Tag: fraud

Identity Theft & Reassignment: Civil Rights Violations by Adoption

On 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-Conceived

• Prior to 1930, all Americans had the right to one factual birth certificate
• Since then, upon adoption, state laws require the issuance of a falsified birth certificate which replaces the actual one (even in open adoption)
• False facts of birth, with a new name and new parents (implying they sired, conceived, and gave birth) are certified as true on a birth certificate issued by the state Health Department, Director of Vital Statistics, after finalization of adoption
• The actual birth certificate is then revoked and sealed permanently (Kansas and Alaska do revoke, but do not seal, these records)
• Adopted people are legally forbidden to obtain a certified copy of their sealed birth certificate
• Some states allow the release of uncertified “information only” birth certificates via new access laws, or by court order
• Reunions are not illegal
• Post 9/11: If the filing date on the falsified birth certificate is more than one year from the birth date, the US government will not issue a passport to that adopted person

What You Can Do
Contact state, federal legislators, and The President. Tell them to change state & federal laws to guarantee civil rights to:
• Retroactively, unconditionally, with no redactions, unseal and certify the actual birth certificates of American adopted people, restoring civil rights to own their actual birth certificates, with the option to null & void the falsified one
• Repeal existing state laws from the 1930s that both falsify new birth certificates, then revoke and seal forever the factual birth certificates of all adopted people
• Require reality-based open documentation of birth and adoption as the two separate and distinct events that they are: a birth and an adoption, requiring certified certificates for both
• Require adoption to maintain child’s name at birth and parents of birth; name legal guardians not adoptive “parents”
• Remove government tax incentives for the multi-billion dollar adoption industry
• Fund family preservation and guardianship
• Require factual birth certificates for donor-conceived people naming all donors and surrogate mother

The goal is to eliminate adoption altogether, trading that legal process with guardianship. Why? Because guardianship respects the child’s worth and dignity by not changing the name to suit the legal guardians’ wishes, the birth certificate is not falsified nor sealed, the child’s parents are not legally replaced by strangers, and the child has visitation rights to parents and siblings.

Backing Up Mannix Flynn on the Meaning of the Movie “Philomena”

On By legitimatebastardIn Adoptee Birth Certificates, Adoption Loss, Adoption Trauma, Family Preservation, Family Systems, Missing Baby, Natural Mothers

After seeing this movie — Philomena — I now know what the writer of this blog post means. He is dead on: script writing and movie making need to be followed up with social and political action. The writer and star of the movie needs to take this further into real action to put an end to this torture of mother and child, and the millions of women and infants and children torn apart by adoption. When will we stop seeing this as fodder for films, but additionally as an introduction to real social and political change? Get involved! This tragedy did not only happen in Ireland, but all over the world and in domestic America: the Catholic Church stealing babies from girls and women because of the notion of being “fallen women” — punishment for being pregnant outside of marriage. This is barbaric treatment of women and their babies.

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

On 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

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.

RePost: Graying Adoptees Still Searching for Their Identities

On By legitimatebastardIn Adoptee Birth Certificates, Adoptees' Civil Rights, Amended Birth Certificate, Original Birth Certificate, The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute2 Comments

The following is a great article to dispel myths surrounding adoptees’ and natural parents’ access to birth records, however, the focus centers around illegitimacy. My birth records were sealed and falsified and I am not illegitimate. The laws do not even apply to me, yet, I am bound by them because I am adopted. This is why I chose to post this entry under the screen name of “legitimatebastard”. The law treats me as if I were a bastard. I resent being placed in this predicament by outdated laws that do not apply to adoptees today.

Read the article and then contribute to the discussion at the link:

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMoodNews/adult-adoptees-fight-access-original-birth-certificates/story?id=11230246&page=1

 Graying Adoptees Still Searching for Their Identities

Only 9 States Allow Adult Adoptees to Find Original Birth Certificates, But Changes Being Pushed

55 comments

By SUSAN DONALDSON JAMES

July 27, 2010

 

Carol Cook of Blairstown, N.J., grew up thinking she was a WASP with Native American blood, a splash of ethnicity that pleased her because she had majored in anthropology in college.

