CANADA - ONTARIO: The Search for One's Roots, August 11, 2008

HAMILTON SPECTATOR
August 11, 2008

The search for one's roots
Paul Zadvorny


For weeks at a time, I have sat in Hamilton's Central Library, searching for my resemblance in the black and white pages of old yearbooks. My eyes have tirelessly scanned hundreds of headshots, looking for a girl I imagine has red hair, blue eyes and a smile like my own.

I know my birth mother's face is there, and until new Ontario law comes into effect, Hamilton's Class of '78 is my only hope of solving the riddle of my identity.

Searching for people and information held in sealed adoption records has been a notoriously difficult endeavour for birth parents and for adoptees in Ontario. I am but one of thousands of people throughout the province who have had to endure the indignity of being denied the right to know where we came from.

Last fall we won and lost the chance to know our past when the government passed the Adoption Information Disclosure Act, only to have it immediately stuck down by the courts. The government has now introduced new legislation that corrects its past failure and may finally provide answers, and perhaps closure, to thousands of adoptees like myself.

It's a bizarre sensation knowing that for a short time early in my life, I was someone else. In the few days that I spent with my birth mother, she named me Christopher Paul 'D.' Thanks to the current law, the Catholic Children's Aid can tell me little else about my background. I know my mother's family came to Hamilton from Scotland. They were Catholic, upper-middle class with three children, my mother the eldest. She was 16 and heading into Grade 11 when I was born in September 1976. I know even less about my father -- he was 17 and born to a German family -- and I'm unsure he even knows I exist.

When I was 10 days old, I became Paul Gregory Zadvorny, son to parents every child should have. My parents never hid the fact that I was adopted, and they have always been supportive of my search for my birth mother. But as a kid, and even now, I've hesitated to discuss my adoption with them. I fear that I might upset my mum, or make her feel as though she has somehow become secondary. Consequently, much of what I have done in regard to my search has been on my own -- which at times makes things emotionally difficult.

At an early age, my longing for information was sporadic -- often triggered by family functions and uneasy feelings of not belonging. As a teen I recall curiously digging through my dad's filing cabinets, in search of something, anything, to satisfy my need to know. Finally, lingering amid old receipts and tax forms, I discovered my adoption papers. I remember crying when I read Christopher Paul D. -- it seemed to finally make my adoption real. Still, my discovery gave me a clue and a sliver of hope that one day my search might end, that I would finally find my roots.

With a starting point, I began to explore my options -- immediately finding that they were limited. I requested non-identifying information (where all of the aforementioned details of my former life originated), and added my name to the Adoption Disclosure Registry. After years of waiting for a response, I hit a brick wall. I had exhausted the only active search option provided to adoptees in Ontario.

It became an onerous waiting game. The registry is a list consisting of tens of thousands of adoptees in search of their past, weighted against three provincial employees conducting the searches. A veritable needle in a haystack. Something had to be done.

In April 2005, Community Services Minister Sandra Pupatello introduced a bill that promised to finally give adoptees in this province the right to finally know where they came from. I was ecstatic, and celebrated a moment that I and many others had anticipated for some time. If passed, Bill 187 would allow adoptees over 18 and birth parents to get information that had been sealed, such as birth certificates and adoption orders that would inevitably reveal identities.

Included in the bill was a "contact veto," which was similar to a restraining order where a concerned party could request not to be contacted by his or her birth relative. However, the bill did not have a universal "disclosure veto" provision that would allow a party to stipulate that his or her identifying information not be released.

The bill seemed to address both the wishes of the adoptee and birth parent, and was readily supported by the numerous children's agencies and adoption groups. It would also have brought Ontario in line with Alberta, Newfoundland and British Columbia, the only three provinces to have open adoption records.

In September 2007, the bill was passed. I took comfort that the answers I sought would soon be available. Two days later, Mr. Justice Edward Belobaba of the Ontario Supreme Court struck down the law. The act, he ruled, breached the privacy provisions granted by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In an instant, the hopes and efforts of many were simultaneously quashed.

Revised legislation was introduced by the provincial government and became law in May. Its one critical amendment allows either party to apply for a disclosure veto to prevent the release of the adoption records if the adoption was finalized before this Sept. 1.

Adult adoptees and birth parents will be able to apply for copies of original birth registrations and adoption orders starting in June 2009. Disclosure vetoes, by either party, will be accepted by the province starting in September.

I am cautious about getting my hopes up once again, so in the meantime I will continue to scan through yearbooks and make phone calls to strangers hoping to solve my personal mystery.

There seems to be an unspoken bond between mother and child. It is an experience that most people take for granted, and one that I arduously work to attain. It exists between my children and my wife, and between my brother (who's not adopted) and my adoptive mother. The optimistic outcome of my search would be to one day experience that bond.

However, with every idyllic foreshadowing of how my search may end, I have obviously had to consider the contrary. I cannot begin to imagine the emotions and circumstances that my mother faced, and thus have had to empathetically consider things from her perspective. And as difficult as it may be if she chose to remain anonymous, I would respect and accept her decisions.

Still, I continue to hold onto hope that one day my search will come to an end.

It is impossible to predict the results of my efforts, so I have had to prepare myself for whatever the outcome may be -- a harsh reality, softened by the fulfilment of having tried.

Paul Zadvorny lives in Hamilton. zadvorny@hotmail.com

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GAY CITY NEWS
July 24, 2008

Two Men Are Birth Dads
By: ARTHUR S. LEONARD
07/24/2008

Judge Lloyd Cutsumpas, of the Connecticut Superior Court in Waterbury, ordered that two gay men from New York who contracted with a Connecticut woman to be their "gestational surrogate" are entitled to have only their names listed as parents on the final birth certificate.

In a June 13 ruling, Cutsumpas rejected the state Health Department's argument that genetic testing should be used to determine which of the men is the child's genetic father and that the other father should have to adopt the child through a second-parent adoption procedure after the birth. Instead, he ruled, an "intended parent" under a gestational agreement, including one who may not be genetically related to the child, could become a legal parent by being listed on the birth certificate.

This ruling has no direct appellate precedent in Connecticut.

Peter Griffiths and Angel Naranjo are, according to the court's opinion, "registered domestic partners in the State of New York." They wanted to have a child genetically related to both of them, so Naranjo's sister donated an egg to be fertilized by Griffiths' sperm, and Griffiths' niece donated an egg to be fertilized with Naranjo's sperm. Both embryos were implanted last November in Kenisha Taylor, a Waterbury resident, who contracted with the two men to be their surrogate. One viable fetus resulted.

As part of the agreement, Taylor promised not to engage in sexual intercourse for a specified period of time to ensure that the child would be conceived from one of the implanted embryos. She says she kept her promise, which means the fetus is not genetically related to her.

Wishing to be considered equal parents of the child in every sense, Griffiths and Naranjo refrained from any genetic testing to determine which of the embryos developed into the fetus. But, in either case, they would both have a genetic relationship to their child.

State law requires a hospital to file a birth certificate naming the woman who bore the child as the mother as soon as a child is born. However, a court can order the Health Department to issue a replacement birth certificate listing the child's legal parents, which would replace the original as the formal legal documentation of the child's birth and family status.

Anticipating their child's birth this summer, Griffiths and Naranjo filed suit in the Waterbury District of the Circuit Court to get the requisite court order for a replacement birth certificate naming them as parents. Taylor, the hospital, and the state Health Department were the nominal defendants, and unexpectedly the Health Department opposed them, arguing that because a birth certificate is required to be an "accurate" public record, "only biological or adoptive parents can have their names placed on birth certificates."

