The OPEN RECORD
and Archives
 |
 |
 |
The Open Record, ISSN#1044-1956, is a quarterly electronic newsletter -
a FREE Public Research Service of Americans For Open Records (AmFOR)
http://www.amfor.net/
(May take 30-60 seconds to download, depending on your browser)
| << PREVIOUS ARCHIVE | MAIN INDEX | NEXT ARCHIVE >> |
"Mother" of Open Records and Anti-Adoption Movement for Past 50 Years Has Died at 93
Spring 2002
(See bottom of page for subscribe/unsubscribe, reprint & contact information)
IN THIS ISSUE:
"MOTHER" of the OPEN RECORDS & ANTI-ADOPTION MOVEMENT for THE PAST 50 YEARS, HAS DIED AT 93
NEW VOICES & WEB PAGES on ADOPTION-
o MILTON BERLE DIES, BILL BERLE BEGINS
ADOPTION DIALOG with AmFOR
o BOB SLAUGHTER'S NEW "RICHER LIFE"
SEARCH WEB-SITE DEBUTS
o NEW AmFOR "OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS" &
"ALTERNATIVES" PAGES; and
HOW ANTI-ADOPTION PAGES
HELP ABOLISH ADOPTION
o BRANDHORST'S SISTER COMMENTS
on "ADOPTEE WAR CASUALTY" PAGE
o INCARCERATED ADOPTEES SPEAK OUT;
LIFELONG SEARCHES COMPLETED
o FIRST ONLINE DONOR OFFSPRING REGISTRY
& SEARCH PAGE
NATIONAL & LOCAL MEDIA NEWS-
o AmFOR GETS MEDIA ATTENTION for MISSING
CHILD SEARCHES
& NEW "AMERICA'S
MISSING CHILDREN" TV SHOW CONTACTS AmFOR
o CLASSMATES.COM ADOPTEE-PARENT REUNIONS
LEAD to NEW TV SHOW
INTERNATIONAL NEWS -
WORLDWIDE ADOPTION: THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX-
o GERMANY CALLS U.S. ADOPTION PRACTICE
a FORM of GENOCIDE
o AmFOR'S HUMAN RIGHTS & ADOPTION
PAGE NOW LINKS to
U.N. FORM & INSTRUCTIONS
for REPORTING ADOPTION ABUSES
o WOMB TRANSPLANT, FUTURE ADOPTION
ALTERNATIVE?
CALIFORNIA NEWS & VIEWS
o CA IDENTITY THEFT PARANOIA OVERSHADOWS EFFORTS
TO OPEN RECORDS
EDITOR'S CORNER-
o EDITORIAL: HUMAN CLONING,
A THREAT TO PRO-ADOPTION INTERESTS
o DEAR AmFOR (Featured Letter to the
Editor on "Gays' 'Right to Adopt'").
"MOTHER" of the OPEN RECORDS & ANTI-ADOPTION MOVEMENT for THE PAST 50 YEARS, HAS DIED AT 93
Jean Paton, the adoptee and former
social worker who pioneered our national movement to open sealed adoption
records, died of a heart attack in an Arkansas hospital on March
27, 2002. She was 93. Jean's research into negative effects
of sealed records on adoptive families in 1953, her research and support
of adoptees through her organization, Orphan Voyage, her books Orphan
Voyage and The Adopted Break Silence, and her newsletter called
The
Log of Orphan Voyage, initiated The Open Records Movement in
the United States. She also believed adoption itself is a form of
"colonialism" that should be abolished, and once said so to a Black Judge
in Washington, DC who well understood.
Jean was never online - no computer,
no e-mail. She personally responded to thousands of adoptees and
parents over the years, providing free search assistance and support
by mail. I met Jean around 1987 at her home which was then in Cedaredge,
Colorado, to compare philosophies and found we were "on the same page."
She inspired me to advocate in behalf of adoptees as well as parents.
Back then, she maintained a personal library of adoption-related books,
now temporarily housed by Molly Johnson at Paton House, at the Florida
chapter of Orphan Voyage, 1122 Marco Place, Jacksonville, FL 32207-4043.