But at 33, the executive secretary and mother of two inadvertently discovered a secret her entire family had held from her: Cook was adopted, born in a Catholic hospital and was likely Italian.

“I suspect the [secret] evolved and it became more impossible to tell me,” she said. “I had good parents. But suddenly I was not the person I thought. I was a totally different nationality. I was floored.”

Now she is 68 and a grandmother, but Cook’s struggle to find her identity is never-ending. In New Jersey — and in all but nine states — it’s against the law to for her to get her original birth certificate.

Today, most adoptions are open, but for a generation of graying Americans like Cook, the doors to their identities are irrevocably closed shut.

Now, in growing numbers, adult adoptees are trying to overturn legislation that sealed up records, but in most states they are fighting an uphill battle.

New Jersey is the latest battleground over laws that were originally intended to protect the birth child and her mother from moral shame, but many say are now antiquated and cruel.

Since 1980, efforts to unseal birth records in New Jersey have failed, but an open adoption records bill that recently passed a Senate committee will go before the state Assembly this fall.

Birth parents would have 12 months to request that their names not be made public or to state how they would want to be contacted by a birth child.

Lawmakers in at least 11 states are now considering the issue and in the last decade seven states have expanded access, according to the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, an organization dedicated to education and research.

Today, birth records are broadly available to adult adoptees in Tennessee, Alabama, Delaware, New Hampshire, Maine, Oregon and Illinois, as well as Kansas and Alaska, where they were never sealed.

Just this month, the institute issued a report recommending every state enact legislation restore rights to adult adoptees.

“How a human being comes into a family should not dictate what rights they have,” said Executive Director Adam Pertman. “There has to be a level playing field.”

Adoptees also need access to medical records, according to Pertman, noting that the surgeon general says that knowing family history, “is the most important thing for health.”

The 46-page policy brief also contends that the vast majority of birth mothers do not want to be anonymous to the children they relinquished.

“The single biggest factor that helps women heal and deal with loss and the grief they feel when placing a child up for adoption is knowing the child is OK,” said Pertman.

In New Hampshire, where birth certificates were unsealed in 2005, out of 24,000 records only 12 birth mothers stipulated that they wanted no contact with their birth children, according to research.

“Knowing who you are and where you come from, it turns out, is not just a matter of fulfilling curiosity, it’s something that helps human beings develop more fully psychologically to understand and feel better about themselves,” he said.

As for Cook, she said she doesn’t feel “connected.”

“I have friends who are really into genealogy and when they start talking about it, I shut down,” she said. “I don’t want to be rude, but it’s upsetting.”

In 1975, an older half-sister who knew Cook was adopted told an aunt, who shocked her with the news.

“I asked me mother if it was true and she said, ‘yes,'” according to Cook. “I was standing in the kitchen and literally slid down the wall. Everything just went out from under me.”

Her mother told her she was born at Columbus Hospital in the Italian section of Newark, N.J., nothing else. The hospital has since closed and Catholic Charities told her they have no records.

For a time, Cook attended some advocacy groups and even called the records office to see if she could get her birth certificate.

“I got this nasty person who said, ‘Why do you even want to know it, like I was some kind of horrible person. I really just couldn’t face it.”

When Cook goes to the doctor’s office and forms ask for her health history, she writes “not applicable.”

Cook’s granddaughter was diagnosed with celiac disease and she has wondered if the genetic disorder came from her side of the family. “Whether it has any bearing, I don’t know,” she said.

Religious Groups Oppose Access to Original Birth Certificates

The New Jersey bill faces opposition from New Jersey Right to Life, the Catholic Church, the New Jersey Bar Association, the National Council for Adoption and even the ACLU, who defend the privacy rights of birth parents.

 

For 30 years, Pam Hasegawa of Morristown, N.J., has been fighting to change a 70-year-old law in New…

For 30 years, Pam Hasegawa of Morristown, N.J., has been fighting to change a 70-year-old law in New Jersey that denies adoptees their original birth certificates. A grandmother and adoptee, Hasegawa still doesn’t have access to her birth certificate, but believes her mother may have been Scandinavian.