The Department stated that logically, then, genetic testing is necessary to determine whether Griffiths or Naranjo is the genetic father, and only the genetic father can be listed on the certificate by a court order. The other father would have to wait for the birth to initiate adoption proceedings. After an adoption proceeding, a third birth certificate would be issued with the names of the two men as legal parents.

Griffiths and Naranjo objected, and argued that the existing law authorizes the court to declare them the "intended parents" for purposes of the replacement birth certificate. A recently-enacted Connecticut law explicitly supports this conclusion, but does not go into effect until October. With the child due earlier, the court had to rely on earlier statutes.

"This court of equity is left to fashion a remedy for the litigants using what statutes and previously decided cases are available regarding this evolving subject matter," Cutsumpas wrote.

In light of emerging reproductive technology, the Connecticut Legislature has been tinkering with its birth certificate statutes since 2001. The first draft of the revised law made explicit references to gestational surrogacy, but those references were dropped from the final version of the statute, which resulted in ambiguities only partially addressed in subsequent amendments. It was not until the 2008 amendment due to take effect in October that an explicit reference to gestational surrogacy appears.

However, in reviewing the legislative history and the court decisions interpreting prior versions of the statute, it was clear to Cutsumpas that the Legislature intended to allow the replacement certificate to be used to establish a legal birth record for this kind of case.

However, all of the previous rulings in gestational surrogacy cases involved "intended parents" who were heterosexual couples, in which at least one and usually both were definitely the child's genetic parent. In this case, the Health Department argued, since only one of the men can qualify as the father, the men must undergo a genetic marker test, with only that one having his name on the first of the revised birth certificates.

The Department also argued that "despite Taylor's testimony that she abstained from sex during the time period surrounding the conception, there was in fact a chance that neither man was the father.

Griffiths and Naranjo responded that at least one prior unpublished Connecticut trial court decision ordered that two men be listed as parents on the replacement birth certificate with no indication that genetic testing or an adoption was required. Unpublished trial court opinions are not binding legal precedents, but Cutsumpas found the Department's arguments to be "inaccurate" in any case.

He pointed out that there were prior published Connecticut Supreme Court decisions supporting the proposition that a man need not invariably have to prove genetic parentage in order for the courts to declare him a legal parent.

"It should be further noted," he wrote, "that on almost a daily basis, in our Magistrate Court and in our Superior Court, men and women are declared to be parents of children without a genetic test... Often an acknowledgment of paternity will suffice."

He concluded that even the law in effect now could be interpreted to establish parentage "by being named as an intended parent in a gestational carrier agreement."

The judge wrote that it was "unclear" why the Department insisted on a genetic test to list Griffiths or Naranjo, but seemingly had no objection to listing Taylor on the initial birth certificate, even though she "has no genetic relationship to the child"; to do so would be to record "inaccurate information, in violation of what the department states is the public policy underlying the vital records statute."

The possibility that Taylor could be a genetic parent impregnated by another man is an issue that could be raised about all gestational surrogacy situations, Cutsumpas noted, yet the Department did not routinely call for genetic testing when the intended parents were a heterosexual couple, so it was being inconsistent here.

"It is clear that the public policy of the State of Connecticut favors the issuing of orders regarding surrogate parentage," Judge Cutsumpas concluded. "Our legislative history and case law supports this view. [This] case is not about the establishment of genetic, or biological parents, but rather the establishment of legal or intentional parents. Names on a birth certificate are not necessarily just an acknowledgment of paternity but can also establish legal responsibilities to a child. In this era of evolving reproductive technology and intent-based parenthood, our laws must acknowledge these realities and not simply cling to genetic connections as preconditions to being placed on a birth certificate."

Finding that the gestational carrier agreements was "valid, enforceable, irrevocable, and of full legal effect, Cutsumpas declared that Taylor is not the parent of the unborn child, ordered that upon the child's birth, Taylor be listed on the initial certificate, and that the Health Department then must issue a replacement certificate, "removing Taylor's name and naming Peter Griffiths and Angel Naranjo as parents."

The court's opinion was issued on June 13 but did not show up on the Westlaw electronic database until July 17. Since the embryos were implanted in November, it is likely the child will be born in August.


©GayCityNews 2008

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USA: Protesters Seek to Change Laws Sealing Birth Papers, July 23, 2008

NEW ORLEANS TIMES-PICAYUNE
July 23, 2008

Protesters seek to change laws sealing birth papers
But opposition notes mothers' privacy rights
By Nicole Dungca
Staff writer

Since finding out last year that she was adopted as a baby, Judy Galliand Adams, 58, has been on a hunt for information about her birth mother. But she faces a major roadblock.

In Louisiana, as in many states, adoptees are denied easy access to their original birth certificates. Instead, they can get only amended birth certificates, which name their adopted parents as their biological parents.

Aiming to get the policy changed, Galliand Adams joined about 60 protesters Tuesday on a march from Lafayette Park to the site of the 34th Annual Legislative Summit of the National Conference of State Legislatures at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.

Organized by The Adoptee Rights Demonstration, protesters urged lawmakers attending the five-day conference to change laws that require the birth certificates of adopted people to be sealed.

For Galliand Adams, Louisiana's law makes the search for her biological history "incredibly frustrating."

"I have no idea who I am, and there's just a big void there," she said.

Even in states that have so-called "mutual consent registries," adoptees only can contact their birth parents if the parents agree. In these states, access to original birth certificates is often possible but usually requires hearings in civil court.

Other protesters said the laws amount to discrimination.

"This isn't about searching and reunion. This is about our rights," said Michelle Edmunds, who came from Canada to join the march.

Across the aisle, adoption advocates expressed opposition to changes that would loosen restrictive laws to grant adoptees easy access to their birth certificates. States that already have such laws include Maine, New Hampshire, Oregon, Alabama, Alaska and Kansas.

"We're not opposed to open adoption or open records. We're concerned about the right of privacy for the birth mother," said Rodney Huey, spokesman for the National Council for Adoption.

"A birth mother, for whatever reason, decided at one point to have her own confidential adoption, and that (confidentiality is) what she was guaranteed," he said.

. . . . . . .

Nicole Dungca can be reached at ndungca@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3321.

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UTAH: Adoption Records Thieft to Get Mental Evaluation, July 23, 2008

SALT LAKE CITY TRIBUNE,
JULY 23, 2008

Sentence suspended
Adoption records thief to get mental evaluation
Woman placed on probation pending exam results


A woman who stole hundreds of confidential adoption records from Farmington's 2nd District Court will undergo a mental health evaluation before a judge decides whether to send her to jail for up to a year.

Jill Ekstrom, 43, had pleaded no contest to five of 21 original counts of stealing public records, all class A misdemeanors. Prosecutors say Ekstrom stole the records to sell them to adopted children hoping to identify their biological parents.

Ekstrom - who called herself a "confidential intermediary" - was caught in a stin
g when a Davis County sheriff's deputy posed as an adopted child seeking a birth parent.

On Tuesday, 1st District Judge Ben Hadfield sentenced her to a year in jail, but suspended the term until the mental health evaluation is completed, Deputy Davis County Attorney Rick Westmoreland said after the hearing.

He said some statements Ekstrom made to pre-sentence investigators caused the judge concern. "He ordered the mental health evaluation to see if these things are real or imagined," Westmoreland said.

