This blog entry is a response to reading Cedar’s blog post: Adoption Practice: “What is coercion?”

Many years ago I was the only adoptee rooming with a half dozen mothers-of-adoption-loss in a hotel room. They were surprised at my support for them, saying that adoptees were hostile to them because of being given away, but I wasn’t hostile to them.

Maybe it was because I before I entered into adoption awareness in 1974 I was introduced to feminist thought in 1971. I was 15 at the time. Womanhood came first and with that came the understanding of what it means to be able to carry life within and the struggle to gain independence from men. So, I understood womanhood long before I was thrown into shock at being found by siblings I was never supposed to know.

So, when I hear of women’s voices telling of what actually took place for them, I believe them.

It is a great burden to have reunion thrust upon an 18 year old who was raised in a sheltered life. My upbringing lead me into believing that sex before marriage was a sin, and was bad, that pregnant teens were, well, you know. That was what I was forced-fed in home and at school and at church. The cognitive dissonance really hit me in 1971 when Canada Jane came into my life. She was a beautiful traveler who had a perspective that was so unlike what I had been taught. Her freedom of self lifted me out of the holds of suppression. And she did it through poetry and photography.

So I am female first and adoptee second. And, the experience of being a real bastard is not mine so when I hear (rather heard in the past) adoptees speak of rage at being abandoned or given away, I did not experience abandonment in the same way. I knew my mother was not a teenage mother. She was not a “tramp”. She was not a seductress nor was she seduced. She was a wife and mother of four other children at the time of my conception, gestation and birth. My mother was nothing less than my mother in the full sense of the word. My father was nothing less than my father in the full sense of the word.

I knew these points instinctively at the moment I was found and heard my sister’s voice on the other end of the phone. When I met my father for the first time and developed a relationship with him, he was my father, he was not some sperm donor or a cad or a womanizer or a creep. He was my father.

My father was talked into giving me up for adoption. His experience in relinquishment is different from that of a mother. Mothers and pregnancy and giving birth are a different experience. But from his perspective as the husband of a pregnant wife, and the father of four children expecting the fifth in the mid 1950s, well, he was the breadwinner, the paycheck, the head of the household. It was his responsibility to take care of us all, to pay for us to provide for us. We were all dependent upon him.

When my father was faced with a pregnant wife who was violently ill, he was frightened. He did not think that the baby has to go, he thought that this was his family and he had to figure out how to fix it all. Illness made his wife go into pre-term labor. She delivered her infant two months too soon on the hospital bed before the nurses could get there. A few weeks before that, she was X-rayed to determine why she was so sick. A massive tumor filled her abdomen along side of the “fetus” who was guessed to be five months at that time. The tumor was real but the age of the “fetus” was wrong. When I was born the doctor determined I was 32 weeks of gestational age; a real feat of birth and survival in those primitive days of 1956.

I survived my mother’s cancer. I survived a premature birth. I survived six weeks in an incubator. My mother died. My father was stressed. Instead of help all he got was talk. The baby needs two parents. The baby? The baby was part of the whole family. The five children needed two parents, but the reality was that the mother died and the whole family needed help to cope with that loss. But no help was given. Just convince the father that the baby, alone, needed two parents. Make him believe he was not worthy to be the real father of his own daughter… make him believe that the only solution was to give her up permanently to another couple so she could lead a better life without him or her siblings.

I say that my widowed father was coerced into giving up his youngest child to adoption. And for that, he was crucified and his given-up daughter was both smothered in love by her adoptive parents and isolated by them. Stockholm syndrome is the better name for what I feel for my adoptive parents for I have those 18 years of a bliss or happiness of childhood gooiness. Yeah right. How do I justify the sad feelings I have for the father who died in 1982 when I see his picture playing with me as a one year old on the floor with the reality that he knowingly and willfully kept me apart from my own siblings for his sake of raising a child of his own? How do I justify the sad feelings I have to recall those happy times when Mom sewed those matching mother-daughter-doll dresses when she wanted me to grow up as she dreamed I would to fulfill her visions of the daughter she called her own? Did I have any rights or feelings? How did these two people justify within themselves what they were doing to me and to my siblings and to my father? How did they justify taking a child away from her family so they could call me their own?

Coercion is just that. There is no rational explanation.  

~ ~ ~ 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.

Why should a child have his or her lineage falsified? Falsifying a birth certificate for two gay men is to pretend that they can give birth! The same applies to two women! Common sense tells us that a child is created by a man and a woman. To record fictional birth records is to falsify a child’s life, lineage, and facts of birth.

In a similar train of thought, a state legislator, Democrat Henry Heller of Maryland, says it’s time to ban marriages between first cousins and stop playing what he calls “genetic roulette’ with their offspring. He wants to bring Maryland ‘into the world of enlightened world of other states such as West Virginia, Arkansas, and most others which already prohibit unions of first cousins. Heller says couples who are first cousins are at an increased risk of having a child with birth defects.

Yet, in most states, and some Canadian provinces, adoption records and the original birth certificates of persons who have had their adoption finalized in that state,  Washington, D.C., or province, are sealed by that jurisdiction and, hence, are unavailable to ‘said’ person whose name is on this document. This adds a unique definition to an adopted person’s hereditary: their genes must be magic! Their DNA can, mysteriously, avoid pooling with a kinfolk’s DNA, ever, to produce an offspring with undesirable traits. Otherwise, why wouldn’t their original birth certificate be available?

