't try to write about him. I want, however, to post a couple things--or rather point you to them.

I am particularity fond of Havel's essay, Totalitarianism and Stories, (April 1987), which weaves art and politics--the "story"and its negation--or as Havel calls it, its nihilization--in the totalitarian state For those of us who have lived under a totalitarianism, (even as I did in its death throes in the Soviet Union) his essay makes perfect sense. Important for us, is the essay's relevancy to the corpo United States today. On the micro level, it is relevant to adoptee rights and how and why the corporate state and its special interests hold on to its control of our documents and identities. It's what happens when nothing is left for them to do Remember that: when there is nothing else for them to do . They've lost.

I'm tempted to post the whole essay here, but it's too long for a comfortable blog, and there may be copyright issues. Instead I'll excerpt a little bit below with a link to the English translation.

Havel wrote:

Visitors from the West are often shocked to find that for Czechs, Chernobyl and AIDS are not a source of horror, but rather a subject for jokes.

I must admit this doesn't surprise me. Because totalitarian nihilization is utterly immaterial, it is less visible, more present, and more dangerous than the AIDS virus or radioactivity from Chernobyl. On the other hand, it touches each of us more intimately and more urgently and even, in a sense, more physically, than either AIDS or radiation, since we all know it from everyday, personal experience and not just from news~ papers and television. Is it any wonder, then, that the less menacing, less insidious, and less intimate threats are relegated to the background and made light of?

There is another reason for the triumph of invisibility. The destruction of the story means the destruction of a basic instrument of human knowledge and self-knowledge. Totalitarian nihilization denies people the possibility of observing and understanding its processes "from outside." There are only two alternatives: either you experience it directly, or you know nothing about it. This menace permits no public reference to itself.

and

Totalitarian power brought bureaucratic order into the living disorder of history and thus effectively anesthetized it. In a sense, the government nationalized time. Thanks to that, time encountered the same sad fate as many other nationalized entities: it began to wither away.

As I've said, the revolutionary ethos in Czechoslovakia has long since vanished. We are no longer governed by fanatics, revolutionaries, or ideological zealots. The country is administered by faceless bureaucrats who profess adherence to a revolutionary ideology, but look out only for themselves, and no longer believe in anything. The original ideology has become a formalized ritual that gives them legitimacy in space and time, and provides them with a language for internal communication.

Oddly enough, it is only recently that this ideology has begun to bear its most important fruit, to manifest its deepest consequences.

How are we to explain this?

Simply: by the age and the deeply conservative (in the sense of preserving) nature of the system. The further it gets from its original revolutionary fervor, the more slavishly it clings to all its constitutive principles, which it sees as the only certainty in an uncertain world. Inevitably, through its own mindless, automatic motion, it gradually transforms those principles into a monstrous reality. The ceaseless strengthening and perfecting of totalitarian structures has long since come to serve only the naked self-preservation of power, but this is the best guarantee that what was genetically encoded in the original ideology will flourish undisturbed. The fanatic whose unpredictable zeal for the "higher cause" might threaten this automatic process has been replaced by the bureaucratic pedant whose reliable lack of ideas makes him an ideal guardian of late totalitarianism's vacuous continuity.

The phenomenon of totalitarian nihilization is one of the late fruits of an ideology that has already gone to seed.

Frank Zappa & Valcav Havel

On a very different note, Havel's relationship with Frank Zappa.

"Frank Zappa was one of the gods of the Czech underground. I thought of him as a friend Whenever I feel like escaping from the world of the Presidency, I think of him."Zappa and Václav hit it off immediately.

Zappa was appointed as "SpecialAmbassador to the West on Trade, Culture and Tourism". Czechs treatedZappa as a national hero, and he was even talking about applying forcitizenship. Meetings were held with Zappa, Havel, his finance ministersand the Ministry of Culture and Trade. Frank had some ideas aboutincreasing their tourism viability by converting some old castles intohotels and dealing with airlines to get more visitors into the country.There was also talk about credit cards and television shopping networks,both new concepts in Czechoslovakia. The main question was how to getwestern goods and services into the country.

Two weeks later, US Secretary of State James Baker re-routed a tripthrough Europe to visit Václav Havel. At the time, Czechoslovakia wasapplying for badly needed aid from the US Government. Baker's message wasshort and simple: Havel could either do business with the United States orhe could do business with Frank Zappa. It would seem Baker had a bit ofan axe to grind, since Zappa had insulted his wife, Susan Baker, before aSenate Committee hearing in Washington DC back in 1985 regardingcensorship of rock albums and the PMRC. The PMRC, or "Parents MusicResource Center", sought legislation for censorship of rock records.In the Senate hearing, Zappa referred to Susan and the others in the PMRCas "a group of bored Washington housewives", and it would seem James Bakerhad not forgotten the insult. Zappa's career as an international tradeambassador was over nearly as fast as it had begun.

Vaclav Havel & Lee Reed at Columbia

And this little story about a night out on the town with Havel, Zappa, Madaeline Albright, Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson. It can't get any stranger that this.

Madeliene Albright and Lou Reed? Even more scary: US aid to the new Czech state was contingent on Havel's shooing away Frank Zappa? So much for the Cold War!

Havel at Columbia has a collection of video interviews with Lou Reed about Havel.

Elegie from Egon Bondy's Happy Hearts Club Band by Plastic People of the Universe

banned in Czechoslovakia 1973

Russian Adoptee Reported Murdered in Canada

2011-12-12T23:35:00.001-05:00

Voice of Russia says that a 4-year old Russian-Canadian adoptee named Sasha, has been beaten to death by the live-in boyfriend of his Forever Mother.

Saturday, Russian Children's Rights Commissioner Pavel Astakhov sent a tweet about the death which I've read, but offered no other details, and as of this writing there are no additional messages. No statement has been published by the Russian Ministry of Education and Science in either Russian or English or by TAR-Tass News Agency or any other Russian online source. .

I'll be watching this story.

UPDATE: One of my readers, Andraya Charette has pointed out to me that this is an old case from 2002--but that the Russian government has only now has become aware of it. The little boy's name was Sacha Valee. I have some more information on the case, but it's late, so I'll put it up tomorrow probably..

Andraya pointed me to an article published today by the Russian Legal Information Agency (l'l be linking that publication permanently in my sidebar on Niko) article, Children's Ombudsman reports death of Russian-born child adopted in Canada.. The article quotes RIA Novisti, which wasn't listed when I googled earlier this evening:

"It is an old case. It happened in 2002, but it became known only now," Astakhov told RIA Novosti.

According to him this case was uncovered by a group set up to monitor the status of the adopted children.

On Saturday Astakhov said he did not rule out imposing a moratorium on children's adoption and relocation to the United States before the US - Russian adoption agreement is ratified.

He said a dangerous situation has developed abroad when a huge number of violations of Russian-born children's rights keeps on growing. He also emphasized the gravest situation over children's rights violations can be seen in the United States.

The haphazard way in which the murders of Russian adoptees is reported to the Russian government is alarming to say the least. Just how many murders have occurred that we don't know about (even if they are reported locally) in the US, Canada, or other countries? .Since the Russians have formed a monitoring group, we may be hearing of more soon.

Astakhov also brought up a case of sexual abuse which boggles the mind. I'll be looking for more on this:

According to his information there is an American family which adopted 21 girls from Russia with the purpose of sexually abusing them. "We have found out dozens of such case now," the ombudsman said.

If this is true, the Russian courts fall down on the job, too.

Much thanks to Andraya Charette!

Santorum Called Out on Sandusky During Iowa Speech

2011-12-12T20:21:00.000-05:00

I'm no fan of Barrack Obama but I really like this.

Last Friday, Rick Santorum pimped his hopeless campaign at the University of Northern Iowa in a speech sponsored by NIU and Iowa Public Radio. It was all pretty ho-um and predictable until the Q & A. I'll let Linh Ta, government reporter from the Northern Iowan in Santorum argues for government to return to past ways, take it from there:.

...Another audience member questioned the candidate about Santorum awarding former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky with the Angels in Adoption Award.

Santorum explained that he lacked knowledge of the situation at the time and noted that the award has since been withdrawn.

In response to his explanation, the audience member asked, "So we shouldn't trust Obama with our kids, but we can trust you?"

It was no news to me that Santorum had sponsored Jerry Sandusky glad-hand award from the Congressional Coalition for Adoption (Even Bill Pierce found the award self-serving an referred to it the industrialist winners, in a private correspondence with me, as "the hoity-toits". who like to get their pictures taken with government big shots), I'm thrilled, nonethetless, that someone in Iowa--an adoptee perchance--had the presence of mind to call out Santorum on what to a lot of people, might consider a "minor" Santorum issue. After all he has so many. to choose from..

I know that other Angels in Adoption recipients have been caught with their pants down, too, or their hand in the til' or their hot sauce at the ready or whatever these people do, but I don't have time tonight to research it.. If anyone has any stories, feel free to post them here. We have our own Demons in Adoption Awards, but it's also "fun" to expose these hypocrites whenever we can.

Thanks to Will Grigg for the tip.

Judy Ohles Kooistra - RIP

2011-12-11T14:56:00.001-05:00

A few days ago we lost another good one. Judy Ohles Kooistra, friend, blogger, and somebody who "got it." passed away in Canton, Ohio after a hard fought battle with Inflammatory Breast Cancer. Diagnosed in December 2007, Judy went into remission in December 2008. In early November this year, she learned the cancer had returned.

On December 8 Judy went into hospice and died the same day.. Jenna Hatfield (Chronicles of Munchkinland) wrote this about her good friend and co-blogger A Pause for Judy.

Judy has been a voice in the blogosphere for years. About adoption, about ethics, about books, about faith, about cancer, about life. I encourage you to pause today to read a bit of Judy, to say a prayer for both Judy and her family and to cover them all in your love today.

and after her death: Thank You Judy

As with anyone who dies, there are things left unsaid. And so…

Followed by a wonderful tribute of thanks.

Judy is survived by her son Nate, husband Frank, her mother, brother, sisters, and other family.

A remembrance of Judy's life will be held at the John Knox Presbyterian Church in North Canton on December 17. Contributions in her memory can be made to the Little Pink Houses of Hope or to John Knox Church.

You can get to know Judy better at her blog, Just Enjoy Him She was also a contributor to Mothers with Cancer.

******

I didn't know Judy well. She was from my hometown and we corresponded sporadically about adoption mostly, and a little bit about Canton. I met her briefly at the ASAK conference at Pitt in 2007. She was a wonderful sane voice in a place where sanity is a stranger.

Today Judy's obituary appeared in the Canton Repository and I'm posting it in full here.

Judith Ohles Kooistraage 50, of Canton, passed away on Thursday night, Dec. 8, 2011

. She was born in Cortland, New York and was raised in Kent, Ohio. She graduated from Kent Roosevelt High School, Kalamazoo College and Kent State University where she earned her MLS Degree. Judy was a Collection Development Librarian and Associate Professor for Libraries and Media Services at Kent State University, Stark Campus. She was a member of John Knox Presbyterian Church where she served as a Stephen Minister. Judy was a blogger and enjoyed writing. She was supportive for many with breast cancer, research and funding. She was very passionate about international adoption and adopted her son, Nate, from Ha Tinh, Vietnam in 2002.

She is survived by her husband of 15 years, Frank; and son Nate; mother Shirley Ohles of Sandusky; brother Fred (Rosemary) Ohles of Lincoln, Neb.; sisters Janet Ohles of Carmel, N.Y., Margaret (Bob) Black of Port Clinton, Ohio; brother-in-law John Kooistra of Fairbanks, Ark; sister-in-law Karen Callahan of Akron; and nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her father John F. Ohles.

A Celebration of Life will be held Saturday Dec. 17 at 11 a.m. at John Knox Presbyterian Church, 5155 Eastlake St., NW, North Canton, OH 44720, with Rev. Tom Houston officiating. Then, the family would like you to join them following the service in the church fellowship hall for a time of sharing luncheon. Memorial contributions may be made to Little Pink Houses of Hope or to John Knox Presbyterian Church.Arnold 330-456-7291www.arnoldfuneralhome.com\

Published in The Repository on December 11, 2011

UPDATE: A Summary of the Sentences of the Killers of Murdered Russian Adoptees in the US

2011-12-07T20:00:00.001-05:00

SUBSTANTIALLY UPDATED POST:
Since 1996, 7 Russian children have died at the hands of their forever families. Except for Dmitry Yakolev/Chase Harrison, all were victims of physical abuse, starvation, and systematic torture by adults who were judged by the US adoption industry and the US and Russian governments to be fit to adopt someone else's children. The Polreis case attracted national attention, but most cases, until recently, have rarely gotten more than a few lines. The Russian press has covered some, but not all of the cases, and covered the Harrison case extensively. Lately it has covered the Dykstra and Craver classes. The Russian Investigate Committee is now looking into some if not all of the cases, and threatening to take action on its own. Though it is highly unlike that Russian courts will accede to the wishes of the IC, the investigations and threats are indicative of the anger and frustration the Russian government has with Russian-US cross-country adoption.

Below is a summary of the legal outcomes of the 17 cases on record. . These summaries are taken from the larger account of each case found at my Forever Family, Forever Dead blog entry. There are also many links to these cases in the larger summary. Outside of Peggy Sue Hilt and Gary and Amy Thompson, the sentences have been relatively short and most of the forever parents are now on the street. I have no idea what the average sentence is for killing your child. I do know there is great disparity not only amongst states but amongst jurisdiction for killing children, so I can't say that these bad sentences reflect a general trend or are just what they are. Whatever, it is shocking to see that monsters like Robert and Brenda Matthey and Heather Lindorff out and about. Her husband, however, checked into the Gray Bar Hotel himself after he was convicted of trying to hire a hitman to kill a witness in the family's earlier trial.

This entry is a backgrounder for my own future writings and is also intended as a guide to domestic and international media t and scholars who check in here. When pictures of the dead children are available, I have included them here. Pictures of the forever parents, whenever available are placed below "Outcome."

.******

DAVID POLREIS, JR,/KONSTANTIN SHLEPIN

age 2, Greeley, Colorado. Died February 9, 1996; beaten and cut over 90% of his body.

OUTCOME: Adoptive mother Renee Polreis was convicted of child abuse resulting in death and sentenced to 18 years in prison. In 2000 her sentence was reduced; she was paroled in 2005.

LOGAN HIGGINBOTHAM (birth name unknown)

age 3, Shelburne, Vermont. Died November 25, 1998 of massive head injuries. The medical examiner was unable to determine if death was an accident or homicide. Three years later police reopened the case with other medical experts and concluded that Logan's head had been intentionally slammed into a wall.

OUTCOME: In 2004, Laura Higginbotham pled no contest to a charge of involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 1 year in prison. She will remain on parole until her older daughter, Layne also adopted from Russia is 18. Higginbotham has divorced, remarried, and has a biological child.

VIKTOR MATTHEY/ VIKTOR SERGIVICH TULIMOV

ge 6, Hunterdon County, New Jersey. Died October 31, 2000 of cardiac arrest due to hypothermia after adoptive parents Robert and Brenda Matthey locked him overnight in a damp unheated pump room; also suffered over 40 cuts, scrapes, bruises and untreated fractures. Robert Matthey admitted beating Viktor with an aluminum baseball bat, a belt, 2 whips, and his open hand
.

OUTCOME: Jury acquitted the couple on evidence tampering charges; deadlocked on manslaughter charges, but convicted them of lesser abuse. Both sentenced to 10 years in prison for confining Viktor to the pump room, 10 years for inflicting excessive corporal punishment and 7 years for failing to provide medical care. The sentences were to run concurrently. Brenda Matthey was released from prison on November 1, 2008. Robert Matthey was released on November 7, 2008.

LUKE EVANS, (birth name unknown)

age 1.5, Lowell, Indiana. Died November 30, 2001 of massive head injuries, shaken baby syndrome, and poor nutrition.

OUTCOME: On June 30, 2006 Natalie Fabian Evans was found not guilty of murder, battery and neglect of a dependent after a doctor for the defense convinced a jury that Luke could have had "bleeding in his brain for days prior to the day" he was found unresponsive in his crib.Evans and her husband divorced during the proceedings.

JACOB LINDORFF, (birth name unknown)

age 5, Gloucester Twp., New Jersey. Died December 14, 2001 of blunt force trauma to head. Also suffered from 2nd degree burns on feet, hemorrhaging in 1 eye; bruises, and seizures.

