Chicago Tribune’s Article “Open to Interpretation” and My Response

The Chicago Tribune published this article on birth certificate access and reunions:

Open to interpretation

Despite new laws granting access to birth records, many adoptees struggle in search of their past

While people are catching on that it is descriminatory to keep adoptees’ birth certificates sealed, many are missing the point that illegitimacy may have been the cause of the sealed and falsified laws, but there is much more going on.

Because I have been lumped into the category of being illegitimate when I am not, I resent the stigma placed upon me. I resent the stigma placed on my fellow adoptees because this is an out-dated stigma. All humans have value, no matter what the circumstances at birth and childhood.

Here is my posted response to the above article:

The stigma of illegitimacy does not apply to all adoptees. There are adoptees who were adopted by their step parents, adoptees who were taken from married parents and put into foster care and fast tracked into adoption, there are adoptees who were half or full orphaned by the death of one or both parents. In all of the above cases, none of these adoptees were from illegitimate births.

To hold all adoptees in the legal prison of sealed and falsified birth certificates based solely upon the social stigma of illegitimacy is truly discrimination against the class of people known as adoptees. Clearly, it is not the condition of illegitimate birth that makes the government seal and then falsify a new birth certificate for each adoptee, it is the condition of being adopted that sets the series of events into motion that automatically seizes an infant’s or older child’s birth certificate, seals it, and replaces it with a falsified document that states that two biologically unrelated people (to the child) created said child and gave birth to said child.

To stop the discrimination, we must end the process of automatically sealing and falsifying birth certificates of adoptees. Retain the birth certificate as an operable document and then issue an adoption certificate: that is how it is done in more progressive countries, such as The Netherlands.

~ ~ ~ Joan M Wheeler, BA, BSW, born Doris M Sippel, author of Forbidden Family: A Half Orphan’s Account of Her Adoption, Reunion and Social Activism, Trafford Publishing, Nov 2009.

Two Important Discussions on Adoptees Civil Liberties and Debate with ACLU-NJ

On September 2, 2010 By legitimatebastardIn Adoptee Birth Certificates, Adoptee True Sealed Birth Certificate, Adoptees' Civil Rights, mutual consent registries, Natural Mothers, Original Birth Certificate

Sorry, the two comments I quoted in the previous post were not made by Deborah Jacobs, executive director of ACLU of New Jersey, they were made by a prickly commentator. I was so disgusted and personally offended by the comments, I misread the names.

This is the letter written by Deborah Jacobs, executive director of the ACLU of New Jersey. Pay a visit and leave your comments. As soon as I recover and can take a breathe, I’ll be heading over there, again. This has been going on for days…

http://www.dailyrecord.com/article/20100829/OPINION02/100827028/1095/OPINION/ACLU+critic+ends+up+praising+the+organization

ACLU critic ends up praising the organization

and don’t forget to check back with Peter Franklin’s Letter and discussio over at the following link, about the same topic:

http://www.app.com/article/20100830/OPINION04/8310303/Where-are-adoptees-civil-liberties–

Where are adoptees’ civil liberties?

The blatant disreguard of adoptees’ civil rights based on mythology is pathetic…

Where are Adoptees’ Civil Liberties?

On September 2, 2010 By legitimatebastardIn Adoptee Birth Certificates, Adoptee True Sealed Birth Certificate, Adoptees' Civil Rights, Original Birth Certificate

Join in the discussion started by Peter W Franklin about the New Jersey ACLU at:

http://www.app.com/article/20100830/OPINION04/8310303/Where-are-adoptees-civil-liberties–

Where are adoptees’ civil liberties?

Illegitimacy Not the Only Cover-up in Sealed and Falsified Birth Certificates

On September 1, 2010 By legitimatebastardIn Adoptee Birth Certificates, Adoptee False Legal Birth Certificate, Adoptee True Sealed Birth Certificate, Amended Birth Certificate, False Information on Birth Certificate, Original Birth Certificate

Sealed and Falsified Birth Certifciates are not only an “unwed mother’s and her illegitimate child’s” issue, this is an issue for widows, widowers, and their half-orphaned children, and stepparents who adopt step children and children from married parents who are relinquished.

The original intent of the current American system of sealed and falsified birth certificates was started with an idea in 1929 and became a model state law in 1930, upon which individual states voted. Most voted to seal and falsify birth certificates for adoptees to protect the unwed mother’s reputation and to give the adoptee a chance to be “legitimized” by virtue of a new, amended birth certificate. See: Family Matters, Secrecy and Disclosure in the History of Adoption by E. Wayne Carp, 1998, and The Idea of Adoption: An Inquiry into the History of Adult Adoptee Access to Birth Records, Rutgers Law Review, by Elizabeth J. Samuels, 2001.