This is pure hogwash! But it does reveal one thing:  We adoptees are defined, by law, to have a different place in a biological definition of what it human. We are segregated as a totally different sub-species, one whose genes are pure and/or never produce bad traits in our babies. Therefore, it doesn’t matter if we marry a first cousin, or a relative to a closer degree….

THIS IS DISCRIMINATION!  Are we 1/16th human? Remember that during the slavery times, a person who had African-American heritage would still be defined as “Negro”, even if he/she had only 1/16th amount of blood from his/her African tribe?

 Mary L. Foess

Bonding by Blood, Unlimited, founder & president, since 1988

Vassar, MI

e-mail:  mlfoess@Gmail.com

Web site: http://www.ArmenianAncestryBook.com

Facebook page: accessible by typing in ‘Mary Foess’ or using the above e-mail address

I’m not going to get into a huge discussion on gays rights as that is not the focus of this website.

If two people are committed to each other and love each other, then they should be allowed to marry and adopt if that is their choice. Having said that, I must also say, because there are serious problems with the American system, adoption is not the best choice for the child. Guardianship, and not adoption, should take precedence for the child’s welfare, not the parents who “want” a child. Fiddling around with reproductive technologies, surrogate mothers, donated eggs and sperm, all confuse just whose egg and sperm and womb created the child. In the case of many parents who had a part in giving a child life, all of those parents names belong on a birth certificate. Adoptive parents names belong on an adoption certificate. Period.

These points are discussed in detail in  my book and in this website.

In my blog post two nights ago on the article “5th Circuit Appeal: Court Upholds Child’s right to Both Fathers on Birth Certificate” http://lezgetreal.com/?p=26855, a commenter had this to say following their article:

 Melanie Nathan

Posted on February 22, 2010 at 12:43 pm

The truth is that all adoptive parents get to go on an amended birth certificate and same should apply straight or gay

Well, that may all be well and good, IF that is your goal is. Having the same rights to nullify the personhood of an innocent child for the benefit of raising the legal equality standards for an oppressed group (gay men and lesbians), is just wrong. It is the wrong goal. The goals gays and lesbians want is to be able to adopt, not to be told they cannot adopt. In that process of fighting to win the equal right to adopt, gay and lesbian pre-adoptive parents lose sight of the most important person in this equation: the adoptee.

 Another commenter at the above linked article had this to say:

Chloe

Posted on February 22, 2010 at 9:22 am

Accurate birth certificate?

An accurate birth certificate should state who actually gave birth to the child. The child became a second class citizen the minute his original birth certificate was replaced by the first falsified document.

This is not a gay rights issue. This is an adoptee rights issue. Falsifying birth certificates in the name of adoption is legalized identity theft. This child should be entitled to his true identity just as non-adopted citizens are.

Winning the right to adopt as two single men in a committed relationship is not a victory for gay rights, it is a stunning defeat for human rights, and a devastating defeat for adoptees and our natural parents. We, in the adoption reform movement, have been fighting since 1953 for the right to access our sealed birth certificates and sealed adoption records. In my opinion, we have been terribly short-sighted in our focus. We should also be fighting to PREVENT the sealing and falsification of more birth certificates by demanding an end to sealed birth certificates and the automatic falsification of a “new” birth certificate for every child who is adopted, whether the adopting parents are gay, lesbian, or straight.

I have written about this extensively on this blog, and in my book by the same name as this website. I must be writing to the blind and talking to deaf ears and trying to reason with irrational people. How hard is it to accept the facts of life? One mother and one father get together and one sperm meets one egg and there you have a baby! Throw in a surrogate mother and an egg donor and you have one genetic mother, one rented womb mother, and one sperm donor father. Is that explained clearly enough? Now, class, whose names belong on a factual Certificate of Live Birth? That’s right: the father whose sperm fertilized the mother’s egg and the mother who subsequently gave birth! That’s three parents! The fourth parent who wants to adopt must be named on an adoption certificate because no adoptive parent physically creates an adopted son or daughter. You cannot fabricate the facts of life.

Isn’t that a simple that concept?

But we have been doing just that and that is why the gay community sees this as a victory for their right to adopt.

Who the parents are gets muddied when a new set of parents come along and wants to take over parenting that child. This is why GUARDIANSHIP is much safer for the child: because in Guardianship, the child does not have a replacement set of parents. In Guardianship, the child’s rights to one mother and one father are protected. In Guardianship, the parent-figures have the legal role of care-taker, but they are not taking the place of the child’s true parents. Adoption makes the child’s true parents disappear. Adoption creates a new Certificate of Live Birth for the child and changes the child’s name to suit the purposes of the mother and father who adopt the child. But in the case of two lesbians or two gay men, the two parents who take on the social parenting role want the right to put their names on a new Certificate of Live Birth for the child. That is revisonist history.

The right to adopt should not be confused with the right to be a couple and take on a parenting role.  Adoption, as is practiced in this country, is a biased and unequal legal system with the adopting parents (gay or straight) having the upper hand. Gays and lesbians gaining the legal right to adopt is just one more step in the process of taking away a child’s right to the full truth of who created that child: one mother and one father gave that child life.

I get so tired of explaining this that I actually get tongue-tied.

So I’ll leave that alone for now.

Another commenter on the above article made this correction:

Daryl Royal

Posted on February 23, 2010 at 12:14 pm

Without taking anything away from the rest of the discussion, this decision is NOT from the U.S. Supreme Court, but is instead from the Fifth Circuit, which is a federal appeals court one step below the Supreme Court. It is only binding precedent for courts in that circuit, which include some or all of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.