OUTCOME: Adoptive mother Heather Lindorff, 36, was found guilty of 2nd degree endangering, aggravated assault. She was sentenced to 6 years. She claimed the injuries were accidents and begged judge not to separate her from her family. Adoptive father, James, 54, sentenced to 4 years probation and 400 hours of community service for child abuse. In May 2004, Heather Lindorff was released on appeal bond and ordered not to visit her children without supervision. That same month DYFS learned that children were back living with the Lindorffs. Medical examinations found four children were malnourished, abused, and neglected. Heather Lindorff was released from prison on November `6, 2009. In September 2007, James Lindorff and Mildred Cullinan were charged in a murder-for-hire plot to kill a witness at the Lindorff trial. On August 7, 2008 James Lindorff was convicted and sentenced to a maximum of 7 years with a minimum term of 5 years 11 months and 12 days. He will be eligible for parole on April 16, 201. His mother-in-law Mildred Cullinan pled down to a charge of hindering an investigation and was sentenced to 90 days in jail

JESSICA ALBINA HAGMANN (birth name unknown)

age 2 years, 7 months, Prince William County, Virginia. Died August 11, 2003 of mechanical asphyxia due to compression against an adult: lack of blood and oxygen possibly due to "holding therapy"performed by her adoptive mother Patrice Lynne Hagmann.

OUTCOME: In December 2003 Patrice Hagmann took an Alford plea ( pleading no contest, without acknowledging guilt). Prosecutors recommended 14 years in prison, In January 2004 the court sentenced her to five years for each charge, suspended dependent on five years probation.

ZACHARY HIGIER /NIKITA KHORYAKOVONT,

age 2, Braintree, Massachusetts. Died August 15, 2002 of severe trauma to the head. Jacob had a bilateral skull fracture, a massive stroke on the right side of his brain, a smaller stroke on left side, brain swelling and detached retinas.

OUTCOME: Adoptive mother Natalya Higier pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in jail, with 18 months balance of sentence suspended for 4 years; also required to attend anger management classes.

MARIA ANASTASIA BENNETT, (birth name unknown)

age 2, Lancaster, Ohio. Died October 23, 2002 of Shaken Baby Syndrome. Medical evidence indicated fatal head wounds and eye injuries could not be caused by such a drop.

OUTCOME: Bennett pled no contest to 1 count of reckless homicide. She originally faced 8 years in prison. Prosecutors recommended 4 years, but said they would not oppose probation after 2 years served. Bennett was sentenced to 3 years.

LIAM DMITRY THOMPSON/ DMITRY SERGEVICH ISHLANKULOV

age 3, Galloway, Ohio. Died October 16, 2003 at Columbus Doctors Hospital West of scalding and neglect. Five days earlier, adoptive father, Gary Allen Thompson, put Liam in a bathtub of 140 degree water causing 2nd and 3rd degree burns; skin peeled off legs. Instead of seeking treatment Thompson put him on a crib mattress in an unheated basement. Adoptive mother, LPN Amy Lynn Thompson, whose diary revealed she didn't like Liam or his adopted sister, failed to notice the seriousness of burns for 2 days, then treated him with Tylenol and Vaseline. Liam was taken to the hospital only when he went into respiratory failure. Autopsy revealed severe burns on both legs, right arm, back, and buttocks; bruises on neck, right side of upper lip, right eye, both cheeks and forehead. The official cause of death is listed as "thermal injuries."

OUTCOME: Amy Thompson pled guilty to child endangering and involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 14 years in prison. She is currently incarcerated in the Marysville Reformatory for Women and is scheduled for release on October 9, 2017..Gary Thompson pled guilty to murder and was sentenced to 15-life. His first parole hearing will be in August 2018.

ALEX PAVLIS/ ALEX GEIKO

age 6, Schaumburg, Illinois. Died December 19, 2003 of severe beating. Adoptive mother Irma Pavlis admitted to punching Alex hard in the stomach and slapping him.

OUTCOME: Irma Pavlis sentenced to 12 years for involuntary manslaughter. She was paroled on March 28, 2008 and resides out of state. She was released from released from parole on March 29, 2009.

DENNIS GENE MERRYMAN/ DENIS URITSKY

age 8, Harford County, Maryland. Died January 22, 2005 of cardiac arrest brought on by starvation; weighed 37 pounds, 2 pounds less than when doctors examined him in October 2000. Medical examiner could find no underlying conditions and ruled death a homicide.

OUTCOME: On April 17, 2008, adoptive parents Samuel and Donna Merryman On April 17, 2008 they were each sentenced to 22 years in prison. Samuel is currently incarcerated at the Maryland Correctional Institution in Hagerstown; Donna is at Patuxent Correctional Mental Health Center in Jessup.

NINA HILT/ VIKTORIA BAZHENOVA

age 2.5, Wake Forest, North Carolina. Died July 2, 2005 on A visit to Manassas, Virginia, from blows to the abdominal area. Adoptive mother, Peggy Sue Hilt, 33, told investigators she was "enraged and angered" at Nina, shook her, dropped her on floor, kicked her in the stomach, then picked her up, put her in bed and continued to strike her with a closed right fist on her back and stomach

OUTCOME: On May 25, 2006, Hilt was sentenced to 35 years in prison with 10 years suspended; will serve 21-22 years due to time served awaiting trial.She is currently incarcerated at the Fluvanna Correction Center for Women in Troy, Virginia. Her expected release date is October 6, 2022.

ISAAC JONATHAN DYKSTRA/ILYA KARGYNTSEV

age 21 months, Iowa City. Died August 14, 2005 , the day after he was hospitalized for injuries reportedly incurred from an accidental fall a few days earlier. On August 7, 2008, after a nearly 3-year investigation, adoptive father, Brian Dykstra, 31, was charged with 2nd degree murder.

OUTCOME: Dykstra released on bond. Due to the complexity of the case the prosecution and defense asked for several postponements over the next three years. As a result, Dykstra didn't go to trial until the end of October 2011. On November 3, 2011, despite a preponderance of evidence from doctors, nurses, police, and pathologists that in their opinion he killed Ilya, Dykstra was acquitted of all charges. Judging from news reports, the jury appeared to prefer the testimony of character witnesses.over scientific evidence. Dykstra and his wife, Dr. Lisa DeWaard Dykstra are now divorced, but she testified for the defense. Nearly a month after the verdict, on December 3, 2011. the Russian Investigative Committee, announced it was opening a case file on Dykstra and doing its own investigation. According to numerous Russian sources, the US State Department, contrary to agreement, had never informed Russian authorities about Ilya's death.and they heard about it only after the trial was over.

NICOLI (KOLYA) EMELYANTSEV

age 14 months, Tooele, Utah. Died March 7, 2008 from a "significant skull fracture" caused by blunt force trauma. Adoptive mother, Kimberly Emelyantsev 33, charged with murder. Charles against her husband, Fyodor, a Russian national, were dropped. During her post-conviction psychiatric evaluation she admitted grabbing Kolya by an arm and leg and repeatedly slamming him in the floor. Kolya suffered from Down Syndrome.

OUTCOME: Kimberley Emelyantsev, pled guilty to a lowered charge of 2nd degree felony child abuse homicide. On October 10, 2008 she was sentenced to up to 15 years in prison. I can find no current information on Emelyantsev's whereabouts (she should still be in prison), but according to his Facebook page, husband Fyodor Emelyantsev has returned to Russia and is living in Novosibirsk.

CHASE HARRISON/
DMITRY ALEXANDRIVCH YAKOLEV

age 21 months, Purcellville, Virgina. Died July 8, 2008 in Herndon, Virginia after adoptive father Miles Harrison, 49, left him in SUV for nine hours in up to 91 degree heat. Temperature inside anywhere between 131-172,.

Outcome: On December 18, 2008 Miles Harrison was acquitted of involuntary manslaughter in a bench trial.

NATHANIEL MICHAEL CRAVER/ IVAN "VANYA" SKOROBOGATOV

age 7. Dillsburg/Carroll Township, Pennsylvania. Died August 25, 2009 at Penn State Hershey Medical Center after being taken off life support. The autopsy revealed Vanya suffered 80 external injuries, including 20 to the head. Old injuries, including fractures to his forehead and old blood beneath his scalp were found. The coroner also found evidence of malnourishment and "severe failure to thrive." Adopters Michael 45 and Nanette Craver, 54, say that Vanya caused injuries to himself.

OUTCOME: On February 26, 2010 Michael and Nanette Craver were arrested and charged with criminal homicide, conspiracy, and child endangerment. The prosecutor considered seeking indictments with death penalty specifications, claiming that Vanya's death constitution torture, but later took that option off the table. The couple were held in the York County Prison without bond until their trial in September 2011. Like the Dykstracase, despite a preponderance of evidence to the contrary, the Cravers were acquitted of first degree murder, but unlike Dykstra were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, child endangerment, and conspiracy. In November they were sentenced to five years in prison with time served. They are currently on parole and attempting to regain custody of Vanya's twin sister, Dasha. After the sentencing hearing, the Russian Investigative Committee, outraged at the outcome of the trial announced it would seek to extradite the Cravers and try them on murder charges in Moscow. A Russian court ruled against the CI, but it is still investigating the case. On December 2, the Cravers filed separate appeals of their sentences and demanded new trials. If they win their appeals, which is doubtful, they can only be retried on the involuntary manslaughter charge, and if found guilty again, be sent to prison for up to10 years.

UPDATED DECEMBER 7, 2011

Ivan Skorobogatov. Cravers want new trial; custody of Dasha

2011-12-07T00:23:00.001-05:00

The Russian Investigative Committee (IC) isn't the only one demanding that the Cravers get a new trial.

Last week Michael and Nanette Craver, convicted last month of involuntary manslaughter in the death of their adopted Russian son Vanya Skorobogatov filed separate post-sentencing appeals with Judge John S. Kennedy, the presiding judge of their trial. They argue that the verdicts were "against the weight of the evidence." The appeals are not online, but according to the York Dispatch, Cravers ask judge to overturn their convictions and grant them new trials,:the couple argues:

prosecutors presented no evidence to show either parent physically abused Nathaniel, other than testimony from a forensic pathologist who said he believed the injuries were intentionally inflicted....

...The forensic pathologist testifying for the defense told jurors there was no evidence the injuries were intentionally inflicted, and a number of medical experts testified to Nathaniel's "numerous and serious medical and mental-health conditions," including self-injury, according to Michael Craver's motion

The jury didn't buy that argument and found the couple guilty of involuntary manslaughter, child endangerment and conspiracy. The couple was originally charged with first degree murder, with an option of death penalty specifications..

If the Cravers' appeal is granted, they can be re-tried only on the charges of which they were convicted, . BUT if they lose again, they could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison, rather than their current cushy time-served awaiting trial.

The Cravers obviously don't' know when to quit, especially since their case is edging into international incident territory due to the IC's attempt to extradite them to Moscow for a taste of Russian justice--and to take custody of Vanya's twin sister Dasha Skorobogatova in the process. Dasha, still a Russian citizen, as was Vanya, is currently, in the care of an adoptive aunt..

My educated guess is that Judge Kennedy will not grant the appeal motions since he, agreed with the verdict:
.
"It was an appropriate and just verdict," he said. "The physical evidence ... did not establish there was intentional infliction of injuries on Nathaniel. ... Certainly there was reasonable doubt presented."

If Kennedy doesn't grant the motions, the next step will be to take the case to the Pennsylvania Superior Court for consideration.

The Cravers legal team says the couple maintains their innocence and want to prove it, but also need an acquittal to re-gain custody of Dasha, whom they haven't seen since their arrest in February. 2010. Rick Robinson, one of Nanette Craver's lawyers. who said last month that the sentence was fair and reasonable, now backpedaling. He says he clients are concerned that their convictions:

establish the ability for Children and Youth (caseworkers) to attempt to terminate their parental rights for (the girl)," "They want to have contact with their daughter."

To add to the Craver's woes, they are currently unemployed and unemployable due to their conviction. They are now living with friends, which might mean they lost their home.

In so many words, the Cravers still insist that Vanya killed himself.

Let's stop right now!

I'm not going to go through all the trial testimony, most of it damming for the Cravers, but let's just take the autopsy alone. This is how pathologist Wayne K Ross, who performed the post-mortem on Vanya, described his condition durung the Craver's preliminary hearing, as reported in the April 29, 2010 York Daily Record.

WARNING: Graphic language ahead

Ross said the injuries to Nathaniel's swollen head were caused by repetitive blunt force trauma. He made the same observation as to the numerous bruises on the boy's arms, legs, chest, abdomen and torso.

The only part of the boy's body the pathologist did not take note of was the bottom of his feet.

Pictures taken at Hershey Medical Center by Carroll Township Police Sgt. John Schreiner reportedly showed an emaciated boy with gauze covering his head where surgeons had removed a piece of his skull to relieve the pressure on his swollen brain.

The exhibits - 18 hospital and autopsy photos and a cat scan - were passed by Barker to the defense attorneys and the district justice. They were not visible to onlookers in the courtroom.

Ross said the boy "looked like he was starved to death" and had "less than a millimeter" of body fat at the time of his death.

The pathologist said the boy's face and head were distorted by swelling and looked "like a balloon."

Nathaniel also had a "classic cauliflower ear" normally seen on a wrestler, he said...

...Ross's other findings included anemia, brain scarring, indications that the boy's shoulders and hips had been dislocated and that he had been bound at the wrists and ankles. He said the time of the injuries ranged from the 24 hours before being taken to the hospital to up to two months earlier.

under cross,

Nanette Craver's attorney David Hershey asked Ross if Nathaniel being diagnosed with reattachment disorder, the lack of a nurturing environment in a Russian orphanage and whether the boy was self-destructive and taking anti-psychotic medications would affect his findings.

Ross suggested deferring the psychological questions to an expert in that field. He then explained that anyone seeing Nathaniel over a period of time would have noticed the drastic change in his appearance and health.

Ross said the final injury to Nathaniel's head that necessitated taking him to the hospital required "hundreds of pounds of force."

He added the bruising patterns on the boy's head, back and abdomen "were inconsistent with self-abuse."

Dr. Ross also testified at the trial.. From the Harrisburg Patriot-News/ Penn.Live.com Doctor describes Craver's injuries to York County jury:

After nearly two hours on the witness stand, Dr. Wayne K. Ross circled his main point.

The Dauphin County forensic pathologist had performed the autopsy on Nathaniel Craver in 2009. He had spent Wednesday morning detailing the injuries he found on the 7-year-old’s body.

Nathaniel’s head: “I don’t just mean a little bit of swelling. I mean the entire skull and head looked to me like a watermelon or an alien.”

Nathaniel’s brain: “The bottom line is, it was soft as anything. When you look at the pictures of the brain we took at autopsy, it was purple and dead ... it was flat and mushy. It was horrible.”

He found evidence that muscles had torn near Nathaniel’s shoulder and hip joints from being pulled. He found marks indicating the boy had been bound at his feet and wrists.

He found bruising on Nathaniel’s torso and back showing the boy had been struck with a “tool type” device over a period of weeks. He found an untreated broken rib. He found “lakes of blood” under Nathaniel’s skull. To get there, Nathaniel’s head must have been struck repeatedly.

In the weeks before his death, Ross testified, Nathaniel was starving....

...Was it possible, Barker asked, for Nathaniel to have done this to himself?

It went to the heart of the defense case. Michael and Nanette Craver have maintained their adopted Russian son constantly abused himself. It was a manifestation of deep physical and psychological issues stemming from a harsh early life in Russia, conditions the Cravers have said they could not stop.

Ross did not hesitate.

“The abuse I see is due to the direct action of another,” Ross said, “not self-abuse.”

Other medical, police, and family backed up Ross on various points..

I really don't see how this evidence can be refuted, despite the defense's expert witness who claimed it was impossible to tell how Vanya was injured. Pathologists do make mistakes, but Vanya's injuries are so massive and extended they cannot be dismissed as self-inflicted. Especially by a 7-year old.

Clearly the jury, though flawed with its involuntary manslaughter verdict, believed that the Cravers were responsible for Vanya/s death through abuse or negligence.. A re-trial won't change that. Whatever happened Michael and Nanette Craver were lousy parents who either caused Vanya's death directly or indirectly. I believe directly.

I haven't yet, found an IC reaction to the Craver's demand for a new trial. The appeals have been reported by the Russian press so we know the IC and Russian Children's Rights Commission director Pavel Askakov know--just in case the US State Deparmtnet didn't know about it.

This is a wrap-up video of the sentencing.