Molly can be reached at (904) 389-4269 (or by FAX at 904-396-8523).
Just before she died, Jean had been working on another book, Sealed
Records: The Great American Tragedy. The "Jean Paton Papers"
are stored at University of Florida, George Smathers Libraries Special
Collections, For more information visit the Orphan Voyage Memorial
Website honoring Jean - It is maintained by Alice Syman in Florida - asyman@aug.com
- and contains stories and photos of those who died before they had an
opportunity to reunite with the one they lost to adoption; the site is
at http://www.geocities.com/orphanvoyage1953/jean.html
NEW VOICES & WEB PAGES on ADOPTION-
o MILTON BERLE DIES, BILL BERLE BEGINS ADOPTION DIALOG with AmFOR
Awareness of adoption issues,
even as they impact one's own adoptive status, is often a process that
spans many years of an adoptee's life. Sometimes a single event,
such as death of their adopters or birth of their child raises their interest
from a subconscious level of normal curiosity to a sudden, strong desire
to know answers. Often it is a more subtle process over time which
accounts for my receiving requests for search help from adoptees ranging
in age from teenage through their 80's. They may couch their
interest in terms of need for family medical history for themselves or
their children, as if they feel they must not admit a normal instinct.
It was by a fluke that Barnes
and Noble Bookstore in Palm Desert, California, scheduled Bill Berle's
signing for his new book, My Father, Uncle Milty,
on Saturday, October
2, 1999 -- the same day and time as my signing for The Ultimate Search
Book-2000 Edition which was combined with an annual "Reg
Day" signup for adoptees and parents wishing reunion, sponsored by International
Soundex reunion Registry (ISRR) and hosted by AmFOR at Barnes and Noble.
Barnes and Noble had no way of knowing, and I didn't know until Bill came
over to my book table and volunteered the information, that Bill Berle
is adopted.
Upon learning from Bill that
he had no information about his pre-adoption past and the identity of his
parents, I offered a copy of my search book to Bill in trade for his book
about his life with the comedian known as "Mr. Television," Milton Berle.
Since he had come over to my "sign up" table, I wrongly assumed Bill would
be interested in searching for his family, but he stated "I've had
such a wonderful life with the Berles that I don't have a need or interest
in searching for any other parents." When occasionally an adoptee
tells me he or she "isn't interested" in discovering his origins, I ask
"Why not"?" They will usually elaborate that their adopters would
be "hurt" or that they have no "problems" with being adopted, as if they
believe that only "troubled" adoptees want to know. Distracted by
customers asking about our respective books, I never got the answer
to "Why not?" at that time. A few days later, after reading Bill's
book which revealed his lifelong pursuit of the love of the man who adopted
him, was rarely home and when he was, he still did not give Bill the attention
any child needs, and about his suicide attempt when Milton rejected him.
I left a phone message but it was never answered.
Fast forward to April , 2002,
just after Milton Berle's death. Out of the blue, Bill e-mailed me
asking that I "correct" a comment on the Adoption & Human Rights page
at http://www.amfor.net/humanrights.html
which referred to his adoption as a "black market adoption." In My
Father, Uncle Milty, Bill explains that Milton Berle, through his celebrity
contacts found channels for procuring the newborn boy for his wife, Ruth.
Bill readily admitted he really doesn't know the circumstances of his birth,
relinquishment and adoption and I offered a slight edit of the wording.
There followed a litany of Bill's perceptions and questions about adoption
issues in general. Excerpts from these e-mails are published, with
Bill's permission, on AmFOR's new web page, "OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS" at http://www.amfor.net/OpposingViewpoints.html
o BOB SLAUGHTER'S NEW "RICHER LIFE" SEARCH WEBSITE DEBUTS
Missing persons investigators, Frederick C. Hoyer, Jr., author of Find Them Fast, Find Them Now, and his partner, Robert T. Slaughter, founder of Richer Life Consultants Inc., who will be specializing in adoption searches, have joined AmFOR's network as a resource for assisting searches for lost family members. Hoyer's website is at http://Namebreakers.com and this month, Bob Slaughter launched the new Richer Life site http://RicherLife.net - Check them out.
o NEW AmFOR "OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS" & "ALTERNATIVES" PAGES; and
HOW ANTI-ADOPTION PAGES HELP ABOLISH ADOPTION
Inspired by Bill Berle's sincere
desire to anti-adoption views from an opposing viewpoint perspective, AmFOR
has added 2 new web pages to it's site. "OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS" at
http://www.amfor.net/OpposingViewpoints.html
juxtaposes e-mailed commentary on pro-adoption with AmFOR's responses.
