Selfless surrender of infant? Or a snow job?

Jane

"Woman Selflessly Gives Up Her New Born for Adoption for an Incredible reason" trumpets the San Francisco Globe. And what is this incredible reason that propelled Amber to make "one of the hardest decisions a mother could possible make"? The incredible bond the prospective adoptive parents had with the "birth mother" of their first child.  Gag me with a spoon!

With incredible saccharin, the twisted logic continues: "Here is a woman who, against her insanely strong motherly instinct realized that she couldn't provide the best life possible for her child, and so was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for her daughter. ...She's a mother who loves her child so much, she's willing to endure agonizing heartbreak to give that child the best opportunities in life."

Fathers: Are they necessary?

Jane

The adoption industry uses fathers--or the absence of them--as a wedge to convince mothers to give up their babies. Fathers who stick around, create a problem for the industry. The industry characterizes them as an obstacle to the best interests of a child. The adoption industry's message to single pregnant women: your baby needs a father, but not the bum who got you pregnant.

LOSING A MOTHER TO GAIN A FATHER
"A child needs a mother...and a father." I'm sure I heard these words more than once in a TV show, spoken by an all-knowing social worker (or parent, teacher, clergyman) to a scared single woman who wanted to keep her baby: The words repeated endlessly in my mind when I was faced with having a child without a husband.

Romney urges single woman to give up her baby--or be outcast from LDS

Lorraine

Mitt Romney, as a leader in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, pressured an unmarried woman to give up her unborn child to be adopted. That revelation comes from The Real Romney, a new book excerpted in the February issue of Vanity Fair.  In the book, co-authors Michael Kranish and Scott Helman tell the story of one Peggie Hayes, who had a long-time connection with the Romney family.

Hayes had joined the church with her mother, and knew the Romneys so well that as a teenager, Hayes baby-sat for the Romney boys in Boston. In her last year of high school, however, her mother abruptly moved with her daughter to Salt Lake City. Peggie married, moved to Los Angeles, had a daughter, divorced, and eventually moved back to the Boston area, where she made contact again with the Romneys. She stayed a member of the Mormon church.

Utah's laws designed to thwart birth fathers

Lorraine

The Salt Lake Tribune is continuing their revealing series on how natural/ birth fathers are regularly screwed by the system in Utah. Today's installment by Brooke Adams tells the story of Jake Strickland and how he lost his son through outright violation of the law in Colorado, and despite that, the law in Utah to designed only to serve the adoptive process. The Tribune did not name the agency involved but thanks to one of our readers, First Mother Forum learned it was LDS  Family Services, the adoption arm of the Mormon Church.

Strickland's story involves a lying women--the mother of his son--who strung him along, letting him and his family believe that she was going to allow him to raise their son, or that they would do so together. In many respects, he did everything right: support her, pay for her medical bills, and continue to check up on her as the pregnancy progressed. A few days before they baby was born, the couple strolled through Temple Square in Salt Lake City.

Unwed Fathers Can't Win Against the Mormons in Utah

Lorraine

What is Utah doing in the United States? The Constitution protects us from  religious states, no? Not in Utah, apparently.

Its laws in one area seem to be outside those of human decency, and certainly unconstitutional. And it has to do with the Mormon Church, which really controls the electorate, which controls the legislature, the courts, the everything. This is Utah today. Separation of church and state is pro forma, but does not really exist. It is a state like no other where separation of church and state exists on paper only, because the Church of the Latter-Day Saints of Jesus Christ really runs just about everything, and should not be tax exempt.

In yet another case, a single father from another state (Florida) is fighting to gain custody of his nearly year-old daughter whose former girl friend left her newborn with strangers in that unholy state, reports the Salt Lake Tribune, in the first of a four-part series by Brooke Adams. Of course, in Utah, that was perfectly legal, even though the father of the child was doing everything possible to protect his paternal rights. In Utah, that matters not.

Adoptive mothers bully birth mothers--what else is new?

Lorraine and Daughter Jane in matching shoes

Whenever I think that adoption and the animosity that some adoptive parents feel towards their children's natural birth biological parents has abated in the years since I first got involved in adoption reform, something happens to set me straight. In the minds of many adoptive parents, nothing has changed since the Seventies. We are two warring sides of the "adoption triangle" with the kid caught in the middle. 