More Trouble for Russian-US Adoption Relations: Russians say they didn't know about Dykstra case until after trial

2011-12-05T00:29:00.001-05:00

The other day I wondered why the Russian government hadn't commented on last month's acquittal of Brian Dykstra, charged with murdering his adoptive Russian son, Isaac Jonathan Dykstra. Now we know why.

The Russian government didn't know about the case!

I almost find this too fantastic to believe.

Isaac (whose birth name has now been revealed in the Russia press as Ilya Kargyntsev), died in 2005 after being in the US for only three months.. Under Russian-US adoption agreements, the US government is required to report the death of any Russian adoptee immediately to appropriate Russian Federation authorities. Remember that's how back in 2008, European Adoption Consultants got in trouble (see other EAC posts in right sidiebar for more) after the accidental death of Dmitri Yakolev/Chase Harrison. The agency failed to report the death in a timely manner that satisfied the Russians. 'm not sure if that agreement was in force at the time of Ilya's death, but it's been negotiated since and more safeguards (for what they're worth) are waiting to be ratified by the State Duma, Common sense tells us the death should have been reported, even late, if for no other reason than to try to look honest and to smooth out Russian-US adoption relations.Certainly if adoption "officials" on either side didn't know about Illya's death and the six year long investigation and trial, the unnamed adoption agency that handled the placement did, and had a duty to report it to the Education Ministry. What's the name of the agency, and where does it stand in all this?

I have been writing about the Dkystra case since 2008 when Brian Dkystra was charged and the story burst out of its Iowa City news ghetto, Nikto and the Daily Bastardette get frequent hits from the US State Department and Russian government sites (though it's not possible to tell which sites) and I find it hard to believe that one or both didn't stumble on the Dykstra case in their surf.. (Not to be facetious (but I will be anyway) perhaps the State Department and the Ministry pf Education and Science should put me on the payroll. I'll be happy to report any abuse of Russian adoptees I find.)
.

Whatever, the cat is out now.

On December 2, Russian Federation Children's Rights ombudsman, Pavel Astakov sent several tweets about the Dykstra case, which he reportedly learned about by accident.

For expediencey, I am using the ITAR-Tass translation. of those tweets. You can read all of Astakov's tweets on the case in Russian at his Twitter account (in Russian) Here's a couple of them as reported by the news agency, with my emphasis:

The boy died on August 14, 2005, and the investigation had been going on ever since. However, the U.S. authorities did not inform of it the Russian diplomatic mission, the consulate or the Ministry of Education and Science, which handles the adoption of Russian children by foreigners,”

Astakhov reported. The U.S. officials found it possible to make the case public only after the jury passed the verdict of not guilty.

“The Americans expressed regret over their inability to organize the timely information of the Russian authorities about the death of our little citizen (all the children, adopted in Russia, continue to be Russian citizens until they come of age), or the proper protection of the rights of the children, who fall victim to the offences,”

What can we even say about that last statement? "...inability to organize timely information?" This was information I've been writing about for three years and that adoption reform advocates were quite familiar with. It's been posted on Facebook for pete's sake! Yet the State department knew nothing? This simply is not acceptabale.
And if it's not true...

Either way, State has some big explaining to do. Для Павел Алексе́евич: Не доверяйте Государственного департамента США. Прочитано Никто не забыт - ничто не забыто. Мы говорим правду!

Astakov's official statement (in Russian) appears on the Russian-lanauge page of the Ministry of Education and Science, the agency that oversees Russian adoptions . Unfortunatley, it does not appear yet on the English lanauge page. (I'll keep looking) In the meantime, I'll use English lanauge versions of Itar-Tass and Russian publications.

Astakov told Reuters:

The American authorities have only now informed us (of this case). For almost six years they were silent and said nothing. It is inexcusabl,"...Nineteen of our children have died," Astakhov said referring to all deaths of Russian-born children in the U.S. since 1991. "This situation is a permanent fiasco."

In the past, Astakov has seemed willing to negotiate terms of adoption with the State Department, indicating that he wanted to see Russia-US adoption continue, but demanding regulations and enforcement tightened up. His latest statement from the Ministry indicates a harder, and for me, welcome stance. It's nice to find a masculine voice in otherwise weepy AdoptionLand:

“the dangerous trend of the acquittal (this is not the first such case) and of keeping away from criminal responsibility of the American foster parents, who permitted the death of adopted Russian children deliberately or unintentionally, puts up insurmountable obstacles on the way of further adoption of Russian children by Americans and may result in its banning altogether.” (ITAR-Tass translation)

The Russian Investigative Committee, already running an investigation of the Craver debacle, has announced that it is opening a case file on Bian Dykstra. The IC press release is available in Russian only. It says in rough translation:

...our job is to protect the interests, life and health of Russian citizens and take comprehensive measures to bring the perpetrators to the established norms of the Russian and international law of responsibility. In addition, the leadership of the Investigative Committee agreed with the Commissioner of the President of the Russian Federation for Children's Rights Pavel Astakhov for the prevention of crimes against Russian children adopted by American parents, to develop a mechanism to track their fate.

Reuters reports that the US State Department is preparing a response to Astakov's statement We can't wait.

Also see RIA Novosti

******

Michael and Nanette Craver are up to some new shenanigans, but I'm saving that for a separate blog post.that will be out shortly.

I'm having some technical problems updating the Memoriam and summary of cases/killers. I hope to have that fixed in the next day or so.

New York "Safe Haven" Hotline: No emergencies in 10 years

2011-12-04T00:14:00.000-05:00

The other day I was contacted by Rick Karlin, a reporter for the Albany (NY) Times Union with the news that the state's "safe" haven" hotline (not to be confused with the AMT-Children of Hope hotline operated by Tim Jaccard) had cut back its hours of operation. Karlin told me that the so-called hotline had gone down from 24/7 service to 8:00 AM - 8:00 PM and was off weekends and holidays. In fact, it had been operating like this for two years--and nobody noticed.

I talked to Rick quite a awhile on the phone and sent him some material about New York's law. The article came out Friday.. Abandoned Infant Hotline: Call during work hours The story is self-explanatory. I was quoted three times. Not surprisingly, Tim Jaccard and I had basically the same response: this is crazy. Even if I vehemently oppose "safe haven" laws, the question is: What's the logic in a part time emergency hotline?.

The answer is contained in this WTF moment in the article:

Since the hotline opened 10 years ago, it has received about 100 calls per year. Also: "No one who was about to abandon a baby has called the hotline since it started in 2001," OCFS spokeswoman Susan Steele said in an email.

No emergency calls in 10 years? Remember that New York's whacked baby dump law, which makes "any responsible person" (no definition of "responsible") a state agent--that is, a baby dump site--was sold to the legislature and the public as an emergency measure to stop an alleged epidemic of newborn discard and death..

It's not like the state hasn't tried. I don't know what the expenditure is up to now, but the March 6, 2005 New York Times reported (p 3) that NYS taxpayers were shelling out:

Since 2001, the state's Office of Children and Family Services spent $200,000 to promote the program statewide, maintaining a special telephone line and disseminating posters in English and Spanish, TV and radio ads, a brochure, and trinkets - pencils, refrigerator magnets, keychains - printed with the phone number. An additional $200,000 was allocated for 2004-05, but Brian Marchetti, a spokesman for the state office, didn't know if any of that was spent. Asked about any 2005-06 allocation, he referred further inquiries to Governor Pataki's office.

"We have sufficient resources to fully promote the act," said Joe Conway, a spokesman for the governor. "And that's all I'm going to say."

This doesn't count any local taxpayer funds that went toward advertising the law and hotline.

In the same 2005 article AMT-COH's Tim Jaccard complained that the state hadn't come through with money it sorta "promised:"

"The state won't give us money to advertise," Mr. Jaccard said. "After he signed the bill, Governor Pataki put his arm around me and said he was allocating $500,000. Then I realized it said only when surplus money is available in the Children and Family Services budget. That never happens.

In an curious sidenote, the Times reported that five years into the baby dump program , the police in Jaccard's home turf weren't sold on it:

While Children of Hope's presence at Nassau police headquarters and Mr. Jaccard's frequent appearances in precincts remind officers what to do if a mother hands over her baby, Suffolk doesn't offer ongoing training. Deputy Inspector Dennis Meehan, commander of the Suffolk police academy, said only recruits are told about the program, in their law classes.

"I'm not aware of any instance where someone dropped a baby off in a precinct, so we wouldn't do extensive training," he said. "Anyway, how would we know that individual is the mother, or whether the baby was kidnapped?"
Back to the Times Union article:

Jaccard added that his group gets thousands of calls each year, including hundreds in New York.

He didn't break down the figures.

Back in 2005. however, he did break down some of the results of the calls to the NYT. (His hotline gets lots of phone calls for other things besides baby dumping.). It's unclear in the article if the stats are state or national. I suspect the latter. Out of 2,506 calls in 2004, Jaccard said:

9 - safe haven
12 - adoption
97 - kept babies

No word on dead babies

The New York Times in Safe-Haven Laws Fail to End Discarding Babies (January 13, 2007) reported that six newborns had been found dead in the NYC area in 2006, twice as many as in 2005, a figure Jaccard blamed on lack of advertising. He, of course, can't prove it,

In fact, he can't prove that any of the newborns he's takes credit for "saving" through baby dumping or adoption spamming or even keeping were in any danger to start with..Parents considering discarding or killing newborns generally don't contact the state or male authority figures to talk them out of it. When I appeared on The John Walsh Show with Jaccard, one of his "clients" appeared with us in shadow. She said she contacted Jaccard early in her pregnancy after her boyfriend dumped her, and that he had put her up in an apartment for the next seven or so months, and helped her deliver "anonymously" in a hospital. She certainly had no ill-intent. In fact, her only problem seemed to be poverty which AMT-COH alleviated for awhile.

I need to sit down and tabulate as best I can, the number of newborn discards and death in NYS since 2000. See, the state doesn't do that. I'm one of the 1% who once called the NYS hotline to ask how to get statistics for the state. I was informed I'd have to request that number from each county. Same with deaths. Around the time I made that call, the Buffalo News ("Assessing the new infant 'safe haven' law" January 12, 2004, no longer online; hard copy in m possession) also tried to determine figures and got the same story from the state. I looked around this afternoon while writing this blog and don't see an state figures online.

Since most states are tight with their statistics, if they collect them at all, the best tool to gauge of how well "safe haven" laws "save babies" is still the newspapers, How many newborns are discarded dead or alive?

From my own work, the number appears about the same nationwide as before laws were passed. .Alarming numbers of newborns, however, are being left in hospitals under "safe haven" stipulation; thus folding traditional .hospital abandonments (boarder baby incidents) in with "safe haven" and cooking the books. If they are cooked good enough somebody can get some taxpayer money to feather their nest with. Michigan publishes it's "safe delivery" numbers. Out of 106 so-called "safe surrenders" 96 were by presumably identified mothers who delivered in hospitals ans were sometimes accompanied by their baby's father or other family members.. One of those women was able to retrieve her baby; another decided later to surrender to an adoption agency . The last case of an out-of-hospital surrender was in December 2009.

The idle NYS hotline adds to the growing evidence of what "safe haven" critics have always contended: "safe haven" laws were unneeded. They were bulldozed through to make legislators "look good" and "feel good" without doing anything that might actually help alleviate the causes of occasional discardings which are, after all, symptoms of much larger family social problems: mental illness , substance abuse, domestic violence, and poverty. (In some parts of the country we can now add fear of deportation for undocumented mothers afraid to seek medical treatment and counseling.)

The Adoption Journey: Adoption is an Act of Obedience

2011-11-30T23:51:00.001-05:00

(NOTE: Last night I had technical problems and the last part of thie blog disappeared. I re-wrote that part this morning.)

To celebrate National Adoption Awareness Month, Bethany Christian Services, Lifesong for Orphans ("Bringing Joy and Purpose to Orphans"), and Lifeline Children's Services.have unselfishly launched a new webpage, The Adoption Journey Project. a resource for couples "starting to think about adoption" aka reeling in more fish.

The November 30, 2011 Adoption Journey Project press release informs us that most adoption agency websites don't post information about adoption needed by new or thinking-about-it paps. Who knew? I've never seen an agency webpage that wasn't full of answers in search of questions.

From the Adoption Project press release:

"The vast majority of resources being published by adoption agencies and supporting organizations are for families that are either close to or have committed to the adoption process already," said Marc Andreas, Vice President of Marketing at Bethany Christian Services, the largest adoption agency in the country.

"We recognize that couples just starting to think about adoption have completely different perspectives and needs regarding the discernment process for adoption in their lives. This project will provide tangible resources to help support them and the beginning of their own adoption journey."

Among these resources is a creepy video under the "For Pastors & Ministry Leaders tab, featuring Tony Dungy, former head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Indianapolis Colts (2007 Super Bowl champs ) and his wife Lauren, pimping the "orphan crisis" generic or branded. Also there, you'll find a download link for an Orphan Sunday kit. Since I doubt Bastard Nation would count as a ministry with these folks, I opted out.. Anyway, I already know quite a bit about Orphan Sunday, the "orphan crisis" ande the weepy orphan evangelizing projects operating out of churches and ministries. They hate UNICEF and Save the Children for trying to keep families and culture together and holding children "hostage" in their home country; thus thwarting God's work and the Great Commission. Adoption is their stairway to heaven--a lifelong job of "gospel proclamation"--and without it they may have to pass out blankets to the homeless or worst yet, mind their own business.

Among Dungy's comments:

...This picture is a vivid reminder of what God has done for us--adopting us into his family.

...God was calling us down this path so adoption became an act of obedience.

...We won't rest until the orphan crisis has ended.

...We as the church ca be the solution.

...Lauren tells us:

Because our church talked about it, adoption felt natural to Tony and me.

I guess we should be happy their church doesn't talk about arson or abstract expressionism.

Mr an Mrs. Dungy don't explain why if the orphan crisis is so out of control Bethany and every other adoption agency in the country continue to create more "orphans" by strip mining perfectly good mothers of their newborns. Isn't the point to decrease the orphan population, not increase it?

Maybe scarier is the page of adopter testimonials found toward the bottom of the front page. While a couple couples (and its always het couples-no singles or queers need apply; bi-racial is OK unless you belong to the Gulmare Freewill Baptist Church in Pike County, Kentucky) are as "normal" as the Bethany family can be, most range from disturbed to the bizarre. See, these people have no agency. God commands and they obey, whether they can afford a kid or have no desire to take a trip to AdoptionLand.. And those who have decided to take the journey, without asking God's approval first, are delighted when he high-fives them. Funny about that. God wants us all to adopt and be adopted. .

Meet the Hoffmans. Reading their story forces the Dear Reader to imagine a team of doctors having a have-at- it with the Mrs: as they discuss "God's fingerprint: on her physical body:"

Our plan was to start our biological family in 2005. But after over a year of trying and failing, we decided to visit the Emory Reproductive Center. After a few tests, we discovered that Laura had a unique fingerprint of God on her physical body: she had one kidney and half a uterus. The doctors, undeterred, kept telling us that “We can still get you pregnant.”

Then there's the Walters who stay overnight in a hospital suite and get prayed over by the hands of fussy staffers. We're not sure where Baby Ernie's bios get to stay, if they stay at all, since he was born in the back of a van in the hospital parking lot. Mr and Mrs. Ernie'sParents are too poor to keep him and trying to get the rest of their kids back from Children's Services:

We were shown to a spacious suite and invited to stay overnight. One by one, hospital staff members familiar with Ernie’s birth came by to introduce themselves. “I’m not working today,” a physician said. “I just wanted to meet you.” Each visitor spoke about his or her personal belief and rejoiced with us in God’s faithfulness. A nurse at the end of her shift knocked softly. “Could I pray with you before I leave?” She placed her hands in ours and uttered sweet words of thanksgiving.

There we were in a public hospital savoring the fellowship of believers. How could they know about our faith? It seemed that God was sending His servants to affirm His call upon our lives.

The Griswalds--sorry, I mean the McCollums-- parade around Hanoi with their acquisition strapped to them: No mention of friendly Vietnamese greetings, though we're sure they got them, just like Clark and Ellen did.

Finally there's the Robinson family gettin' down with adoptitude. Get thee behind me Satan!

