Stolen Identities

© Photographer: Drx | Agency: Dreamstime.com

The issue of humans rights for adults who were adopted as children ~ whether domestically or internationally, affects millions of Americans and their families.

Adopted individuals are the only group of American citizens who are NOT afforded the RIGHT of owning their OWN original birth certificates and identity information.  Unless you are personally affected by these archaic "sealed records" laws ~ it probably doesn't seem very important. BUT IT IS.

You see, there are proven life-long issues for individuals who are separated from their family of origin. AND there is a billion-dollar BUSINESS of separating children from their family of origin, in order to fulfill another family's desires.

This same business lobbies state governments to keep all these transactions SEALED permanently, even to the PRODUCT of these transactions ~ the adoptee. Since when should HUMANS be allowed to be the PRODUCT of an industry? Most instances of this happening are fought against vehemently in society ~ child-trafficking, slavery, etc. So why are sealed and amended (falsified) birth certificates accepted without question?

Why are adults prohibited from knowing their PERSONAL identity, history, origins, genealogy, medical history, and roots ~ FOREVER? These are some extremely important HUMAN RIGHTS issues that need answers ~ here in our own 50+ states. It affects millions of individuals, families, and decendents of adoptees.

Several U.S. states (most recently New Hampshire, Rhode Island & Oregon) have passed legislation which RESTORES the RIGHT of adult adoptees to their original birth certificate.  Kansas and Alaska have NEVER sealed original birth certificates from adult adoptees.  

Adoptees have been working diligently for DECADES to make this issue known and to educate lawmakers. The sad, sad story ~ we are being silenced, shamed, contradicted, and refuted by the VERY "professionals" who SAY they were working on our behalf ~ the adoption agencies & attorneys ~ the situation remains that adopted children DO NOT REMAIN CHILDREN FOREVER. Yet the laws treat us as perpetual children with NO rights to our own identity and birth information. It affects us personally on a primal level, it affects our spouses, our children, our grandchildren, and all those who come after us.

Adoption law can best be explained as state-sanctioned identity theft.

I've been attending an Adoption Task Force at my state's Capitol recently where the State Dept. of Health reasoned that it would be too expensive to keep count of the number of adoptions completed in our state ~ not fiscally possible. They even mentioned to one Task Force member that they are receiving original birth certificates for babies targeted for adoption (those in "open" adoptions, which by the way, are not legally enforceable and could become "closed" adoptions at the adoptive parent's will) where the potential adoptive parent's names are ALREADY being listed on the obc, before the adoption is even finalized and a new "Amended" birth certificate is issued.

When the legislators present expressed concern about this practice and the Task Force was questioned, one adoption professional spoke up saying "it is the birthmother's 'choice' to put whatever she chooses on the original birth certificate". This just happens to be a representative from an adoption agency who has been in business for many years and is notorious for using "alias" names for first mothers who were shamed into placing their babies during the "Baby Scoop Era" of the 50's, 60's and 70's (see Jan Baker's article, "Do We Really Need to Be Protected.") 

One adoptee I know found her first mother only because she paid this agency several hundred dollars to act as an intermediary. They were the only ones with the information to match the alias name on her obc with her first mother's true name. Once they were reunited, her first mother could not believe there was an alias name on her daughter's birth certificate and was under the impression her daughter would be able "find her" easily once she turned 18. So untrue. 

Without a true and factual (unfalsified) government document "Certificate of Live Birth", and an adult adoptee's right to access this important information, our civil rights continue to be violated.

Myths perpetuated by the adoption industry fighting to keep records sealed are simply not true.

We continue to dispel common myths surrounding adoptee access, sharing the good news that in the states which have implemented this law, abortion rates have actually declined more than the national average, and that birth mother "confidentiality" was also a myth perpetuated by the adoption industry. In fact, birth mothers were never promised (nor asked for) confidentiality in the law. It was enforced upon them.

The TN and OR Supreme Courts have both ruled on this issue. "Sealed records" were not implemented until 1939 in OK ~ to protect the newly formed adoptive family, not birthmothers.  In fact, even today, if a birthmother relinquishes her child for adoption, but for some reason the child is never adopted and remains in foster care, his/her original birth certificate is never sealed or amended.
   

Please read more ("Birthright" by Jean Strauss; "The Baby Thief" by Barbara Raymond) about this important HUMAN RIGHTS issue and come along side adult adoptees (along with their families) who are simply asking for the same right as every other American citizen. 

In August of each year, adoptees and their families from around the nation come together and share this important information at the National Convention of State Legislators during  Adoptee Rights Day.  Consider how you can personally help to "open the wells" for adoptees and their families. 

Please contact your local state Legislator today and let them know about this important issue!

Adoptees are Commodities

© Photographer: Tasosk | Agency: Dreamstime.com

Why is it legal for human beings to be the commodity in a "family building" business of supply & demand? Why is it legal for adoption "professionals" and the general public to "advertise" or "market" for human beings on the internet or in general media? (Dear Birthmother letters, "profiles", etc.)

Think about it. The intentional solicitation of babies and children is not ethical. The money (billions per year) involved in the adoption "process" sets the entire "system" up for corruption.  Someone is profiting.  Why would our society rejoice in making MORE children "available" for adoption, rather than work to prevent its need? 

As an adult adoptee it truly feels like we are simply commodities hastened to fill the needs of those who want to build a family, instead of our feelings and rights being respected, as those who lose our original identities, names, mothers, families, heritage, and place. The "closed records" concept is a violation of all that we are as human beings.

The movie "The Truman Show" is not a fantasy thriller, it is a true depiction of the lives of adoptees everywhere. He wakes up one day to find out the life he is living is a fabricated set-up, with actors and players, and he is the only one who was not aware or given the choice to be a part of the "set".

Adopted children have to adjust in order to survive. But once they become adults, the only way they can truly embrace their lives, their identities, their families - the only way they can truly love - is to become real. And unless they can know, grieve, exist, and truly produce in their God-given identity on this earth - they live forever frozen in a time warp of man-made reality without the freedom of existing in their own skin and humanness.

Adult adoptees - the ones no one wants to believe - are the true voices in adoption. Although "sealed records" in adoption attempts to silence us as "perpetual children" under the law, no amended birth certificate can erase truth.

Visit Write Mind Open Heart for more perspectives on the Dollars and $ense of Family Building and to add your own link to the blog hop by June 21, should you want to contribute your thoughts.

Falsified Original Birth Certificates

© Photographer: Katn1999 | Agency: Dreamstime.com

Here are two articles on the same case in Florida which describes a very common practice in adoption ~ the falsification of the name of a natural mother on an original birth certificate. As in these cases, it was common for an adoption facilitator, agency, or attorney to encourage this practice.

In today's "open adoptions" the name of the potential adoptive parents are sometimes being listed on the child's original birth certificate, rather than waiting until the adoption is finalized and an amended birth certificate created.

This is a human rights violation and legislation should ensure that every American citizen has access to their own non-falsified original birth certificate, for identity, genealogical, and medical history.

Genealogists have concluded that because of archaic "sealed records" laws in adoption and fraudulant practices like this, a large percentage of all American's family genealogy will be inaccurate in another four generations. When we deny the human rights of one, it affects everyone.

Adoption in America will not be ethical and void of gross conflict of interest issues and civil rights violations until ALL adult adoptees are restored the unconditional right to obtain their obc; until legislation is passed to ensure unethical practices of falsifying birth certificates is stopped; and the almighty dollar is no longer the driving force in a supply/demand business of adoption.


