Musings From Mary on Adoptees’ Original Birth Certificates and Ancestors

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/

Vital Statistics of Adoptees are Government-Imposed Misrepresentation of Material Facts of Birth and Official Denial of Adoption

On April 16, 2010 By legitimatebastardIn Adoptee Birth Certificates, Adoptee False Legal Birth Certificate, Adoptee True Sealed Birth Certificate, Amended Birth Certificate, False Information on Birth Certificate, Uncategorized

I had to fill out yet another government form today:

“I am the individual to whom the information/record applies or that person’s parent (if a minor) or legal guardian. I know that if I make any misrepresentation which I know is false to obtain information from Social Security records, I could be punished by a fine, imprisonment or both.”

Each time an adoptee fills out a form that requires “name, date and place of birth” that adoptee is either knowingly or unknowingly lying. Adoptees are forced to lie by the very nature and status of our known and unknown identities. All adoptees have a legal identity that is different from their identity at birth. And, officially, our adoptions are not acknowledged as part of our identity.

I rush through the data, seething inside:

Name: Joan Mary Wheeler

Date of Birth: 1-7-1956

That is my legal identity. But I was not born with that name. In fact, Joan Wheeler did not legally exist until one year and one month AFTER my date of birth. Joan Wheeler was adopted not born. To be accurate and truthful: I was born to a mother who is not my legal mother and no paperwork exists — legally — to prove my birth. So I am forced to lie whenever I write my name and date of birth. To be accurate I should write the following on all forms:

Name: Doris M Sippel

Date of Birth: 1-7-1956

Date of Finalization of Adoption: 1-14-1957

Date of legal name change: 1-14-1957

Date of sealing and falsification of birth record: somewhere between 1-14-1957 and March 1957.

Date adoptive parents received new, amended and falsified birth record for Doris Sippel/Joan Wheeler: March 1957

So, when I see these words on government forms: “I know that if I make any misrepresentation which I know is false… I could be punished by a fine, imprisonment or both”, I take that as a threat to me by my government. Each and every time I am forced to write my name and date of birth, I know I have to write the accepted version of truth for simplicity’s sake. I am, however, forced to live lies perpetrated by my city, state and federal governments.

The ones guilty of fraud and perjury (misrepresentation of material facts; false statements of facts) are: the Surrogate Court Judge who signed my Final Order of Adoption; The Registrar of Vital Statistics of Buffalo, New York; New York State Department of Health; and the US Federal Government for lack of clarity and standardization of birth and adoption records.

The United States of America needs a federal mandate to correct these inconsistencies for all domestic and foreign-born adoptees.

Join in the fight to change our laws by clicking on these links: Equal Access for Adult Adoptees: http://www.change.org/petitions/view/equal_access_for_adult_adoptees (a Petition to the President of the United States and the US House of Representatives); Letter to President Obama at Family Preservation: http://familypreservation.blogspot.com/2010/01/call-for-signatures.html; Adoptees: Fight for the right to your own identity in Illinois! http://www.change.org/petitions/view/adoptees_fight_for_the_right_to_your_own_identity_in_illinois; Restore Adult Adoptee Access to Original Birth Certificates http://www.change.org/petitions/view/restore_adult_adoptee_access_to_original_birth_certificates.

~ ~ ~ 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.

Update on Maria Venus Raj’s Birth Certificate and the Miss Philippines Contest

On April 13, 2010 By legitimatebastardIn Amended Birth Certificate, False Information on Birth Certificate, Original Birth Certificate

There is a birth certificate issue in the story of Maria Venus Raj re-gaining her crown for the Miss Philippines contestant for the upcoming Miss Universe Pageant.

There are translation problems in this reporting, so I’ll try to update this post in English, or clarify, later.

On April 13, 2010, Fiona Acaba reports in her article that

Binibining PilipinasCharities reconsidered returning the Bb. Pilipinas Universe crown to Maria Venus Raj after a series of investigations. The beauty queen felt relieved and happy to learn that she will be the one to represent the Philippines in the Miss Universe pageant. “Sobrang natutuwa po ako na lahat ng paghihirap namin talagang nagbunga,” Maria Venus said. Her friends and supporters are also happy with the news because they believe that Venus deserves it. They are confident that Venus will make Filipinos proud in the 2010 Miss Universe pageant.

