In the course of writing my post about the baby dump law in Mississippi, After almost a decade, Mississippi “safe haven” legalized child abandonment scheme still fails, last week, I dropped a quick e-mail on Marley Greiner/Bastardette to ask about any history relating to the dumps in Mississippi she might have or overview statistics she might have pulled together in the course of her work.

For years Marley compiled and authored the Baby Dump News (or BDN,) a weekly e-mailed round up of media reports and other information pertinent to newborn abandonment, infanticide, “safe haven”/”Baby Moses” legislation, and related matters.

As many states don’t compile statistics on these matters, and even those that do had numbers that time and again proven incorrect when compared with even newspaper reports, Marley’s tracking during this first decade of the dump laws provided critically important documentation.

In many ways, she tracked the rise and growth of the baby dump industry, it’s proponents, it’s opponents, and the week in and week out unfolding saga through webpages, blogs, emails, legislative hearings and newspaper articles. In the course of this tracking, she became somewhat an “inadvertent” expert on what was actually happening across the country in relation to such.

He response to my brief email stunned me, within mere hours of my request, she had come back to me with all the issues of the BDN with information about cases in Mississippi as well as additional places to search for cases. (This was more than I possibly could have hoped for.)

With the help of my partner, Mike, we went back through our digital archive of the Baby Dump News (as to date, only archives from 2007 are available online) and pulled these news reports.

Obviously these cannot by their very nature give a full picture of what has gone on in Mississippi as some untold number of neonaticides are simply never discovered.

In other cases, those of abandoned kids, or bodies found, again, it then becomes a question of whether or not the story was reported, or even if it was reported, whether the news article was found in the course of Marley’s research.

There may well be other cases that were reported on not cataloged below.

Some states have routinely been folding border babies, (kids born in hospitals and never taken home by their parents) into their  “safe haven saves” statistics, but in theory at least, according to one of the articles Marley found,  the Mississippi law should not be including them in the totals.

As to whether or not the state’s totals contain other oddities or not, we’ll likely never know. Reporters simply take them at face value.

These days, tools like google alerts (which first went live in 2003) have certainly made doing this kind of research much easier, but there’s still no substitute for solid research and looking beyond those numbers at what the genuine circumstances involve.

Unfortunately what we’ve found in other states is that even if border babies were not originally folded into “safe haven” statistics, over the years they may come to be.

So bearing in mind the limitations of what these links represent, here is what I’ve been able to mine back out of Marley’s work:

• BABY DUMP NEWS, June 13, 2002 V. 2, #20
  MISSISSIPPI
  Jackson Clarion-Ledger, May 22, 2002
  Life sentence in death of newborn is upheld
  http://www.clarionledger.com/news/0205/22/m17.html

  JACKSON-- Conviction of Lindsay Kathryn Welch upheld by Mississippi Court of Appeals.  Welch was a student at Mississippi State when she gave birth in her dorm room.  Prosecutors claim she let baby die and then put the body in the trash.

• BABY DUMP NEWS, October 27, 2002, v2, #40
  MISSISSIPPI
  WAPT-TV, Jackson, October 25, 2002
  Newborn drop-off law nets 6 babies in first year
  http://www.thejacksonchannel.com/news/1741097/detail.html

  JACKSON--Six babies left in Mississippi hospitals since state's safe haven law went into effect more than a year ago.  Four left in Hinds County, one in Union County and one in Harrison county.  (No mention if these were authentic safe haven drops or boarder baby abandonments.) One has been adopted and the rest are in fostercare waiting for adoption finalization.  Gloria Thornton Salters, of DHS, says without any apparent authority, that if not for the law, the children would have been left to die.

• BABY DUMP NEWS, November 3, 2002, v2, #41
  MISSISSIPPI
  Biloxi Clarion-Ledger, October 29, 2002
  Newborn drop-off law saves 6 lives in state
  http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/state/4372401.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

  BILOXI--Longer version of last week's article.  Under law hospitals can ask questions about child' health, but cannot ask who the mother is or where she is from.  Law does not include mothers who give birth in a hospital and decide to abandon their children there.  In those cases, mothers are required to be registered at hospital under their names and to sign waivers to turn over their babies.   If mother wants to reclaim baby shortly after legal abandonment state reportedly will work with her and have her attend classes.  None of the mothers who left babies under the state's program have tried to get them back.

• BABY DUMP NEWS, November 17, 2002, v2, #43
  MISSISSIPPI
  Jackson Clarion-Ledger, November 16, 2002
  Conviction stands in baby's death
  http://www.clarionledger.com/news/0211/16/m16.html

  JACKSON--Mississippi Supreme Court refuses to hear appeal of Lindsay Kathryn Welch in the death of her newborn found in a trashcan in 1999.  Claimed illegal search of her garbage left outside of home after police received tip about baby.  Welch, a former U. of Mississippi student is doing 8 years in prison.

• BABY DUMP NEWS,  January 19, 2003, v3 #3
  MISSISSIPPI
  Jackson Clarion-Ledger, January 18, 2003
  Police hunt for body of infant believed discarded
  http://www.clarionledger.com/news/0301/18/m07.html

  CLEVELAND--Police search landfill for infant believed to have been hauled there after being placed in dumpster.  19-year old Delta State University student triggered search after she sought medical treatment shortly after giving birth.  Says baby was stillborn and born off campus.  Mother, described as distraught, is cooperating with authorities.  According to article, as of October 2002, 6 babies have been dropped-off under the safe haven program.

• BABY DUMP NEWS, March 16, 2003, v3 #11
  MISSISSIPPI
  Jackson Clarion-Ledger, March 16, 2003
  Abandoned-baby laws criticized
  http://www.clarionledger.com/news/0303/16/m06.html

  JACKSON--Mississippi Special Assistant Attorney General Elizabeth Carroll Hocker disagrees with EBD report.  Says 9 infants, 6 of them in 2002, have been safely anonymously abandoned in state.  Feels that they weren't found dead is good sign.  7 have been adopted and 2 are in prospective homes.

• BABY DUMP NEWS, November 30, 2003, v3 #48
  MISSISSIPPI
  Jackson Sun Herald, November 25, 2003
  Mississippi calls newborn program a success
  http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/7346294.htm

  JACKSON--Puff piece on MS SH law.  Claims that 13 babies have been dropped off and another 3 were dropped off and retrieved.

• BABY DUMP NEWS, April 25, 2004, v4 #18
  MISSISSIPPI
  
  1. Jackson Clarion-Ledger, April 20, 2004
     Dead infant found in bag
     http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040420/NEWS01/404200380/1002

     JACKSON--Newborn found dead in garbage bag at Madison County landfill.  Unclear how baby died or how long it was in bag.

  2. WLBT-TV, Jackson, April 20, 2004
     State law protects unwanted newborns
     http://www.wlbt.com/Global/story.asp?S=1797624&nav=2CSfMQOB

     JACKSON--Review of state SH law and its history.  Ol' Miss Medical Center clinical nurse Kelly Joyner says several infants have been dropped off since law went into effect July 2001, including one in March.  Special Asst. AG, Elizabeth Hocker says that 11 babies "have been turned over to  hospitals instead of abandoned."

  3. WLBT-TV, Jackson, April 21, 2004
     Baby in garbage had just been born
     http://www.wlbt.com/Global/story.asp?S=1801075

     JACKSON--Autopsy indicates baby was suffocated and case now treated as homicide.  Police have a few phone tips; mother could face capital murder charge.

• BABY DUMP NEWS, May 2, 2004-, v4 #19
  MISSISSIPPI
  
  1. WLBT-TV, Jackson, April 25, 2004
     Deceased newborn found at dump site
     http://www.wlbt.com/Global/story.asp?S=1811998&nav=2CSfMZE6

     JACKSON--Update on landfill case.  (BDN v4 #18).  Police ask public assistance in solving case.  Reward of up to $1000 offered through Crime Stoppers.

  2. WLBT-TV, Jackson, April 26, 2004
     Cops hope DNA will identify infant
     http://www.wlbt.com/Global/story.asp?S=1812871&nav=2CSfMZrd

     JACKSON--Detectives following up tips received after Crime Stoppers broadcast. DNA tests ordered on body. Jackson Police Department planning funeral and burial.

  3. University of Mississippi Daily Mississippian, April 28, 2004
     ERs take unwanted newborns
     http://www.thedmonline.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/04/28/408f726849f17

     OXFORD--Officials publicize state's SH law.  Baptist Memorial Hospital in Jackson has had at least one drop-off.  Hospital doesn't offer counseling services for mother but does referrals.  Family Crisis Services in Oxford  says women who SH are "under a lot of stress" and FCS would offer them counseling services.   "We would ask them to sit down and discuss the reasons why they're doing this.  We want to offer them counseling before they make such a drastic decision."  Assistant Police Chief says if women tried to drop off baby at police station, they would be referred to FCS.  Fire chief says he has never had an abandoned baby case in 32 years with department.

  4. WLBT-TV, Jackson, April 30, 2004
     Donations pour in for newborn's burial
     http://www.wlbt.com/Global/story.asp?S=1824085&nav=2CSfMga3

     JACKSON--Jackson-area residents continue to donate funds for funeral arrangements for baby.  Plot donated; Peoples Funeral home offers services and other arrangements; music teacher  purchases burial outfit.  Police chief believes baby may have come from Madison or Rankin County.

• BABY DUMP NEWS, May 16, 2004, v4 #21
  MISSISSIPPI
  
  1. WLBT-TV, Jackson, May 12, 2004
     Services held for abandoned infant
     http://www.wlbt.com/Global/story.asp?S=1859273

     JACKSON--Update on landfill /Baby John Paul Doe case BDN v4 # 18, 19, 20). Account of baby's funeral; quotes from those who attended.

