Links to Other Blogs Cautioning Against Adopting Haiti’s Earthquake-Traumatized Children

On January 25, 2010 By legitimatebastardIn Adoption Loss, Adoption Psychology, Adoption Trauma, Family Preservation, Family Systems, Haiti's Orphans5 Comments

As the author of this blog, Forbidden Family, I don’t have words these days. I can only pass on to you some links to words of other bloggers, and the previous week’s Press Releases from UAI – United Adoptees International.

Atlasien’s Upside-Down Adoption: The Dangerous Desire to Adopt Haitian Babies. And Pound Pup Legacy’s Comments on this blog.

Family Preservation Advocate has these, and other posts, on the earthquake crisis and Haiti’s children: International Adoption: A Last Resort

Child Trafficking Feared in Haiti

Getting the Word Out re Haiti

Tragedy Exploited: A Sad History Repeating Itself In Haiti

73Adoptee: More Concern About Haiti Adoptions. Includes Links to more adoption reformer blogs on Haitian earthquake “orphans”.

The Daily Bastardette: It’s Not About Haiti, Damn It! Its About Adoption. Its About Us. Also includes Links to other adoption reform bloggers on this crisis. Be sure to read the Comments, too!

Baby Love Child: Haiti Series: “It is Madness, It is Insane…” Bribes, Bullies and Traffickers Extract Kids, parts 1-3. Additional Parts to Follow. Be sure to read her other posts on this crisis.

These are but a few of the voices out there from Adoption Reformers who want to prevent the exploitation of Haiti’s traumatized children.

Press Release From United Adoptees International: Dutch Government accept bribes to get Haitian Children

On January 23, 2010 By legitimatebastardIn Adoptees' Civil Rights, Adoption Loss, Adoption Psychology, Family Preservation, Family Systems

Euphemistic word use to cover Payments

Already in an earlier report, the so-called ‘Kalsbeek Rapport‘ reported that ‘unregular’payments would be acceptable to proceed the adoption procedure. They used the OESD guidelines for multinational enterprise (page 56). which has nothing to do with Adoption or otherwise Childprotection issues. The Kalsbeek committee with i.e. adoptive mother and renowned adoption researcher prof. dr. Femmie Juffer, accepted bribery and calls it ‘Facilitation Payments’ (see page 50).

The argument to accept these minor payments as they call it, is because it is the custom of the country to act in this way. But what is meant with small or minor payments runs between 1000-1.500 euro per child to Haitian authorities* and in the cases of China (so called Orphanage Humanitarian Aid Fee) 3.500 euro’s per child in bare cash to the local board of the orphanage, can be a huge amount for the receiver in these countries. And in comparison you cannot keep saying that these amounts are minor payments. Not even for Western standards as we call 100.000 Chinese Adoptees x 3.500 euro’s is 350.000.000,- euro and for the Haitian Children adopted in the Netherlands, 1.000×1.000 = 1.000.000,- in cash. And this is only the additional ‘fee’. Not the general adoption fee or expenses for the adoption procedure of a Haitian or Chinese child. And no one knows where this money ‘officially’ is meant for.

The recent report (Interlandelijke Adoptie, knelpunten in het stelsel) from the Youth Inspectorate in the Netherlands says in the part of the investigation about adoption agency Wereldkinderen (page 14) that in the case of Haiti ,Wereldkinderen decided to stop with adoptions from Haiti due to raising fees to Haitian Authorities to get the children for adoption. They said, that the corruption was growing and decided to stop adoptions from Haiti. This example in the report confirms the stories the UAI received from anonymous adoptive parents who adopted from Haiti a few years ago.

It is very strange that NAS (and former agency Flash) the other Adoption Agency who was quite in a hurry to get children from Haiti this week, does not report anything about these issues. While they work with the same authorities.

Its more as shameful that the Dutch government and the adoptionlobby is enforcing adoptions in a situation like in Haiti right now. But it is unforgivable for many adoptees, that they have been sold and bought by and trough the related governments without a blink of an eye.

Adoption was and is a baby and child-market where everyone provides from except the parents of origin and many Adoptees who get at the longterm brainwashed by programmes as ‘Spoorloos’ to create persons or group of mythical proportions from an independent human being with a genealogy in the country from origin, into a victim who is rescued by adoption and therefore, has to act as a mascot for the adoption society to keep the adoptionindustry rolling.

Once adoption was meant as a last resort but who dare to dig deeper into the reality of adoption finds a world of facilitations to serve prospective adoptionparents and their governments. Because it became clear, once you are adopted, the government and their assets don’t care about Adoptees at all. The proof of this, is that no receiving government ever changed a law voluntarily to meet the needs of Adoptees and their interests. Suddenly what once was used to get the child stays with the child. Adult adoptees who are critical are assessed as outlaws in the (intercountry) adoption system. This is not just a meaning, but mechanism which you can see every day, every month and every year. Decade by decades. With no interest in Adoptees and the urgent need for national and international debates regarding this problematic issue.

At the end, the Adoptees who do not want to become a stranger to him/herself, will finally stands alone in a bewildered landscape where he or she does not really fit. Except, when it becomes an anonymous or silent assimilated creature or as a symbol and a mascot for the success of adoption ‘sponsored’ by faciltation payments**.