The acrimonious push back--from a few adoptive mothers--that fellow blogger Jane's recent post on two mothers who have truly open adoptions* generated indicates the amount of jealousy and tension has not gone down--at least for the vocal crowd of Adopters Anonymous who decided to come to FIRST MOTHER FORUM and throw bricks at both adoptees and mothers who lost their children to adoption. 

Vote for your favorite Demon in Adoption!

Lorraine's Desk

It's that time of year again. Time to consider all the really bad agencies and people who promote adoption in way that we, Dear Reader, find despicable, immoral and unethical. It's time to vote for the annual Demons In Adoption Awards to raise a voice against adoption propaganda and the self congratulatory practices of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute's annual Angels in Adoption Awards.

This is the brainchild of the Pound Pup Legacy blog, as its creators noticed that many of the recipients of the Angels in Adoption Awards have nothing to do

An LDS birth mother talks about her church, search and reunion, and the LDS position on such matters

Lorraine

During the last skirmish at the blog, we came across a blog that we check into now and then, Letters to Mrs. Feverfew, and we discovered that the author, a first/birth mother and also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints (LDS) , was writing about recent posts at First Mother Forum. Melynda, author of the Letters to Mrs. Feverfew, was miffed because we had not posted her comments, but neither Jane nor I saw

HB 2904 is targeted at LDS Family Services! Absolutely Untrue

MEGAN
As suggested by her
and with permission

I've written on First Mother Forum several time about my surrendered daughter, Megan, and  difficulties in our relationship. As many with a surrendered child or a birth parent have experienced, the course of reunion never does run smooth. Megan has been following FMF for several months, posting under a pseudonym. She is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Saints and is conflicted over our posts and comments on the Church's position on adoption.

Adoption Reform and the LDS Church

Jane

First Mother Forum has gotten some flak from folks asking why we are bringing the Mormon Church into its discussion of HB 2904, the Oregon bill which would give mothers considering adoption time and information to make informed decisions.

What Ever Happened to Baby Emma? and good news on the Wyrembek boy

Lorraine

Late Breaking News: This comes from Toledo:  "The Vaughns have signed new papers agreeing to give Grayson Wyrembek back to his father, Benjamin Wyrembek, by the end of the month, never to see him again, and to drop all further resistance to the law and justice and to stop trying to take this child from his Ohio family. Wyrembek apparently had, or is still having, a lengthy visit with his son over the weekend, and will continue to have such visitations until he the end of the month. To which we add: Great!

                                                  *    *     *
While we wait and watch to see what happens to Benjamin Wyrembek's son, there is another case of father's rights being denied, this one in Utah, my least favorite state: A young father in Virginia, John Wyatt, 22, was given the round-around by the Sentara Potomac Hospital in Virginia, but eventually learned two days later that the mother, college student Emily Colleen Fahland, managed somehow to relinquish in Utah.

Uh, oh....Utah and them Mormons like to get those babies away from single mothers...

Fathers Day 2010: Unmarried Fathers Who Fight for their Rights to be a Dad

This Father’s Day let’s raise a glass and toast John Wyatt, Ramsey Shaud, Jon Klaren, and all the other childless fathers who took on the system and lost. And let’s make another toast to those fortunate fathers, Otakar Kirchner and Dan Schmidt, who beat the odds. And finally let’s toast Erik Smith, the Ohio paralegal working with fathers all over the country in danger of losing their children to the rapacious adoption system.

Unmarried fathers Wyatt and Shaud are the latest in a string of men victimized by Utah’s relaxed residency laws, allowing the State to become a safe haven for would be adopters. Utah laws, reflecting LDS Church doctrine of eternal togetherness for sanctified families (father, mother, and children) and oblivion for unsanctioned ones (father and child or mother and child), are a God-send for unscrupulous segments of the adoption industry.

Wyatt’s baby was born in Virginia and surrendered by the baby’s mother to a couple who took the child to Utah. Shaud’s baby was born in Utah where her mother relocated from Florida, apparently induced to do so by a Utah adoption agency. Both men took every step required by their homes states and Utah to protect their right to nurture their child; nonetheless, Utah trial courts upheld the adoption of their children. Both cases are on appeal. We told Wyatt’s story here.

Shaud’s story as reported on The Daily Bastardette:

“Shaud filed a paternity claim in Utah and a notice in the Utah putative father registry five days before the birth. Shaud’s notice was mailed on January 12, 2010 and marked received by Utah Vital Statistics on January 14. The mother consented to adoption on January 19, and an adoption petition was filed.