Greg and I have found there is a spiritual war waging with adoptions. When you commit to adopt, just be prepared for battle because Satan does not want these kids in homes. There has always been a battle for the lives of little ones. From parents mindlessly sacrificing their children to Molech (god of the Ammonites) in the Old Testament to the New Testament, you can see the battle for children, and I think we are still battling for the lives of children. And I think the church has to stand up and fight for these little ones. It’s going to be painful, and it’s going to hurt. You’re going to come to the point where there’s nothing in your power that you can do. It’s total reliance on God.

I am sure that if both sets of my parents had been subjected to this crap (my natural mother adopted two kids 10 and 12 years after I was born and my natural father adopted his stepson), they'd both have cheerfully gone childfree.

Of all the reasons to adopt that I can think of, salvation isn't one of them. The idea, in fact, is downright insulting.

Many years ago I knew an LDA who learned he was adopted only when he decided to go into broadcasting, not the family auto parts business.

Why do you think we adopted you? Here's why. To take over the business.

The spin from our new breed of evangelical adopters:

Why do you think we adopted you? Here's why. To get into heaven. . And how would you feel, if you were an ill-behaved ungrateful bastard who'd taken an axe to their stairway to heaven?

Ivan Skorobogatov: Investigative Committee Rejects Court Ruling; Intends to Continue Craver and Possibly Other Prosecutions

2011-11-29T22:27:00.000-05:00

The Russian Investigative Committee (IC), undetered by yesterday's decision by Moscow's Basmanny Court and the Russian General Prosecutor, to dismiss IC's petition to extradite Michael and Nanette Craver, has declared its intent to continue its prosecution of the couple even if the prosecution has been ruled "illegal.."(see blog directly below this for details)

According to RIA Novisti, Vladimir Markin, spokesperson for the IC said the investigation in to the Cravers will continue no matter what the court rules:

"The refusal of a Russian court to arrest the Cravers in absentia will not hinder further investigation of the criminal case in Russia, as well as the international efforts to find the suspects, detain and extradite them,”

He said that though international laws prohibit a second sentence for the same crime, it applies only to legal procedures in one state, within the national jurisdiction.

I have no idea what this second paragraph means. It appears to be a deliberate misreading of US and international law, and the Basammy and General Prosecutor's office's interpretation of both.. There is simply no way for the Cravers to be retried here. Unless there was unique jurisdaictional stipulation in the adoption agreement that gave Russian authorities some kind of authority in legal matters concerning Vanya and his twin sister Dasha, which is I highly doubt, they can't be tried by Russian courts in absentia or in person.

The IC is also taking up Dasha's status:

RIC chief Alexander Bastrykin sent letters to Russian presidential human rights council head Mikhail Fedotov and human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin to initiate proceedings to strip the Cravers of parental rights with respect to Ivan’s sister, Dasha.

It is important to ensure Dasha’s early return to Russia, Bastrykin wrote.

Again, it's unclear what the IC thinks it can accomplish, if indeed it wants to accomplish anything. (see last section). Here are some of the hard fact whether people like them or not:

Dasha came to the US in 2003 at the age of 18 months. She has no parents in Russia to return to, only an understaffed, ill-equipped and abusive orphan system.. By Russian standards she is damaged from her American experience and unadoptable . The adoption was finalized years ago and Dasha holds dual citizenship until she is 18.

Dasha is currently in foster care. (The New York Times says she's living with an adoptive aunt). York County prosecutors asked the judge in the Craver trial to order the couple to have no contact with Dasha until she is 18, but the judge said he would leave the decision up to child welfare officials. Earlier reports suggest that Children's Services has no enthusiasm for returning her to the Cravers custody, though there is no indication at this time it will seek to terminate their rights, either. The only contact Dasha has had with the Cravers since their arrest in February 2010 has been through supervised correspondence
..
.If rights were terminated here--which I think they should be--Dasha would probably remain with the aunt in a foster or adoptive situation or be re-homed in a second stranger adoption. If she is returned (she won't be), she'll most likely in a few years end up in the sex trade or sweatshop where huge numbers of orphanage girls end up.

******

Without getting too Russian...

Clearly something else is going on here. I'll suggest that Vanya, Dasha, the Cravers and we are being bumbled through the fetid labyrinth that passes for Russian politics.

The Investigation Committee is the main federal investigating authority inthe Russian Federation. It was formed in January 2011 an an "independent" body to replace the Investigation Committee of the Prosecutor of the Russian Federation which like its predecessors,the KGB and NKVD, investigated and prosecuted cases in whatever way it pleased. In theory, then, the IC was set up to streamline criminal justice by separating investigation from prosecution and to dilute the immense authority the Prosecutor General's office had accumulated. It has been compared to the FBI, but it's not.

I 'd like a better source, but for now I'll let Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty pick it up from there to show you the mess::

The prosecutor-general, meanwhile, has been stripped of his authority to direct investigations, seize property, and initiate criminal cases. [Prosecutor General Yuriy} Chaika, for example, cannot launch criminal proceedings against Bastrykin -- although Bastrykin can launch proceedings against him.

Vladimir Pribylovsky, head of the Moscow-based Panorama think tank told RFE.RL:

"Formally this organization (IC) is part of the Prosecutor-General's Office, but in fact, if you look at the amount of power he has, [IC Director Aleksandr Ivanovich] Bastrykin, is in fact another prosecutor-general," Pribylovsky said. "And his role can get even stronger. If [the Investigative Committee] takes over all the other investigative agencies and creates a truly unified Investigative Committee, then it will have enormous power," Pribylovsky added.

I've been puzzled by the interest the IC has taken in the Craver case, and this layout of the IC clears up some of my puzzlement.. Not that the case isn't worthy of scrutiny, but by US and international law standards the attempt to haul the Cravers off to Moscow (or just try them in absentia) is headline inducing, but pointless unless the IC plans to make an international incident and kidnap the couple. The likelihood, of that happening, of course, is nil, since the IC falls under the direct authority of the President of Russia, which in a few more months will again be (as if he isn't now in all but name) Vladimir Putin.who just happens to be IC Director Bastrykin old law school classmate.

I think two things (and probably more) are going on here.

(1) The IC is acting in response to pressure from State Duma members, nationalists, and probably some IC bigwigs, who desperately want to ban cross-country adoption--or at least adoption to the US. The Ministry of Education and Pavel Astakhov have made it clear, however, that they do not want US adoption shut down--just tightened to Russia's advantage. Squeezing every drop they can out of the Cravers can't hurt. They deserve it.

(2) The Craver prosecution is just another cog in the power struggle between the IC and the Prosecutor General.'s office. Although in theory the IC and the Prosecutor General work side-by-side, they are at opposite ends in the Craver case (and mostly likely a lot of other cases) with the Prosecutor telling the IC to take a hike and the IC standing its ground.. I don't see this changing the near future. Too much power is a stake.

As if to make my point, the IC announced today that it plans to investigate more cases of Russian adoptee abuse in the United States:

The Russian Investigation Committee (IC) is going to institute criminal proceedings on several more facts of the encroachment on the life of Russian children, adopted by American nationals,

Specificaly cited was Michael Grismor, accused of raping his 15-year old stepdaughter Kseneia., a case I haven't written about, but need to. And I have to wonder why there is not a peep about the Dykstra verdict. Sure that is a heinous as the Craver walk-away.

Vanya, Dasha, Ksenia, and other Russian orphans killed and abused by their Forever Families are a sympathetic front for inside- the- ring-power players.. That doesn't mean that those involved are cold-hearted creeps, though they might be, only that these kids are a cat's paw for something bigger.

Vanya Skorobogatov. Russian Court and Prosecutors Refuse to Issue Warrant for Michael and Nanette Craver; Vanya Victim of "RAD" Quackery?

2011-11-28T20:26:00.001-05:00

Russian media reports tonight that the Moscow Bassamy District Court, backed by the Russian Prosecutor General's Office. has refused to issue a warrant for the in abstensia arrest and trial of Michael and Nannette Craver in the death of their Forever Son, Vanya Skorobogatov. (Nathaniel Craver) Citing double jeopardy, the court said any prosecution of the Cravers by Russian authorities would be "illegal;."

The Cravers, originally charged with homicide (with aborted death penalty specifications), conspiracy and child endangerment, were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in September, and in mid-November were sentenced to time served and 3/1 years probation.. An autopy revealed 80 injuries to the boy including 20 to his head.

The Russian Investigative Committee placed the couple on INTERPOL's wanted list (they have never appeared on the online INTERPOL list) and called for their arrest and trial in absentia.

From ITAR-TASS:

The prosecutor explained that the U.S. citizens had already been convicted on this case in their native country, "which means that they cannot be prosecuted for the same crime in Russia". Therefore, the prosecutor’s representative (Vanya said that he objects to the arrest of the U.S. citizens in absentia. In connection with the verdict earlier passed to the Craver couple in Pennsylvania and in accordance with Article 12 of the Russian Criminal Code the couple are not subject to prosecution on the territory of the Russian Federation, and their arrest in the status of defendants is illegal, the source said.

The investigation’s appeal to arrest the Cravers contains neither necessary data about their personality nor confirms that they are in hiding, the prosecutor said. "There are no grounds to put them into custody as a remand sanction," he stressed.

There is nothing yet in the online version of the Craver's hometown newspaper, the York Daily Record.

This decision comes as no surprise. As I wrote earlier, I didn't see how double jeopardy and the fact that the death occurred on US soil would be prosecutable in Russia. So, as much as we'd like to see justice for Vanya, legally the case is now closed.

******

In a related matter, one of my readers, sent a comment to Nikto regarding Vanya and "attachment therapy." As longtime readers may know, some (and I suspect all or nearly all) Russian adoptees killed by their Forever Families were either "officially" diagnosed with "RAD" or adopter-diagnosed and treated on the fly.. I wrote about this in The Therapeutic Murders of Candace Newmaker, David Polreis, Viktor Matthey, and Jessica Albina Hagmann.

Below is the comment I received regarding Vanya.. I haven't had the time to look into this more yet, but will. In the meantime:.

LindaRosaRN has left a new comment on your post "Ivan Skorobogatov Update: Cravers Aren't Talking; ...":

Thank you for writing about this case.

I might add that Nathaniel was caught up in the infamous Attachment Therapy. As long time readers know, many of the Russian adoptees killed by their Forever Families, were eithre diagnosted officialy with "RAD" or adopteres took it upon themselves to self-diagnose an self-treat. I wrote about this in

Attachment Therapist Lark Eshleman (certified school psychologist) was recommended to the Cravers by a prestigious Philadelpia hospital. In her book, Eshleman uses Attachment Therapy's unofficial, catch-all definition of "Reactive Attachment Therapy," which demonizes adoptees. At the Craver's trial, Eshleman claimed the boy not only had "RAD," but was self-injuring because of it.

According to Eshleman, "RAD" children are "aggressive," "destructive," prey on others, are oppositional liars, etc. However, RAD, as defined in the DSM-IV, has no aggressive or violent features associated with it -- and no self-injuring behaviors. RAD children may possibly tend to be risk-takers but that it not the same thing.

http://www.childrenintherapy.org/attachmentdisorder.html

So if Nathaniel was self-injurious, which appears unlikely considering the autopsy results, he was either misdiagnosed and not treated appropriately, or he was, as so many adopted children have been, diagnosed with the bogus "RAD" disorder simply because he walked into the office of an Attachment Therapist.

There was another bizarre claim made by a so-called adoption specialist in connection with this case that the press swallowed whole. This nonsense claim is discussed here:

http://childmyths.blogspot.com/2010/10/chewing-off-hand-demonizing-nathaniel.html

Advocates for Children in Therapy has found links to numerous adopted child abuse and death cases to Attachment Therapy and its parenting methods. Here are cases they know about:

http://www.childrenintherapy.org/victims/victims.html

It is not unusual to find government agencies and government-funded agencies recommending Attachment Therapy/Parenting. Since a case could reasonably be made that this unvalidated practice is actual torture, public funding of the practice in the USA should be considered a violation of the UN Convention Against Torture.

Blue Denim: Another Lost Film

2011-11-27T20:32:00.001-05:00

I've written about Blue Denim (1959, a moving and scary film about teen pregnancy, before. I read the play in high school and saw the film once or twice on TV in the late 1960s or early 1970s. and never forgot it.

Like That Hagen Girl, Blue, Blue Denim has virtually disappeared from public memory. It has never been released on DVD or video. It's listed in the TCM online catalogue, but I've never seen it run there. The film might be available for viewing on the 'net.

Blue Denim gets short shrift from feminist scholars, too, who concentrate on the abortion narrative and complain about the focus on Arthur's "coming of age." As someone who considers herself a feminist scholar, I find their kvetches short-sighted and as a bastard, annoying.. Professional feminists, of course, rarely consider bastards and our mothers and fathers of much interest or value.anyway. We're the crap in their punchbowl.

To make it worse, unlike its bookend A Summer Place, released the same year, which can qualify as anybody's guilty pleasure, Blue Denim isn't deliciously smarmy or entertaining. It's one of those films that makes me sort of sick to my stomach--even the out-dated parts which aren't too out-dated It's in black and white. It's like reading The Girls Who Went Away. Its real.

A trailer for Blue Denim weirdly featuring Joan Crawford--with commentary, by film and TV director Allison Anders, is finally up on YouTube. (Unfortunately, no clips). I like that she says the film gives teenagers "the dignity of their problems" (What recent mainstream film has done that?)

To put the trailer in context, here is what I wrote about the film previously:

Blue Denim is an important, though flawed, portrayal of teenage sexuality, a subject previously taboo in Hollywood which had portrayed sexually active women as those who knew the score.

Based on James Leo Herlihy's hit Broadway play, Blue Denim tried an honest and sensitive portrayal of teenage sexuality, pregnancy and family dysfunction through Arthur (Brandon deWilde) and Janet (Carol Lynley) who found themselves “in trouble” after their first and only sexual encounter. The play was hard-hitting and controversial, but the illegal abortion ending was too hot for Hollywood. Blue Denim was toned down, much to the dismay of even conservative Catholic critics who complained that Arthur and Janet’s compulsory marriage should never have happened. A reviewer for the Catholic Legion of Decency was so unhappy with the ending he insisted Janet should have been allowed to reject the shotgun marriage, but keep the baby and to grow into a mature relationship with Arthur.

I pointed out in my original piece that although Blue Denim (and a Summer Place and The Young Lovers) was considered progressive for their day:

Unlike their predecessors (Madame X films of the 1930s where unmarried women were shown with much more agency), these films, though ostensibly more understanding and liberal suggest that proper sexual relations will occur only within the bourgeoisie marriage bed. Bastardy (or abortion) will not be tolerated.

I conjectured:

While “nice kids” Arthur, Janet, Molly, Johnny, superficially represent a turn from post-war conservatism, they are simply cautionary tales of youth and its consequences. One expects to see this unhappy foursome a few years down the road, trapped in group therapy sessions after a day at some low-end job. Arthur and Johnny will eventually chuck it all for the Summer of Love. Janet and Molly will collect ADC and food stamps, start keypunch school and wonder what they ever saw in those guys other than their cute dimples and blond surfer looks.

While I was writing this, I surfed around for something to add to this, but there isn't much. Happily, though there are some comments on the film--Blue Denim--50 Years Later, on the Remembering Brandon deWilde page. I've been a lifelong fan of Brandon's who died in 1972 at the age of 30 of injuries received in an automobile accident, so it's a double treat to find this page..

Cyber Lilfe Meets Real Life: Meeting Peach!

2011-11-26T23:37:00.000-05:00

One of the fun things about being an activist and blogger is meeting people you know from the 'net, but not in "real life." Tonight I had the honor of meeting Samantha Brian-Franklin aka blogger Peach Neither Here Nor There. And what a peach she is!

Peach was in town for her inlaws' wedding anniversary party, and was able care out some time for us to get together. Here we are at the Blue Danube discussing our favorite subject...

No Original Birth Certificate? No Passport! The National Security State Begns to Flush our Right to...Everthing

2011-11-25T22:47:00.000-05:00

The birth certificate is the most political and politicized public document issued by a government entity in the United States today. It is the "breeder document" that generates all other government and private documents of identity and entitlement. Since the government has positioned itself as the arbiter and creator of identity, bestowing upon each of us, the legitimacy of our existence, we cannot function in a "normal" way for long without it. What were once routine activities everyone could enjoy, are now mediated by a piece of government paper issueed to us its discretion..

For instance, without a government-approved birth certificate or documents engendered by it, a child can't enter school, attend camp, or even play Little League; adults can't marry, acquire security clearances, collect private and government pensions, access government programs, open a bank account, acquire employment, rent an apartment or buy a home, fly to Seattle or Fort Worth, enter certain public and private buildings, or legally drive a car. And certainly one cannot travel internationally, even to the once easily accessibly Canada and Mexico, without a passport or pass, which cannot be acquired without ...a birth certificate.