* Not only the Netherlands paid extra, it is expected that all countries who adopted from Haiti paid ‘additional’ fees to get the children ‘freed’ for intercountry adoption.

** The so called ‘facilitation payments’ are not defined as bribes because the Dutch government accept the so called none defined additional payments in cash to get children for adoption by using ‘facilitation payments’ which is according to the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprise not a bribe (page 56). But the fact, that the adoption community and its governments use economical guidelines for multinational enterprise to clarify the financial procedure should somhow at least create suspicion. The UAI cannot imagine that the use of euphemistic words like ‘facilitation payments’ will take the reality away that children are sold and bought due to international treaties like the OECD guideline.

… … … …

Pound Pup Legacy has tremendous reactions from intercountry adoptees (people of color adopted by whites) at their website. See especially readers’ comments on “reasonable fees”, forced assimilation, economic bias of adoption, adoptees’ reactions on the assumptions made by whites who adopt children of color, and how adoptees feel about being status symbols.

EARTHQUAKE IN HAITI: INTERCOUNTRY ADOPTION CASES

On January 21, 2010 By legitimatebastardIn Adoption Loss, Adoption Trauma, Family Preservation, Family Systems, Haiti's Orphans2 Comments

Sent from United Adoptees International:

International Reference Centre for the Rights of Children Deprived of their Family (ISS/IRC)

EARTHQUAKE IN HAITI: INTERCOUNTRY ADOPTION CASES

As in every dramatic event that affects a country, the question about the intercountry adoption of children arises again in the Haitian context.

In this regard, ISS / IRC first recalls that, in general, international adoption should not take place in a situation of war or natural disaster, given that these events make it impossible to verify the personal and family situation of children. Any operation to adopt or to evacuate children that are victims of the earthquake to another country must be absolutely avoided, as was the case during the 2004 tsunami.

However, the intercountry adoption situation in Haiti highlights a new problem: what response
should be given to the multiple adoption dossiers which were in the process of being finalised
before the earthquake? As of today, some receiving countries have announced their intention to
‘freeze’ all pending adoptions due to the present incapacity of the Haitian authorities to follow the
required procedures. Yet other receiving countries have already planned to launch evacuation
missions for children as quick as possible and in this situation, ISS/IRC would like to reiterate the following points.

Given the actual state of the country, the transportation of relief supplies of basic necessities is
extremely difficult due to the congestion of different channels of communication and transportation (in particular, the airport at Port au Prince). Mobilising forces in this emergency context should focus on meeting the needs of the greater majority. All initiatives that involve an additional burden to the existing relief efforts should take place later, to give priority to current operations focusing on basic needs.

Regarding the adoption of children, a difference must obviously be made between those who have been declared adoptable and those for whom an adoption order (judgment) has been delivered. For children where matching has occurred and there is an adoption order (judgment), the transfer of these children to their adoptive families could be considered under the following conditions:

1) identification of the child and his/her location is secured by the necessary safeguards,particularly through copies of his/her dossier lodged in the receiving country, personal data is stored appropriately;
2) the psycho-social adoptability of the child (ie ability to be adopted) is re-evaluated,considering the trauma s/he might have suffered (emotional shock, physical injuries, etc.).
3) it is established that the child’s dossier is complete and that the adoption order (judgment) has been delivered;
4) the diplomatic representatives of the concerned receiving countries are able to verify the actual identities, adoption dossiers and alternative care conditions of the children; 5) the Haitian authorities are duly informed and involved in the finalisation of the adoptions in question.

For children who do not meet these conditions, no action should be undertaken at this point to accelerate the adoption procedure. It is important to remember that for sometime, intercountry adoption in Haiti has been subject to numerous serious concerns owing to the lack of guarantees and transparency.

Where the necessary safeguards are not available, intercountry adoption should be suspended until the reinstallation of the administrative and judicial systems in Haiti.

The ISS / IRC, stresses that the abovementioned conditions require time to be fulfilled and they
can not be undertaken in an urgent manner. Moreover, these children are currently experiencing extreme stress so that a sudden shift to a new country and a new family can have a psychological impact that is impossible to measure. According to the Guidelines developed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the evacuation of such children or their temporary placement in families abroad is also traumatic. It is considered as an added disruption to the injury already suffered by the child. In the emergency phase, the efforts of the authorities of affected countries, international organisations and NGOs should focus on providing basic protection to the child (eg: accommodation, food, medical, emotional and psychological attention, education) that is as close as possible to the daily living conditions and any regrouping should be with other familiar children or adults.

Finally, ISS / IRC reminds receiving countries in charge of intercountry adoptions to consult each other as well as UN agencies and NGOs in order to develop a unified approach to this problem in order to avoid conflicting decisions and poor initiatives.

Well aware of the difficulties and suffering that the earthquake has caused, ISS / IRC presents its deepest sympathy to the Haitian community and acknowledges, the difficult situation of parents involved in an ongoing adoption. Nevertheless, we invite various actors involved in intercountry adoption to exercise restraint and reflection in managing the current crisis and avoid giving emotional responses to a sensitive issue such as the adoption of these children.