[Vital Statistics did not process Shaud’s paperwork until January 20, making Shaud’s filing one day late.] Moreover, the date of receipt on the envelope had been altered from January 14 to January 20. The adoption was then ordered without Shaud present.

[Through an attorney, Shaud] filed a motion to intervene in the adoption …. A judge ruled that Shaud had preserved his right to due process. For unknown reasons the judge was replaced by Judge Robin Reese, who reconsidered the matter. Reese refused to admit … evidence about Vital Statistics activities and denied Shaud’s intervention.”

The State of Utah is not alone in its zeal to separate fathers from their children. Other states also have laws cleverly designed by the adoption industry to screw unmarried fathers. Klaren lost his son in left-leaning California because his attorney failed to tell him about an important deadline.

As we wrote in our post about Wyatt’s case, prior to 1972, unmarried fathers were legally dead when it came to the adoption of their children. (Of course very much alive if the state wanted them to pay support.) In Stanley v. Illinois, the US Supreme Court held that unmarried fathers had the right to nurture their children. States immediately adopted laws designed to give the appearance of  recognizing fathers’ rights while denying them in fact. To the horrors of the adoption industry, however, fathers actually asserted their rights and in a few cases, they prevailed. Thanks to well-financed public relations campaigns by the would be adoptive parents and allied adopters in the media, two of these cases, Baby Jessica (Dan Schmidt) and Baby Richard (Otakar Kirchner) made headlines. "No More Baby Jessica’s" and “Save Baby Richard” ranted the press as though the children were being sent to where the wild things are rather than to the loving arms of their fathers. (Jane will have a review of Baby Richard: A Four-Year-Old Comes Homein the coming weeks.)

Adoption industry lobbyists and legislators, contending they were motivated by “the best interest of the child”, worked overtime to shutter fathers’ all-ready small window of opportunity. Whether this commitment to the “best interest of the child” was based on narrow religious views or the need to keep children – and money -- flowing into industry coffers, the result was the same: more traps for unwary fathers to navigate.

An irony in all this? These state laws fly in the face of a national priority articulated by the White House Office for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships: “Supporting fathers who stand by their families, which involve working to get young men off the streets and into well‐paying jobs, and encouraging responsible fatherhood”.

Now that is a policy we can get behind. Let's hope the White House sinks some teeth into that initiative.
------------------------
Here's a book on birth fathers and their experiences.

Why didn't we resist the social pressures?

Some may ask why we did not resist the social pressure to give up our children, particularly since Lorraine and I were college graduates in our 20's at the time of surrender.

In addition to fearing the stigma which we knew would attach to us and our families as unwed mothers, many in my generation of birthmothers believed that keeping our child would be harmful to the child. Folklore passed to us through parents, clergymen, teen magazines, soap operas, and Ann Landers told us that children of unmarried mothers were always better off adopted by a married couple who had so much love (as well as material goodies) to give.

(The Mormon Church teaches this today. It saddens me that my surrendered daughter, Megan, a worthy church member, believes it.)

The social worker mantra "A child needs a mother (pause) and a father" rang in my ears. The only way Megan could gain a father was to lose me, a woman of no consequence.

I knew the pain of being fatherless. My parents had divorced when I was 15. My father, who died when I was 20, had not been involved in my life in a meaningful way since I was a small child. I envied girls whose fathers came straight home from work and presided at the dinner table, inquiring about their day at school. These fathers took their families on vacations every summer, taught their daughters to drive, and attended father/daughter events at church and school.

If a social worker had said to me: "Jane, being adopted in a closed adoption causes children problems. Your daughter may develop trust issues, she may feel abandoned, she may suffer from being raised by people who don't look or act like her, she is more likely to have behavioral problems and so on,” I would have kept her, no question about it. If the social worker had leveled with me about adoptive parents, that they, like other parents, might divorce, lose their jobs, suffer from alcoholism, or abuse their children, I would have walked out of the hospital with my daughter.

By 1966 when I gave up Megan, substantial research (as well as common sense) documented the many problems adoptees and adoptive families face. Social workers knew about them but didn’t tell us. I can only guess why.

And so, with no information to the contrary, I took as an article of faith that no matter how hard I struggled to raise my daughter, she would be better off, moving seamlessly into the mythical family, superior in every way not only to me but to my entire family. I envisioned her as a teenager screaming at me: "why did you keep me? I could have gone to a fine family and had a better life. You were a mean, selfish woman and I hate you!”

