Father denies son what he needs--his original birth certificate; Dean Skelos--who fought OBC access--going to jail for corruption

Dean Skelos and son, Adam 

Adoptee Adam Skelos suffered from classic Primal Wound symptoms; he abused drugs and couldn't hold a job. He abandoned his wife and his two autistic children. His father, former New York State Senate majority leader, Republican Dean Skolos, 70, stepped in to help by trading on his  power in Albany to bury or push legislation favorable to businesses that gave his son $300,000 for a patchwork of no-show or low-show jobs, and offered support for Adam's wife and children.

Demanding adoptee rights! Now!

Unsealing Initiative demonstrating on the steps of New York's City Hall for adoptee rights legislation in 2013. 

When people ask for something for themselves--rather than others asking for them--they are more likely to get it.  Sounds simple, right?

I'm thinking about rights for adoptees and natural mothers. 

Twice recently I have heard the above idea expressed. On CBS This Morning a woman was talking about this being the week students must make their final decisions about where they will go college this fall. The woman noted that since financial considerations enter into it, if the circumstances of the family have been reduced since the application was filed, they should call the financial officer, explain the changed situation, and ask him to reconsider the aid package being offered.

Why should adoptees' original birth certificates be unsealed? A first mother's perspective

Lorraine

At the end of the month, the Health Committee of the New York State Assembly will be holding a hearing on proposed legislation that would give adoptees the right to their original birth certificates. Along with other members of Unsealed Initiative, I will be testifying.

The below is a working draft, and I would appreciate comments. 

“If I had known that someday I could meet my daughter it would have been so much easier to sign those papers. My social worker and I went over this point again and again and again. Never, never, could I see her, not ever, time heals all wounds, she would say. It does not heal this one….”

Adoptees, first parents rally in Manhattan for adoptee rights

Sen.Velmanette Montgomery, Asbm. David Weprin, Carol Schaefer, Lorraine

The odds of buying a cup of coffee from your father and not knowing he is related to you are not quite off the charts, but that is certainly a rare coincidence. Yet it happens. Joe DeCarlo Pessalona said of frequenting a deli in Manhattan's Greenwich Village: "I used to buy my coffee from him [his father] and I had no idea it was him." he said. Pessalona

Help Adoptees Reach First Parents

By LORRAINE DUSKY

Lorraine

Ask the man on the street if people who were adopted as babies should be able, as adults, to find out the identities of their original parents, and the typical answer is: Sure, isn't that their right?

Only for the fortunate few. In all states but six -- and New York isn't among that half-dozen -- individuals adopted at birth are still denied the unrestricted right to even look at a copy of their original birth certificates. Without that piece of paper, it's hard to have that longed-for mother-and-child reunion.

NYC Press Conference for Open Records for Adoptees

Press Conference for the Bill of Adoptee Rights from Flower City Media on Vimeo.
If you can get through this without getting a tear in your eye, you're a stronger person than I am. If you are in any state that has a bill in the works get involved!

I'm going to email both David Weprin and Richard Gottfried and thank them for their support. And by the way, Unsealed Initiative is collecting money (and size donation welcome, and we mean any amount) for Weprin's election campaign. He is a staunch supporter and we need him in Albany. If you have any NY connection with your adoption, please contact Joyce Bahr at unsealedinitiative@nyc.rr.com. 

We have around $400 at this point; I'd love to see us get to a thousand.  And check out UI's page too: Unsealed Initiative.  

On another note, I just read a blog by an adopter looking for a second child and she writes she feels
incredibly "sad" for me. Argument going on under earlier blog: Why I'm not celebrating "Birth Mother's Day"

It was weird to read, I admit. --lorraine 

Searching helps first mothers heal

Joyce Bahr

Guest blogger today is first mother Joyce Bahr, who heads Unsealed Initiative, the organization working to give adoptees their original birth certificates through the passage of legislation that would undo the secrets and lies fostered by New York's 1935 law, which sealed the original birth records of anyone adopted. 

by Joyce Bahr

When they surrendered their babies, first mothers were never given a right to privacy. They were never informed that adoption is a loss,

Time to Unseal Birth Records--New York Report

 Joyce Bahr, President of  Unsealed Initiative which works to open the records in New York State had the following letter in the Albany Times-Union on Sunday, November 1.