ISS / IRC January 18, 2009

Quai du Seujet, 32 ▪ 1201 Geneva ▪ Switzerland

Tel : +41 (0)22 906 77 00
▪ Fax: +41 (0)22 906 77 01
▪ E-mail : irc-cir@iss-ssi.org

*www.iss-ssi.org

United Adoptees International Says Adoption is a Last Resort Not First Aid

On January 21, 2010 By legitimatebastardIn Adoption Loss, Adoption Psychology, Adoption Trauma, Family Preservation, Family Systems, Haiti's Orphans

UAI-United Adoptees International Responds to Expedited Dutch Adoptions as Not “Humanitarian Aid”. This is an example of what Not to do “for” Haiti’s children:

THE NETHERLANDS, Amsterdam, January 18, 2010 – Following the humanitarian disaster in Haiti, humanitarian aid is on its way, but also; expedited adoptions, possible abduction of children and forced relinquishment for intercountry adoptions to the West. The removal of children in times of disasters and wars under the guise of adoption, according to the vision of United Adoptees International (UAI), is not the right form of humanitarian aid. Concerning Haiti, the reaction of the Dutch government is an irresponsible response to the situation in Haiti where currently monitoring and surveillance cannot even be maintained. However, the Dutch government has decided that adoption will be the first priority and already agreed to 110 adoptions from Haiti. Of these, 56 adoptions were approved by the Ministry of Justice in an accelerated manner, arguing that these were already in the ‘pipeline’. Due to this, the Nederlandse Adoptie Stichting (NAS) and the largest Dutch agency Wereldkinderen, under pressure from prospective adoptive parents, took their chance to put pressure to get even more (risky) adoptions from Haiti.The facts and history teach us that adoptions from Haiti are risky and generally carelessly made. In 2003 the Dutch Youth Inspection called then for a strict control, after several reports of careless adoptions from a Dutch Adoption Agency. In 2005 a Unicef report warned for high risks regarding adoption from Haiti also.
At that time the Dutch agency had to close their dubious adoptions from Haiti.

Subsequently, the UAI reported on May 13, 2008 in the media about about a dramatic adoption from the same agency who opened another channel in Haiti, that was illustrative for multiple adoptions from Haiti. An adoptive couple told their story during a national TV broadcast of EénVandaag. They showed an Adoptee from Haiti who will probably stay the rest of her life in a mental hospital in the Netherlands.

Given the terrible disaster and the appalling situation in Haiti, the current “baby lift” operation is inspired only by emotion and a neo-colonialist way of thinking: “Our children are better off in the West ” as one of the Adoption Agencies involved in the ‘Babylift’ claimed. Just in these situations ,the UAI considers it no more than wise and logic to go through the required procedures, especially in the situation of chaos.

In times of disasters and wars, every time again it appears that children are moved prematurely to the West, before governments know how to deal with the disaster itself. The term ‘baby lift’ operations was originated during the Vietnam war in the seventies, where children were flown per aircraft to the United States. Without checking whether the children were actually orphans or relinquished by their parents. Many Vietnamese parents have searched for years unsuccessfully for their stolen children. But that is not where it stopped, still these kind of activities are still taking place and a recent example is Zoe’s Ark. A French ‘relie’f organisation which attempted to smuggle one hundred children from Chad for intercountry adoption under the guise of humanitarian aid.

NGO’s like the Red Cross, Unicef and World Vision, continuously calls at times for a temporary stop of adoption or a careful approach in times of crisis. These institutes simply need more time to get children back to their parents or to reunite with their family. The UAI in the mean time, made contact with several aid agencies including Plan Netherlands and asked them for their point of view on the disaster in Haiti. They are highly concerned about the situation in Haiti and in particular the high risk of child abduction. Since 1973, Plan Netherlands has worked in Haiti and has 143 employees on the spot. It is one of the largest development organisations. During disaster like these Plan has, in addition to providing medical and other resources, as first priority the protection of children to prevent the exploitation, abduction and abuse. From personal experience Plan knows that in times of crisis, the risk of abduction of children can be very high.

The UAI, therefore, considers the response of the Dutch government premature and not very considerate but too much motivated by emotions instead of properly thinking through the long term consequences for the Adoptees and their Haitian families. And after all the adoption scandals of recent years, one would have expected that the Netherlands now would had learned their lesson in this area. But the reality now shows an opposite picture. And the question is, whether that is really in the interests of children and parents in Haiti.

Adoption is a last resort, not first aid

SOS Cautions Against Premature Adoption of Haitian Children

On January 20, 2010 By legitimatebastardIn Adoption Loss, Adoption Psychology, Adoption Trauma, Family Preservation, Family Systems, Haiti's Orphans

Email received today: Date: Wednesday, January 20, 2010, 5:22 PM

SOS believes that brothers and sisters should always stay together.

Dear Joan,

Nature was cruel enough to turn children into orphans in a matter of minutes. But mere minutes cannot determine the future of these orphaned children. The global community must now be responsible enough to take the time to determine these children’s fates.

You may have seen in the last several days a planeload of orphans from Haiti making their way to Pennsylvania, undoubtedly to be adopted by parents in the U.S. This is a wonderful story of survival, rescue and adoption. But it’s not the whole story…

These particular children already had adoptive parents waiting to raise them with love and security. They presumably had been through the process that determined that no close relatives existed to take them in. Haitian children who have just lost their parents in the earthquake have not been through any such process.

