In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, when all legislation this year seemed lost–the Massachusetts House this morning passed H1892 to restore OBC access to all Massachusetts adoptees. (No vote stats known yet). It now moves to the Senate.
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Bastard Nation Action Alert: Don’t let ancestry.com purge DNA matches
Ancestry.com has announced that it plans in August to purge its smaller matches –6-8cM- segments. In other words, ancestry.com DNA customers are about to lose a substantial number of family members/DNA connections from its customer’s DNA matches.
In general, this is a terrible idea, but specifically, these smaller matches are the exact place where African American and mixed Native Americans find their ancestral connections. This change will also affect adoptee connections.
Continue readingFramed in Bigotry and Discrimination: A look at Trump’s Executive Order: Strengthening the Child Welfare System for America’s Children.
The emphasis in the Executive Order is not some abstract improvement, but the creation of a robust evangelical-coded “faith-based” equalization in child welfare. The EO promises to increase much-needed child welfare improvement not through government initiative, but through taxpayer-funded tax-exempt so-called “faith-based” partnerships with private religious child welfare organizations and corporations including churches, para-churches, and ministries. Moreover, the EO promises “faith-based “foster and adoption recruitment.” This suggests nonsensically that the lack of “faith-based partnerships” keeps children stuck in state foster care when they could be transferred to the Christian adoption market if that market were more open and availab
Continue readingGood News from Missouri: Reclaim the Records takes down bureaucratic secret keepers
In 2016 Reclaim the Records, using the Missouri Sunshine Law, requested a simple database extraction of state birth and death listings from January 1, 1910-December 31, 2015. According to Reclaim the Records attorney, Bernie Rhodes, the extraction should “take only a few keystrokes” to complete. DHSS , however, for reasons unknown, responded with a “backdoor denial.” It first demanded $1.49 million to fulfill the request, crazy-claiming compilation would take over 35,000 staff hours at $42.50 per hour (!) When Reclaim the Records balked, the fee was lowered mysteriously to a still high $5000. Then, DHSS rejected the request in full and ran to former Missouri Registrar Garland Land for advice on how to keep the birth and death indices from public perusal.
Continue readingBastard Nation Action Alert and Letter: Kentucky HB447 Baby Drop Box Bill. Do Not Pass
The Kentucky Legislature has been closed down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it is scheduled to re-open (as of this writing) on April 14, 2020. We don’t know if that will happen, but now …
Continue readingUtah continues to deform
This week Utah Governor Gary R. Herbert signed two bills that continue to abrogate the rights of Utah–born adoptees.
Continue readingUtah HB345: Bastard Nation Asks Gov. Herbert to Veto/ Action Alert
Not only were adoptees and their rights trivialized, but their hope of equal treatment under law, due process, and right to “personal records” (words from the bill) were played with. HB345 is no only bad politics, but cruel politics. Due to HB 345, real people, with real faces, real names, real families, real records, and real hopes were hung out to dry apparently to get “something passed” at the end of the session that legislators didn’t even care enough about to discuss in public. The outcome of HB345 suggests that the purpose of records access is personal reunion rather than political rights. The result will be the increased use of “outing” mechanisms such as social media and online DNA tests, which often involve public exposure of the names and other private information of adoptee and birthparents, rather than the quiet release of a state-held document to adoptees.
Continue readingThings for Homebound Bastards to Do During COVID-19 Lockdown
Stuck at home with “nothing to do?” Don’t be a bored bastard. Here are some ideas.
Continue readingHB1039 passes Maryland House overwhelmingly. Now on to Senate! Help us!
From Capitol Coalition for Adoptee Rights: Maryland’s HB1039 has passed the House, 130-8, with adoptee delegates stepping up to support the bill’s passage! On to the Senate. Keep up with efforts, join us, and …
Continue readingBastard Nation Action Alert: Utah H345 restricted bill goes to Senate. Kill it now!
Please drop a line to Utah Senators and ask them to oppose HB 345. .There is no state interest in keeping original birth certificates sealed from adult adoptees to which they pertain. Nor does the state have a right or duty to mediate and oversee the personal relationships of adults. Those who claim a statutory right to parental anonymity through sealed records, as found in HB 345, promote statutory privilege and state favoritism. This is not a bill adoptees want or need. Only unrestricted, unconditional OBC access is acceptable.
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