MAN, 47, SUING TO ANNUL HIS OWN `BABY SALE' ADOPTION
http://poundpuplegacy.org/node/27405

Relates to: Winnie Faye Higginbotham Yarber (now Winnie Faye Whitaker)
Date: 1999-06-09
Miami Herald, The (FL)
Author: KAREN TESTA, Associated Press
Dateline: BOCA RATON

For nearly 20 years, Michael Chalek was tormented with unfulfilled questions of his birth, his adoption and his true parents.

Now, at age 47, he's condemned to know the answers.

Chalek discovered he'd been sold for $200 by a baby broker after his young mother was coerced into giving him up under an assumed name, state records unsealed recently show. Chalek claims that was the beginning of a childhood marked by sexual and verbal abuse.

His adoptive parents and the baby broker cannot defend themselves - they are all dead. But Chalek hopes a lawsuit filed this week in Alachua County will right some of the wrongs: he's asking to annul his 1953 adoption and get a new birth certificate with his true mother's name.

``By me doing that, it's making a statement that ought to be made,'' said Chalek, who moved a few months ago from Boca Raton to Estes, Colo. ``I think the individuals involved in this ought to be exposed.''

That has been Chalek's lifelong quest. He has been aided by investigators, including Virginia Snyder.

Chalek was born Jan. 25, 1952, in Jacksonville to Winnie Faye Higginbotham Yarber, a barroom waitress who had separated from her husband and became pregnant by another man.

Eight days later, the child then known as Baby Barnwell went home with Alex and Adela Chalek, who had contacted baby broker Lenora Fielding when they were not successful at having their own child, records show.

Florida adoption laws were not as strict then, and adoptions could be arranged by doctors or lawyers, said Josette P. Marquess, coordinator of the Florida Adoption Reunion Record. Adoptions such as those arranged by Fielding were not really legal - but that was largely ignored.

About a year after his adoption, Michael Chalek said, the Chaleks had their own son. Michael claims he began to suffer sexual abuse by his mother as he grew up in Gainesville and later in Atlanta. There is no record of any abuse being reported.

At age 11, he found out he was adopted and he became obsessed with wanting to know about his birth family, he said.

``It burned in my lower gut all the time,'' he said Tuesday. ``I always wondered every single day who I really was.''

A vital document
In 1981, Chalek found a document that named the hospital where he was born.

Seven years later, a judge listened to one of Chalek's repeated petitions to unseal his confidential records - something rarely done in Florida without a compelling medical need, Marquess said.

Judge Robert P. Cates allowed Chalek access to 100 pages of his early life's history. The revelations were startling, Chalek said.

Notes from state case workers showed Fielding coerced his birth mother into using a false name. The record also showed his mother asked a state worker if she could get the baby back.

The mother - Winnie Faye Whitaker - welcomed the telephone call this past December when Chalek finally found her. His birth father died sometime in the 1970s.

``I didn't want to give him up - but I was so young,'' said Whitaker, now 70, who added she supports Chalek's court request. ``I asked if I could just get the baby back, and they told me no. I'd already signed the papers.''

Those are the papers Chalek hopes to have annulled by his petition.

Madelyn Freundlich, executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute in New York, said annulments of adoptions are extremely rare. And of those, most are sought by the parents, not the children. She's never heard of a new birth certificate being issued.

``This is really an unbelievable set of circumstances,'' said Freundlich, whose institute studies adoption issues.

Anger over payment
Attorney Mallory Horne, former Florida Senate president and House speaker who filed the petition on Chalek's behalf, said Chalek was angered by the fact his parents paid his birth mother for him.

``He took it more in the nature of a buying him, which really was an insult to him,'' Horne said.

Chalek hoped to sue the attorney who brought his adoption to the court and the judge who approved it - both now elderly men. Horne advised him he'd have no case.

Instead, Chalek has turned his efforts to mobilizing other adoptees in similar situations and has set up a website, www.adoption-fraud.com. He hopes if the annulment is successful it will pave the way for others to follow suit.

Marquess fears a chilling effect if he's successful.

``What happens then when adopted children are disgruntled for whatever reason? . . . I say disgruntled, certainly not abused as Michael said he was,'' she said. ``. . . We are a litigious society, and I think we are litigious about things we don't need to be litigious about.''

Chalek is beyond litigious. He's writing a book and is showing no signs of letting this chapter of his life rest easily.

``I have covered every inch in this,'' he said. ``I am going all out with this.''

The Truman Show or Adoptee Island?

I saw this movie several years ago before I realized the impact adoption had on my life. If that could be imagined. The scene about him being "the first baby legally adopted by a corporation" just flew right by me without notice...I do have to admit, though, that the movie creeped me out in a weird way, a way in which I just couldn't put my finger on...but thought about for days.

Well, I happened to be flipping channels today and came across it again...only got to watch the last hour, but was completely mortified and intrigued. This is THE movie of the adoptee.

Truman had to WAKE UP just like every adopted individual and realize that there was more to his life, identity, and world than just his "role". Adoptee's very birth certificates are sealed and amended to create an entire new role, identity and cast for our lives. We are expected to live by that man-made role and told (just like Truman) that it is BEST for us, so not to rock the boat...just what he did.

It feels like the monumental struggle of our lives to cross over that bridge (of truth) and face the raging ocean head on, to freedom...to wake up & find that all we thought was real, isn't...that we are so much more than our orchestrated existence in our adopted role...

When Truman hit the "horizon" with a thud...my heart ached. Seeing his complete despair and hopelessness over being held "in the dark" for so long, regarding his entire identity and reality, was heart-breaking.

I think every adoptee eventually hits that same wall. We have to courageously climb those steps into the unknown and confront the corporation...adoption...to somehow find our true identity, grief, and integration into the real world. What an amazing movie...and wild ride.

I loved the scene in which the caller expressed the truth about Truman being held captive in this make-believe world, not knowing reality. She was ridiculed as being part of "the vocal minority". Yet, when Truman finally found freedom, the entire world rejoiced with him.

The adoption industry speaks against adoptees & original mothers who refuse to be silent about unethical practices and sealed records, calling them "the vocal minority",

We, however, must continue to speak the truth...because as more and more states pass adoptee access legislation, the entire nation will rejoice.

The Truman Show had a sick cult following that society accepted for far too long...even when its most devoted fans secretly wished and cheered for Truman to break free of his all too perfectly (amended) existence...into realness.

I pray for the day all of society cheers as adoptees everywhere have the same right as every other American citizen...to access our original, unfalsified birth certificates, identities, and reality.

Tragedy Exploited

Tragedy Exploited: A Sad History Repeating Itself in Haiti
by Mirah Riben / January 21st, 2010

http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/01/tragedy-exploited-a-sad-history-repeating-itself-in-haiti/

The humanitarian Kindertransport program brought nearly 10,000 children, mostly Jewish and mostly girls, out of Nazi Germany to Britain during the Second World War. Reunion of Kindertransport, is an international organization aimed at helping the now grown displaced persons find their kin. Some have never recovered psychologically and spent the past 50 years in mental institutions.

Yet, at the end of the Vietnam war, the U.S. decided to enact another mass “savior” of children project. The infamous Vietnam “Operation BabyLift” airlifted more than 2,500 infants and children from Vietnam in 1975, allowing the children to be adopted by families around the world.

This evangelistic rescue effort led to a class action suit in the Federal District Court in San Francisco on behalf of Vietnamese children brought to the U. S. for adoption. The suit, which claims that several of the children labeled orphans were not. They seek to enjoin adoption proceedings in order to ascertain if parents or extended family in Vietnam ever consented to their adoption or cannot be found. They further wish to return to Vietnam.