This is not a new idea. Last year, AmFOR was interviewed for publication
by the Editor of "Opposing Viewpoint" books for their newest topic in the
series devoted to anti-adoption versus the pro-adoption views.
The question most often asked
by pro-adoption visitors to the AbolishAdoption.com website is "But what
do we do with the children?" While the Petition to Abolish Adoption
touches on some of the existing alternatives to adoption, there is now
an in-depth look at "ALTERNATIVES TO ADOPTION" which is a sample chapter
from Chosen Children at http://www.amfor.net/alternatives.html
Websites that are referred to as "anti-adoption"
websites, such as AbolishAdoption.com, Adoption: Legalized Lies, Origins
USA-A Legislative Inquiry, are helping to replace adoption with more equitable
forms of child custody and care by calling attention to the pitfalls of
adoption so that more and more people may be reluctant to choose adoption
over existing forms of custody or alternatives. We are performing
a public service by disseminating this information.
o BRANDHORST'S SISTER COMMENTS on "ADOPTEE WAR CASUALTY" PAGE
On the 6-month anniversary of
the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, AmFOR received an e-mail from Denise A.
Kelly. Kelly is the sister of Daniel Brandhorst who perished aboard
United Flight 175 in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack at the World Trade Center,
along with his partner, Ronald Gamboa, and David Brandhorst, the 3 year
old boy they adopted. AmFOR's page, captioned "Adoptee War Casualty"
is dedicated In Memory of David Brandhorst, and is updated to include Denise
A. Kelly's e-mail stating that the young adoptee's mother has been informed.
The Executive Director of GLAAD, the gay media online, at
http://www.glaad.org/publications/archive_detail.php?id=2961
exploited the tragedy by using the Gamboa-Brandhorst example to support
gay adoption and the issue of whether gays have a "right to adopt" has
been much debated in the news from state to state . Since AmFOR believes
the concept of a "right to adopt" shifts the needs of children to
the needs of adults who cannot have children of their own -- AmFOR's Adoptee
War Casualty page also briefly addresses the issue and links to a page
called "Death By Adoption" which provides a chronological listing of excerpted
newsstories about dying or dead adoptees as result of their adoptions.
o INCARCERATED ADOPTEES SPEAK OUT; LIFELONG SEARCHES COMPLETED
In Chosen Children, (see
http://www.amfor.net/chosenchildren.html
) incarcerated adoptees are given a face, a voice and a forum for their
lifelong adoption issues that negatively impacted their lives. AmFOR
created a web page for those incarcerated adoptees who need either additional
search help or a penpal or both. Some of them have been contacted
from several countries by sociologists and college students researching
adoptee and prisoner issues.
Since April 1, 1993, Noah Stone,
an incarcerated adoptee who had been drug addicted since age 7, has been
corresponding with AmFOR He is also featured in Chosen
Children. Five months after his initial request for family
search help, AmFOR brought about an emotion-charged reunion between Noah
and his supportive mother and sister at Arizona State Prison at Florence,
Arizona, during Noah's parole hearing. A TV camera from a CBS-affiliate
in Phoenix filmed the hearing and reunion and AmFOR's lobby for open records
in Arizona. But Noah still had another sister and a brother to find
and for reasons not revealed at the time, Noah's mother would not provide
her Waiver to permit Social Services to locate them and, for the next 9
years, due to Noah's subsequent incarceration in California, and lacking
his siblings' names, he put the search for the rest of his siblings on
hold. A year ago, Colleen Buckner, Triad Ties of Colusa, California,
gave us the names of Noah's missing sister and brother, but it was only
last month, with the help of Bob Slaughter, Richer Life Consultants, http://www.RicherLife.net
, that AmFOR located the missing siblings who are now establishing contact.