International Baby Thieves Given PROBATION

While we have this disgusting situation over the baby-snatchers who were given no-jail time by the adoption-always! Mormon band of thieves, U.S prosecutor, Brett Tolman, and Judge David Sam in Salt Lake City earlier this week, The Australian Broadcasting System has a story about stealing babies from the streets of India to be adopted in Australia. Both stories are equally sick and the product of a seemingly unquenchable thirst for infants from anywhere.

Having coffee with a friend the other day, I mentioned E.J. Graff's expose in Foreign Policy, and she said that she had friends who had just adopted from Vietnam. But, she said, they had spent six months working at the agency there and came home with a child with various problems. So I am assuming that their adoption in a clean one. ALEXANDER MARTINEZ/AFP/Getty ImagesWho's your mommy?

Parents might never know if their adopted child is truly an orphan. Back to the Samoan/Salt Lake situation. Prosecutor Tolman told Judge Sam that the birth parents reached by his office did not want prison time for those connected to the Focus on Children thieves...and that they had interviewed some 25 families WHOSE KIDS WERE SENT TO AMERICA to come to this conclusion.

Now what about this smells? This factoid: Approximately 30 % of the Samoan population is...Mormon. The Latter Day Saints are only saving your children! For those just catching up on this story, I'm leaving yesterday's post up. Sorry this has to be all one graf, but so goes the blog: Well, I'm about ready to throw up over the sentence that baby-thieves in Salt Lake City--good Mormons, apparently--got from fellow Mormon: PROBATION. U.S. District Judge David Sam, who ought to discover that he is a LDA (Late Discovery Adoptee) rather than LDS, passed on jail time for Focus On Children agency principals Scott and Karen Banks and caseworkers Coleen Bartlet and Karalee Thornock.

This lovely quartet scammed parents in Samoa into believing their children would be educated in the U.S. and returned later. What happened instead is that the kids were "legally" adopted in the U.S. Judging from the comments at the Salt Lake Tribune website, they were adopted into the Church of the Latter Day Saints and all that means. Prosecutor Brett Tolman (A graduate of Brigham Young University who is accused of dirty deeds during the W. Bush years) recommended probation and setting up a fund that will help set up post offices bosses in Samoa so the REAL PARENTS can receive letters and photos of their children BUT ONLY IF THE ADOPTIVE PARENTS DECIDE TO INITIATE CONTACT.

You read that right. Given what we know about adoptive parents who adopt overseas (so they don't have to save a seat at the dance recital), how many are going to do that? A fifth defendant is expected to also get no jail time; and US has been unable to extradite the child snatchers in Samoa, Tagaloa Ieti and Julie Tiuletufuga. Tolman's phone number is 801-525-5682, or email him at usaut.webmaster@usdoj.gov. What can we add? The market pressure for children leads to this kind of trickery and sham. Yeah, I'm steamed. At least email Tolman and let him know what first mothers think.

Perspectives on open records continued

This is the last of a series of emails between me and my surrendered daughter Megan about open records. The first two parts were posted Monday and Wednesday, January 26 and 28.

Several commentators have criticized me for posting Megan’s emails contending that I betrayed her confidence. I would not have posted her emails if they contained personal information but they don’t. There is nothing about her family, her marriage, her finances, her work, her address, her health – nada. Her emails contain only the opinions which she put forth in her letter to the Bloomington Illinois Pentagraph (below).

I learned of Megan’s Pentagraph letter from a post on the CUB (Concerned United Birthparents) list. It also attracted the attention of an Australian blogger. On the other hand, I copied Megan with my response to her letter.

Megan and I talked on the telephone and exchanged a few emails after the Pentagraph letters. The "don't send presents" email came four months later. I did not respond and I have not heard from her. I assume that if I had written back, our relationship would have continued to limp along.

Although I am sad things haven't worked out, I don’t regret the suspension of our relationship. "Limping along" is worse. I, as I suspect many mothers do, harbored sentimental, almost romantic feelings about Megan. She was my baby. Some day she would realize I was her true mother and come home. In the first few years, I fretted constantly about saying the right things, whether I was too pushy or too distant, and so on. Now that I accept that I cannot control Megan’s feelings, I can be myself.

I think that another reason that I am able to deal with our parting is that I have two young grandchildren, the children of a daughter I raised. These little sweethearts meet my need for someone to mother.