Then came the tsunami of 2004 that left in excess of five million people homeless, including about 1.5 million children most of whom “became” orphaned, according to the United Nations. As calls poured in to adopt victims, Save the Children issued a statement “Adoptions, especially inter-country ones, are inappropriate during the emergency phase…” With orphans being targeted by criminal gangs, in the wake of the floods, Sri Lanka banned adoptions fearing child trafficking.

And now we are faced with an earthquake with unimaginable damage in Haiti.

Unicef has stated it very simply:

The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) said Tuesday that international adoption should be the ‘last resort’ for children orphaned by last week’s catastrophic earthquake in Haiti.

“Unicef’s position has always been that whatever the humanitarian situation, family reunification must be favoured,” spokeswoman Veronique Taveau said during a press briefing in Geneva.

“The last resort is inter-country adoption,” she said.

Taveau said Unicef is working to find and identify children left without parents after last Tuesday’s devastating earthquake in the country.

“We find them, identify them and register them, and favour family reunification,” she said, adding that for Unicef’s purposes, family includes uncles and aunts, cousins, grandparents and more distant relatives.

Unicef expressed concern amid reports of efforts to speed international adoptions of Haitian children in the aftermath of the disaster, which is estimated to have left about 200,000 people dead.

International Social Services and the International Rescue Committee concur, stating “in general, international adoption should not take place in a situation of war or natural disaster, given that these events make it impossible to verify the personal and family situation of children. Any operation to adopt or to evacuate children that are victims of the earthquake to another country must be absolutely avoided, as was the case during the 2004 tsunami….”

Haitian “children are currently experiencing extreme stress so that a sudden shift to a new country and a new family can have a psychological impact that is impossible to measure. According to the Guidelines developed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the evacuation of such children or their temporary placement in families abroad is also traumatic. It is considered as an added disruption to the injury already suffered by the child.”

The Hague Conference on International Law likewise states:

evacuation should not be confused with intercountry adoption which is a more radical measure changing the parenthood of a child. Haiti covered by the UNCRC but is not a signatory of the Hague Intercountry Adoption Convention. However, any and all countries attempting to adopt from Haiti are under the limitations of that treaty which recommend that in a disaster, like the Haitian earthquake, efforts to reunite a displaced child with their parents or relatives must take priority. Premature and unregulated attempts at the international adoption of these children should be avoided. “Any decision to evacuate a child should be based on considerations of the child’s safety and should not be confused with the adoption process. A humanitarian disaster such as the earthquake should not be the reason for by-passing essential safeguards for safe adoption…. In a situation where child care and protection services have broken down such as in Haiti, the risks are even greater that the adoption may be ‘unsafe’. This is why in these tragic situations the emphasis should first be on child protection, rather than adoption.

The Quebec government has followed the advise of these experts, putting a hold on new adoption applications for Haitian children while the U.S. and the Dutch have sent planes to bring children out of Haiti in the midst of the recovery efforts despite Professor Rene Hoksbergen of Utrecht University, the Netherlands, warning that authorities should take great care in dealing with orphans from such a disaster, fearing the hurried evacuation could send a wrong signal.

“You have to be very careful in adopting these children from a country in chaos,” he said. “It might look like when a country is a disaster it is easy to adopt children there.” Worse still is the fear of all NGOs of corrupt baby brokers and opportunistic child traffickers using such disasters to their advantage.

When confused by pro and con statements about adoption, with both sides claiming to have the best interest of children at heart…follow the money.

Adoption agencies, even religious and non-profit rely on the redistribution of children to pay their bills, including salaries. This motivates their “concerns.” They have lobbyists that pressure government into quick “feel good” bills and “rescue” actions that don’t always look so quite so good in hindsight, and by those “rescued” and their families – or snatched – depending on your point of view.

Truly non-profit child advocating organizations all side with caution before the wholesale removal of children from their families and culture while lobbyists and marketers for those who profit from the redistribution just want to rush in and grab up the commodities.

SOS Children’s Village, The UN, ISS and IRC, The Hague have no financial gain in the best and safest outcomes for these children. They simply advocate what is best for the children and have the expertise and workers on the ground to back it up.

Unicef and other NGOs involved in child welfare know full well that nearly 90% of children worldwide in orphanages are not orphans but have one living parent, or extended family who visit and hope to regain custody. People in impoverished nations like Haiti reply in institutional care for temporary assistance and to access medical care they cannot otherwise afford.

Children are a highly sough commodity in a multibillion dollar industry in which demand creates supply. Poverty is always exploited, let’s not add this exploitation to people who have already suffered so very much.

There are many organizations accepting donation aid the children of Haiti for all who feel compelled to help without risking being exploitative.

Battle Over Birthright

Battle over birthright: Case raises questions about role of sperm donors in children’s lives
Kenyon Wallace, National Post

When a lesbian couple from Terrace, B.C., decided they wanted a child of their own, they were overjoyed that a good friend agreed to donate his sperm.
They were going to have a family.
Before the child was born in October 2006, the donor signed an agreement stating that the female couple would be the parents and that he would consent to an adoption of the child. But since the child's birth, things haven't gone according to plan. The donor began making frequent visits to the female couple's home and referring to the child as "his son" in the community. He also allowed his family to send him congratulations and gifts on the birth of the child.

These are the allegations set out in a statement of claim filed in the Supreme Court of British Columbia. The lesbian couple is now suing the donor for willful infliction of mental suffering and breach of contract, and is asking the court for a restraining order against their former friend. The couple and the sperm donor cannot be named to protect the identity of the child. The parties in the lawsuit declined to be interviewed.

The case has raised questions about the rights of sperm donors across the country and whether adults should have the power to contract away the rights of children before they are born.

Observers say conflicting provincial legislation and a dearth of case law makes those questions difficult to answer.

"Most provinces have not amended their family law to clarify the rights and responsibilities of donors, so you can get into these murky situations," said Diane Allen, executive director of the Infertility Network. "It's a very grey area."

Ms. Allen says her organization often hears from donor offspring at conferences who say they should have a right to know who their parents are and that nobody should be able to withhold information about their genetic origins.

"For the lesbian couple, I can certainly understand why they feel threatened and that their parenting is being interfered with," she said. "But what are they going to tell that child down the road? Are they going to say they didn't want the child's father in his life? What about what the child's needs and wants?"

Another element adding to the confusion is the six-year-old Assisted Human Reproduction Act, which makes paying for sperm illegal. As a result, couples are increasingly turning to friends and acquaintances to act as donors, creating a legal and ethical quagmire, says Saskatoon fertility specialist Dr. Roger Pierson, spokesman for the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society.

"When the act was brought into law and no compensation was allowed, in essence, it closed all but one sperm bank in the country," said Dr. Pierson, referring to Toronto's Institute for Reproductive Medicine. "So if friends start doing things on their own, and you have a female from one province and a male from another, it can be problematic."

There are still some agencies in Canada that import sperm from other countries, but the $35-a-sample sperm banks are a thing of the past.

To the relatively small extent that courts have heard cases involving the rights of sperm donors and donor offspring, judges have tended to rule with the best interests of the child in mind, according to Margaret Somerville, director of the McGill Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law.

"They're going to look at public policy and whether what's being done is contrary to that. There are just some obligations that you can't contract away," she said. "They are also going to look at what's in the best interests of the particular child. In effect, what they're doing is looking at these cases both at a general societal level and what impact the ruling will have on societal values and rights of kids, and how the ruling will affect the child in question."