In the weeks ahead you will see many stories about what should happen to these children. This is our position.

Our Position on this Sensitive Issue:

* SOS Children’s Villages believes in the rights of every child, including orphaned children.

* We believe that a coordinated approach needs to be taken by relief agencies in Haiti to identify, register and document unaccompanied children as quickly as possible.

* We believe in the earliest possible reunification between children and their families.

* We caution ALL ORGANIZATIONS working in Haiti against making premature decisions on permanent care (adoption) of orphaned children.

* We believe that siblings should always stay together.

* We believe that a parental figure should always be present.

* This is absolutely a sensitive and complex issue … but decisions made now will impact these children for the rest of their lives. Shouldn’t the first consideration be family ties — brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles? If there is a chance at reunification with parents or close relatives, isn’t that the best option?

If there is a chance that siblings could stay together and grow up together, isn’t that better than being split apart?

SOS Children’s Villages will remain in Haiti for the long-term. We will provide secure, stable homes for orphans as they mature. We will prepare them for lives as independent adults. Please support SOS as we pave the way for a brighter future for these orphans. Sponsor a Disaster Orphan now.

Heather Paul
Executive Director

SOS Children’s Villages – USA
1001 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Suite 1250
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: 1 888-SOS-4KIDS or 202-347-7920

Help the Orphans of Haiti Without Adopting Them Out of Their Homeland by Donating to SOS Children’s Villages

On January 18, 2010 By legitimatebastardIn Adoption Psychology, Adoption Trauma, Family Preservation, Family Systems, Haiti's Orphans

This message arrived in my email today.

It IS possible to provide for suffering children in Haiti by providing care right in their homeland. SOS Children’s Villages has been providing such care for children – especially sibling groups – and their extended families for 60 years. — Without permanent separation from their homeland and their extended families by closed adoption by foreigners.

SOS Children’s Villages is in complete support of the United Nations Rights of the Child.

Dear Joan,

Where will they go? Where will the thousands of children who have lost their parents in the Haiti earthquake go? This is the question that we have all begun to struggle with and address as the real devastation becomes clearer. Will they stay in their own country? Will they be placed with relatives, or temporary holding facilities, or be adopted by Americans and Europeans? Will brothers and sister stay together, or be pulled apart?

You, as an SOS supporter, already know what we collectively think about these issues. We believe that extended family should always be the first refuge of an orphaned child. We believe strongly that siblings should stay together. We believe that a Mother figure should always be present. Based on these guiding principles, that have been part of the SOS culture for 60 years, we will address the orphan crisis unfolding in Haiti. You already know what we’ve been doing as immediate concerns for children’s health and safety:

* Made a shipment of ten tons of supplies, that arrived yesterday in Haiti. These supplies included water, canned food, medicines, tents, sleeping bags, lamps, shovels and metal scissors. Created temporary shelters for unaccompanied childrenin the SOS villages in Santo and Cap Haitian.

* Begun to provide trauma counseling to child survivors; this effort is being escalated with the arrival of SOS child counseling experts from Costa Rica into the affected area.

* SOS is on the ground, helping to address the immediate needs of the people of Haiti, especially children. We will also be in Haiti for a long time to come. SOS Children’s Villages has operated programs in Haiti for 30 years. We will be with the children who have just lost their parents for many years to come. We will watch them grow up. We will care for them. Let’s make sure the right decisions are made for these children.

Help support SOS as we provide immediate assistance, as well as begin to address the unfolding crisis for the children who have lost their parents.

Heather Paul
Executive Director
SOS Children’s Villages – USA

P.S. Please help SOS to continue saving the lives of those in need in and around our Villages in Haiti. Donate now.

SOS Children’s Villages – USA
1001 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Suite 1250
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: 1 888-SOS-4KIDS or 202-347-7920

Email from Lola – An Adoptive Parent Repulsed by This Blog!

On January 16, 2010February 9, 2015 By legitimatebastardIn Adoptee False Baptismal Certificate, Adoptee False Legal Birth Certificate, Adoptee True Sealed Birth Certificate, Adoptee's Conflicting Emotions, Adoptees' Civil Rights, Adoption Loss, Adoption Psychology, Adoption Trauma, Family Preservation, Family Systems, Genealogy, Obituaries16 Comments

Lola writes:

I would be ashamed to post the awful things you have on your blog. I hope you get flamed constantly! There are orphans in this world that need homes. Why don’t you adopt some and stop whining?! Learn what it’s like from the other side as an adoptive parent! You make me sick! You need therapy, not a blog. Being so anti-adoption may be good for your mind, but it certainly hurts all those kids in foster care. Don’t they deserve a home away from the abusive people that gave birth to them? Those kids are taken away FOR A REASON! Hello! Get a clue! You may be unthankful for being adopted, but ask a 10 year old in the foster system or in an orphanage if they want a Mom & Dad…ask a kid waiting to come home to the US in Haiti right now where they would rather be! I think you would be surprised by the answer!

Dear Lola,

Getting flamed is not an issue for me since I am paying for this website and am in constant contact with my webhost tech support.

I lived a life of torture and still am — at the hands of my adoptive family and natural family, too, not all, but enough to cause me considerable pain and anguish. Read my book for full details of the crimes committed against me by my adoptive family and others.