  2. Jackson Clarion-Ledger, May 12, 2004
     Tiny casket weighs heavy in "significance"
     http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040512/NEWS01/405120364/1002

     JACKSON--Feature on Angela Washington, who returned home from hospital after suffering miscarriage on day she learned of discovery of  Baby John Paul Doe's body.

• BABY DUMP NEWS, May 30, 2004, v4 #23
  MISSISSIPPI
  
  1. Biloxi Sun-Herald, May 20, 2004
     Baby boy abandoned at church door
     http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/8708522.htm

     GULFPORT--Newborn boy,  Baby Matthew,  left on doorstep of St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran Church.  County Prosecutor says he's been in DA's office for 14 years and never heard of an abandoned baby before. Police Lt. Alfred Sexton says that abandonment didn't comply with SH law, but may be in the "spirit of the law."  Child welfare workers say it is usual for babies to be abandoned in public places; usually left in hospitals.

  2. WLOX-TV, Biloxi, May 23, 2004
     Counselor wants compassion for mother of abandoned baby
     http://www.wlox.com/Global/story.asp?S=1888715

     GULFPORT--Rachel Nilsen, from Pregnancy Resources of Mississippi in Ocean Springs  hopes that authorities aren't hard on person who left baby at church.  Admits it would have been better  to drop  off baby in "the care of a responsible adult" but believes there's a "real possibility that this person felt that they could not care for this child and they wanted  to put this child in some good hands."

  3. Biloxi Sun Herald, May 25, 2004
     Charges in baby case await investigation
     http://www.sunherald.com/mld/thesunherald/8751943.htm

     GULFPORT--DA declines to press charges in Baby Matthew case pending outcome of final investigation.  Mother known but not yet named.  Unclear if she is asking Youth Court for custody and if charges will be filed after Youth Court judge rules in case.  Relative of mother called Sun Herald on Saturday saying mother was very scared and panicked and asked if she could be arrested for abandonment.  First baby abandonment in Harrison County since 1993 when a girl was found dead on I 10.  DHS says 14 babies have been SH since law went into effect.

  4. Biloxi Sun Herald, May 29, 2004
     Baby law not well-known
     http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/local/8790050.htm

     GULFPORT--Info piece on Mississippi SH law; complains that schools don't teach how to abandon your baby in the curriculum.  Anon. caller to Sun Herald asked where they could find poster and hotline number, and paper finally learned that Attorney General is responsible for publicity.

• BABY DUMP NEWS, June 13, 2004, v 4, #25
  MISSISSIPPI
  
  1. Biloxi Sun Herald, June 8, 2004
     Focus on drop-off law grows
     http://www.sunherald.com/mld/thesunherald/news/local/8865803.htm

     JACKSON--Update on landfill/ Baby John Paul Doe case (BDN v4 # 18, 19, 20, 21).  DNA evidence rules out suspect in newborn's death.  No details.

  2. Jackson Clarion Ledger, June 9, 2004
     Police back to square one in dead baby case
     http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040609/NEWS01/406090351/1002/NEWS01

     JACKSON--Information on state's SH law.  Says 14 babies have been "saved" since law went into effect 7/2001.  Beth Casey, counselor for Harrison County Youth Court wants SH publicity to target high school and college students.  "Your high schoolers and college kids who become pregnant all too often try to conceal their pregnancy rather than tell someone.  People need to know that churches are not a safe place according to state law."

• BABY DUMP NEWS, June 20, 2004, v 4 #25
  MISSISSIPPI
  JacksonChannel.com, 6/17/04
  Autopsy slated for infant found at UMC
  http://www.thejacksonchannel.com/news/3429856/detail.html

  JACKSON--Body of newborn girl found by workers sorting sheets at University Medical Center; not full term and officials suspect it was stillborn.  Looking for parents.

• BABY DUMP NEWS, June 27, 2004, v4 #26
  MISSISSIPPI
  
  1. WLBT-TV. Jackson, June 21, 2004
     Dead baby at UMC may have been put in laundry accidentally
     http://www.wlbt.com/Global/story.asp?S=1954849&nav=2CSfO3fn

     JACKSON--Update on UMC case.  (BDN v4 # 26).  Body found in laundry determined to be stillborn; may have been placed in laundry by mistake.  Investigation continues.

  2. Jackson Clarion-Ledger, June 23, 2004
     Investigation confirms stillborn mistaken placed in UMC laundry
     http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040623/NEWS01/40623002/1002

     JACKSON--Simultaneous stillbirths at UMC caused mix-up which led to one body going to laundry instead of pathology.  No criminal charges expected.

• BABY DUMP NEWS, August 8, 2004--v 4 #33
  MISSISSIPPI
  
  1. Greenwood Commonwealth, August 3, 2004
     Woman suspected of killing her baby arrested by police
     http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=12591564&BRD=1838&PAG=461&dept_id=104621&rfi=6

     BELZONI--Lasalle Denise Brown, 24. arrested on Humphreys County warrant in investigation of disappearance of newborn.  State HS called authorities when they learned that her newborn could not be located after Brown's boyfriend, Calvin Stowers, 39, removed baby from residence and she had not seen the baby since.  Stowers already charged with murder and is in jail.

  2. Biloxi Sun Herald, August 6, 2004
     Search suspended for body of missing newborn
     http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/politics/9336304.htm

     BELZONI--Police suspend search for baby's body; claim they have enough evidence to carry case.  Brown says she saw Stowers put baby in garbage can.

• BABY DUMP NEWS, May 29, 2005
  MISSISSIPPI
  Spero News, May 23, 2005
  Mississippi pro-lifers intervene
  http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?idCategory=32&idsub=120&id=1441

  NO DATELINE--Feature on Mississippi anti-abortion radical Roy McMillan who was found naked and abandoned at birth in a shoe box on the steps of a church.

2007- (online)- Marley appears not to have found any articles relating to Mississippi.

2008- BDN ceases publication. Marley was kind enough to search through her personal files for that year, but has found no articles relating to Mississippi (yet).

2009- still working, but did send across the sad case of  Theresa Clincy  who abandoned 2 kids: 1, a 3-month old on a porch. The kids were able to remain in the family, living with her sister according to the last few piece.

There are a number of articles about the case and WAPT in particular had a fair amount of coverage.

• March 11, 2009: Boy Who Found Abandoned Baby Honored At School
• March 15, 2009: $25,000 Bond Keeps Abandoned Baby’s Mother In Jail
• March 18, 2009: DA To Revoke Probation For Mother Of Abandoned Child
• April 1, 2009: Abandoned Baby’s Mother Awaiting Mental Evaluation
• April 13, 2009: Abandoned Baby’s Aunt Cares For Sister’s Children
• April 24, 2009: Abandoned Baby’s Aunt Keeping Family Together
• July 22, 2009 Single Mother Asks For Help For Jailed Sister’s Kids

2010- I will handle this in a separate post (or posts) later this week as the latest cases certainly deserve a post (if not posts) all their own.

But the (at least) three cases I’ll be working with will be those of:

• Linda Nash who stabbed her newborn to death. The baby was born at home; Linda says she didn’t know she was pregnant.  She’s a Type 2 diabetic, and an adoptee.
• the dead baby found in a suitcase earlier this summer
• and this latest child abandonment of a (live) child left at a Salvation Army donation drop off, outside the legalized child abandonment system

Again, the post really represents the work Marley has done over the course of a decade. I simply wanted to provide some background context to the Mississippi piece I was writing. On any one of these cases there are a number of articles, some of which are listed here, some of which aren’t.

Mississippi is but one case study of how these laws simply have not achieved what they promised they would. Children are still abandoned and dead babies are still being found. Women are still going to jail and families are still being torn apart.

Kids are being stripped of their identities, family history, context, medical histories etc. in a gross violation of their human rights.

Even of those women who do bring their kids to a baby dump site, their post-birth health and safety, let alone parental rights, physical and psychological needs are all too often considered secondary to “catching” a kid (most of whom, in Mississippi at least, appear to be entering the adoption system.)

It’s a mess, but a mess far too many people are just fine with.

(At least until some of these kids grow up and are old enough to speak on their own behalf, that is.)

This is not an adoptee rights bill.

An unknown number of adoptees will be left behind by this bill, further, it would actually SEAL the records of any child entering the New Jersey child welfare system by way of the “safe haven” baby dump system.

In short, any records this bill would open will come at the direct expense of the rights of other adoptees, abandoned children, and boarder babies (see below.)

The bill has now been released to the full Assembly.

Email contact is convoluted at best. For the moment, at least, this page has a full contact list, click on each individual  Assemblyman or Assemblywoman’s links (not the Senator links) and you’ll find phone numbers and other contact information . You can also utilize the “Contact your legislator” button to come to an email contact form for each Assemblymember. I’ll do some further digging and see if I can come up with a better means of contact.

Also see Bastard Nation’s latest action alert urging letters to the Governor-  BASTARD NATION ACTION ALERT: Please Write New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to Veto SCS799.1399. I will post it in full at the end of this post.

I submitted testimony opposing the bill, but was unable to be present at the hearing. I listened to the full audio the afternoon and early evening of the hearing.

Bastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organization also submitted testimony in opposition to the bill.

There are other opponents to the bill, a number of them ideologically opposed to women’s autonomy and free agency, but I am sadly unaware of any other adoptee rights organizations who have held the line and fought against this disastrous bill, holding out for a bill that would instead provide full equality to all adoptees and for the abandoned children and boarder babies of New Jersey.