In 2007, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld a decision by the Alberta Court of Appeal that is considered by many observers to be precedent setting. The case involved a woman who wanted to be a mother while her common-law husband had no interest in fathering a child but wanted to stay in the relationship. The couple signed an agreement whereby the woman would have a baby -- using sperm from a donor -- but the man would have no parental responsibilities. The court found that such a non-parent contract contradicted the Alberta Family Law Act and that the man, even though he wasn't the sperm donor, would have parental responsibilities if he continued to live in a relationship of interdependence with the mother.

"The ‘settled intention' to remain in a close, albeit unmarried, relationship thrust [the man] from a practical and realistic point of view, into the role of parent of this child," said the ruling. "Can it seriously be contended that he will ignore the child when it cries? When it needs to be fed? When it stumbles?"

The lesson is clear: parents cannot sign away a child's right to a father and mother.

In a case with echoes of the B.C. matter, the Irish Supreme Court ruled last December that a gay man who donated his sperm to a lesbian couple should be allowed to see his three-year-old son regularly. The Irish Constitution does not permit gay marriage and defines parents as a married man and woman. Because Irish law identified the 47-year-old man as the father, the court ruled he had a right to have a relationship with his son, who was born in 2006, even though it acknowledged that the female couple provided a stable and loving home for the child.

The man told the court he had agreed to donate sperm to the lesbian couple, who were his "good friends" at the time, on the basis that he would be treated like an uncle when the child was born. However, after the birth, the man's relationship with the couple deteriorated.

As for whether the B.C. couple will likely find a favourable ruling in that province's Supreme Court, opinion is uncertain.

Vancouver family lawyer Kathleen Walker says because the non-biological mother did not go through the formal adoption process (for reasons unknown), the father of the child is "still in the grey area of being a parent."

"From a practical point of view, I think that it's a good thing the father has an interest in the child," said Ms. Walker. "I think the more people that love a child, the better off the child is. If the child has been adopted, then I think the issue is privacy. If the lesbian couple don't want the father around, he's got no right to be around or interacting with that child."

Still, the child should have the right to know his biological father, says Wendy Kramer, director and co-founder of the Colorado-based Donor Sibling Registry, a website she created for individuals conceived as a result of sperm, egg or embryo donation who are seeking to make mutually desired contact with others with whom they share genetic ties.

She says the legal systems in both Canada and the United States have not kept pace with how donors and their offspring are redefining parenting when they mutually consent to meet, an increasing trend. Her registry has more than 26,000 members worldwide and has helped connect more than 7,000 donor offspring with their half-siblings and their own egg or sperm donors. More than 1,000 members are donors curious to find out who their biological offspring are.

"There are many recipients of donor sperm who don't tell their kids about where they came from, but for the donor offspring, it might be very important for them to connect to their biological parents," Ms. Kramer said, whose own 19-year-old son was conceived using donor sperm. "The one voice that's always missing from the conversation is the voice of the children who are being born. It's not just about getting pregnant. It's about realizing the rights of the children being born."

National "Human-Trafficking" Prevention Month

© Photographer: Michaeldb | Agency: Dreamstime.com

For those who are not aware, in addition to Mon being a Nat'l awareness day, President Obama issued a proclamation designating January National Human Trafficking Prevention Month!

BELOW is an excerpt from the President's proclamation:

Fighting human trafficking is a shared responsibility. This month, I urge all Americans to educate themselves about the signs and consequences of human trafficking. Together, we can and must end this most serious, ongoing criminal civil rights violation.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim January 2010 as National Human Trafficking Prevention Month, culminating in the annual celebration of National Freedom Day on February 1. I call upon the people of the United States to recognize the vital role we can play in ending human-trafficking, and to observe this month with appropriate programs and activities."

* I would be very curious to find out the number of victims of child-trafficking who are also victims of "dissolved" adoptions in America. I have a feeling we would all be very shocked.

As horrific a crime as human-trafficking is, there is a component of this subject that few acknowledge or validate. Millions of adoptees in America whose civil rights are violated through archaic "sealed records" laws born from corrupt adoption practices. Before the 1940's adoptee's had the same civil right as every other American to obtain their original birth certificate in adulthood. Today only six U.S. states grant adult adopted individuals the same priviledge as non-adopted citizens to obtain this important personal document and information about themselves.

Even today, when a mother relinquishes her child, or has her rights terminated, the child's birth certificate remains intact. It is not until an adoption is finalized that a new (falsified) Certificate of Live Birth is issued, and the child's original (factual) birth certificate is permanently "sealed" from them and their children after them. This "amended" birth certificate lists the new legal parents (adoptive) as actually giving birth to the child. A legalized lie. The adoptee's civil rights are violated because they must live their entire life (along with their children and grandchildren after them) with a falsified record of birth. That equates to a false genealogy, false family medical history, false identity ~ even throughout adulthood.

A more ethical and truthful option would be to issue a "Certificate of Adoption" much like other countries, such as Australia, do. The only other time in American history when human's were denied their identity and personal documents was during the time of slavery.

Until these archaic laws are changed, adoption in America is essentially government-sanctioned identity theft.

Adoption has sadly become a billion-dollar industry for which brokers (attorneys, agencies) advertise and market for human-lives. Competition abounds for every healthy young child who can be made "available" for adoption. While true orphans (mostly older, special-needs children) are passed by. This supply & demand, financially-driven industry in human-lives (we applaud as adoption) sets up a climate for gross conflict of interest and unethical practices across our country and around the world.

I pray for the day we can look back as a society upon the years of "sealed record" adoption law and celebrate the restoration of adoptee's civil right to KNOW and OWN their personal histories and birth certificates.

"Unlock Our Lives". Adoptee access legislation is years past due and is simply the right thing to do for millions of American's dignity and freedom.

Happy New Year 2010

Wishing everyone a Bright & Blessed New Year 2010!

I wanted to share the blog of a new friend and great writer, Amanda, "The Declassified Adoptee". I think she made a most profound statement on her blog to start 2010:

"...a question that might help you decide in political matters that don't concern you: "would the world be a better place if EVERYONE were treated this way?" If it's not OK to treat everyone on a global level to be denied original identity, on-going family medical history and biological heritage, then it isn't OK to deny adoptees either."

That sounds a lot like "The Golden Rule" to me!

I had a nice New Year's morning surprise this morning when I happened to flip to a channel just as the Dr. Seuss movie, "Horton Hears a Who" was starting...got to watch it all the way through (for the first time). Adoptees, first parents, adoptive parents, and ethical professionals ~ let's work to bring our voices together and make enough noise this year to ensure our leaders hear us. This restoration of adoptee's dignity and right to obtain our unfalsified original record of birth is long past due. Millions of adopted individuals and those after us deserve it ~ Unlock our lives.

‘‘even though you can’t see or hear them at all, a person’s a person, no matter how small’’ ~ Horton

Second-class citizen?

Second-class citizen?
Letters to the Editor
12/30/2009
http://www.times-standard.com/letters/ci_14092609

All I wanted for Christmas was my civil rights back. (That didn't happen.)

California's adopted citizens are discriminated against and denied the simple
human right to look at their own birth certificates -- a right all others take
for granted.

The multibillion-dollar adoption industry perpetrates the myth that mothers who
relinquished their children were promised anonymity. This is a lie.

For the very small minority who do not seek contact, just say no. If that
doesn't work, there are sufficient laws to protect anyone from unwanted contact.
Adoptees and their original families need no special, additional protection from
one another. What they need is equality and a return of their civil rights that
have been denied to them since the 1940s.