Lola, you are the one who is having an emotional reaction to my life. If you can’t take reading the terrible things done to adoptees (I’m not the only one) you are the one who needs therapy. There are thousands of adoptees and our natural parents who have been organizing since 1955 in America and around the world to expose the disgusting treatment we have received: examples: Adoptive parents who are lawyers have destroyed paperwork on their own adoptee’s birthparents. That’s a crime against that lawyer’s own adopted child! Adoptive parents who treat their adoptees like slaves and sex objects – like the rich couple who imprisoned a girl from a foreign country to do their household chores like Cinderella, and the Russian girl, Masha, was adopted by a pedophile and repeatedly raped and then she was freed and adopted by another woman who gave up on Masha and voided the adoption. So much abuse in adoption.

Lola, criticism from people such as you does not bother me. You only have an opinion of what you read. You do not know me personally and you do not know how this adoption has affected me and my children. They were also abused and mistreated by the relatives who mistreated me. The destruction of adoption lies and discrimination and prejudice scars adoptees and their children for life.

Lola, you can attack me all you want, but remember: in my book, I have published proof that our government has defrauded millions of adoptees by the practice of seizing our birth certificates, sealing them permanently, issuing materially false statements on a new, amended Certificate of Live Birth in the new adoptive name and naming the adoptive parents as parents of birth. This is fraud and perjury. If that happened to you, you might feel a tad bit offended, pissed off, and disgusted.

I was 18 years old when I had the shock of my life, and then my adoptive parents yelled at me, threw pots and pans at me, and acted as if I had done something horrific. No, I was found by siblings that they knew I had and they prevented me from a continued and meaningful relationship with them because my adoptive parents wanted me all to themselves. Any parents who would do that today would be up on child abuse charges. The only reason they got away with that is because my father signed relinquishment papers.

Do not blame my natural father for it, either. He was used, first by the good old Catholic Church and then by a child-stealer who was procuring a baby for her brother. No one helped my father in his grief that he lost his wife to an early death. No one helped my father keep his kids together. And all you, Lola, can think about are the so-called orphans in orphanages.

I have said this before but it needs repeating: Children who need homes can very easily have those homes through legal Guardianship and not adoption. Guardianship provides a legal guardian (a single person or a couple) who provide a safe, loving, and permanent home for children who need a home. If children cannot be raised by their natural parents, this is a far better alternative than total and complete adoption. Even “open” adoption is not a safe alternative due to the sealing of the child’s birth certificate and a replacement, “new” birth certificate in the child’s new adoptive name and adoptive parents named as parents by birth. Adoptive parents cop an attitude of ownership over the child and see the parents of birth as inferior.

With Guardianship, a child’s legal birth name, legal birth certificate, and status as the child of one and only one set of parents is protected. The legal guardian is under legal obligation to act legally and lovingly for the child as a parent would, as foster parents do, and as adoptive parents do, but they do not have the “advantage” of the law sealing the child’s birth certificate, replacing it with a new one with the guardians’ names on it and changing the child’s name and identity for all eternity.

In situations where the safety of the child is concerned, better to remove a child from the danger, but retain the child’s identity and relationships with that parent or parents. Adoption erases the existing problem as to why removal of children seems necessary, but, the adoptee faces lifelong harm from adoption and must face those issues later in life.

Yes, I am completely anti adoption. No adoption under any circumstances. Not even to save the Haitian children from starving to death after the earthquake. Good grief I hear that refrain already…Family Preservation at all costs, even if their parents are dead, there are other relatives who would be lost to them in adoption by foreigners.

I am not ashamed for anything I write. The only people who are flaming me are my own stupid family members who do not want me to write about my life. Foreign governments and Social Service Agencies throughout America and other countries are reading my website: Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, to name a few. Why? Because there are active adoption reform movements in those countries who have achieved what America needs: drastic reform in adoption.

I worked in foster care and in homeless shelters where I have seen kids removed from their parents solely due to poverty, not abuse. Even in the cases of abuse, those parents are still parents and those kids were born of those parents. By your way of thinking, Lola, adoption should totally erase the past and give these poor kids a new and better life. Wrong. Kids do not forget what has happened and they must cope with it all. Subjecting kids to the total identity change of adoption and forbidding them any knowledge of or contact with their own blood kin is child abuse. I’ve been at this adoption reform activism and advocacy for very near 36 years. I’ve worked in and around foster care, troubled youth, homeless families, crisis centers and disadvantaged families for my entire adult life. I went to court with an 18 year old that aged-out of the foster care system and went out on his own because he had no family. He bought me a rose from a street vendor because I cared enough to see him through that last year. He faced the reality of his life and was a strong young man. I did the same for an 18 year old young woman. She was all alone at the end of the court proceeding. Both of these kids went through foster care with their parents in what-ever state that left them incapable of taking care of their children, but both of these young adults had their birth identities intact, had their personal histories, had the rough experiences of foster care, but they also had a determination to press forward and do something with their lives. They also were free to establish some type of relationship with their parents, which they said was important for them to figure out. And they both thanked me for being at their sides when they stepped out of that court room to face the world. Adoption would have stripped them of their names, their birth certificates, and their families. Guardianship would have provided a home and loving family while giving them the right to their own birth identities. Guardianship conveys freedom, adoption conveys possession.