Starting April 1, 2011, the US Department of State changed passport application regulations, making it more difficult to get one. (Please go to the link above for more details; those renewing a passport have it a little easier, but here are the general rules):

Passport applicants are required to present a certified birth certificate, the primary evidence of US citizenship.

The birth certificate must contain the full name of the applicant, the full name of the applicant's parent(s), date of birth, place of birth, raised seal, Registrar's signature, and the date the certificate was filed with the state Registrar's office. Except for the raised seal, these regulations endanger the ability of some adoptees to access a passport--and as the escalating National Security State war against the American people continues, keep passports (and other government "services") out of the hands of Class Bastard all together.

The unkept bastard--that is, the adoptee--is in the unique situation of being issued, (with some exceptions), by state law, an allegedly legal, but fictive birth certificate containing government-created false information including new names for child and parents, and depending on state practice and/or date of adoption, false birth date and place of birth for both parent and child. While these fictions are important and bode serious consequences to bastards, of most concern to bastards right now, imo, is the codification of what has for some time, been documented practice, the rejection of passport applications due to late filing with the Registrar. The late filing, of course, is due to the adoption itself, which the state hides,

Many amended birth certificates (ABCs) are "delayed filings" since, at least in the old days, an adoption could take more than a year to finalize; thus, a legal and permanent ABC could not be issued until an infant was a year or more older. (How this effects those adopted when older or out of fostercare, I have no idea). Moreover, some ABCs do not contain a Registrar's signature, only the name typed in. (I have two copies of my Ohio OBC , one from the state and the other from the county. The county cert is completely hand-written, and signed by the Registrar, and filed correctly; the State cert has a slightly different filing date and a typed "signature," My ABC contains the date of the OBC filing found on the hand-written cert, but the registrar's "signature" is typed.)

A birth certificate filed more than a year after the birth of a child is red flag for bulls in their passport office cubicles and your invitation to cancel your vacation to Brazil.

BUT NEVER FEAR!

DOS has come up with some relief for those unfortunate enough to have a late filing date or other irregularity on their government generated and issued certificate of existence: secondary evidence of US citizenship, generated by documents "generally not more than 5 years after birth." While these documents could be difficult for anyone to access, they are particularly difficult, if not impossible for Class Bastard to acquire, since the acquisition of most of these secondary papers would be a violation of state adoption laws and medical confidentiality laws, such as the federal HIPAA.

Please hold your laughter to the end of this No-You-Can't-Have-That-Because-You're Adopted list.

Early Public Records:

Baptismal certificate
Hospital birth certificate
Census record (The 1930 Census is the last publicly available census).
Early school record
Family Bible record
Doctor's record of post-natal care.

Delayed birth certificates

You can submit a Delayed US Birth Certificate filed more than one year after birth, which MAY be acceptable IF:

It lists the documentation used to create it (preferably from public records)

and

It is signed by the birth attendant or lists an affidavit signed by the parents.

If all this fails, try the:

Birth Affidavit

You can present IN PERSON, a birth affidavit (Form DS-10,) It must be:

notarized and submitted with early public records;
completed by an affiant who has personal knowledge of birth in the US
Must state briefly how the affiant's knowledge was acquired
Should be completed by an older blood relative.

Oh wait, we're not done yet. If no older blood relative is available, it may be completed by the ATTENDING PHYSICIAN or any other person who has personal knowledge of your birth.

And, in case you're wondering, these documents are not sufficient proof of secondary evidence:

voter registration card
Army discharge papers
Social Security card

Apparently nowadays, the government wants to hire you to kill people in far away countries only if you can prove US citizenship with appropriate documents. . Christina Crawford told me that her brother Christopher, a Viet Nam War vet, was denied a passport years later due to his hinky adoptive status.

IT YOU THINK THIS IS BAD, IT'S ABOUT TO GET WORSE.

The Department of State has proposed a new bizarre Biographical Questionnaire (Proposed Form DS 5513) for "some passport applicants." No criteria has been set yet for who those "some" are, but we can guess who State might include. According to Consumer Traveler, State is already using a version of this form without required OMB approval.

The new form will require "some" applicants to submit:

the full name, place of birth, date of birth, and citizenship status of your parents, step parents, siblings, and step siblings.

your mother's residence one year before your birth; her residence at the time of your birth; and her residence a year after your birth.

your mother's place of employment at the time of your birth; her dates of employment, name and address of employer. (Apparently, no one cares what your old man was up to.)

mother's re-natal or post-natal medial care; name of doctor and dates of appointments.

the circumstances of your birth (whatever that means), including the names, addresses and phone numbers, if available of those present or in attendance at your birth.

religious or institutional records regarding your birth or events surrounding it (ex: baptism or circumcision)

a list of all of your places of residence, and dates of residence from birth to present

a list of all employers, address, dates employed, name of supervisor, and phone number

all schools attended, addresses and dates of school attendance

Failure to reply "correctly" with any of these absurd questions, even with an "I don't know" can mean a rejected application (what's a little more rejection for adoptees?). What the dates of your mother's doctor's appointments or proof of your circumcision (hehheh) or who you mowed grass for 30 years ago has to do with your passport passport isn't addresses. What the state wants you to do is data mine yourself for its files.

Laughably, in its submitted Statement of Support, the people at State who dreamed this up, claim that it will only take 45 minutes for applicants to gather up this information.The Identity Project,, which opposes the regs , points out realistically, that the applicant would be forced to spend 100 hours or more on the ap, and even then could not document all the information required. The complete Identity Project Comment (linked above), which also was submitted under the joint signatures of The Consumer Travel Alliance, the Center for Privacy and Human Rights, and several other organizations and individuals, is a detailed analysis and demolition of Proposed Forum DS 5513, and I urge you to read it and bookmark it.

I follow passport and ID news, but I'm not sure how I missed this absurd proposal until it was too late for Bastard Nation to submit comments, The Identity Project, in its comments, though, did include adoptees as a group that would be seriously harmed if these regs are implemented. Unfortunately, the comments did not address OBC and adoption decree access, but did put State on warming:

Certain groups would be even less likely than the norm to have any chance of completing the
proposed form. Adoptees who aren't in touch with their birth parents would have no chance of being able to provide the required information about their mother's residence, pre-natal medical appointments, or the circumstances of their birth.

*******

Of course, the State Department is performing more Security Theatre of the Absurd. Proposed Form DS 5513 (not to mention already-in-place adoptee-impossible identify regs), is the paper version of the naked body scanner and genital squeeze. One strips you of your clothing and dignity, the other of your right to travel internationally. .Both are meant to create the compliant citizen who is only too happy to sacrifice rights for the vague promise of security from something.. Today it's your passport...tomorrow. it's your...

Birth certificates as we know them today, are a product of the Progressive Era eugenics movement in the United States. Since their federal mandate a little over a hundred years ago, birth certificates, in the hands of the state have been used to eugenically erase/create/re-create racial, national, social, and family identity. They have been a tool to segregate races, control who marries whom, determine mental inadequacy, and hide children and parents from each other. See, Edwin Black's award wining epic account of eugenics: War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's campaign to create a master race. While Black doesn't address adoption in his book, he includes several pages on Virgina's first Registrar of Vital Records, Walter Ashby Plecker and his manipulation of birth certificate data to erase and re-classify the racial identity of thousands of Virginians.against their will and sometimes without their knowledge. Plekcer was probably involved in all sorts of adoption shenanigans that we don't know about; but we do know that he once attempted to remove a set of twins from a Presbyterian orphanage because they were illegitimate and, therefore, the “chances are 10-1 they are of negro blood.” (A 2-part article from the Virginian-Pilot here and here, is a good place to start with Plecker.) The important connection between eugenics, adoption. and sealed records has been all but neglected. I wish I had time to delve into it.

About 15 years ago, a member of the Washington State ACLU Privacy Project told Bastard Nation that no one over the age of 18 needed a birth certificate. If a bill were introduced to seal the birth certificates of everybody, it would probably. support the measure.The email was sent several years before the events of 9/11 authorized the US government to wage its war on the American people and was clearly a snarky response to BN's criticism of its opposition to OBC access. The message was clear, though: the state can do what it wants with your identity and your documents.

Since then, we have seen the government's secret non-consensual acquisition of the public's DNA, the creation of corporate DNA patents (and brand new story here) without the permission of the DNA owners (you and me), and a tightening of the public's access to local, state, and federal documents and meetings, all under the vil of "security" and "privacy.." Everyone's identities and information, are under the control of the corporate state, which professes to be instituting these illegal and unconstitutional acts for our own good. .Hidden histories, impounded and sealed records, bodily disenfranchisement once limited to lab ratted bastards, will soon be the norm for everyone. Rigid, nonsensical; (to us, but very sensical to the state) passport rules are part of the deal. They're testing the waters this time, will back off a little bit, and let the frogs boil..

I regret I haven't kept better records on the nightmare stories I've heard, particularity from adoptees, regarding their records and corpo mediation and control of them. A campus Young Republican couldn't get his driver's license due to "irregularities in his ABC. An EMT, with neither an OBC or an ABC, denied certification because his adoption involved three states; each state, "destroying" his paperwork because they thought the other state had it. An Army lifer and later civilian contractor, with security clearances from both jobs, denied Social Security because his birth certificate didn't trail back like it should. The continuing number of adoptees denied passports. Years ago, Bastard Nation-co-founder Shea Grimm, who had traveled internationally under an aparent passport as a child, was denied a big people's passport when she became an adult (though she finally did get it). Lately, stories of adoptees denied are growing. To make it more interesting, I heard casually, and don't have verification, that some states, get around this problem, by backdating the ABCs to make it coincide with new passport regulations. That is, ANOTHER fake document is created on top of the old fake document., The lies never end.

Last I heard, the original Real ID law--the national ID card law-- was in big trouble because states just couldn't or wouldn't implement it. In its stead other less expensive laws or less draconian parts of Real ID were being implemented or cajoled.. Whatever is going on isn't good for the American people and especially Class Bastard.

A couple years ago Bastard Nation began to implement what I call "Real ID language" into our legislative testimony, pointing out possible consequences of continued sealed records on adoptees: that go beyond the traditional rights infringement.

Tacking this year's birther idiocy for instance, we included this in our submitted testimony against Indiana SB 114:

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. Indiana is one of 11 states currently considering a law to require presidential and vice-presidential candidates to present proof of citizenship through birth certificates. Indiana's proposal, SB 114, sponsored by Sen. Mike Delph and currently in the Elections Committee, requires that "a certified copy of each nominee's birth certificate, including any other documentation necessary to establish that the nominees qualifications" to appear on the ballot.

Next year we'll beef it up.

No one lobbying for the restoration of adoptee rights to OBC access can afford to dismiss draconian federal mandates and penalties due to "irregular" birth certificates.. While we correctly argue the restoration of the right to access our original birth certificates as a stand-alone right--and should continue to do so-- we must also argue that the lack of the obc creates all kinds of scenarios for government abuse and the loss of more of our rights and privileges. Lose one right and lose them all.

The birth certificate is the breeder document of all other documents of identification.Without a "correct" birth certificate, all other rights and privileges are in limbo. Bad BC? Sorry, no driver's license, no Social Security, no bank account. We're down to the wire on this. It's no longer a matter of one right--but every right. For us the OBC is the breeder document

Ohio Right to Life is So Thankful for Adoption: Adoptees Don't Need Rights

2011-11-24T18:07:00.001-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving!If you're one of those who don't feel you have much to be thankful for this year, think again --unless you're in or from Ohio, that is.

Ohio Right to Life wants you to be thankful for adoption!

ORTL, in fact, is so thankful for adoption that it got together a few of its friends to tell us how thankful they are for it and us--who make their miracle happen.

ORTL fo decades has been the single greatest impediment to restoring records access to Class Bastard Ohio.

ORTL loves us so much that it wants to protect us from our birth certificates and our rights.

ORTL's hobby horse trumps the rights of thousands.of Ohio adoptees.

ORTL: "Promoting Life" while screwing adoptees and their families.

A drawing of her family

by Olivia Gonidakis

This Thanksgiving, Ohio Right to Life is grateful

for the gift of adoption as a loving and life-saving alternative to abortion.

Because November is National Adoption Month, it is important to take time to celebrate the selfless sacrifice of birthmothers and the gift of children. Join us by reading words of thanks from members of the pro-life family who have been adopted or who have chosen to adopt.

Have a blessed Thanksgiving,

Ohio Right to Life

Secretary of State Jon Husted

"Right now, across the country, I know there are young women agonizing over the decision to have a baby they cannot properly care for or to have an abortion. I want them to know there is another option in adoption. Organizations like Ohio Right to Life can connect women to the services they need to get through the pregnancy and give birth to a child that will be adopted, loved and go on to lead a happy life. I can tell you this first hand because that is my story; I was adopted 44 years ago and I owe all that is good in my life to the woman I barely knew, but who gave me the gift of life."

Mike Gonidakis, Executive Director, Ohio Right to Life

"God's perfect plan for our family was through the blessings of adoption. We are so very thankful for our daughter Olivia as well as the sacrifice and life-saving decision her birthmother made. As a society we must continue to promote adoption and offer compassion and support to both birthmothers who place their child for adoption and families who adopt these wonderful babies."

Darlene Yost, Wife of State Auditor Dave Yost

"The Yost house is a bit chaotic this week in preparation for Thanksgiving. I'm going overboard (Dave says, as usual) for our family gathering. I get that from my mother. But, not inherited through blood, for you see, I'm adopted. Chosen.

As we approach this day where we reflect about what we are thankful for, Mom and Pop are high on that list. I am who I am because they chose me - and made me their daughter. Their own.

It is only recently that I realize how grateful I am to the woman who gave me birth. It occurs to me that she chose for me as well. She chose life. I pray she is as blessed by family as I have been."

The Speicher Family, Pro-Life Supporters

"We are profoundly grateful that God formed our family through the gift of adoption. Our four children are the joy of our life! We hope in some small way that our example will encourage mothers in difficult circumstances to choose life and couples to be open to the blessing of adoption. Happy Thanksgiving!"

Interested in Adoption in Ohio?

We are very grateful for all of the assistance provided to families seeking children, and to children seeking families. Learn more about adoption from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services by clicking HERE.

The mission of Ohio Right to Life is to promote and defend the right to life of all innocent human beings, from the time of fertilization until natural death.

To learn more about Ohio Right to Life please visit our website at www.ohiolife.org. Visit our blog at www.ohiolifewire.org.

Ivan Skorobogatov Update: Cravers Aren't Talking: Lawyer Is

2011-11-23T17:13:00.000-05:00

The Cravers aren't talking about Russia's attempt to extradite them for the murder of their Forever Son, Vanya Skorobogatov, but one of their lawyers is.

The York Dispatch reports:

I don't think (Russia) can have any jurisdiction over them," said Suzanne Smith, who represented Michael Craver. "I don't think any court in the United States would honor (such) an extradition warrant."

U.S. citizens are protected from double jeopardy laws, and the Cravers were already legally tried here, Smith said. Also, the Russians don't have jurisdiction in the case, despite the fact they appear to be arguing Nathaniel was a Russian citizen, she said.

"(Russian officials) are just saying, 'We're not happy with the result. We want to do it our way,'" Smith said. "Well, you don't get to do that. I don't know anyone who would recognize Russians' authority in this particular case. They don't really have any."

District Attorney Tom Kearney, agrees, saying that any attempt to retry the Cravers would run into double jeopardy issues

The question of whether one was properly tried ... is in the eyes of the beholder," he said. "We certainly believe they were. We devoted substantial resources into the prosecution, and the jury made the call. ... And the judge seemed to think it was the right call."

I found it strange that no one commented that the crime happened on US soil, and the citizenship of the victim (which could be a matter of debate anyway) doesn't play in to it--giving the Russian government no jurisdiction to prosecute. American justice, in my opinion, failed dismally in this case, but there's nothing to be done about that now outside of working to keep Dasha away from the Cravers, socially shunning the couple, and perhaps some kind of civil action..

The Cravers are still not on the INTERPOL online database. If they do appear, I suspect it won't be until next week's show trial starts up in Moscow. I've got some questions about how that will operate myself and am still digging around.

*****

Someone on FB has created a Justice for Nathaniel Craver (Ivan Skorobogatov) page. Three are some pictures of him and Dasha I'd not seen before.