I stand corrected. So this is not a US Supreme Court ruling. None the less, this is certainly much more attention and “victory” than adoptee-rights legislation has received.

The adoption reform movement needs to stand up and take notice. Oppose such rulings as this! For what appears to be a victory for one oppressed group (the Gay Community) is actually a huge setback for the Adoption-Rights community.

Please, people, wake up! Each and every one of us has one mother and one father, and adoptees have another set of parents who should be named on a Certificate of Adoption, not a fraudulent birth certificate. Stand up and fight for what is right and just!

The United Nations, through UNICEF, has the goal of all children around the world to the right to a Universal Birth Registation and Birth Certificate.

I say we need to EXPAND that idea to include a UNIVERSAL Adoption Certificate. State the facts plane and simple. Put the truth right out there and stop playing with adoptees’ lives.

I still say that a full United States Constitutional Amendment should be made to overturn the Model  State Adoption Act AND this stupid, stupid case involving brain dead numbnuts gay men who can’t see the obvious crime they have just committed against the very child they claim they love so much. If they loved that boy, they would respect WHO he is and WHO his real parents are and not lie on a birth certificate! They would also insist on an accurate Certificate of Adoption to tell the absolute truth of who is the adoptive parent. The birth certificate should tell the truth of who are the biological, life-giving parents.

Gays and lesbians, go back into the corner. You can come back out only when you can recognize and honor the facts of life for another human being.

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.

Twice I clicked “post” and twice my post was rejected by Change.gov in response to http://www.change.org/ideas/view/return_adult_adoptees_the_right_to_their_original_birth_certificates_2

So, censorship is alive and well on even President Obama’s website for Ideas for Change in America.

Here is what is rejected by censors of the truth:

Thank you Diana Iwanski!

A few years ago I was told that the reason this (the government seizure of soon to be adoptees’ birth certificates, and then the mandated falsifying of “new” birth certificates for all adoptees) is not considered a crime is because the Federal Government creates the forms used for amended birth certificates and puts the information on these documents. I was told that if I write about Birth Certificate Fraud in my book (Forbidden Family) that I would look like a fool because this is not an issue.

Well, it most certainly IS an issue!

If I could find a civil rights attorney who would take the case, I would sue the Federal Government, New York State, the City of Buffalo, and the (now deceased Surrogate Court Judge) and the (now deceased) City of Buffalo Registrar of Vital Statistics for tampering with my already existing birth certificate and for fraud of the making of a new document. The Surrogate Court Judge initiated the Order to issue a new birth certificate for me under my adoptive name and with my adoptive parents as implied parents of birth. The fact that the hospital and date and time of “birth” are listed, and that this was a “single” birth are blatant and provable untruths, yet, the Registrar of Vital Statistics of the City of Buffalo affixed his name and the raised New York State seal to this new birth certificate. By doing so, he certified as true the information stated on this document. THAT is not only FRAUD, but it is ALSO PERJURY! Lying under oath is perjury.

I would sue the Federal Government, New York State, Buffalo and Erie County Surrogate Court and the Registrar’s Office, and my adoptive parents, and my extended adoptive family for identity theft, theft of my family of birth, willful and intentional deprivation of family of origin, willful and intentional child abuse and emotional and psychological and medical abuse of my personhood, my personal development and emotional development has been impaired due to imposed adoption fraud. The lifelong identity confusion and humiliation that I have had to endure from being adopted has cost me deep and profound personal destruction, loss of relationships, mental and physical health, job losses, and personal integrity and loss of self esteem.

We adoption reformers must win this fight over the intentional destruction of our personhood. The cost to adoptees is a huge cost, and then the adoptee is held liable to pay for medical costs and mental health therapy due to abuse resulting from deprivation of our family of birth and destruction of our identities.

All people are born only once. To make a NEW birth certificate is to deny facts. Sue the Federal, State, County and City Governments, individual Registrars of Vital Statistics, adoption agencies, Social Workers, and Lawyers — yes, and sue adoptive parents — for the intentional destruction of another person’s vital statistics.

Enough is enough. Where are the attorneys who are in the adoption reform movement? Write the lawsuit, get the proof, file the papers, and make this a Constitutional Amendment or a Presidential Order. Reverse and Repeal and Overturn the 1930 Model State Adoption Act. This has gone on far too long.

Where is the National apology to adoptees and our natural parents? Where is the restitution money owed to us who have had to pay out for therapy and medical tests and to cover the emotional pain we have had to endure for our lifetimes?

Why is it that Australia has had National recognition of the problem, The Netherlands has NEVER sealed nor falsified birth certificates when a child is adopted, and other foreign governments have varying degrees of acknowledgement that adoption destroys the adoptee’s identity of birth?

America is NOT the Land of the Free!

Give me back the right to a CERTIFIED copy of my real and true birth certificate!

Give me the right to have my “new” and “amended” birth certificate declared NULL AND VOID and to demand the issuance of a TRUE adoption certificate to replace my falsified, government issued birth certificate that states that I, Joan M Wheeler, was born to E and D Wheeler. Those are lies and I want an adoption certificate to document what actually took place on January 14, 1957: E and D Wheeler adopted Doris M Sippel and her name was changed to Joan M Wheeler.

What is so difficult about putting the facts on a document?

Angry and Disgruntled? YES!!!

