It’s (the industry declared) “National Adoption Awareness Month” again.

We Bastards and (original) families have little choice but to be “aware” of adoption and our adopted status every day of the year,  but it’s long overdue we bring some of our kind of “awareness” to the industry’s adoption marketing attempts.

Thus for the month of November, those of us writing about some of the cold hard realities of adoption will be pulling together pieces of OUR broader narrative over the course of the month.

Consider it a sane alternative to the cotton candy, rainbows, and unicorns the industry will be shoveling down every media pipe they can get their talking heads into all month long.

Plenty of us will be pointing at one another’s important work and writings throughout the month, some featuring guest bloggers, others using their blogs to link across to solid pieces by other adoption reality supportive writers.

On twitter, a number of us will be gathering our posts together under a single hashtag, by adding #NAdoptAM to some of our posts.

(Hint- keep an eye on the #NAdoptAM search results over the course of the month to read some of the body of work produced.)

Along those lines, I’ve added and will be adding a #NAdoptAM tag to all my posts this month to gather them together in a single place.

Leaving it to the adoption industry or even adopters to dictate the terms adoption is discussed in is unconscionable.

We are adoption.

We live adoption every day of our lives.

Those willing to look beyond the industry’s teddy bears, balloons, and gotcha day videos will find some of the more unpleasant adoption realities in places such as #NAdoptAM.

By way of a few very basic suggestions of what you can do this month to serve as a counterpoint to the sealed records status quo:

1. Start by getting well grounded in terms of your own thinking.

Bastard Nation’s booklet, The Basic Bastard, while a bit dated in some places, still contains the core arguments of the Bastard civil and human rights politic. Also see the BN FAQ, particularly in relation to the important distinctions between search and reunion and unconditional records access restoration.

If you’re not confident or well grounded in some of these nuances, and prepared to refute some of the typical nonsense flung at us when we do speak out, maybe November for you is more about setting aside some time to delve into an education process or making personal connections with others who have been in these battles before, who demand nothing less than full equality.

2. For others who are ready, November is a time to speak and act.

A few possible suggestions, in no particular order:

• Write letters to the editor
• comment on articles
• blog
• read and educate yourself
• tweet
• tag and hashtag it
• get your voice and perspective into the broader conversation across the net and in person, particularly with those in your social circles
• consciousness raise
• work with others locally, and globally but be sure such efforts are grounded in a position or document similar to CALOPEN’s No Veto Resolution from the get go
• educate
• do radio and television interviews
• help bring foster kids’ voices and experiences to the fore
• meet with your representatives, work with them to introduce and pass pure unrestricted restoration of access to our records bills

November is no time to stay silent and let the industry control all discourse on the subject..

Let your words and actions speak loud and clear this November.

If people want to talk adoption, they need to start at the demand for nothing less than the restoration of full human/civil/identity rights of all adopted people.

Let your voice be heard.

Use it or lose it.

Now that Illinois’ disastrous HB 5428 has been signed into law, (it’s now known as PA 96-0895) simply by looking at the new law it becomes clear, some untold number of adoptees will have their requests for their original birth certificates, or attempts to register with the registry rejected by the state. Yet the state appears to have no interest in hearing from or about those so intentionally left behind.

No provision has been made to track those rejections nor build statistics how many requests are being turned down. (Let alone offer those rejected any form of redress.)

Until now.

Mary Lynn Fuller (of Illinois Open) is beginning to compile some of the stories of those the state of Illinois is rejecting access to their Original Birth Certificates (OBCs) to or refusing to register in the IARMIE (Illinois Adoption Registry and Medical Information Exchange.) She’s attempting to build some basic statistics on just how many are being turned away and what their circumstances are.

She can be contacted via email- mlfuller65@comcast.net.

If you can help spread the word about Mary Lynn’s effort to do this basic data collection, please share her effort far and wide within your social networks.

This is terribly important work, as many legislators believe they just ‘restored’ adoptees civil rights and believe the new law has ‘fixed’ the situation. Tragically, nothing could be farther from the truth. But without the data to show what those turned away are experiencing, those rejected will be left to suffer this injustice as if it were nothing more than a ‘personal problem’.

