Lately

Lately I have been concentrating on other issues besides adoption. I know! I know! Adoption encompasses many things besides the topic itself. Adoption also involves women's health issues, children's issues, reproductive choice (abortion vs. adoption), and so much more. Adoption is such a hot button issue as a result of all of these other issues.

I write five different blogs. It is sometimes difficult to keep up with all of them. I tend to concentrate on the sites that make me money so that I can continue to support adoptees and their families in our online community.

I have been very interested in the health care reform issue. I honestly believe that if women had access to decent health care that we would not have the problems that we have with abortion and adoption. I think that universal health care will reduce these numbers. That is something that I would like to see done.

Adoptees are often blamed for increases in abortion when the true reality according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute and others is that women abort because they just do not have the money to support a child. I quote this directly from their site:

Most U.S. women cite more than one factor contributing to their decision to have an abortion: Almost three-quarters say that having a baby would interfere with work, school or other responsibilities; about three-quarters say they cannot afford to have a child; and almost half say they do not want to be a single parent or are having problems with their husband or partner.

Adoptees have enough to deal with at times without the added responsibility for the future reproductive choices of women in the United States. Adoptees are often told to be grateful that they were not aborted. That is one of the most horrible things to say to any adoptee.

It amazes me that many in the pro-life movement and pro-choice movement ignore these valuable bits of information. I have to give credit to the pro-choice movement. They are starting to recognize the coercive tactics that are often used on pregnant women in this country. It is also dependent on which state but the pro-life movement is starting to do the same. The difference between the two is that the pro-life movement is still very dependent on crisis pregnancy centers across this country. The adoption industry is heavily connected to these centers as well. Bethany Christian Services is the worst culprit.

The adoption industry is a massive multi-billion dollar business that is unregulated. There are attempts to regulate it but they are just band-aids in reality. Adoption needs a massive overhaul so that all parties are protected. Birth mothers are being coerced out of their children. Adoptees are denied access to their original birth certificates. Adoptive parents are being scammed out of their funds and their dream. We have to make changes to the system.

There is no doubt that it will be a painful process in order to change things. It is a process that we all need to go through.

Demons In Adoption

For those who have not voted yet, there is still time for you to vote on Pound Pup Legacy for the Demons in Adoption Awards. The list is mighty impressive as it is every year. You can vote here today. My favorite is LDS Family Services for what they have done to a family here in my local.

Each year Pound Pup Legacy presents the Demons of Adoption Award to raise a voice against adoption propaganda and the self congratulatory practices of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute's annual Angels in Adoption Awards^TM

Until October 30 you will have the opportunity to vote for the recipient of this year's award.

The nominees are:

• Adoptions First for offering of a free birth mothers package;
• Athanasios Kollias aka Teo for the involvement in various Guatemalan child trafficking cases;
• Barnardos for promoting the removal of children and have them adopted as the solution to family breakdown;
• Bethany Christian Services for using coercive tactics obtaining infants for their customers;
• Deborra-Lee Furness for pushing laxer regulations in inter-country adoption;
• Harry and Bertha Holt for starting the placement of "special needs children" who are truly not adoptable, into the homes of already huge families;
• Independent Adoption Center for plugging their business on WE tv's Adoption Diaries, making them the non-denominational Bethany;
• Joint Council on International Children's Services for supporting temporary movement of foreign children to America because such trial-basis "exchange" programs "help" the adoption process;
• LDS Family Services for using coercive tactics in obtaining infants for adoption and for not respecting paternal rights;
• Scott and Karen Banks for child trafficking, coercive adoption practices and the abandonment of their adopted children;
• The Dutch Ministry of Justice for preventing research into corrupt adoption practices in China, because of diplomatic and business relations with that country;
• The Malawi Government for allowing Madonna to adopt Mercy James;

Adoptee Rights Demonstration: From Nola To Philly!

Here is the latest video from the Adoptee Rights Demonstration. Next year they are coming to our state. Yep Indiana Folks stand up and pay attention. They are coming to Louisville. Our turf! We can do this. We can make it bigger than Philly and New Orleans combined. Are you excited? You should be. I know that I am. I will be there on my home turf.

Here is another way to help the ARD to raise funds.

Listen up! We need EVERYONE'S help to spread the word about the Adoptee Rights Demonstration, and maybe even help the protest win $200 to go towards expenses for next year's rally!

There's a slide show up on Youtube with pictures from the protests in New Orleans and Philadelphia. The link is:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4DQ5iDDEuA



We need EVERYONE to do these three things at the link above:



1.) Rate the video

2.) Add it to your favorites

3.) Leave a comment

Doing these three things all count as 'votes' at Youtube. With enough votes, we'll be pushed to the front of the Nonprofits and Activism page, which will raise awareness about the protest and our issue.



Done? OK next steps!!



Head on over to AdoptionVoices.com and repeat the steps above

http://adoptionvoices.com/video/from-nola-to-philly-the


1.) Rate the video

2.) Add it to your favorites

3.) Leave a comment

These three items all count as votes there as well.