Ivan Skorobogatov: Russians Say Cravers Now on INTERPOL Wanted List; Couple Will Be Tried for Murder In Absentia Next Week

2011-11-22T12:43:00.000-05:00

Russian media reports that the Russian government is ready to charge US citizens Michael and Nanette Craver with murder in the death of their adopted son, Ivan Skorobogatov, (Nathaniel Craver) 7. Two months ago, the couple, originally charged with homicide (with aborted death penalty specifications), conspiracy and child endangerment, was found guilty by a jury in York County, Pennsylvania, of involuntary murder Last Friday, they were sentenced to 19 months time- served while awaiting trial, and placed on five years probation. An autopsy revealed Vanya had 80 external injuries, including 20 to his head and suffered from malnutrition. He died after being taken off life support. Incredibly, a jury bought the Cravers' defense that Vanya died of repeated self-inflicted injuries and mutilations.due to FAS, See, the Forever Couple simply neglected to care for him correctly!

According to an ITAR-TASS story filed on November 21 the Cravers have been (or will be) placed on the INTERPOL Wanted List. As of this writing they are not on the INTERPOL online database, but I'll keep checking.

The Russian Investigative Committee charged in absentia the Craver spouses with murder accusations of Vanya Skorobogatov in the US and puts them on the international wanted list through the Interpol.

“Today the main investigation department of the Russian Investigative Committee accused the spouses Michael John and Nannette Louise Cravers under Article 105 Part 2 points v and zh for murder of an underage child, which was in the hopeless position, by a criminal group,” spokesman for the Investigative Committee Vladimir Markin said. “The detectives found that the spouses, which adopted a Russian citizen Vanya Skorobogatov, killed him.”

Vanya before he got his Forever Family

“The relevant documents were submitted in the Interpol National Central Bureau under the Russian Interior Ministry, on the basis of which the accused were put on the international wanted list in all Interpol member-countries seeking to find the place, where they are staying, detain and extradite them for the investigation in Russia,” he said.

“The investigation continues,” Markin said.

Even more interesting, the Cravers are scheduled to be tried in the Basmanny District Court of Moscow the afternoon of November 28. for Vayna's murder in absentia

******

Neither the INTERPOL request or the trial in abstenia comes as a surprise As soon as the Craver verdict came down, Russian officials threatened to "take action." The day before the Investigation Commission filed charges against the Cravers, Russian Foreign Minister Alexander Lukashevish blasted the verdict and the US justice system:

“The Cravers who tortured to death the seven-year-old boy were released after having spent only 18 months under arrest. The court sentence is amazingly and flagrantly irresponsible,” he said.

“The attorney insisted on the capital punishment. He said that Vanya’s death was the fault of his adoptive parents. They brutalized the child, brought him to exhaustion and inflicted a heavy head injury on him that proved to be fatal,” Lukashevish said.

“Much more severe sentences are passed on Russian citizens who stand trial in the U.S. on the suspicion of criminal intents. This fact does not create assuredness that U.S. court hearings of other humanitarian cases will be unbiased. That does not help the development of the bilateral human rights dialog,” he said.

“Hopefully, the entry into force of the bilateral agreement on cooperation in inter-country adoptions, which is ready for ratification, will drastically change the position of Russian children adopted by U.S. families and make such outrageous situations impossible,” Lukashevich said.

(The Russian Foreign Ministry website, (from which this quote it taken, isn't downloading, in either its English or Russian version) so I'm using the English-language ITAR-TASS version.)

Duma members were also outraged. Foreign Affairs Committee chair Konstantin Kosachev said the verdict was politically biased..

******

Prvada, in a follow-up report to the November 21, ITAR-TASS release says that Russia's Ombudsman for Children's Rights, Pavel Astakhov, has discussed (at what length goes unreported) the case with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and US Attorney General Eric Holder. Astakhov reportedly tweeted, ( I can't find Astakhov's Twitter account to verify) "I believe Clinton must take Ivan's case under special control and attain justice."

Pravda also reports that Astakhov told Holder that "prosecutors must appeal the sentence."

Of course, that won't happen, and Astakhov. who holds a doctorate in law from Pitt, knows it. He is very good at what he does and never says or does anything without a good reason, He knows there is no way the Russians or INTERPOL can execute a warrant on the Cravers since the murder--and it was murder--occurred on US soil. .The show trial next week--we know how that will turn out-- in Moscow is the only trick the Russians have to show any kind of justice, real or otherwise, for Vanya. It also makes a point to the US that murder has consequences, even if they may turn out empty.--but not as empty as the farce in York. Ultimately, as all adoption politics, it's just kubuki. This play is just on the grander scale of the international stage. The good part, though, in my opinion, is that this play, while dirtying America's adoption's nose in it's own shit, will also make it impossible for the Cravers to ever adopt again (if they would dare try) and gives Vanya's twin sister Dasha, now in care, a good shot at staying out of the Cravers' clutches. Forever.

Go to the righnad sidebar of Nikto to find more links to Vanya.

Artyom Savelyev Update: Court Remains Open to Public; Artyom Added as Plaintiff!

2011-11-21T21:38:00.001-05:00

Monday, Bedford County, Tennessee Common Pleas Court Judge Franklin Lee Russell ruled against child abandoner Torry Hansen's request that the public be barred from court in upcoming child support hearings Np date has been set.

Hansen made international headlines last year when she put her adopted son Artyom Savelyev, 7 (now 9) on a plane by himself with orders to return him to the Russian Ministry of Education, the ministry that oversees adoptions from Russia. The little boy wasn't a good fit for her and her overbearing mother.

The World Association of Children and Parents ((WACAP) the agency that placed Atryom with Hansen has brought suit for child support arguing that putting the boy on a plane to Moscow is not a "legitimate way to annul an adoption." Hansen, the agency contends, is still the legal parent, and liable for child support payments to WACAP. Russian courts have also reportedly requested child support from Hansen. According to Monday's news, WACAP is asking for a standard 27% of her salary as a nurse, plus back payments.

Hansen's (third) attorney, Sandra Smith, had asked the court to exclude the media from hearings because of the Artyom's juvenile status. According to Monday's Tennessean Smith argued:

There will be discussion of the boy himself (during the trial). Quite a bit,” Smith said, noting that issues such as psychiatric records and other confidential information will come up in court.

Since that kind of information on juveniles is barred from public access under Tennessee privacy laws, it's highly unlikely the public would be given a full-blown report of Artyom's "condition." As a layperson I fail to understand how Atyom's mental condition should affect child support in Hansen's extra-legal adoption annulment scam.

According to the Shelbyville Daily New Journal, Russell's ruling permits media access, but will still bar confidential documents, presumably regarding Artom's psychiatric and medical records. from public access. That is, some documents will remain sealed.

Circuit Judge Lee Russell today ruled in favor of the media request presented by attorney Robb Harvey but said some records about the boy’s family and adoption history would remain sealed. The judge said privacy laws related to such disputes are intended to protect the child involved and do not govern records related to contract disputes between adults. After attorneys agree and he reviews those records they will be released, likely in several weeks, the judge said.

Harvey and attorneys in the suit agreed to work together on deciding which records will be released.

Torry Hansen refused to cooperate with the criminal investigation that followed Arytom's return to Moscow, and has since refused to cooperate with negotiations in the civil litigation which have dragged out for about a year and a half.. From the Tennesseean:

After the hearing, [Larry] Crain (WAPCO attorney) said he has tried three times to get Hansen and her mother to sit down for a deposition to tell their side of the story. Two times, he said, she skipped the appointment and the third time she did not respond to a request to schedule a date.

Incredibly Hansen, through Smith, complains that she gotten a bad deal with the media :

Asked whether her client — who has moved to California and refused all requests for interviews — got a fair hearing in the media, Smith said: “No, I don’t think she did, and why will come out later.

Perhaps this note Hansen wrote to the Russian Ministry has something to do with it:

Judge Russell also ruled that Artyom and the Russian facility in which he now lives can be added as plaintiffs..

Congratulations to the organizations who fought to keep this case open to the public: The Tennessean, the Shelbyville Times-Gazette, The Associated Press, the Tennessee Press Association, The Tennessee Coalition for Open Government, WKRN News 2, WSMV Channel 4 and the Middle Tennessee Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

For more information on Artyom's case, please go to the righhand sidebar on Nikto and click appropriate links.

The Adoption Decree: If the cat is out of the bag...

2011-11-21T20:45:00.001-05:00

This will be short tonight.

Over on the FB Bastard Nation page a conversation has evolved from the original discussion of adoptee problems with access to passports to access to the adoption decree.

In Ohio, pre-1964 adoptees receive their adoption decree when the get their original birth certificate. I've got a certified and non-certified copy of mine. I have little idea what happens with post- 1963s by court order and post mid-1996s (too young to access).

As far as I know in Oregon, Alabama, New Hampshire, Maine, and soon Rhode Island, only the obc is available. In those states, and including the always free Kansas and Alaska, can adoptees get their adoption decree?

If not, why? It seems pretty silly to deny the decree once the obc is out of the bag.

Do adoptees in closed states, who by hook or crook get their obc (through a state subdivision) get their decree?

Maybe I know the answer and just need my memory jogged . It's just not a question that gets brought up much.

Bastard Nation has always advocated for the release of all court documents. Decree access is something, unfortunately, that has fallen by the wayside, and we need to work on, even if the obc is the big catch. The decree is the legal document that links us from our former name to our latter name (among other things).

I'm finishing up a blog, I hope to put up tomorrow, which gets more into this and the new dangers the US government threatens us with.

There's bad mojo rumbling through the US, and we need all the documents we can get before they are all gone.

Ivan Skorobogatov/Nathaniel Craver Case Update: Killers Walk

2011-11-20T17:20:00.001-05:00

Once again, the dust and bone of a dead Russian adoptee has been swept under the rug. After spending 19 months in jail awaiting trial (and after trial on the street waiting sentencing) for the murder of Ivan Skorobogatov, 7, his forever parents Michael J and Nanette L Craver are walking.

Vanya and his twin sister Dasha (now known as Elizabeth) were adopted in 2003 from an orphanage in Troitsk, Chelyabinsk region, through Lutheran Social Services of the South. The agency is no longer accredited in Russia.

Vanya, lasting longer (as far as we know) than the other dead Russian adoptee, died on August 25, 2009 of what York County, Pennsylvania authorities describe as severe beating and malnourishment. The autopsy revealed Vanya suffered 80 external injuries, including 20 to his head. After a six month investigation, the Cravers were charged with homicide, conspiracy and child endangerment. In May 2010, York County Senior deputy prosecutor Jennifer Russell, citing Vanya's age and the state's contention that his death constituted torture, said she would seek the death penalty.

But the best laid plans...

Instead, in September this year, when the Cravers got their day, a jury of their so-called peers bought the couple's claim that Vanya suffered from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) and injured and abused himself repeatedly. More specifically, the night before his death, the boy "run headlong into a stove." Not to put a too sensational spin on this, but Vanya committed suicide.just like David Polreis beat himself to death with a wooden spoon.

I need to go through trial news reports, but from a quick scan, it appears twin Dasha did not suffer FAS and suffered no injuries or abuse.Curious.

After the verdict came down, the Cravers were sent home to to wait for their sentencing hearing held Friday.

The Cravers were sentenced to time served

After sentencing, Chief Deputy Prosecuto Tim Barker told the press:

We're talking here about a 7 year old killed by others. Whatever degree of homicide, it was still homicide...“Never once was there an ounce of emotion by the defense toward Nathaniel Craver, or even a remote understanding of what they did to their adopted son.

The Cravers are currently on probation. Dasha is in care, and visitation plans are under negotiation.. Incredible!

The Russian media and government have watched the case closely, and the Russian Foreign Ministry is investigating what kind of action it can take. . The New York Times reported today:

The Cravers, who tortured the 7-year-old child to death, were released after staying a mere year and a half under arrest,” Alexander Lukashevich, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said Saturday in a statement, according to the Interfax news service. “The court verdict is amazingly and flagrantly irresponsible."

Russian officials said they were conducting their own investigation and might seek an arrest warrant for the couple.

I suspect that the chance of an international arrest over the case is nil; nonetheless I'd like to see a go at it.

There's a lot to this case; some of which I've written about previously.. I have to go through several trial articles, so I'm not writing a lot about the case today. I plan to continue this blog in a day or so. In the meantime for more information, go to the righthand sidebar under "Ivan Skorobogatov." and Summary of All Cases. (on Nikto)

Signing off for now.,
Disgusted and Sickened.

Nikto ne zabyt - Nichto ne zabyto

Bombshell: A Hollywood Adoption Send-up

2011-11-19T22:00:00.000-05:00

I've always loved Jean Harlow. and have taken it personally that she was taken from us at such young age. (2011 is the 100th anniversary of her birth). Back in the day, her films, including PreCode supposedly not fit for children or Presbyterians, were shown regularly on local television morning, noon and night. Now they are only available on DVD and Turner Classic.

Last week in a battle of the blondes evening, TMC showed Bombshell.(1933) one of the films I missed in that heyday of footloose TV or disappeared from my memory, but I can't imagine how. I was really tired, but forced myself to stay up and watch.

What a treat!

I don't know for a fact, but I think Bombshell is the first (at least full length) parody of Hollywood made by Hollywood. It is certainly the first and as far as I know only Hollywood send-up of Hollywood adoption.

Ostensibly , Bombshell is based on the life of "It Girl" Clara Bow, but it is clearly "If Girl" Jean Harlow, playing Jean Harlow under the stage name of Lola Burns..Platinum blond with matching wardrobe and bedroom, large white fluffy people-pulling dogs, leeching relatives (Frank Morgan, Ted Healy) snarky staff, (Louise Beavers, Una Merkel), oily boyfriends (Pat O'Brien and Ivan Lebedeff) , wisecrack publicity hack (Lee Tracy), and a studio of fawning heads. Chaos Chaos Chaos. This is reality TV.

Adoption is only part of the fun, but the part we care about, so I'll cut to the chase.

Getting back into Lola's good graces after she fires him for last night's headline garbage run of "negative publicity" (getting her latest beau, Marquis Pisa de Pisa, arrested at the Coconut Grove by immigration agents for overstaying his visa), hack publicity agent Space Hanlon sends a reporter from that old stand-by, Woman's Home Companion, over to Lola's to write up a piece on her homey side. Impressed with Lola's baking skills and her kitchen frock straight from Adrians' closet, the frump reporter, warbles on asking Lola if she ever dreams of a higher calling: motherhood. You can almost hear the violins que up. Next to the chaos around her, motherhood looks like a cinch. And who cam blame her?

Upon minutes of the reporter's departure, Lola shows up at the door of the Fairfax Foundling Orphanage conveniently housing dozens of children Lola shares a few sweet minutes with a boy of about 6 months and decides he was born to be hers. Of course, even Lola just can't take him home. Adoption is serious business. They just don't give away babies out there, even if it is Hollywood. Lola needs the orphan ladies stamp of approval.

Within another few minutes, or rather that afternoon or lunchtime (it's hard to tell) the orphan ladies arrive at Chez Lola. Lola soothes them with tea and cakes and rhapsodizes on her mission of motherhood Just as she's hits her stride, Lola's neer-do-well father arrives in the kitchen with her drunken brother and a lady he's picked up in Phoenix (I think). The three get a lecture and the bum's rush upstairs. Lola returns to her matrons. We just know this won't go well. It doesn't.

Back in the sunroom, the orphan ladies begin to "study" Lola.

"And just how long have you been considering adopting a child?"one asks.

"Oh, since this morning," Lola replies innocently.

Now, we know this won't go well.

At about this point, "it" really begins to hit he fan. The familial leeches wander back downstairs, Hollywood reporters , tipped off by Space that the star is expecting,, hit the door. Inquiring minds want to know: Who's the daddy? The Marquis Pisa de Pisa? Adoption is even hotter news! A ring-around-the movie-star chase worthy of the Three Stooges proceeding driving out the matrons, the family, the reporters, and ultimately Lola. The Stooges, in fact, Healy's Broadway proteges, were scheduled to be in the film, but never appeared.

The whole arc adoption runs only about seven minutes, and serves as the point of take-off for more fun, but but for adoptafilmphiles, its worth the ticket price.

None of the adoption scenes are online, but below is one of the opening scenes. In it, the marvelous Louise Beavers, does the impossible. Steals the scene from Harlow.