Because the theft occurred in the 2nd District Court, the case was prosecuted in Brigham City's 1st District Court. A review hearing was set for Sept. 29.

Meanwhile, the judge placed Ekstrom on probation for 18 months and fined her $540.

The judge also ordered her to pay $850 restitution to the Davis

County Sheriff's Office for the cost of the sting operation, and $30 to the 2nd District Court, to replace stolen microfilm records. - Stephen Hunt

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NEW YORK: An Emotional Call for Change, July 22, 2008

ROCHESTER NEWS AND CHRONICLE
July 22,2008

An Emotional Call for Change
Reported by: Katrina Irwin


Adoptees from across the country rallied at the National Conference of State Legislators in New Orleans Tuesday morning while some local adoptees called for action here in New York State. They are calling on state lawmakers for help.

“Open the records,” said Emily Daszkiewicz. “Unseal these records.”

Local adoptees and birth mothers joined together in the genealogy section of the main library in Downtown Rochester this morning. It’s a place many of them have done research to find their birth parents.

The group is one of several across the state calling for what they say is a civil rights issue: Allowing adoptees to open sealed birth records.

“These people are adults,” Daszkiewicz said. “They can vote. They can drink. They can go to war for us. Who are you to say these adults can't have access to these records?”

Daszkiewicz, a birth mother, has not been successful in finding the son she gave up for adoption in 1975.

However, Katherine Tuttle, 41, found her birth mother, Claire Gmelin, in October of 2007. It took seven years worth of research. Having access to her birth records, she says, would have saved a lot of time and grief.

“I would have found her immediately,” Tuttle said. “She started looking for me in the 1970s and 80s when I was a little girl and had to give up because she was told that it was closed.”

The executive director of adoption resource network at Hillside Family of Agencies says a bill of adoptee rights is nothing new. In fact, there's been proposals for one in the state legislature since the 1980s. But ethical concerns and questions with opening up records have kept a bill from passing.

“Did we make a commitment and provide an assumption to women who were making adoption plans that their identity would be protected forever?,” said Lisa Maynard of what some people and agencies ask regarding opening records that were promised to be closed forever.

For the local adoptees and birth mothers, opening the records isn't necessarily about having a relationship with a birth parent or child.

“It's strictly to find out your heritage, any birth concerns you might have, any medical problems you feel, (or) if you want to know your ancestry,” said Jeff Hancock, 43, who found out he was adopted just 15 months ago.

“It's closure for me,” Daszkiewicz said. “It's closure I'd like to have before I'm gone.”

Assemblyman David Koon is sponsoring the Bill of Adoptee Rights in the State Legislature. He says he's been pushing it for three years, but the bill is still in codes committee in the Assembly.

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TEXAS; Midwives Deliver New Problems in Citizenship, July

HOUSTON CHRONICLE
July 20, 2008

Midwives deliver new problems in citizenship

BROWNSVILLE — Many South Texans who were delivered by midwives are facing extra scrutiny as they apply for U.S. passports.

The federal government is pressing these border residents to essentially prove their U.S. citizenship all over again if they hope to gain a passport, The Brownsville Herald reported Sunday.

Officials suspect many South Texans who were delivered by midwives are applying for passports with fraudulent birth certificates. Some of them, officials say, were actually born in Mexico.

The number of passport applications is rising in the Rio Grande Valley because of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which will require a passport to travel into Mexico.

"Normally, a birth certificate is sufficient to prove citizenship," said Cy Ferenchak, a spokesperson for the U.S. Bureau of Consular Affairs. "But because of a history of fraudulently filed reports on the Southwest border, we don't have much faith in the (midwife-granted) document."

From 1960 to 2008, more than 75 South Texas midwives were convicted of signing birth certificates for children they did not deliver.

Mireya Salgado, who was denied a passport and is now having to provide additional proof of her U.S. citizenship because she was delivered by a midwife, said the extra scrutiny is unfair.

"After 56 years, it's like they're questioning whether my citizenship was a big mistake," said Salgado, a 10th-grade English teacher at Porter High School. "I was born here. My mother was born here. This is the only place we've known."

Many families like Salgado's couldn't afford hospital care and depended on midwives as an alternative, especially before 1984 when Medicaid began covering childbirth.

The Texas Midwifery Board reports that in 2004, 6.6 percent of babies born in Texas were delivered by midwives.

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VIRGIN ISLANDS (US): Forced Secrets,July 15, 2008

THE VIRGIN ISLANDS DAILY NEWS
July 15, 2008

Forced secrets
Court blocks mother's search for son taken from her at birth
By JOSEPH TSIDULKO



Infant Sherman, as he is named in court documents, is a 38-year-old man who may have strong family ties to St. Croix.

Aside from those facts, his biological mother knows next to nothing about the son she gave up for adoption soon after he was born.

She does not know his name.

She does not know where he lives.

She does not know whether he has a family of his own.

But she wants to know. She yearns to know.

Leslie Carter-Farington has spent the last 17 years trying to trace her son, the "Infant Sherman" who was taken from her for adoption. She wants to be reunited with the only child she ever had, and she also wants to leave him a substantial inheritance.

Carter-Farington's difficult and frustrating search has led her to the Virgin Islands, where, she discovered, the baby's adoption was finalized in 1970.

Then she hit a roadblock - possibly an insurmountable one - when the V.I. Supreme Court last month affirmed a V.I. Superior Court decision rejecting her petition to unseal the adoption records that would reveal her son's identity.

Her St. Croix attorney, Curt Otto, argued that the territory's appellate court had an opportunity to be in the vanguard of a nationwide trend toward greater openness and transparency in adoptions - a trend reflecting increasingly liberal attitudes and the lifting of social stigmas.

Otto suggested that the court appoint a guardian as an intermediary between the natural mother and the adoptive parents to avoid the possibility of an unwanted encounter. He included data from studies suggesting that the great majority of reunions are positive experiences for the person who was adopted.

The Supreme Court justices, however, agreed with the lower court that Carter-Farington's reasons for wanting access to the records - to meet her biological son and to leave him her estate - were not sufficient under V.I. law to prompt them to unseal the adoption records to the biological mother or to a guardian acting on her behalf.

Despite the court's rejection of her request, Carter-Farington still believes she will find the son she gave birth to in Miami Beach on Sept. 26, 1969, when she was a 25-year-old fashion model.

"I loved my son, I wanted my son," Carter-Farington said.

But her first husband insisted he would not raise a child, she said.

Against her wishes, she says, she caved in to her domineering husband and gave up the newborn boy - a decision she has regretted ever since.

A mother's search

Now 65, Leslie Carter-Farington is a Christian counselor with a doctorate degree in theology. She long ago divorced Infant Sherman's father, and she is happily married and living in the small town of Boerne, Texas.

But the deeply religious woman, who never gave birth to another child, says a spiritual wound has existed ever since her first husband persuaded her to give up her baby.

Carter-Farington was born Alba Leslie Ramirez-Perez in Puerto Rico. She and her husband moved to St. Thomas in the late 1960s and lived here for three years.

Back then, people in the Virgin Islands knew her by the name Abbie Sherman. She worked as a model and lived what some would consider a glamorous life. But the marriage was profoundly unhappy, Carter-Farington said.

When she became pregnant in January 1969, her marital problems worsened.

"After I let him know I was pregnant, that's when hell broke loose," she said.

On the afternoon of Sept. 26, 1969, Alba Leslie Sherman - her legal name when she lived in Florida - gave birth to a healthy 6-pound boy at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach.