My differences with Megan are not simply a political dispute (she voted for Bush; I voted for Kerry). In asserting that two strangers always make better parents than a single natural mother, Megan is attacking me at my core.


The letters:

4/13/08
Pentagraph(Bloomington, Illinois)
Letters to the Editor

Oppose proposal about adoptee birth certificates

I am an adult adoptee. About 10 years ago, I made the choice to search for my birth mother and I found her!

I knew nothing about the "adoption rights'' movement. It was just something I wanted to do for myself.

The reunion with my birth mother was satisfying for me, and we still correspond and visit each other. After we met, I even attempted to obtain my original birth certificate, but was denied.

Since that time, I have been exposed to many, many communications from various groups pushing for legislation that would allow all adoptees the right to obtain their original birth certificates, regardless of the wishes of birth mothers.

At first, the political arguments made a lot of sense to me. However, after much careful study, pondering and prayer, I have decided for myself that I cannot embrace these groups' basic philosophy regarding family.

God has a plan for families. Children should be nurtured in loving homes by a father and a mother who are also husband and wife. "Redefining kinship,'' as advocated by the some of these groups, is a dangerous thing.

Furthermore, to obtain one's original birth certificate is not a civil or human right. Because I don't believe in the basic goals of "adoption rights'' organizations, I cannot and will not support their political agendas, including open records for all adoptees.

Megan [last named deleted]



April 15, 2008

The Pentagraph
To the Editor

Megan [last name deleted] who wrote the letter published April 13 (“Oppose proposal about adoptee birth certificates”) is the daughter I surrendered for adoption in December, 1966. Megan argues that adoptees should not have the unrestricted right to their original birth certificates.

While Megan is a fine person, I strongly disagree with her views on adoptee access.

I live in Portland, Oregon. On November 3, 1998, Oregon voters passed Ballot Measure 58 with 57 percent of the vote. This measure allowed adults adoptees to obtain their original birth certificates. Opponents immediately challenged Ballot Measure 58 in the courts as violating birthmother privacy. The Oregon Court of Appeals upheld the law and the United States Supreme Court refused to review the decision. The Measure became effective May 31, 2000.

While opponents of the Measure claimed that birthmothers did not want their children to know their identities, birthmothers said something quite different. Two days before the election, over 500 birthmothers including me placed their names in a full page ad in Oregon’s largest newspaper, the Portland Oregonian, supporting the measure.

When I learned in 1997, that Megan was looking for me, I was terrified; but also overjoyed. Since our reunion, I have felt much more complete. It is indeed true that the truth will set you free.

My experience is not unique. Over 9,000 Oregon adoptees have received their original birth certificates. There have been no reports of birthmothers becoming distressed over being contacted by their child. I have met birthmothers and birthfathers from all over the country. I have never heard any regret having a reunion – regardless of how the reunion turned out.

Sincerely,

Jane Edwards
(Note: Published 4/20/08)

Perspectives on Open Records continued

This is a continuation of a blog I started Monday, January 26 of an exchange of emails between my surrendered daughter Megan and myself. Although we have much in common and get along when we are together, we disagree sharply on adoption-related issues. Last March I wrote to Megan inviting her to attend the American Adoption Congress (AAC) convention as I have many times in the past. As always, she refused to come.

A month later, I forwarded Megan some emails from Bastard Nation regarding Illinois open records legislation. Megan reacted angrily to the BN emails and ultimately wrote a letter to the Bloomington, Illinois Pentagraph denouncing open records legislation. I in turn wrote to the paper supporting open records. We exchanged a few more emails over the spring unrelated to adoption. In August, Megan asked me to stop sending her children birthday presents which I had been doing for over 10 years. I did not respond and did not send birthday or Christmas presents. I have heard nothing from her although her daughter Rachael sent me a Christmas card and emailed me.

I’m not sorry about what I wrote to Megan and the Pentagraph although I am sad about the rift in our relationship. I should have been more sensitive to Megan’s feelings.



4/9/08
Megan,

"The Baby Thief" is the title of a book by an adoptive mother, Barbara Raymond about Georgia Tann who operated a notorious adoption business in the 1930's and 40's. Her actions were so evil that they were the subject of Congressional hearings in the 50's. "The Baby Thief" was published last year. I'm sure you can get it at the library.

"The Primal Wound" is the title of a book by Nancy Verrier, also an adoptive mother. It's also available at the library. Her book is very controversial and many people in the AAC do not agree with her. The leaders of Bastard Nation very much oppose Verrier's ideas.