Adoption: Make It Stop

2011-11-18T17:05:00.001-05:00

This really will be short tonight. I've been sick all day again. Not that it's really bad sick, but enough to wear me down. I've had this before, and it will go away in a couple days (I hope) In the meantime, every time I think of adoption, I feel sick. No individual adoption stories, not my friends, not organizations, Like one could get sick of theatre( been there, done that), the Complete Works of Karl Marx (been there done that for a class assignment)., Obama (continually) Adoption. A subject that never goes away.

I've gotten lots of good comments here and on FB over my last couple blogs, and I'll be responding soon. Just not tonight.

The Stolen OBC: Another Bastard Moment

2011-11-17T16:04:00.001-05:00

I'll be tied up later in the day (not literally) and don't have much time. NaBloPoMo calls however. So to make things easy, I'm going to include another Bastard Moment--hopefully the last. I'm sure you all have your own. You don't need reminded by mine.

In June 1989 my adoptive mom died about three weeks after suffering a debilitating stroke. As required by law, a couple days later, her attorney, whom I'll call by his initials JR, and I went over to the bank to open her lock box.and inventory its contents. My boyfriend, Gordon, who was pretty-- hmm-- impressive-- (the only Orthodox Jewish hillbilly in the State of Ohio) came along. I believe a bank official was also present as a fiduciary witness (or something) to oversee the entire affair. Afterwards, we were to hop over to the county seat and file the will for probate. All on my dime, of course, or rather the estate's dime, of which I was the heir. By the time it was over, Lawyer JR had collected about $20,00 in lawyer's fees.

Adoption was the farthest thing from my mind that day. I'd gotten my original birth certificate and decree in 1980, and been rejected by Mama Dot the following year. In my own way, as a trained historian, I'd begun to accumulate my bio family history and documents as a matter of genealogy. A hobby. I was pretty sure nothing else could really piss me off about adoption. Little did I know. This was way before Bastard Nation, deformers, and the adoption industry ate my life.

So, there we are, in a little room tucked away in the Salem, Ohio branch of BancOne. Lawyer JR, who always struck me as rather self-important and definitely patronizing, opened the box. It was full of stock certificates, deeds, legal papers, that he and I thumbed through and made small talk over. But, there, at the very bottom of the box lay something that looked like a birth certificate. My birth certificate. The original, original birth certificate. But something was wrong with it Parts of it looked to be missing--as in cut-out missing!

Before I could grab it for myself, Lawyer JR, with Houdini-like skill and with a smarmy smile, slipped the cert in his pocket. (Gordon made a move towards the offending hand, but thought better of it; snapping his wrist might be a good idea, but didn't fit into our timetable.). Then incredibly Lawyer JR says:

Mom wanted to protect you . She had me razor it out.

Razor it out???

The razored out, of course, was my identifying information. .

My mom had once mentioned that Lawyer JR was an adopter himself, His chortle, imaginary or otherwise, verified it.

All this took place in a matter of seconds.

As I saw it at the time, I had two choices. I could demand the obc or play it off. Right or wrong I chose the second. Today I'd do both.

Oh, that's OK. I know all about it. I've had my own copy for years.

His face fell. like he's just been struck with Bell's Palsy.

I'm not satisfied with my response at all, but I do have the satisfaction of getting his goat. I should have pressed, though, but my mom wasn't even buried yet, and I had a funeral to do, and the cert, beyond general principle, had no value in its state of abuse. Today it looks like an excuse.

This little moment brings us back to adoption pathology again. I am absolutely positive that my adoptive mother did feel she was protecting me She was that way. I am pretty sure she wished somebody had protected her from truths about her own dysfunctional family That she asked Lawyer JR to do the dirty work for her, also makes perfect sense She was a nitpicker, and probably somewhere in her mind she thought it might be illegal for her to deface MY birth certificate, but if an officer of the court did it, it was OK. Razoring up a document is serious business; not like just crossing or blacking or whiting out Once it's cut, it's gone. I'll leave that bit of business between my mother and me. This blog is about Lawyer JR.

That the bad doc was found so late is a little bit interesting. The mutilation most likely took place in the late 1960s and no later than the mid-1970s. As she got older my mom took a different turn about adoption (not that she was ever really harsh about it, just sensitive) and suggested that if I wanted information she'd help me. By then, though, I'd gotten my obc, searched, found, and been kicked down the stairs so it didn't make any difference.The razored obc was a relic from our past, though not Lawyer JR.s .

The impunity with which Lawyer JR swiped my obc is still digs deep in to me. If I had not already had my obc--gee, issued by the State of Ohio with no questions asked--I would have reacted differently.. For sure, I enjoyed sticking it to this self-righteous prig. Still, what right did he have?. That was my obc, mutilated or not.. And besides, as the heir to my mother's estate, the documents and what they represented, were mine. Would he have pocketed the GM stock? The deed to the house? Probably not. (I mean, he was a prominent local lawyer not prone to Bar Association suspensions). But adoption makes it all different. Adoption is the exception. Adoptees are the exception. Obviously, my mother had no moral right to cut up the cert, but he had no legal or ethical right to take it.

Adoption is one of those areas where people who have little or no direct interest in the individuals involved think they have the privilege--no--duty--to interfere. To confiscate papers, to monitor relationships, to pick around the private lives of the adopted "for their own good." Trade lobbyists, political ideologists across the spectrum, lawyers, parents (of all varieties), churches, bureaucrats, politicians, the state itself continue in the second decade of the 21st century to demand that their vague (if any) "interests" supersede our right to not only our birth records, but to be treated like everybody else. Our right to not be demeaned, insulted, infantalized, and pathologized due simply to our adoptive status, by bureaucrats and technocrats with fancy titles. If this isn't an industry, then what is? Henry Ford would be proud.

It's about time these adoptacrats and their hangers's on get Bastarded right back. Give them a great big Bastard moment to suck on..

My Wedding Anniversary; My Bastard Moment; My Bastard Month

2011-11-16T22:10:00.000-05:00

Today is the xxth anniversary of my marriage to T.. I refuse to write the number It's too depressing. It is also the anniversary, or thereabouts, of my first big Bastard Moments. You know, the moments that hit you in the gut and remind you that as an adopted person--a Bastard--you are different from the rest Suspect. Damaged, Troubled .Inadequate. Unloved. Abandoned.

I met T (he is an intensively private person, virtually invisible on the 'net, so I'll only use his first initial) when I was close to the end of my junior year in college. I worked three evenings a week downtown at a bookstore, and he came in nearly every night. He'd stay a couple hours, stand in the aisles, and read mostly poetry, European literature, plays and sometimes philosophy. He was especially fond of Beckett and Ionesco and German writers. He'd memorized passages from Goethe's Faust--in German--and could rattle them off. He believed Goethe was far superior to Shakespeare.We talked a lot.. He very much opposed the war in Viet Nam and had done civil rights actions in college. He was a Taoist. Although I read The Village Voice and The Evergreen Review when I got my hands on them, I felt like a bumpkin next to T. I may have spent the previous summer in Europe, but he lived in his head, and what a head it was. We started dating almost immediately, clubbing in Kent one night, a movie, a concert the next. That summer we saw the Stones (the "rill dill" with Brian Jones), the Animals, the Beatles, the Lovin' Spoonful. T, back then, resembled John Sebastian and was sometimes mistaken for him in public. Did I mention he played the harmonica?

In some local circles T was a household name. In my football-centric town he was a star. He had been the captain of the football team of the city's powerhouse high school. He'd won a highly prestigious local football award. Both had national implications and guaranteed him a free ride to the school of his choice. Around 54 schools recruited T.. After a weekend at Ohio State at something that sounded like it was out of of Animal House years later, he turned down Woody Hayes flat and had nothing but contempt for the Buckeyes afterward. See, besides being a jock, T had a genius IQ--mid-160s. Really. He'd been through the local school system's "high ability " program and thought it was useless and created privilege where none was due. Maybe he was beyond it. He'd been reading since he was three.

T wanted to play college ball, but he wanted to play ball in an intellectual atmosphere. That turned out to be a swanky school in the east better known for academics than sports. He liked the smallness of the university and the location in northern New York State away from people, but close enough to a large city for fun. Yale and Dartmouth came in close. Although he qualified for an academic scholarship, he went for the football. T got the largest athletic scholarship ever offered at the school at that time, much larger than academics would reel in. He found it amusing. The college was a frat school, and he actually negotiated terms making the school pay for his frat housing. (He rejected jock frats.). He took up golf, listened to Miles Davis, and he and his roommate carried on a correspondence with Jay Ward, the creator of Rocky and Bullwinkle.

For personal reasons I won't get in to here, T dropped out of school after the football season his sophomore year. His departure had nothing to do with academics or sports. That's why he was back in town the spring I met him. With the Vietnam war in full gear it was pointless to look for a job. He was killing time waiting to be drafted. For awhile, at least.

Although T was a household name for many--my parents even knew who he was--he lacked certain "qualifications" .He:

lived in a working class, mostly black, neighborhood

dropped out of college

was of Ukrainian-Cherokee extraction (with some respectable Welsh thrown in, at least)

wore Wellingtons in the winter

wore no socks (or underwear) in the summer

was a Bob Dylan fan

wrote pretty good poetry

liked jug band music

had long hair

The last being the worst offense. My mother literally, wouldn't let him in the front door. He had never been treated that way, and I'd never known my mom treat anyone like that. She never did again.

Shortly after we began dating, T joined the Marines. It sounds drastic, but there were reasons, none of which he liked, but made sense under the circumstances. T wanted to take control of his situation. He knew what would happen inevitably. The Marines were desperate for a "few good men" (with very specific exceptions, Marines weren't drafted.), in fact so desperate that T was offered a 2 year enlistment with a 120 day deferment. That meant that he didn't have to leave for 120 days after signing up, and he'd have most of the summer free. The day, he signed the papers, his draft notice arrived in the mail.

T asked me informally to marry him before he left for Parris Island, and more formally in letters home. We planned to get married when he came back on leave after basic. As the time grew near to his return, the more frightened I became of dropping the bomb on my parents. Strangely enough, I'd been engaged when I was a senior in high school and nobody carried on like they did about T. They should have. I put it off as long as I could, and about a week before T's arrival, I told them.

The reaction was worse than I imagined. My dad, while not happy, didn't go berserk. My mom did. Jane, whom I wrote about earlier this year, was a born nitpicker and she picked this one bare.

She cried

Jane never cried. Never.The only time I ever saw her cry was when she slammed her hand in a car door--and that's different from crying out an emotion. She kept her emotions close. Not even a tear when my dad died years later. Jane wept. And those tears dropped down on me like the bomb I'd just dropped on them. I haven't mentioned the screaming.

Thus, began my trail of Bastard Moments- or to be more precise, my Bastard Month--a month that to this day I still don't understand.

BASTARD MOMENT : Are you pregnant?
A couple days later my dad invited me out to dinner. We went to one of the nice restaurants my parents and I often visited Only, this time, my mom wasn't along. Sitting across the table, very awkwardly, my dad asked me if I were pregnant. I wanted to go through the floor. I think he did, too. My mom had obviously put him up to it. Apparently, the only reason I'd marry the "dirty hippie" (sometimes he was a communist) was because I "had to."

This was the longest meal of my life. We sat in silence.

And, as I learned years later, female adoptees are often suspected and accused of "promiscuous behavior" by their adoptive mothers. Like mother like daughter, ya know. I have no idea if Jane thought that way, but I believe she did at the moment.. Whatever great life she'd imagined for me was down the tubes--but how marrying (at that time) a potential college professor was bad is still a mystery to me Since she was the keeper of other people's virtue, due to her own dysfunctional upbringing, it's hard to say exactly what was really going. on. The subject was put aside, but probably didn't go away until no untimely baby made an appearance.

Whatever was going on with my parents, especially my mom, being adopted was never far from my mind. The Bastard Moment hadn't been coined back then, but I knew instinctively that adoption was pounding on my door.

BASTARD MOMENT 2: Made invisible
When T arrived home from Parris Island, one of our first acts was to get our marriage license and "plan" the wedding, such as it was. Back then I thought you had to get married in a church or you weren't "really" married. My mother forbade our minister to marry us. He came over to our house, talked to me, and when T refused to involve himself in the BS, we were pronounced unfit for marriage. We finally got the minister who'd married T's teenage sister a couple months earlier (in a quickie) ) to do it. There's more

When we applied for the license, my mother called the local paper to ask that they not publish the ap. "What will the neighbors think?" I suppose Well, nothing. And btw, no dice, lady. Only the couple can request it be removed from paper. She got even more upset after the wedding when I put a small notice in the Society section--especially when her friends said, "why didn't you tell us about this?" They, in fact, saw nothing wrong with T and thought he was quite the catch.. But there's more.

My mom forbade my dad to attend the wedding. I have no idea why he agreed to this ludicrous request. It wasn't like he did much of what she told him to anyway, so why this time? He'd never shown any particular animosity towards T.. Maybe he just got drunk and blocked it out. Maybe he felt he had to back her up. Oddly, my mother helped me pick out my wedding dress and paid for it! It was too late to be picky, so we got a nice white dress and coat outfit off the rack.I cried through the whole thing.

BASTARD MOMENT 3: The Bastard Card
Two days before our wedding, my mother did the unthinkable, and to this day I remain nearly speechless over it. She asked if I'd told T that I'm adopted.

This must sound strange, but it was not something that ever occurred to me to tell him. People were circumspect and reticent back then and didn't talk about these things in polite company. Although some of my parent's friends knew I was adopted, and adoption was not a verboten subject in my home, I'd never told anyone It was the dark, grotesquery I carried in my soul. My secret sin. My staggering shame. So clueless was I about what adoption implied back in those days, that it didn't occur to me until I was 14 that my "real parents" as they were so unPCingly called back then, hadn't been married. And that only happened after I'd watched The Proud and the Profane. (In case anyone wonders, neither of my parents were William Holden or Deborah Kerr.)

Here is what my mom said:

If you don't tell T you're adopted, then I will. It's not fair to him. If he knows you're adopted, he probably won't want to marry you.

Yes! She actually said that!

If I didn't know better I'd think she'd gotten that from Blossoms in the Dust when Edna Gladney's "sister" kills herself for being a bastard.

I nearly threw up.

I dutifully informed T of my indecent past. His reply:

So?

The subject never came up again.

BASTARD MOMENT 4: Pathetic wedding
The wedding was, of course, pathetic. To level the playing field, T forbade his parents and sister from attending. Since T's two best friends were MIA (one living an artsy life in San Francisco hiding from the draft, and the other studying engineering at Carnegie Tech) his best man was someone he barely knew--a guy from our hometown he'd met at Parris Island. My matron of honor was my best friend from high school. We had two other witnesses: my best friend from college and my English Lit teacher.

After the wedding we went to the "bad part of town" where somebody took a couple pictures. Then I went to my (now former) home, to change my clothes, (T waited in the car) and leave for our honeymoon, which wasn't a honeymoon at all, but a trip to the nearby summer cottage owned by T's grandparents. I stayed home from school the next day, and I spent the majority of my time honeymooning with Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution vol 1. Ours was a marriage of intellect--or so I liked to think.

Eventually we collected a handful of wedding presents: a set of steak knives, 2 coffee mugs, a blanket from my next door neighbor, some hand-embroidered sheets and pillow cases from one of my mother's friends who saw nothing wrong with T ( I still have them) and $5.00.

I had never bought into the bride fantasy that lots of little girls do. But, this wasn't the way it was supposed to be. There was no joy. I felt deserted and alone.I didn't want to be married . I wanted to go home to my family and be loved once again. No matter what T said (and he had a lot to say about it), it didn't help. I'd been abandoned.

BASTARD MOMENT 5: Sick and alone
T started "advanced training" in paper pushing at Camp Lejuene about two weeks after the wedding. I was still in college, but wasn't "allowed" to live in the house I grew up in due to my marriage to the long-haired commie. My mother, again, oddly found a bedroom rental for me a block away from college,-and paid for it, My landlady, Mrs F, was a retired factory worker and current Italian cook. She was in her 70s and had been a widow since she was 29. A couple times a week she catered Italian meals for the now grown children of her old friends from the NE side of town who had become doctors and dentists and other big shots. She felt bad for me. I was pretty ~~shy~~ depressed and hid in my room and stared at the ceiling. I stuck a Blue Star Mother sign in my bedroom window. Mrs. F would invite me downstairs to help her roll gnocchi. I wasn't too good at it, but she liked the company. She told me about her own screwed up mother.