This protection of the illegitimate child’s legal legitimization morphed into protection of the adopting couple in recent decades.

But people forget that real half and full orphans are adopted. We come from legitimate births, our birth certificates and our births do not need to be legitimized, and our parents are not sinners. This is not an attack on actual illegitimate adoptees and their natural parents, I am simply pointing out facts for the benefit of others.

Half and full orphans, adopted step children, and other children born within a marriage are still subject to the full impact of adoption: their legitimate births are legitimized by the process of the sealing their original birth certificates and falsifying new birth certificates to simulate legitimate births through the process of adoption. Consequently, our married natural parents are now belittled by the process originally meant to target unwed mothers and their illegitimate children.

Sealed and falsified birth certificates presume illegitimacy and the false premise of protection of the unwed mother’s reputation, when, in fact, these are outdated morals and principles. Adoptive parents these days want the protection for themselves to keep the adoptee and natural parents under control and to preserve the adoptive family unit.

Here’s Why UNICEF is Anti-Adoption

On August 16, 2010 By legitimatebastardIn Adoptee Birth Certificates, Adoptee False Legal Birth Certificate, Adoptee True Sealed Birth Certificate, Adoptees' Civil Rights, Adoption Loss, Adoption Trauma, Amended Birth Certificate, False Information on Birth Certificate, Family Preservation, Family Systems, International Adoption, Natural Fathers, Natural Mothers, Original Birth Certificate, Race and Adoption

UNICEF’s position on Inter-country adoption

Since the 1960s, there has been an increase in the number of inter-country adoptions. Concurrent with this trend, there have been growing international efforts to ensure that adoptions are carried out in a transparent, non-exploitative, legal manner to the benefit of the children and families concerned. In some cases, however, adoptions have not been carried out in ways that served the best interest of the children — when the requirements and procedures in place were insufficient to prevent unethical practices. Systemic weaknesses persist and enable the sale and abduction of children, coercion or manipulation of birth parents, falsification of documents and bribery.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child, which guides UNICEF’s work, clearly states that every child has the right to grow up in a family environment, to know and be cared for by her or his own family, whenever possible. Recognising this, and the value and importance of families in children’s lives, families needing assistance to care for their children have a right to receive it. When, despite this assistance, a child’s family is unavailable, unable or unwilling to care for her/him, then appropriate and stable family-based solutions should be sought to enable the child to grow up in a loving, caring and supportive environment.

Inter-country adoption is among the range of stable care options. For individual children who cannot be cared for in a family setting in their country of origin, inter-country adoption may be the best permanent solution.

UNICEF supports inter-country adoption, when pursued in conformity with the standards and principles of the 1993 Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Inter-country Adoptions – already ratified by more than 80 countries. This Convention is an important development for children, birth families and prospective foreign adopters. It sets out obligations for the authorities of countries from which children leave for adoption, and those that are receiving these children. The Convention is designed to ensure ethical and transparent processes. This international legislation gives paramount consideration to the best interests of the child and provides the framework for the practical application of the principles regarding inter-country adoption contained in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. These include ensuring that adoptions are authorised only by competent authorities, guided by informed consent of all concerned, that inter-country adoption enjoys the same safeguards and standards which apply in national adoptions, and that inter-country adoption does not result in improper financial gain for those involved in it.

Unitarian Universalist Church Does Not Quite Get it About Mothers Day and Adoption

On May 9, 2010 By legitimatebastardIn Adoptee False Legal Birth Certificate, Adoptee True Sealed Birth Certificate, Adoptee's Conflicting Emotions, Adoption Loss, Adoption Trauma, Amended Birth Certificate, False Information on Birth Certificate, Family Preservation, Family Systems, Genealogy, Haiti's Orphans, Reproductive technologies, True Birth Certificate for Donor-Conceived, Uncategorized1 Comment

I write today’s blog post from the point of view of being the daughter of two mothers: one who gave me life and the other who raised me.

It is not easy being the daughter of two mothers, especially since my time with my first mother was so short. She died when I was three months old. She was dying during her pregnancy with me — a death that resulted in my father’s grief and belief that his only option and the best choice of action he could do for me was to relinquish me to the total care of another set of parents.

I do not believe that was the best choice. I needed to be with the family I was born into.

But since I was raised instead by a stranger who became my mother through a legal decree, I struggle through the sadness and loss each and every day of my life. I grieve for the family I lost because of adoption. I grieve for the loss of a mother who left the earth far too early. I grieve for the mother who adopted me as she was misguided in her possessiveness. She clings to me now in a nursing home. I give her what I can, but mostly, what’s done is done. I’m sad for her suffering and pending death. I also have a step mother who is married to my natural father.

