Washington SUB 2211: Still dead. What happens next year?

It’s official. As we reported SaturdayWashington SUB HB 2211 is dead for this session. Although  it’s still in the hopper, perennial bill killer, and bastard baiter Sen. Jim Hargrove, told 2211′s sponsor Rep. Tina Orwall that he has no plan to bring  it forward this year. Naturally, Hargrove is not available for comment, a convenience that enables him to sidestep the question even the most incurious reporter must wonder: what’s your problem with bastards?

But never fear! Tina Ovrwall intends to bring the bill back next year. Don’t get too excited, though. According to the Tacoma News Tribune, her comrade in compromise, birthmother Rep  Ann Rivers, who is currently under the impression (we hope she wakes up) that she speaks for voiceless cowering first mothers:

I  think it will give us the direction that Sen. Hargrove might have perceived was lacking,” Rivers said. “We’ll make sure all the bases are covered, and we’ll proceed.

And just what might that direction be?

Hargrove supported the 1993 law that opened OBCs for October 1, 1993 adoptions and beyond  unless a disclosure veto has been filed. According to Wa-Care no vetoes have been filed; Laurie Lippold from the Washington Children’s Home Society claim one. How do they know?.

HB 2211 expanded that veto–making it time-limited for 5 years (Oct 1 1993 forward) and 10 years (pre-October 1,1993)  and renewable to cover all adoptions.  Just what more does Hargrove want?  We’d conjecture out loud , but we don’t want to give him any ideas.

Wouldn’t it just be easier for Wa-Car, Rep. Overwall and Rivers to demand across the board access with no exceptions and Hargrove to jump  his sinking ship? Until that happens, their all in that same rickety boat.

Reposted from The Daily Bastardette.

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Washington SUB HB 2211: The testimony Bastard Nation would have submitted

TESTIMONY

Mother and Child Reunion

This letter appears on pp 21-22 of the Sept/Oct 2000 Offspring:

MOTHER AND CHILD REUNION

We found it a matter of great regret that your article featuring our organization, Bastard Nation, and Marley Greiner, its executive chair (“This Woman Wants You to Call Her a Bastard. Please”, June/July), managed to conflate the issues of open records for adult adoptees and open adoption. It was all the more disturbing in the Bill Pierce, lobbyist for the adoption industry in his role as president of the National Council for Adoption, who was also featured in this article, has done his best for the past twenty years to obfuscate this distinction. And it seems that Jonathan Eig has blithely followed in his footsteps.

Bastard Nation has no position on open adoption, which is an agreement between adoptive and birth parents about contact during the minority of a child. Open records for adult adoptees, which is the mission of Bastard Nation, means precisely and only that adult adopted persons have a right to access their state-held records of birth (and adoption) in the same manner as all other citizens. To juxtapose this issue with cases like Baby Jessica and Baby Richard is irresponsible, misleading journalism that shows no understanding of the issues involved.

Aside from the fact that the vast majority of birth and adoptive parents favor open records for adult adoptees, it is a matter of simple justice. All the courts that have ruled on this issue have affirmed that granting adult adoptees access to their records does not violate the privacy of their birth parents.

Bastard Nation and open records are a threat only to an industry that has operated without accountability and under a cloak of secrecy for decades.

Marley Greiner, Cynthia Bertrand Holub and Ron Morgan Executive Committee, Bastard Nation
Des Moines, Washington

Constitution: A Way to Save Unwanted Newborns

Mona Charen

Mona Charen – Special

Wednesday * February 23

Our prosperous, lively, comfortable nation is facing a sudden upsurge in a pmblem as ancient as leprosy — baby abandonment and murder.

Tales of high-school girls giving birth at prams and in Disney World bathrooms, and either strangling their children or leaving them for dead, have made chilling headlines. Such stories, we are now learning, are not freak incidents. In the first 10 months of 1999,13 babies were abandoned at birth in the city of Houston alone.

Of these, three were found dead. The FBI says that five infants under age 1 are murdered every week, but the government does not keep separate statistics on baby abandonment. Those working in the field estimate that anywhere between several hundred and several thousand babies are exposed or thrown in Dumpsters every year.

The stones continue to flow in. In Germantown, Md., a baby was found in a trash can in a residential neighborhood. Wrapped in a blanket and placed inside a Kmart shopping bag, along with sanitary napkins, underwear, a chicken bone and other trash, the baby screamed in the freezing temperatures. Neighbors heard her cries and rescued her only minutes before the trash collectors would have dumped the contents of the bin. … Continue Reading