Articles by Mirah Riben

Adoption News, Mirah Riben on Huffington Post, More Adoption Blogs from Adoption Bloggers June 30, 2015

Update on the Guatemala Kidnapping and American Adoption of Karen Abigail Monahan

By Mirah Riben In December 2014 I reported on the Guatemala kidnapping of Anyeli Liseth Hernández and her US adoption by Timothy and Jennifer Monahan of Liberty Missouri who named the child Karen Abigail. Susana Luarca, aka Susana María de la Asunción Luarca Saracho who was charged with criminal association, human trafficking, and the use of forged documents in 2013, was recently sentenced to 18 years in a Guatemalan prison…

Costs of Adoption, Mirah Riben on Huffington Post, More Adoption Blogs from Adoption Bloggers June 15, 2015

Voices From AdoptionLand

By Mirah Riben “I feel like a stolen heart from a corpse, trapped in a foreign body.” Sunny Jo “This is not something that gets better over time. Because as you get older, as you live, you learn more and more about what’s been taken away from you. And you learn more and more about the enormity of what’s been stolen.” Cameron Horn “I feel like a ghost, invisible to…

Birthmother Holidays & Adoptee Birthdays, Mirah Riben on Huffington Post, More Adoption Blogs from Adoption Bloggers May 7, 2015

Honoring All Mothers on Mother’s Day

By Mirah Riben Be kind to your web footed friends, For that duck may be somebody’s mother She lives in a hole in a swamp Where the weather is always damp My thoughts and prayers this Mother’s Day 2015 are for all the mothers, including those who do not always – or ever – get thanked, remembered or even thought of and those for whom the day holds sad reminders….

You celebrate Gotcha Day, but I cry the month of November

Cultural Views on Adoption, Mirah Riben on Huffington Post, More Adoption Blogs from Adoption Bloggers May 6, 2015

The Insensitivity of Adoption Day Celebrations

By Mirah Riben Adoptive families have been commemorating the day they acquired their adopted children with an annual celebration since at least 2005 when it was suggested in Margaret Schwartz’s book The Pumpkin Patch. The celebration and its name have been the subject of controversy since its inception.     Very recently, adoptive father and poet Patrick Hicks wrote “Gotcha Day is a beginning — this is undeniably true —…

Adoptee Rights, Mirah Riben on Huffington Post, More Adoption Blogs from Adoption Bloggers April 27, 2015

Adoptee Access to Birth Certificates Protects Their Parents’ Privacy

By Mirah Riben As the nation watches the Indiana battle between religious freedom and discrimination against same sex couples, there is another, little known civil rights battle playing out in the Hoosier state (and elsewhere in the U.S.): Adopted citizens are fighting for equality. Adoptees’ right to access their own original birth certificates is being pitted against the alleged rights of their mothers. However, granting adopted citizens equal access will,…

Adoptee Rights, Costs of Adoption, Mirah Riben on Huffington Post, More Adoption Blogs from Adoption Bloggers April 8, 2015

Adam Crapser: Adopted, Abused and Facing Deportation

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…

Mirah Riben on Huffington Post, More Adoption Blogs from Adoption Bloggers, Pending Adoption Legislation, The Adoption Industry April 3, 2015

Is Criminalizing Rehoming the Best Solution?

By Mirah Riben Rehoming — the practice of giving adopted children away to other families — came to public attention, thanks to the September 2013 five-part exposé by Reuters, followed in December 2014 by a Dan Rather report. More recently, it became public that Arkansas State Representative Justin Harris (R -West Fork) gave his two adopted daughters, 3 and 6, to a man who allegedly sexually abused one of them,…

Before Making an Adoption Plan, Cultural Views on Adoption, Mirah Riben on Huffington Post, More Adoption Blogs from Adoption Bloggers, Relinquishment March 24, 2015

The Trauma of Mothers Who Have Lost Children to Adoption

By Mirah Riben In a public hearing before the Assembly Institutions, Health and Welfare Committee on Adoption, December 9, 1981, in Trenton, New Jersey, attorney Harold Cassidy made the following impassioned plea: There is a need for us in society to learn to know the women who have come to call themselves ‘birth-mothers.’ They are women who know that a child is part of his mother forever… They know the…

More Adoption Blogs from Adoption Bloggers March 13, 2015

Finding Family Truths and Roots

By Mirah Riben Review of the book, Finding Our Families: The first-of-its-kind for donor-conceived people and their families by Wendy Kramer and Naomi Cahn, J.D. Finding Our Families is a treasure trove of compassionate advice designed to help those raising the more than an estimated million people who were conceived using so-called donor* sperm, the tens of thousands whose lives began with eggs of contributors, and thousands who were “adopted”…

Adoptee Rights, Adoption News, Mirah Riben on Huffington Post, More Adoption Blogs from Adoption Bloggers March 3, 2015

Anonymous Third Party Reproduction Ignores Children’s Rights and Welfare

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’…

Adoption Truth, Mirah Riben on Huffington Post, More Adoption Blogs from Adoption Bloggers February 18, 2015

10 Really Shocking Facts of Child Adoption

By Mirah Riben Is it shocking that a “social worker will make sure that your entire home is baby-proofed before you bring [an adopted] baby home”? Alison Caporimo thinks so. Caporimo, who is fond of lists and has written them about staying safe while dating online, retro diners, and “17 Badass Ways Women Can Rock a Suit” now brings her Jill-of-all-trades approach to “17 Shocking Things Everyone Should Know About…

Adoption News, Mirah Riben on Huffington Post, More Adoption Blogs from Adoption Bloggers, The Adoption Industry February 9, 2015

Flip-Flopping on Adoption: Aussie PM Proposes Shopping for Kids

By Mirah Riben In March 2013 Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard issued a national apology for forced adoptions of the 20th century. The apology, which recognized the coercion and exploitation of mothers in order to obtain children to meet a demand for adoption, was viewed by the worldwide adoption community with admiration, appreciation and the hope that it signaled a major step forward against unethical adoption practices. When the apology…

Costs of Adoption, Cultural Views on Adoption, Mirah Riben on Huffington Post, More Adoption Blogs from Adoption Bloggers February 3, 2015

Living With Adoption’s Dichotomies and Myths

By Mirah Riben “ “Adoption loss is the only trauma in the world where the victims are expected by the whole of society to be grateful.” The Reverend Keith C. Griffith, MBE Imagine sharing your feelings of missing your deceased father (or brother) and hearing: “Be glad you still have your mother (or sister)” as if your loved ones are interchangeable. Such a response would be off target, dismissive, and…

Mirah Riben on Huffington Post, More Adoption Blogs from Adoption Bloggers January 29, 2015

Un-Adopting: Is Divorcing Children an Acceptable Option?

By Mirah Riben A couple identified as Allen and Cheryl was the latest to seek the help of Dr. Phil in dealing with an out of control child who has been terrorizing their family. Their son, nine-year-old Steve, was diagnosed with 18 mental illnesses. He was placed in three mental hospitals in the last year alone and takes multiple medications to control his behavior, but nothing helped for long. Home…

Adoptee Rights, Mirah Riben on Huffington Post, More Adoption Blogs from Adoption Bloggers January 27, 2015

Adopted Child Doe and Amended Birth Certificates

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…