For those that are just now joining the battle for adoptee rights and adoption reform, you must know your enemy. You need to know who you are up against in the battle of adoptee rights in Indiana. You must also look at the money behind these organizations. The money is big.
In a recent editorial in the News Observer out of North Carolina about the Sean Paddock case:
"A bitterly ironic twist to the story is that relatives had cared for Sean and his siblings for a while, taking over for biological parents, and would liked to have continued doing that. But they couldn't support the three along with their own children, burning through their savings. The money to which they were entitled as caregivers was a fraction of what the adoptive parents wound up getting. That is wrong, and it is the first glitch in the system that should be corrected.
It goes without saying, almost, that the state's contracts with the Children's Home Society need to be reviewed. Offering the thousands of dollars agencies can receive under contracts for placing children might be simply be the wrong approach. That kind of incentive, as critics already have noted, could lead to agencies wanting to place kids and keep them in adoptive homes without paying enough attention to warning signs."
I am currently reading a fabulous book that has made me think beyond adoptee rights and adoption reform. It is called Ethics in American Adoption by L. Anne Babb. If you have the chance to read something that literally grabs your attention and keeps it, its this book. I know that many of my fellow reformist have indeed read this book. It got me thinking about the money aspect of this. I had estimated that the infant adoption industry is at 3 billion dollars. I have heard that it is 7.3 billion dollars for international adoption. I went through the Texas foster care system and its agencies. I guessed right on that one. The foster care system is a 5 billion dollar business. This is all per year. It totals to quite a lot of money and motivation to keep everything secret. It puts these adoption agencies and attorneys in very powerful positions over us.
One of the things that I have noticed about Indiana is that there is no accountability to anyone living adoption. A while back, I called and emailed to the Department of Family Services/Child Protective Services. I asked how an adoptive parent is to check out an adoption agency any agency. There was no way to find any complaints on any adoption agency or attorney. I can no longer blame adoptive parents. They have no resources to find out. So I did my best to follow the money.
The adoption industry is unregulated by an federal or state entity. They regulate themselves.
A majority of the adoption records are now owned by Catholic Charities. I bet you didn't know that Catholic Charities doesn't have to report its earnings because it is considered a church. This is the charity that is operated by the church. It is not however a church. It is a charity. I feel that they should report their earnings to the public. I would like to know how they use their funds. They also get tax dollars from the federal government for their services in helping place foster children, family services, and abstinence education. This is tax dollars that can and have been used against adoptees and their families. Tax dollars paid by you and me, the lowly tax payers.
Kirsch and Kirsch are another set of powerful attorneys in Indiana. Because these fellows are attorneys, they have the ear of the legislators. Since they practice adoption, the legislators feel that they are most educated on adoption. We are the ones living adoption. They should not be allowed to help create laws that hurt all of us. They have been caught in two lawsuits against fathers contesting the adoption of their children. In one case, the adopters even backed out. Kirsch and Kirsch rushed to bring in another set of adoptive parents instead of doing the right thing and giving custody of this child to his father.
The NCFA agencies in Indiana are against us. However they really don't have that much power in Indiana. Its Catholic Charities that does. Their member agencies are LDS Family Services, Sunny Ridge Family Center, and Bethany Christian services. Bethany currently is rumored to be shutting down. They were the agency involved in placing a child with an adoptive parent who killed her.
The Indiana Right to Life Movement is afraid that adoptee access to their own OBC will cause more abortions. It has been statistically proven otherwise in the state of Oregon and in six other states.
ACLU is a bunch of attorneys. Many of these attorneys themselves have gone into adoption.
Planned Parenthood is against us because they believe it is violating a woman's right to procreation decisions.
Lets look at the financial incentives provided to the states by the federal government for 2008.
Foster care payments to all the states: $5,211,000,000.
Adoption assistance payment: $2,044,000,000.
Adoption Awareness program: $12,674,000.
Adoption incentives paid to states: $17,820,000
Adoption opportunities program: $26,848,000.
Abstinence program also gets money: $113,400,000.
I have not even included what the state pays from its pockets for adoption/foster care services. It adds up real quick. As shown above, the tax payer is questioning the intentions of adoption agencies entrusted in caring for foster care children and adoptees. I know that Texas has privatized its foster care system. How many other states have followed suit? Keep in mind this does not include the $10,000 tax deduction that adoptive parents receive. This doesn't include the monies that adoptive parents of special needs children receive.
I have also been investigating my own adoption agency, St. Elizabeth Coleman. It is now considered one of the many Catholic Charities in Indianapolis, Indiana. So it no longer has to file a IRS Form 990. This is now considered a church organization. Their confidential intermediary has won the contract for the Child Welfare department for their searches. She charges $1,000 a pop. That is a lot of money. I know with my adoption my adoptive parents and my natural mother paid a fortune to the agency back in 1965. They also got $325.00 dollars from me. Most if not all of my information is false. I have spoken with countless other adoptees from the same home who also have found out that their information was false. We pay to get led around by our noses because this agency considers us incompetent to handle our own affairs. Their CI has told many adoptee that they are incapable of making contact on their own. Many adoptees have found their information has been altered. I wonder by who. Is it the agency itself or is it this CI? I want to know as well as thousands of other adoptees and their families.
I was looking at their fees for adoption, homestudies, and China Updates. Their fees are for the most part reasonable for domestic adoption. They have recently been doing international adoption homestudies. They are also doing foster care placements. They are another charity/church receiving government funds.
Again they are using my tax dollars against me and thousands of other adoptees who are tax paying citizens. It should be considered a conflict of interest with a government entity in denying me my rights to my original birth certificate.
It makes you wonder who we are really protecting the money/adoption industry or families.
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