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by Kristine on Monday, 07 April 2008
PLEASE DISTRIBUTE FREELY!

NEWS FROM:
ADOPTION REFORM ILLINOIS

Attn: News Director March 28, 2008

For Immediate Release Contact: Triona Guidry

Adoption Reform Coalition Urges: Reject HB 4623

My people

public
by Kristine on Thursday, 03 April 2008





  "Many women do noble things,
but you surpass them all."


As my eyes opened, the smell of over 20 leis filled the air. I opened up my eyes and closed them again quickly, only to re-open just to see if it was really real. I was really here, in hawaii, and my mom really did pick me up at the airport the night before.

I sat up and walked around the room holding each lei and taking in every ounce of its aroma. The most beautiful aromas I had ever inhaled and i can almost smell them still, as I type this, 5 years later.

I walked outside onto our balcony, the wind blew in my hair as I stepped out onto the deck and looked out onto the ocean. Diamond Head in the distance I remember watching a turtle in the waves floating his way out into the deep blue sea.

I was home. There was no question about it. For the first time in my life there was an ease inside my body, a comfort, an inner peace, yes, I was home. I was with my people. I could finally rest after all these years.

The night before I had arrived to the island of Oahu for the first time in my life. As I unboarded the plane w/ my boyfriend we were greeted by a man holding a sign with my name on it. I remember him telling me that I had a LOT of people waiting for me through the doors he was walking me too. Then he asked me, is it true, you're meeting your mother for the first time? Just by my tear filled eyes, he knew, it was true. I stopped, and used the restroom, tried pulling myself together but it was impossible. We continued on and just as we got onto the escalator he told me that through the doors at the bottom was my family.

As I walked through the doors more than 20 people greeted me with ballons and leis, pictures and then there she was, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen still even to this day. My mother. She reached her arms out to me and embraced me and we hugged and cried for so long. I can still smell her perfume and if i close my eyes long enough, i can feel her arms wrapped around me.

The next 10 days were some of the best 10 days of my entire life. We made each minute special, each minute a chance to make up for the 21 years we lived apart. We spent my birthday together on the beach eating salmon on bagels with capers to the sunrise over diamond head. We drove around the island and she gave me a tour of her favorite places. Her husband at the time and for most of my entire life was a professional surfer, he took me to the best surfing spots and pointed out all of his favorite places. They would point to places that reminded them of me throughout the years, places they would go and think about me, places they'd looked forward to taking me when i found them and now, here we were at those places. It was SO healing.

I cannot explain the peace that came over my entire being the day I arrived and finally held my mother but it is still with me today.

by Kristine on Thursday, 03 April 2008

PLEASE DISTRIBUTE FREELY!

NEWS FROM: ADOPTION REFORM ILLINOIS

Attn: News Director March 28, 2008
For Immediate Release
Contact: Triona Guidry

Adoption Reform Coalition Urges: Reject HB 4623 

We, the undersigned members of the adoption community, urge legislators to oppose Illinois House Bill 4623. As written, this bill offers some adopted adults the chance to access their original birth certificates, while banning others from accessing theirs.

Illinois adoptees should be treated the same as non-adopted Illinoisans who face no birth certificate access restrictions. We urge legislators to reject the current compromise language of this flawed bill, and to create a new bill that will restore the civil right, rescinded in 1945, of all Illinois adopted adults to access their original birth certificates without bureaucratic restraint or third party interference.

This bill is merely a convoluted extension of the existing mandatory intermediary system. It turns equal access to adoptees' public records into a question of search and reunion, instead of addressing the civil right of all persons to access their original birth certificates.

Our organizations are united in our concern that the amended bill was not the bill that was posted for weeks on the Illinois legislative web site. This amended bill was not available online until March 13, 2008, the day the bill passed through committee, making it impossible to present testimony.

“For The Records: Restoring A Right To Adult Adoptees,” a comprehensive study published by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, examines the issue:
http://www.adoptioninstitute.org/research/2007_11_for_records.php

Access to one’s own birth certificate is not a favor to some, but a right for all.

Anita Walker Field
Illinois Open
obc@ilopen.org

Triona Guidry
Green Ribbon Campaign for Open Records
triona@guidryconsulting.com

The attached PDF gives background material about the bill to help your reporter in preparing an article. (NOTE: I'm having with the URL to this. I will post it later...Bastardette)

Signatories:
The Hon. Janet Allen
New Hampshire House of Representatives

Marley Greiner
Bastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organization

Ann Wilmer
Founder
Green Ribbon Campaign for Open Records

Bonnie Pazdan Pierce Spinazze
Co-Founder: Illinois Coalition for Truth in Adoption

Mary L. Fuller
Founder, FamAdopt
Illinois Born and Adopted

Trish Maskew
President
Linh Song, MSW
Executive Director
Ethica, Inc.