Certifying my amended birth certificate as true is fraud and perjury. Not allowing me a certified copy of my real birth certificate is a National disgrace perpetrated by the government.

 THIS IS TO URGE EVERYONE TO VOTE FOR CULLY RAY’S IDEA FOR CHANGE IN AMERICA. Click on this link to add your vote and your comment: http://www.change.org/ideas/view/return_adult_adoptees_the_right_to_their_original_birth_certificates_2

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.

While I have been unable to find my own words since the earthquake in Haiti because suddenly there are orphans, orphans, everywhere orphans, or so-called orphans, I have found comfort in the words of others. This is why I have directed my readers to other bloggers who have written about the adopt-an-orphan craze that is sweeping America and parts of the world.

At the time the earthquake hit, I’m dealing with medical, legal, financial and emotional fallout from my adoptive mother in and out of the hospital and nursing home. I should be on top of the world — the book I spent the better part of the last seven years writing is now published! Instead, I’m sunk in depression.

Also, it just so happened that a few of my online friends have had inspirations, but with  no blogs of their own, they have asked me to guest-post their works. I am happy to do so.

And, to my surprise, another avenue of correspondence led to yet more postings from afar: the United Adoptees International, a worldwide adoptees news group, sent me Press Releases to post on my blog. Many of my readers are adoptees and first parents who circulate through our known blogs and websites, and, many of my readers are adoptive parent organizations who do not want adoptees’ birth records open to us, and who are foaming at the mouth to adopt those poor Haitian orphans who actually want to stay in their own home country with their families. So, as a comfort to me, and as a service to those who have asked me to post their material, I have posted material from others.

The United Adoptees International, based in The Hague, The Netherlands, is especially dear to me. I will close this quickly written post with this quote from an email  received this morning from the media director:  ”… is ok to post our messages on your blog. The more people read our signals the better.” Usually, my correspondence is with the Director of the UAI, but as he was out of office, I corresponded with someone else.

The messages are clear and direct: while do-gooder people have the intention to help Haiti or other poor countries by taking their children to a “better” place with more money, etc, those foreign-born adoptees grow up and feel isolated from their homeland. It is far more important for the message to get out and to be read by people I know are reading my blog because they don’t like the messages here, than for me to have long stretches of time between my own posts. Writers do have other obligations in life so I am happy to post the words of others in between my own works. As the owner of the website and blog, that is my choice.

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.

Many of you may be wondering why I, a half orphan, am not commenting much about the situation in Haiti. The reason is because this hits too close to my heart. Unlike most of the talk of adoption in America that surrounds the morality or immorality about the ‘sins’ of unwed mothers and how we ‘must’ keep birth records closed to adoptees for the sake of protecting those not-married mothers, real discussion concerning half orphans and full orphans has been lost inside this moralistic mockery. I’m tired of being lumped into this adoption abyss that does not pertain to how I came into this world. But now, orphanhood or the assumption of full orphanhood, is being tossed around just as carelessly as illegitimacy has been, and still is. I find it difficult to find words to defend the rights of other children who face the same fate as I did because their parents have died in the earthquake, or their parents just handed them over because the poverty suffered in their homeland outweighed any rational decisions.

Many other adoption reformers are doing a much better job in research and writing about the children of Haiti, so I bow to their excellent voices. The Daily Basdardette: http://bastardette.blogspot.com/2010/02/is-jorge-pulleo-really-jewish.html, 73adoptee: http://73adoptee.blogspot.com/2010/02/will-haiti-incident-reform-adoption.html, Baby Love Child: http://www.babylovechild.org/2010/02/17/haiti-fails-its-children-releases-8-child-scavengers-on-nothing-more-than-their-worthless-word/, Family Preservation: http://familypreservation.blogspot.com/2010/02/scary-libertarian-view-of-adoption.html, and First Mothers: http://www.firstmotherforum.com/2010/02/lets-hear-it-for-haitian-government.html, to name a few, have many blog posts and updates, so be sure to follow them.

My email inbox carries correspondence from United Adoptees International to an Adoption Advocate organization called Chances For Children. Please read this letter so you may become more aware of what grown adoptees actually feel about being adopted. (edited with the author’s permission and instruction, although I left in European spelling).

Joan M Wheeler

~ ~ ~ ~  

Friday, February 12, 2010, 5:11 AM

Intercountry Adoption Highly Regarded by American Public Even as Numbers of Adoptions are in Free-Fall

To:

Chances for Children

Dear Adoption Advocates,

We have been referred to your organisations by several articles send to us by different contacts around the world. We would like to inform you, that there are many organisations run and managed by adult adoptees who are not sharing your opinion and visions.

Besides this, we would like to request you be respectful but with exclamation to be careful to rewrite topics like adoptions as last resort as you did on your website. The impact of such statements is devastating for ‘family preservation’ projects and alternative family care.

Adoption has become and industry and it seems that your statements about intercountry adoptions seem to support this development. United Adoptees International and many of our contacts would like you to consider equality and support for women and families all around the world before adoption comes into perspective as a misguided concept of humanitarian aid. Huge flaws in international laws and treaties are thus created which abuse the human rights of vulnerable families and children.