To say that is a disappointing state of affairs is an understatement. Watching organizations and individuals actually supporting this bill that would actually seal records for a number of adoptees and other children has been disappointing to say the least.

It reveals a lack of comprehension of the importance of standing for the rights of those often most vulnerable, unable to speak on their own behalf, with no real political representation and those whose rights are all too often deemed ‘expendable.’

I approach this as I do all adoption related legislation, from the personal perspective of both one who was left behind and whose rights were deemed ‘expendable’ in the Ohio adoption ‘reform’ effort AND from the perspective of someone who was apparently a boarder baby, born in a hospital to an identified mother but who was taken into the foster system, not home with her. Which is to say, I know a thing or two from personal experience about precisely the damage that this bill in New Jersey stands to do.

Sadly, far from an actual open records bill, A1406 will by default, SEAL the records of kids entering the New Jersey child welfare system via the “safe haven” or baby dump program.

The bill’s attached statement spells it out in plain English (emphasis mine):

In the case of a child who was surrendered pursuant to the “New Jersey Safe Haven Infant Protection Act,” the State Registrar shall deem that the birth parent requested nondisclosure and shall not provide the birth parent’s name or home address, if recorded on the child’s birth certificate. The Division of Youth and Family Service (DYFS) in the Department of Children and Families is directed to notify the State Registrar when a child is surrendered pursuant to that law to enable the Registrar to identify the certificate of birth in order to deem that the birth parent requested nondisclosure.

For any child passing through the “safe haven” intake path, they will be treated from the outset as if they were vetoed from birth, by default. Their records will be sealed from them, barring a parent later being able to somehow prove they are the parent and also somehow remove the auto-veto, these kids will be screwed for their lifetimes.

As I’ve documented here on my blog before, New Jersey is one of the states counting boarder babies, those born in hospitals to identified mothers into it’s baby dump system. (See New Jersey- Boarder Babies being folded into “Safe Haven” statistics.)

As these abandoned children and boarder babies enter the child welfare system, some will be adopted, but others will enter the foster care system. Normally, a child’s records are only sealed upon adoption, but under New Jersey’s A1406, all of the kids deemed “safe haved” would have their records sealed, thus producing for the first time a NEW set of kids with sealed records, some of whom would be foster kids with sealed records. This is unprecedented nationally.

A1406 would also enshrine in New Jersey law a newly constructed state granted privilege, that of parental disclosure vetoes over adoptee’s access to our birth certificates.

It is, at it’s core, a conditional access fake “restoration of adoptee rights” bill that includes a provision for contact through intermediaries, a provision in the vetoes that “birthmothers” must sign over medical, cultural, and social histories if they want the veto, otherwise their veto is disreguarded. (This essentially extorts personal medical information out of mothers if they want to use the state constructed veto, a likely HIPAA violation.)

The bill once again creates the intentional conflation around the term “contact preference form.”

Oregon, Maine, New Hampshire, and Alabama’s “contract preference form” has no force of law behind it, they do not not bar adoptees from gaining access to their original documentation.

New Jersey’s 1406’s so called “document of contact preference” on the other hand is actually a disclosure veto cloaked in the language of “preference.” It WOULD prevent adoptees from gaining access to their original birth certificates.

This is precisely the form of “language creep” I’ve warned about in relation to these contact preference documents for years now. As I wrote in my earlier post, Adoptee Rights 101: Class Bastard and how to recognize a genuine adoptee rights bill, the first “contact preference form” was created as part of the struggle to open Oregon’s records. It was not in the ballot measure Oregon voters voted on, but was a later addition.

Section 7 also merits special attention as it too is antithetical to adopteed people, and our familys’ civil rights, our right to avail ourselves of legal remedy in the wake of wrongdoing:

7.    (New section)  a. A person, firm, partnership, corporation, association or agency that has placed a child for adoption shall not be liable in any civil or criminal action for damages resulting from information provided by the State Registrar pursuant to this act.

b.    An employee, agent or officer of the Department of Health and Senior Services who is authorized by the Commissioner of Health and Senior Services to disclose information relating to the certification of birth pursuant to this act, shall not be liable for:

(1) disclosing information based on a written, notarized request submitted in accordance with this act; and

(2) any error or inaccuracy in the information that is disclosed after receipt of a written, notarized request submitted in accordance with this act, and any consequence of that error or inaccuracy.

In short, it would create a liability shield.

Without the ability to pursue our rights in a court of law, we have no hope of our rights being upheld.

This is a massive gift to the industry (as well as the government itself.) Section 7 is little more than a government bail out for erasing industry and state misdeeds in the course of handling our information.

Need a real world example of whose rights this stands to curtail?

Take my post about a story from New Jersey, Catholic Charities offers up another lifetime’s worth of lies and false “reunion”, in which the supposed “reunion” New Jersey’s Catholic Charities facilitated turned out to be just another lie once revealed by a DNA test.

The Adoptee was mismatched and the Family in question was left with no means by which to regain genuine information about where their child actually went other than pursuing the matter in the courts.

As the article my post is based upon, Three decades after adoption, DNA test reveals painful truth, points out, sometimes the courts are the only recourse left open to individuals and families who get screwed by the state and those facilitating in the “reunion industry:”

Angry, and worried about his first-born son’s fate, Ryba consulted with a private investigator. He even tried to file missing person and kidnapping reports with the New Jersey attorney general’s office. He said he was turned away.

As Ryba continues to search for answers, he recognizes that a lawsuit may be his only option. But so far, he has been unable to find an attorney willing to take his case. He also worries about the cost.

Yet New Jersey 1406 stands to close off precisely those legal options. It takes away the final avenue left open to those with no other recourse.

For the liability shield aspects alone, this bill then becomes antithetical to adoptees and our families’ rights.

Obviously, these are but a few of the many fatal flaws with the legislation.

Bastards holding out for a genuine adoptee rights bill, yes after the 30 years of pre-existing work in New Jersey which STILL have not resulted in a clean bill this year, find themselves in some weird middle.

We do not support the bill.

Other adoptees and bill supporters have co-opted so much of the terminology and the core arguments of genuine adoptee rights efforts, yet they utilize such in service to supporting a bill that will ultimately seal yet more records, those of some of New Jersey’s most vulnerable and politically voiceless kids.

The Bastard Nation action alert makes it plain:

Promoters of the bill have co-opted the language of the real adoptee rights movement and real obc access laws by equating their bill to Oregon’s law, which through ballot initiative, restored the right of all that state’s adoptees to the unrestricted right to their own original birth certificates.

Opponents of the bill fight it for their own reasons, (some of which are altogether little more than industry ass covering.)

Bastards oppose it from our own, uniquely Bastard-centric stance (as well as a stance  supportive of our parents, particularly our mother’s genuine personal medical privacy rights.)

This makes us distinct from the factions arguing  both in support and opposition who gave testimony at the hearing. We are a third thing; Bastards opposing the bill from a position of wanting to ensure equality in the eyes of the law WHILE supporting our families’ medical privacy.

Family medical information is best left to families, not newly constructed state bureaucracies, exactly as it is for non-adopted individuals.

I cannot speak for others, but for myself personally, this puts my personal position in close alignment to for example,  Senior Mothers Adoption Activist Coalition (SMAAC.) But then, being situated thusly should surprise no one who has been reading along as I self identify as both a Radical Feminist and a Bastard.

I see no inherent contradiction in supporting the genuine rights of Mothers and simultaneously supporting Bastard rights.

It is primarily the lies of the industry and surrounding culture that set adoptees and mothers against one another politically. In reality, more often than not our interests, particularly in seeing all our personal documentation restored to us tend to align more often than not.

As for the hearing itself, we certainly heard plenty of that pitting Mothers against Bastards and blathering about “balancing rights.”

It was quite possibly one of the most ensnared in non-sequiturs,  reunification-centric, conflationary and extraordinary uses of co-opted language hearings I’ve ever endured listening to in all my years of Bastard activism.

The usual false tropes were brought up:

• many on both sides arguing their stance would result in further abortion reduction/curtailment (whether one used such to support or oppose the bill, the core argument is antithetical to women’s genuine reproductive autonomy. Each individual woman who determines for herself she needs an abortion is a sample of one. When the state begins to set goals for ‘how many is too many women always pay the price.)
• false notions of presumed/alleged/expectations of “birthparent privacy” and supposed “balancing of rights” (which the courts have repeated rejected, see both the Tennessee and Oregon cases. Oregon was appealed to the supreme court, but rejected, finding that the circuit court had correctly decided the matter.)
• the intentional conflations surrounding  “contact preferences” (a contact preference form is not a disclosure veto, nor contact veto)
• the same old same old “opt in” vs “opt out” irrelevancies (both stances support legislation that still curtail Bastard access)
• alleged “needs” for counseling and intermediaries (as we are considered somehow distinct and separate from other adults deemed legally competent to conduct their own interpersonal and family affairs)
• registries and vetoes as some form of adequate substitute for adopted people’s equality (similar to my point above, though also a demand that the state construct systems to collect, maintain and dispense deeply personal information such as personal medical histories as somehow cognized as some form of adequate substitute for adopted people’s full legal equality to nonadopted people)
• opening records to provide some kind of psychological “wholeness” or “completeness (not a rights based argument, rather it reduces our human/civil/identity rights down to what would be a mere state granted-or withheld- privilege confererred almost out of pity upon poor needy and emotionally defective adoptees)
• falsely tangling in family medical histories to original birth certificate access (non-adopted people get no medical information with their OBCs, nor does the state construct systems by which to collect and pass along such deeply personal and legally protected private information for non-adopted people)
• etc.