Mother’s Day is a day of sadness for me.

I start each Sunday, including Mother’s Day, by attending a service at my local UU Church.

It’s bad enough that a dear friend of mine, a mother of adoption loss, will not attend our local UU Church (she used to) for the hypocrisy there. I agree with her. There’s wealthy adoptive parents who give lip-service about the natural parents of the adopted children they hold dear. Like the adoptive mother who got a standing ovation for adopting a three year old Haitian earthquake survivor. And don’t get me started about the abundance of gays and lesbians at church who use ANONYMOUS sperm and eggs and surrogate mothers and don’t seem to care that they willingly withhold knowledge of the absent genetic parent(s) to the children so created. In the face of all of that, I still attend the Buffalo Unitarian Universalist Church. My friend doesn’t. I miss her. I honor her for her integrity to stay away.

I look beyond these human failings, even our minister who spoke awhile back about the appropriations of other religions, or rather, the miss-appropriations, without even noticing, or caring, that many people appropriate other people’s children with a sense of entitlement.

It is not easy to look beyond these in-your-face adoption assaults.

I am at this church weekly for the spiritual, intellectual, and suburb musical performances of our choir and musicians.

Today’s guest minister, Reverend Sally Hamlin, participated in a service inspired and encouraged by Debra Hafner, an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, sexologist and Director of the Religious Institute. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-debra-haffner/honor-thy-mother-reducing_b_549650.html

This was the responsive reading: http://www.religiousinstitute.org/sites/default/files/initiatives/Rachel_Sabbath_Responsive_Reading_Mothers_Day_0.pdf

A Responsive Reading for Mother’s Day

On Mother’s Day, we honor mothers and caregivers everywhere – women who have given birth, women who have adopted children, women who care for the children of others.

We affirm the nurturing love of mothers, and the blessings of parenthood.

We pray for a society in which pregnancy is freely chosen, and mothers and children receive the care and support they need.

We affirm the sanctity of life and the moral agency of women.

We mourn the 1,500 women around the world who will die today in childbirth, or from the complications of pregnancy, because they lack basic health services.

We envision a world where childbirth is safe, and all children are wanted and loved.

Together, we break the silence surrounding women and their partners who suffer infertility, pregnancy loss, still births, and difficulties in adoption.

We bless them and hold them in love.

We celebrate the many ways that people create families and become mothers in our communities.

We call for a commitment to make every day Mother’s Day.

© Religious Institute, 2010, May 9

And this bulletin was read out loud:

Global Maternal Health

* Every minute, a woman dies in childbirth or from pregnancy-related complications – at least half a million women worldwide every year.

* 99 percent of all maternal deaths occur in developing nations. More than half occur in sub-Saharan Africa, and one-third in South Asia.

* Most maternal deaths take place during labor, delivery or in the immediate post-partum period. More than 3.4 million newborns die within the first week of life.

* More than one million children are left motherless every year due to maternal deaths. Children are three to 10 times more likely to die within two years of the mother’s death.

* The leading cause of death for girls ages 15-19 worldwide is pregnancy.

* There is no single cause of death and disability for men that compares with the magnitude of maternal death and disability.

* Doubling current global investments in family planning and pregnancy-related health care (to approximately $24.6 billion) could save the lives of 400,000 women and 1.6 million infants every year.

The Rachel Sabbath Initiative: Saving Women’s Lives supports the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goal 5, which focuses on improving maternal health. The Religious Institute calls on congregations across the country to raise awareness and support for the UN’s targets of reducing maternal mortality worldwide and achieving universal access to reproductive health care by 2015. This initiative is named for the matriarch Rachel, who died in childbirth (Gen. 35:16-20).

Religious Institute, 21 Charles Street, Suite 140, Westport, CT 06880. Join the Faithful Voices Network at http://www.religiousinstitute.org

In an effort to spread the word that maternal health is important, the UU Church sorely misses the mark on the focus of adoption.

Here is what I AM ADDING to the above (in bold and italics):

We don’t have specific statistics, but for every adoptee there is a mother who gave birth. That mother suffers the loss of her child to adoption but society does not recognize nor acknowledge that loss. There are millions of childless mothers (because there are at least 6 to 7 million adoptees in America) who grieve for the loss of their babies and who dread Mother’s Day because they were made feel shame and guilt for even being a mother in the first place. We must practice Adoption Prevention.