(Courtesy Pam Hasegawa)

“Birth parents who place children for adoption should have the right to keep their identities private, both prospectively and retroactively,” is the stance of the New Jersey Coalition to Defend Privacy in Adoption.

“It almost makes us sound like terrorists who are going to creep into people’s lives and destroy them,” said Cook.

Pam Hasegawa, an adoptee and grandmother who has led the 30-year fight in New Jersey with the New Jersey Coalition for Adoption Reform & Education, said their argument is “full of holes.”

Today, with open adoptions the norm, “most birth mothers choose to meet with the family and to know each other’s names, and if they can, get the birth certificate or a copy of it before it’s finalized to give to the adoptive parents,” she said.

Historically, birth records were closed to protect children from the stigma of being born “out of wedlock” and having “illegitimate” stamped on their birth certificates.

It also was designed to protect the adoptive family from intervention or, as older adoption contracts state, “molestation” by a birth mother.

Hasegawa always knew she was adopted, but later learned more detail about her birth mother’s identity through letters written to an adoptive aunt. Her birth parents had married in Paris, but after her father was killed, her mother had to return to the United States and, without help, reluctantly gave up her daughter.

Hasegawa said birth mothers were never promised anonymity. They were forced to sign papers that relinquished their babies, giving up all rights to knowing their fate — if they were later sick, died or even if they were ever adopted.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, most states had sealed adoption court records completely but, typically allowed adult adoptees to obtain their original birth certificates, according to adoption researcher Elizabeth Samuels, a law professor at the University of Baltimore.

“In the 1950s when adoption was more popular, they wanted to hide the shame of the illegitimate family and the adoptive family didn’t want interference in creating the perfect family,” she said. “The adoptive birth certificate should reflect the new person.”

In 1960, the laws in 40 percent of the states still permitted adult adoptees to inspect them, but between then and 1990, all but a handful of the rest of the states closed the birth records to adult adoptees.

When mores changed, a generation of adoptees began searching for their birth parents, and adoptive parents felt threatened that their children wouldn’t love them, according to Samuels.

The focus of protection shifted away from the birth mother and her child to the rights of adoptive families. Efforts to keep records closed were led by adoption agencies, attorneys general and legislators, but not by the birth mothers themselves.

Today’s adoptive parents are more apt to fight for the “rights of the child and their origin,” said Samuels. And birth mothers are speaking out.

In 1979, Mary Lou Cullen gave up a son in a closed adoption when she was just 19, never telling a soul, not even her husband or later three children. She was contacted by her birth son Nathan, who is now 30, by letter eight years ago.

“He said, ‘If you don’t want any communication, that’s fine, but if you do, this is how you can get a hold of me.’ I never even second guessed or had a moment of hesitation, knowing I was going to contact him,” said the Marshfield, Massachusetts, mother of three more children. “But I had a whole lot of people to tell.”

Birth Mother Supports Reform

The reunion and revealing her secret was “stressful,” said Cullen, who is now president of Concerned United Birthparents. But after working it out, birth mother and birth son have become close.

 

Jean Sacconaghi Strauss, a documentary filmmaker and adoptee, chronicles finding her birth mother…

Jean Sacconaghi Strauss, a documentary filmmaker and adoptee, chronicles finding her birth mother Lee Iacarella Beno, then reuniting Beno with her own birth mother Mary Brown Milosey. The three generations of women, all adoptees, reunited more than three decades after Strauss was born and have since become good friends.

(Courtesy Jean Sacconaghi Strauss)

Even though both Nathan’s adoptive parents and birth parents supported the reunion, he can still not access his birth certificate in Ohio, where he was born.

“Once Nathan met me and my family, he said he felt like it completed him,” said Cullen, now 50. “For me, it was very difficult for a number of years, but it’s my truth and I don’t need to deny it anymore or hide it or cover it up. I can live my honest truth.”

“On top of that, I got to meet my first born, who I never thought I would see again,” she said. “I had no idea what had happened to him. And I was able to deal with the grief that I had never dealt with before.”

But Jean Strauss, a filmmaker who for 30 years has has chronicled the lives of adult adoptees in books and documentaries, admits, “It’s not all about reunions.”

