ANOTHER OPEN LETTER TO REPRESENTATIVE SARA FEIGENHOLTZ

Dear Representative Feigenholtz:

I was horrified to read the ugly reply to Lori Jeske's email post to you on April 26, 2010. How in the world can you, an elected public official, condone such an outrage as this post? Didn't they teach you anything in politician school?

From Lori to Representative Feigenholtz:

The bill and your efforts to pass this bill are inhuman. This bill will prove to a huge population of citizens that Democrats should no longer govern the State of Illinois. It is with deep regret, as a Democrat, to see this bill and your inability to stand up for ALL citizens in the State of Illinois.

Lori Jeske, Spokane, WA

We will never know for certain if you, in a temper fit, fired off the nasty reply below, or if it was someone in your office who is authorized by you to answer your mail. Either way, Representative Feigenholtz, you are ultimately responsible for what is sent out from your state contact Email address.

From: Sara

To: Lori Jeske

Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 10:00 PM

Subject: Re: HB 5428

Thank you so much for your kind remarks about HB 5428.

We will pay for your travel expenses if you will come here and start working on a new bill that completes the effort so that all adoptees get their obc. Are you ready to move to Illinois and sacrifice your life to work for adoption reform for the next fifteen years in the frigid winter tundra of Illinois?

Would you consider giving Representative Feigenholtz the key to your (delusional) Eutopian worldwhere all ungrateful bastards think it's easy to pass a bill that makes everyhone happy AND CAN ACTUALLY PASS? Pass a law? what a concept!!

Many Illinois born 65+ year old adoptees will get their birth certificates BEFORE THEY DIE -- very soon.

We wil tell them that you would prefer to throw good under the bus while waiting for perfect and that you think they should wait a little longer. Good luck in Washington State with your efforts. We can hear the unsealing now........

NOT.

[reprinted with permission of Lori Jeske]

Didn't you know how much opposition there was to HB 5428? It's true that Illinois adoptees had very little chance to write to you before this because frankly, Sara, you kept this bill a secret from us just as long as you could. So perhaps you've been insulated from our opposition to HB 5428. Nevertheless, I would have expected a seasoned public servant such as yourself to be able to control your temper (or that of a staff member) when answering the mail, even from your opponents.

We in Bastard Nation call ourselves Bastards - with a capital B. We reclaimed the name of Bastard which had been placed on us by those who would attempt to shame us for our parents' marital status at the time of our births. We use this name because we see nothing shameful in being adopted nor in having been born out of wedlock. We use it to take the sting out of the shameful name-calling of yesteryear.

What unbelievable irony it is that you, an adoptee yourself, or one of your co-workers, would hurl the term bastard at us in the "old-fashioned" way.

And then, you coupled it with a very special adjective resented by so many adoptees over the years - "ungrateful." This incredible insult, "ungrateful bastard," is the last straw! This time you or someone who works directly for you has sunk to an all time low. We won't forget. And neither should you.

BTW, I have lived in the frigid white tundra of Illinois all my life. I work well in the cold weather so I guess I have good qualifications. Believe me. One phone call or one Email back in icy January or snowy February and my colleagues and I would have been elated to work with you and your staff to pass a bill that would help all adoptees attain equal rights. It would have been a labor of love.

Adoptees & Free Speech

It's starting again. Deformers who want to pass conditional access legislation love to throw tomatoes at those of us who do not agree with them. When we wipe off the tomatoes and still speak out, they tell us we don't really understand what's going on in their state and therefore, we should zip it.

Sorry, but it doesn't work that way. You don't tell me what to say and I don't tell you. Adoptees do not all belong to one huge fraternity. We have not taken an oath of allegiance to each other. We have never sworn to uphold any "party line." We are individuals who happen to have been adopted.

If I believe that an adoptee rights bill is a bad one, I will speak out. It doesn't matter in which state this is happening. What matters is that my conscience tells me that this is a bad bill and so I will continue to respectfully and publically state my opposition in any public forum of my choosing.

The U.S. Constitution guarantees that we are able to travel freely between states. Our ideas and words must be able to freely cross all state borders as well.

IL HB 5428 DO NOT PASS

URGENT ACTION ALERT – ILLINOIS HB 5428
PLEASE FORWARD FREELY

Illinois HB 5428, the bill that is supposed to help adoptees get their obcs, but doesn’t - is on the move again. It was rushed through the House and passed on the House floor by a vote of 74 – 67. Now it’s going quickly through the Senate. It must be stopped right now in the Judiciary Committee.

The Illinois Judiciary Committee has scheduled a public hearing for HB 5428. It will be held on Tuesday, April 13, at 2:30 pm in Capitol 400, Springfield, IL. We hope that some of you will be able to attend and speak to the committee. This will be our opportunity to speak out and talk directly to these senators.

If public speaking isn’t your thing, then please consider coming anyways because we really need to have the committee members look out into the audience and see a lot of people who object to this bill. Your very presence in that room is extremely important!

We are also asking everyone to write and/or call the committee members before the hearing on the 13th. (Contact Information below)

The only way for Illinois to be a truly open state some day is to stop conditional legislation such as HB 5428 from getting a foot in the door now. We want a state where every single adoptee is free to request his obc, with no restrictions or alterations. We want a state where adoptees will be equal among themselves as well as with all other non-adopted citizens.

We need an unconditional bill to accomplish this goal. HB 5428 won’t help. It is a conditional bill (see specifics below) which will keep some adoptees locked out of the system for good.

The legislators will not revisit adoptee problems any time soon if they can get HB 5428 in the law now. History has proven this to be true.
The legislators do not care about the percentage of adoptees whose birth mothers will file a disclosure veto and keep them from getting a birth certificate. If the law makers really cared, they would change this bill right now so that 100% of Illinois adoptees could get their obcs. The legislators have absolutely no incentive to come back again another year – and they won’t.