She says she had only 15 minutes with her son before the medical staff carried him off at the behest of her husband, who already had completed the necessary legal arrangements with a Florida agent to ensure that the adoption would proceed.

"I was so young and naive. I didn't know I had any rights," Carter-Farington said.

The child had blue eyes and blonde hair, Carter-Farington remembers.

She never saw him again.

"For seven years, I cried daily. It was the most difficult thing for me to do to let go of my son," she said.

"I had to cry to God and ask Him to give me comfort."

The strained marriage ended in divorce the same year Infant Sherman was born.

Alba Leslie Sherman went to visit her sister in Texas and ended up staying. She remarried in 1970.

Leslie Carter, as she became known after her marriage in Texas, founded a sporting goods store with her husband. She operated two branches until 2001, despite their divorce in 1986.

For years, she did not tell even her closest family that she had given birth to a boy in Miami so many years earlier. Keeping quiet pained her, especially when her sister had a child of her own.

In 1990, Leslie Carter married Ron Farington, her current husband.

About that time, her son should have been celebrating his 21st birthday, the age at which she believed she would be allowed access to Florida's adoption records.

"The day he was 21, I immediately sent a letter to an attorney in Florida," she said.

By that point, however, Florida's disclosure laws had changed and she was denied the information she had awaited for so long.

She hired a private investigator, but he was not successful in discovering more about the adoption or about her son's identity.

After retiring from the sporting goods business, Carter-Farington obtained her doctorate degree in 2004.

In desperation, she wrote a letter to the White House, and another to the president's brother, Jeb Bush, then governor of Florida.

The long shot proved fruitful.

In November 2004, the Florida Department of Children and Families replied to Carter-Farington at the behest of the state's governor.

"I got everything, I got all the documentations. They found out where he was adopted."

But Florida could not provide any information about her son because the adoption did not take place there. Instead, Carter-Farington learned, it was finalized June 4, 1970, in Municipal Court in Christiansted, St. Croix.

Carter-Farington hired Otto, who found records kept by the Superior Court's Family Division. A notation in a book of old case numbers read: "Adoption of Infant Sherman."

In considering the case, the territory's courts verified that they do possess Infant Sherman's adoption records.

Legal barrier

When she gave her son up for adoption, Carter-Farington signed consent documents forfeiting all rights to the child.

Virgin Islands law stipulates adoption records can be unsealed only at the request of the person who was adopted, once he or she becomes an adult, or by someone who demonstrates "good cause" - a term simply meaning the existence of an adequate legal reason for the court to take action.

Infant Sherman has not sought out his birth mother.

In February 2007, Superior Court Judge Patricia Steele denied Carter-Farington's request for the adoption records, finding that the law was clear in establishing her reasons did not amount to "good cause."

The next month, Steele denied a request to reconsider her decision.

Otto appealed to the V.I. Supreme Court, arguing Steele's interpretation of the adoption statute took into account only hypothetical interests of the parties involved in the case when determining whether "good cause" existed for disclosure.

The real interests of the parties could be known only if contact is made with Infant Sherman and his adoptive parents, he argued.

Because the specific factors that constitute "good cause" were not defined by the V.I. Legislature when it enacted the territory's adoption laws almost 50 years ago, Otto said that the case was one of first impression and that the court had a chance to essentially create new law, in accord with accepted social norms, that would set precedent for future cases.

The attorney offered a method to determine the interests of the adoptee without exposing him to a potential negative situation that the law was designed to shield him from.

That method was to appoint a guardian to access the records and contact Infant Sherman's family.

The adoptive parents, who know their son is not their biological child, then could decide whether to tell him about her desire to meet him.

They also could let him know he stands to inherit a large amount of money.

That approach would mitigate any ill feelings that might result from a meeting not desired by Infant Sherman, who may not even know he was adopted. Information obtained by the guardian would help the court determine "good cause" on a case-by-case basis, according to Otto.

The court's clarification of the law would be made in light of the territory's tolerance and "relaxed attitude toward out-of-wedlock childbearing," Otto wrote.

But the three Supreme Court justices all agreed that Steele correctly interpreted the law and that there was no reason to reverse her decision.

In her published opinion, Justice Maria Cabret wrote that the V.I. Legislature would have enacted a provision allowing for the appointment of a guardian if they intended for that process to be available to biological parents seeking their children.

Instead, Cabret wrote, the law makes clear that "good cause" must first be demonstrated before anyone can have access to records, not the other way around.

Cabret did not take into consideration Otto's references to literature regarding changing societal attitudes and psychological studies because the arguments they supported were not made to the trial court and therefore could be raised on appeal.

But she wrote that implementing a system for accommodating people in Carter-Farington's position was the province of the Legislature, not the territory's courts.

In a consenting opinion, Justice Ive Swan wrote that the biological mother's "generosity towards her son is praiseworthy and commendable."

But identifying someone for inheritance is clearly not a case for which the law allows unsealing adoption records. Nothing in the law mentions an adoptee's right to inherit from his natural parent, according to Swan.

The adoption laws represent "an unequivocal attempt to terminate the relationship between natural parents and adoptee," Swan wrote.

The laws make clear Carter-Farington's stated reasons for wanting to find her son are not substantial enough for the court to circumvent the measures taken to sever the mother-child relationship, he said.

Having reached that conclusion, Swan wrote there was no need for the court to further interpret the law to create a framework under which "good cause" could be established in such cases.

Shifting mores, happy reunions

Otto said he believes the Supreme Court's decision amounts to a missed opportunity. The territory could have been at the forefront of a national trend toward liberalizing adoption laws, something that will inevitably happen across the country in the coming years, he said.

"The reason for secrecy laws has evaporated," Otto said.

The court "had a real opportunity to take a giant step forward on behalf of all parents in the United States. The adoption laws are awaiting a progressive court," he said.

In the early 1900s, adoption records generally were open and accessible, according to Otto.

"The veil of secrecy that descended on the adoption process was created because of societal stigma and prejudices," Otto wrote in his appeal.

Those prejudices reflected society's view toward out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Back then, "adoption was viewed as somehow shameful, something to be hidden," Otto wrote.

The secrecy laws became stricter after World War II as the number of illegitimate births increased in this country. They were meant to protect children from the pejorative label of "bastard" and shield mothers from the scorn of society.

Since the 1960s, however, the pendulum of public opinion has been swinging in the other direction.

"In the law, there is a slow trend toward openness," Otto wrote. "Secrecy, however, remains the law in most jurisdictions."

To support his arguments, Otto included an affidavit from a psychologist who has studied the relationships that form between adults and the biological parents who gave them away.

In the affidavit supporting Carter-Farington's appeal, Wayne Etheridge wrote that studies overwhelmingly suggest most reunions are happy. A 1989 study concluded that 95 percent of adults who had been adopted wanted to be found by their birth parents.

According to Etheridge, 90 percent of the people interviewed for another study claimed their reunion with their biological parent proved to be a positive experience.

Psychological literature "found that the searching process to encounter birth parents helped fill a void that seems to arise from the adoption process itself," Otto wrote in his appeal.

Longing for reunion

Leslie Carter-Farington is convinced that a reunion with her son will be a day of profound joy and love.

She still believes she will meet him - someday.

When she does, she is certain she will love him, even though she knows nothing about his life.

"We are certain in our hearts that my son is a good man," she says.

Carter-Farington is a woman of faith, and her faith convinces her that "love conquers all things," she says.