California, get on track. Stop discriminating against people for having been
adopted. Let these adults decide who they want in their lives and who they
don't. Family genealogy and interactions between adults -- or not -- are
personal choices, and should not be legal issues.

Amended birth certificates (issued to all adoptees) are falsified "legal"
documents listing the adoptive parents as the biological parents. This is
discrimination against people who, as children, were adopted without their
consent and without legal representation.

I cannot trace my lineage, thanks to the state of California. I don't even know
my ethnicity, thanks to the state of California. I pay my taxes, yet I am
treated like a second-class citizen in the state of California.

Mara Rigge

An Adoptee's Christmas Wish

Thank you to Wraith at "Ramblings of a Shadow" for posting this amazing sentiment!

"Twas the night before Christmas
one wish in my heart
to be reunited
with one long apart
the agencies say no
the governments too
but all i ask for
is the same rights as you.
To know my past,
my blood, and my birth
to know my story
in all of it’s worth.
So this night I do wish
and hope for a sign
that one day I will know
the truth that is mine."

Colorado Court Pulls Back Curtain

When Patricia Dukeman started trying to find her biological parents, Ronald Reagan lived in the White House, Michael Jackson's "Beat It" was record of the year, and the Supreme Court decided it was OK for us to use those new VCR things to tape TV shows.

In the 25 years since, Dukeman, 48, has spent a lot of money and learned a lot about Colorado adoption laws.

Yet, she's still searching.

That's partly bad luck. Like a small but significant number of adoptees, she fought long and hard to get her birth certificate, only to discover the information on it is false.

It's also because access to adoption records in Colorado is governed by a patchwork of laws stitched together through years of changing attitudes and knee-jerk reactions.

"It's a complex mix of emotions, politics and money. And rights," said Richard Uhrlaub, co-director of Adoptees in Search — the Colorado Triad Connection.

In April, however, a landmark Colorado Court of Appeals decision unlocked the vault for thousands of adults determined to learn their biological heritage.

The court ruled that, contrary to a widely enforced interpretation, adoptees do not have to hire a confidential intermediary to access their records — as long as they were born between 1951 and 1967, the years that happened to be covered in the particular law the court ruled on.

The ruling also opens up adoption files themselves, which are in the custody of the state Department of Human Services. Those files often contain clues as to why a mother gave up a baby for adoption.

"We have information about why they thought about that, about the reasoning for going through that process," said Sharen Ford, who oversees those records.

Since July, more than 500 people adopted here got their original birth certificates from the health department, an unprecedented number.

However, anyone adopted on June 30, 1951, or earlier, or after July 1, 1967,

Jeff Hannasch, at his Peyton home, looks through stacks of adoption paperwork he has collected over the years. (Andy Cross, The Denver Post)must still petition a court and show "good cause" to open the sealed records.

What constitutes good cause varies, Uhrlaub said.

"In one jurisdiction, you could be near death, and they wouldn't open your records.

In still other courtrooms, "just the fact that you've wandered the maze and managed to show up with something in hand is good cause," he said.

Fear of upending lives

Hovering over the process is a belief among some that opening decades-old secrets will not only violate trusts but upend lives and destroy families.

Jeff Hannasch, whose petition prompted the Court of Appeals decision, didn't set out to destroy anything or to change Colorado law.

Growing up outside Colorado Springs, Hannasch, 44, said he always felt set apart from his adopted family. "I didn't look like anybody. I didn't act like anybody. It was very obvious."

To him, maybe. But to many scientists of the time, that would have been nonsense. In 1965, when Hannasch was born, the assumption was that babies were blank slates, tiny flesh-and-blood sponges waiting to absorb what their environment offered.

By the time Hannasch's children were born, genetic tendencies had been identified for everything from heart disease to daredevil behavior; nature eclipsed nurture in child-development theories.

"Things changed when I had kids of my own," said Hannasch, whose kids are 7 and 11.

"I realized adoption doesn't stop with me," he said.

He wanted information but didn't want an intermediary — one reason his petition to get his records was rejected.

That intermediary, most of the time, is Colorado Confidential Intermediary Services.

Since 1990, the nonprofit hasn't been the only option for adult adoptees seeking their records, but it was pretty close.

"Nobody's required to (hire CCIS), but in terms of the best chance they have, I think we're it," said Leslie Zetterstrom, chief intermediary.

For $775, CCIS will search for one biological relative, usually a birth mother. Additional searches are $200 each.

The concept, Zetterstrom said, is partly a recognition that opening old records also may open old wounds.

"We are the buffer," she said.

That's not how Dukeman sees it.

"I'm an adult. I feel like this information was held for ransom," she said.

That is also the way Hannasch saw it.

When his petition to access his records was denied by an El Paso County magistrate, Hannasch said a court clerk told him, " 'Sir, it is this court's duty to protect the rights of your birth parents.' I said, 'Really? And who's protecting my rights?' "

Shame spurred secrecy

Dukeman and Hannasch are among millions born in the decades after World War II, part of a shadowy underside to the nation's exuberant baby boom: children born in maternity homes that were, in reality, hideouts where women, mostly unmarried and mostly young and in shame, could have their babies secretly then surrender them through transactions forever sealed.

But those babies grew up in generations that rolled collective eyes at social stigmas and never learned to take no for an answer. Legions of them demanded to know who they are and where they came from.

Dukeman, who now lives in Florida, battled to get birth documents not because she doesn't love the parents who raised her.

"I had a great childhood, a wonderful life," she said.

But there are questions about who she is that no one can answer. "I have been unable to obtain my own history, my roots."

She did get tidbits: Her birth mother was 16, a student in Adams County, when Dukeman was born. And she was born at Denver's Fairhaven Maternity Home, which operated from 1915 to 1966.

This past spring, after the appeals-court ruling, Dukeman got her birth certificate — only to learn the birth mother's name it bore was false.

That happens occasionally, Zetterstrom said, especially with private maternity homes, and especially with Fairhaven.

When maternity homes closed, they were supposed to give their records to the state, but not all did.

Fairhaven's records are held by a family member of the operators, Zetterstrom said. "She felt that her family mandate had been put on her to protect the women."

That person was unfazed, Zetterstrom said, by the suggestion that some of the women might want to be found.

In the 3,568 searches it conducted through 2008, CCIS found a biological family member in all but 117 of those.

Of those family members still living, 70 percent agreed to be contacted by the adoptee.

Dukeman is one of the 117 non-success stories.

So she scans faces of a certain age for a resemblance and wonders whether her father went to Vietnam. And she frets that time is running out.

"If I have to, I will go through . . . every yearbook for Adams County schools until I find something."

"The Primal Wound" Book Tour

                                    © Photographer: De-kay | Agency: Dreamstime.com

The Open Adoption Examiner is hosting an online "book tour" of "The Primal Wound" by Nancy Newton Verrier, a forerunner adoptive parent and psychologist. I've really enjoyed reading the questions/responses submitted by other bloggers and learn so much from them. Thank you for the opportunity to participate and learn! Here are some thoughts about the questions below:

There are a great deal of behavioral issues that Verrier attributes to the Primal Wound of being separated from ones birthmother and subsequently adopted. These range from acting out and testing the adoptive parents, to becoming detached, to future inabilities to maintain healthy relationships as an adult. To the adoptees, I'm curious if you identified with any of these traits. Further, if you answered "yes", do you think your adoptive parents would agree that you have these traits as well?

