By Laura Marie Scoggins One of the best things that has come out of open records legislation is the connections and community of adoptees. Adoptees are only truly understood by each other, and most of us live our lives without other adoptees to express what life adopted is like. In addition to reunions unfolding each day with birth families the biggest reunion of all just might be OUR reunion in…
By Cassi Okay, sit back, get comfortable, clear your throat and repeat after me . . . The promise of Birth Mother privacy is a lie! Let’s say it one more time . . . The promise of Birth Mother privacy is a lie! I have yet, in the many years I’ve been a part of the fight for Adoptee Rights and Adoption Reform, come across a First (Birth) Mom…
By Mirah Riben The New York Times called the life of Adam Crapser a bizarre Kafkaesque odyssey. The internationally adopted man, now 40 and living in Vancouver, Washington, has become the face of everything wrong with adoption. He was adopted, abused, abandoned to foster care, rehomed, abused worse than before, and abandoned again all by the time he was 16 years old… and now he faces deportation. Crapser’s odyssey began…
By Laura Marie Scoggins I am an adult adoptee writing in support of SB352 coming up for a vote on Tuesday. I cannot stress how important this vote is to 350,000 Hoosier adoptees who have waited a lifetime to obtain their records and original birth certificate. You have your original birth certificate. It’s my civil right to have mine as well. Back in 1999 I took advantage of the current…
By Laura Marie Scoggins Today is Independence Day for Ohio adoptees. Today is the day that 400,000 Ohio adoptees from the closed records adoption era are finally allowed legal access to their original birth certificate. Records for adoptions before 1964 and after September 1996 were not sealed, but for those of us adopted during the years in between our records were. Today we finally have access to those records. I…
Help Missouri Adoptees
It is URGENT that Adoptee Rights supporters come out in full force Monday March 16th. This is the hearing for the agency bill HB1112, and we need to show strong opposition. We need to gather anyone who can be there IN PERSON to support HB647. They don’t all have to speak, and they can be friends, neighbors, co-workers whoever can fill seats on our behalf.
Ohio-born adoptees adopted from January 1, 1964 to September 18, 1996 and their lineal descendants can access their original (pre-adoption) birth certificate starting on March 20, 2015.
By Mirah Riben Sheena and Tiara Yates, a New Jersey couple and parents of two, are challenging the visitation rights of the biological father of their second child. It will be interesting to see if the courts, in deciding this case, will base their decision solely on the legal rights of the parents, or if they take into account the rights and best interest of the child created. The Yates’…
I feel blessed and honored to have been included in the filming of this piece.
The last day of the AAC Conference in San Francisco last year, I heard Jean wanted to film some birthmothers and I volunteered. So we sat in a room and talked about our experiences relinquishing our children to adoption.
Then Jean Strauss worked her magic and this is the end result
When a man fathers a child and chooses, for whatever reason, to ignore the existence of that child, do we respect his wishes overall and grant him his right to his anonymity? No.. so why do mothers receive this “protection” ? Why are we ONLY concerned with the mothers? If this fear was legitimate, then wouldn’t it be fair and expected to extend that concerned to the father’s as well? Should not all people be protected, then, from long lost relatives that might infringe upon their lives and seek out relationships with them?
By Mirah Riben The Supreme Court case of Adopted Child Doe brings to a head the absurdity of amended “birth” certificates issued to adoptees. The 20-month-old known as Adopted Child Doe is Cooper Talmas-Vitale. Cooper was adopted by Joseph Vitale and Rob Talmas shortly after his birth in Ohio. The adoption is recognized in New York, where the two men are married and live with the toddler. But Ohio, the…
What: Opening Day in Ohio! Adoptees can file for their OBCs!
Where: Columbus, Ohio
When: March 19 and 20th, 2015
Who: Adoption Network Cleveland.
Why: Because they changed the laws! They ROARed!
A new year is here and with that it is time to roll out the Adoptee Rights Bills to Support in 2015. Just like the 2014 and 2013 lists, this will be a living list where things like bill numbers do get updated. However, for the most recent activity on any one state’s pending legislation and needed support, please refer to the websites and Facebook pages. If you know of additional states where legislation is pending this year, please do let me know.
For the last four years, we have tried to get a bill passed in the Indiana State Legislature that would equalize adoption law for all adoptees. Year after year, powerful interests in the adoption law community have ensured that it never got out of committee. This time, it’s going to be different.
Yeah it might be hard sometimes.. for all the parents involved.. adoptive and birth parents…but the role I have taken for #FliptheScript is to just Re-post, re-tweet, re-share, but not redirect. I always remember, it’s not about me. It’s about the adoptee as it always should be. I’m just a parent doing the best I can to support the rights of my child…even though the voices of others.