Ron Morgan
Kali Coultas
Day For Adoptee Rights

Sandy White Hawk
Executive Director
First Nations Orphan Association

Melissa Holub, Ph.D.
President-Elect
Northern California Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology

Betty Jean Lifton, Ph.D.
Adoption Counselor
Author, Journey of the Adopted Self:
A Quest for Wholeness

Carol Schaefer
Author
The Other Mother:
A Woman's Love for the Child She Gave Up for Adoption

Sally Howard
Author
Finding Me In A Paper Bag

Sandra K. Musser
Author
I Would Have Searched Forever

Rick Ouston
Adoptee/Author
Finding Family

Donna Montalbano
Host: Speaking of Adoption

Lindsay Woodside
Missouri Adult Adoptee Rights Coalition (MAARC)
Missouri Open

Pat Marler
Oklahomans for Adoption Reform and Honesty

Betsie Norris
Founder/Executive Director
Adoption Network Cleveland

Sheila Ganz
Bay Area Birthmothers
Filmmaker
Unlocking the Heart of Adoption

Erik L. Smith
Paralegal, Birthfather advocate, author

Mary Anne Cohen
CUB member since 1976

Peter Christian Mose
Illinois Born and Adopted
Arts Educator

Gerald Bailey
Illinois Adoptee
Retired Educator

Msgr. John W. Sweeley, Th.D.
Adoptee and Adoptive Father
Adoptee Rights Activist
Author of the forthcoming
Rights, Liberties, and Social Justice

David Kruchkow
Parents for Ethical Adoption Reform

by Kristine on Monday, 31 March 2008

I was reading an article today from the YONHAP NEWS about 4 Korean Adoptees who were murdered along with their adoptive mother. All leads currently point to their adoptive father ( if you can even call him that ) who took his own life in a vehicle crash after the murders. He also embezzled over $500,000 from his former employer.

Holt International(where the children were adopted from) director Hong My-kyung is reported to be shocked and dismayed. Interesting that even he or she is shocked and dismayed yet they have NO INTENTIONS OF NOTIFYING THE MOTHERS WHO'VE LOST THEIR CHILDREN TO ADOPTION AND NOW MURDER. What, nobody thinks they'd be shocked and dismayed? Why because they're only selfless heroes BEFORE the surrender, then afterwards they become heartless crack whore birthmoms right?

The children's b**** mothers will not be notified unless they ask. They were all young, single mothers at the time of the children's births, the agency said.

?? "After their children are adopted, they usually make a fresh start and our agency doesn't reach out first. Only if they contact us, we will inform them what happened," Hong said, adding that no phone calls were received so far.

First of all, what does their AGE have to do with ANYTHING? Or their marital status?? What does young and single at the time of a birth have to do with DESERVING to know that your child, born from your body has been murdered by the man who adopted him/her?

A fresh start? Is THIS the fresh start Hong is talking about? I take offense to the idea that mothers just grow, birth, surrender and make a fresh start, move on, never look back. Fresh start my ass.

Family has a right to know when family dies, especially when they came from your body or vice versa. I am OUTRAGED that mothers and fathers aren't notified when their child has been killed or died for ANY reason, let alone murder at the hands of the PARENT they were entrusted with.

by Kristine on Monday, 31 March 2008

NEXT SHOW

Sunday March 30, 2008

9:00 PM (EST)

www.theadoptionshow.com

Join friends in the chat room after the show!

by Kristine on Thursday, 27 March 2008

A demonstration and sidewalk adoption education event is planned for the evening of March 29, 2008 outside the Worthington Hotel, 200 Main St., downtown Fort Worth. It will be happening before and during the 120th Anniversary Gala for the Edna Gladney Adoption Center.  It is in recognition of their tradition of legislative work to deny adult adoptee access to birth information.

Event details are at www.studentmotivation.org/gladney, or you may contact the event coordination team: Bill Betzen (214-957-9739 & bbetzen@aol.com), Karen Joiner-Brown Blenanger (home: 469-546-0294, cell: 214-962-0648 & Karen_Belanger@tx.rr.com ), or Linda Burns (cell 512-629-5101 & momoburns@yahoo.com ).

You may bring a sign expressing your opinion. We are now growing beyond the core of having three teams: one person with a sign linked with a person passing out flyers that are being provided.  We will all gather at the street corner outside the front of the Worthington Hotel, Main Street & 2nd, at 6:00 PM on Saturday, 3-29-08. How big this demonstration may become depends on how many people you can help us reach who can join us Saturday evening.