The Binibining Pilipinas Charities and the Dept of Foreign Affairs have stipulated

She needs to ensure a valid passport which the DFA will thoroughly check through a committee. … “Kung may pagaalinlangan sa mga entries sa birth certificate, humihingi po ang DFA ng supporting or secondary documents, school records, voter’s ID, baptismal certificate and there will be a committee who will be responsible for the recommendations,” a DFA representative said. He also made a reminder for all Filipinos who will be applying for a passport so as to avoid any problems in the future. “Ingatan po ang pag-fill up ng application form ng birth certificate at ibapa pong documents na magiging basehan ng paga-approveng passport at importante po na may integridad po ang ating birth certificate.

Yes, I know the Philippine language does not translate well. If anyone from the Philippinesreads this post, please jot down a comment for translation help to improve our understanding of the issues here.

In an article mostly in the Philippine language dated April 5^th, Bernie Franco reported inconsistencies in the contestant’s birth certificate. Franco quotes Maria Venus Raj

“Sobrang sakit lang po sa akin ang sinasabi nila na I am disqualified kasi I am born out of wedlock and hindi ako qualified for Miss Universe (pageant) dahil hindi ako ipinanganak sa Pilipinas at kung may inconsistencies man po, sa tingin ko, hindi ko kasalanan ‘yon,” …. ‘I am Maria Venus Raj, I was born in Qatar, I was raised here in the Philippines.’”

When one examines the following paragraphsclosely, one can see that the problem lies in misleading documentationof Raj’s birth.

Inamin din ni Venus na aware siya sa inconsistency na nakalagay sa birth certificate niya na sa Camarines Sur siya isinilang subalit nagpapakilala siyang isinilang sa Qatar, pero hindi na niya inayos pa ito dahil sa simula pa lang ng competition ay alam na raw ito ng Binibining Pilipinas management. “Mahirap kaming pamilya, kung magulang ka ang iisipin n’yo lang ay pampakain sa mga anak n’yo. Iisipin n’yo pa ba ‘yung mga dokumentong ito na gagamitin sa pagsali sabeauty contest?” himutok pa ng dalaga.

May isang rebelasyon ding inihayag si Venus hinggil sa kanyang birth certificate. “Ang totoo po ang tita ko ang nagpa-register sa akin nung bata ako kasithree years after (akong ipinanganak nang ipa-register). Ang nanay ko nahihiya po siya noon na lumalabas at magpa-register sa akin kasi tsinitsismis ng mga tao na nasa paligid niya,” pag-amin niya. “Hindi alam ng nanay ko na ‘yun ang information na sinabi ngtita ko so ‘yun po ang pagkakamaling hindi kasalan ng nanay ko at hindi ko rin kasalanan.”

Nilinaw ni Venus na hindi siya galit sa pamunuan ng Binibining Pilipinas at ang tanging hiling ay linawin sa kanya ang dahilan ngpagkaka-disqualify sa kanya na sinabi pa nang matapos siyang makoronahan. “Sana linawin nila ang dahilan ng pag-dethrone sa akin kasi hindi po malinaw. Alam ko po nakapasa ako kung anuman ang qualifications na mayroon sila at sigurofrom the very beginning sana sinabi nila para hindi napo ako umasa. Hindi ako nagtago sa kanila, hindi ako nagsinungaling sa kanila from the very beginning may mga videos na makapagpapatunay nito noon pa lang. I know I deserve the crown at wala po akong nakikita para i-disqualify nilaako for that.”

Because I don’t have the definitive translation, I can only guess at the exact reasoning. As stated in my previous post about this, I questioned if this was an adoption. If so, then there would be two different birth certificates for Raj. If this is not an adoption, but a question of illegitimate birth, then there is still the point of being discriminated against because of circumstances of one’s birth. If this is an adoption, the inconsistencies between two birth certificates would be because one birth certificate shows the actual facts of birth, and the birth certificate issued after an adoption shows falsified information placed upon an official government document as per the guidelines of the automatic issuance of false birth certificate upon adoption.

I may be totally wrong in my assessment due to the inability to read the foreign language. If so, my apologies to all involved.

However, it does need to be stated that the circumstances of one’s birth, or adoption, need not interfere with any life goal of a person. How one enters the world, or how one is transferred from one country to another as a minor child, or how one becomes the adopted child of married adopting parents, or how one’s parents later marry — are all circumstances out of control for a minor child. The child grows into an adult. Upon adulthood, a person must be judged by character, or in this case, beauty and qualities within the guidelines of a beauty pageant. One’s birth or subsequent marriage of parents or adoption should not interfere with the achievements of that person as an adult.