AmFOR hears from many incarcerated
adoptees whose adoptions were a factor in their behaviors and lifestyles
that led to crimes. Most often, their adopters abandoned them when
they ended up in prison. When found, their original families have
been supportive.
Incarcerated adoptee, Tom McGee,
unfortunately, never got to meet his mother who died just days after they
had found each other, but a new-found aunt and several brothers and sisters
awaited his release from prison. AmFOR found Tom's father who visited
him in prison and who planned to help his son after his release last year.
After lifelong drug abuse and his lifelong search for his family, Tom is
not just starting a "new life," he's starting a life.
The stories of Noah and Tom,
and of many other incarcerated adoptees, in their own words, along with
detailing of the Problems and Alternatives regarding America's symbiotic
Foster Care, Adoption and Prison Systems, are found in Chosen Children
at http://www.amfor.net/chosenchildren.html
o FIRST ONLINE DONOR OFFSPRING REGISTRY
& SEARCH PAGE
... is under construction at
http://www.amfor.net/DonorOffspring.html
MEDIA NEWS-
o AmFOR GETS MEDIA ATTENTION for MISSING
CHILD SEARCHES
& NEW "AMERICA'S
MISSING CHILDREN" TV SHOW CONTACTS AmFOR
On Valentine's Day, 2-14-02,
ABC-TV affiliate, KESQ-TV-3, Palm Springs, aired their continuing coverage
about a missing girl, Daniel Van Dam, whom AmFOR had offered to help find
the missing girl without fee or reward via our national broadcast network
links. It was their Top Story, along with my search concerning
my daughter who was born Valentine's Day 1968. A $25,000 reward was
offered in both cases. Sadly, before AmFOR had a chance to become
more involved in the Van Dam case, it was learned that their neighbor was
already suspected of killing the girl, whose body has since been found,
and he has been charged with the crime. Three of the 2-14-02
TV newscasts also mentioned the AbolishAdoption.com website --the
first time it was mentioned on network television.
Since the newscasts, AmFOR received
several inquiries from 2 mothers, whose babies supposedly "died at birth,"
stating they may have actually been sold for adoption. Missing persons
investigators Hoyer and Slaughter are working on the cases and one of the
mothers has made contact with the young woman who may be her daughter.
The specific page which details the still unsolved 1968 Valentine Mystery
now includes a $25,000 Reward and photos taken from the KESQ newscast about
it at http://www.amfor.net/BabyTheft1968.html
AmFOR has been contacted by
the executive producer of a new tv series,
America's Missing Children,
with
regard to "baby theft" searches. Although it is uncertain
whether any of AmFOR's stories will be aired, we hope to see missing adoptee/parent
searches included.
o CLASSMATES.COM ADOPTEE-PARENT REUNIONS LEAD to NEW TV SHOW
Excerpted from "Online Class Reunions: Lost Loves Are Found, Gumshoes Stick Around" (by Jessica Garrison, Times Staff Writer, Los Angeles Times, 3-18, 02, page E-1):
"At Classmates.com's Seattle
headquarters, company officials said they initially were startled to hear
of private investigators and adopted children trolling through their site.
And though they expected love connections, they had no idea so many lonely
hearts would find happiness in the arms and e-mail accounts of long-ago
crushes. [Editor's Note: The article mentioned the resulting
reunion of Kirstin Miller who was given up for adoption in 1970,
and her father, John Roberts, via his listing under Las Vegas High School's
class mates.]
Both Classmates.com and Reunions.com
say they are in talks with Hollywood about the possibilities of developing
television shows dramatizing the Internet love connections, using stories
sent to the sites by the happy users who want to express gratitude or rave
about a love connection or a found friend. The sites often feature
such stories on their pages to lure more paying customers....Details of
how profits from the stories would be apportioned have yet to be worked
out."