But by the time the hearing was well underway, it was down to everything from facebook privacy settings to outright lies such as (paraphrasing now):

• nothing is really secret, anyone who really wants to find the information will
• 90% of inter-country adoptees already have their information/less than 10% could be considered confidential
• Adam Pertman of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute outright claiming he has “no horse in this race,” when he himself is by his own admission at the hearing an adoptive father and employed by an organization in the very business of promoting the “normalcy” of adoption and adoption as a positive outcome
• Pertman also claimed that going forward those who needed to could always avail themselves of “lawsuits.” Had he actually read section 7 of the legislation, he might have noticed A1406 would specifically curtail New Jersey adoptees and their families right to utilize the courts in relation to information released via the legislation
• the repeated insistence that New Jersey’s “safe haven”/baby dump records are already sealed (then why would this legislation propose to seal them?!?)
• Treating Oregon’s “contact preference” refusals as if they were somehow the same as what New Jersey would experience when Oregon’s preference forms are not in any way legally contact prohibitive and do not bar the adoptee from receiving their original information (i.e. comparing apples and oranges)
• etc.

Put simply, the hearing was a trainwreck, with nonsense and nonsequitors flying by a mile a minute, with co-opted adoptee rights arguments being used in support of this catastrophic bill.

As for genuine Bastard activists?

We’ve been both personally trashed for daring to say anything about ‘another state’s bill’  (never mind the effect it will have on other states, the national precedents in it, the degrading of the term “contact preference” in it, and the fact that it’s actually a sealed records bill and that SOMEONE has to stand for the genuine rights of ALL of New Jersey’s adoptees, boarder babies, and abandoned children) AND simultaneously trashed for not being present at the hearing. (Never mind some of us have real lives, families, and other obligations that made being there impossible.) It’s been ugly.

I may or may not write to that further at a later date. Suffice it to say, I have much to say about what I’ve been seeing as of late out of many so self professed advocates for adoptee rights.

After a hearing the that lasted roughly 5 1/2 hours, the committee voted the bill out to the full Assembly:

Committee Voting:
AHU 6/14/2010 – r/ACS – Yes {6} No {0} Not Voting {0} Abstains {4} – Roll Call

• Vainieri Huttle, Valerie (C) – Yes
• Rodriguez, Caridad (V) – Yes
• Angelini, Mary Pat – Abstain
• Biondi, Peter J. – Abstain
• Fuentes, Angel – Yes
• McHose, Alison Littell – Abstain
• O’Scanlon, Declan J., Jr. – Abstain
• Prieto, Vincent – Yes
• Tucker, Cleopatra G. – Yes
• Wagner, Connie – Yes

An audio archive of the full hearing can be found online, just click the “listen” link next to”Monday, June 14, 2010, 2:00pm Committee Room 16.”

Postscript of sorts-

Throughout our ‘community’ particularly online (be that on mailing lists, in blog posts and comments, in newsletters or even individual’s facebook posts and comments) I’ve watched people’s assumptions are unraveling. Sides are being chosen, and yes, long term friendships have come apart over organizational or individual decisions to either support or oppose  fatally flawed legislation. I’m not merely speaking about New Jersey, but also more broadly, pertaining to Illinois, South Dakota, and other states.

This year has been brutal with roughly 15 states ‘in play’ and next to no clean bills.

New Jersey is its own particular version of Bastard hell in that adopted people and their families have been banging their heads against that particular brick wall for 30 years.

Yes, people are dying.

But as I’ve said over and over, there’s not a Bastard or a Mother, or a family member on this planet that isn’t dying. One can come out to a dead 50 year old just as easily as they can an 80 year old.

The fact that people die is no excuse to gut someone else’s human/identity/civil rights as part of a personal shortcut in HOPES of getting yours (provided of course, you end up being one of the lucky ones not vetoed if the bill passes.)

On the one hand, it’s been hard to watch and truly sad to see these coming aparts yet sadder still to see those willing to sell the rights of the person standing next to them down the river.

Watching in real time as individuals embrace the idea that other adopted people’s rights can be cast aside. The usual promises of “we’ll come back for yours later” sometimes accompany such, but more often than not, it doesn’t.

Regardless of what people say, the reality is both that after people get theirs most pack up and go home, leaving those left behind by such legislation to fend for themselves with an even smaller pool of activists, AND the real bottom line, incremental strategies have never worked, not once, not in a single state.

Don’t be fooled, what bill gets passed will be with adoptees for at least some of their lifetimes.

No state that has ever passed a fake “open records” bill has ever gone back to clean up the toxic mess left in its wake. No state has ever expanded access after a bad bill has passed.

If New Jersey is any measure, bad bills such as the “safe haven” baby dump bill are only followed by proposed tightening and even further sealing in the aftermath. New Jersey’s bill seeks to even further curtaial abandoned children’s rights and access, not expand it.

On the other hand, observing this heart wrenching and tragic process has also clarified a lot.

Today we have a much clearer picture of who stands firmly for full Adoptee equality and who is willing to settle for variations on the theme of second class citizenship. Who believes we can settle for less than being treated equally under the law, and who feels substitutes and further forms of state control, shame, and screwing over both other adoptees and in New Jersey’s case, boarder babies and abandoned children constitutes some sick version of ‘good enough’.

Bastard rights seem to have a lot of fair weather friends.

When the going is easy, there are plenty of people around. But when it comes to standing equally strong for the rights of those all too often left behind? The field clears out quite a bit.

Not that I needed the reminder, but once again, observing this process, this winnowing of who stands strong and who is willing to settle for less than full equality, has taught me in very tangible terms who understands the core concept of class Bastard, and the necessity of protecting the rights and access of the most vulnerable and all too often deemed ‘expendable.’

It has also taught me who doesn’t; who is ok with screwing over someone else to either ‘get theirs’ or ’settle for what we can get now.’

Call it a personal decision, but my support, my time, and yes, my resources have been and will continue to be given accordingly.

Having been left behind by a deform measure, I’ve always understood, that when it comes to Bastard Access- either we all go together or we don’t go at all- “Nobody gets left behind. Or forgotten.”

Disney’s fictional characters Lilo, Nani, and Stich have a very great deal to say about notions of leaving people behind. They explain it in terms so simple any child can get their arms around it:

“Ohana means family, family means nobody gets left behind. Or forgotten.”

It’s amazing, yet sadly predictable to see some really do consider our real lives, our rights and our real real life families worthy of less.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

BASTARD NATION ACTION ALERT: WRITE NEW JERSEY GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE TODAY TO VETO SCS799/1399

BASTARD NATION ACTION ALERT
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Please take a minute to write short letter to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and ask him to veto SCS799/1399 if it reaches his desk. The bill passed out of the Human Services Committee on June 14. (NOTE: These are the numbers used by proponents. Two bills have been consolidated and are also known as SCS1406).

SCS799/1399, promoted as an Adoptee’s Birthright Bill, sells adoptees down the river, by creating a new, special 12-month temporary ”veto right” for “birthparents;” thus, exempting the state’s adopted adults from equal protection and treatment regarding the release of the government-generated public record of their births. Promoters of the bill have co-opted the language of the real adoptee rights movement and real obc access laws by equating their bill to Oregon’s law, which through ballot initiative, restored the right of all that state’s adoptees to the unrestricted right to their own original birth certificates.

New Jersey is a key state. If this restrictive legislation is enacted serious harm to the genuine adoptee rights movement throughout the country could occur.

Read SCS799/1399 here
Read SCS799/1399 statement here

SCS799/1399:

*includes a 12- month open enrollment period, starting after the Department of Health and Senior Services releases regs for SCS799/1399 implementation, that allows “birthparents,” to file disclosure vetoes–wrongly called a “contact preference form”– before obcs, past and future, are unsealed.

*authorizes the State Registar to replace the original birth certificate of those subjected to the contact veto/disclosure veto with a mutilated copy of the obc with all identifying information, including the address of the parent(s) at the time of birth (if they appear on the cert) deleted.

*requires “birthparents” who file a contact veto/disclosure veto to submit an intrusive and probably illegal medical and family history form to activate the veto.

*requires “birthparents” who file a contact veto/disclosure veto to fill out the same intrusive and probably illegal medical and family history form.

*seals by default all “safe haven” birth certificates, even though many “safe haven” babies are boarder babies, born to identified mothers and abandoned in hospitals shortly after birth. Some of these children may never be adopted and will never have a genuine birth certificate.

The fiscal note in the original bill has been removed, but the the sub bill mandates the Department of Health and Senior Services to mount an extensive media campaign to inform birthparents of their “special veto right” and other bill “initiatives.”

A typewritten letter or handwritten letter,
no longer than 250 words, is preferable.

Use Veto SCS799/1399: The Adoptee’s Birthright bill in the header and include your name and address.

Governor Chris Christie
PO Box 001
The State House
Trenton, NJ 08625-0001

If a letter is not possible, send an email through the template here.

Bastard Nation’s letter:

Dear Governor Christie:

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization, the largest adoptee civil rights organization in North America, opposes SCS799/1399: The Adoptee’s Birthright bill. We ask you to veto it if it comes to your desk. The bill is currently awaiting a voice in the Assembly.

SCS799/1399 will permit some New Jersey adopted adults to receive their true and accurate original birth certificates. Others, through compromise language in this bill, will receive only a false and mutilated certificate with the name and address of the parent(s) bureaucratically excised by the State Registrar by order of the birthparent(s).