These rejections are not ‘personal problems.’  They are the result of a systemic flaw, inherently built into the new law, and precisely what many of us who have been blogging about the legislative wrangling in Illinois for years now warned was about to happen before the law passed.

Bastardette has added her take on Mary Lynn’s effort here:

Attention Illinois Original Birth Certificate Rejects! Act Now!

As Bastardette put it:

You can read Mary’s latest blog about Illinois here. Note that although Mary is a grandmother, and her first mother is dead, she is not yet old enough and thus responsible enough to qualify for her own birth certificate–despite what Feigenholtz says to to the contrary on her own webpage.

Representative Sara Feigenholtz, who sponsored and pushed the bill can say  “Today, we’re opening a new chapter in adoption history in Illinois where we can finally say that all families are created equal” ’til she’s blue in the face.

Even the most straightforward reading of the law makes it clear enough, today Illinois families and adoptees remain locked behind multiple doors of state constructed unequal treatment.

What’s important at this point, is to bring together and compile the stories of those who AS A CLASS OF PEOPLE are left to endure that inequality, and bring their plight to light.

Rather than remaining voiceless, each trapped by the legislation’s fatal flaw, adoptee rights advocates both in Illinois and across the country are trying to ensure that PA 96-0895 is not the end of the road in Illinois as this new law merely creates a whole new set of problems, problems we warned were inherent to it before it passed. None of us are giving up.

We don’t view this latest version of the mess in Illinois as any kind of “end point” nor do we consider the matter “settled.” If anything, we foresee that for a class of adoptees and their families, this is merely another chapter, and the problems therein are only just beginning.

Proving that, though, becomes a matter of individuals being willing to speak out. Of data collection. And of not giving up.

We recognize there’s a long haul ahead of us, all the more so in that once legislators pass a bill, they use their work on it as an excuse to refuse to revisit the “issue” for years to come.

As they refuse to track the consequences of the law, it falls to the directly affected to do so.

With the evidence of PA 96-0895’s failures in hand, we will continue to push for nothing less than genuine equality for adopted people and their families in Illinois.

Because when it comes to genuinely restoring human, civil, and identity rights, no one should be left behind or forgotten.

Illinois Adoptees with One Foot in the Grave. Hark! Your Original Birth Certificate is on its Way.

LD 1084, An Act To Provide Adult Adoptees Access to Their Original Birth Certificates

In 1953 Maine took away adopted adults’ access to their own state held records, locking them away and forcing Adoptees to gain a court order before being granted access to their own information.

Now after 56 long years, the most basic human right, that to one’s own authentic identity, has at long last been restored.

Those 56 years represent an ugly chapter in the state’s history, a time when adopted people had their original identities confiscated by the state and withheld from them.

Some of those adopted as children lived and died in the space of those decades never knowing the truth about themselves. They were never granted the State’s permission to access the most fundamental aspects of their own lives, their authentic origins, the paperwork listing their original birthdate, in some cases, perhaps even the original names they were given.

Today, Maine has taken an important step forward, restoring access to these state impounded documents. Upon age 18, adopted people will once again have access to their own most personal information, putting an end to an era of secrets and lies and what had amounted to state held secret dossiers on those who had been adopted.

Original Birth Certificates for Maine, or OBC for ME has further information, including the link to the official state application form and the details of what will also be required when submitting a records request.

They have a lot to be proud of today. Tomorrow January 2, a set of opening day activities are planned.

Maine now joins the proud ranks of the five other states that have either never taken away or have since restored access to their adult adoptees since 2000 (Oregon having been the first to restore access.)

Bastard Nation’s map of full access states; Alaska and Kansas never sealed their records, Oregon, Alabama, New Hampshire and now Maine have restored after an intervening period of having our most basic identity rights stripped away from us:

These are the few states that treat adult adoptees who were born there as equal citizens.