Here is the law from Oregon. It is simple, to the point, and does the job. This is the kind of law we want but we will NEVER get it if HB 5428 passes.

“Upon receipt of a written application to the Illinois Dept. of Public Health, any adopted person 21 years of age and older born in the State of Illinois shall be issued a certified copy of his/her unaltered, original and unamended certificate of birth in the custody of the Dept. of Public Health, with procedures, filing fees, and waiting periods identical to those imposed upon non-adopted citizens of the State of Illinois.”

The State of Illinois must no longer be allowed to honor an archaic sealed records law enacted in 1946 that took away from 100% of the adoptees their right to access their original birth certificate without restrictions or falsifications. Now, in 2010, we want the State of Illinois to restore that right to 100% of the adoptees in the state. We want all adoptees to be equal to all other adoptees and to all of the non-adopted citizens when it comes to accessing their birth certificate.

WHAT ARE SOME SPECIFIC OBJECTIONS TO HB 5428?

1. HB 5428 would give birth parents a right to stop an obc (original birth certificate) from being issued to their adoptee. Any birth parent would have an entire year to file a Denial Form. The bill details several ways in which the state will advertise the new bill to try to reach as many birth mothers as possible and let them know about their new option to file a denial form. And remember, these are the very same birth mothers who irrevocably relinquished all legal rights to their children decades ago.

2. The state will allow birth parents to legally veto an obc. Therefore, it follows that the state is actually transferring to birth parents a part of its statutory authority to issue official birth certificates. Birth parents have no legal standing in the law and must not be given any such standing.

3. This bill would permit the state to white-out historical birth information from either a copy or an original document that the state officially issues – both unacceptable.

4. The bill would divide adoptees into two arbitrary categories: those born before January 1, 1946, and those born after. The adoptees born before this date would be allowed to get their obcs without any restrictions or falsifications. Those born after Jan. 1, 1946 will comprise the pool of all adoptees who will be eligible for a birth parent veto.

5. This bill will cost the state a lot of money and the state is nearly broke; it’s laying off teachers and closing public schools right now.

6. HB 5428 is a search and reunion bill – not an adoptee civil and human rights bill. If adoptees want help from the state in search and reunion matters – then let the social workers and the searchers write a separate bill. Search and reunion issues do not belong in a bill to own one’s birth certificate.

7. HB 5428 is a birth mother- rights bill – not an adoptee civil and human rights bill. Birth parents have no standing in the law and should not be given standing in an adoptee bill. If birth mothers want the state to protect their anonymity, then let them write their own bill.

The archaic 1946 law should be repealed. In its place a new and simple law can then be enacted, one similar to the states of Oregon, Alabama, New Hampshire, and Maine. Kansas and Alaska never sealed their records and adopted adults in those states have always been able to freely access their birth certificate. Unsealing obcs for all adoptees can be done very easily. Just ask anyone from these 6 states. They have been no litigation, no birth parent uprisings, no citizens coming back to the legislature demanding that the law be changed, and no social upheaval, as some had predicted.

You can read the full text at: http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/fulltext.asp?DocName=&SessionId=76&GA=96&DocTypeId=HB&DocNum=5428&GAID=10&LegID=50466&SpecSess=&Session=

Status of the bill : http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?DocNum=5428&GAID=10&DocTypeID=HB&LegId=50466&SessionID=76&GA=96

IllinoisOpen Organization
www.ilopen.org

Bastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organization
www.bastards.org

Questions? Please write to anita5000@comcast. net or obc@ilopen.org


CONTACT INFORMATION

We are very much aware that some of these email addresses may not be correct. It is extremely difficult to get any senate email addresses. They “don’t want them to be given out.” So please do the best you can and try and get through to as many as possible.
A short phone call to the senator’s office is an excellent alternative. FAX’s are good too.

ILLINOIS SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
REPUBLICANS
KIRK DILLARD
Phone 217-782-8148 FAX (630)-969-1007
http://dillard.senategop.org/index.php/contact-us-mainmenu-3
template

RANDALL M. HULTGREN
Phone 217-782-8022 FAX (217)-782-9586
senatorrandyhultgren@gmail.com.This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
MATT MURPHY

Phone 217-782-4471 FAX (847) 776-1494
http://www.murphy2010.com/connect.aspx
DALE A. RIGHTER
217 – 782-6674 FAX (217)-235-6052
template on personal page
http://www.dalerighter.com/index.php?option=com_contact&view=contact&id=1&Itemid=3


DEMOCRATS

WILLIAM R. HAINE
217-782-5247 FAX (217) 782-5340
whaine@senatedem.state.ilga.gov

TERRY LINK
217-782-8181 FAX (847-735-8184)
senator@link30.org or
tlink@senatedem.state.ilga.gov

MICHAEL NOLAND
217-782-7746 FAX (217) 782-2115
mnoland@senatedem.state.ilga.gov
KWAME RAOUL
217-782-5338 FAX (773) 681-7166
raoulstaff@gmail.com or
kraoul@senatedem.state.ilga.gov

IRA SILVERSTEIN Co-Sponsor of bill
217-782-5500 FAX (217-782-5340)
isilverstein@senatedem.state.ilga.gov

DON HARMON
217-782-8176 FAX ( 708) 848-2022
dharmon@senatedem.state.ilga.gov.
A.J.WILHELMI Chief Sponsor of the bill
217-782-8800 FAX (815) 207-4446

http://ajwilhelmi.com/ajwilhelmi/?page_id=42
campaign page template or
awilhelmi@senatedem.state.ilga.gov

Representative Sara Feigenholtz (D-Chgo) is the main sponsor of the bill in the House of Representatives.

HOW A BILL BECOMES A LAW – IN ILLINOIS

Illinois HB 5428 is a 72 page bill that purports to give adopted adults access to their original birth certificate. This bill deals with a very controversial law that has been debated back and forth for over 40 years:

Should the State of Illinois continue to honor a sealed records law enacted in 1946 that took away from adoptees their right to access their original birth certificate without restrictions and falsifications?