Maria Venus Raj: good luck to you.

~ ~ ~ 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.

Philippines’ Miss Universe Contestant Ousted Because of False Information on Her Birth Certificate

On April 1, 2010 By legitimatebastardIn Adoptees' Civil Rights, Amended Birth Certificate, False Information on Birth Certificate, Original Birth Certificate2 Comments

Another stunning announcement about birth certificates, this time from the Miss Philippines-Universe organization. Maria Venus Raj was disqualified not because she was born in Qatar, but because:

she got the boot after local organizers realized she was born overseas to an Indian man and Filipina mother, who were not married.

Her citizenship was not questioned, but the status of her parentage was:

because her birth certificate contained false information, such as she was born in the Philippines to married parents.

The un-named runner-up will replace Maria Venus Raj in the summertime Miss Universe contest.

Enough of beauty woes, what I want to know is: was she adopted? Did she have a sealed original birth certificate that indicated that her true parents of birth were not married? Did her amended birth certificate indicate she was “born” to married parents? How was this discovered? If Maria Venus Raj was adopted, then this is yet another case of discrimination against an adoptee.

If not, was her birth certificate part of an identity scam to cover up her illegitimate status and help her win by pretending that she was born to married parents?

Why should the single or married status of one’s parents’ be the determining factor in winning or losing a contest, or holding a job, or any title?

And if this really is a case of a sealed original birth certificate vs an officially falsified “new” amended birth certificate and this IS an adoption, then this is truly evidence of the crimes commited by adults who were in charge of an innocent baby girl. The ones who seal and falsify birth certificates of adoptees are at fault.

Guess we will never know the truth in this case. Just another adoptee who can go through life with a false birth certificate and that’s okay, until she tries to do something she wants to do for herself, and then, she gets booted — for false information on her birth certificte — as if it is her fault.

If this is due to falsified birth records that are routinely falsfied because of adoption (and not the OTHER kind of birth certificate fraud, maybe The Hague or The United Nations should look into ALL birth certificates of ALL adoptees to make sure we ALL know who we were really born to and who we weren’t born to.

Certificate of Adoption anyone?

~ ~ ~ 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.

For Pennsylvania Adoptees: House Bill 1978 is an Unrestrictive Bill That Would Allow Copies of OBC to Adoptees

On March 31, 2010 By legitimatebastardIn Adoptee Birth Certificates, Adoptee True Sealed Birth Certificate1 Comment

THIS MESSAGE MAY BE FORWARDED FREELY.

HB 1978 pending in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives is an unrestricted bill that would allow adopted adults born in Pennsylvania to obtain a copy of their original birth certificate.

If you have an adoption connection to Pennsylvania or are a resident of Pennsylvania – and you support this legislation – please send your name, address and email to choard@comcast.net so that you can be added to our database. As the bill progresses, we will keep you updated.

Carolyn Hoard

West Grove, PA

www.americanadoptioncongress.org

~ ~ ~ posted by legitimatebastard for Carolyn Hoard of the American Adoption Congress.

~ ~ ~ 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. Book Sales Link

Guest Post: Census Rant

On March 14, 2010 By legitimatebastardIn Adoptee Birth Certificates, Adoptee False Legal Birth Certificate, Adoptee True Sealed Birth Certificate, Adoptees' Civil Rights, Adoption Psychology, Family Preservation, Family Systems, Genealogy, Race and Adoption, True Birth Certificate for Donor-Conceived1 Comment

Recently, I found the 2010 Census form hanging on my door. As I began filling it out, I came across a dilemma. The U.S. government wants to know if my children are adopted or not and it wants to know what our races are. Being adopted myself, I had to put “Other” and “Don’t Know Adopted” for my race and “Other” and “Don’t Know” for my kids’ races.

Can you imagine not knowing your ethnicity, your race? Now imagine walking into a vital records office and asking the clerk for your original birth certificate only to be told “No, you can’t have it, it’s sealed.”

How about being presented with a “family history form” to fill out at every single doctor’s office visit and having to put “N/A Adopted” where life saving information should be?

Imagine being asked what your nationality is and having to respond with “I don’t know”.

It is time that the archaic practice of sealing and altering birth certificates of adopted persons stops.

Adoption is a 5 billion dollar, unregulated industry that profits from the sale and redistribution of children. It turns children into chattel who are re-labeled and sold as “blank slates”.