That said, even in some states that have reopened, the State is still clearly uncomfortable with with the notion of adult adoptees as being able to conduct their own affairs free of the government cast as a third party to our interpersonal relationships.

Apparently we are not to be trusted to act as other citizens, assumed to simply be able to associate freely and control our own intimate associations free from the state maintaining files pertaining to our relationships.

Sadly, Maine, like Oregon, Alabama, and New Hampshire has added a (fortunately toothless) “contract preference form,” by which the state is to collect parents “contact preferences” and then hold such paperwork to pass along to adult adoptees upon their submitted records request.

We as adopted citizens must be free to conduct our most intimate interpersonal affairs, deciding whether or not to contact our own blood relations free from government’s insistence upon information collection “on our behalf” or “for the protection of those involved” and essentially the government insisting upon being a party to our interpersonal relationships process.

It’s simply none of the State’s business.

Today at least, such “preference” forms have no enforcement power behind them, but they set a terrible precedent, AND maintain the role of the state in how we conduct our intimate associations, insisting our private lives and associations or lack thereof ARE quite literally, the business of the State.

No other class of citizen has to endure such indignities.

If you are not an adoptee, the state does not keep track of whether or not your parents or other blood relations want to see you or not. Only adoptees are subjected to such State intrusiveness.

It’s insulting, and maintains the State’s ability to portray adopted individuals as a form of ‘forever children,’ constantly in need of the watchful eye of the State, allegedly forever unable to achieve full self determination.

All of which has it’s basis in the (adoption industry propagated) mythologies that many if not all adopted people could become stalkers or harrassers at the drop of a hat, that parents must be protected from them, and that most parents would not welcome the presence of their long lost children in their lives.

None of which are true.

The facts remain, not only are most adopted people NOT stalkers or harassers, but many parents actively wish to be found. Indeed, many were promised by agencies that when their children turned 18 they would have their paperwork released to them and that their children would come find them.

In those exceptional, rare circumstances in which individuals are unable to respect a “no” or “not interested,” the violators should be treated as any other adult would be. Restraining orders and such can be issued based upon a demonstrated pattern of misbehavior.

Any attempt to instead place any form of pre-emptive restraint upon adoptees as a class, interferes with our constitutional right to free association.

Fortunately Maine does not include an actual form of pre-emptive restraint, for now at least, but it sets up the systems by which such could become possible at a later date.

The Maine law does however, continue in the fine tradition of infantalizing adopted adults, even as the concrete effect of such is to finally restore adult adoptee rights.

Sadly, it is even less kind to our parents.

Along with the contact preference form, the state has coupled the act of affirming that they wish to restore contact (or even that they do not prefer contact, at least that was their feeling at the time the form was filled out) with their adopted children with the parents’ own medical histories, something that adopted adults have no legal right to.

While adopted people may contact our blood relations and REQUEST their familial medical history, there is no legal requirement that our parents divulge their own personal medical information. They may do so at their own choosing, but they cannot be required to do so.

The contact preference clause is spelled out thusly in the law:

3. Contact preference form. The state registrar shall develop a contact preference form on which a birth parent may state a preference regarding contact by an adoptee. The form must contain the following statements from which the birth parent may choose only one.

A. “I would like to be contacted. I have completed this contact preference form and a medical history form and am filing them with the State Registrar of Vital Statistics.”

B. “I would prefer to be contacted only through an intermediary. I have completed this contact preference form and a medical history form and am filing them with the State Registrar of Vital Statistics.”

C. “Do not contact me. I may change this preference by filling out another contact preference form. I have completed this contact preference form and a medical history form and am filing them with the State Registrar of Vital Statistics.”

While contact preference forms and medical histories are not required as a precondition to records release to the adult adoptee, for a parent to affirm that they wish contact, the state has essentially coupled a medical history form to the contact preference form unnecessarily.

Created in the name of protecting alleged “privacy”/confidentiality, this new set of state held files actually is quite the opposite, and becomes yet another layer of the State injecting itself into our interpersonal affairs.