Her film on adult adoptees searching for their identities, “For the Life of Me,” premiered at the Cleveland International Film Festival in March.

“Owning your own information is a very powerful thing,” said the now mother of two. “You are a human being and this belongs to you.”

Born Cecelia Ann Porter in California in 1955, where records are still sealed, Strauss hired a private investigator to find her birth mother after her beloved adoptive mother died in 1988.

“I was terrified I might hurt her,” said Strauss, who described her adoptive mother as “my best friend.”

When they reunited, Strauss was 33 and her birth mother Lee Beno was 54. Six years later, they located Beno’s 80-year-old birth mother, Mary Miklosey, who had grown up in an orphanage where she had been sent when her own mother died.

“The two of them hadn’t seen each other in 60 years,” said Strauss, who told the story in her short film, “The Triumvirate.”

“It’s given me a tremendous sense of freedom,” Miklosey said in the film. “I can say, this is my daughter and my granddaughter and look at the world and say I have a family.”

Strauss also learned she had seven brothers and sisters and for the first time found others who “biologically related to me.” Tragically, a younger brother died of lymphoma, a new relationship she lamented was cut short because of the secrecy of adoption.

“I can’t tell you how it changed me to find out the information,” she said. “I felt so empowered by it and it’s what drives me to help other people to have the truth.”

The “stigma of illegitimacy” that sealed up records has disappeared, notes Strauss, but the world is “much different now.”

Across the border from Kansas in Missouri, an adult adoptee must have the the adoptive parents’ permission.

“Can you imagine being 40 or 50 years old and having to get permission?” she asked. “You have to prove your adoptive parents are dead. If you jump through those hoops and contact the birth parents, they have to give permission. If you are 50, the odds are pretty high that your birth mother is dead.”

In the most restrictive states adult adoptees must pay court and lawyer fees to show cause why their birth certificates should be released.

“It’s a capricious process where some judges say, ‘sure’ and others say, ‘no way, even if your life is threatened,” according to Pertman of the Donaldson Institute.

“People in all 50 states every day are finding their birth parents through the Internet, Facebook and private detectives,” said Pertman. “So what’s the argument and if you don’t believe they are evil people, why not just give them to them.”

As for Carol Cook, she still longs to know who she is — so much so, that she has recently ordered a DNA kit to at least find clues to her genetic roots. Though even if the law passes and she can get her birth certificate, Cook said her parents are likely dead.

“Everyone knew I was adopted except me,” said Cook. “I think that has affected me in some ways. I find it difficult to trust people, It’s not overt. I just can’t get real close to people…I couldn’t let the rest of my life fall apart but it would be nice to know if I can find something out.”

posted by legitimatebastard ~ ~ ~ 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.

 

 

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

On 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.

Shame on the British Parliament for Upholding Gay Rights as the Political Correct Action on Birth Certificates for the Donor-Conceived

On By legitimatebastardIn Adoptee Birth Certificates, Adoptee False Legal Birth Certificate, Adoptees' Civil Rights, Baby Has Two Sets of Parents, Family Preservation, Genealogy, True Birth Certificate for Donor-Conceived

There’s a new article published in United Kingdom’s Daily Mail: Mothers and fathers disappear from birth certificates to allow homosexual couples to be named as parents, article by Steve Doughty, 29th March 2010.

This story differs from the American story of two gay men being named on their adopted son’s birth certificate. That was a “victory” for Gay Rights in the USA for one couple, but, as I’ve previously stated, this is a stunning defeat for the real focus of the boy who lost his right to a truthful birth certificate.

No, this story in England isn’t about one gay couple, this is about the entire county of England going ga-ga over being politically correct, rather than factually correct for the children whose births will now be recorded falsely on official documents.

The article begins:

The words ‘mother’ and ‘father’ are to disappear from birth certificates to allow homosexual couples to be named as ‘parents’ of surrogate children.

The switch means the biological parents will no longer necessarily be identified on the certificates that provide a legal record of a child’s birth.

In England, registering births on birth certificates is a practice that began over 170 years ago. But that doesn’t matter now as the change in the law will now mean that gay men who hire a surrogate can now be named as the only parents of the child. It is not clear if there will even be a formal adoption.

