tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-47336916788664678302024-03-14T03:14:59.509-07:00Adoption Secrecy: The Month the Gloves Came OffWhat You Need to Know About National Council For AdoptionThe Adoption Diggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15586652169070015589noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733691678866467830.post-8550845528409689512013-05-31T17:20:00.000-07:002014-03-08T10:50:03.651-08:00A Act of Love Adoptions - Part One<h2>
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Utah's High Profile For-Profit Adoption Agency</span></h2>
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If you do a lot of Internet research on adoption as I do, you quickly learn that one of the most prolific advertisers, bar none, is a Utah-based for-profit adoption agency,<b><i> 'A Act of Love.'</i></b> I swear those ads stalk me everywhere I go! They're horizontal rectangular ads; they're square ads; they're vertical rectangular ads. I can't even pay a visit to a recommended inspirational video without having my sensitivities assaulted by one of this business enterprise's obnoxious ads. To wit:<br />
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Notice that these ads aren't addressed to prospective adoptive parents. Nope. No, they're meant to attract vulnerable, probably frightened mothers-to-be without resources. Strictly supply-side advertising.</div>
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Now, come on. Just how do you suppose a for-profit adoption agency that can afford nation-wide obnoxious box ads like these would "help" a vulnerable pregnant woman who is genuinely seeking assistance in dealing with a crisis pregnancy? These deceptive ads touting "act of love" don't mention adoption. They're designed to cause her to assume an "act of love" would reach out to her to help her deal with a difficult life situation. How could she know from these ads that <b><i>A Act of Love</i></b> pays big bucks to high-power advertising companies to overwhelm the Internet for the singular purpose of procuring babies for adoption? And once a vulnerable woman clicks on the 'click here' button, her computer's browser will be inhabited thereafter by these ads in perpetuity.</div>
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Yellow-pages Internet Ads Throughout the Country - in Your State?</h3>
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I haven't been able to locate (yet) the advertising entity that produces the obnoxious box ads that plague me, but I have learned how this agency gets listed literally everywhere throughout the country - a company called <a href="http://www.dexknows.com/"><span style="color: blue;">DexKnows</span></a>. To see how A Act of Love uses this service to reach its tentacles into every geographic area of the country, <a href="http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0oG7luX6alRHzQABLJXNyoA?p=site%3Adexknows.com+%22A+Act+of+Love%22&fr=yfp-t-788&pstart=1&b=51"><span style="color: blue;">click this</span></a>:</div>
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When you get there, click on one of the listings and scroll down to see the coverage area for just that listing. I don't know how many pages of listings there are, but I went as far as page 12 and they continued on from there.<br />
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Notice the blurb on <a href="http://www.dexknows.com/local/law/legal_services/adoption_agencies/geo/c-des_moines-ia/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">this one</span></a> for Iowa: "Placing your baby for adoption can also mean being a good parent. - Pregnant and searching for answers?"<br />
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Where have you read that <a href="https://www.adoptioncouncil.org/infant-adoption/publications.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">gem</span></a> before? From the Mother Ship, maybe?<br />
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Mother Ship? You mean National Council For Adoption? A For-profit Agency Member in a "Non-profit" Organization? Are you sure?</h3>
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Well, yes and no. And it's very complicated. Just how the puzzle goes together has yet to be determined. However, it's obvious A Act of Love Adoptions can't sustain its massive advertising budget and CEO salaries and benefits solely on "non-profit" reported income.</div>
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First of all, according to Utah's Business site, <b><i>A Act of Love Adoptions</i></b> is one five active DBAs under the umbrella of a corporate mother agency, <b>Act of Love AdoptionServices, Inc. </b>Here's the list:</div>
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So now let's look at 'Mother' Act of Love Adoptionservices, Inc.</h3>
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Notice the <a href="https://www.fsd.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/185/~/naics-codes---what-are-they,-and-where-do-i-find-them%3F"><span style="color: blue;">NAICS</span></a> code? Adoption? Social Services? No. Nothing to do with adoption, but 'Grantmaking and Giving Services.' This qualifies this corporation to transfer human babies from one family to another....how?</div>
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Here's an earlier listing with the Utah Department of Commerce. Notice:</div>
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<span style="color: red;"><b>10,000 shares of common stock.</b></span></div>
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So What Difference Does it Make That It's a For-Profit Agency?</h3>
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The bigger questions are these:<br />
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What part does this for-profit agency play in the financing of the "non-profit" agency known as A Act of Love Adoptions?<br />
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And what financial benefit does the for-profit agency enjoy via its "non-profit" counterpart?<br />
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And if there is a financial connection between the two, how can A Act of Love Adoptions be considered a legitimate "non-profit" agency for tax benefit purposes?<br />
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And who is the person behind the curtain here? Surely Kathleen Kunkel, whose only qualification to run an adoption agency is that she is an adoptive parent, couldn't devise, maintain, and handle financing for an enterprise as lucrative as this. So if not Kunkel, when who?<br />