Personal medical information is best shared between the individuals directly affected, not between our parents and the state, who will then file and hold such, releasing it to adult adoptees if they submit a records request.

The State needs to stop treating adopted adults differently.

What we want is equitable treatment, to be treated just like anyone else, no preference forms held by the State, none of this unnecessary nonsense. We want the ability to conduct our own interpersonal affairs without the State injecting itself as a third party into our relationships, collecting and holding information pertaining to our families.

The entire section of the law quoted above creates another NEW layer of state held files pertaining to our lives, our relations, and our interpersonal relationships. More bureaucracy and meddling that “normal” (i.e. non-adopted) citizens do not have to endure.

Just because such “preferences” are not enforced today does not necessarily mean they will not be at some future date.

States need to simply restore what they took from us, records access. Period. Not utilize such legislation as an excuse to go build NEW sets of files pertaining to adopted people and their families.

Legally speaking the personal “preferences” of our parents do not factor in. Records access restoration is a matter between adoptees and the state, and also between parents and the state.

By putting parents preferences in files for adult adoptees, the state is falsely pitting the desires of parents AGAINST their own children. This is built on the false notion of adoption as a “triad,” (parents, adoptees, and adopters.)

The reality is our records are not sealed upon relinquishment.

And despite all claims of “privacy, often raised by industry or those with what certainly appear to be dirty hands, such as the Illinois Catholic Conference (who have admitted in Illinois, that opening records would likely produce lawsuits against them, and that information contained in original birth certificates could be false) never once has a single document actually promising “privacy” to parents ever surfaced. Even if such ever should, there was no force of law behind such supposed promises. Further, parents were often promised the precise opposite as part of the process of getting them to sign away their kids, they were assured that such wasn’t forever, the kid would come find them when they turned 18.

Records access is not a matter between adoptees and their parents. Parents do not hold the power restore records access to their children.

Records are sealed upon our adoptions.

Records restoration is a matter between adoptees and the State. Similarly, parents are also battling the state to gain records access as well. The State confiscated the records, and the only place that we can turn for restoration is the State.

There is no “adoption triad.”

Adoption is built instead, upon an adoption pentagon:

1. parents
2. adoptees
3. agencies/lawyers/intermediaries/lobbyists/industry/etc
4. the State
5. adopters

It should be noted, some parties to adoption have more power and control than others.

While it serves the State’s interests to have adoptees and parents at one another’s throats in some false game of “conflicting interests” the bottom line is, our genuine interests are not at odds.

The “preferences” of those who were not parties to our records being closed cannot be used by the state as something to hide behind in the process of re-opening them (or not.) Our parents were legally out of the picture at the point in time when our records were closed.

It’s past time the State begins to trust adult adoptees to conduct our own lives. No more state held files, no intermediaries (unless directly personally chosen by the individuals involved, preferably non-commercial/non-contracted) etc.

We’re grown ups, it’s time for the State to start treating us as such.

In the end, it’s a damn good day for Maine adoptees.

The real bottom line here is that people who have waited their entire lives for the most personal and basic of information about themselves have finally had their civil and human right to access their own information restored to them.

It’s just a shame that states insist upon insulting adoptees and their families in the process and building yet new bureaucracies upon false notions that we still are unable to conduct our own lives without the State butting in.

Finally be sure to see both Marley’s piece on Bastardette- MAINE: RECORDS OPENED, GRINCH CRINGES! and Robin’s piece on Motherhood Deleted- New Year, Same Old Myths both about Maine.

Last Friday, December 5th, 2008, the SECA web-page finally went live. (http://www.stopdumpingkids.com/)

SECA, short for “Stop Encouraging Child Abandonment,” is a concept that has been a long time coming.

From the first of the legalized child abandonment laws passed in 1999 until now, efforts to repeal and stop the dump laws have suffered from a lack of an alliance dedicated to focusing primarily on the issue.

Before SECA, responses to dump laws had been piecemeal, portions of existing organizations’ broader missions. Over the years numerous organizations have opposed and testified against the legalization of child abandonment, and individuals have contacted legislators and worked against legalized child dumping. But, there had been no one place dedicated to dismantling the evolving child abandonment infrastructure.