Her husband has told her he will love her son as if he was his own, just as she loves her husband's two daughters.

"I have a desire, when we meet, it will be like we have never been apart. My desire is to be part of his life and him be part of our life and family," Carter-Farington says.




Link to article

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MAINE: Heir's Adoption of Lesbian Lover Annulled in Maine, July 7, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
July 7, 2008

Heir's adoption of lesbian lover annulled in Maine
By JERRY HARKAVY

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — An adult adoption involving lesbian partners and a claim to a share of a family fortune built on IBM has been annulled, bouncing the case to Maine's highest court.

At issue is whether it was legal for a judge to allow Olive Watson to adopt Patricia Spado in 1991 in Knox County, where the longtime partners spent several weeks each summer on an island in Penobscot Bay.

Watson was a daughter of Thomas Watson Jr., who took International Business Machines Corp. from punch cards into electronic computing.

The relationship between Spado and Watson ended a year after the adoption was approved, and in 2005 — after Thomas Watson and his wife had both died — the adoption was challenged in court by other heirs to the Watson fortune.

After Thomas Watson and his wife died, their grandchildren became eligible for cash payouts and Spado claimed the adoption made her a beneficiary.

The probate judge who granted the adoption granted the heirs' petition and annulled it on a residency issue on April 24, but her sealed ruling didn't come to light until an appeal brief was filed with the state supreme court, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. In Maine, adoption records are confidential, even though the women were in their 40s when the adoption took place.

Spado and Olive Watson had lived together for 14 years before their breakup, spending only five nights apart. Under their separation agreement, Watson paid her ex-partner about $500,000 in exchange for relinquishing her claim to certain real estate.

The settlement, however, was apparently not intended to terminate Spado's rights to inheritance as a granddaughter. Her court filings contain a letter signed by Watson after the breakup in which she says: "I shall at no time initiate any action to revoke or annul my adoption of you."

Gay rights activists say the case shows the lengths to which same-sex couples would go to ensure a partner's financial security in the days before they were allowed to form civil unions or to marry.

Olive Watson and Spado had been living in New York at the time of the adoption, but that state barred the adoption of a homosexual partner.

Maine law required that the adoptee had to "live" in the state and the adopting parent had to "reside" there, but the state's adoption law does not specifically define either term. During their 14 years together, Spado and Watson spent several weeks each summer at Watson's home at her family's compound on North Haven, known as Oak Hill.

In their legal appeal brief, Spado's lawyers argue against annulling an adoption that had been allowed to stand for so long on the basis of undefined domicile requirements.

"Most disturbing, this challenge can come not just in a direct appeal, but at any time, even decades later, in a collateral attack long after final judgment and longstanding reliance on the adoption," the brief stated.

Even though the heirs reached their goal of annulling the adoption, they also are appealing in a bid to broaden the foundation of their case. Their attorney, Stephen Hanscom, plans to argue that the adoption should also have been annulled on other grounds: that it was obtained by two partners seeking to manufacture inheritance rights and that they did not intend to establish a normal parent-child relationship.

Hanscom plans to file his legal brief at the end of the month.

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court is likely to hear arguments on the appeals this fall.

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NEW YORK: Parents Seek Special Birth Certificates, June 20, 2008

POLITICS ON THE HUDSON
June 20, 2008

Parents seek special birth certificates

Families of stillborns who are pushing for state legislation that would provide them with a special birth certificate are concerned that the legislative session will end next week without final passage. Parents of stillborns around the country have advocated for birth certificates as a means of acknowledging that they carried a baby to full term or close to full term, and to bring them closure. All they can get now in New York is a certificate of fetal death.

The bill was approved by the Senate in March, but it has been stuck in the committee process in the Assembly. The Senate passed the bill last year too, but the Assembly did not. People who are against the legislation said it creates a slippery slope that could result in a loss of reproductive rights for women.

The bill was changed in 2007 to include protections against that, advocates said. It received support from powerful Assembly Health Committee Chairman Richard Gottfried, D-Manhattan, which was expected to help its chances of passage.

“There is no way possible that there can be any confusion between reproductive rights and rights for mothers of stillborns,” said Jeff Tieger of Staten Island, whose wife, Lori, gave birth to a stillborn in February 2007.

“It really serves the parents and that’s all that it serves,” he added.

There are about 30,000 stillbirths across the country each year. There were 1,785 stillbirths in New York in 2004.

“There’s not a day that goes by that we don’t think of our son,” Lori Tieger said of Daniel, who was born at 39 weeks gestation. “As time goes on, it (getting the birth certificate) actually becomes more important.”

“There’s no political agenda here. It’s a women’s issue, just as any of the other issues that are women’s issues,” she said.

Link to article

NEW ZEALAND: 1975 Decision Haunts Birth Mother, June 19, 1008

OTAGO DAILY TIMES
June 19, 2008

By Sarah Harvey


In 1975, Dina Shannon, of Gore, was 20 years old, unmarried and pregnant.

She gave her child up for adoption as she felt she had no other choice.

That decision haunts her more than 30 years later.

Her baby was one of 3321 adopted nationally in 1975.

In 2007, just 60 babies were adopted nationally.

The figures are the lowest in 30 years and as waiting lists for adopted babies stretch past 300 couples, women in "crisis" pregnancies are being encouraged to consider adoption rather than abortion.

Mrs Shannon, a University of Otago social work lecturer, said the low number of adoptions was because pregnant women now had choices and government support if they kept the child.

Either way, the choice was a personal one, she said.

"You are going to lose something either way.

You are either going to lose a child, or if you keep the child you are going to lose a part of the life you once had."

The fall in adoptions has been matched by an increase in abortions, which is cited alongside the domestic purposes benefit and society's better acceptance of single motherhood as reasons for the trend down.

Statistics New Zealand figures showed the number of women terminating their pregnancies increased from 5945 in 1980 to 18,380 in 2007.

The general abortion rate in 2007 was 20.1 abortions per 1000 women.

Mrs Shannon, who now lives in Palmerston, said when she became pregnant she may as well have committed murder, as it was viewed in the same light.

"The choice [for adoption] was made partly by my parents and partly by society.

I didn't know what being a mother would involve and if I could look after a baby.

"I saw some social workers but they did not tell me what my rights were," she said.

She was sent to a farm in Ranfurly where single women went to have their babies away from the public eye.

The mother of the baby's father offered her money to term-inate the pregnancy.

"It was strange. I can remember my girlfriend's mother going on about [the pregnancy] but her daughter was in the same situation - it was just that she was getting married."

Mrs Shannon said the trauma of the birth and having her baby taken away left her with a memory blank.

She even had to battle to see her newborn son.

The fight has continued today and the lack of contact with her son continues to haunt Mrs Shannon.

She has met her son once but he did not know he was serving a cup of coffee to his mother.

The situation was set up by the adoptive father and for Mrs Shannon it was "terrible".

She knows where her son is and what he is doing but he refuses contact.

To deal with her issues and push for a change in the adoption laws, Mrs Shannon founded the Dunedin Adoption Support Group in 1979.

It achieved major change with the Adult Adoption Act of 1985 which meant people who were adopted could see their original birth certificate and birth parents could access information on their child.

Mrs Shannon said up to 20 people still come to support group meetings.

Most are dealing with issues after having been reunited with their parents or child.

Adoption was not a black-and-white issue.

It was a personal choice and a difficult one for women to make, she said.

"I think society still sees it very much as a positive thing. Many think open adoption is the answer, but I think children will still feel abandoned."