A Responsive Reading for Mother’s Day

On Mother’s Day, we honor mothers and caregivers everywhere – women who have given birth, women who have adopted children, women who care for the children of others. We also honor mothers who have lost their infants to unwanted relinquishment to the adoption industry by resolving to end this practice of taking other mothers’ children as our own.

We affirm the sanctity of life and the moral agency of women.

We mourn the 1,500 women around the world who will die today in childbirth, or from the complications of pregnancy, because they lack basic health services. We mourn the countless women around the world who suffer the moral indignation of disrespecting the pregnancies and infant births by the unwanted snatching of their infants at the moment of birth at Crisis Pregnancy Centers and Birthing Rooms that allow adopting couples to witness the sacred moment of birth, and mothers who are victims of Open Adoption scams and Open Adoption Agencies. We mourn the scorn still inflicted upon young teens and young women who are not married and humiliated into giving up their wanted babies because society tells them they cannot parent their own children.

We envision a world where childbirth is safe, and all children are wanted and loved.

Together, we break the silence surrounding women and their partners who suffer infertility, pregnancy loss, still births, and difficulties in adoption. Difficulties in adopting other women’s children? We break the silence that women who desperately want their children are taken advantage of by the cruelty of the adoption industry — women who want their children ought to not suffer their children ripped from their arms into the waiting arms of adopting parents. If and only IF a child does not have caring parents is GUARDIANSHIP NOT ADOPTION ever a substitute for motherhood. In cases of abuse and neglect, removing a child from harm is best, but working toward reunification and stabilization of that family unit is primary to the wholeness of that mother and her children.

We bless them and hold them in love.

We celebrate the many ways that people create families and become mothers in our communities. We celebrate to every mother the right to be mothers in life, and to be named on their child’s birth certificate, not dishonored by sealing and falsifying that document. This means that we honor the facts of birth by issuing ONLY 1 true Certificate of Live Birth and strive for the abolition of the amended birth certificate in adoption; such a document is a mockery of motherhood. Ultimately we strive for the abolition of adoption itself for every mother who gives birth and who wants her child needs to be a mother and every child needs their mother. For adoptive mothers everywhere, we strive for the acceptance that the role of raising children can be handled by a caregiver who is a guardian who does not usurp the dignity of another mother by taking her child.

I have no choice but to accept that I have two mothers: one by birth and one by adoption. My lesson learned from my life lived in this reality is to strive for a better world in which the sanctity of motherhood is respected everywhere on this planet. What might appear to be harsh to the adoptive mothers out there is actually a plea: stop trying to own someone else’s child and if you must fulfill your desire to be in a parenting role, be a guardian and not an adoptive mother. A guardian respects that child’s identity and true mother. Adoption, by its very nature, disrespects both the child and her natural mother by destroying the natural mother-child bond. Caring and love in a parenting role can be achieved by guardianship. Offended? I am offended that my life as the daughter of my mother who died in my infancy was not honored nor respected because of the all-almighty power of adoption.

~ ~ ~ Joan M Wheeler, BA, BSW, author of Forbidden Family: A Half Orphan’s Account of Her Adoption, Reunion and Social Activism, Trafford Publishing, Nov 2009.

PS — See this post: Happy Birthmother Day or Happy Adopter Day; and this quote from AustinHolistic : Which makes me think, if a woman wants her child, we need to provide emotional support, financial support, and psychological support for women who want their children: and this post with this quote: There is no paradox, no contradiction and certainly no upside in having been on the loosing end of the adoption exchange.

My Response to Sara Feigenholtz: No Thanks for the Insult

On April 28, 2010 By legitimatebastardIn Adoptee Birth Certificates, Adoptee False Legal Birth Certificate, Adoptee True Sealed Birth Certificate, Adoptees' Civil Rights, Amended Birth Certificate, False Information on Birth Certificate, Original Birth Certificate, True Birth Certificate for Donor-Conceived3 Comments

Sara Feigenholtz spouted off to an adoption reformer on Monday. Bastardette wrote a post displaying the email and commentary yesterday; see it here.

After reading Ms. Feigenholtz’s email, I decided to give Sara an education by writing her a real letter:

April 27, 2010

Sara Feigenholtz, Illinois State Representative

1051 W. Belmont

Chicago, Illinois 60657

staterep12@aol.com

Dear Sara Feigenholtz:

Sara, you, or a staff member using your email address, wrote the following email to an adoption reformer; shame on you. Very unprofessional, indeed:

To:Lori Jeske

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

Subject: Re: HB 5428

Lori:

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

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

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

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

We will tell them that you would prefer to throw good under the bus while waiting for perfect and that you think they should wait a little longer.