Thus, SECA has finally been created.

Stop Encouraging Child Abandonment works toward nothing less than the full and permanent repeal of laws that legalize child abandonment.

We feel it is not the proper role of any government to encourage child abandonment as policy.

We approach this work firmly grounded in a human/civil/identity rights perspective. We support kids, women, and reproductive autonomy.

The need for SECA had become apparent over the past nine years, but the child welfare crisis in Nebraska with its law legalizing the abandonment of older children finally made it clear to the broader public, a formalized response to legalized child dumping is necessary.

Since the beginning, the consequences of such laws have been clear to those of us “in the field.” With bills rushed through state legislatures and policy and legal criticisms by and large dismissed, the general public simply never had reason to even think about the consequences of “safe haven” laws. Most people had never heard the voice of a kid who had been legally dumped. They had never seen the desperation of mothers and families utilizing the legalized abandonment laws.

Nebraska changed everything.

Nebraska’s older kid dumps, and the state’s eventual age down of eligible dumpees from 18-year olds to those 30 days and younger has solved nothing. It has merely attempted to put off dealing with the inevitable consequences “safe haven” laws create until the infants abandoned under the new law grow old enough to speak for themselves.

The child welfare abandonment disaster across the United States, legalized everywhere except Washington DC., is far from over. It is just beginning.

Out of that context, SECA was born, not so much a formal organization, for now more of a collective voice of allies, organizations, bloggers, and individuals among others working together towards the repeal of the dump laws.

If you are interested in working against the legalized child abandonment laws, or already are, SECA can serve as a resource in that work.

We can be contacted through the SECA contact page.

These ‘tugs’ are nothing if not ironic as I’m no longer a part of ARD, per my resignation from it back in May.

But since it’s the day after and the ARD page isn’t linking to the coverage, I’ll link across to the two articles so far.

In other words, I suppose I’ve been reluctantly talked into doing what people apparently count on me to do. That said, though, I’ll likewise do what people also count on me to do, analysis. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Let’s be clear from the outset, I was not there, I have no firsthand knowledge. I do have some reports, but I’ll focus on the media pieces currently available:

This New Orleans Times Picayune Article, poorly entitled Protesters seek to change laws sealing birth papers came out today, July 23rd.

It mentions “about 60 protesters” took part in the march from Lafayette Park to the Ernest N. Morial convention center.

The ‘adoptee sound bytes’ sounded like this:

For Galliand Adams, Louisiana’s law makes the search for her biological history “incredibly frustrating.”

“I have no idea who I am, and there’s just a big void there,” she said.

Fortunately, Michelle Edmunds was on hand and managed to get at least a bare bones explanation of what open records really are, that made it through into the article:

Other protesters said the laws amount to discrimination.

“This isn’t about searching and reunion. This is about our rights,” said Michelle Edmunds, who came from Canada to join the march.

Unfortunately, this is still pretty bare. I don’t lay such at Michelle’s doorstep, instead, I view it as a lack of educating the reporters on the issues over a period of time leading into the event. Poor articles such as this could have been avoided.

Naturally, to counterweight even such bare bones adoptee demands, the reporter used a quote from the National Council For Adoption (NCFA) (an industry lobby made up of member adoption agencies in Virginia). Their soundbyte, as always co-opting the authentic voice of mothers sounded like this:

“We’re not opposed to open adoption or open records. We’re concerned about the right of privacy for the birth mother,” said Rodney Huey, spokesman for the National Council for Adoption.

“A birth mother, for whatever reason, decided at one point to have her own confidential adoption, and that (confidentiality is) what she was guaranteed,” he said.

For NCFA, which was founded in part to maintain the sealed records system to say they’re not opposed to open records is shall we say, pretty darn interesting. Perhaps we should remind them of this soundbyte the next time we find them lobbying against our open records bills in the states.