Many researches around the world show the great danger of ‘child trafficking’ for adoption instead of supporting long term solutions for countries and families. Adoption has become a facility for ‘wish parents’ (PAP’s, or Pre-Adoptive Parents) and the world of consumers while it was meant as an option for children without families and local support. Approximately 2 billion euro per year is going around to support the adoption cycle. With this money all children, families and countries could have been helped to develop long term solutions for the ones in need. But as long the international adoption lobby is marketing adoption as solutions for children (many of them still have families or direct relatives) without material welfare and finance, we take advantage of the weak and abuse the context and situation in which they are confronted with, instead of understanding the need of the people in those countries who are affected by poverty, natural disasters, and war, etc.

The UAI finds the way international adoption is set up and continued as one-way traffic which makes the rich buyers or traders of the poor. And if we really believe that material welfare and finance gives us the right to get the children we want, than let us open the whole world as a free adoption market and exchange children for those who can afford them. Meaning, Dutch homosexuals already adopt (mainly colored children) from the US, while the US doesn’t want them. At least, that’s what the US advocates and government accepts as an argument to let children from the US go to the Netherlands. But why do US pre-adoptive parents adopt from Haiti now?

In the meanwhile, thousands of prospective US adoptive parents are waiting for white babies from Europe and the EU is opening their EU boarders for exchanging children within Europe. But we are sure, that if the US PAP’s (Pre-Adoptive Parents) will pay enough money, they will be able to get white children (who have still parents and family in the EU) from Europe. So let us open the whole world for the demand for adoption?

Is this what your people and organisation really want? Or would you be able to act in an ethical way, and with dignity, and open heart and ears, to those who have been affected by this child-caravan called adoption?

We urge you to read some statements from Adult Adoptees and reconsider your vision and tone of voice in this topic.

• http://uai-news.blogspot.com/2010/01/pers-bericht-uai.html
• http://uai-news.blogspot.com/2010/01/dutch-government-accept-bribes-to-get.html
• http://outlandishremarks.wordpress.com/2010/01/25/new-statement-by-adoptees-of-color-on-haiti/
• http://www.adopteesofcolor.org/
• http://uai-news.blogspot.com/2010/01/international-reference-centre-for.html

Sincerely,

Hilbrand W.S. Westra

Chairman UNITED ADOPTEES INTERNATIONAL

United Adoptees International is registered by the Chamber of Commerce under no. 34299425, in Amsterdam – The Netherlands. The UAI foundation is applicable under Dutch Law and refers in all her activities to the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Especially articles 8, 16, 20 and 21. The UAI strives for equality and justicefor adoptees and human dignity to all whom are affected by separation and adoption.

As the title of this blog post states, some very rude and ignorant racial slurs were left in my inbox this past weekend. I have closed all sections to Comments as a result. Also, though I am of mixed white ethnic groups, I fully support adoptees of color. Here is a re-print of their excellent statement on adopting Haiti’s earthquake victim children:

http://www.adopteesofcolor.org/?page_id=14

Statement on Haiti

Jan 25, 2010

This statement reflects the position of an international community of adoptees of color who wish to pose a critical intervention in the discourse and actions affecting the child victims of the recent earthquake in Haiti. We are domestic and international adoptees with many years of research and both personal and professional experience in adoption studies and activism. We are a community of scholars, activists, professors, artists, lawyers, social workers and health care workers who speak with the knowledge that North Americans and Europeans are lining up to adopt the “orphaned children” of the Haitian earthquake, and who feel compelled to voice our opinion about what it means to be “saved” or “rescued” through adoption.

We understand that in a time of crisis there is a tendency to want to act quickly to support those considered the most vulnerable and directly affected, including children. However, we urge caution in determining how best to help. We have arrived at a time when the licenses of adoption agencies in various countries are being reviewed for the widespread practice of misrepresenting the social histories of children. There is evidence of the production of documents stating that a child is “available for adoption” based on a legal “paper” and not literal orphaning as seen in recent cases of intercountry adoption of children from Malawi, Guatemala, South Korea and China. We bear testimony to the ways in which the intercountry adoption industry has profited from and reinforced neo-liberal structural adjustment policies, aid dependency, population control policies, unsustainable development, corruption, and child trafficking.

For more than fifty years “orphaned children” have been shipped from areas of war, natural disasters, and poverty to supposedly better lives in Europe and North America. Our adoptions from Vietnam, South Korea, Guatemala and many other countries are no different from what is happening to the children of Haiti today. Like us, these “disaster orphans” will grow into adulthood and begin to grasp the magnitude of the abuse, fraud, negligence, suffering, and deprivation of human rights involved in their displacements.

We uphold that Haitian children have a right to a family and a history that is their own and that Haitians themselves have a right to determine what happens to their own children. We resist the racist, colonialist mentality that positions the Western nuclear family as superior to other conceptions of family, and we seek to challenge those who abuse the phrase “Every child deserves a family”  to rethink how this phrase is used to justify the removal of children from Haiti for the fulfillment of their own needs and desires. Western and Northern desire for ownership of Haitian children directly contributes to the destruction of existing family and community structures in Haiti. This individualistic desire is supported by the historical and global anti-African sentiment which negates the validity of black mothers and fathers and condones the separation of black children from their families, cultures, and countries of origin.

As adoptees of color many of us have inherited a history of dubious adoptions. We are dismayed to hear that Haitian adoptions may be “fast-tracked” due to the massive destruction of buildings in Haiti that hold important records and documents. We oppose this plan and argue that the loss of records requires slowing down of the processes of adoption while important information is gathered and re-documented for these children. Removing children from Haiti without proper documentation and without proper reunification efforts is a violation of their basic human rights and leaves any family members who may be searching for them with no recourse. We insist on the absolute necessity of taking the time required to conduct a thorough search, and we support an expanded set of methods for creating these records, including recording oral histories.

