Forbidden Family

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, 29^th 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

This day a year ago he was rolling in the snow
With a younger brother in his father’s yard
Christmas break, a time for touching home
The heart of all he’s known, leaving was so hard
Now three thousand miles away he’s working Christmas Day
Earning double time for the minding of the store
He always said he’d make it on his own
He’s spending Christmas Eve alone
First Christmas away from home

She’s standing by the railway station, panhandling for change
One more dollar buys a decent room and a meal
Looks like the Sally Ann place after all
The vast and dreaming hall that echoes like a tomb
But it’s warm and clean and free, there are worse places to be
And at least it means no beating from her dad
And if she cries because it’s Christmas Day
She hopes it doesn’t show
First Christmas away from home

In the hall they’ve got the biggest tree but it looks so small and bare
Not like it was meant to be
And the angel on the top it’s not the same old silver star
You once made for your own
First Christmas away from home

In the morning there are prayers, then there’s tea and crafts downstairs
Then another meal up in his little room
Hoping that the boys will think to call
Before the day is done, well it’s best they do it soon
When the old girl passed away he fell apart more every day
Each had always kept the other pretty well
But the boys agreed the nursing home was best
‘Cause he couldn’t live alone
First Christmas away from home

In the common room they’ve got the biggest tree, it’s huge and lifeless
Not like it was meant to be
The Santa Claus on top it’s not the same old silver star
You once made for your own
First Christmas away from home

It is nice to know that intelligent readers are out there. I hope you find interesting information on this website.

In 1989 at an American Adoption Congress Conference, I met Dirck Brown. I bought his book, “Clinical Practice in Adoption” and he signed it, “To Joan, Best Wishes, Dirck”.  We wrote back and forth for awhile, then lost touch. I’m sorry I didn’t know the other authors of that book: Robin Winkler, Margaret van Keppel, and Amy Blanchard.

I tucked a piece of paper inside the book. It was printed off of The Internet, an email from Carolyn Hoard, of the AAC. She wrote of Dirck’s passing on December 30, 2003. In re-reading this, I suddenly realize that Molly Brown is his wife. I had not put this together until now. Two years before I met Dirck, I met Ken Watson at an AAC conference. He told me that Molly Brown coined the phrase about sperm donation being “premeditated abandonment.” I have quoted and credited Molly Brown and Ken Watson in  my newly-published book. I have also quoted Dirck Brown and cited his book.

My greetings to PACER, the Post Adoption Center for Education and Research, in Palo Alto, California.

And my greetings to the University of California in Riverside. In the summer of 1980, I camped out for three days and nights in the Redlands, the mountains, with my full-blood brother, his wife, and my toddler nephew. That experience is also in my book.

Thank  you to other Universities for looking in here. I’m a bit overwhelmed and humbled at the response. Though I can’t see you, talk with you, or sit for hours discussing, it is comforting to know that you are reading here.

Other Universities that have stopped by are: MIT,  National Institute of Standards and Technologies, National Institutes of Health, Westlaw – West Publishing Corporation, Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, and the University of Nevada at Reno.

That’s the whole point: adoptees like me want people like you to read our websites. Natural mothers of adoption loss want people like you to read their websites. We have much to offer places of higher learning. Many of us have varying degrees of education, many of us are writers and authors and professors and therapists, but many of us were so beaten down by what adoption did to us that all we can offer are our words in blogs. Learn from us. Help us make the changes we need to make the world safer for women and their children, and husbands with children who face life after their young wives and mothers die.

from my former blog —

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2009

Couple Implanted With Another Couple’s Embryo Will Give Baby To His Genetic Parents Immediately Upon Birth….

Honesty, sincerity, integrity! Can you imagine that? Here’s a couple, devastated to learn this past February that the pregnancy achieved through IVF was not their biological child, this couple makes the right decision to give the baby back to his rightful parents. The boy is not yet born. The couple is devastated that they are not pregnant with their own genetic child.

The genetic parents will be traveling to the hospital from another state for the delivery, but they will not be in the room for the cesarean delivery. Here’s the link to that story on CNN:http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/09/22/wrong.embryo.family/index.html

This unborn boy has the right to a truthful birth certificate. He also has rights to all of his parents.

I hope the authorities will document this boy’s conception and birth truthfully. He has two mothers. Even though the second father is not involved in conception and birth, he is emotionally connected to that baby. The couple who is going through this pregnancy has influenced this unborn baby with their voices, their emotions, their environment, and their love. They must be added to the boy’s birth certificate: the pregnant woman will give birth to a son who is not her genetic son! The genetic parents will have their newborn placed in their arms at birth. They should also be named on the child’s birth certificate. Information about the infertility clinic where he was conceived should also be named.

Visitation should be awarded to the parents who will relinquish their birth-son, and, from the boy’s perspective, he may also want to visit with these parents and their other children. After all, he was nurtured in his birth-mother’s womb and heard her other children’s voices. They are his siblings, even though they are not genetically related.