Good luck in Washington state with your efforts. We can hear the unsealing now…….

NOT.

YOu sound so positive and committed to opening all records that I wish you could give me the key to your adoption.

Sara, I demand a written apology from you. I am an adoptee, but I am not a bastard.

Sara, I hereby take you up on your offer for a job. I live in the frozen tundra of Buffalo, New York, so moving to Illinois will not be that much of hardship for me. I am a disabled social worker, (SSI not SSDI) disabled by 54 years of stress caused by adoption and ignorance. You will have to provide me with accommodations to my disabilities (which I will not discuss with you until I have the job you offer).

I have sacrificed my life by working on adoption reform and personal recovery from adoption trauma since I was 18 years old. I have been fighting prejudice against all adoptees and our natural parents since 1974. I have been victimized by adoption for all of my life.

I will be happy to work with you to devise a clean bill that will not give compromises: you either have full civil rights, or you don’t. Adoption reform legislation should give all adoptees what they deserve: unconditional access to certified copies of their true and sealed birth certificates. No person is under parental authority after the age of majority, and so it should be in adoption reform.

In fact, I have already done the work for the Federal level. See: Chapter 41, Proposal for Federal Legislation on Adoptees’ Birth Records, in my enclosed book, Forbidden Family: A Half Orphan’s Account of Her Adoption, Reunion and Social Activism, Trafford Publishing (http://www.trafford.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-000137652). See also: Chapter 37, Presenting My Personal Documents as Evidence of State Fraud. See also: Chapter 38, Unequal Treatment of 1 Half Orphan Out of 36 Resulted in a Traumatic Life Outcome — A Social Work Assessment (of my adoption). Yes: three out of four families (my adoptive mother’s family, my adoptive father’s family and my natural mother’s family) all conspired to keep me away from my siblings and my father. These are the keys to my adoption, as you snidely asked Lori Jeske to provide to you about her adoption. I know you mean legislative and legal keys, but without understanding the family dynamics, you won’t have a clear picture of the destruction caused by adoption. Once you see how the interwoven family dynamics worked within, and because of, the framework of legal adoption, you then have a better picture of what to do to dismantle the beast of adoption and free its victims.

So you think all adoptees are ungrateful bastards, do you? Well, I am not a bastard, but I AM an ungrateful half orphan, dear Queen Sara. How dare you insult me and my fellow adoptees!

Adoptees come in all flavors: adopted by step parents — meaning that they were conceived within a marriage; children of married parents are lost to adoption for a variety of reasons; and many of us were born legitimately but lost one of both parents by death — we are either half or full orphans. All of us in these sub-categories of adoptees are technically NOT illegitimate bastards, but we are all funneled together with bastards under the sealed records laws of adoption. By law, I am treated like a bastard because New York State seized my birth certificate as if I were a criminal, then issued a falsified birth certificate that indicates I was born to woman who factually did not give birth to me.

Meanwhile, illegitimate bastards are conceived everyday and live with their parents in their common-law marriages, and these bastards are never “legitimized” by adoption, nor are they ever given a “new” birth certificate, nor is their birth certificate ever sealed. Not one single legislator has ever given me an explanation for the direct discrimination against all adoptees. In a society that glorifies: single women (lesbians or straight women) with money who can pay for fertility treatments using anonymous sperm; or gay men who use the services of a rental womb of a surrogate mother and then use anonymous eggs to create children; or married people who trick their children into believing that they were conceived within a marriage when, in reality, a mother accepts anonymous sperm and pretends that her husband is the father and that child’s birth certificate does not reflect the truth — NONE of these DC (Donor Conceived) individuals are considered illegitimate bastards, nor are they treated as such in society or by laws that seal and then falsify their birth certificates.

I deeply resent being swept up in the dirt bag and persecuted because I am a half orphaned adoptee. My mother DIED when I was three months old. I was the youngest of five children born to married parents. My father relinquished me and kept the others. And I am expected to be grateful for being raised for 18 years in the same city as my siblings, yet being forced to live a life in protected custody apart from them. Disgusting. This was not only identity theft, but child abuse of me, and the siblings from which I was separated.

At age 54, I am still legally banned from obtaining my own birth certificate, yet my full blood siblings (who also lost their mother and who are also half orphans) can get their birth certificates. We have the same parents. The only difference is that I was surrendered to a closed and sealed adoption.