We urge the international community to remember that the children in question have suffered the overwhelming trauma of the earthquake and separation from their loved ones. We have learned first-hand that adoption (domestic or intercountry) itself as a process forces children to negate their true feelings of grief, anger, pain or loss, and to assimilate to meet the desires and expectations of strangers. Immediate removal of traumatized children for adoption—including children whose adoptions were finalized prior to the quake— compounds their trauma, and denies their right to mourn and heal with the support of their community.

We affirm the spirit of Cultural Sovereignty, Sovereignty and Self-determination embodied as rights for all peoples to determine their own economic, social and cultural development included in the Convention on the Rights of the Child; the Charter of the United Nations; the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The mobilization of European and North American courts, legislative bodies, and social work practices to implement forced removal through intercountry adoption is a direct challenge to cultural sovereignty. We support the legal and policy application of cultural rights such as rights to language, rights to ways of being/religion, collective existence, and a representation of Haiti’s histories and existence using Haiti’s own terms.

We offer this statement in solidarity with the people of Haiti and with all those who are seeking ways to intentionally support the long-term sustainability and self-determination of the Haitian people. As adoptees of color we bear a unique understanding of the trauma, and the sense of loss and abandonment that are part of the adoptee experience, and we demand that our voices be heard. All adoptions from Haiti must be stopped and all efforts to help children be refocused on giving aid to organizations working toward family reunification and caring for children in their own communities. We urge you to join us in supporting Haitian children’s rights to life, survival, and development within their own families and communities.

……………….

49 Comments follow on their website: http://www.adopteesofcolor.org/?p=6#respond

This one is my favorite:

“Comment by Leanne Leith — January 27, 2010 at 12:20 am”  

“Acts of benevolence by the color-blind privileged add yet another layer of violence to the personhood of vulnerable little people, compounding their losses. The redistribution of children of color is rooted in the marginalization of ethnic groups and the propensity to make fetish objects of their children. It is no charity to exploit a time of tragedy – or any time – to take a nation’s most valuable resource for personal gain.

It is a sad statement when those that capitalize on tragedy pat themselves on the back for their charity. The truly charitable would offer to help victims to help themselves. This feeding frenzy we are witnessing today by would-be child importers truly reveals the darkest aspects of man’s ability to rationalize the ugliest of acts.

It’s high time we respect the humanity of all peoples by preserving families and allowing them the dignity to build their own strong societies without the intervention of self-interested parties. THAT would be the action of an enlightened, advanced, civil society.”

And this one is second runner-up:

Comment by United Adoptees International — January 26, 2010 at 9:10 am  

“…It is time that Adoptees all over the world become active and participate in the international and national adoptiondebate at all levels of society and decision making government bodies and show that the time of Infantilization and the monopoly on adoption by adopters and their politics is over.

The adoption triangle starts with the (intersts of) parents, not the adopters. It seems that everyone in the adoption debate forgot that. Including the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption.

We can change the world. Not by sitting down and wait, but to feel the power flowing within in us and everyone who is capable to understand what is really going on.”

 

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=125&article=67740

Haiti tragedy, adoptions

Stars and Stripes
Letters to the Editor, Wednesday, February 3, 2010

The New Jersey adoption community is not too surprised that an adoption agency may have skirted the laws to acquire healthy babies from Haiti (“Americans arrested on human trafficking suspicions,” article, Feb. 1). This particular organization is seemingly following (White House Chief of Staff) Rahm Emanuel’s motto, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste.”

Agencies are no longer seeking adoptive parents but are rather seeking babies for desperate and sometimes high-paying couples.

Profit motive and secrecy will continue to plague adoption, but at least the American culture has evolved a bit. We no longer separate child from mother simply because the mother is unwed, a practice made popular by the Catholic Church. Today, it takes inhumane governments like that of China, or a natural disaster like in Haiti to grease the adoption machine and create a pool of adoptable infants. Some unethical brokers of adoption hardly care about the source of babies and some, like the New Jersey Bar Association, desperately fight to keep secrecy in adoption.

This only serves as a reminder that although the culture and practice may have changed, archaic laws from the 1940s still rule, placing biological families and their children at an unfair disadvantage.

Army Reserve Capt. Peter W. Franklin
AdopteesWithOutLiberty.com (AWOL)
Haskell, N.J.

I am relieved that representatives from my profession (Social Work) have made a formal statement to Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, concerning Haitian children and adoption. The following letter was forwarded by Mirah Riben, and in another email by Etta Lappen Davis. 

Hello All,

 The attached open letter to Secretary Clinton was sent on 2/4/2010, and was shared with all major news organizations, NASW & CSWE.  Signers are sharing the open letter with other professionals and would appreciate your support in the form of e-mails, letters or phone calls to Secretary Clinton’s office. 

You may contact Secretary Clinton at:

U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington , DC 20520  

Main Switchboard:
202-647-4000
TTY:1-800-877- 8339

 Web-base e-mail access:  http://www.state. gov/secretary.  (Click on the “contact us” button in the top right hand corner of the page, and then click on the “e-mail a question or comment” tab) 

 Feel free to pass on.  Thanks.