Bastard Nation rejects the special right of birthparents to remove their names from the birth certificates of their own adult offspring. No other parent has that right. Birthparents should not have different rules.

Since 1999 four states have restored to adoptees the unrestricted right to their own birth certificates: Oregon through state-wide ballot initiative, and Alabama, New Hampshire, and Maine through legislation. Why should New Jersey buck the tide and pass a bill that continues to treat adoptee access to their own birth certificates as a favor, not a right–a right that the non-adopted enjoy without a second thought? Please veto SCS799/1399 and tell the legislature to return with a new clean bill that restores the right of access to all the state’s adopted citizens.

Yours truly,

Marley E. Greiner

Executive Chair

• My introduction
• Some links towards context & historical perspective on the situation in New Jersey
• The Bastard Nation Action Alert- Stop New Jersey A1406/S799 Today!

New Jersey’s A1406/S799 is NOT an adoptee rights bill.

It is yet another fake/conditional access for a lucky few at the direct cost of the human/civil/identity rights of others bill. Like so many other states this year, New Jersey’s legislative disaster is once again, disingenuously cloaked in the language of “adoptee rights.” (See my recent post Adoptee Rights 101: Class Bastard and how to recognize a genuine adoptee rights bill for a field guide towards determining the real from the fake.)

Among the bill’s many fatal flaws, if A1406/S799 were to pass:

• New Jersey will carve out a new state granted veto privilege that can be used against adopted people’s original birth certificate access.
• Those who would be granted the newly constructed veto privilege, Parents, will not have their rights come out unscathed either, as they would have to submit an intrusive and likely illegal medical and family history form to activate the contact veto or file a “contact preference form.” The state essentially extorting personal medical information under these conditions in order to enact this newly constructed veto or express a personal contact preference constitutes nothing less than a potential HIPAA violation. In states such as Oregon, where “contract preference forms” originated, not only do they not have the force of law behind them,  the states does not use such as a tool with with to extract a parent’s personal medical history. Real adoptee rights activists understand inherent to the toll adoption already extracts from our families must never be their genuine personal medical privacy, these are interpersonal and family matters best left to individuals, not new state bureaucracies.
• A1406/S799 also stands to reclassify all infants who pass through New Jersey’s baby dump/ “safe haven” program as automatically having their birth certificates sealed as a default setting. Not only are most kids who endure the state’s baby dump system born in hospitals to identified mothers, as I documented, New Jersey is one of the states where Boarder Babies are routinely being folded into “Safe Haven” the state’s statistics/are being classified as “safe haven” babies. Thus Boarder Babies, those born in hospitals to indentified Mothers and abandoned post birth at the hospitals would have their identities stripped from them as a routine matter.

This means that in New Jersey under this legislation deceptively being sold as a means by which “adoptee rights” would be restored, New Jersey’s boarder babies and baby dump babies will now have their records sealed as default.

So called “Adoptee Rights”cannot be “won” at the direct expense of abandoned children.

Unsealing some original birth certificates while simultaneously using alleged “open records” legislation seal the original birth certificates of others is no victory. It changes the very meaning of this so called “adoptee rights” legislation to that of merely another tool to seal yet more records. But as they are the records of those with some of the least voice politically, certain individuals and organizations are apparently more than willing to “trade them away.”

A1406/S799 stands to gut the existing human/civil/identity rights of a number of kids who stand to eventually enter the state’s foster care or adoption systems.

What access it could grant to some New Jersey adoptees is a price that will be paid by the state’s abandoned, and later fostered or adopted kids.

To anyone who cares about the rights and access of anyone other than themselves, A1406/S799 cannot be considered any form of progress. It stands to do lasting damage to some of New Jersey’s most vulnerable populations.

The bill is not merely short sighted, it’s a classic example of bait and switch; it promises increased access to original birth certificates for one set of people, yet takes that same access from, those “safe havened” or boarder babies and  a next generation of New Jersey’s most vulnerable and voiceless.

It harnesses the desperation of one set of adopted people and their families and in a genuinely cynical political twist, utilizes that desperation back as a tool against yet another set of kids.

It’s both tragic and sad to see some adoptees fall for it.

Only those either unwilling to see the damage it will do, or who simply do not care about the damage it will do could support such a bill.

For more context on New Jersey, readers may want to revisit several of my earlier pieces:

• Action Alert- Stop New Jersey S799, NJ Senate Vote scheduled for Monday
• New Jersey- let A752 die: the conflation of family medical history with authentic restored access, white outs, and preemptive restraining orders among other nightmare senarios (on the earlier bill)
• Catholic Charities offers up another lifetime’s worth of lies and false “reunion”

As well as some of Bastardette’s NJ related posts:

• S799: ANOTHER NEW JERSEY UPDATE
• NEW JERSEY UPDATE – S799 PASSES SENATE. ADOPTEES JILTED
• NEW JERSEY S799: THE JERSEY FOLLIES–DESIRE OVER RIGHTS
• NEW JERSEY PIECE-A-CRAP IS BAAACCCKKK!: S799
• GOOD NEWS: CAL AND JERSEY BAD BILLS DIE (from back in Jan. on the earlier bill)
• NEW JERSEY: ANYTHING TO GET A BILL PASSED. WE LEAVE EVERYBODY BEHIND! (about the earlier bill)
• BE CAREFUL OF WHAT YOU ASK FOR! NEW JERSEY CATHOLIC CONFERENCE WANTS TO HEAR FIRST MOTHER STORIES!
• MOTHER MAY I? GRANNIE ANNIE NAILS IT! (from 2006)
• DIMWITS: IN THE WORDS OF 9 NEW JERSEY ADOPTEE HATERS (also from 2006 on NJ S1087.)
• SOME-ADOPTEES-ARE-MORE-EQUAL-THAN-OTHERS BILL PASSES NEW JERSEY SENATE
• SETTLING FOR LESS THAN YOU DESERVE: WHY BASTARD NATION REJECTS ALL ARGUMENTS FOR AND AGAINST NEW JERSEY’S S1087
• IS ADOPTION ANTI-FAMILY?
• ACLU SLAGS ADOPTEES AGAIN (2005)

Bastard Nation’s NJ related action alerts and letters:

• BASTARD NATION LETTER TO NJ SENATE: VOTE NO ON S799
• BASTARD NATION ACTION ALERT: STOP NEW JERSEY S799. SENATE VOTE SCHEDULED FOR MONDAY
• BASTARD NATION ACTION ALERT: NEW JERSEY S799 – VOTE NO!
• BASTARD NATION’S LETTER TO NJ HOUSE SPEAKER JOSEPH ROBERTS, JR–PLEASE OPPOSE A 752. ADOPTEE DESERVE RIGHTS NOT FAVORS! (about the earlier bill)
• BASTARD NATION ACTION ALERT: VOTE NO ON S1087/A2557–COMPROMISED OPEN RECORDS BILL (from 2006)
• BASTARD NATION’S LETTER TO THE NJ SENATE: VOTE NO ON S1087/A2557!

Also see NJ related baby dump posts, some by me, some by Bastardette:

• NEW JERSEY: THIS IS NOT A SAFE HAVEN….
• New Jersey- Boarder Babies being folded into “Safe Haven” statistics
• Still more Border Babies routinely relabeled “safe haven saves” in OH, NJ, MI, and KY

All of which is to say, this botched bill has been a long time coming. It’s merely the latest retread in a long lines of fake bills New Jersey has offered up year after agonizing year.

Bastards have tracked it as it developed through the years and have fought this crap down time and time again.

Please, read and act on the Bastard Nation action alert below, there is precious little time left to work to kill this fatally flawed bill. If passed, the damage will be lasting.

Keep in mind, no state that has ever passed conditional access legislation has ever revisited it or increased access to more adoptees later.

Those who settle for less than full equality and the full restoration of our human rights, on top of the damage they will do to their own rights, will sentence New Jersey’s abandoned kids to precisely the injustice they claim to be fighting.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

BASTARD NATION ACTION ALERT – STOP NEW JERSEY A1406/S799 TODAY!

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BASTARD NATION ACTION ALERT!

STOP DISCLOSURE VETO/WHITE OUT LEGISLATION IN NEW JERSEY!!!

ASK THE NEW JERSEY ASSEMBLY HUMAN SERVICES COMMITTEE:VOTE NO ON A1406/S799

DON’T LET PASSAGE OF BAD LEGISLATION IN NEW JERSEY THREATEN EFFORTS IN OTHER STATES FOR TRUE EQUAL ACCESS FOR ADULT

IT’S BACK!

A1406 (companion to S799 already passed in the NJ Senate) is scheduled for a hearing in the Assembly Human Services Committee on June 14.

Please contact committee members immediately and urge them to VOTE NO ON A1406/S799. See contact information below.If you are from or in New Jersey or have a New Jersey connection, be sure to mention it in your communication.

Be sure to put: “A1406 – opposition ” in the header

A1406/S799 is: restrictive, discriminatory, creates a new, special and temporary ”right” for "birthparents," and exempts the state’s adopted adults from equal protection and treatment regarding the release of the government-generated public record of their births.

The bill:

*includes a 12- month open enrollment period, starting after the Department of Health releases regs for A1406/S799 implementation, that allows "birthparents," to file disclosure vetoes before obcs, past and future, are unsealed

*authorizes the state to replace the original birth certificate, of those subjected to the DV, with a mutilated copy of the obc with all identifying information, including the address of the parent(s) at the time of birth (if it appears on the cert) deleted.

*requires "birthparents" who file a disclosure veto to submit an intrusive and probably illegal medical and family history form to activate the veto.

*requires "birthparents" who file a "contact preference form" to fill out the same intrusive and probably illegal medical and family history form.