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
o WORLDWIDE ADOPTION: THINKING OUTSIDE the BOX
Frustrated by decades of lobbying state and federal
legislators and trying lawsuits, many adoption issue activists in the U.S.
and in other countries are taking more of a "world view"......
o GERMANY CALLS AMERICAN ADOPTION a FORM of GENOCIDE
"There is no room in the civilized world for the
barbaric and inhuman practices against children
to continue, regardless of how well disguised
under the auspices of 'best interests of the child',"
Maureen Dabbagh
http://www.childrenabduction.com/resources/lebensborn.htm
o AmFOR'S HUMAN RIGHTS & ADOPTION PAGE NOW LINKS to
U.N. FORM & INSTRUCTIONS FOR REPORTING ADOPTION ABUSES -
Human Rights & Adoption - http://www.amfor.net/humanrights.html - details which specific Articles of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights are being violated by the American adoption system. AmFOR has added an online Form and Instructions for reporting adoption abuses (past or present), by e-mail or snail mail, directly to the United Nations Special Rapporteur at The Rights of the Child project. THE U.N. IS LISTENING. AmFOR president, Lori Carangelo has been a data source for the Rights of the Child Project since 1992. You CAN report your own case, or it can be a case you know of. The form can be cut and pasted to an email (a copy to AmFOR for research would be appreciated), or it can be printed and snail mailed to the U.N. To access the form & Instructions, either Click on the Link at the top of our Human Rights & Adoption page, or go to: http://www.amfor.net/UNFormLetter.html
o CHURCH, STATE & ADOPTION
Church, State & Adoption - http://www.amfor.net/church.html - is another new page on AmFOR's website. It explains how adoption presents a conflict of church and state.
o WOMB TRANSPLANT, FUTURE ADOPTION ALTERNATIVE?
Also the experiment was only a "success" for 90 days, the world's first womb transplant has taken place on a 26-year-old woman in Saudi Arabia, raising the hopes of thousands of childless couples whose only chance of a baby is currently surrogacy [or adoption]. It is noted in the article, "Surgeons Hail World's First Womb Transplant," that Muslims find surrogacy "unacceptable." Muslims also frown on adoption. For story details, go to: http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/wordwide/story/0,9959,663330,00.html
CALIFORNIA NEWS & VIEWS
o CA IDENTITY THEFT PARANOIA OVERSHADOWS EFFORTS TO OPEN RECORDS
At the time that California adoption groups were lobbying to make adoptees' original birth certificates available to adult adoptees, CA Governor Gray Davis had put a "freeze" on access and sale of public records information. The newly re-elected Davis is still listening to lobbyists' paranoic concerns for "identity theft"--a growing problem nationwide--and CA legislators have been drafting proposed legislation that would inhibit all Californians from easily accessing even their own public records information. Such over-zealousness to "protect" Californians has not gone unnoticed by civil liberties organizations. Perhaps the general public, if not the ACLU, will begin to understand how adult adoptees have been similarly "protected" against their will by being deprived of their own birth information.
EDITORIAL:
HUMAN CLONING, A THREAT TO PRO-ADOPTION INTERESTS
by Lori Carangelo
On 4/6/02, "Worldwide Stir Over
Possible Human Clone," Rick Weiss, Washington Post, quoted the San Francisco
Chronicle's unconfirmed report of pregnancy in Italian doctor's program
to clone a human being. The article is online at:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/04/06/MN130358.DTL
Following is excerpted from that article:
"The doctor, Severino Antinori,
a renowned medical maverick and director of a human reproduction research
center in Rome, could not be reached to comment on the report, which appeared
in Gulf News, a Middle Eastern newspaper. The paper quoted Antinori as
saying that a woman in a human cloning program he had started was eight
weeks pregnant.
In 1994, Antinori helped a 62-year-old
Italian woman get pregnant. At 63, she became the oldest woman ever to
give birth. Experiments in which he cultivated infertile men's immature
sperm inside rodent testicles also stirred controversy. Last August, speaking
at a National Academy of Sciences meeting in Washington, he warned that
if Congress banned human cloning it would take the nation 'back to the
Dark Ages.'"
The article also
announced that an effort was about to begin on 10 couples -- some of them
Americans -- in an undisclosed country."