Adoption is destruction of personhood and family. It should be abolished. And don’t give me any crap such as “what about the children who need homes?” I did not need a new home, my adopting parents wanted a child; it was their insistence that I never see my own full blood siblings. I needed my birth identity and my siblings and my father. I needed to be told when and how my mother died. I needed to be taken to her graveside on Mother’s Day and her birthday and my birthday. I needed the truth. If a child is truly homeless and family-less, then guardianship needs to replace adoption. Guardianship retains the child’s identity and birth certificate, retains family connections and identity formation while providing a home for that child. That’s why I wrote my book as a testimony as to the destructiveness of adoption.

I needed then, as I do now, unconditional access to my sealed and certified real birth certificate. I also need my amended birth certificate stamped in big red letters: VOID. I demand a truthful Certificate of Adoption issued to replace this lousy piece of garbage that I must hold up as my real birth certificate.

The Bill you propose, should I live in Illinois, would not benefit me in any way.

I have worked in adoption reform for the past 36 years. Give me a job, Sara, and I’ll show you how to write a Bill that will take care of adoptees’ long-overdue and long-abused civil rights. Adoptive parents and natural parents do not have the authority over anyone over the Age of Majority. In most states the Age of Majority is 18, some states it is 19, and some states it is 21. If young adults are allowed to die for their country in war, they can certainly have the maturity to handle the emotional impact of their civil rights to the truth of their births. And for those of adoptees who are aging, get the job done right: include us all in clean legislative action. Obviously, I do not buy the notion that this is a State-by-State issue. Civil rights are a Federal concern.

Your website says that you are an “adult adoptee”. Really? You sure holler as a two-faced bigot. Stop being so patronizing.

I hereby submit my bill for adoption consultant fees of $500 an hour for 2 hours, $45 for the cost of my book, and $20 for shipping and handling to mail the book and legislative tips to you.

Very Truly Yours,

Joan M Wheeler

born as

Doris M Sippel

I do mean TRULY. I know my birthname and I have my birth certificates because my father gave them to my adopting parents, but I am still legally banned from obtaining my short and long form OBC from the Registrar of Vital Statistics in Buffalo. America is not a free country.

* * *

Other bloggers on Sara Feigenholtz’s email:

Cheaper Than Therapy: http://lilwalnutbrain.blogspot.com/2010/04/asshat-of-week-illinois-rep-sara.html

Baby Love Child: http://www.babylovechild.org/2010/04/27/illinois-hb5428-and-rep-sara-feigenholtzs-offices-contemptuous-use-of-the-term-ungrateful-bastards/

73adoptee: http://73adoptee.blogspot.com/2010/04/so-called-champion-of-adoptees-illinois.html

Bastard Grannie Annie: http://bastardgrannyannie.blogspot.com/2010/04/another-open-letter-to-representative.html

The Daily Bastardette: http://bastardette.blogspot.com/2010/04/sara-speaks-sara-feigenholtz-tells-us.html

~ ~ ~ Joan M Wheeler, BA, BSW, author of Forbidden Family: A Half Orphan’s Account of Her Adoption, Reunion and Social Activism, Trafford Publishing, Nov 2009.

Musings From Mary on Adoptees’ Original Birth Certificates and Ancestors

On April 22, 2010 By legitimatebastardIn Adoptee Birth Certificates, Adoptee False Legal Birth Certificate, Adoptee True Sealed Birth Certificate, Adoptees' Civil Rights, Amended Birth Certificate, False Information on Birth Certificate, Genealogy, Original Birth Certificate

Mary L. Foess, adoptee and activist, founder & president of Bonding by Blood, Unlimited, of Vassar, Michigan (since 1988) writes today’s Guest Post:

Wednesday April 21, 2010 (yesterday) is our THIRD hearing in front of the committee for the House of Representatives in our state of Michigan. I will be there, again…for the 3rd time. The irony is, speaking from a non-legal lawyer type convoluted laws angle, it is ironical that those of us who have American Indian blood have to have about 25% to qualify for having our sealed, OBC unsealed. This is discriminatory toward we ‘mostly ‘white’ people. My ancestors on Father’s side go back to the VERY earliest settlers from England…and many signers of the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, the U.S. Constitution, 2 direct line veterans of the Revolutionary War (great times 5 and great times 4 grandfathers in my bio-dad’s line), and at least 8 U.S. presidents…yet I cannot get my OBC unsealed from Washington DC. Their excuse is ‘jurisdictional boundaries’ between Washington DC, and Maryland, where my adoption record/file was unsealed. Washington DC won’t give it to me ’cause the finalization was in Maryland. My American Indian ancestors OWNED Maryland and Washington DC…and Virginia. An illegal alien can sneak into the U.S.A, give birth, and the offspring has full rights – – – citizenship and his/her birth certificate. Yet, I cannot. I am a descendant of 3 lines from Mayflower family lines. YET, I AM DENIED MY TRUE RECORD OF MY BIRTH.