Genealogy, a modern-day fascination, cannot be enjoyed by adopted persons with sealed identities. Family trees are exclusive to the non-adopted persons in our society.

If adoption is truly to return to what is best for a child, then the rights of children to their biological identities should NEVER be violated. Every single judge that finalizes an adoption and orders a child’s birth certificate to be sealed should be ashamed of him/herself.

Sincerely,

Mara Rigge

~ ~ ~

Posted by Joan M Wheeler at the request of Mara Rigge, March 14, 2010.

Vote Today For Adoptees’ Civil Rights to their Original Birth Certificates, Even if You are Living in a Foreign Country

On March 9, 2010 By legitimatebastardIn Adoptee Birth Certificates, Adoptee False Legal Birth Certificate, Adoptee True Sealed Birth Certificate, Adoptees' Civil Rights, Adoption Loss, Genealogy

This Idea for Change in America: Return Adult Adoptees the right to their Original Birth Certificates, is now down to 13th place. We need to be in the Top 10 for this Idea to be presented to President Obama and his administration. We have until Friday March 12th at 5pm to vote.

Click the link below to VOTE YES and to read the discussion comments.
http://www.change.org/ideas/view/return_adult_adoptees_the_right_to_their_original_birth_certificates
Even if you live in a foreign country, please vote for American adoptees to have the right to receive a Certified copy of their Original Birth Certificate! I know my readership is worldwide, so come on folks! All it takes is a personal conviction that adoptees deserve the same civil rights as non-adopted people do! Vote today! Many countries worldwide have what we need in America!

Thank You!

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.

Access to Adoptees’ Birth Certificates is Not Enough to Break the Cycle

On March 5, 2010 By legitimatebastardIn Adoptee Birth Certificates, Adoptee False Legal Birth Certificate, Adoptee True Sealed Birth Certificate, Adoptees' Civil Rights

There’s an incredible discussion about Cully Ray’s and Mara Rigge’s Idea for Change in America at the change.org website:

http://www.change.org/ideas/view/return_adult_adoptees_the_right_to_their_original_birth_certificates

Go there to vote in favor of true Open Records for Adoptees. Read the comments and add your own!

My last comment there was this:

If you doubt just how deeply Christian thought is entrenched in adoption, a close look at the Missionaries from Idaho in Haiti, is in order. Just a few adoptees’ blogs will indicate the destruction done by Christian adoptors of orphans:

http://www.babylovechild.org/2010/03/02/laura-silsbys-pipedreams-of-a-future-in-the-child-containment-industry/

http://bastardette.blogspot.com/2010/03/waitng-for-god-silsby-still-waiting.html

http://bastardette.blogspot.com/2010/03/more-trouble-for-laura-silsby-dumped-by.html

Keep this in mind: the law behind the present system of documenting births and adoptions for adoptees in America was begun in 1930 under the guise of “protecting” illegitimate children from learning embarrassing facts about how they came to be, therefore, the justification for making “new” birth certificates for adoptees was the idea of lifting them up from the status of a less-valued birth to that of being adopted “anew”.

I must be the only ORPHAN to speak out because I have yet to hear any other HALF OR FULL ORPHAN born of married parents to oppose being held in this category. Please understand, I do not say this as a weapon against my fellow adoptees who are of unmarried parents.

This is a degrading system of recording births and adoption based purely upon the moral judgment of the Registrars who wrote this law in 1930. I do not like being categorized into something I am not. My fellow adoptees shouldn’t be in this socially-constructed trap, either. We have been humiliated by these horrendous society judgments far too long. Lift us up and into a free society. Give us back our dignity and civil rights to our real birth certificates.

And for god’s sake, stop religious fanatics from adopting children. To missionaries like Laura Silsby, children are adoptable only because they (the missionaries and other religious fanatic adoptors) think that they are doing “god’s work”. The end result (not going into all the other issues in adoption here) is that all orphans (half and full, and even the ones who are not orphans at all) will suffer the same fate as their illegitimate counterparts in adoption: their birth certificates will be sealed and a new falsified one will be issued.

Asking for Access to our sealed Original Birth Certificates, alone, is not enough to break the cycle and change public view of adoptees. We must break this cycle and promote an end to the humiliating process of incorrectly documenting adoptees’ births and adoptions by sealed and falsified birth certificates. Demand an Adoption Certificate to replace Falsified Birth Certificates.

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.