Let's see...ummm...yes, yes, and yes. As a child I hid feelings of differentness and insecurity, all the while putting on a smiling face to convince others and myself that I was "special" and "chosen" and therefore, almost superior to other kids. I HAD to make straight A's, be the teacher's pet, and make everybody like me, because inside, I didn't feel likeable. So I tried really hard. I said, "I love you" ALOT and made my Mom home-made cards for every conceivable holiday, always portraying the same message ~ "I'm so glad I have the BEST Mom in the whole wide world." Looking back I realize it was my way of not only trying to convince myself that I was perfectly happy being adopted, but also defending against my Mom's insecurities being my "Mother", loyally protecting her & myself.

I was the compliant adoptee for sure! The last thing I wanted was to "stick out" or be noticed in a crowd, because I didn't feel worthy of it. Yet, my Mom was SO proud of me, that she would make sure we were noticed. It truly humiliated me and caused me to go deeper into my shell. A shell which confounded my adoptive family. They couldn't understand the painful shyness (and did I mention, control) either. Yes, they would completely agree and I'm sure have much more to say than I. I just wish they had been given this book years ago, as I think it would have helped them understand my behavior a little better.

Becoming aware of these issues within myself is helping me become a better person, friend, daughter, spouse, and mother. Because my son deals with attachment issues of his own, my healing journey has provided the gift of "insight" into him, and will hopefully help him on his. I can allow him the freedom to rage and question and control, without the fear of being unaccepted, because I have walked through my own "ugliness" and learned to (a little better) accept myself.

It's hard to "admit" unsavory personality traits and relationship struggles because that brings up even more shame. The last thing I ever want is to "unknowingly" hurt those I love, or even knowingly do so through behavior that feels beyond my control. That's why I am so thankful for books that truly validate and educate, because they are a key that has the potential to unlock healing.

I still "numb out" and feel detached during times of stress. As a child I'd have reoccuring dreams where I'd be flying, feeling like my body and spirit was not grounded ~ searching for what? I did not know. But searching all the time. Restless.

Oh, and relationships. The same "detachment" can describe my relationships. Even my marriage of 19 years, as well as with long-time friends. I am the queen of "push/pull", always longing to feel close, but getting flighty and distracted when things get too close emotionally. Feeling alone alot, but it is getting better.

Even as an adult, before I read books like "The Primal Wound", I couldn't figure out WHY I was "the way I was". I remember going to a class at my church entitled "Boundaries" (great book by Cloud & Townsend) and discussing in the group how I "felt like a fake" but didn't know why. I didn't understand myself at all. All I got from the others, including the facilitator (interestingly enough, she was a social worker who worked for an adoption agency) was "your not fake, why would you feel that way?" I couldn't answer that. And felt even more isolated.

It wasn't until years after my "reunion" that I finally found some answers as to why I exhibited such contradictory emotions and perplexing behavior. On the outside, I seemed to have everything. An adoptive family who loved me immensely AND a first family who embraced me immediately. I remember telling others that I was "doubly blessed" because I had gained so much and lost nothing. Yet inside I fought feelings of extreme sadness that I couldn't explain. Why couldn't I just be happy, like my demeanor implied?

Then I happened across an "adoptee support group" on the web. I had NEVER known another adoptee, nor ever thought of myself as one, really. I had certainly NEVER thought of myself as an "orphan". It was like a slap in the face. I HAD a family. Yet I found myself weeping for days, literally. For the first time, I found books like "The Primal Wound" and felt validated, normal ~ what a huge relief. (Even through the intense crying and pain that made me feel like I was going to die.) It was like I "woke up" and became REAL. Thank God for books like "The Primal Wound", which finally put words to feelings that couldn't be explained. Truly pre-verbal. And so misunderstood.

I SO identify with the "false self" that Verrier describes. I mean, why wouldn't I feel "false" when my very birth certificate is false. We reap what we sow, even in adoption law. Which is sad. The only way my existence was validated or worthy was through a new identity, family, and "self" created to fill that role. My new "self" couldn't grieve the loss of my own mother or the "self" I was as connected to her. Because my adoption was a win-win situation that was joyously celebrated. What else was I to do? But create a "false self" that personified this new life, and deny that part within me that felt confused, undone, and unworthy. Or at least try.

"...the human child requires a period of a year after birth..to attain the degree of maturity that characterizes the young of most other mammals at birth...an uninterrupted continuum of being within the matrix of the mother is necessary in order for the infant to experience a rightness or wholeness of self from which to begin his separation or individuation process. The continuity and quality of this primal relationship is crucial, because it may set the tone for all subsequent relationships....the loss of the mother disallows the achievement of basic trust, the first milestone in the healthy development of a human being."

It is so hard to read or write about the question posed above. Not only do I identity with what is written, but I can see this so clearly in my own son. He was born three months premature, weighed 1.4 pounds, and was separated from me, alone, in a NICU incubator for four months. Emotions well up in me every time I take myself back to those days. The pain of leaving him there was almost too hard to bear. I could not only relate to his sense of complete and utter aloneness, nothingness, longing, but I could also relate to what my first mother must have felt with empty arms, and such strong hormones crying out to embrace and protect the one whom she carried and bonded with as her own flesh.

When I finally got to bring him home, I would hold and rock him close for hours on end, crying through whispered prayers for God to somehow heal his pain and help him feel secure in my love and His. As a toddler, he would anxiously resist touch and hugs; everything had to be on his terms. He is still very controlling and "jumpy", but is finally exhibiting improved affect and sensory regulation and even spontaneous joy.

My son will be five years old in just a few weeks and his latest milestone brings complete joy to my heart, just like every milestone has up till now. His new favorite word is "Why?" and it is like music to my ears. Interestingly, as his language has increased, his anxieties have become more clear. Not only did he endure early separation from his Mother, along with a premature nervous system, but he has also had four surgeries in his four years of life. This year is our first with no surgeries. Thank you, Jesus!

"Are the nurses coming today, Momma?" "Why did the nurses 'poke' me, Momma?"

No matter how much explaining I do, he seems to always come back with this:

"But Why?"

Me: "You had to come out of Mommy's tummy early and I'm so sorry, Honey. I wish you could have lived in Mommy's tummy longer. The doctors had to give you medicine to make you feel better. I'm so sorry they had to 'poke' you. Were you scared?" Yes, he was scared.

"But Jesus healed us and we got to be together again. I'm so glad we are together now..." This conversation has been repeated numerous times, because Andrew asks to hear it over and over. I think it is his way of trying to process his early experiences. And maybe his way of reaching out in trust, the trust he has had to work so hard to build, even with me, his own Mother. Tears.

He's learning about birthdays and "celebration", and loves his favorite video of the baby dinosaur being "born" out of the egg. So he comes over to me and says, "I want to be born, Mommy." We'll "act out" his birth over & over again. He'll hide his little head under my shirt on my stomach while I gush over how very much I love him. Then he POPS out and says "I'm born!" ~ we clap and cheer and sing "Happy Birthday". He loves it. Again, and again.

"Mommy, will you always take care of me?" is another sentence I hear a lot. "Yes, Honey, I love you and will always take care of you." All this is so good to hear, because I know he is building trust and feeling more secure. The insecure attachment is lessening, and he isn't quite as anxious when we go new places. The frustration and anger towards himself is lessening too. He still sometimes prefers my husband over me, though, which is a heartbreaking confession. It is usually when I have been away for awhile. When I come back, he still sometimes screams for me to "go away, Mommy" and our reunions (even after short separations) are very distraught with negativity. But even those are getting better. He's becoming a "Mommy's boy", and I'm so happy, not only for myself, but more for him. It means he is learning to trust!