*seals by default all “safe haven” birth certificates, even though most “safe haven” babies are born in hospitals to identified mothers.

*requires adoption agencies and adoption lawyers to receive a written veto status report from the state before they can release identifying information to adoptees

*requires the state to mount an "information" campaign to inform "birthparents" of their "protection" options

A1406/S799 IS NOT AN OBC ACCESS BILL.
A1406/S799 IS NOT ABOUT RIGHTS.
A1406/S799 IS ABOUT PRIVILEGE

Bastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organization opposes legislation that denies any adult adoptees access to their own original birth records on par with all other citizens. Please let the Health, Human Services, and Senior Citizen Committee know that this issue is not about relationships between adoptees and their "birthparents." It is about basic human and civil rights and the relationship between adoptees and the STATE of NEW JERSEY.

The New Jersey state government should not be in the business of denying adult adoptees access to their own birth certificates in a misguided attempt to appease a mythical adversarial standoff between adoptees and birthparents.

Inclusion of a disclosure veto in this bill, even within the 12-month "window of opportunity" perpetuates the violation of adoptee rights by making unaltered birth certificate access a privilege not a right.

Forcing "birthparents," under certain circumstances, to submit mandatory health and family history information to the state is intrusive and probably illegal.

Passage of bad legislation is New Jersey could easily undermine efforts of dedicated reformers who are holding the line for adoptee rights in other states.

New Jersey’s A1406/S799 is an abomination in light of the restoration of the right of original birth certificate access to all persons adopted in Oregon, Alabama, and New Hampshire, and Maine. Adult adoptees and all who support adoptee rights should stand united for unrestricted access laws and not sell out just to get a bill passed! Disclosure veto legislation is unethical and unjust!

Please e-mail the New Jersey Senate and urge them to VOTE NO ON A1406/S799

READ THE FULL TEXT AT: http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2010/Bills/A1500/1406_I1.PDF

CONTACT INFORMATION.
The New Jersey Leg page has no list of email addresses, You need to go to each individual Rep member page and use the template http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/members/abcroster.asp

Human Services Committee:

Vainieri Huttle, Valerie – Chair
Rodriguez, Caridad – Vice-Chair
Angelini, Mary Pat
Biondi, Peter J.
Coutinho, Albert
Fuentes, Angel
McHose, Alison Littell
O’Scanlon, Declan J.
Tucker, Cleopatra G.
Wagner, Connie

Also write to Gov. Chris Christie
Proponents of A1406/S799 have asked supporters to sent letters of support to Gov. Chris Christie now. We urge you to do sent letters of opposition. Send letters no more than 250 words at this template: http://www.state.nj.us/governor/contact/

or contact him at:

Office of the Governor
PO Box 001
Trenton, NJ 08625
609-292-6000

Bastard Nation has submitted opposition testimony to the Human Services Committee, but will ot post it until after the hearing. We have also sent a letter to Governor Christie.

See the full Bastard Nation Action Alert for details and legislator contact information:. (I have also added the alert to my right hand sidebar.)

STOP NEW JERSEY S799. SENATE VOTE SCHEDULED FOR MONDAY

Contact the members of the NJ Senate and urge them to VOTE NO ON S799.

New Jersey has been struggling to pass a bill to restore access to adult adoptees OBCs for literally, decades now.

Sadly this latest piece of legislation is just another piece of crap marred by a number of fatal flaws including;

• disclosure vetoes (which will leave a number of adopted people behind, I’ve written about such repeatedly, here’s a recent example relating to the mess in NJ.)
• conflation of original family’s confidential medical history into the bill (a potential HIPAA violation)
• and it would seal by default all “safe haven”/baby dump kids information from them, despite boarder babies being routinely folded into the “safe haven” statistics and the kids having identified and identifiable parents, in essence, this would retroactively delete information pertaining to these kids that the state already had.

The Bastard Nation action alert goes into to far more detail, so I won’t attempt to replicate their useful backgrounder on the bill.

New Jersey needs a real bill, not yet more trash heaped upon the pile.

Really makes you wonder what part of simplicity in legislation in relation to restoring adoptee’s right to access our own documentation is so darn difficult to get one’s head around.

NEW JERSEY: ANYTHING TO GET A BILL PASSED. WE LEAVE EVERYBODY BEHIND!

BASTARD NATION’S LETTER TO NJ HOUSE SPEAKER JOSEPH ROBERTS, JR–PLEASE OPPOSE A 752. ADOPTEE DESERVE RIGHTS NOT FAVORS!

NEW JERSEY: MY CAUSE IS BETTER THAN YOURS. ADOPTEES V GAYS

The core of it all is of course, yet another broken bill, designed to leave some behind, constructed upon the false notion of parental vetoes that does real damage to existing adoptee rights.

One either excepts the basic premise that adopted people should receive equal treatment under law to non-adopted people, or they don’t. Sadly, the proposed legislation in New Jersey is predicated upon the notion that we are somehow ‘different’ and thus deserving of ‘different’ treatment.

The New Jersey bill, A752, has opened the door to complete non-sequiturs like “parental medical information” which simply have nothing to do with a genuine effort to restore Bastard access to our Original Birth Certificates (OBCs). Bastards regaining access to our OBCs doesn’t grant us access to parental medical histories, it merely restores to us access to our own documentation that the State had allowed access to originally, only to later confiscate and refuse us access to.

Just as non-adopted people get no family medical history when they request a copy of their Original Birth Certificates, neither should such be falsely folded in to concepts of adopted people’s restored access to ours. Doing so only attempts to conflate search and reunion issues into the genuine civil rights issue of records access.

Restored records access is what Bastards demand of the State. We demand such based on the premise that adopted people should be treated equally under law to non-adopted people.

Family medical histories are what some of us MAY ask of our relatives. Such requests may be granted or denied. Under law we have no “right” to be granted a medical history. Sharing such is at the discretion of our relations. Just as non-adopted people likewise have no inherent legal “right” to be granted such by their families.

Ethically, of course, sharing what information is available is likely morally preferable, but such interpersonal relationships and what information is or is not passed between individuals should not be state mandated.

As I’ve written here time and again, individual medical histories and family medical histories are up to individuals to decide whether they chose to share or not.

At the core of the Bastard rights position is the demand that we be free to live our lives without undue governmental intrusion into our interpersonal and family affairs, asking only we receive the same treatment as non-adopted people.

When states then insist upon entangling medical histories into state mandated requirements, they do little more than CONTINUE the ongoing pattern of state interference and control over ourselves and our families’ lives. Simply put, it’s none of the State’s damn business. It’s an interpersonal matter between us and our families- just as such is under law for non-adopted people.

Again, all we seek is equality. Nothing more and certainly nothing less.

Deformers in New Jersey are creating what would be a catastrophe instead, attempting to put our families into the position of being essentially state blackmailed by the State itself into handing over personal and family medical histories, should they desire a lack of contact.

A752 is not an adoptee rights bill, it’s a false conflation of a bill that attempts to push medical histories and reunion issues into the discourse about our authentic need for restored access to our own records, our demand to be treated just like other non-adopted citizens.

It sets up precisely the systems that are the hallmarks of deform bills: false and interpersonal issues conflated in, and separate class of Bastards left behind in the wake of the bill.

Speaking as one of those left behind by Ohio’s contortionist deforms, I know firsthand what it means to have some people get theirs at the direct personal cost to people like myself. It’s why I will never support anything other than a pure restored access bill that leaves no one behind.

Anything this “compromised” bill would manage to pass in the short term will have lasting detrimental repercussions for those left behind for decades to come.

Horrible excuses for legislation such as New Jersey’s A752 say a very great deal about those supporting them. As I pointed out in my WTF page one of the clear indicators of a Bastard is that they are not in it merely for what they perceive as something that might get records for themselves, nor for some short sighted ‘quick fix’ that leaves other Bastards standing beside them screwed and left behind at the end of the day:

An adoptee who is cognizant of and cares about ‘class Bastard.’ I.E. an adoptee who either inherently understands, or has moved beyond caring about issues of equality and access from a purely personal position of merely wanting equality for themselves, to understanding “personal solutions” are not the solution. A Bastard understands that ‘compromising away’ the person standing next to you in an effort to get something for oneself is simply unthinkable. We don’t jump in to get ours now by putting the Bastard standing next to us off with promises of “we’ll come back for you later.” A Bastard understands to the core of their being politically and interpersonally, “we leave no one behind/no one gets left behind or forgotten.” All of which is to say, Bastards have learned a number of lessons from history and incorporated such thinking into their everyday, perhaps now second nature, actions.

If the so called “activists” in NJ claiming to represent NJ adoptees haven’t figured that out yet, they’ve forfeited any genuine claim to representing any adoptees other than themselves and their own personal interests: they’ve presented a selfish half-assed piece of crap legislation that not merely leaves other adoptees behind, but also once again, sets a model that will could (and likely would) be used by other states to screw yet more adopted people.

When you’re willing to settle for what amounts to table scraps instead of human rights, you should not be the least bit surprised when what you get table are scraps instead of human rights.

I, as an adopted person, oppose New Jersey A752.

Sadly if that’s all it did, it could be dismissed as yet another lousy compromised from the get go bill. Merely the latest in a very long string of such. Sadly, that’s not all it would do. Instead it goes further, going so far as to actually erase existing OBC information for kids who go through the state’s babydump (or so called “safe haven”) process, for example.

Marley has laid out the core of some of the mess it would create (emphasis added by me),

Sponsored by NJCare, (aka The Krampi) A752 (aka The Krampus Bill) is one of the worst throw-our-rights away bills on record. The bill, of course, contains the compromiser’s favorite compromise, the “birthparent” disclosure veto.