There is still opposition to this as

The move has been questioned by fertility experts and lawyers, who believe it means birth records will be effectively falsified.

The new law also makes provisions for two lesbians:

In the case of two women who register as the parents of a child, there will be no record on the birth register of who the biological father is.

There is much more to the article which reflects more the British way of handling these terms, so you’ll have to read it for yourself. Even so, a few quotes are noteworthy:

… gay pressure groups have welcomed the move. …that lesbian and gay couples no longer have to go through the unpleasantness of an adoption procedure.

The unpleasantness of an adoption procedure? What? It’s unpleasant to adopt a child but there’s no uncomfortable feeling that lying might not be a good idea?

There’s more:

…two men who have a child by a surrogate mother will be able to apply to a family court for an order making them the legal parents. The court will rule on whether they are fit to bring up the child.

In this case an original birth certificate naming the mother will exist. But it will be replaced by a new document naming the two men as parents if a judge grants a parental order.

Wow. I am stunned into jaw dropping open, stunned. This is just two stupid.

A child will be able to trace the original birth certificate once he or she is 18 years old.

Just like a sealed record in an adoption. The adoptee loses rights to the truth of her birth just for the sake that two gay men or two lesbian women can be named on a birth certificate, even if the truth indicates otherwise.

Lady Deech, a senior family lawyer, said the rule allowing two parents of the same sex to appear on birth certificates gave her ‘unease’.

She said: ‘There is an issue of principle here, which is the truth.

‘It puts the demands of the adults ahead of the rights of children to know and benefit from both sides of their genetic makeup.’

I’m standing firm right with Lady Deech. There’s someone who knows the gut-wrenching truth, that it is the children who will be paying the price of their selfish gay and lesbian parents. I say, accept reality, people, because the reality you push upon the children you are forcing to be your children by your out-right lies, will suffer because of the decisions you make. And, in this case, the decisions of the British government.

But I wrote about all of this in my book, Forbidden Family, page 603:

Chapter 42: British Birth Certificates for the Donor-Conceived:

~ In the end, they voted for the wrong solution

~ focus belongs on the child created, not the parents

And on page 606, I wrote:

It appears that British legislators have completely missed the point. In Britain, it would seem that it will be okay to lie on birth certificates. We’ll have to see which way the House of Commons will vote in the future.

As I stated in my closing remarks:

At a time when the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute urges all American States to grant adoptees unrestricted access to their original birth certificates (For the Records, 2007), the British parliament seems to be going backwards. Children need to be told the truth, especially about their conceptions and birth.

It is a tragedy that the British parliament voted down with truth and up for gay rights.

As I’ve said before, when one minority group tramples on the rights of another minority group, the rights that are considered a victory are actually a travesty for the truly oppressed group.

Gays and lesbians and the British Parliament: go sit in the corner until you can adjust your thinking. Shame on 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. Book Sales Link

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

On 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.

Truth, Honesty, and the American Way

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

When I wrote my letter to the South Dakota Senators (see previous post) asking them to vote yes to the Bill allowing access to adoptees for a noncertified copy of their original birth certificates, I couldn’t help but notice the following:

When a new certificate of birth is established pursuant to §§ 34-25-15 to 34-25-16.2, inclusive, the original certificate of birth together with the adoption information or other evidence upon which a new certificate is made shall be sealed, filed, and may be opened only upon order of a court of competent jurisdiction, or by the secretary of health for purposes of properly administering the vital registration system or for purposes of complying with section 2 of this Act.

 Pay attention. The existing law states:

When a new certificate of birth is established

That means, as I have stated in a previous Post, that all adoptees suffer the re-writing of their birth certificates as an automatic procedure as part of the process of finalizing the adoption. THIS PRACTICE MUST STOP!