~ ~ ~ Written by Mary L Foess.

~ ~ ~ Posted by Site Administrator Joan M Wheeler, BA, BSW, author of Forbidden Family: A Half Orphan’s Account of Her Adoption, Reunion and Social Activism, Trafford Publishing, Nov 2009.

Bastard Nation Action Alert: Illinois HB 5428

Distribute Freely and Quickly!

BASTARD NATION ACTION ALERT!
URGENT!
ILLINOIS GROUND ZERO

CONTACT GOVERNOR PAT QUINN NOW

Don’t let Illinois gut what few rights
Illinois adoptees still possess!

This afternoon the Illinois Senate passed HB 5428:
the Illinois Adoption CI/Registry Cash Cow Protection Act

HB 5428 is NOT an original birth certificate access bill
HB 5428 is NOT an adoptee rights bill
HB 5428 is NOT an adoption reform bill

HB 5428 is an adoption industry bill, dressed up as obc access, intended to kill rights-based adoptee access to our own birth records.

HB 5428 is an Illinois Adoption Registry and Medical Exchange (IARME) promotion bill with virtually no support from adoptee rights and adoption reform advocates and organizations.

HB 5428 separates adoptees into two classes by date of birth and then into numerous subclasses of “access” and “contact” eligibility dependent on parental and state “consent”

HB 5428 “grants” rights to some at the expense of others.

HB 5428 criminalizes adoptees that use information from the IARME to locate and contact families of origins.

HB 5428 dictates relationships between adults

THE BILL IS HERE: http://www.ilga.gov/ legislation/fulltext.asp? DocName=09600HB5428eng&GA=96& SessionId=76&DocTypeId=HB& LegID=50466&DocNum=5428&GAID= 10&Session=HB%3C/span

GO HERE FOR BN TESTIMONY AND TALKING POINTS http://bastardnation.blogspot. com/2010/04/bastard-nation- testimony-hb-5428-oppose.html

Contact Governor Pat Quinn immediately and ask him to veto HB 5428

Springfield Office
Office of the Governor
207 State House
Springfield , IL 62706
Phone: 217-782-0244
TTY: 888-261-3336

Chicago Office
Office of the Governor
James R. Thompson Center
100 W. Randolph , 16-100
Chicago , IL 60601
Phone: 312-814-2121

EMAIL TEMPLATE: http://www.illinois.gov/gov/ contactthegovernor.cfm

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization
P.O. Box 1469 | Edmond , OK 73083-1469 | Phone / Fax: 415-704-3166
www.bastards.org
bn@bastards.org

~ ~ ~ posted for Bastard Nation by Site administrator Joan M Wheeler, BA, BSW, author of Forbidden Family: A Half Orphan’s Account of Her Adoption, Reunion and Social Activism, Trafford Publishing, Nov 2009.

Predatory Pedophile Catholic Priests Fathered Children

On April 21, 2010 By legitimatebastardIn Adoptee True Sealed Birth Certificate, Adoptees' Civil Rights, Amended Birth Certificate, False Information on Birth Certificate, Family Preservation, Genealogy, Original Birth Certificate3 Comments

Much has been written about the now-worldwide phenomenon of predatory pedophile Catholic priests who molested young boys, but it is important to note that priests also molested young girls and older teens. These girls and young women (how many?) were also impregnated by these priests.

A recent NPR audio caught my ear on Tuesday, April 20, 2010’s Morning Edition: “Priest’s Dual Legacy: Transgressions And Money”. The transcript can be found here: http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=126116570

NPR hosts Steve Inskeep and Renee Montagne use these statements to introduce the story:

STEVE INSKEEP, host:

Father Marcial Maciel built the conservative Legion of Christ into a
powerful Catholic order. Over several decades, Maciel raised millions of dollars for the church. Some estimate the order’s assets are worth $20 billion. After Maciel died in 2008, his order revealed that he had fathered a daughter. Others have come forward claiming to be his sons.

RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

There were years of allegations ignored by the Vatican that Father Maciel sexually abused seminarians as young as 12. Our next guest has reported that Father Maciel hid his secret life by buying the protection of key Vatican officials.

The fact that Father Marcial Maciel fathered children does not seem to be an issue; discussion of the money and assets followed. The adult children get an “honorable mention”, but the mothers of these children get NO mention at all. The story focuses on the MONEY but is missing crucial details.

While this story focuses on just one priest, it raises the as-yet-not-publicly-addressed topic of what happened to the children of these predatory priests? What happened to the mothers of these priests’ children?