AdoptionVoices is having a contest, and the video with the most votes will win $200. This would be a HUGE help to the protest, as our permit expenses for Louisville will be much higher than at protest-friendly Philadelphia.

Please help!

Thank you!

Ann Fessler's Everlasting

Have you heard of Ann Fessler? She is the adoptee who wrote "The Girls Who Went Away." If you have not read her book, you must do so. She wrote this book from a place of complete compassion for the birthmothers of yesterday. She put out this video here recently. I am hoping to draw more attention to her fabulous work.

As a Coleman adoptee, this woman helped me to understand exactly what my birthmother went through during her time at Suemma Coleman Home for Unwed Mothers. I have heard from several Coleman mothers and also heard their stories up close and personal. This maternity home was no different than many of the homes across America.

Her book opened many doors for adoptees across this country. I believe that it is a book that every adoptee, birthmother, and adoptive parent should read. I have met so many people that do not have any compassion or care for many of these women. They have to see that these women did not have choices prior to the years of Roe vs. Wade. That many of these women were coerced every step of the way. These women if they had been giving the choices of today would have chosen to raise their sons or daughters.

In this video by Ann Fessler, she shows that with many of the women that she has interviewed over the years. She also shows the coercion, the falsification of documentation, the mythology of the adoption industry, and so many other issues with these women's stories. She shows that these birthmothers were not the sluts, whores, crack addicts, and drug addicts as the adoption industry loves to depict. They were and are still today reproductive members of our society. You would be startled at how many of them are so much more than this mythology. These birthmothers are not shrinking violets but strong, powerful, beautiful, intelligent, and gracious women.

Ann Fessler has done many things for the movement of adoptee rights. She has pushed forward and dispelled many of these myths. I for one thank her for the immense help that she has given adoptees and their families.

Adoptee Rights Demonstration Video 2009

This is an awesome video made by a great young lady. She created this video from pictures at the Adoptee Rights Demonstration at the National Conference of State Legislators in Philadelphia this past week. She did an awesome job if you ask me. She is a very talented young woman.

We ask all those living adoption join us in the fight to end the discrimination that American adult adoptees face in forty four states in the United States. Next demonstration will be in Louisville, Kentucky. We ask that you attend this next year.

Birthmother vs. Adoptive Mother

I recently got criticized for searching for my birth mother. The person made an erroneous comment on the fact that I must not love my adoptive mother if I am searching. I really thought this person got adoption. I guessed wrong. She recently used that as an excuse to dismiss my adoptive mother’s asthma as insignificant. I saw nothing but red with that comment alone. I know that I will not forgive that person any time soon. I will no longer allow that person back into my life.

This is what many outside of adoption do not understand. Some adoptees did have a bad experience with their adoptive parents. I am by no means dismissing their experiences. Understand one thing with ME. I love my adoptive mother. Between her and my birthmother friends, I would not have survived my search. She is the one that kept having faith in a woman who is obviously filled with fear if what I was told was the truth. If it was not the truth, then we still have hope in a woman who will make contact.

I really hate it when people like this individual make assumptions about others. My adoptive mother is extremely proud of the fact that I am standing up and not letting the adoption machine run me over. In fact, she is wanting a copy of the adoption decree as she never received a copy of it. All that my adoptive parents received was my amended birth certificate once the adoption was complete.

If you are a friend of an adoptee, do not dismiss their experience. Do not assume that an adoptee does not love either set of parents. Do not assume that because they want to search that they do not love their adoptive parents. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ADOPTIVE PARENTS. It is about understanding who they are as a person. It is about understanding one’s identity. It takes a lot of gall on the part of individual to dismiss an adoptee’s experience. This coming from someone who has their ancestry. This is coming from a person who knows who her children are. This is coming from a person who knows who their parents are. I really hate ignorance such as hers.

It is a huge insult to adoptees and their families all over the country. It is a huge dismissal of those families. We make up ten percent of the population when an individual does this to one person. This kind of commentary continues to reflect negatively on the adoption community.

I would like to see someone take her identiy and tell her that she can not have access to it any longer. She could not contact her parents or her children. I wonder how quick she would shut up. She would probably scream holy hell. Honestly I think that she should just mind her own business.

Taking Things off the Beaten Path

David Carradine died recently of horrific circumstances. After learning more about the situation, I honestly wish that he had committed suicide. That is just as bad but I feel that he would have his honor still intact. I feel that his privacy has been invaded in a very humiliating way. This information should have never been leaked to the press.

David Carradine was a tremendous actor. I loved him in Kill Bill Volumes One and Two. He was aweseome. I have often enjoyed many of his westerns as well. He was a great actor. It is sad to see him so humiliated like he has been.

If he had a dark side to his life, it was really no one's business. It feels like someone is trying to hurt his reputation as an actor. Why do we need to know that most intimate details of someone's life and death? We don't. I feel for his family. I feel for his real life friends.

This whole saga about the end of his life is just sad and pathetic. I would have rather remembered him as a great man than what the end of his life was. I do not blame the family for wanting the FBI to step in. There is just something that is wrong with this picture.

Sorry I have been wanting to say that for a long time.