The sponsor of HB 5428 is of course Representative Sara Feigenholtz (Dem-Chgo).The thrust of the bill is to give obcs to some adoptees, some of the time. But this bill contains a birth parent denial form masquerading as a Contact Preference Form. It has a section on when identifying information can be redacted. It splits adoptees into two distinct groups: those born before Jan. 1 and those born after this date and each group is treated differently.

Representative Feigenholtz knows that there is a very strong and out-spoken contingency in Illinois as well as around the United States that believes ALL adopted adults must have equal access to their obcs.. IllinoisOpen Org. and Bastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organization are two such groups. They do not accept compromises, restrictions, or falsifications. So the problem for Representative Feigenholtz became – how to keep this bill out of those brash adoptees’ hands until it’s too late for them to act.

Representative Feigenholtz and her cronies began by building up an invisible wall of silence and secrecy around her and the bill.

Tracking the bill was made harder by giving the bill a "generic" name; a name that wouldn't call attention to itself as being about adoptee rights or birth certificates. HB 5428 is titled "Adoption Registry - Info - No Sunset."

There were no press conferences called, no press releases sent out, and no newspaper articles written about this bill. Silence was maintained on the Internet too. Nothing on FaceBook or MySpace and no twitters or blogs.

But the most surprising thing of all –there is nothing at all on Sara’s official website at http://www.staterepsara.com/index.php?pageId=4 She writes about lots of her legislation, but not one word about a bill called HB 5428.

Representative Feigenholtz did not play on an even field. She kept all info about the bill on her side while the public didn’t even get into the ball park. There were no opportunities for the public to read about the bill and conversely, no opportunities for the legislators to hear any feedback from Illinois adoptees.

What really makes me the angriest is that there were no public hearings called by the Adoption Reform Committee. Oops, did I forget to tell you who is the Chairperson of this committee? Why it’s Representative Sara Feigenholtz, of course.

Normally a public committee hearing is scheduled by the sponsor so that both supporters and opponents can come to Springfield to testify before the Committee. Both oral and written testimony is accepted. When a lot of people show up from one side or the other, it often has a lot of influence with the committee. New amendments are deleted or added, wording is changed, and alterations are often made to whole sections of the bill following the public hearing . Legislation is not supposed to be discussed only in the smoke filled back rooms that Cook County is so famous for.

The silence worked for Representative Feigenholtz. At the end of the day, HB 5428 passed on the floor of the House by a vote of 74 Yes to 39 NO. The bill is now in the Senate awaiting a committee assignment.

Usually, Representative Feigenholtz would call a press conference to announce and celebrate her victory. After all, this is the first time an adoptee rights bill has actually passed in the full House. Lesson Number One in politics: Keep controversial bills far away from the media.

Since we uncovered the news of this bill, we have been blogging, twittering, calling, writing and faxing our legislators and media all around the state. It is imperative for us to inform the public about the bill’s very existence and of course, express our opposition to it.

And finally our efforts have begun to bear fruit. Last week, Mary Lynn Fuller, Co-Founder of IllinoisOpen Org, had her Letter to the Editor published in both the Champaign News Gazette and The Paxton Record. Yesterday (Monday) Triona Guidrey had one letter in the Chicago Sun Times and one in the Chicago Daily Herald. At last! The bill is beginning to take on an identity to go with its number.

Talking and writing about a bill validates its existence Now that we have been instrumental in getting this bill some publicity, it’s no longer just a number– it’s a real adoptee bill, it’s actually written down, it’s terrible, and it’s really very important to oppose it.

So everyone – keep on writing! Continue to break Representative Feigenholtz’ sound barrier!

WHY HB 5428 IS NOT A GOOD BILL AND SHOULD NOT PASS

1. HB 5428 would give birth parents a right to stop an obc (original birth certificate) from being issued to their adoptees. . Birth mothers would have an entire year to file a Denial Form. Remember, these are the very same birth mothers who irrevocably relinquished all legal rights to their children decades ago.
2. The state would be transferring a part of its statutory authority to issue birth certificates to Illinois citizens by allowing birth parents to have a legal role in who does and who does not get an obc.

3. HB 5428 has provisions in it where the state can actually redact all identifying information from some adoptees' original birth documents. The bill would permit the state to white-out historical birth information from either a copy or an original document that the state officially issues – both unacceptable.

4. The bill would divide adoptees into two categories: those born before January 1, 1946, and those born after. The adoptees born before this date would be allowed to get their obcs without any restrictions or falsifications. Those born after Jan. 1, 1946 are the ones whowill be eligible for a birth parent veto.

5. This bill would have to have a fiscal note. Illinois is laying off teachers because it can't pay them. It's outrageous to think of the state spending even one dollar of taxpayer's money on a year-long campaign to tell birth mothers of their new "right" to file Denial Forms. This unique campaign is spelled out in the text of the bill.

STOP ILLLINOIS HB 5428





There is a very bad adoptee rights bill going through the Illinois General Assembly. HB 5428 has already passed the House of Representatives and is in the Senate Assignments Committee now, awaiting a referral to a regular committee.


1.HB 5428 would give birth parents a right to stop an obc (original birth certificate) from being issued to their adoptee. Any birth parent would have an entire year to file a Denial Form. Remember, these are the very same birth mothers who irrevocably relinquished all legal rights to their children decades ago.


2. HB 5428 has provisions in it where the state can actually redact all identifying information from some adoptees' original birth documents.


3. The bill would divide adoptees into two categories: those born before January 1, 1946, and those born after. The adoptees born before this date would be allowed to get their obcs without any restrictions or falsifications. Those born after Jan. 1, 1946 will comprise the pool of all adoptees who will be eligible for a birth parent veto.