Another interesting behavior I see in my son, which makes me completely identify with "The Primal Wound" is his misuse of pronouns. He gets them all mixed up, especially when talking to me. He will call me "I" and himself "you". And alot of the time it is simply "we". Like his little mind and spirit can't distinguish between himself and me, his Mother. When he was younger, if I got upset or cried or even shed one tear, he would literally come undone. He looked to me for his "ok-ness" and if I wasn't "ok" he was at a complete loss in total panic. I could see it all over his face, as he frantically wiped my tears away while holding in his own. He still won't hardly cry. Ever. He's the "bravest" child I've ever seen, but I so wish he didn't have to be. My Mom says "he's independent, just like you used to be."

It reminds me of my "pre-awakening" days versus "post-awakening" regarding my true "self". Before, I tried to "appear" confident, overly "useful", and "strong". It was easier to focus on helping others (all the while hiding behind a little bit of hidden judgement) than to look within (too painful) and work on myself. It wasn't until I allowed the fearful, abandoned child in me to "wake up" and feel, that I became extremely vulnerable. But, not only did I finally acknowledge overwhelming grief; walking through it also enabled me to truly feel and embrace the joy and the love in my life. With both my families. Another benefit has been the ability to feel deeper compassion for myself and others.

Almost nothing, however, has been more healing for me than having my own child. He is my only "flesh & blood" relative I have the privilege of living life with in a natural family relationship. I find that he is the only person I can totally "let go" emotionally with and embrace with abandon. I don't find myself "pulling back" like I do with other people, even those who I am close to. I think we are both helping each other, actually, learn to trust nature and fold ourselves into each other, the way a mother/child relationship is intended at birth. That may sound strange, but I am learning that which I lost and never experienced, and I'm so thankful. Not that I don't still battle fear of loss. It overshadows everything. But I'll never give up contending for wholeness, for healing.

My son just woke up from a four hour nap. He is very active, more so than most kids. But he also needs alot of sleep, which he sometimes fights. He seems always on alert, needing extra reassurances and expending a lot of energy dealing with these anxieties. As an adoptee, I'm completely exhausted just writing this post. So I know a touch of how he feels.

"A recurring message throughout the book is that adoption should be in the best interest of the child and not the adults, something that I think very few people would argue against. But should the adoptees feelings always trump everyone else's in the triad, even when that adoptee is a grown up?"

If the above question was hard to address, this one is even harder, especially just coming down from watching 48 Hours last night, "The Lost Children." Until adoption becomes what it is intended to be, adoptee's feelings are not only disrespected, but their rights are too. Completely.

The very reason we even need books like "The Primal Wound" is because of the unethical and abusive practices against humans we call "adoption" in America. If even the medical field of neonatology recognizes and changes their practices based on knowledge now readily available and accepted regarding the "primal" damage done to humans infants by early separation from their mothers, then adoptees should not have to spend one more minute having to defend themselves or their right to own their history, feelings, or experience.

We should not have to wince every time we see mind-boggling "advertisements" recruiting pregnant mothers. Friends, adoption is a business, with HUMAN-BEINGS being bought and sold as products. "Owned". It's run by the principles of "supply & demand" and rakes in billions of dollars every year. All the while, adoption agencies and attorneys ("professionals") FAIL their "clients" by dismissing "The Primal Wound" as being unfounded and extreme. Something is wrong with this picture. Why is there so much "controversy" about this theory? Because it threatens the business, the abuse, the laws. As it should.

Until adoption does not involve ONE PENNY exchanged for the transfer of a human-being; until "Dear Burfmother (incubator), give ME "the" baby (no worries, I promise you can still see it) Letters" are deemed illegal (marketing for infants); until adoption is considered a last resort and not touted as "just another way to build a family", and mothers and children are encouraged and supported to remain together, instead of recruited for "options counseling" by agencies whose "business" it is to procure "available" children for their clients (PAP's) ~ adoption is unethical.

Individual states deem it "financially unfeasible" to even keep an accurate count of adoptions, making adoption the largest "unregulated" business in America. DA's hands are tied when attempting to fully investigate complaints, because attorneys and agencies are legally permitted to hide misdeeds and coercion through handy "sealed records" statutes.

Until there are no longer "amended" (falsified) Certificates of Live Birth or "sealed records" and EVERY adult adoptee is guaranteed the same right as all American citizens to their original (and accurate) birth certificate ~ "adoption" is just another word for child-trafficking.

I so hope for change, and am thankful for people like Nancy Verrier who had the courage to not only acknowledge the issue, but also to write a classic. A book which finally validates millions of "adaptees". It has helped us find our voices and has brought some much needed healing. We deserve better. We deserve our truth, our history, our records, as well as our feelings, without being dictated "how to" process or explain our adoptions through politically-correct "positive" adoption language. More questions we need to be asking are "Who does adoption truly serve?" and "Exactly whose records are they?"

To continue to the next leg of this book tour, please visit the main list at The Open Adoption Examiner.
http://www.examiner.com/x-13701-open-adoption-examiner%7etopic444333-book-tour?selstate=topcat#breadcrumb

Child-Trafficking & Adoption?

An Oklahoma judge will decide the punishment for a family accused of abusing an adopted Liberian girl.

Andee Verlon Tyler, 51, and his wife, Penny Tyler, 46, along with their son, Ashton Malachi Tyler, 20, on Wednesday pleaded no contest and waived their right to a preliminary hearing in Major County District Court.

The two elder Tylers face felony child abuse charges for the alleged abuse of their adopted 11-year-old Liberian daughter. Ashton Tyler is accused of sexually assaulting his adopted sister and is charged with rape by instrumentation.

The Tylers’ daughter, NathaniaTyler, 21, also was accused in the case. She pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor count of assault and battery.

The girl [read innocent victim], now 13, has been living out of state with relatives [what relatives? others related to the beasts who perpetrated these inhuman crimes?].

Haworth declined to say if her four Liberian sisters, also adopted by the Tylers, remained in their adoptive parents’ home. [You gotta be kidding!!]

The five sisters were adopted in 2005 from a Liberian orphanage operated by the West African Children Support Network, The Oklahoman found.

Assistant DA Haworth said the outcome of the criminal case could affect a pending deprived juvenile case being battled over the girls in family court.

"Obviously, if their parents are incarcerated, something will happen to the girls,” Haworth said, adding there would be no custody change until the criminal case is resolved.

An officer with a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People chapter claims the girl and her sisters, ranging from 5 to 15, are victims of a child slavery scam.

Angela Molette, president of the Garfield County NAACP, compiled a 28-page report and alleges the children are part of an international child trafficking operation where Americans buy children to turn into slaves.

Molette alleges the Tylers paid $30,000 to $40,000 for the children, and got financial help from their church for the adoption.

*Any monetary exchange for a human-being is unethical, in even "legitimate" adoption.

Reunion Marks End of Adoption Saga

Reunion Marks End of Adoption Saga
02 Dec 2009
Les Smith

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Later this week, a unique family reunion will add a joyful ending to a story which began 72 years ago at an infamous Memphis adoption agency. It also puts the spotlight back on a woman whose actions to personally change the lives of thousands of adopted children became motivated by her own greed.

She was the politically shrewd daughter of a Mississippi judge. But, in one of the darkest chapters in Memphis history, for over a quarter of a century beginning in 1924, Georgia Tann, as the revered Executive Secretary of the now infamous Tennessee Childrens' Home Society adoption agency, wielded unparalleled power.