Oh yes, and lets all go over to Haiti to adopt all those poor orphans! That will solve these black kids’ problems, right? No it won’t! Being adopted by foreigners of a different race is an inner struggle for Transracial Abductees: go see their website under my Links page and here. They will face prejudice in this lily-white biased country of ours who hates Obama for being a “light-skinned black man”. You prospective adoptive parents who think it is the loving thing to do to go to Haiti and adopt their children — do you know what emotional damage that will do to these children who have lived through the trauma of an earthquake? They have seen their parents and other relatives die and you want to put a band aid on that by taking them away from that devastation? Do you not see that taking care of them in their own country is the best solution? I suggest you read some other blogs about taking kids for adoption out of Haiti. The Daily Bastdardette: HAITI: OPERATION PIERRE PAN POSTPONED; POLITICIANS PANDER. In that blog post alone, Bastardette has many links to a wealth of information. You will be shocked by what you read. World organizations are advising against adopting kids out of Haiti for the very reasons I have just stated, and more.

Lola, be thankful that you have led a most comfortable life. Do not suggest that I adopt! I wouldn’t do such a horrible thing to a child! My life was ruined because of adoption.

My goal is to change adoption laws and social policy so that what happened to me will never happen to another child, ever. To be lied to, to be prevented from knowing my own siblings, to be forbidden to grieve the death of my mother, to not ever be taken to her graveside — those are crimes of child abuse perpetrated upon me by my own adoptive parents. That is sick perversion and possession of a human being.

My adoptive mother is dying in a nursing home right now. She has not once acknowledged the damage she caused me. But she is happy that I used a photograph her brother took of me as an infant for my book’s cover. She gets tears in her eyes because she is happy that I have reached my goal of publication. Maybe she cannot accept the horror of the crimes she and others committed against me, but she is happy for me to be published and encourages me to attend the next AAC Adoption Conference. Mom has realized the importance of the falsified birth certificate as being fraudulent. She has realized that her actions and that of other adoptive relatives and my dead mother’s relatives “were cruel” to my natural father, she said so this past summer. My mother now knows the destructive words said to me by my loving adoptive cousins: “Joan, you OPENLY declare you have two fathers, so you must not love this father. We don’t want you here…” at my adoptive father’s funeral in 1982. I had been in a reunion with my natural father and many other relatives for nearly 9 years at that point. The hate directed at me from prejudicial relatives was their inability to let me live my own life.

My adoptive Mom has also lived the destructiveness and spiteful hate from my own full-blood sisters who not only attacked me because they (like you) did not want me to write anything about my adoption (see my horrible articles in the Buffalo News in MY ARCHIVES page) that they repeatedly abused my mother and my kids and my ex-husband by hate phone calls and hate mail and false child abuse charges. Normal people will let go and let the other person live free from contact. Continued harassment because I am an adoption reformer is completely out of line. There is no reason for my sisters to attack my adoptive mother, but they have. My mother is dying. We need to resolve what we can and live in peace, yet, my sisters are still out there harassing me. I have no contact with them for a number of years into our reunion, and do not want contact from them because of their destructive behavior to me, my children, my adoptive mother, and my ex-husband. Why would I want to build relationships with people who have mocked me for decades and now want in on the action because my book is published? Or because they now want to be a part of adoption reform when they mocked me for being in adoption reform since I was 18? They are filled with nothing but malicious slander and defamation toward me. Every word I write is the truth. Even my ex-husband and my young adult children will attest to the hateful behavior of my relatives toward me and to them. Even my adoptive mother deserves respect as my mother, instead, she was mistreated by my blood sisters by false child abuse charges claiming she was sexually abusing her own grandchildren! Adoption and its aftermath has negatively-affected entire family systems — but you, Lola, want to sing adoption’s praises!

Adoption, in its present form, has been and is, a destructive social and legal device that splits up families.

Lola, are you under 36? If so, I have lived more trauma since 1974 than you have as a non-adopted person. You sound like a young kid who does not know beans about adoption reform. Keep reading. Visit other adoption reform blogs. See the kinks on the side bars. These links will lead you to other links in adoption reform. Better yet, show up to our Conferences and really learn what it is like to be adopted and to lose your child to adoption:

American Adoption Congress

Adoption Crossroads: Adoption Healing, Baby Scoop Era Research Initiative, Origins Inc. Australia, Origins Canada are proud to announce: Shedding Light on the Adoption Experience VI an Educational Conference About Realities: The Lifelong Effects of Adoption and the Need for Family Preservation.

Lola, you are living in a fantasy world. You need to wake up and smell the coffee. It is people like you who make me sick.

Happy Adoption Day 53 Years Ago Today

On January 14, 2010 By legitimatebastardIn Adoptee Birth Certificates, Adoptee False Legal Birth Certificate, Adoptee True Sealed Birth Certificate, Adoptee's Conflicting Emotions, Adoptees' Civil Rights, Adoption Loss, Adoption Psychology, Adoption Trauma, Family Systems, Genealogy6 Comments

Happy Adoption Day, my eyeball. The only ones happy were my adoptive parents.