4. This bill would have to have a fiscal note. Illinois is laying off teachers because it can't pay them. It's outrageous to think of the state spending even one dollar of taxpayer's money on a year-long campaign to tell birth mothers of their new "right" to file denial forms. This campaign is spelled out in the text of the bill.


5. HB 5428 would also need new monies in order to print all of new forms that the bill calls for. Money will also be needed to hire people to manage the several layers of new red tape that is written into this bill.


We must stop this bill in its tracks. HB 5428 has already passed in the House, which means it's half-way home. The bill's sponsor, Representative Sara Feigenholtz (Dem-Chgo) put this bill on a fast track in order to keep the bill hidden from the public.It was kept so quiet that it did not even have a public hearing to accept oral and written testimony from the citizens of the state. Not one word about the bill was ever written about or talked about in the IL media. I guess that's what the reps do with a contentious bill.

Tracking the bill was made difficult by giving the bill a "generic" name; a name that wouldn't call attention to itself as being about adoptee rights or birth certificates. HB 5428 is titled "Adoption Registry - Info - No Sunset."

Ironically, I read about the bill on March 18 or 19th, a day AFTER the bill passed on the House floor. I opened one of my Google Alerts and what do I see but a link to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Newspaper - yep, that's St. Louis, MISSOURI. I understand that some folks in southern Illinois read this newspaper. But it sure is odd that this is the one and only place the bill has received any publicity. If this were such a wonderful bill, I would expect Representative Feigenholtz to have called a press conference to announce that her bill had been approved by the House of Representatives.

The best thing that could happen to this bill would be for it to be pulled. Since I don't envision Representative Feigenholtz doing anything of the sort, the next best thing could happen in the Assignments Committee. This committee could chose not to release this bill, and the result would be a dead bill in June.

If the bill does get a referral to a Senate Committee, then this will be the next place to kill the bill. We'll keep you informed.

Please write a short letter to the members of the Assignments Committee, asking them to keep this bill out a Senate Committee until the legislative session is over. You can also write to the sponsors of the bill in the Senate. Ask them to please revisit and reconsider the ramifications of HB 5428. Ask them to change the bill so it becomes a true adoptee rights bill.

CONTACT INFORMATION
ASSIGNMENTS COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Senator James F. Clayborne, Jr. jclayborne@senatedem.ilga.gov,
Senator Don Harmon dharmon@senatedem.ilga.gov
Senator Louis Viverito, lviverito@statedem.ilga.gov
Senator Kirk Dillard senator@kdillard.com
Senator Dale Righter drighter@consolidated.net

SENATE SPONSORS OF HB 5428
Senator A. J. Wilhelm awilhelmi@senatedem.ilga.gov
Senator Ira Silverstein isilverstein@senatedem.ilga.gov
Senator Iris Martinez imartinez@senatedem.ilga.gov

ILLINOISOPEN ORGANIZATION
http://www.ilopen.org

BASTARD NATION: THE ADOPTEE RIGHTS ORGANIZATION
www.bastard.org
___________________________________________________________________
PRESS RELEASE
March 22, 2010
For Immediate Release

CONTACT INFORMATION

Anita Walker Field, 1-847-677-0594
Marley Greiner, 1-614-571-2999
Mary Lynn Fuller, 1-217-722-4814


ADOPTEE RIGHTS SQUASHED AGAIN IN NEW ILLINOIS BILL – HB 5428.

On March 19, 2010, The Illinois House of Representatives passed a bill that purports to give all adopted adults access to their original birth certificates. On March 23, 2010, HB 5428 GOES TO THE SENATE, awaiting committee assignment.

Under HB 5428, birth mothers will be allowed to file affidavits of denial – meaning that a birth mother can veto an adoptee’s right to access his or her original birth certificate.

THIS IS A DANGEROUS STEP TO TAKE. IT CREATES AND CODIFIES A NEW RIGHT THAT HAS NEVER BEFORE BEEN IN OUR ADOPTION ACT.

2. Allows the state to delete a variety of identifying information from official documents, depending upon a birth mother’s response.

We believe:
HB 5428 needs to be amended in the Senate so that it would restore to ALL adoptees access to their original birth certificates, without any restrictions, such as prior parental approval. If that cannot happen, then HB 5428 must be pulled or left to die in committee.

Text of Bill: http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/fulltext.asp?DocName=09600HB5428lv&SessionID=76&GA=96&DocTypeID=HB&DocNum=5428&print=true

South Dakota SB 152- Do Pass

ACTION ALERT- Bastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organization

SOUTH DAKOTA –SB 152 – Unconditional Access to OBC's - Vote Yes

SB 152, a 100% unconditional open records bill, will be voted upon on the floor of the South Dakota Senate on TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2010.

Bastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organization, urges everyone to write to the Senators of South Dakota immediately and ask them to vote YES on SB 152, which will give all adoptees equal rights. SB 152 will allow any adoptee 18 years or older to obtain a copy of that person’s original birth certificate upon written application, with no conditions or restrictions.

SB 152 is sponsored by Senators Adelstein, Jerstad, and Merchant and Representatives Lederman, Feinstein, Lust, McLaughlin, and Sly.

The bill was heard first by the Senate Health and Human Services Committee. The only change made in committee was omitting a contact preference form in the bill. It was felt that this form was not necessary to the bill. The Senate committee passed the bill with a vote of 4 to 2.

Help make 2010 the year South Dakota goes over the top! Please bombard the senators with your letters of rousing support!. You can read the bill at:

http://legis.state.sd.us/sessions/2010/Bill.aspx?File=SB152SHE.htm


CONTACT INFORMATION

South Dakota has made it very easy for everyone to write.

http://legis.state.sd.us/email/LegislatorEmail.aspx?MemberID=30s:

Go here to get started: Start out with first Senator on the list. Put SB 152 in your email subject line. Write your letter or attach it, click Send, and then in the Drop Down Box, choose next Senator in line and click Send, etc... It’s like an easy cut-&-paste arrangement. All you need is one letter.