History would record Tann sadistically altered the lives and fates of thousands of defenseless babies and desperate unwed mothers who turned to her for help while unwittingly staring at the face of pure evil.

As a Tann adoptee in 1937, Devy Bruch counts herself among the lucky to have survived, when as a weeks-old newborn, she was taken from her unsuspecting mother who had been driven to Memphis and placed in Tann's care by her brother.

Bruch, who now lives in Texas, reflects, "She had to sign the surrender papers when she was in the throes of childbirth under sedation. And was told when she came to, she had a baby boy who had died. So, that she would not search, I suppose. I'm the baby boy that died."

Yet, for decades, Tann maintained a national reputation as a highly regarded child advocate while at the same time covertly, with the alleged knowledge of a collaborative juvenile court judge, lawyers and police, she conducted her lucrative "Black Market Babies" operation.

Her agency adoptions, many of which were legitimate, brought her in contact with Hollywood stars such as Joan Crawford. Two of her four children came directly from Tann's agency as dramatically portrayed in the film "Mommie Dearest."

While Burch's adoption to a successful family in Pennsylvania proved to be a dream come true for her, others of the over 5,000 babies Tann had a hand in adopting weren't so lucky.

Burch relates, "A lot of Georgia Tann's babies didn't live or died right after they were placed. Many with pedophiles and she didn't care about the family. She only cared about their ability to pay her exorbitant fee which was $2,000 a baby plus expenses."

Burch continues, "She appeared to be very compassionate. In fact, my adopted father was sending her $25 every Christmas time because he thought that her work was so worthwhile and he wanted to contribute to her."

Tann would die of cancer in 1950, just weeks before an investigation would eventually expose her entire operation. But, years later, Tann's "babies" still search to find the truth about their heritages.

Burch, with the help of her daughter's research, can again count herself among the lucky. In just two days, she will travel from Texas to finally be reunited for the first time with her 66-year old sister in Memphis.

An excited Burch says, "I feel very strongly that each of us will be able to add so much to the other's life."

Years after details of the scandal emerged, a critic once said of Georgia Tann, "she thought she knew better than God."

But, in the end, Devy Bruch's reunion proves He's very much still in charge.

*Georgia Tann is the "mastermind" behind the idea of "sealed records" that states adopted into law. These "sealed records" were not enacted to protect the identity of first mothers, because they did not ask for it. They were enacted to protect the newly formed adoptive family. However, they create a climate for conflict of interest and unethical practices. It is past due time for all states to restore the unconditional rights of all adult adoptees to obtain their obc's. An adoptive mother, Barbara Bisanzt Raymond, wrote a book about Georgia Tann called "The Baby Thief", which details her life and adoption history.

Adoptees can find mom, not dad

© Photographer: Robif | Agency: Dreamstime.com

Adoptees can find mom, but not dad
Searches are stymied by blacked-out records
December 10, 2009
Nicole Baute/The Star

When Ontario opened its adoption records on June 1, adult adoptees yearning for information about their birth parents applied in droves.

But as the replies came back, it became clear something was missing: the names of their fathers.

Out of all 250,000 Ontario adoption registrations, less than 10 per cent have fathers' names on them, according to the Ministry of Government Services.

Ruth Rideout was devastated by the omission.

The 61-year-old adoptee received her statement of birth in October and found the father's section of the form blank, with a line drawn through it.

"He is half of my biological makeup and I need to know if there are any illnesses, conditions," she says.

Rideout's birth mother recently died, at 81. Although she has since met her birth mother's family, they do not know who her father was.

It turns out legislation prohibited her mother from naming him.

Until the mid-1980s, an unmarried woman could not put her baby's father's name on the statement of birth unless she and the father made a statutory declaration that he be named, according to the Vital Statistics Act. The child was "illegitimate," a word that was not removed from the act until 1981.

But when unmarried women filled out the father's section anyway, it seems the information was removed – whited out, blacked out or covered up.

A Waterloo man, John S., who did not want his last name published, received his statement of birth from 1955. The information on the "husband" side of the form was blacked out, line by line. An accompanying letter from ServiceOntario explains that his father's information was removed because, in 1955, the Vital Statistics Act did not allow it to be included.

Mothers interviewed by the Star say they remember putting the names of their children's fathers on birth registration forms they filled out in hospitals many years ago. In some cases, the fathers were present at the time of birth, or signed a declaration of paternity and other identifying documents during the adoption process.

Now, they feel betrayed.

Karen Lynn distinctly remembers writing her son's father's name on his birth registration in the hospital in 1963, when she was 19. She recalls fussing over how to spell his second middle name – was it Lawrence or Laurence? She settled on Lawrence.

Lynn is the president of the Canadian Council of Natural Mothers and a member of the coordinating committee for the Coalition for Open Adoption Records. She says she expected many fathers' names to be missing from records, because unmarried women were discouraged from naming them.

But she was shocked to learn, as records trickled in, that names had been removed.

Lynn reunited with her son in 1999, but for her this is a matter of principle. "You expect that the document you signed is going to be kept intact," she says.

Michael Prue, the community and social services critic for the Ontario NDP, says unmarried women were told not to name a father. "Young women were discouraged, and it was because of shame and everything else," he says. Summing up the attitude then, he says: "You're not married, the child doesn't have a father, leave that blank."

Yes, he says, some names could have been scratched out. "Some people 30 or 40 or 50 years ago may have thought that was the right thing to do. A lot has changed."

Leslie Wagner received a copy of her son's statement of live birth, which she filled out at the Toronto Western Hospital in June 1982. The record is in her 17-year-old handwriting, but it appears to have been doctored: the father section looks like it has been replaced with a blank version of the same section.

Catherine Cunningham (her maiden name) says her son's father was by her side in the hospital in November 1981. She was sure he was named on the birth registration – and he later signed an acknowledgment of parentage with the Ministry of Community and Social Services. But his name isn't on the statement of birth. "Should my son request his original birth certificate, his first instinct will be that I did not know who his father was, which is unsettling to say the least, and completely not true," she says.

As far as they know, none of the people in this story has been affected by a nondisclosure veto.

The mothers have questions about their records. "Who altered them?" Wagner asks. "We still haven't got a clear answer around who had the authority to alter that."

Adoptees such as Rideout will have a difficult time finding their fathers if their mothers cannot or will not help them – or if they have changed their names or died.

Rideout says staff at Family and Children's Services of Waterloo Region have confirmed in emails that her father's name is on three of their documents, but say they cannot share it with her.

She knows her father was a German Canadian Lutheran truck driver from the Kitchener area and that he would be 84 if he is still alive today. Without his name, she will have a hard time finding him.

Valerie Andrews is executive director of Origins Canada, a support group for people separated by adoption. She says the missing fathers illustrate how poorly mothers were treated in the past. "I think it shows quite clearly that the so-called `unwed mother' was someone without rights (or) status in our society," she says.

Today, a father does not have to make a statutory declaration to be included on the statement of birth, but he and the mother have to sign the form. So even today, if the father is not involved at birth, his name will not be on his child's records.

Lynn realizes there are concerns about men being held financially liable for children they did not father. But today, a simple DNA test can determine paternity, she points out. She finds the assumption that women would lie about or not know who fathered their baby insulting.

"Are we trying to protect the 0.1 per cent of men who may have been accused and they aren't the father, or are we trying to serve the best interests of the child?"

Lynn says fathers' rights have also been violated. If a father of a child given up for adoption is not listed on the statement of birth, he probably won't be able to see the file. "They can apply, but they won't get it, because they weren't named."