But wait, there’s more!

In order to make this veto work, the state extorts a family/medical history from closeted parents. Kind of a pay to play scam. If parents don’t submit the government mandated snoop form in 60 days, then The Bastard gets the obc. Sounds like a violation of HIPAA to me.

But wait, there’s more!

A752 also contains the whiteout “alternative” that will give adoptees, slapped with a veto, an “original birth certificate” that’s been mutilated by a government censor with a glob of white-out smeared over identifying information including their own names, and the parental addresses at the time of birth.

But wait, there’s more!

The Krampus Bill automatically seals the obc of all persons anonymously dumped under the state’s “safe haven” law, even if one or both parents are identified on the obc (one of baby dumping’s dirty little secrets). See, a safe haven dump, coerced out of a confused parent ” is a legal assumption of an on file and notarzied “disclosure veto.” Tough, but at least you weren’t thrown in a dumpster. That receptacle is reserved for your rights.

Finally, Krampus includes a fiscal note of $90,000 from the General Fund to finance the cost of a national advertising campaign to warn biological parents that their bastard may be hunting them down with the adoptee-requisite drywall hatchet in hand. Be sure to get that veto on file while you still have your hands to write with.

It would create a whole new ‘right’ of sorts for parents (”of origin”) that sets them apart from all other people. The ability to have our paperwork modified and to demand adopted people go through an intermediary whether we want to or not.

NJCare board member Carol Barbieri, writing of A752 in the Asbury Park Press goes so far as to claim those not wanting contact “will be left alone” as a result of their bill, relabeling such a sick form of “protection”:

For starters, it gives birthparents who wish to remain anonymous a year to file a notarized “request for nondisclosure” letter with the state. Their name and address will be omitted from the adoptee’s original birth certificate. If a birthparent doesn’t want contact from an adoptee, they will be left alone.

Currently no such protection for birthparents exists in New Jersey. Furthermore, if a birthparent wants to reunite with an adoptee, he or she gets to choose how they would like the initial contact to take place — directly or through an intermediary.

All of which firmly inserts state interference into the ways in which adults conduct their interpersonal affairs.

Adopted people’s constitutional and human right to free association, would now be explicitly circumvented. We would be forced down chutes of predetermined contact or lack thereof with government serving the role of enforcer over our interpersonal relationships.

This holds no resemblance to any known concept of adoptee equality, instead, adopted people would form yet another new class, a set of people with what amounts to a pre-emptive restraining order set against us and interpersonal contact not based on any standard of prior actual behavior but merely on our EXISTENCE as members of a a class of people, those adopted and ‘nondisclosured’.

This is precisely the sort of pre-emptive restraining orders on interpersonal contact we’ve seen over and over down through the years out of the usual opponents of Bastard rights. To see such instituted on the back of any notion of an “adoptee rights bill” would be a damn sad day indeed.

Anyone who thinks this New Jersey bill does no harm has missed the horrific details contained therein.

Furthermore, if Bastards settle for utter garbage such as this, the odds of New Jersey ever being adding the roll of honour of states that treat adopted persons equitably under law are slim to none. No state that has settled for “compromised” legislation has ever come back and become a state authentically supportive of our full equality.

The United States according to Bastard Nation-

(Alaska and Kansas never sealed their records away from their adopted citizens. Oregon, Alabama, New Hampshire and Maine have each entered the roll of honour over the course of the last nine years.)

If New Jersey passes this bill it will instead join the list of states that rather than moving towards equality for adopted people, have chosen to protect the interests and secrets and lies of those with much to hide and much to answer for.

For adopted people themselves to side with such interests, putting forward bills that maim our demand for full equality under law is nothing short of an embarrassment. They side with those whose hands are dirty over those of their own class and long term interests. Such shortsightedness belies any claim to speak for adopted people as a class.

They have been “bastardized” by the State and wish to continue precisely such patterns of discrimination.

There is no shame is asking for what you really want, restoration of rights for all adopted people and genuine equality under law.

Conflating in search and reunion interpersonal issues, state enforced pre-emptive restraining orders, record nullification for those entering the system via the babydump mechanisms (a nice little X-mas bonus, cleaning up an oversight on the part of the dump pushers by piggybacking on a supposed ‘adoptee rights bill,’ nice that. so yup, an ‘adoptee rights’ bill that will actually take an eraser to a class of Bastard’s OBCs) , and granting new powers to parents (that will utimately come down to the State’s whims in interpretation) all at the direct expense of adoptee human and constitutional rights is unacceptable.

Such junk legislation should go only one place, the nearest shredder.

This bears no resemblance to adoptee rights instead, in a truly Orwellian fashion, it guts our existing rights and takes white out to “Dumpee’s” (or “Dumplings”) OBCs.

It’s yet another ‘I hope for mine, screw the costs to others’ bill.

If New Jersey activists came back with a real access restoration bill next time out, I’d gladly blog, write, and work in support of such, but when the best NJCare appears to have to offer at the moment is white out for a new set of OBCs, it’s past time to let this bill die.

I leave readers with the contact information for the Speaker,

Assembly Speaker Joseph J. Roberts, Jr,.
Brooklawn Shopping Plaza
Rt. 130 South & Browning Rd
Brooklawn, NJ 08030
Phone: 856-742-7600
(No fax number listed)

email him via his web page: http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/members/bio.asp?Leg=16 (cut and paste) (hit the email link.)

Ask that he allow A752 to die.

After all these years of work, it’s long past time, New Jersey needs a genuine bill that restores adopted people’s equality, not a piece of legislation that will ultimately gut what few existing rights we have left.

]]> http://www.babylovechild.org/2009/12/12/new-jersey-let-a752-die-the-conflation-of-family-medical-history-with-authentic-restored-access-and-preemptive-restraining-orders-among-other-nightmare-senarios/feed/ 2 http://www.babylovechild.org/2009/11/24/a-critical-perspective-on-the-baby-safe-havenbabydump-programs/ http://www.babylovechild.org/2009/11/24/a-critical-perspective-on-the-baby-safe-havenbabydump-programs/#comments Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:58:28 +0000 Baby Love Child http://www.babylovechild.org/?p=1461 I wanted to draw additional attention to two comments that came through yesterday on one of my recent posts about the ongoing failure that states’ “baby safe haven”/babydump programs have been.

I’m not going to attempt to write around them as the comments speak for themselves, other than to confirm that the author was posting from Michigan.

comment 1:

Melissa Says:

I live in michigan and in 2001 I gave my son up under the save delivery law. I was 16 and had delivered him at home. I was terrified and called an adoption agency out fear she directed me to the hospital and told me to tell the emergency room staff safe delivery I had no idea what that meant or what was about to happen the social worker said she would meet me there ha of course she would. This law is full of holes. I have custody of my son now and hes 8 years old healthy smart and perfect but the battle of getting my newborn back was horrible the state had no provisions for what would happen if I changed my mind the adoption agency fought me so hard they even lied in court they tried everything to keep my baby they took advantage of me and the law it makes me sick to know that the same people who abused the law to begin with are now the ones running the training program. What an industry. I’ve read the statistics for michigan and your article right on I’m one of the the very few on there that wasnt a 40 yearold women who gave birth in a hospital. I never had any intentions on throwing my baby in a trash can nor did I want to abandon my baby under such a law but was in shock from delivering a butt breach baby and was terriffied because I hid my pregnancy. The adoption agency I dealt with was evil and self serving and repeatedly tried to talk me out of filing for custody telling how I would regret my child and it would ruin my life which none of that is true my son is the best part of my life hes an amazing little boy. Something needs to be done about these laws its being a abused by all people involved and it disgusts me this law was put into effect to keep young women from throwing newborns in trash cans not to circumvent adoption laws among other things its been used for . how can this law even be used for what its intended for when the young women it was created for arent even aware or educated on it. Which is probably why a young women was just on the news a couple days ago here in michigan because she threw her newborn in a dumpster. These laws need to be fixed .

and comment 2:

Melissa Says:

I also forgot to mention that i changed my mind the next day and made the adoption agency and the hospital aware of my decision right away but it took 5 weeks and cost my parents about 20,000 dollars to regain custody of my baby

Thank you Melissa, for taking the time to comment and drawing attention to the problems inherent to these legalized child abandonment schemes.

Lots of people assume that even in cases where the child is eventually reunited that there’s no real downside or cost to having these laws in place. Your story draws attention to the sheer effort, the time lost, and the financial demands to families such programs can create even in cases where the kids do eventually go home with their mothers.

Again, thanks for speaking out.

Case in point?

Glendale, AZ, where a 15 year old gave birth in the hospital bathroom, leaving a baby boy in the bathroom trash can, “about 100 feet from a Safe Haven” dumpbox.

(first reported September 30th.)

Newborn found dead in Glendale hospital bathroom

Glendale police are investigating a baby found dead in a hospital, allegedly in a trash can.

The baby was found on Saturday in the emergency room at Banner Thunderbird Hospital, only about 100 feet from a Safe Haven drop-off location.

A teen went to the emergency room with her mother complaining of stomach and back pains.

The teen then allegedly gave birth in the ER bathroom and did not tell anyone. A member of the cleaning crew found the baby boy in the trash. Police have not confirmed the details.

(Be sure to see the video segment attached to the article, in which the usual refrain of ‘more marketing, more ‘education’ in schools’ is repeated.

Just another in the long sad saga of how these babydump programs (and in this case, specifically, the dumpbox managed to) fail, spectacularly.