PLEASE FORWARD FREELY.

ILLINOIS SAFE HAVEN: REVISED, REVISITED, REPULSED











Illinois has gone and done it. They enacted a new amendment to their Infant Abandonment Protection Act on January 1, 2010. Illinois changed its law so that infants 30 days or less can be anonymously dropped off at a state designated safe haven. The previous law allowed infants up to 7 days old to be dumped.

Ten years ago, the safe haven provisions were mandated for infants 72 hours old or less. Today there are 23 states, including Illinois, which have safe haven laws to "protect" babies up to 30 days of age. And listen to this. Some states go higher: Indiana 45 days; Kansas 45 days; New Mexico 90 days; North Dakota 365 days - yes, a whole year; South Dakota 60 days; and Texas 60 days.


Pardon me for being cynical, but I think that this latest round-up of older babies is to bolster the inventories of adoption agencies and attorneys. Prospective adoptive parents with big bank accounts are waiting in long lines for infants.

First of all, I do not support any Safe Haven law because I do not believe that the state should sanction the abandonment of children. That said, I am very angry that instead of trying different methods of protecting both mother and child, the state decided to expand its program by upping the age limit to 30 days.

It is my opinion that mothers of babies 2 or 3 or 4 weeks old should not be allowed to use the safe haven act - ever.

Dumping a baby anonymously and getting away with it all started in Texas with what we now call the Baby Moses Law. Their law said that infants up to 3 days old could be abandoned legally to a safe haven, where the mother need not identify herself at all; she could just leave the infant and disappear into the ether.

These original infant protection bills were enacted to prevent mothers from leaving their newborns in smelly garbage Dumpsters and on cold bathroom floors. Women who throw away their newborn babies are extremely mentally disturbed. They are so paralyzed by the crisis that their minds abandon all logic. Their capacity to reason has been so severely diminished that saving the life of the newborn is not uppermost in their minds. They don't care about criminal penalties. What they want is something - anything - to "make it go away."

In literature there is a writing technique called "Deus ex machina." In some ancient Greek drama, an apparently insolvable crisis was solved by the intervention of a god, often brought on stage by an elaborate piece of equipment. Today the term is still used for cases where an author uses some improbable plot device to work his or her way out of a difficult situation and make everything come out alright.

In the beginning, well intentioned but short sighted community members and good hearted but vulnerable legislators came together and came up with a deus ex machina ending for the problem of young women murdering their newborns. They put together a stupid plan that was supposed to save the infant. At the same time, however, the plan throws away the mother. Under all safe haven laws, the mother is quite dispensable; it's okay to discard her.

Illinois' new amendment gives a new mother an extra gift of time - 30 days. "To Keep or Not To Keep" - that is her question. Remember, children who are legally abandoned under the safe haven laws have their genetic, medical, and ethnic histories stolen from them at the front door of the safe haven.

What are social service agencies and adoption agencies and child welfare agencies for if not to help the confused or overwhelmed mother with a 2 or 3 or 4 week old baby? What about faith based organization or your pastor? Maybe the mother will benefit from parenting classes or a mother's helper. For some, counseling sessions may be the answer. Or possibly the baby may need to be placed into foster care temporarily. And of course, there is always adoption. These mothers already have many different options for help and a safe haven drop should never be one of them. These mothers should not be allowed to legally abandon a baby!

The Safe Haven motto throughout the United States has become " ...if it only saves one baby," probably one of the most successful and oft-repeated sound bytes ever heard in the adoption world. That motto created gale force winds which blew up tidal waves of infant protection laws. It drowned our nation in illogical and shameful safe haven acts. But hey, who doesn't want to save a baby?

Every time I pass through the portals of my local hospital, I see this Illinois Safe Haven sign posted at the entrance and I think, "That's one more mother we didn't save."

I found my statistics at the government website, http://www.childwelfare.gov/. They are good through July 2007 but it's the best I could do without a very tedious and time consuming search reading all the states' laws. I think I can assure you, though, that any states that have amended their law since 2007 have only amended them up in age. No state that I'm aware of has actually lowered the age limit.

I have not found very much record keeping from safe haven advocates. Probably the one person who has kept the most comprehensive statistics on Baby Dumps is Marley Greiner, Chair, Bastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organization.

http://bastardette.blogspot.com/

Illinois Safe Haven Law

Illinois has made some changes in its Abandoned Newborn Protection Act. The new law provides that “newborn infant” means a child who a licensed physician reasonably believes is 30 (instead of 7) days old or less. This law went into effect on January 1, 2010.


Ode to Illinois

30 days hath the mothers
To dump your sisters or your brothers.
Most of the states have only seven
But not here in Baby Dump heaven!
It’s 30 all the time here. No line.

Black Market, 1945 Illinois Adoption Act & Sealed Records

ILLINOIS: A BLACK MARKET HAVEN
When Jacob Kepecs, executive director of the Chicago Jewish Children's Bureau was asked why that agency placed only 12 children for adoption in 1944, he replied: “We don't have them to place. The black market gets them.”
Up until 1945, the Illinois Adoption Act was woefully weak and unregulated. Back then, any person at all could “facilitate” an adoption: an attorney, a doctor, a social worker, a taxi driver, a midwife, a judge, a nurse, your next door neighbor - it didn’t matter. If you knew of a baby who needed to be adopted out, you could just go ahead and find a family who wanted that baby, go to court, and the judge would almost always grant the adoption. The absence of specific adoption regulation in Illinois was a magnet for criminals who made money from selling babies.

In 1944, Illinois statistics revealed that of the 2,680 adoptions in Cook County, only about 680 were investigated by social agencies. What about the other 2,000?

