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Vermont H629: Bastard Nation letter to House Judiciary. Let adoptees speak! #NoHearingsAboutUsWithoutUs

February 12, 2022

I urge the committee to re-think its hearing process and to hold at least one more hearing for the real experts to speak: adopted people. Limiting adoptees to submitted testimony not only denies the objects of H629 critical face-to-face communication with the committee, but it also invalidates our lived experience. It trivializes our rights. It silences adoptees and makes us invisible to the public and legislative eye. Mostly, it sends a bad message that the adopted people of Vermont don’t count. Let us speak!

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Action Alert, News

Vermont H629: Emergency Action Alert and Bastard Nation testimony or #NoHearingsAboutUsWithoutUs

February 11, 2022

This week the Vermont House Judiciary Committee held two hearings on HB629. These hearings, according to an email l received today from a committee staffer, were not real hearings but information-gathering sessions featuring adoption “experts.” These experts were limited to adoption attorneys and adoptacrats. (Adoption agency liability looms large in their imagination). The chair of the committee apparently does not view The Adopted as experts on our own lives and the abrogation of our own rights and barred all adoptees from giving oral testimony. As one astute activist tweeted today: If there are no adoptees speaking, there are no experts…Action Alert: NEED HELP ASAP with VT legislation. If you have the spoons and time today, would you please send a SHORT email to the VT House Judiciary Committee demanding they give a seat at the table to an actual adoptee (ME) to testify regarding proposed bill H629 (information follows)

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News

Adoptee Citizenship Act 2021 amended into another bill; passes House

February 6, 2022

The Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2021 moved one rung up the ladder to passage on Friday, February 4, when the US House passed it–as an amendment to the massive ($350 billion) COMPETES Act–a bill that …

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Legislation, News

Wisconsin: Bastard Nation Testimony in Support of AB502 in Assb. Committee on Children and Families, Jan 26, 2022

January 27, 2022

Current Wisconsin law permits a small number of adopted adults to obtain their OBCs upon request—subject to a restrictive process that forces them to navigate a cumbersome, difficult, infantalizing, and insulting gauntlet of conditions, arbitrary procedures, and naysayers, The state, thus, permits favor and privilege for the few, while it continues its Draconian discriminatory policy against the remaining vast majority.

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Legislation, News

Welcome to Legislation 2022 Hell!

January 17, 2022

The Bastard Nation Legislation 2022 page is now up. The political outlook hasn’t changed much from 2021. Granted, Connecticut did free up its OBCs and Massachusetts continued to move forward on its lumbering road to victory, but other than that, 2021 was a disappointing, frustrating, dreary year. Arizona went weird, Maryland zilched, and deformers continued to stumble their baby booties through their own muck. Safe Haven Baby Box bills and Baby Boxes continued to flare up like herpes under the banner of “women demand anonymity,” the feel-good alternative for politicians who cringe over “adoptees demand rights.” Even more dismal, legislatures, blaming Covid, made discovering how to submit written testimony or to present remote or in-person an endurance test.

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Adoptee Deportation: An American Injustice

November 12, 2021

Unfortunately, many adoptive parents did not research or verify citizenship status at the time of adoption or follow through on the citizenship process. Some say they were unaware of naturalization requirements and believed citizenship was automatic upon adoption finalization. Some claim to have been misled about citizenship procedures by their adoption agencies, courts, lawyers, or federal immigration authorities. Some believed that it was up to the adoptee, at the age of majority, to choose their citizenship status. In some cases, adoptive parents disrupted the adoption, and either “rehomed” the children they brought to the US or turned them over to the state foster care system where they lingered with no legal closure.

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We Lost Another One. In Memoriam: Addie Recoy (1965-2021)

November 7, 2021

Addie Recoy, longtime adoptee rights activist and Bastard National, passed away yesterday after a long battle with cancer, She celebrated her 56th birthday two weeks ago. Addie didn’t like attention and didn’t want the seriousness of her illness made public. Only a handful of very close friends knew, about her condition, and her passing has been a shock to us all. I don’t know if an obituary will be published, (if it is, I will add it) but friends and colleagues are posting memories and condolences throughout social media. You can read some of their tributes on her Facebook page.

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In Memoriam: Susan Friel-Williams (1954-2021)

November 5, 2021

Today we learned of the passing of Susan Friel-Williams on October 21 in Fort Myers, Florida. Susan was a veteran adoptee rights activist and searcher. whose work goes back decades.

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Legislation, News

Massachusetts House passes H2294. Now it’s the Senate’s turn!

Today the Massachusetts House passed H2294, (Senate version is S1440), a bill to restore the right of all Massachusetts-born adoptees to their original birth certificates. Current Massachusetts law allows adoptees in the state to obtain their original birth certificates without conditions or restrictions at age 18 if they were adopted on or before July 17, 1974, or on or after January 1, 2008., This bill unseals records for those adopted between July 18, 1974, and December 31, 2008.

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Legislation, News