In short, a pretty lousy piece. Which is clearly a result of a lack of familiarity with even the basics of what we’re talking about. Use of the term “birth papers” makes it clear, this is turf the reporter clearly hasn’t learned even the basic lingo of. Again, all of which could have been avoided with some work in the run up to the event.

Supposedly there is some photography that went with the article, but it appears not to have made it through to the online edition.

Secondly, perhaps ever so slightly more in keeping with the original history of what was then called the Adoptee Rights Day, the State based focus, Adoptees in New York held their own small event piggybacking on the N’awlins event. This was no doubt to draw attention to the NY bill, still stuck in committee for the third year running.

This was covered in a July 22nd article (yesterday) entitled An emotional call for change there is also video that goes with this piece.

The article explains that they met in the local library:

Local adoptees and birth mothers joined together in the genealogy section of the main library in Downtown Rochester this morning. It’s a place many of them have done research to find their birth parents.

Which then visually tells the audience this is about search and reunion, the article goes on to mention medical records as a possible justification for opening the records:

“It’s strictly to find out your heritage, any birth concerns you might have, any medical problems you feel, (or) if you want to know your ancestry,” said Jeff Hancock, 43, who found out he was adopted just 15 months ago.

Search, reunion, and medical history are all interpersonal issues that are chronologically second (for some people, for others they simply want their papers and will never search, never enter reunion, and never ask parents for information about their medical histories, which of course adoptees would only ever get if the parents consent) to the initial demand that state confiscation of our records must end.

I’ve written extensively about this here on my blog, but this post from June 7th in particular, ARD- Another from the “I hate being right” category- the ‘messaging’ disaster, went into how I was concerned these types of nonsequitor arguments would take center stage in ARD. Again I really hate being right.

This is what happens when adoptees do not have open records 101. They find target settings that undermine the core of the message, that this is ultimately about equality under law.

Medical records simply are not an open records argument. The sooner everyone learns that, is the sooner we can start doing the real work.

They both call it a civil rights issue, and then place themselves into a search venue. A garbled message at best.

In the end, the search and reunion meme wins out and becomes the focus of the article.

Speaking from a purely pragmatic standpoint, our arguments need to be based on both the legal and legislative realities. We’re not going to withstand legal challenges to open records legislation on “But I want to meet my Mommie!” You withstand legal challenges based on how we as a class of people are receiving inequitable treatment under law. We are singled out, and systems created to treat us thusly must be dismantled.

All of which points out how in many ways, serious educational work to get even adoptees on message needs to take place long before an ‘action’ phase is initiated. After all, how the hell are adoptees going to get the media around to what the landscape looks like and what language is appropriate when half the time adoptees themselves don’t even know?

In closing, I am the only one who finds it incredibly ironic that the only print media coverage available online yesterday was about an ARD related event in New York?

<Shakes head, and sighs.>

***

Update

***

I finally got around to digging out the photos. You can find the Times Picayune’s photo gallery here.

Clearly my messaging disaster concerns about those Gladney-120th-anniversary-protest signs “State enforced genetic secrecy kills adoptees” were well founded. Sure enough, guess what was on hand.

Matthew Hinton / Times Picayune

So much for messaging.

<Sigh.>

“…since they now have the booth, what does a post-Bastard Nation withdrawal Adoptee Rights Demonstration intend to do with it? I.E. what ‘messaging’ are they going to be taking to legislators and aides, in the name of the broader adoptee rights ‘movement’.

When BN was involved, they were always extremely clear on how search, medical records, etc were not directly related to open records, as such are interpersonal issues that adoptees deal with AFTER they have their own information from the State and without State interference, just like any other person.

See this from BN’s FAQ:

“While we support those adoptees who wish to search for birth relatives and offer resources on our website, http://www.bastards.org/search/, we do not help people search. Our mission relates only to unconditional adoptee access to birth and adoption records. Our concern is the relationship of the adopted person to the state, not to his or her birth or adoptive parents. We believe it is a personal decision whether one wishes to reconnect with birth relatives, one which adoptees should be able to make freely without state interference.”