For many people, it can disrupt their formative years as they experience feelings of loss and abandonment.

"I can always remember an adoptee coming to me saying he had a loving adopted home but had always felt like he didn't fit in.

The family all played sport and he loved mathematics. If he had grown up having some sort of contact with the birth family, he would have known they were a family who loved numbers," she said.


Adoption

What is adoption?

• Adoption is the legal transfer of all parental rights and responsibilities from a child's birth parents to the adoptive parents. When this process is completed, the child's legal status becomes as if the child had been born to the adoptive parents.

The procedure

• Prospective parents who contact Child, Youth and Family are checked to see whether they are suitable.

• They must be New Zealand residents, with a clean criminal record and be in good health.

• Classes are held for prospective adoptive parents where they learn what to expect from the adoption.

• Many people at the meetings are in the same situation, having explored all other options for having a child of their own.

• Social workers are intimately involved, and parents know once they are on the waiting list it is just a matter of waiting.

• As few as three babies in the Otago region are put up for adoption each year.

• The birth mother chooses the parents for her child.

• The choice of adopting the baby is the birth mother's right, and social workers tend to favour keeping the baby with its birth mother.

International adoption

• People must apply to Child, Youth and Family where they undergo the same checks as for adopting a New Zealand child. They attend three days of education courses.

• Organisations such as Inter Country Adoption New Zealand will organise the paper work for what can be a lengthy process.

• Countries such as Russia, Lithuania, Thailand, the Philippines and India are accepting inter-country adoptions. This changes frequently with new legislation and the availability of orphans.

• All children in inter-country adoptions are wards of the state and if not adopted will often live in orphanages until they turn 15.

• Inter-country adoptions are expensive. The major cost is for travel, translators and facilitators in the country concerned.

• Parents are more or less guaranteed a child at the end of the adoption process, unlike national adoption.

Link to article

MALAYSIA: Doc Faces Trial for False Info on Babies, June 17, 2008

THE NEW STRAITS TIMES
June 17, 2008

Doc faces trial for false info on babies

Doctor faces up to eight counts of falsifying information to obtain birth certificates for babies. -NST

By R. Sittamparam

JOHOR BARU, MALAYSIA: A gynaecologist was charged yesterday with falsifying information on the biological parents of four babies to obtain birth certificates.

He was also charged with using the forged application forms for the birth certificates and endorsing certain couples as the biological parents when they were not.

Dr Robert Luk Tai Kong, 61, was charged in two Sessions Courts with eight counts - two counts for each baby.

In the first court presided by judge Muhammad Jamil Hussin, Dr Luk was charged in relation to one baby.

Before judge Aliman Musri, there were six charges pertaining to three babies.

Dr Luk claimed trial to all charges.

Before Muhammad Jamil, Dr Luk was charged with giving information to the National Registration Department (NRD) in a birth certificate application form that the biological parents of Fabian Naveen were Cynthia Darshan Singh and Ferliex S. Stanislaus at 11.43am on Oct 25 last year at No 33B, Menara Landmark, Landmark Medical Centre here.

By doing so, he impelled NRD staff Nayagie Kumarasamy to issue a birth certificate (BC) no BX33581 for the baby.

Dr Luk was also charged with using the BC application form as a genuine document for Fabian Naveen by endorsing the personal details of the baby's parents as the biological parents, knowing well that the document was a forgery.

Deputy public prosecutor Idham Abdul Ghani proposed bail of RM50,000 on the two charges and for Dr Luk's passport to be surrendered to the court.

Defence counsel R.K. Menon objected, saying that as Dr Luk would be facing six other charges in another court and possibly other charges later, the bail was excessive and asked for it to be reduced to RM10,000.

He also requested that Dr Luk be allowed to keep his passport because he did not have a place to stay in Johor Baru as he resided with his family in Singapore.

He said there was no danger that Dr Luk would abscond as he was a professional and had abided by requirements of the police bail after his arrest.

Muhammad Jamil set bail at RM20,000 on the two charges and instructed Dr Luk to report to Johor Baru Central Police Station on the first week of every month pending trial.

Before Aliman, Dr Luk faced six similar charges in respect of three babies.

* For baby Rubhashri Thiagarajan, he stated Kogula Sundari Periasamy and Thiagarajan Nadarajan as the biological parents, impelling NRD employee Suriyani Mohamad Noor to issue BC no BT97692 at 10.50am on Nov 23, 2006.
* For baby Loong Yu Xuan, he stated So Sai Hong and Loon Cher Heong as the biological parents, impelling NRD employee Nayagie Kumarasamy to issue BC no BX32598 at 10.23am on Oct 8, last year.
* For baby Serena Swathi, he stated Evensia Mary D. Stanislaus and Gerard Joseph as the biological parents, impelling NRD employee Sh Ramdzan Sh Abdullah to issue BC no BY76130 at 3.34pm on Feb 2.

In all three cases, he used the application forms for the birth certificates as genuine documents by endorsing the personal details of the parents as the biological parents, knowing well that the documents were forged.

Aliman set bail at RM60,000 for the six charges and ordered Dr Luk to report to the Johor Baru Central Police Station on the first week of every month pending trial.

Both judges fixed Aug 15 for the cases to be mentioned.

Link to article

SALT LAKE CITY TRIBUNE
June 11, 2008

Woman accused of stealing records pleads no contest
The Associated Press

Posted: 12:56 PM- BRIGHAM CITY -- A woman accused of stealing adoption records from a Davis County courthouse pleaded no contest to the charges.

But Jill Ekstrom may have defendant's regret. She tells an Ogden newspaper that she had taken painkillers Monday and may withdraw the plea.

Ekstrom is the former owner of UtahFinders.com. She gained notoriety for reuniting adopted children with their biological parents.

A Davis County prosecutor, Rick Westmoreland, says 300 to 400 adoption case files from the 1970s were contained on several rolls of microfilm. The microfilm has not been recovered.

Ekstrom, 43, was accused of selling some of that information to an undercover officer.
The Standard-Examiner says Ekstrom pleaded no contest to five misdemeanors. Sentencing is set for July 22.

Link to article

NORTH CAROLINA: June 9 at the North Carolina General Assembly, June 10m 2008

CHARLOTTE OBSERVER
June 10, 2008

June 9, 2008, at the North Carolina General Assembly

The Associated Press

HEADLINES:

- House panel to consider expanding confidential intermediary program for adoptees

- Rucho sworn in to return to NC Senate

- Boseman, ex-domestic partner default on home mortgage

- National Guard company that lost five during deployment honored by NC House

THE BRIEF:

ADOPTION RULES: Lawmakers are considering expanding a program that enables adoptees to learn the identities of their birth parents using an adoption agencies as a confidential intermediaries. A House judiciary committee is slated to consider a bill Tuesday that would allow adoptees to obtain death certificates for their deceased birth parents through the intermediary. A 1949 state law prohibits adoptees from accessing their original birth certificates, which contains their biological parents' names. Without the parents' consent, the intermediary agency also can't provide information to adoptees - even if the parents are dead. The other measure would allow the family members of either deceased biological parents or deceased adoptees to use the intermediary. Roberta MacDonald, chairwoman of the N.C. Coalition for Adoption Reform, said the plans would provide a new way for adoptees to gain valuable data, including medical information, about their biological families.