November is National Adoption Month and adoptees born in New York are much more hopeful for passage of legislation giving them the right to a noncertified copy of their original birth certificate and updated medical histories.

Bills A8410/S5269 give birth parents the option to file a contact preference. Some may not want to be contacted and others may want to be contacted directly by the adoptee or through an intermediary.

Adoptees are grateful to Republican sponsor Sen. Bill Larkin, an adoptive grandparent, and welcome a new Senate sponsor, Sen. Velmanette Montgomery, chairwoman of the Children and Families Committee. The Assembly sponsor, Assemblyman David Koon Rochester, continues the fight in that house. Birth parents who had no rights and no options presented to them signed surrender papers that terminated their parental rights, but did not provide confidentiality for them. Recent research by professor Elizabeth Samuels of the Baltimore School of Law concludes confidentiality was for the adoptive parents. 

A 2007 report by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute finds birth parents lives' are not ruined when they are discreetly contacted by adoptees.
No law prohibits adoptees from searching for their birth parents. It's time for a law unsealing birth certificates.

Senate Democrats and Republicans are in support of one, while the Assembly bill with 70 sponsors has been stalled in the Codes Committee since June 2006. Adoptees are saying out loud, "It's time for our rights."
Joyce Bahr
New York City
unsealedinitiative@nyc.rr.com

 If you have a adoption connection of any sort through New York,that is, you were adopted through New York, you relinquished a child in New York, you are a friend of or are related to someone who was adopted or relinquished her/his baby in New York, PLEASE do not sit on the sidelines but join us in trying to let adoptees breath free with the knowledge of their heritage. Write your state senator and assembly person, write the head of the Senate and Assembly, and contact Joyce. New York needs you. A life is waiting.

The Orphan Trade, Gay Marriage and Open Records Legislation

Though many of my friends seem astonished by the information that international adoption is not simply a great humanitarian gesture, but loaded with corruption and kidnapping for profit, the word is getting out. Yesterday Jane wrote about the commentary and story at the New York Times blog about Madonna and her quest for another child from Malawi. The other day Slate published a piece by E.J. Graff, along with a slide show of pictures and stories. We have trumpeted Graff's work before in Foreign Policy here at FirstMotherForum. Again at Slate, as the New York Times, comments come from "defensive" adoptive parents, some of whom call her journalism incompetent and otherwise attack Graff.

The comments remind me of lobbying in Albany with Unsealed Initiative for open records for adoptees. While most of the people we met were polite, and a growing number were sympathetic to our cause, every now and then we ran into someone who looked at us as if we were crackpots and that we represented only a fringe group.Well-adjusted birth mothers wouldn't be there; neither would good adoptees.

One such legislator, who was absolutely rude and nasty to the three of us who met with him was...Rosie O'Donnell's brother, Danny. I was with two adopted people. In less than three minutes, O'Donnell had the other woman in tears and the man--who had gone to court to get his original birth certificate but been turned down--was so mad that as we left he told the women who worked for O'Donnell that their boss was one of the worst human beings he had ever met. Our few minutes with him reminded me of some of the early talk shows I did back in 1979 when Birthmark came out. When the attacks were almost expected.

O'Donnell told us that he would never NEVER vote for an open-records bills. Rep. O'Donnell (whose district is in Manhattan) is on my mind today because there was a story about him in the New York Times yesterday about how he is shepherding a bill for gay marriage through the Assembly, and how he sometimes twists arms with threats and sharp elbows. Now I am all in favor of gays and lesbians having the right to marry and gain the advantages of legal coupledom, and expressed my views in USA Today some time ago. But just reading about O'Donnell made me crazy mad all over again.

O'Donnell, who is as out as his loud-mouth sister, is all about rights for gays, but all against rights for adopted people. To his mind, they ought to be glad they were adopted at all (by his sister, one supposes) and shut up about their birth mothers because they are all after Rosie's money. He told my group that we were well dressed and were probably nice people before he let loose. He seemed to imply: Hey, I'm surprised you birth mothers aren't all crack whores.

But thinking about the momentum for gay marriage makes me sad that we have not gone further in our campaign to give adopted people equal rights with the rest of us. That we still have laws in most states that prevent adopted people from learning their original names and heritage simply because they want to know. In any other area, curiosity is seen as a sign of intelligence; yet when an adoptee asks Who am I? Who was I at birth? some see it as a sign of ingratitude. O'Donnell is one such person. And so are many of the people who comment about international adoption.