I’ve recently been told by a friend, Mary L. Foess (Bonding By Blood, Unlimited) that this a major reason why The Catholic Church and its organizations oppose the opening of birth and adoption records to adoptees. This makes sense, but is not addressed by main stream media — not even NPR.

Mary adds:

The main reason which I believe is responsible for lobbies for adoption agency, owned by Catholic Church organizations, ones which keep blocking the release of original birth certificates to persons formerly adopted as children, is this: Once the mother is found by this adult who was adopted, she will then tell her adult ‘child’ who his/her father is. This may lead straight to the priest. There are adoption agencies funded by Catholic church sources; they have powerful lobbies. The Associations for Lawyers, too, block these bills, too, by opposing them when they speak in committee meetings (public hearings). Some birthdads, too, are ‘married men’ who had an affair with these birth mothers.

The Catholic Church’s opposition to unsealing birth and adoption records to adoptees is based upon the unspoken and unacknowledged problem that many, possibly thousands, of priests are indeed fathers — and not just “men of the cloth” religious fathers. The Church wants to keep under wraps the identities of priests who sired out-of-wedlock babies.

For the girls and young women involved, the cover-up means that they remained silent for decades because they conceived outside of marriage. The shame of conceiving through the rape of a priest is even more horrifying. These girls and young women were, of course, forced into relinquishing their illegitimate children, sentencing both the mothers and their adopted-out offspring into lifetimes of shame, degradation and guilt.

But that shame, guilt and degradation doesn’t belong on the young mothers and their children. Let’s put the shame and blame where it belongs: on the not-married fathers — priests — who, not only molested children, but broke their vows of celibacy, destroyed trust, mocked their vocational priesthood and took away the innocence of thousands of children, and their own children.

A very long time ago, I watched the romantic movie series The Thornbirds, about a priest and his love for a woman. Romantic and melancholy, this story tugged at my heart. That was when I was much younger than what I am now. Now, decades later, the thought turns my stomach. Not because I don’t think priests ought to be married, but because if marriage were allowed, perhaps some of the sexual problems of priests might be solved.

We have real-live adoptees who want their birth certificates unsealed, who want their adoption records unsealed, and who want to know who is responsible for giving them life. Because the Catholic lobby is so strongly opposed to opening these records, these adoptees will never know the truth. Correction, these specific adoptees — and millions of other adoptees not produced by predatory pedophile priests — are forced to live life not knowing the truth of their births because protecting the identities of these flaky fathers is more important than fessing-up, telling the truth, admitting to the sins committed and going about the business of rectifying the wrongs. Opening birth and adoption records would help millions of adoptees answer their questions of personal identity, but the Catholic Church says no.

Perhaps the reason the world has not heard about this issue is because The Catholic Church cannot cope with more public scrutiny.

I want to know why more Senior Mothers, and perhaps younger women who were impregnated by priests, do not step forward. The shame is not on you, the shame belongs on the perpetrator. Your adult children need you to step forward and step up to the plate to rally with adoptees to open birth and adoption records. Let’s start naming names of the priests who first committed the rapes, and then causing pregnancies, and who then forced the relinquishment of thousands of their own children.

Father Marcial Maciel of the conservative Legion of Christ is not the only priest to have fathered out-of-celibacy and out-of-wedlock illegitimate children. Who are the others?

~ ~ ~ Joan M Wheeler, BA, BSW, author of Forbidden Family: A Half Orphan’s Account of Her Adoption, Reunion and Social Activism, Trafford Publishing, Nov 2009.

~ ~ ~

By coincidence, the following was sent via Adoption News Service about the fight for open records in New Jersey where adoptees are being held back by the Catholic Conference:

http://www.northjersey.com/news/opinions/91678409_The_Record__Letters__April_21__2010.html?c=y&page=2

At adoption standoff’s center

Regarding Contributing Editor James Ahearn’s “Battle to open adoption records” (Opinion, Page O-2, April 18):

The true battle is the adoption community (to include birth mothers) against the Catholic Church.

Ahearn has written on priestly abuses in the past, so it is especially frustrating that he did not make the connection that the church wants secrecy in adoption to protect clerics who are, well, fathers.

Ahearn goes on to say that there are Democrats and Republicans on each side. Really? That’s funny. In the state Senate, only one Democrat voted against the bill to give adult adoptees access to their birth certificates and family medical histories of their birth parents.

The adoption community longs for a brave editor or reporter who might think it a bit funny that the Catholic Church is advocating for secrecy over transparency.

Peter W. Franklin

Haskell, April 19

The writer is associated with the Web site AdopteesWithOutLiberty.com.

http://adopteeswithoutliberty.com/