Neither Bastard Nation nor AAC use use the terms "Baby Thief" or "Primal Wound" except in referring to these books..

The term re-defining kinship is used as one way of stating that adoptive families are just as valid as families formed by biology, something I'm sure you would agree with.

I don't know what you mean by saying they twist the meaning of terms such as "human rights," "identity," "family preservation" and "rooted in truth."

I have never heard anyone in AAC or BN rant or rave.

I think you're confusing the fact that the AAC is open to allowing people with a variety of viewpoints to speak with what the AAC espouses. AAC conferences are not like Mormon semi-annual conferences where speakers may say only things which promote the views of the LDS church.

Bastard Nation has only one goal: to get legislation passed which would allow adoptees to receive their original birth certificates. I understand your objection to its name. The fact remains, however, it is the only national organization which focuses solely on this goal. It has been effective, getting legislation passed in Oregon, Alabama, New Hampshire, and Maine. I have to think some of your objection to BN is that LDS Social Services is the primary organization opposing openness.

I do not understand the basis for your statement that the arguments (what arguments? whose arguments?) are based on flawed reasoning.

You're absolutely wrong about the "traditional family structure" as being basic or ancient. In fact the family as we know it (husband working, mother at home with children) is largely a creature of the 20th century as work moved out of the home or farm.

In many early cultures, women had children but stayed with their original families, not with the fathers of their children. For at least 50 years, Mormons defined family as a man, his plural wives, and his children. In fact the LDS church did not even promulgate its position on the family until the early 1990's.

I know that trying to shoehorn everyone into the beliefs of what some religious organizations consider to be family is a calamity for those who do not fit this mold. Actually the majority of the families in the world do not fit this mold -- gays, single parents, widows, adoptive families, grandparents raising their grandchildren, and others.

Muslim countries promote the "intact" family and many (particularly women) suffer severe calamities as result. I certainly prefer to live in the US with a variety of family structure than in Afghanistan which severely punishes those who deviate from the "intact" family structure.

Let me say this: I do not participate in AAC, BN, or other organizations for healing although initially I found attending conferences and meeting people who had similar experiences helpful. I actually don't participate often but did attend the AAC conference this year because the conference was in Portland and I offered to help out.

I encourage you to go to at least one conference. You can attend without espousing what you believe to be these organizations' philosophies. If you learn something, fine. If not, no great loss.
Jane



4/9/08
Jane,

I cannot and will not accept the mission statements and beliefs of BN, the AAC or Origins. I am not wrong about anything.

Illinois HB4623 is fine the way it is written. I don't agree with Bastard Nation that it is a "bad bill." I'm not writing a letter in support of BN's position on HB4623.
Megan


4/10/08

Megan,
How did Origins get into the discussion? I certainly would not expect you to support its mission.

This all started because I forwarded you information about a bill in Illinois affecting the right of adoptees to receive their original birth certificates. You are in a unique position to help Illinois-born adoptees because you are an adoptee and live in a rural area in Illinois.

You've decided not to help Illinois adoptees because you don't like Bastard Nation, the American Adoption Congress, or Origins. Of course you don't have to like any organization in order to take a position on a piece of legislation. You can write a letter without referencing the organizations you find objectionable.

So whose voices do the Legislators hear? Those of the conservative segment of the adoption industry who claim falsely that natural parents don't want their children to know their identities.

Thus, adoptees continue to be denied the right that every other American has -- the right to his or her birth certificate, the right to know whose genes they carry. Adoptees continue to be treated as second-class citizens or, to be blunt, treated like bastard children.

I appeared in a full-page newspaper ad proclaiming my sins of 32 years earlier in order to support adoptees in Oregon when Measure 58 was on the ballot in 1978. This did not benefit me and frankly was very difficult to do. I did it because I thought it was the right thing to do.

And you won't even write a letter. And Illinois will pass a bad bill severely restricting adoptees right to their original birth certificates.

This will set the cause back in other states like California.
Jane



4/11/08

Jane
Your question below is a leading question, which I will not answer directly. It cannot be answered "yes" and it cannot be answered "no." Inflammatory phrases such as "more equal than others" are meant to incite emotion; they are not the basis of an intelligent, open-minded discussion. This type of language is the thing that first turned me off to groups like BN.

Megan

To be continued on Friday, January 30.