We need more backers such as Paula Benoit in Maine and Lou D' Allesandro in New Hampshire, both of whom were instrumental in getting legislation passed that gave adopted people the right to their original birth certificates, withOUT a "contact veto" tacked on. (Contact preferences are fine.) Benoit is an adoptee; D'Allesandro is an adoptive father. Joyce Bahr of Unsealed Initiative (see sidebar) just informed us that one of the legal counsels of a legislator supposedly sponsoring the bill of adoptee rights in New York was actually very wishy-washy on the issue. No wonder we weren't getting further with his office. Now a new legal counsel is in place.

We need to find people in legislatures who can convince their peers that the time has come for open records. We need more people out. We need more adopted people angry they cannot have their original birth certificates. We need more birth mothers letting it be known they do not want to stay hidden from their children. Yes, I know some want to stay anonymous, and I know some of those children will read this. My heart aches for them but I do not know what to do about these women.

But somehow, we who fight for open records need to make a louder noise.--lorraine
-----------------
PS: Unsealed Initiative will be lobbying next week in Albany again. If you have a NY connection (relinquishment or adoption) please consider a day given over to lobbying. Even though you may run into some resistance (as above but I hardly think anyone will be as rude as O'Donnell was), the day is energizing and gratifying, and always results in picking up more sponsors for the Bill of Adoptee Rights. Check out Unsealed Initiative 's blog and contact Joyce at unsealedinitiative@nyc.rr.com.

And do take a look at the Slate story (link above). It's well worth your time. If you comment there, copy and post it here too.

That's What Adoption is For...Not on SVU

Continuing on Linda's theme of yesterday...abortion/adoption is everywhere in the media, as regular readers of FFM know. Last night (11/11/08) Law & Order, SVU featured a group of girls at a Catholic prep school deciding to get pregnant and keep their babies! At least one of whom had been in the "abstinence-until-marriage" society...but she gets pregnant from a one-nighter with a sleazy DJ, not her Forever And True Husband (or fath in cyber-lingo) with whom she is not having sex. Anyway, this is a side story to the murder disguised as a suicide...of the first girl who gets pregnant, killed in a jealous rage by her virginal fath.

But the best part of the show for me was that only Eliot, the Catholic cop of the team, suggested briefly that adoption was the right alternative for the girls and their babies. Nobody took him seriously. I felt like cheering, yeah! at least somebody who is writing those scripts is aware that teenagers are not looking upon adoption as the answer, or pushing adoption.

At the show's end, one pregnant teen (whose mother and brother are in jail for acts related to this bizarre story, including murdering the father of her child) is approached by the dead man's father (he would be the baby's grandfather). The good man offers to take her in and and they will take care of the child together. Result: One child, not adopted, growing up with the best solution possible, genetic relatives all around. Okay, I got a little teary when the show ended with them hugging.

So we have a show with pregnant teenagers and only a quick (and dismissed) nod to adoption! Not a Juno in sight. Let's hear it for SVU!

Meanwhile, more Catholic adoption action over at a Catholic blog that Joyce Bahr of New York State Adoption Reform (NYSAR) has alerted us to. Adoptive mother Heidi H. Saxton writes that organizations groups such as Unsealed Initiative and Bastard Nation are anti-adoption. Damn straight we're anti-adoption--unless really really necessary and even then those birth records better be open from the get-go.

Unsealed Initiative comes in for a second slam because it's supposedly anti birth mother since it encourages giving adoptees their original birth certificates--and goodness, some of those women may have moved on with their lives and be in what I will call "forever closets." Do take a look and give Ms. Saxton something to put in her pipe and smoke.

Joyce, as many of you know, is the president of NYSAR and a birth mother, as well as of course moi, and Linda and Jane and the many many first mothers who are an active and vital part of the movement to get those records open. Don't you just love it that it is always adoptive parents who are doing their best to "protect" first mothers from their offspring?

Whenever I hear that the reason to not open birth records is to let these poor women stay in their forever closets I think of all those poor cotton and tobacco farmers in the South who were going to lose their "gracious" way of living once slavery was abolished. In the end, justice has to prevail. This fight seems endless, but WE WILL WIN someday.