The primary intent of the 1945 Illinois adoption reform legislation was to do away with the rampant illegal baby selling racket in Illinois – the black market. 1945 ADOPTION REFORM LAW

A report commissioned by the Illinois State House of Representatives in May, 1945, concluded that “It would appear from a study of the statutes that the majority of the states have decided, especially in recent years, that the interests of the child are best upheld by a more considered and complex proceeding, with the added safeguard of having the records closed to public inspection.”

A variety of social work organizations, state public health departments, adoption agencies and civic groups throughout the state wanted to clean up the black market adoption of babies. They believed that the only way to get rid of the racketeers was to make some important changes in the Illinois adoption law.

It’s interesting to note that this report states that an added safeguard would be closing the records to PUBLIC INSPECTION. It does not say to close them to adoptees! As a matter of fact, to this day in Illinois, all non-adopted citizens’ birth certificates are closed to public inspection. The difference between them and us is that their birth certificates are made available to them upon request, while ours are not..

As a result of the hue and cry from the social work community, legislators began working on a bill to add major amendments to the Illinois Adoption Act. In May, 1945, the bill was filed in the Illinois General Assembly that contained four new procedures for adoption practice which would give the well-meaning social work community almost total control over adoption proceedings.

1) Social investigation of the adopting home and the children.
2) Six months’ resident period in the adopting home before signing the final decree.
3) Consent for adoption to be signed in the presence of a licensed agency or clerk of the court.
4) Sealed adoption records which would remain confidential.

According to The Illinois Children’s Home and Aide Society, “74 per cent of the 1943 adoptions in Illinois were not arranged by licensed welfare agencies…the majority of Illinois adoptions are the sordid negotiations of a few unscrupulous doctors and lawyers, and of unlicensed ‘homes’ and pseudo social agencies of well meaning but uninformed people who strove to befriend an unmarried mother.”


Mrs. Marion K. Craine, regional representative of the state department of public welfare reported that there were many adoption cases in which they had reason to believe that large sums of money changed hands, but these cases were hard to prove because you could be sure that the individuals involved would always protect each other. Mrs. Craine said that “there is no way to control this practice until Illinois has more adequate laws for protection of the child.”

Mrs. Florence Fifer Bohrer of Bloomington, president of the Illinois League of Women Voters in 1945, called Illinois ‘the Gretna Green or Crown Point’ for hasty adoptions for illegitimate children whose mothers knew how easy it was to get rid of them here.’”

“Illinois has become a state for hasty adoptions for orphaned children by couples who cannot qualify as satisfactory parents under the laws of their own states,” declared Joel D. Hunter, superintendent of the United Charities.

The Rev. Vincent Cooke, speaking for Catholic Charities said, “Do you believe you can eliminate all the world’s evils merely by passing more laws against them?”

Mrs. William B. Walrath from The Cradle Society noted, “We passed a law once to make people stop drinking. But did they?”

John C. Slade, a prominent Chicago attorney who led the opposition, said “It seems to me this is a question of the social workers wanting to substitute their judgment for that of the courts and the judges.” He objected to the proposed changes because he felt that the new legislation would imply that duly elected judges were not competent to decide on the fitness of adoptive parents and this he found to be unacceptable.

Attorney Slade continued, “One of the most dangerous features of the amendment is the requirement that the written reports of the investigations be made a part of the records of all adoption proceedings. It would be a vicious thing to attach to the child a permanent record of the details connected with his birth and background. Nothing could provide a more prolific storehouse of ammunition for future troublemakers and busybodies than the contents of such reports.”


Adoption attorneys believed that the existing act was just fine the way it was because they felt that it encouraged adoptions and promoted the welfare of orphans and dependent children. Therefore, they concluded, the new proposed amendments to the law were “in direct conflict with the purpose and spirit of the current adoption act.”

Despite its critics, the Illinois Adoption Act of 1945 was approved by the House, 127-4. The Senate concurred with a vote of 41 -0, and in June, 1945, Governor Green signed the bill into law. While making some inroads into reform, the social workers lost their most important battle, that of securing for themselves exclusive investigating rights in all adoptions. The final bill allowed County Judges to appoint any one to make the investigation during a 6 month probationary adoption period.
GRANNY ANNIE’S THEORY
HOW TO TURN LOSS INTO VICTORY

Granny thinks that during the early years of the 1940s, unscrupulous attorneys and doctors began to see the handwriting on the wall. Adoption reforms were coming and they feared that these reforms could put a dent in their lucrative baby-selling business. So the baby sellers put on their thinking caps and Eureka! They found "an out" - it was called SEALED RECORDS.

In particular, the attorneys and judges hooked onto the all important phrase: "All records pertaining to an adoption shall be impounded by the clerk of the court and shall be open for inspection only upon specific order of the court." This new idea could help the black marketeers continue to operate in the lassie faire atmosphere they loved so much and that had prevailed up to now.

Unscrupulous baby sellers saw the beauty of the sealed records section - for them. Granted, they would have to put up with the law's new rules of record keeping. But the black market folks also knew that no one was ever going to lay eyes on these records . They could continue to promise people anything that would make them happy and at the same time continue their baby-selling business as usual.

How ironic it is that Illinois added a sealed records clause to its adoption act as a way to help bring about reform measure to the practices of adoption. It was part of a plan to keep the black market out of Illinois. Instead, it has helped dishonest lawyers, doctors, agencies and other individuals who have vested interests in adoptions to carry on with their criminal activities for 65 years now.

LISTEN TO GRANNY. SEALED RECORDS ARE A LICENSE TO LIE.