Fifty three years ago, today, at age 1 year, I lost my legal right to be a part of the family I was born into. I lost my legal right to have the birth certificate that documents my birth. I won the legal right to own a birth certificate that says I was born to a woman who factually adopted me: that is misrepresentation of material facts, which is fraud.

Fifty three years ago, today, my dead mother lost her right to be my legal mother. Bad enough she faced dying knowing that she’d leave behind five children, one of whom was a newborn, but she did not know that adoption would not only take away that newborn, but adoption would prevent her from forever being named on her child’s legal birth certificate.

Fifty three years ago, today, my father walked away from Surrogate’s Court in Erie County Hall, Buffalo, New York, a defeated man. He did what was told to him. He gave away his newborn because a Catholic priest said these words to him at his wife’s funeral ten months previously: “The baby needs two parents.” On top of that, a woman whom he did not know came up to him at his wife’s funeral and said, “I know a couple who will take your baby.”

And to this day, there are members of my dead mother’s family who believe that my father “didn’t want” me.

My father gave me up because he believed I would have a better life with two parents. At the time he relinquished me, he was a single father of five children. There was no help to keep his family together, only vultures swarming to descend and take away the children. “I’ll take the boy”, said one brother of my dead mother. But my father said no. My mother’s brothers got mad at him. My father was an only child. He had his sickly aging parents to help him. His own cousins had children of their own and did not help him keep his family together. Relinquishing me, letting me go, was his only option to save the rest of his family, and himself.

To expect a man in deep, profound grief to make life-altering decisions for his child and himself at a point of personal crisis is cruel. If he had been told the truth: that his dead wife’s family would hold this against him for eternity, that they would spread filthy rumors about him, that the adoptive family into which he relinquished his child would continue ongoing relationships with select members of his dead wife’s family and continue the gossipy rumors, all the while HE was told to stay away, he would never had agreed to relinquish his child to such an adoption. If my father were told that relinquishing his daughter to this permanent adoption would result in the utter destruction of his daughter’s personal papers, personal identity, emotional and psychological well-being, and that adoption would destroy her birth certificate, he would never have agreed to relinquishment and the adoption of his child. My father does not understand the true depth of destruction that adoption has caused me: he does not want to know because the pain is too deep.

That pain is what the adoptee experiences. That pain is not worth the benefits of Happy Adoption Day.

I am a defeated person, a shell of what I could have been. To live my life each day knowing that the very people who professed their love for me, who devoted their lives to me as my adoptive parents, loved me so much that they willfully and knowingly kept me apart from my own father and my own sisters and brother, kept me apart from my own cousins and from even knowing where my dead mother was buried, just so that they could have the luxury of raising a child “of their own”, knowing that my adoptive parents told so many lies to me for the first 18 years of my life, to know all of this was done “for my benefit” makes me so sick I want to vomit.

My adoption wasn’t love. It was possession.

I am supposed to feel grateful. I am supposed to feel happy that I wasn’t raised with my father and my siblings because “what kind of life would you have had with them?” This is the indoctrination said to me, the adoptee, by my adoptive parents and believed by extended adoptive family and the general public’s accumlated “knowledge” of adoption.

The adoptive cousins with whom I have had meaningful relationships in childhood have been what I cling to. Though we are not blood, we know each other as cousins. There are blood cousins with whom I share closeness also.

But there is also this pervasive undertow of deception, rumor and gossip. What was it that my adoptive mother said to me just a few weeks ago as she lay in her nursing room bed? “Oh, by the way, there are people who believe that you had affairs with two of your adoptive cousins.” What? Who the hell is spreading this filth around? Again? Still? Many people in my extended adoptive family and natural mother’s family, that’s who. They are the ones who are sick. Manipulative. I want no part of perverted minds. I am tired of being the brunt of their jokes.

While Jaycee Duggard has had the unfortunate experience of having been raped repeatedly by her abductor, having two children by him, she is not alone in her captivity. How can I possibly cope with the misinformation and gossip that is said for decades among family members because they “think” or “believe” something is true?

I was raised in a beautiful middle class home in the suburbs of Buffalo, an only child, with all the attention my adoptive parents could give me. It was conditional love: I was never supposed to know my own siblings and certainly not my own father and I should never know about the truth of how my mother died. My happy childhood memories come with a price: no childhood with my own siblings. Yet my adoptive parents had theirs. I loved my parents. I loved my extended adoptive family. Only to find out at age 18 that my life was one lie built upon another. After my Reunion, a shock that sent me into oblivion for years, I was expected to bounce back, to recover, to build my life as an adult as if this shock did not “bother” me. I was accused of “living in the past” and “being obsessed with adoption” and “pulling that stunt” and “knowing my siblings all along”. The ones who “pulled that stunt” were my adoptive parents and extended adoptive family. The ones who were mad that I “was living in the past” had the luxury of knowing their own personal histories while growing up. The ones who accused me of “knowing my siblings all along” were guilty of preventing me from knowing my own flesh and blood: my adoptive parents and all who backed them in their secrecy and deception.

What is it that the psychologists say that Jaycee Dugard must undo? Is it called “Stockholm Syndrome”? Perhaps other adoptees have not had a life so entrenched with turmoil as I have had, but other adoptees sure do have sealed and falsified birth certificates. Many adoptees and adoptive parents will be screaming: “What? She can’t be comparing adoption to what Jaycee Dugard experienced!”