Family rights organizations
in the U.S. are concerned about the many ethical questions raised by human
cloning, including the use of cloned human embryos for disease research.
The Religious Right, which has managed, under the current administration,
to secure over $1-billion funding to promote and increase adoptions in
order to "Christianize" the world's children, must view human cloning
as a threat to the multi-billion dollar adoption industry. An effort
is mounting in Congress to ban it altogether.
Americans For Open Records (AmFOR)
is particularly concerned about the impact on the cloned children when
our government has not seen fit to determine outcomes of children created
in secrecy using anonymous egg or sperm donors and traditional or gestational
surrogates. The main difference is that a cloned child would be a
biological duplicate. Anti-adoption advocates wonder whether human
cloning may help to replace stranger adoption which denies children their
biological reality under adoption secrecy statues even in so-called "open
records" states.
Whatever the future of human
reproductive alternatives, there is probably going to be a period in human
history in which they will co-exist for a time. America's children
are already treated as products "Made in the USA" and offered for sale
in adoption catalogs and over Internet. It's not a far stretch to
imagine bar-coding them at birth in order to differentiate pricing for
clones, donor offspring, "designer" babies, and babies earmarked for adoption,
from those created the "old fashioned way" without guarantee against inherited
flaws that account for the diversity that defines us. The question
remains, which will be the most highly valued by our capitalist society?
And how will all of these children fare?
o DEAR AmFOR
GAYS "RIGHT TO ADOPT"
Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2002 22:19:36 -0800
Michelle Harvey <halfpint1@cox.net> wrote:
I REALLY NEED INFO ON THE PERCENTAGE OF GAY ADOPTION AND THE STATISTICS
OF WHY GAYS SHOULD HAVE EQUAL ADOPTIONS RIGHTS ACCORDING TO CHILD REARING.
THANK YOU! MRS. HARVEY
Hi, Mrs. Harvey,
Can't give you such stats because no one has collected
such data. No one has a Constitutional "right to adopt."
The concept suggests that children are to be made available to satisfy
needs of adults. I believe that the child has a right to care and
well-being, as the United Nations Rights of the Child conference and Universal
Declaration of Human Rights suggests. This has been and can be accomplished
without adoption, a form of custody that removes some rights of all parties
involved.
Best regards,
~Lori Carangelo
AMERICANS FOR OPEN RECORDS (AmFOR)
From Jan. 1989 thru Christmas 1998, the photo-print edition of The OPEN RECORD was distributed free of charge nationwide and in Canada, to adoption organizations, adoption affected individuals, lawmakers and agencies. This first electronic issue of The OPEN RECORD. It is now being distributed worldwide.
The OPEN RECORD is purposely NOT copyrighted, because our words are OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE. Every issue is catalogued at the Library of Congress, Serial Record Division, and we encourage you to forward The OPEN RECORD to others or excerpt items without need of permission. But please include AmFOR's website address and email, above, as the source.
The OPEN RECORD is available
as a public service to all who have indicated their interest
in adoption issues, legislation, petitions, court cases,
events, searching. If you don't wish to receive the next quarterly
issue, send a BLANK Reply email with "Unsubscribe" as Subject
line.
The Open Record is available as a public service to all who have indicated their interest in adoption issues, legislation, petitions, court cases, events, searching. From Jan. 1989 thru Christmas 1998, the photo-print edition of THE OPEN RECORD was distributed free of charge nationwide and in Canada, to adoption organizations, adoption affected individuals, lawmakers and agencies. It is now being distributed worldwide. THE OPEN RECORD is purposely NOT copyrighted, because our words are OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE. Every issue is catalogued at the Library of Congress, Serial Record Division, and we encourage you to forward THE OPEN RECORD to others or excerpt items without need of permission. But please include AmFOR's website address as the source.
DIRECTORY of ADOPTION NEWSLETTERS Link Site -
(U.S., Canada, Australia, U.K., Netherlands - Submit yours, free)
http://www.familyhelper.net/ad/adnlu.html
ADOPTION NEWSWIRE
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Prairie/6743/oct.html