Resources
Chicago Daily Tribune Newspaper articles. ProQuest Historical Newspapers Chicago

May 6, 1940. “Nab 2 Women in Trailer Camp for Baby Quiz”
May 7, 1940. “ List 1,922 ‘Baby Farm’ Girls”
May 28, 1941. “Lawyer Admits Handling Baby Home Adoptions.”
July 12, 1944. “Assert Illinois Laws Aid Black Mart in Babies”
July 13, 1944. “Council Head Assails State Adoption Law.”
July 14, 1944. “Adoption Laws Permit Rackets, Hunter Asserts.”
July 30, 1944. “The Adoption Racket”
January 3, 1945. “Loopholes in Adoption Law Cited in Battle for Revision.”
January 31, 1945. “Present Adoption Law Adequate, Says Cradle Head”
February 7, 1945. “Veteran Attorneys Oppose Adoption Law Amendments”
February 16, 1945. “Fight Foreseen on Adoption Law Proposals.”
February 17, 1945. “Illinois Judges Redraft Code for Adoptions.”
April 5, 1945. “Senate Group Approves New Adoption Bill.”
June 12, 1945. “Adoption Bill is Approved by House, 127-4.”
May 27, 1947. “Adoption Bill Called Invasion of Family Right.”

May, 1945. Publication No. 69. Adoption Laws. Report Pursuant to Proposal No. 209. Sponsored by Representative Ben S. Rhodes. Research Dept. Illinois Legislative Council, Springfield.

Social Workers v Attorneys
Giving over total control of adoption procedures to the social work community was abhorrent to the attorneys and judges. They were determined never to give up exclusive investigative powers to professional social workers. They believed that the power belonged to them.

Adoptees & the "Birther" movement

I wrote this letter to the editor in reply to an Op/Ed piece in the Chicago Tribune about the "birthers" movement. They"birthers" are the kooks who think President Obama cannot be president because he doesn’t have a “proper birth certificate.”


Don’t worry, all you vigilant “birthers.” I can assure you that President Obama’s credentials are as good as gold. Here’s why. He has a United States of America passport.


We adoptees are intimately acquainted with getting a passport. Our original birth certificates were ordered impounded and sealed in perpetuity on the day our adoption was finalized. So we don’t have the ordinary means of proving our birth when applying for a passport.

I guarantee one and all that if President Obama did not have an acceptable, genuine, 100% authentic original birth certificate – any ordinary worker at any passport office in our country (including Hawaii) would have caught up with him years ago. The feds just don’t give out passports to anyone who asks. You do it their way, or you stay home.


I am an adoptee and a survivor of “Sorry! Bad Birth Certificate – No Passport for You” experience, and let me tell you, it’s not a pretty story.

I was denied a passport in 1993 because the old Certificate of Birth that had been handed down to me by my adoptive parents wasn’t sufficient. It didn’t say where I was born.


So I set out on a 2-week odyssey to somehow adequately prove my place of birth. The feds gave me choices. First choice was to produce an Adoption Decree, which ironically, is one of the documents that is impounded and sealed forever upon adoption. That left me with three other choices and these were only to get a black-cover, temporary, 1-year passport. In order to get this, I would have to produce a family bible, school records, or I could produce someone who had witnessed my birth. Being adopted, these choices were not really swell options for me.

With 3 days to go, the state of Illinois came to my rescue. They did whatever it is they do that enabled them to issue me an Amended Birth Certificate. This is a document for adoptees. It’s a mish-mosh of information mostly attesting that I am the biological child of my adoptive parents. But it was my golden ticket for a passport. I was born in Chicago, Illinois, says my Amended Birth Certificate. And that was good enough for the passport office.


So President Obama, just renew your passport every 10 years and you’ll be fine. And birthers, why don’t you just give up already and go away!

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO FREEDOM OF SPEECH?

When’s the last time you heard…?

“Adoptee groups must never publically criticize the actions of another adoptee organization – it is bad for the total adoption reform movement.”

“Adoptees must stick together.”

“If we don’t support each other, no one else will.”

“You mustn’t poke your nose into a state in which you don’t live because you don’t understand what is right and wrong, good or bad, for that particular state.”

How tired I am of hearing these excuses whenever I publically disagree with a bill or a position or an event held by another adoptee or adoptee group. I am just like any citizen of the United States. I can exercise my freedom of speech and speak out for or against any piece of legislation, in any state, for any reason. I’ve been told that this is name-calling, ignorance, sabotage. But it’s not – it’s debate, dissent, disagreement.

Adoptees don’t belong to one huge fraternity. We have not taken an oath of allegiance to each other. We have never sworn to uphold the “party line.” We are individuals who happen to have been adopted.

Being an adoptee does not define me. Being a citizen with the courage and conviction to speak my mind does.

Three cheers for America, where I can criticize government, write about elected officials, and shout my opinions from the rooftop.

"2009: Year of the Velcro": Redux

I wrote the blog, "2009: Year of the Velcro" because I was concerned about all the deformers we were seeing year after year. My entire blog was aimed directly at the deformers: their actions, motives, their actions, and the consequences of their strategies. It was not a blog to analyze any one state's bill. Nor was it a blog that was comparing bills, state by state, and rating them or ranking them in any way. This blog was all about deformers.

Someone called my attention to the fact that I put California onto the wrong list - I said they had a good bill and turns out it was a bad one. I can't remember anymore where I read that CARE was actually going to file a bill w/out amendments, perhaps thinking that people would be blinded by their tricks. A few days later, though, everyone knew exactly what CARE was really up to and I never thought about that sentence again until a few days ago, when the same someone continues to remind me of my error.

I am guilty as charged. It turned out that CARE filed a bill that went directly onto the "bad" list.

Mea culpa.

Please read "2009: Year of the Velcro" again now that I have corrected my mistake.

Saturday, March 07, 2009

2009 THE YEAR OF THE VELCRO


The 2009 Legislative Session is upon us. I’m unhappy to report that there have been 5 new bills introduced already which contain conditional provisions. Imagine! Right off the bat, five (5) brand new bills contain sections that will prohibit some adoptees from having any access to their original birth certificate.

There is a new brand of deformers afoot, folks. I call them the Velcro deformers. Their official motto is: STICK IT TO ME!