"We do not want to leave a legacy of genetic secrecy for the generations who follow us."
by Kristine on Monday, 24 March 2008

This is interesting, noting how "easy" it is to adopt a child. sigh.

http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?bicode=040000&biid=2008032464828

MARCH 24, 2008 06:53

A street vendor, identified only as “Kim,” visited a loan shark in July last year to seek emergency funds. But what awaited him was a seemingly lucrative offer.

The loan shark, identified as “Bang,” offered 10 million won (10,000 U.S. dollars) if Kim pretended to put up his two young daughters for adoption.

After thinking about it for a couple of days, Kim accepted and waived his rights to his daughters. A street cleaner “Choi” then adopted the two and applied to buy a luxury condominium in Incheon under the guise of having three minor dependents without a home. Choi scored highly in the application process and obtained the right to purchase the unit in November last year.

The loan shark then paid Choi a commission and had Choi resell his exclusive purchasing right to a third party through a real estate agent.

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency busted Bang and an adoption ring comprised of 14 members who allegedly raked in about half a million dollars through real estate and adoption fraud.

Authorities also charged 20 biological and 19 adoptive parents for accepting between two million and ten million won to help the ring.

The ringleader knew that housing law gives preferential privileges to a home applicant who has an adopted child. The con artists focused on recruiting parents of children under five years old since they get more favorable consideration.

That way, they illegally obtained the rights to buy 21 units in the Seoul metropolitan area and resold them to third parties, earning between 60 million and 90 million won per unit.

A police official said, “To adopt a child, all you need is a sheet of paper. Nobody checks authenticity in the application process. That’s why they could make a fortune.”

by Kristine on Thursday, 20 March 2008

From Dee Lindeman of Michigan OBC:

Just wanted to let you know that House Bill 4896 is up for it's second reading in front of the full House of Representatives today.  The session starts at noon, and I will try to watch to see what happens.  What I expect will happen (and I am waiting for confirmation from Rep. Wojno's office) is that the bill will be officially withdrawn from consideration and the House members informed that the bill is currently being redrafted.
I will, of course, keep you all posted.
by Kristine on Thursday, 20 March 2008
State seeks to close adoption agency

Ohio department to yank A Child's Waiting license; Copley operation to appeal

By Rick Armon
Beacon Journal staff writer

Published on Wednesday, Mar 19, 2008

The state is seeking to shut down a local adoption agency, citing numerous violations, including placing a child in an uncertified foster home and not documenting background checks.

A Child's Waiting of Copley Township was notified last week in a 12-page letter that the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services won't renew its certification and plans to revoke its license.

The agency is appealing the decision and continuing to operate, co-director Crissy Kolarik said Tuesday.

''We are going through the appeal process, which can take months,'' she said. ''We are optimistic that this will have a positive outcome after the appeal process.''

Working Mother magazine last year named the agency as one of the nation's
best 25 small companies because of its family-friendly culture. A Child's Waiting, which has handled about 1,400 adoptions since it was founded in 2000, also was featured glowingly on ABC News' 20/20 a few years ago.

Sloppy paperwork

The state says violations indicate a pattern of sloppy paperwork in the adoption process. For example, some records are incomplete, documentation of background checks isn't included in files and mandatory face-to-face visits weren't held in the required time frame.

State spokesman Dennis Evans declined to identify any violations as more serious than others, saying they ''collectively led to the decision.'' He said the state had not received an official appeal from the agency as of Tuesday afternoon.

The state also notified all public and private adoption agencies in Ohio of its decision. In all, the state alleged that A Child's Waiting violated 20 adoption rules, some of them numerous times between 2005 and 2007. They include:

• Placing a few children in other states and receiving children from other states without first receiving state permission. The agency also placed several children without having permanent custody of the child.

• Placing a child in an uncertified foster home.

• Failing to document discussions with a child about injuries or determining how the placement was progressing.

• Asking the state to reimburse the agency for foster care training for individuals who were not eligible for payments. The agency also ''failed to make stipend payments to foster caregivers for training sessions they successfully completed.''

• Failing to make sure a child received appropriate medical care after identifying injuries. ''The child was removed from the foster home by local law enforcement due to allegations of physical abuse,'' the state said. The foster family, and not the agency, was accused of the abuse.

The state did not provide details about each violation. One violation was erased from the letter provided to the Beacon Journal.

by Kristine on Monday, 10 March 2008

Do you support open records for adult adoptees? Are you willing to help Michigan achieve equality for Michigan Adopted Adults?

They are putting a call out for anyone that can help with the following:

 

Media Committee

:  deals with press releases, interviews, general "getting the word out"