Lots of news today. Today's NY Times reports that England is suffering from a "serious" lack of sperm donors since the government decided they can no longer be anonymous:

Each year, Britain needs at least 500 donors to provide sperm for approximately 4,000 women. But in 2006, only 307 donors registered, according to an editorial being published Wednesday in BMJ, formerly the British Medical Journal. The editorial was based on a report published by the British Fertility Society in September.

If you do the math, 500 sperm donors that amounts to eight fertilizations...per donor.

If only our government had the good judgment and compassion to do the same--not let sperm donors be anonymous. Here's what one sperm clinic worker in England had to say: “Donors come in knowing about the loss of anonymity. Loss of anonymity is a good thing in terms of children being able to find out about their genetic background. The donors who come forward don’t have a problem with it. "

If any children of sperm donors are reading, do write to the Times and let them know how you feel. Keep it short and pithy. Send to Letters@nytimes.com.

Now back to my book. --lorraine

A Happy Reunion Story in the News

Mondays always bring a lot of adoption/conception related news from the weekend because there is always a lot of adoption news these days. The brightest story is that of Reese Hoffa, the world champion shot putter who didn't medal in Beijing at the Olympics on Friday, but whose story wins a medal from me.

Given up for adoption when he was four (and he and an older brother played with fire and burned their house down), he was adopted at five, but unfortunately separated from his brother, also placed for adoption. When Reese was 23, and at college, he decided to look for his other mother, and found her quickly on through an adoption website (which one, we don't know) that his mother had posted on two weeks earlier. His mother, on video, says of their separation, "It's always there, you never go on and be happy." Yep, that's exactly what she says. She also is able to tell Reese that he wasn't given up because his playing with fire wasn't the reason he was placed for adoption.

His adoptive mother turns out to be a peach, and though she admits she was somewhat apprehensive, and jealous, she wanted him to "have the answers he wanted." The reunion was seven years ago; his first mother had already found his older brother. Both mothers come off well in this story, and one is left with the impression that this reunion, seven years ago, has a happy ending.

Check out the story at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/26182939#26182939

Reunions are so fraught! Birth mothers who long for reunion want to pop those kids right back into our families, but the adoptees are thinking: not so fast--I've got this whole other family that I'm a part of now. This was certainly true with my daughter--Lordy, a couple of months after we got together, I did what a lot of clueless mothers do: have a "reunion" gathering of sorts where relatives came by the house. Of course, they were curious. I'm sure she felt like an elephant in the circus.

Fortunately the day was saved by my husband--not her father--who a lot of these relatives had never met either, as we had gotten married earlier that year in New York, and all this was happening back in Michigan, where I'm from. So most of the relatives hadn't met Tony either. He kept Jane company on the couch, and made her feel safe and less of an exhibit.

Would I do the same thing again today? Nope. I'd let her be introduced to people bit by bit. It would have been enough to meet me, and my immediate family that time.

When I read the last section of Birthmark (a letter to my daughter whom I have not yet found) at the Pitt conference last fall, about my family all waiting and praying for her, the room was very quiet. I thought, wow, I hit a nerve.

I'll say, as the room was probably three-quarters filled with adoptive mothers for whom the idea of another family "waiting" for "their" child was anathema. I remember watching one large woman...later I would listen to her describe the practice she called "kinning," by which an adoptee becomes kin to the adoptive family.

One adoptive mother did speak to me after I read. She said, you know, we feel that the child was "meant" for us...that probably...I don't remember how she finished the sentence because we both knew what she meant. Like, yeah, it's hard for us to be behind the idea that we had a child that was "meant" for another family. It makes us seem as if we are breeders, like livestock.

--lorraine

One last note today. If you live in New York, take two minutes and make a call to Sheldon Silver's office in Albany and ask that he bring the Adoptee Rights Bill to the floor for a vote. Say you are calling in support of Bill A2277. It's very simple. You'll be asked for your address, but you don't need to explain why you are calling. The number is 518-455-3791, courtesy of Joyce Bahr of Unsealed Initiative of the New York Statewide Adoption Reform.

http://www.unsealedinitiative.org/

How are they gonna know in Albany that adopted people want/need/deserve their original birth certificates, with no restrictions, unless we let them know?