RUCHO'S BACK: Sen. Bob Rucho is back in the Legislature after being away for four years. Court of Appeals Judge Ann Marie Calabria swore the Charlotte Republican into office before Monday night's session. The dentist will serve the rest of the term belonging to Sen. Robert Pittenger, who resigned last month to focus on running for lieutenant governor. Rucho served in the Senate for eight years before the 2003 redistricting put his house in the same district as Pittenger's. Rucho was chosen to serve out Pittenger's term by Mecklenburg County Republican leaders. Gov. Mike Easley formally appointed him Monday.

MORTGAGE DEFAULT: Sen. Julia Boseman and her former domestic partner have defaulted on a $1.3 million mortgage on a New Hanover County home. Documents show Boseman, D-New Hanover, and Melissa Jarrell have failed to pay the $7,156 monthly payments since last August. The home will be auctioned June 25 at the county courthouse. County tax records show $4,700 in taxes are also owed on the property. Boseman is seeking a third Senate term in November. She said the situation was a private matter that wouldn't affect work for her constituents.

NATIONAL GUARD: The House officially thanked a North Carolina National Guard unit that served overseas and is scheduled to return home Tuesday. The 1132nd Military Police Company, based in Rocky Mount, Tarboro, and Mount Olive, deployed in June 2007 and ultimately reached Iraq in September. Five members of the unit died during the deployment, four of them from North Carolina. One was from New Hampshire, part of a platoon the served with the company. The House passed a resolution honoring the work of all who served and the memory of those who lost their lives.

MONDAY'S SCORECARD:

In the Senate:

- H724, to remove the requirement to use Social Security numbers on child support court orders. Approved 45-0. Next: Return to House for concurrence motion.

AROUND THE STATEHOUSE:

Mount Olive College leaders and the coaching staff of the baseball team were in attendance as the Legislature passed a resolution praising the team for winning the NCAA Division II championship two weekends ago. The Trojans beat Ouachita Baptist 6-2 in Illinois on May 31 to capture the national title.

ON THE AGENDA:

- The Appalachian State University football team will be honored Tuesday for their third consecutive NCAA Football Championship Subdivision title with a resolution celebrating another title. The Mountaineers also plan to stop by the Executive Mansion earlier in the day to meet Gov. Mike Easley.

- House and Senate members of both parties hold a news conference Tuesday to promote a bill that would allow parents of children with special needs to seek a tax credit for sending their children to a tuition-paid school.

OVERHEARD:

"It's good to be back." - Sen. Bob Rucho, R-Mecklenburg, in brief comments after he was sworn back into office Monday evening. The four-term senator is filling out the unexpired term of Sen. Robert Pittenger, who resigned to run for lieutenant governor.

---

By Gary D. Robertson and Whitney Woodward.

Link to article

NORTH CAROLINA: Panel Approves Plan to Log Birthparent-Adoptee Searches,

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/BLUE RIDGE NOW.COM
June 10, 2008

Panel Approves Plan to Log Birth-Parent-Adoptee Searches

A House committee is backing a plan that would require adoption agencies to report how many birthparents and adoptees use a program to help the adults learn each other's identities.

The panel approved a plan Tuesday that would require the state to record how many adopted individuals and biological parents try to find their counterparts.

Lawmakers created a program last year that allows adoption agencies to act as confidential intermediaries between adoptees and biological parents. The individuals' names and medical information can be shared if both parties agree.

But members delayed approving or rejecting a plan to allow family members to use the intermediary service if either an adoptee or birthparent had died. The panel is scheduled to consider the plan Thursday.

Link to article

ANNOUNCEMENT! BASTARD NATION WITHDRAWS FROM A DAY FOR ADOPTEE RIGHTS

June 1, 2008

To: Members, Bastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organization

Re: Withdrawal of Bastard Nation from A Day for Adoptee Rights

Bastards,

The Executive Committee of Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization announces with regret the withdrawal of our organizational co-sponsorship and official participation in A Day for Adoptee Rights, (DAR) scheduled for July 20-25 during the National Conference of State Legislature's annual meeting in New Orleans. We had planned to hold a "Bastard Boot Camp Teach-In" on July 20, participate in the protest on July 22, and help staff the DAR space inside the Mariol Convention Center July 23-25.

We sincerely regret any inconvenience or discouragement this decision may cause.

As of this writing the event itself has not been canceled, only Bastard Nation's co-sponsorship and participation. Please check the DAR website for updates on the status of the event. http://adopteerights.net/nulliusfilius/

Bastard Nation has been concerned for some time about the cost effectiveness of the project. While many people exhibited an interest in attending all or part of the event, the number of people who actually registered or made a serious commitment to attend was minimal. There were also hidden costs at the convention center, of which DAR and BN were not aware of until recently, which put our participation extremely over budget.

Bastard Nation believes that the Day for Adoptee Rights project is a sound idea. There is no dispute between BN and DAR. We have concluded that this is not the time or place for Bastard Nation to take part in a Day for Adoptee Rights. The cost of the event this year spiraled and did not balance with the number of participants coming forward to show our strength to the politicians who hold the keys to the records cabinets. Bastard Nation is an all volunteer organization that works on the foundational financial principle of bringing you the best bang for your buck. Spending several thousand dollars in member dues and donations on a project that at this point was sputtering is fiscally irresponsible, movement careless, and takes time and funds away from legislative and educational activities that can make a direct difference now.

Moreover, we are concerned with the participation of Abrazo Adoption Agency in San Antonio, Texas. Unknown to DAR and BN until just a few days ago, Abrazo has been raising funds for the event in DAR's name. http://apps.facebook.com/causes/85456?recruiter_id=15092383

These funds went and continue to go directly to the agency, raising huge ethical issues for Bastard Nation and the equal access movement. Records and identity access is about our rights and has no connection with the marketing schemes of adoption agencies. BN has a long-standing, hard-line policy of accepting no support from the adoption industry. Bastard Nation specifically, and the adoptee rights movement in general, cannot and should not be co-opted or used by the adoption industry to promote its own agenda. We disavow all industry involvement in our work. Any entanglement with the adoption industry endangers the integrity and credibility of the adoptee rights movement.

Although BN solicited funds for our specific DAR activities, the only official fundraising site for DAR is on the DAR site. Do not send funds to any other solicitor.

Bastard Nation is in the process of working with the Country Inn and Suites by Carlson to release the rooms in our reserved block. We will personally contact everyone who registered under our agreement with the hotel about the procedure for you to cancel room reservations should you desire to do so.

We greatly appreciate the work that volunteers from Bastard Nation and A Day for Adoptee Rights have put into this event. Without them and you there is no movement. We applaud your enthusiasm, commitment and we look forward to future activities to restore our rights.

Please write to our Executive Chair, Marley Greiner (maddogmarley@worldnet.att.net) if you have any questions.

Yours in Bastardy,

The Bastard Nation Executive Committee

Anita Walker Field

Patricia Marler

Marley Greiner, Executive Chair

SPAIN: Twins Who Were Separated at Birth Sue for Damages, May 27, 2008

ASSOCIATED PRESS
May 27, 2008

Twins who were separated at birth sue for damages

By DANIEL WOOLLS

MADRID, Spain - Spanish twins who were separated at birth through a hospital error — then reunited as adults through a fluke — are suing for millions in damages, as is a third woman who grew up thinking, erroneously, that she was one of the twins, a lawyer said Tuesday.
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The real twins finally met each other in 2001. The case has been working its way through the courts since 2004. A decision is expected soon on whether the three women deserve damages, said Sebastian Socorro Perdomo, a lawyer for one of the twins.