My partner and I photographed the Glendale Thunderbird dumpbox, back in May of 2003. At the time, it was located at “Thunderbird Samaritan Medical Center” (now Banner Thunderbird Hospital,) and at the time lamely named the “Thunderbird Nest.

As you can see, the dump site is almost impossible to miss from the emergency room entrance from the parking lot.

Naturally, (for a state that doesn’t offer genuine sex-ed) the ‘who to turn to for help’ listings off the Banner Thunderbird babydump webpage is a who’s who of compulsory pregnancy/anti-abortion coercive pregnancy indoctrination centers and other christian organizations, with Planned Parenthood tucked in as if to offer up some sick version of “fair and balanced” pro-babydump advice.

Apparently everyone’s answer to a program that simply does not work is to throw yet still more resources and effort into it, even as it (to tragic result), fails yet again.

Can anyone doubt that this 15 year old, (now facing down possible prosecution) will now be more than willing to recite precisely what the dump pushers need to have her say, as if on cue?

Of course more education would have helped… if only someone had told me before it was too late! Etc.

Will we be surprised to hear such? Not in the least, we’ve heard it time and time again. What better way to escape prosecution that to do ‘community service’ with the babydump law pushers?

***UPDATE***

Naturally, there’s always more to the story and Marley, over on her Daily Bastardette blog has dug out still more pertinent details. Please see her piece

ARIZONA: MORE “SAFE HAVEN” FANTASY; BLC LINK,

for more details concerning Kimberly Marshall, from the video piece, quoting Marley:

…who is not a physician as labeled in the news report , but the RN who manages the hospital’s Pediatric Ed Clinic,

and sure enough,

Ignored by the press, at least in this specific report, is the fact is Kimberly Marshall is the head of the Arizona Safe Baby Haven Coalition pimping tragedy to pimp her agenda.

is this nonsense getting predictable or what?

about the way boarder babies, those born at hospitals and left there after birth are being systematically folded into babydump, or so called “safe haven” statistics in Ohio.

While this is nothing new, it’s good to see another article pointing out the failures of the “safe haven” legislative schemes (similar to the article about New Jersey doing the same that I blogged earlier, New Jersey- Boarder Babies being folded into “Safe Haven” statistics.)

While “safe haven” legislation pimps continue invoking images of desperate pregnant teens secretly giving birth and claim the legislation is vital, lest these women murder their newborn offspring, and insist that only legislation will keep these babies “SAFE” (from their mothers) clearly border babies, born in hospitals and left when the women check out are not exactly fodder for choking, drowning, suffocating headlines.

Conflating these two scenarios goes beyond disingenuous.

The dump pimps with their pet legislation get to relabel babies born safely in hospital “saves,” the states get to move babies out of their border babies columns and into the “safe havened” column in their statistics, making them look good (and potentially changing their financials as well) but at what cost?

That women who deliver in hospitals and then leave the child at the hospital are now viewed as “safe haven” mothers, or there but for this (et-hem) “Lifesaving” legislation (cough, cough) she may have turned to infanticide?

That the infant themselves will be permanently stripped of biological and family ties, their individual cultural and heritage, and most importantly, their authentic identity all in the name of sliding them into a new class of eventual adoptee or foster child, the anonymized by the state “havened” dumpees?

What does this say about how we as a culture view women and the lifelong genuine needs of the children themselves, in whose name this damnedable legislation was passed in the first place?

The Ohio stats begin to tell the ugly story:

Lucas County Children Services in Toledo has handled six cases since Ohio’s Safe Havens law took effect in 2002, Executive Director Dean Sparks said. All were infants born in hospitals and left there by mothers…

and

Franklin County documented three Safe Havens babies this year, two of which took place in the hospital where the babies were delivered.

Cuyahoga County has had two this year, both in the hospitals where the babies were born.

Neither of those counties, the state’s most populous, could provide details on how and where all of their Safe Havens cases have occurred since 2002.

Due to the lack of reporting requirements (that opponents of the dump laws like myself wanted at the time this terrible legislation was initially passed) the counties , who apparently are unable to account for their dump cases, are the primary form of ’statistical reporting’. The state only collects the data these counties inadequately report.

The bottom line is, no one CAN know how many of these kids have been created. Even the state itself has no idea.

The state doesn’t know, either. The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services cannot provide a statewide breakdown on how Safe Havens cases occur, because it doesn’t keep track, said Jennifer Justice, chief of the Bureau of Family Services.

The raw numbers it reports have varied from 52 to more than 70 since the law went into effect. Justice said the discrepancy probably is due to a new child-welfare computer system.

Michigan and Kentucky’s “stats” tell the same story of border babies routinely reclassified as “safe havens:”

In Michigan, a large majority of the 76 babies given up under the state’s “Safe Delivery” law have been born in hospitals and left there, said Jean Hoffman, a consultant assigned to the program.

In Kentucky, 22 of 24 babies given up since 2002 under that state’s safe-haven law were surrendered in the hospitals where they were born.

The “safe haven” scam is that ultimately these are border babies being given a new more palatable narrative and marketing scheme.

There is already a technical classification for these babies born in hospital, “border babies.” Only lack of awareness of said terminology allows those advocating such schemes to get away with this rebranding.

None-the-less, true believers continue to intone their broken mantra “if it saves just one”, or we need this legislation, otherwise women will kill!

Those of us critical of the emerging babydump industry can’t help but take one look at drivel such as this from an adoption lawyer,

Columbus lawyer Thomas Taneff, who handles many adoptions, said some women incapable of parenting need the option that safe-haven laws afford.

and can’t help but point out that the dump laws provide a new source of (largely information-free, or “as-is”) kids, infusing them into a landscape wherein wanna-be-adopters are a dime a dozen, whereas actual kids to adopt, particularly healthy, white infants, are not surprisingly, utterly scarce. Naturally adoption lawyers, those who earn income from adoptions, are going to be supportive of any law that frees up more “product” to the adoption marketplace.

In the end, the dispatch article points out precisely what critics of the laws have said all along,

On one point, the sides agree: The nation needs reliable data on safe-haven laws, which now are in effect in all 50 states.

Sadly (though not surprisingly,) no. Those who have advocated enacting these laws DO NOT support accurate data collection, they have consistently, actively worked to have any amendment requiring data collection stripped from the final versions of the bills.

They continue to oppose data collection requirements even now after the bills have passed, insisting that reliable data is unnecessary, after all, it allows their claims of ‘thousands of babies saved’ to go unsubstantiated, and unsubstantiatable.

Mind you, when their ’saved” babies are nothing more than born in a hospital, and remaining in a hospital until children’s services come to pick the kid up and enter them into the foster system the whole scheme sounds far less dramatic than the “saved (from ‘potentially murderous mothers’) babies!”

But then that’s the babydump laws for you, marketing and rebranding at it’s best, (well that and a paycheck for the dump pimps.)

MORE DETAILS EMERGE ON BOX BUTTE CASE; LAWMAKERS STILL DON’T GET IT

(Yup, this may be the shortest post in BLC history.)

NEBRASKA: POST-FIASCO BABY CATCH– ‘NO QUESTIONS ASKED”

Both her piece, and this have been crossposted to our Nebraska blog chronicling NE’s series of legalized child dumps, Children of the Corn.

Monday evening a baby boy was left at Box Butte General Hospital in Alliance under Nebraska’s aged down new dump law created over the legislative special session. (Nebraska law, originally accepted older kids, but was “aged down” in the wake of their “big kid” dump fiasco that made international headlines.)

This marks the first legalized infant abandonment in Nebraska since the final “big kid” dump in late November ‘08.

Quoting Marley’s piece,

According to Nebraska Health and Human Services Chief Executive Officer Kerry Winterer (RIP Todd Landry), in an HHS press release:

“It’s important to gather information like family medical history to meet this child’s current and future needs,” he said.

Officials asked that anyone with information call the HHS office in Gering at 308-436-6559, the Box Butte County Sheriff’s Office at 308-762-6464, the Alliance Police Department at 308-762-4955 or the Nebraska State Patrol at 308-632-1211.

While it appears the “fiasco” taught Nebraska at least a little about the vital importance of preserving at least a few scraps of information for the kid, clearly Nebraska has yet to learn the broader lesson:

EVERY SINGLE LEGALIZED CHILD ABANDONMENT MARKS A FAILURE:

• a fundamental failure of the state to protect the long term interests and human rights of these kids.
• A failure of the state to treat these instances as what they are, marking a crisis for the parent (s), be that psychological, economic, covering over traumatic events such as incest or domestic abuse, etc.
• The state inexcusably providing what amounts to a “make it all just go away” vent, whereby underlying core issues, and genuine needs, are simply ignored. The kids themselves are left to deal with the legacy of such.

Monday marks yet another sad day, a day on which the State of Nebraska failed one of its most vulnerable and least able to protect their own interests, and a day when whatever family this child once had is left to disappear into shadows with their own lifetime’s worth of a festering secret that can never be rectified.

Nebraska had an opportunity after seeing what legalized child dumping or what is oh so politely reframed as “safe haven,” meant to those old enough to speak of their own experiences of being “legally abandoned.” An opportunity to dismantle its dump system. Instead they chose to preserve it, aging down to those unable to speak about their own experiences. In essence, Nebraska found a way to silence its most directly affected and experienced critics, at least until they grow older, long after this crop of politicians leaves office.

No, this is not some “greater good,” this is not a “save,” nor should this act be celebrated. This is nothing more than rot from within. Shame on Nebraska for maintaining its system of secrets and lies, pushing the lifelong consequences of such down onto a newborn.