 Etta Lappen Davis

Etsky Consulting

www.etskyconsulting .com

etta@etskyconsultin g.com

http://www.linkedin .com/in/ettalapp endavis

… … … …  

February 4, 2010

Dear Secretary Clinton:

On February 2, 2010, there were very good opinion pieces in the New York Times about the Haitian Orphan crisis (http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/01/haitis-children-and-the-adoption-question/). We, as professional social workers/human service providers and social work scholars support this discourse, however in the immediate situation we want to underscore a pressing concern. Many of the children who are coming to the USA for emergency medical care are arriving on humanitarian visas and in crisis. We ask that you consider the following:

Some of these children have uncertain identities and in time, determining their family connections will be difficult therefore DNA should be a part of the procedures so that they may be returned to their parents or extended family, when possible.

The USA medical facilities where these children are being treated have the capacity to take tests and, in addition a centralized DNA database must be developed and managed by a party that has no financial interest in intercountry adoption.

The visas that are being issued by the Department of State can be coded as to identify such a child (example: humanitarian/medical/minor Haitian). Coding in this manner would be a second data point for the aforementioned database, insuring that the whereabouts of these children are clear so that they may be returned to their families if and when that is possible.

It is our position that such management of information is necessary so that the best interests of the child are honored and the prevention of child abduction is assured.

All of the above points are explained in greater detail at Americas Quarterly http://www.americasquarterly.org/haiti-orphans

As social workers, we further support the position statement of International Social Services which is found at: http://www.iss-ssi.org/2009/assets/files/news/haiti_position%20CIR_ENG.pdf

Finally, the news reports indicate that a US-based faith group has been arrested in the Dominican Republic for an illegal airlift of children. We implore the US government to cooperate with international law enforcement to clarify this incident—determine if it was indeed child trafficking and act accordingly. Our nation’s commitment to the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, set forth to prevent abduction and trafficking of children, requires that we act responsibly in law enforcement related to such alleged activities. Even if the Convention does not apply to Haiti , it is our opinion that we must act according to these values to insure the best interests of the child .

If and when adoption of Haitian children re-opens as an option, managing this system ethically will be essential to insure human rights of peoples who have already been so devastated.

Sincerely,

Karen Smith Rotabi, PhD, MSW, MPH
Assistant Professor, School of Social Work
Virginia Commonwealth University
ksrotabi@vcu.edu

Kathleen Bergquist, LCSW, JD, PhD Associate Professor, School of Social Work
University of Nevada at Las Vegas

DeGuerre Blackburn, ACSW

Executive Drector Voices for International Development and Adoption
Hudson,NY

Mary Katherine O’Connor, PhD
Professor, School of Social Work
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond , VA

Jini L. Roby, JD, MSW , MS
International Child Welfare Consultant
Associate Professor
Brigham Young University
Provo , UT

Denise Gammonley, PhD, LCSW
Associate Professor
Hartford Geriatric Social Work Faculty Scholar
School of Social Work
University of Central Florida

Carmen Monico, MSc, MSW/PhD student
School of Social Work
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond , VA

Rosemary J. Link, PhD
Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs
Simpson College
Indianola , Iowa

John Cosgrove PhD, Professor Emeritus
Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service
Chair International Special Interest Group, New Jersey Chapter
National Association of Social Workers

Jenny Jones, PhD, MSW
Associate Professor, School of Social Work
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond , VA

Humberto Fabelo, PhD, MSW
BSW Program Director
Associate Professor, School of Social Work
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond , VA

Ruth McRoy, PhD
Research Professor and Ruby Lee Piester Centennial Professor Emerita
School of Social Work
University of Texas
Austin , TX

Etta Lappen Davis, MA.Ed.
Principal & Child Welfare Consultant
Etsky Consulting, Bolton , MA

Karen Smith Rotabi, PhD, LMSW, MPH
Assistant Professor
Virginia Commonwealth University School of Social Work
1001 West Franklin Street
Richmond, VA 23284-2027
(804) 828-5411 (office)
(804) 828-0716 (fax)

http://www.cubirthp arents.org/ haiti.html

HAITI’S CHILDREN BEST SERVED BY CARE, NOT REMOVAL

SAN DIEGO, February 3, 2010 – Concerned United Birthparents (CUB) urges the governments of Haiti and the U.S. to stand strong against suggestions that the best way to help Haiti’s children is by removing them from their families, culture and homeland.

A national non-profit of birthparents, adoptees and adoptive parents, CUB shares the world’s concern for Haiti’s most vulnerable in the wake of the devastating earthquake of January 12, 2010. But the 33-year-old non-profit says it has a unique understanding of how important it is to reject quick-fix solutions when it comes to a child’s life, especially in its time of greatest need.

“Years of working with family members who were separated by adoption have taught us that good intentions are not enough,” said CUB president Mary Lou Cullen. “The hasty transfer of traumatized children, many with family status unknown, to foreign shelters, foster care or adoption agencies, should not be tolerated. Haiti’s devastation should not be compounded by anything that inadvertently, or intentionally, contributes to the risk of family separation for any purpose.”

As the United Nations’ Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and its partners – including the Haitian Government and the Red Cross – establish safe spaces for the hundreds of thousands of children separated from their families before and after the earthquake, and begin to register all unaccompanied minors, CUB urges the governments of the U.S. and Haiti to halt any further airlifts of children or any new adoptions.

In addition, CUB urges that any groups with clear or potential conflicts of interest – such as adoption agencies and ministries – be removed from the decision-making process about how best to serve Haiti’s children. Humanitarian policies should be applied on a case-by-case basis for those children whose legal adoption had already been approved, and were in the process of being adopted, with the support of the latest and best practices in the field. “But,” Cullen says, “all other pending adoptions should be immediately suspended.”