But now that BN is off, coupled with the recent death of Julia of Julia’s Jam and how the adoption community is dealing with that by conflating her death for lack of access to medical information into the fight for open records (medical records of parents remain confidential, even under open records. Yes, with open records she may have been able to connect with family and asked them to see if a match could be made, etc, but open records do not equate to access to ‘original’ parent’s medical information. Open records are merely about getting access to your own unaltered original birth certificate, or OBC- from the State, not a medical history) it raises concerns about whether or not the people who will be in that booth fully understand what open records are and are not, and whether they will have the skills needed to articulate such clearly.

This was why the Bastard Nation Bastard Boot camp teach-in that was supposed to take place over the events in New Orleans was so vital. The average adoptee simply has never learned the difference between restoring access to our OBCs from the State, and the need for medical information which must be obtained in a secondary step from family members themselves IF THEY CONSENT TO IT.

This is how you ended up with conflated, mismessaged, manglings of actual open records work like the Gladney 120th anniversary protest utilizing slogans such as “…Genetic secrecy kills adoptees.” If this becomes their version of “open records work” it means they don’t know.

And them not knowing is going to hurt all of us in the long run.

All of which is to say, the loss of BN on the ARD/DAR is going to have profound effects.

And it has the potential to really destroy some of the existing open records work that has been ongoing.

I, personally have grave concerns about what will and will not be said in said booth, now that many of the experienced political Bastards with a strong grounding in Bastard politic are out.”

Well, had I bothered to read Joy, on her blog (I am not one of her regular readers), I would have seen the following, If you LOVE an adoptee, originally posted June 3rd

Why we should suffer through the absolute slogging that goes into pulling something like this off?

1. Closed Records Kill

2. There is no such thing as guaranteed anonymity, records seal upon adoption not relinquishment, and unseal upon disruption.

3. The law is on our side. The right to privacy secured by the constitution is the right from privacy from governmental interference in our personal lives, not the right for governmental interference.

4. The government is not in the business of protecting people from the facts of their own life.

5. Human dignity, no person should have to be treated with the indignity of not being allowed to know their own vital statistics.

6. Civil Rights, The Supreme Court ruled in Brown vs. the Board of Education that separate is in fact not equal, our rights need to be restored, the codification allowing the creation of a second class of people is unconstitutional.

Okay, that is my short list, I could go on, but why? That is more than enough.

I suppose I’m going to have to spend the time it takes to go point by point about how for example point 1. is conflationism of the worst kind, (see the above.) And further, that from a purely pragmatic stance, when adoptees start basing their arguments on their need for medical records all they get is further crap-o-la like an often optional medical history form added to the stack ‘o forms parents fill out upon relinquishment.

Records remain sealed, the objection has been ‘handled’, and all you’ve done is further conflated your status as adoptees with your demand for confidential medical history from another person. Thus making us appear to be precisely the ‘demanding whining little forever children who NEED and then DEMAND contact with their families of origin’ legislators are forever being warned about by those who benefit by keeping records sealed.

But by all means, just play into that role someone else has already cast you for.

Whatever you do, don’t listen to the years of experience of the existing movement to push for our records restoration that has been carefully studying what arguments work and what don’t in legislative halls for years now.

No, far better to just reinvent that wheel.

Number 2. is a Bastard Nation talking point. BN has been using it for years.

Number 3 would take a book, suffice it to say, the law is clearly NOT on our side. If it were, we wouldn’t be working to change the law in 44 states, now would we?

As for the constitutional right to privacy you allude to- you might want to go back and actually read Roe v. Wade and its companion piece Doe v. Bolton. Then read about the legislative and legal history AFTER 1973, see the ‘76-77 Hyde Amendment battles, 92’s Planned Parenthood v Casey, as but two examples. Part of the entire point of the patchwork of abortion laws across this country is that the courts have found that there are times when the State’s interest overrides a womyn’s autonomy, thus making her a slave to her own anatomy.

(I would argue the courts have found incorrectly, but we’re dealing with the realities on the ground here, at the moment. So no, the law is NOT on our side, that has been the entire point of the year by year eroding away of reproductive autonomy and privacy.)

