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,…
I felt 100 time “lighter” immediately. I actually DO feel likeit’s over. We have managed to break through the hold and restrictions that adoption has tried to put on our mother son relationship and it can’t do any more damage, Adoption, as a real threat to me and my son, is done. It’s over. It cannot hurt us anymore. The adoption industry might have tried and maybe it’s not the way I wish it had been, but that just doesn’t matter anymore because we are OK. Our connection is still there and we value it and it works.
The three judges, two women, one man, sit behind what looks to be a cherry and oak huge bench. This bench crosses the whole length of the room, separating us and the lawyers, from the judges, from justice. I really just want to cross that divide and just be able to sit with these folks, who I see as just human beings, and tell them what has been going on in this little boy’s life. I want to plead with them to please do the right thing and make this family whole again. But the “process” means briefs and files and wait times and others who posture and dance, more hurry up to deadlines, and then wait wait wait, more wasted time, lost forever, wasted by this unethical adoption agency, in this baby’s life.
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 It has been 15 years since I found out my birth mother died of breast cancer. My story had a lot of twists and turns until two years later I was able to walk into the office of Catholic Charities and obtain her true identity. How those events unfolded and why it took so long is a long story. Search, reunion and even the post reunion…
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…
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…
More Garbage the Pretends to “Save” Babies; There is an amendment comin’ down the pike that will make it even more difficult for a mother who may have relinquished her infant under Illinois’ Abandoned Newborn Infant Protection Act change her mind and get her child back. And will codify that the child will have a foundling birth certificate.
Please share your challenges, problems, solutions, and experiences IF your relinquished child has lived with you again post adoption reunion? Or better yet IF you are an adoptee who did move back and live with your original family, what worked? What didn’t? What did you need that you didn;t get or wish had happened? And yes, please use the gift of hindsight to apply to your lessons learned!
Going back to Boston feels like going back to time. I feel like all these parts of me are swirling together but it feels good. It feels, I think, like it is supposed to. I look around my office, my house, my window, my street. I think of my home, my family, my husband, my children, my friends, my neighbors, my colleagues. I am just so beyond grateful for being here now.
Is it weird to dance and cry your face off because you are just relieved that you are actually happy?
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”…
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.
A Positive Change Brought about by the Justin Harris Mess; HOUSE BILL 1648 PROHIBIT PRIVATE TRANSFERS OF ADOPTED 9 CHILDREN EXCEPT TO RELATIVES If HB 1648 is passed, then Adoption Rehoming in Arkansas will be a felony!
By Laura Marie Scoggins Back during my middle school years I was a huge Shaun Cassidy fan. My bedroom was plastered with posters including the ceiling. I had all the latest issues of Tiger Beat and Teen Beat. I sat in front of the TV each week in anticipation for the next episode of the Hardy Boys. I had all of his albums. I knew all of his songs. Needless…
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.