The Velro deformers have decided to start right out by adding conditions up front which they think the legislators will accept.

Velcro Deformers don’t care about helping 100% of the adoptees in their states. They never did and they never will. They’re just off and running to see if they can pass a bill. And in order to do this, they have decided to “fool” the legislators. They build restrictions right into their original bill. Then they carefully wrap up their entire bill in a shiny silver Velcro-covered package. They stick their fancy conditions and restrictions right onto the top of the Velcro bill, so the legislators will be sure to see how accommodating they are.

What these deformers don’t see is that by handing over a Velcro package to the legislators, they are issuing an open invitation to the lawmakers to stick even more amendments and restrictions onto the bill. The legislator’s motto is “Right Back Atcha.” It will become an open season for amendments.

It will be much easier for our opponents to throw on more conditions and restrictions to a Velcro-wrapped bill instead of a pure bill. After all, the sponsors of the Velcro bill have already given in once at the very beginning. Right? It will be like playing darts blindfolded down at the local pub. No matter your aim; wherever the restriction dart lands, it is going to stick and it will become yet one more obstacle to equal rights for all adopted adults.

“Throw on the disclosure vetoes! Stick on the contact vetoes. Try for some white-outs too.” This is the message that Velcro deformers send to the legislators when they file a conditional bill. “We started you off with a bad bill. See what else you can do to make it worse.”

Velcro Deformers, I think that you must be incredibly naïve or very power hungry or some of each. What are you thinking of when you write your bill, knowing ahead of time that you will be selling some of your fellow brother and sister adoptees down the river? Grannie Annie believes that Velcro deformers are found at the very bottom of this river and she hopes some great big fish will gobble them all up.

Granny Annie thinks that Velcro Deformers are calculating, controlling, power hungry, and most of all - extremely selfish. What they are doing is worse than introducing a bill, supporting it for awhile, and then changing their minds, like the regular deformers do. Velcro Deformers are throwing away some adopted men and women before the opening bell sounds. “Go straight to jail. Do no pass Go. Do not collect $200.”

GRANNIE ANNIE’S QUESTIONS FOR VELCRO DEFORMERS

How will you explain to the left-out adoptees that you never tried to get a bill passed for ALL adoptees?

Will you tell the left-out adoptees that leaving them out in the cold from the get go was the politically expedient thing to do?

Will you pin a badge onto the left-out adoptees and thank them for being martyrs to the cause?

Will you tell the left-out adoptees that you'll come back in five years to revisit the law and then you will support changing it to include all adopted adults in the state at that time?

And what will you say to the left-out adoptee whose birth mother passed away two years after your bill was passed?

Will you tell the left-behinds that with all political issues there have to be some scapegoats?

Are you considering an insanity defense?

Will you tell them you’re sorry?

Currently, there are six states with Velcro bills: California, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, and Texas.

South Dakota, Rhode Island, and Missouri have filed clean bills. In the clean bills, the needs of 100% of the adoptees in their states have been respected.

Posted by Grannie Annie at 5:22 PM 11 comments
Labels: adoptees, equal access, original birth certificates
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Grannie Annie

YOUR GOAL IS NOT MY GOAL

There has been criticism in various blog and comments concerning the Philly- ARD march. Adoptees have been taken to task for writing statements not friendly to the Philly march. We have been chastised for not being in attendance. It’s been said that we are not loyal to our fellow brother and sister adoptees.

But the reason is so simple. It’s so basic! YOUR GOAL IS NOT MY GOAL.

Why on earth would I march in any protest when my ideas of an adoptee equal rights bill do not agree with your ideas?!. Do you think that I should support your protest march or other events just because I am an adoptee? Are we going back to the days when all adoptees were supposed “to stick together” if we wanted to “get anything done?” Not on your life.

I will never swell a crowd of adoptees just to get the attention of lawmakers because here’s what will happen. These legislators will look out their windows and see a lot of adopted people carrying signs and shouting slogans. Then these very same legislators will go right back to their desks and write a bill with restrictions. And worst of all, maybe half of the marchers will go back to their various states and accept those very amendments which do not restore equal rights to ALL adoptees. That is why I won’t be in the crowd.

I will march and support events only when I am certain that the entire group is all on the same page as far as restoring equal rights to all adopted men and women. Nothing less is acceptable. Not one single adoptee must be left behind.

Now do you see?

Your goal is not my goal.

A Tweet for Friday

only gd bill is 1 w/out condishuns. no disclosure r contct vetoes aloud

Thursday's Tweet

Who wnts obcs sealed? ncfa, rtl, aclu, adop attys, adop agencys, RCC, paps,

Ask yr slf y y y!

Wednesday's Tweet

vry impt notis

CA AB 372 suks

it mst b dfeted

Go to www.calopen.org

TWEET OF THE DAY

TUESDAY'S TWEET

adoptees nt etrnl childrn we grow up we don’t want st8t 2 run r lives

Tweet - a - Day from Grannie A

adptees nt stawkrs adptees nt hom rekrs we r jst lik free1 ls

obcs 4 adptees

A TWEET A DAY FROM GRANNIE A

Deary me! I have come to the sad conclusion that even though educated people are tuning out thoughtful blogs about all subjects, including equal rights for adoptees, no one is paying them any attention. These articles are laid out in a logical manner and contain good evidence to back up each statement. They have a beginning, with an introduction to the subject; a middle, where the main arguments are laid out, and a conclusion .

Our blogs are written in the “Queen's English.” All sentences begin with capitals letters, end with periods, and have commas in all the right places. Usually these blogs run about 500 words or more. I always thought that educated people of all ages could easily handle a 500 page blog.

NOT ANY MORE.

No one wants to read anymore. All any one wants is the MESSAGE – without any extraneous bells or whistles.

I like to keep up with the times. So I give you my first tweet.

gv adptees obcs bmthrs wl thk u 2
stay 2nd 4 mr