I have been saying this since 1974 when I was 18 years old and was contacted by siblings I never knew existed. Three days after that shock, my adoptive mother dumped my birth certificates and adoption papers on the kitchen table in front of me. When I looked at my Birth Registration in my birthname and the birth certificate made with my adopted name, I was shocked into realizing that the FACTS OF MY BIRTH had been changed. This does not make logical sense. Why is this even legal? This is why I wrote my Idea For Change on the Change.gov website: “Make falsifying birth certificates of adoptees illegal”. See the Widgets at the left side bar…

Normal people – non-adopted people – and probably many adoptees themselves, do not understand the basic principles here. If we keep asking for ACCESS and ACCESS to UNCERTIFIED copies of our UNALTERED Original Birth Certificates, that is all we may get. THAT is fine, if you want to look at a copy of your birth certificate.

But why should we allow for the continuation of falsifying new adoptees’ birth certificates? Stop the cycle of re-written histories. Stop the fraudulent abusive attack on human infants and children who have no legal representatives to stand in their defense to say NO to “when a new certificate of birth is established…”.

The above referenced South Dakota Bill being voted upon today would give South Dakota adoptees the following:

Upon receipt of the written application and proof of identification, the department shall issue to the applicant a noncertified copy of the unaltered original certificate of birth.

Yes, by what we know of as “a clean bill”, this Bill will give adoptees exactly what is stated above. That is a victory, should this pass, for South Dakota adoptees: access to a noncertified copy of their unaltered original birth certificate. That would be a huge accomplishment, more than what the majority of states do not do for adoptees who want their original birth certificates.

For those purposes, this is a Clean Bill.

But it isn’t really a true clean bill. Two obstacles are still in our way: the assembly line manufacturing of millions more falsified birth certificates each time an infant or child is adopted, thus continuing the cycle of lies. This gives years of possibilities for adoptive parents to continue to lie to their adoptees when they are children and to continue to do so when they are adults. This needs to stop.

The OTHER obstacle is that adoptees who achieve access to noncertified copies of their birth certificates are still being discriminated against because receiving a noncertified copy IS still discrimination. Stop this charade.

The Netherlands gives us a perfect example of how to register the births and adoptions of all their adoptees: 1 birth certificate and 1 adoption certificate. That ensures the total security of the BIRTH CERTIFCATE of the adoptee; as in: a person is born only once — That is a fact of life. And, once a child is adopted, there is an adoption certificate with all the facts of the adoption stated clearly. The adoption facts and the birth facts are clearly defined. No adoptive parent in Holland gets away with the luxury and the falsehoods of having in their possession a “new” birth certificate that implies that they GAVE BIRTH TO A CHILD THAT THEY ACTUALLY ADOPTED.

These documents are open to the three parties: the adoptee, the natural parents and the adoptive parents. There is no chance that the adoptee will use their CERTIFIED birth certificate in fraud (by posing as another person) because both the birth certificate and the adoption certificate are needed for proof of identification and citizenship.

What is so difficult in America that our feeble-minded society cannot accept the true facts of life and the true facts of adoption?

Even lawyers in this country cannot wrap their brains around what I just wrote. Listen, it is simple: stop thinking like backward thinking Americans and start thinking like progressive people and get the job done right. Stop lying to adoptees. Stop fraudulently falsifying our birth certificates because THAT action is morally wrong and needs to be illegal. Stop patronizing adoptees by patting us on the head as if we are still little children, “Here Suzie, here’s your NONCERTIFIED ORIGINAL BIRTH CERTIFICATE, now go away.”

We are American citizens who deserve the right to ONE BIRTH CERTIFICATE and ONLY ONE BIRTH CERTIFICATE, and if we are adopted, WE DESERVE TRUTHFUL DOCUMENTATION of our ADOPTIONS, not a NEW BIRTH CERTIFICATE that is FRAUDULENT.

I’ve been saying the same thing for 36 years. I said it when I was 18 and I am saying it now at age 54. Stop this nonsense of altering our facts of life. No other class of people is discriminated against like this. No class of people is set apart — segregated — from the rest of a free society in the same way adoptees are.

These laws were written at a time when being born illegitimate was shameful. More unmarried couples are co-habiting now and are having children together without the legal binds of marriage. Single women who are lesbians are having children via anonymous sperm donation. (That signifies yet another injustice not covered in this blog post). More single men who are gay are having children via an egg donor or a surrogate mother. (These kids also do not have true birth certificates because it is easier to leave off the name of the missing genetic parent, but again, that is the subject for another discussion).