Oh, yes, I can.

I was held prisoner in my sheltered home for 18 years in an idyllic life away from the “crappy” life my siblings lived on the opposite side of the city. (again, indoctination from my adoptive parents against my own family of birth). I should feel grateful I didn’t live with them because they had rags for clothes, or so I was told by my adoptive mother after I was found by siblings she so intensely did not want to me ever know. Who gets to torture an adoptee like that? I feel very much that Stockholm Syndrome fits my life, too. I was abducted from my own family by adoptive parents who selfishly kept me to themselves, knowingly and willfully depriving me of relationships with my own siblings. That is nothing less than child abuse. Beyond the mixed feelings of love for adoptive parents who “took care of me”, there are a myriad of conflicts I must cope with on a daily basis: the circulating rumors of sexual misconduct, feelings of being tricked by so many people whom I am supposed to love, feelings of wondering what other misconceptions people built up around me because they knew my blood family and I did not, feelings of shame and guilt because other relatives do not approve of my life.

There was a definite rift in my life when I was found by siblings I never knew. Certain members of my adoptive family sank away from me as if I were a leper. I am one person, people. If I am as bad as my relatives say I am, then I surely do deserve the hate mail and the obscene phone calls that have permeated my life since 1974 because I dared to accept a reunion with my father and my siblings. Form my point of view, this is gang-mentality against one adoptee.

Check out the Page on this blog “My Archives” to see the “dreadful” adoption reform newspaper articles I wrote. These articles are my way of defending the rights of adoptees, the rights of the donor-conceived, and the rights of our natural parents. I stuck up for Mary Beth Whitehead, the infamous surrogate mother, and her daughter. I got hell for that from my family members, people who are not in my direct social circle. I wrote against sperm donation. I got hell for that, too, again from family members who did not approve of my public statements against procedures that harm the chidlren created by these means. The general public’s stupidity is to be expected, but to be mistreated by my own families in the form of hate mail and hate phone calls and whispers behind my back and dirty looks and snide comments — all from my own families because I did what was right for me. This is the life of an adoptee well hated for being who she is: an adoptee advocating for humane change in the restrictive, discriminatory and de-humanizing adoption practices in America.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: for all the hate and disrespect I have been given because I was born to a woman who died and then relinquished to adoption, was found by siblings I never knew and was hated for that, endured criticism because I was slow to recover or did not do what other people wanted me to do: get over being adopted, I would have rather been born a bastard. Bastards get more respect than this adopted half orphan has ever received.

Happy Adoption Day — Fifty-three years of hell.

Are you catching the drift as to why I am anti-adoption?

Guest Post: AB 1325 Calif Assembly Judiciary Committee Taking Comments Til 1/22/10

On January 13, 2010 By legitimatebastardIn Adoptee Birth Certificates, Adoptee False Legal Birth Certificate, Adoptee True Sealed Birth Certificate, Adoptees' Civil Rights, Adoption Psychology, Family Systems, Genealogy1 Comment

I’m happy to fill this post request:

Wednesday, January 13, 2010 9:17 PM

Hi Joan,

Could you please post the link below?

The California Assembly’s Judiciary Committee is taking comments until January 22, 2010 on the discriminatory bill AB 1325 “Tribal Customary Adoption”.

This bill will allow ONLY NATIVE AMERICAN CHILDREN in the state of California to be adopted WITHOUT THEIR PARENT’S RIGHTS BEING TERMINATED.

The California Assembly Judiciary Committee needs to be reminded that what’s good for one nationality of adoptees should be good for ALL ADOPTEES. All children should be allowed to be adopted without their parents having to terminate their parental rights! IT IS DISCRIMINATION TO ALLOW THIS FOR ONE ETHNICITY BUT NO ANY OTHERS!!!!!

Native American adoptees already get their original birth certificates when they turn 18 years old!!!! This preferential treatment needs to stop NOW.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. birthday is approaching and it reminds me and sickens me how far away his dream still is.

Here’s the link if you want to comment:

http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/invitationstocomment/commentform.htm

(Just put W10-06 for legislation to be commented on.)

—- Guest Poster

… … …

My observations: This doesn’t sound like adoption at all, but rather, legal Guardianship, which is a viable alternative to adoption. As we know, total and complete adoption severs a child from her family of birth and from her legal identity at birth, which means sealing the birth certificate and issuing a new one. However, with this California proposal, Native children in need of a permanent home and family will not lose their birth family nor their birth certifcate. This should not be called “adoption”. It would seem to me that the correct term for this is “Guardianship”.

Yes, I find this offensive. I am very much for Native American rights, but not at the expense of others. Non-Native adoptees are forced to live lies, forced to give up their rights to their family of birth and relationships with them, and forced to live a new identity for the sole purpose of providing a child for adoptive parents to love “as their own”.

Identity confusion, loss of civil and birth rights, severance of relationships with blood kin, are not benefits of being adopted. These, and other losses, are suffered by adoptees, and our children. Perhaps the entire country of The United States of America could take this California Bill seriously to recognize the very real identity issues that all adoptees, not only Native Americans, experience. All adoptees deserve the truth of our heritage and continued relationships with our people.

—- legitimatebastard