As soon as T went to Camp Lejuene, I got really sick. For some reason I forget, I'd been walking around barefoot in the snow. Maybe it was my fucked up state of my mind.. Mrs. F called my mother and demanded she take me home and take care of me. So back I went for a few days. Both ears were infected and I couldn't stop coughing. My mother fussed over me. I missed a week of school. So, for a few days I got to stay in my own home, in my own bed, but then it was back to Mrs F and her gnocchi. I was better but I felt sicker.

BASTARD MOMENT 6: Misery loves company
The situation was intolerable. I had neither a husband I could live with nor parents who would wanted me (though they kept giving me money and stuff), and certainly not a home. My job at the bookstore paid about $20.00 a week. I felt angry and unloved and worth nothing. Absolutely nothing. T would probably be sent to Viet Nam and get killed before we even got to live together. I was writing an Advanced Studies in Political Science paper about the the war and the influence of the Catholic Church on JFK, and another paper on Chinese poetry.

At the end of the semester I dropped out of school (with only 4 months to graduate) and went down to Camp Lejuene and later the Marine Corps Supply Center in Albany Georiga, where we wasted the next 18 months. Me working at a Carroll's hamburger joint on Oglethrope and later a music store. T pushed paper for the Atlantic Fleet, but mostly played football for the Marines. When Martin Luther King was assassinated, there was a riot across the street, that stopped at the street line. If it had crossed I'd have joined them. I wanted to burn down my apartment building. The manager of the nearby Piggly-Wiggly suffered a drooling disorder, which seemed to get worse when I walked by him.I began to have fantasies about conking a railroad detective in the head with a rock and jumping a freight for San Diego. I had only one friend in town outside of T She was married to a Marine and having an affair with a country DJ. One day the DJ's wife attacked her with a tree limb shouting "whore whore" at her, and my friend began to carry a gun. Things were way too weird.

My parents paid for my trip down and regularly sent me money. When we went home to visit, T was still so angry that after a few minutes he'd scream at my parents, especially when my mother tried to apologize for her earlier actions, and shove me out the door.. My mom talked to T's mom, who was cool and not happy about any of this. She tried to talk to T, but she was at a loss. It was too late. Should anyone be surprrised we were divorced 2 1/2 years later?

There's more to this lovely story, but I won't continue. Even sitting down to write this today has sent me back decades. I'm still angry. And it still makes me sick.

******

Not all of this is about adoption, of course. Parents do stupid things to bio kids all the time. But with the extra layer of adoption-- those layers of secrecy, abandonment, the loneliness of not knowing, and anonymity--makes it about adoption, even if its egocentric.

If I hadn't been adopted would I have responded differently? Probably.. At least I'd have been tougher, and probably not had what now seems like a nervous breakdown.

Even if at the time I didn't see the adoption connection so much, it was right under the surface gnawing away. The whole thing was like being dumped in the adoption mill--even if I didn't know what it was back then--all over again. Rejected and abandoned by the people who are supposed to love and care what happens to you. Your parents. And especially for such a dumb reason. I hadn't joined the Manson Family. or blown up a draft board. I'd simply gotten married. I can only imagine what would have happened if I'd just gone off and shacked up with T.

The mixed signals are what I find so distressing today. We love you, but we won't come to your wedding, but we'll buy you the dress We love you, but you can't live here, but we'll pay your rent. We love you, but your husband is a douchebag--only that word wasn't used back then--who can only come in through the backdoor. Preferably at night so on one will see him.

It was nuts. I had no frame of reference I had friends who were married and their parents didn't carry on. like this, even if they didn't like the husband. My parents, in fact, had actually approved of me getting engaged to my high school sweetheart when I was a senior in high school--and I was 17 then. It didn't work out, and maybe if push came to shove, they would have objected. My hopes of reconciliation with my parents bounced up and down daily, but I never made a move to do anything; and neither did they. I didn't feel I was unsuitable for marriage as the minister claimed, but felt they were unsuitable as parents. I have no idea what my parents were thinking. From what I know of Mama Dot, I doubt I'd have fared better with her. Whatever...I wasn't thinking anything. I just shut down.

While some of this scenario was built on adoption, other parts were built on class, and gender expectations. and cultural change. When T and I went to see the Stones at the Cleveland Hockey Arena, my mother was convinced I'd be killed (seriously!) because there'd been what is quaintly called a race riot in Hough (something I felt Cleveland had coming) a week earlier.Or maybe she was afraid I'd try to boost a color TV. After all, I was with "him."

I had planned to end this blog on a more eloquent note. I intended to critique each Bastard moment. Instead, after all these years I feel like I'm going to throw up again. It all seems so surreal; so archaic, and so much tied to the narratives of many of our first mothers.

All-in-all this story is pretty trivial in terms of really bad things that happen to people via adoption. I almost feel silly writing about it, but I know that it is these Bastard Moments that shape nearly every Bastard, no matter how "good" her or his adoption may be. It's part of being "touched by adoption". It's part of what makes the personal so political.. It's why we fight.

My mother apologized profusely many times for what she did that year and she was sincere. She really was ashamed. She never said I told you so when T and I divorced. She seemed genuinely sorry. A couple years later she ran into T, bossing his new wife around in a grocery store parking lot, and he was actually nice to her. I was surprised. I was harmed, but he was, too. Neither of us deserved it.

I'd like to write more about this today, clean up some language, be more articulate and centered, but I just can't. Bringing up Bastard Moments isn't for fast writing, and right now I'm sick of thinking about them, and sick to my stomach. Even if it's not about adoption, it is. I like to think I recovered years ago. Activism is the big deal, but nobody comes to activism easy..

Welcome Back, Triona! Some Wise Words from 73 Adoptee

2011-11-15T19:19:00.001-05:00

Yay! 73adoptee73 is back. She's come out of retirement--at least a little bit--to write on the Feigenholtz-Mitchell scam in Illinois. She also gives us her analysis of AdoptionLand and why she has reassessed her role as a activist. I wholeheartedly agree with her on both counts. . Honestly ,why do any of us continue with this--well--shit in our lives. It's great to have Triona back, but she's got a sobering message with 73adoptee Returns! But Nobody is Coming Back for Left Behind Illinois Adoptees.

Two different topics covered, yet tightly related.

First, on the glad-handing in Illinois where the seller-outs refuse to admit they sold out:

Illinois is not open. Illinois is sort-of open to adoptees who unwittingly end up playing roulette with their own rights. Some will win. Some will inevitably lose.

I'm on the losing team, so I know how it feels. Everybody's celebrating and they've forgotten you. Or, if they remember, it's to slap you on the back and say, "better luck next time" before they go off to congratulate the winners. But adoption isn't football. There's only one game, the Adoption Game, and if you make a mistake you don't get a do-over. I remain disgruntled with pretty much everybody across the adoption spectrum: the bureaucrats who pat me on the head; the politicians who care more about their own power than their responsibility to help others; the deformers who think compromise is victory.

and on activism:

I debated long and hard as to whether or not I wanted to continue adoption reform at all. It's not what you'd call "fun." It involves public speaking, private introspection, misjudgments from all sides, stress, and lack of personal life. You become an involuntary spokesperson for all of adopteekind (and, if you're a transracial adoptee, often for your entire race as well). Everything is difficult because not only are you trying to write letters and convince lawmakers and wrap your head around legislation, you're reminded EVERY SINGLE MOMENT of your own adoption baggage because it's why you're doing this in the first place.

Triona includes a list of what works and what does. Sing it!

Unless they've done it themselves, I don't think anyone has a true picture of the psychologically and at times physically debilitating work we do. Burnout is the logical conclusion. We lose relationships, friends, jobs, income, a healthy perspective on life in general. It is a life without dreams; a life without a future

We become obsessed with our work. The hardcore enemy,--the professional lobbyists, the trade industries, and collate rials (such as the ACLU and anti-abortion groups)--get paid good money to advocate against something they have no personal stake in. For them, it's just a job. For us, it's our lives. As for the soft enemy, the deformers, whom I consider much more insidious because the take the trust of the newbies and unaculturated--anything goes. Any incremental change, despite history, is framed as a victory and the left-behinds remain left behind without even the comfort of a desert island. Tough luck, sucker!. Does anyone seriously believe that Sneaky Sara Feigenholz and Melisha ~~Richelileu~~ Mitchell will do a thing to open records for people like Triona? The deal is done. Take that, you selfish twats. Rejoice in the privilege or others.

I'll be writing more about Illinois when I'm feeling better, which should start tomorrow. Though I'm no longer "sick," I feel like I got punched in the stomach. Probably due to falling flat on face on the sidewalk Sunday In the meantime I'm going to bed and curling up with The Education of Henry Adams to try to regain some balance--in more ways than one!.

Living Adoption: Life-long issues in the Birth Parent Experience: Redux

2011-11-14T19:38:00.001-05:00

The Columbus Dispatch ran a pretty clueless article--For Some Parents, Struggle over Adoption is Never Ending, on yesterday's event at Camp Mary Onrton sponsored by the Ohio Birth Parent Grup (see blog directly below this.

I'm not famliar with reporter Bill Bush, but I think the event wojuld have much better served if Rita Price had covered it. I've worked with Rita before, and she knows her aodption business.

Anyway, Bush emphasized, victimization and sensationalizatin, something that sells papers, but not adoption reality, and makes those of us in adoption look like victims, not fiighters Please post comments on the Dispatch website if you wre there or write a letter to the editor..

I'm posoting something ,but not tonight I'm still sick and going back to bed.

Living Adoption: Life -long issues in the Birth Parent Experience: A Short Review

2011-11-13T20:24:00.000-05:00

Earlier today it was my great pleasure to attend the first anniversary meeting of the Ohio Birth Parent Group (and Facebook). . The event. Living Adoption: Life-long issues in the Birth Parent Experience, was held at Camp Mary Orton just north of Columbus and Worthington and featured Brenda Romanchik as facilitator and guest speaker. The first session was open only to "birthparents", so I can't report on that. The second session was a two-hour talk.open to the public including social workers who got CIUs, and Q& A led by Romanchik. About 19 attended the fist session (including one woman all the way from New York City!), about 60 the second. The group was mufti-generatinal and included parents in closed an open adoptions. Unfortunately I am sick with some kind of stomach bug (worse as the day goes on, and I'm going to bed in a few minutes) so and didn't take notes. To make it worse, the shutter on my camera stopped shuttering, and I only got one picture.So here is a general review and some thoughts.

I met Brenda online about 18 yeas ago on the original alt.adoption. Her son, Matt, was a relatively little guy back then, and I was shocked to learn that he's now 27. Yikes! Outside of sealed records, I was new to other aspects of adoption. I'd heard of open adoption, but didn't know much about it. Apparently a lot of people don't know anything about it today either, judging from the way some circles remain horrified at the thought, and others think its a panacea for adoption loss, and others conflate it with records access. In a way Brenda is a marker of how times have changed. She and an adoptive mother I met on an old forum that barely exists anymore, were experimenters up-ending traditional agency secrecy in the face of industry opposition. Back then, only 20-30% of adoptions were open, and most of them only to some degree and Brenda's name was a dirty word.. Smithlawn, a NCFA founding member, still does only closed adoptions.

I hadn't checked out Smithlawn's webpage for years, and as I wrote the above, decided take a look to see if they'd changed. ha!

Here's the latest "confidentiality" statement, telling us all we need to know about the agency's low regard for its producers and product, and its high regard for its consumers of secrecy. And no mention that Smithlawn has the distinction of being the first adoption agency in the country charged under civil RICO (Racketeering and Corrupt Organizations Act) given a hefty fine, shut down for over a year.

All information in our adoption services is kept confidential. This applies to the adoptive family, the adoptee, and the birthparents. We do involve the birthparents in the adoptive process and encourage their input. This commitment to confidentiality is a foundational principle upon which Smithlawn's adoption and maternity services are built...

...Smithlawn realizes that the adoption process can be extremely stressful for potential adoptive couples. It is a complex maze of regulations, forms, and legal requirements. Our staff walks you through each step...


Protecting the adoption triad

No, the logo really says that. Smithlawn forgot to add: from each other.

Sorry to digress I couldn't help myself. I want to make clear that Brenda was not selling open adoption or any other kind of adoption,.but instead discussed navigating around adoptasharks and cleaning up after the mess they've made both ethically and legally..

Not being a birth, first, bio, original, natural mother of any kind, I'm not the best commenter on the meeting and feel a bit out of my league..What I did see is the concept of "birthparent" centered and controlled, empowerment. As with bastards, "birthparents" should be (in the words of OBG) "the central agenda-setters of their own post-adoption support.and activities." "Birthparents" should not be "facilitated" by agency support set-ups, but by themselves and their own experiences.

Central Ohio has not had a "birthparent" support group for about 15 years that meets regularly. (or an adoptee support group, either, as far as I know). The last support group I attended locally was small "triad group" (sorry, but I'll use that onerous term in this case) and very boo-hoo-hooey. I attended to discuss sealed records, but that obviously wasn't on the agenda. .I wanted to shake people.

No shaking fantasies today! Brenda discussed grief, loss, trauma, b- and aparent relationship-building, (language especially PAL--no fan), differences between "pregnancy counseling" which channels parents into the adoption mill and "options counseling" which-- well--presents options to adoption, juxtoposed with her own experience.Whew! Doing an open adoption right is hard work. I was especially happy that Brenda included fathers, usually portrayed by adoptacrats and media as pests screwing up the best laid plans of the adoption industry. The politics of adoption was an underlying theme while not for one minute disregarding the personal.crap of adoption.

Kate Livingston and the folks at Ohio Parenthood Group are to be congratulatead for this one-year anniversary event, and for bringing Brenda to town. It was good to see my old buddy Dawn Friedman and meet some new people--Kathy and Rose. And thanks to Brenda for the Bastard Nation high five!

I apologize for not making this a better review, but I really need to take some more stuff for my stomach and go to bed.

Florida: Questions about "Safe Haven" and Adoption Agency Privilege

2011-11-12T20:58:00.001-05:00

Back on November 4, Al Neuharth, old newspaper man and founder (of among other things USA Today) wrote a rather unnotable piece in Florida Today, "Chosen Children" in which he extols National Adoption Awareness Month. Neuharth is a longtime advocate of adoption, so the essay isn't surprising. .

Left hand couple: Fornes & Neuharth

Neuharth, 87, and his wife, Dr. Rachel Fornes have transracially adopted six children between the ages of 11 and 20. Fornes, in fact, founded the not-for profit adoption agency Home at Last located in Cocoa Beach, FL. and is a former board member of the National Council for Adoption.

About half-way through the otherwise routine adoptaarticle, these curious paragraphs pop up:

[Rachel] has special contacts with schools, churches, hospitals and police who put her in touch with pregnant women who cannot or don’t want to take care of their offspring..I

In Florida, women with newborn babies can leave them at any of those locations for caretaking, no questions asked. Then, instead of desertion, they are in good hands while the adoption process proceeds.

Remember that in Florida, babies dumped off at "safe have" stations do not, as in most other states, go through the state system. Instead, they are channeled for adoption directly through private agencies, which in turn charge hefty fees for placement of documentless infants. These agencies have everything to lose if the mother, father, or family member shows up later to demand return. The list of state-approved private dump intake agencies is here.

All of Florida's safe havened infants by law much be admitted to a hospital for inspection and treatment. Here is a summary of how the Florida law works--and specifically how it works regarding private industry privilege:

Any newborn infant admitted to a hospital in accordance with the safe haven laws is presumed to be eligible for coverage under Medicaid, subject to federal rules.[iv] On accepting physical custody of a newborn infant the hospital authorities accepting custody shall:

Immediately contact a licensed child-placing agency to transfer the physical custody of the newborn. If the hospital authorities are not aware of any licensed child-placing agency, it may contact the statewide central abuse hotline for the name of a licensed child-placing agency. The hospital authorities shall notify the child-placing agency that an abandoned infant has been taken into custody by the hospital. The hospital shall also enquire the time within which the child-placing agency can take physical custody of the newborn.[v]

It's one thing to have contacts with various officials,. but quite another to link that contact with "safe haven." dumping.

There are questions here:

Under certain circumstances are officials channeling women with problem pregnancies and/or their already born babies into Home at Last?

Does Home at Last get special scoop privileges under Florida's unique "safe haven" machine?

Does Rachel Fornes promote baby dumping as an alternative to traditional child relinquishment?

Are financial considerations (finders's fees) involved?

I don't know but Neuharth opened the door to these questions.

Related post:: Note to Al Neuharth: Casey Anthony is Not a "Birthmother" or Why Language Counts

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