He would not release the names of any of the women, who are all 35 years old.

Socorro Perdomo said in an interview that his client is seeking $4.7 million from the government of the Canary Islands, where the error occurred in 1973 in the city of Las Palmas. The other two women are also suing, he said.

He said his client was taken out of her crib as her twin sister lay in one right next to her, mistakenly replaced by another baby girl, and ultimately raised by the family of that child.

The other two girls were brought up in the mistaken belief they were twin sisters.

"It does not take a lot of effort to put yourself in the position of any of these people in order to understand the damage that has been done," Socorro Perdomo said.

Of the three, he said his client — taken away from her twin sister and real family — is the most devastated. "Since this discovery, her world has turned a bit upside down," he said.

"The first right of any child is the right to their own personal and family identity," he said. "In this case, that right has been violated."

The error emerged a generation later, through a chance encounter at a clothing store in Las Palmas.

A friend of Socorro Perdomo's client worked in the shop. When a woman who was the spitting image of that client came in and failed to recognize the employee, the clerk was dumbfounded.

When the dead ringer came by the store a second time, the clerk began to put two and two together and arranged for the women to meet.

DNA tests proved they were identical twins, the lawyer said.

Link to article

OHIO: Surrogacy Birth Certificate, May 23, 2008

KENTUCKY POST
May 23, 2008

Surrogacy Birth Certificate
by Hagit Limor

Peter and Paula Dantzig love playing soccer, reading books and sharing meals with their dad. He's the only parent they've ever known. He recalls the day they were born with a smile on his face.

"I felt the greatest joy in the world. I saw the two most beautiful kids in the world," said Dr. Paul Dantzig, a dermatologist with a successful New York City practice, as he watches his two-and-a-half year old twins play outside their Scarsdale home. The children squeal and laugh and are oblivious that the man who's raised them, loved them, and provided for them isn't their father at all, according to Ohio law.

"If God forbid anything happened to them and they're in the hospital with a serious illness and somebody has to make a decision, they're going to say, 'Are you the father?' Prove you're the father. Where is the mother?'" says Dr. Dantzig.

The twins' surrogate mother
There are simple questions with not so simple answers. Yes, Dr. Dantzig is Peter and Paula's father. If anyone has any doubts, a court-approved DNA Paternity Test proves it beyond the shadow of a doubt. But who is their mother? According to their Ohio birth certificates, it's Jennifer Biron. But check out her DNA Test. The chance she's the mother: 0%.

"I'm not their mother. By any possibility I'm not their mother," says Biron. So how did she end up on the birth certificates? Biron served as the children's surrogate mother. She carried the babies and gave birth to them, but genetically, they're half Dr. Dantzig's and half an anonymous egg donor's, and there lies the problem: Ohio has no surrogacy law.

When the twins were born at Highland District Hospital in Highland County, Ohio, Dr. Dantzig may have rocked them in the nursery, but the hospital made a decision that's rocking the kids' world to this day. They put Jennifer Biron's name on their birth certificates and left out Dr. Dantzig altogether.

Hospital guidelines

"The hospital followed the Ohio Department of Health birth certificate guidelines," said Kathy Jones, the hospital's vice president of community outreach. Jones can't say much about the case, just that the hospital only has one set of rules from the state, which it follows in filling out birth certificates.

Biron said she should have no parental rights to the children. She can't believe her name appears as their mother on the only legal piece of identification they possess. "I feel horrible," she said. "I think it's ridiculous."

In fact, the woman Ohio calls the twins' mother hasn't seen them since their birth. As she plays with her laughing 14-month-old son, she says it's her love of her own children that set her on the path to surrogacy so that parents like Dr. Dantzig could experience the same joys.

Dr. Dantzig has only praise for Biron for making his dream of parenthood come true. "I didn't want to go through life without raising a child," he said. But in his late fifties he found himself unmarried and realized time was running out. "I'm in good health and good shape. I have the stamina and the energy," he said, "But really, it was my only option [to have children.] I tried adopting, but everybody rejected me because of my age."

So he turned to surrogacy, but the State of New York doesn't allow it. He found an egg donor through an agency in California and a surrogate to carry his children in Ohio. He thought he had all his bases covered. "The only thing I worried about was having a child and being successful at that," he said. "I never even thought of the birth certificate 'til the problem arose."

It's a problem that looms much larger than a blank spot on a piece of paper. "Theoretically, I do not have legal custody of the children. Without the birth certificate, I am not going to be able to get them into school. Without the birth certificate, I am not going to be able to get then on an airplane, take a trip or get a passport," Dr. Dantzig explained.

Science vs. law

Family law attorney Ellen Essig said any father would be correct to be deeply concerned about his name not appearing on the birth certificate. Essig said she's handled more than 100 surrogacy cases in the last five years. She wouldn't speak specifically about this case, but says our country uses birth certificates as the basis of our most fundamental rights. "The father of that child who is not on the birth certificate has no right," she said. "The children under that scenario have no legal identification to their parent."

Dr. Dantzig tried to fix the problem. He petitioned the Highland County Juvenile Court to get his name on the birth certificates and get Biron's name off, as she concurs. But to both of their surprise, Judge Kevin Greer ruled that he couldn't change the birth certificates, unless the children's "natural mother," as Ohio calls the biological donor, waives her rights to the children in court.

"First of all, I don't even know who she is," said Dr. Dantiz. "The natural mother was an anonymous egg donor. You can't notify someone that is anonymous of a child she doesn't even know exists at this point," he said.

In addition, the egg donor already waived her rights in her contract with the donor agency in California, promising to "waive any rights [...] to the donated eggs or any offspring" and that "[she] will not assert any claim of parentage." But Judge Greer said that's not enough. He wants the donor to say the same thing to the court.

Essig said in her experience, no judge has ever forced her to produce an egg donor in court. She says most judges accept the donors' waiver of rights in their agency contracts. However, "without a statute on surrogacy and with 88 different counties in Ohio, we have 88 different approaches" from judges, she said.

"Caught between rules and regulations"

As surrogacies have tripled in recent years, lawyers and judges are building new precedents. There may be no state law, but there is case law that judges can follow. Most often, the details work out. Essig calls this case extremely unsual. "Science and law don't often go hand in hand but we're getting there," she said.

Biron said Dr. Dantzig and the children are seemingly caught between rules and regulations that haven't kept up with science. "It's ridiculous because there are other surrogates all over the State of Ohio who do the same thing every day," she said, wondering why this one case didn't work out as intended.

For Dr. Dantzig, there is sadness and anger. "The children have rights and they have to be protected by society," he said. He added that as a physician, he wouldn't reveal the donor even if he knew who she was. "It's not right. She came to this program as an anonymous egg donor, and that's the way it should be kept. You've got to respect her rights."

As for the other woman involved, Jennifer Biron said she may have carried those children, but she has no relationship to them. She's bewildered that she is the only parent that Ohio recognizes to this day. "They should look at it for what it is," Biron said. "It's a father just trying to raise his two kids. I hope that they can get it taken care of so that he can move on with his life."

Dr. Dantzig appealed Judge Greer's decision all the way up to the Ohio Supreme Court but lost. He's hoping to refile the case with an attorney with more expertise in Ohio family law. To read the court decisions and see the entire interview with lawyer Ellen Essig about why parents increasingly turn to surrogacy, click on the links on the top of this page.

Have a comment on this story? Email the I-Team's Hagit Limor at hlimor@wcpo.com.

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