Number 4., the State is ABSOLUTELY in the business of “protecting” people from the facts of their own lives- Duh! That’s what being a sealed records Bastard is all about! While no, the State shouldn’t be- that hardly changes the fact that at this very moment, it most certainly is in all but 6 states when it comes to access to our original unaltered birth certificates!

5. If you think legislators give a crap about human “dignity” you clearly slept through the entire Terri Schiavo mess. (Yes, I know this a federal example, when we are talking about records restoration as a states issue, while no one state case as of late has perhaps had quite the notoriety of Schiavo’s case, many state legislators have been more than happy to do their own ‘local’ versions of the Schiavo fiasco.) The INDIGNITIES these people and their families have endured at the hands of legislators grandstanding for votes should tell you all you need to know. Indignity is just fine if it helps ‘em come November.

Finally, number 6. Again, if you understood for one moment what historically HAS HAPPENED when adoptees raise even the spectre of conflating our circumstances with those of African Americans and the American legacy of slavery, you’d avoid even the unintended appearance of such like the plague. Adoptees’ circumstances are fundamentally different than many aspects of African American experiences (unless of course, one happens to be an African American Bastard! Then speaking to both would be speaking of one’s own life.), and any attempt to co-opt such history or voice for your own use, let alone the fight for open records disgusts me on a deeply personal level. And to pull that in N’awlins? (This would be me, my blood boiling) THINK for a moment would you?

This is a paragraph I wrote back on January 10th, 2008 in the first BLC post I ever wrote about the Adoptee Rights Demonstration (I’d link it, but the post is no longer visible. I have made it private, at bare minimum until I get some kind of disclaimer up on every post I wrote about ARD before Bastard Nation withdrew.):

Do I have reservations? (Well, will it be New Orleans in July? Yup, and I know what that means. Will lots of Bastards end up looking like a bunch of white faces- unavoidably so, we are after all, what the open market bought- usually white skinned and often blond or fair haired. That’s the very nature of the adoption beast. How do we do what we need to do in New Orleans while not overlooking or in anyway downplaying the magnitude of the realities New Orleans itself currently faces? On that one, I have no real answer yet. Yeah, it’s going to be strange protesting for open records in a place where day to day fighting for SURVIVAL is a genuine reality. I’m still trying to figure this one out, but the bottom line is we’re there because they’re there- the National Conference of State Legislatures’ Annual Meeting.) Oh, you meant HOTEL reservations… none-the-less yes, of course, we have those too!

So, if I set Joy’s list aside, what DO I recommend? How about starting with listening to those who have actually gotten states to open over the last decade since Oregon’s measure 58? Now, am I saying do a state referendum? No each state is unique. But listen and learn from what arguments along those lines have gotten us before.

Now, why would someone (Joy) turn to such legal and court based arguments? Particularly when one is intending to utilize them with legislators not judges?

Could it be because Joy, herself, as someone working on the Adoptee Rights Demonstration, continues to leave a vital question unanswered?

So let’s go back and pull it from this comment thread on Bastardette, I asked Joy then:

You say open records are your focus, so let me ask you publicly; do you personally believe state by state legislative work (BN’s strategy and what DAR originally advocated, particularly since it’s outside the annual meeting of State Legislatures) is the best strategy to work for open records going forward? If not, why are you working with the Adoptee Rights Demonstration whose original intent was exactly that?

Joy proceeded to not answer the question.

So I restated it and put it out again:”

I’ll note you did not answer my question about the very premise of the event itself as originally stated.

Funny about that.

Folks might want to do some follow up on that, since Joy hasn’t answered me yet.

It’s an important question, essentially do those working on it now fully support the premise of the event?

The question continues to linger in the air.

If this is the ‘messaging’ we can come to expect from the post Bastard Nation withdrawal from the Adoptee Rights Demonstration organizers, we will continue to get more of the same, closed records.

Why?

Because such messaging has been tried before. It didn’t work then, and it won’t work now.