But all adoptees are not illegitimate. And for the ones who are, they still have one mother and one father who created them and those are the facts of life. If adoptive parents don’t like that, too bad. YOU were lucky enough to be raised by the parents who gave you life, so don’t be smug by withholding the truth to your adoptees. Only when adoptive parents realize that they are part of the problem by not standing up to the government and saying “No, do not issue a falsified birth certificate, issue an adoption certificate instead”.

I am a half orphan born to married parents. Yet, my birth certificate was seized by my government and sealed from me. A new birth certificate was then issued, as if I were born illegitimately and must be segregated apart from the rest of society. Both of those indignations must be addressed by a repressed society that still abuses adoptees.

What does CNN News anchor Anderson Cooper say when he opens his show? He says, “Keeping them honest”.

I’d like to see the entire United States kept honest by changing adoption and birth certificate law to represent the true facts in an open, honest government, federally mandated, not state-run, because adoptees are denied federal civil rights by the current system.

Joan M Wheeler

author of: Forbidden Family: A Half Orphan’s Account of Her Adoption, Reunion and Social Activism, Trafford Publishing, Nov 2009.

If you have any comments on this post, please send an email, with your full  name and reason for contact, to: joan@forbiddenfamily.com.

Stop the Cycle, Stop the Loop of Lies

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

Cully Ray posted the following today on the Change.gov website:

http://www.change.org/ideas/view/return_adult_adoptees_the_right_to_their_original_birth_certificates_2

                                                                                                                

The end of this round will be this Thursday (the 18th) and then the Final round will begin on Monday the 22nd… THIS IDEA WILL BE IN THE FINAL ROUND!!  Thank you all so much for your support and All the Information that has been shared in your comments.

The Final round will be from Feb 22 thru Mar 4th.  There will be 60 ideas presented and the Top Ten vote getters will be presented in Washington DC.  As many of us know the amending/falsifying of Original Birth Certificates can and has caused problems, not only on a personal level but on State and Federal levels as well.

Please help get out the vote for the Final round, and again Thank You for everything you’ve done to get this idea to the Final Round!!!

love and hugz to all.

posted by Cully Ray

 

While the ideas presented by Mara and myself drew considerable less votes, I attribute the reason is because we were short-sighted in our wording. Cully Ray said it best, thus her idea got the most votes. In her above follow-up discussion comment, Cully links the two causes together with a slash: “amending/falsifying of Original Birth Certificates…”

Still, 457 votes for “Return adult adoptees the right to their original birth certificates” is a huge jump from the low-count of 43 for “Make Falsifying birth certificates of adoptees illegal”, and 71 votes for “Release Original Birth Certificates to Adoptees”.

Pay very close attention. I will add this word: CERTIFIED to the idea of “Return adult adoptees the right to their original birth certificates”.

There is no use to the release of UNCERTIFIED Original Birth Certificates to adoptees because that is another CONDITION that the government sets up to perpetuate the infantile treatment of adoptees who were factually born of one set of parents and adopted by another.

To release UNCERTIFIED copies of our true birth certificates is to continue the official lie in presenting our falsified birth certificates as true. Do not let the State and Federal governments get away with this! We know that our falsified and fraudulent birth certificates issued to us at the time of our finalization of our adoptions do not accurately state the facts of our births. THESE documents should be declared NULL AND VOID because of the official lies they uphold. We need to call an end to the issuance of such documents, and call an end to our dependence of the false legal need to have such documents as our legal identity papers!

The message really needs to reach the general public as well as drilled into the heads of adoption reformers: adoptees not only need to demand our civil rights to our true birth certificates, but we need to stop the legal practice of falsifying new adoptees’ birth certificates. We need to create the issuance of an official ADOPTION CERTIFCATE to REPLACE the falsified birth certificate.

Why? Because without stopping the falsifying of adoptees’ birth certificates, the system creates thousands of FRAUDULENT birth  certificates for American citizens each and every day. This horrendous civil rights violation clearly must end.