Haitians living in the U.S. should get help to locate their youngest relatives on the island, and the transfer of any children with documented parents or family members in the U.S. should be expedited, for temporary or permanent placement.

The recent arrest of an Idaho church group for transporting 33 Haitian children across Haiti’s border – without papers or approval – has drawn the world’s attention to what can happen when well-meaning but ill-informed forces swoop in to “help.”

MORE ABOUT CUB: Through a network of regional groups and an annual conference, CUB provides mutual support for the ongoing challenges of adoption – resources, referrals and a strong network – and works to educate the public about adoption issues and realities. It also assists adoption-separated relatives searching for family members, opposes unnecessary family separations and supports adoption reform in law and social policy.

For more information or to arrange an interview with a CUB representative, please contact Eileen Drennen at 800-822-2777, ext. 81, or send an email to vpmedia@cubirthpare nts.org.

http://www.cubirthp arents.org

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.

Even though this was made public in 2007, this bit of legislation – now is California Law - has just come to my attention (bold emphasis added): 

 CALIFORNIA STATUTE PUTS EMPHASIS ON PLACEMENT WITH EXTENDED FAMILY

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed the Relative Caregiver Bill (AB298) into law, allowing foster children greater access to permanent placement with extended family members. The statute allows for extended family members to be given legal guardianship as a preference over adoption by non-family members. In addition, the law – enacted in October – requires relative caregivers to be given information regarding the options of legal guardianship and adoption, including the long-term benefits and consequences of each option. To read the law, go to: http://www.legislat ure.ca.gov/ port-bilinfo. html and search by bill number.

            When I searched for the Bill under the above number, I could not find it. Fellow adoption reformer, Cully Ray, confirmed the correct Bill name and number to be Relative Caregiver Bill AB12 (http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/09-10/bill/asm/ab_0001-0050/ab_12_bill_20100128_history.html).  

             There have been recent amendments made to his law (269 pages can be found at: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/09-10/bill/asm/ab_0001-0050/ab_12_bill_20100125_amended_asm_v95.pdf).

Just moments after publishing my previous Post, this letter arrived in my email.

I know some people are opposed to SOS Children’s Villages because SOS has agreed to release children for adoptions in the recent past (and that goes against the goal of family reunification and family preservation), but in this instance, I am in support of SOS Children’s Villages.

This letter addresses the 33 Haitian children who are now in care of SOS Children’s Villages.  

… … …

Dear Joan,

This past weekend, 33 children from Haiti were allegedly kidnapped in an attempt to bring them to the Dominican Republic. A team of missionaries from Idaho were stopped at the border by Haitian officials because they lacked the proper documentation to move these children outside of their home country. The Haitian Social Ministry immediately sought out a safe haven for the children and found one in the SOS Children’s Village in Santo, Haiti. The children will remain in the Santo Village while authorities search for their families. Read the news account below:

Late in the evening on January 29th, the Haitian police arrested 10 U.S. citizens attempting to take 33 children from Haiti to the Dominican Republic in a suspected illicit adoption scheme. The suspects did not have official papers confirming the identities of the children, nor did they have official permission to bring the children out of the country. On January 30th, the Haitian Social Ministry entrusted those 33 children (aged three months to 12 years) to the care of SOS Children’s Villages.

SOS has two Children’s Villages in Haiti, one located in Santo, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. Both Villages withstood the earthquake and are being used as emergency relief facilities. The 33 children were taken to the Santo Village where they were warmly received. The children — allegedly victims of child trafficking — were visibly in need of special attention and care.  

According to SOS staff in Santo, the children were distressed, hungry and thirsty. Upon arrival, each child was registered with SOS and provided with a nutritious meal. The Red Cross, based at the SOS Children’s Village in Santo, promptly examined the youngest children and provided medical care to those who needed it.

The SOS teams are now closely monitoring the children and trying their best to comfort them. Meanwhile, other SOS staff members are attempting to search for relatives.

“But I am not an orphan,” said an eight-year-old girl. She thought that her mother had arranged a vacation trip for her. Some of these children obviously still have parents who may have been persuaded to hand over their children under false pretenses. The allegations will be thoroughly investigated but the Haitian police consider this incident organized child trafficking.

For security reasons, all staff of SOS Children’s Villages are wearing identification stickers, and all children from the SOS Children’s Village in Santo wear wristbands. The entry to the SOS Children’s Village in Santo is strictly controlled.

Through your support, children in Haiti and in 131 other countries have a safe haven at SOS Children’s Villages. Please continue to fund our work for these children who are at such great risk. Make a donation now.

Heather Paul
Executive Director
SOS Children’s Villages – USA

P.S.: Please support our work throughout the year by Sponsoring Disaster Orphans.

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

In this CNN breaking News story, 10 American Baptist missionaries in Haiti claim  they were ”God-appointed”, but they are being held in jail charged with kidnapping 33 Haitian children.

Ten of these children are not half or full orphans. One asked for someone to call her mother who gave the TV cameras and interviewer permission to film her daughter.

Haiti’s Prime Minister said these children were “not fully willing to go”.

Video and text of the CNN News story here.

As a half-orphan myself, I am mad as hell.

Baptists behaving badly. Christians not thinking beyond their own selfish motives to be seen as good people. The children suffer.