If this practice does not end, 30 years from now, we will have witnessed yet another generation of adoptees fall victim to fraud and identity theft for the benefit of adoption. Thirty years from now, these fresh-faced adoptees will take over our activism and the right to unseal their (and our) true birth certificates. I don’t want to be fighting the same fight when I’m 84 years old.

We see it happening today. Those of us who are old enough to have been around 30 and 40 years ago at the start of our fight for Open Records know all too well that we have witnessed — and were powerless to stop — another generation of adoptees locked into the falsified birth certificate loop of lies.

Stop the cycle. Vote for the “Return adult adoptees the right to their original birth certificates” in this first round of votes in President Obama’s Change.gov’s website under the Human Rights Ideas for Change. Let the voice of the American people be heard by President Obama and his cabinet. Vote for this idea in the 2nd Round and make sure it reaches the final count to be sent directly to the President. The release of our birth certificates to us is our civil right AND it is our civil duty to prevent the falsifying of new adoptees’ birth certificates. STOP THE CYCLE. STOP THE ABUSE. STOP THE EROSION OF ADOPTEES’ CIVIL RIGHTS.

There are at least 6 to 7 million adoptees in America, yet obviously they are not stepping up to the plate to make their voices heard. Many adoptees still don’t rise up to political action. When adoptees themselves are so worn down by adoption’s dirty little secrets, we cannot stand up to fight the injustices perpetrated upon us. Therefore, it is up to us who do see the connections and injustice to keep shouting our cause loud and clear.

Adoptees … there are millions of you out there! Get off your duffs and vote! Get your pens and pads of paper. Get your computer keyboards tapping. Get to the post office and send your letters to President Obama yourselves. Tell him: Stop the abuse of adoptees. Slavery should hit home to Barak Obama. Slavery is alive and well in the American Adoption System. End adoption abuse now!

Parents of adoption loss also need to get off your butts and take action. Your rights are also being abused by the present adoption cycle. Put an end to it. Fight with all you’ve got.

TRUTH is on our side!

We know who our parents are!

We need to put the emphasis on truth: 1 birth certificate and 1 adoption certificate = Adoption Truth.

See it clearly and get the job done.

 

Joan M Wheeler

Author of Forbidden Family: A Half Orphan’s Account of Her Adoption, Reunion and Social Activism, Trafford Publishing, Nov 2009

The above ideas are laid out in finer details in my book.

Vote for Adoptees’ Civil Rights at Change dot gov

On By legitimatebastardIn Adoptee Birth Certificates, Adoptee False Legal Birth Certificate, Adoptee True Sealed Birth Certificate, Adoptees' Civil Rights, Family Preservation, True Birth Certificate for Donor-Conceived

I’ve been reunited for 36 years and in the adoption reform movement for the same amount of time. We march on Washington, carry picket signs, send letters, write books, conduct research, cry, organize conferences, organize state legislative lobby groups, get side-swiped, start over, sign petitions, blog, start new groups, over and over and over again. 

Other countries are 40 years ahead of America in terms of equality for adoptees and their parents of birth. 

What is America NOT doing right?

We are not demanding to stop the nonsense at the heart of the problem: stop falsifying birth certificates for adoptees. Repeal the law that started the whole mess in 1930. Go read the books. I’ve quoted them in  my book, and in this blog. The authors have been pointing out the history of the heart of the problem for many years. Yet we keep circling around the issues. The people with the money, and their god, rule over the people with no money and no power. 

Stop it. Just stop it! Put an end to seizing birth certificates and falsifying them when a child is adopted. Stop it. Don’t do it. End this barbaric practice of fraudulent birth certificates of adoptees —now.

I, and other adoption reformers, have called for an end to the practice of adoption itself.

In the place of adoption, we need to strengthen families in crisis so that they can stay together. If a child cannot be raised by the parents of birth, kinship care and guardianship must be the final options presented. Both closed and open adoption has been proven over and over again to be detrimental to the adoptee and to the families that get left behind.

Please see the Widgets at the left Side Bar to vote at the Change.gov website for adoptees’ civil rights under the general topics of Human Rights and Human Trafficking. Add your comments to these pages. Even if you are not an American, leave a comment and vote.

End adoption slavery now.