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If, indeed, there is a shadow for-profit entity behind A Act of Love Adoptions, it's clear that NCFA has accepted the non-profit counterpart as one of its own.<br />
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From the NCFA website:<br />
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<b>Here's <i>A Act of Love</i>, posted on </b><b>NCFA's current membership list.</b></h3>
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Even given a proper welcome by NCFA in the summer of 2005</h3>
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Ah, yes! The coveted Congressional Angel in Adoption Award!</h3>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">How The "Non-Profit" Counterpart of this Agency Helped Kill Attempt to Apply <a href="http://glossary.adoption.com/interstate-compact-on-the-placement-of-children-(icpc).html"><span style="color: blue;">ICPC</span></a> Rules to Out- of-State Mothers Brought to Utah to Give Birth</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">It's no secret that Utah agencies fly pregnant women from far and wide to their state to give birth where adoption laws are 'friendlier.' </span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2545307"><span style="color: blue;">Is Utah a 'Baby Warehouse'?</span></a></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">"<span style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px;">The Utah adoption debate: Phillip Lowry, an Orem attorney who has filed lawsuits for fathers and another Chicago grandmother attacking Utah adoptions, says Utah's laws attract parents and birth mothers from other states.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">"Utah has come to be known as a baby warehouse," where mothers and adoptive parents can "minimize legal hassles," Lowry said. "There are no guards at the door going in or out."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">• • • • • •</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;">Quick! Put a Plug in it!</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">A Act of Love Adoptions, facing the possible loss of 'products' if imported pregnant women and babies' fathers were to be protected under the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children (ICPC), joined with two other Utah agencies to make sure that didn't happen.</span></div>
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<b style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="http://library.adoption.com/articles/adoption-agencies-sue-state-over-out-of-state-mothers-rights.html"><span style="color: blue;">Adoption Agencies Sue State Over Out-of State Mothers' Rights</span></a></b></h3>
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Excerpts:<br />
Each year, more than 100 expectant mothers from other states travel to Utah to deliver their babies and surrender them to adoption agencies.<br />
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Their reasons for coming vary -- from the desire to distance themselves from an adoptive family to preferring parents who belong to the LDS Church. Critics suggest other motives in a small number of cases: attempts to avoid birth fathers or stricter laws requiring the fathers' consent in the home states.<br />
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"These girls . . . wouldn't come here if staying home was a good option for them," said Salt Lake City attorney Larry Jenkins, who represents Act of Love, Adoption Center of Choice Inc. and ATLC Adoption in the lawsuit. "This potentially eliminates an option for them." The state says otherwise, contending it has a duty to make sure adoption agencies and expectant mothers are making placements in the best interests of children. "<br />
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Any mother who wants to come to Utah for the purpose of giving birth is welcome to do that," said Adam Trupt, policy and planning administrator for the state Division of Child and Family Services (DCFS), "but when there is an agreement with an agency for her to come do that, that's when the compact is activated."<br />
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Provo adoption attorney Phillip Lowry commended the state's efforts to enforce the compact. Lowry is representing a North Carolina man who is trying to stop the adoption of his son, who was born and placed for adoption in Utah without the father's knowledge. "There is unilateral transportation of children going on, and some [mothers] come to Utah to place the children because Utah has a very strict adoption code," Lowry said. "They avoid the ICPC because that presents the chance that the natural father will find out. And if the natural father finds out, he can enjoin the mother from going out of state."<br />
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Three agencies sued, contending Utah is incorrectly using the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children (<a href="http://www.adoption.com/topics/interstate-compact-on-the-placement-of-children"><span style="color: blue;">ICPC</span></a>), a law drafted in the 1960s and later adopted by all 50 states to protect children taken across state lines for adoptions. Applying the ICPC to unborn children effectively makes fetuses residents of the mothers' home states, and unfairly limits a woman's right to travel, they claim.<br />
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Utah officials base their position on a 1986 opinion issued by a national association of ICPC administrators. The opinion says expectant mothers crossing state lines as part of a "placement plan" should be subject to the ICPC, lest they be allowed to manipulate the delivery location to escape oversight.<br />
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<b style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Outcome of this lawsuit:</span></b></h2>
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<h3>
<a href="http://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/article_5b79655d-7043-5ebb-bcd6-0f7ae07c9731.html"><span style="color: blue;">Court says interstate agreement doesn't apply to unborn children</span></a></h3>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 22px;">Excerpts:</span></h3>
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<div>
Utah adoptions require confirmation by a state judge. But in 2001, the state Department of Human Services warned adoption agencies it was cracking down on those who begin adoption arrangements for out-of-state women without notice to Utah or their home state.</div>
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Three agencies sued, arguing the enforcement was unconstitutional, arguing that applying the law to unborn children effectively makes fetuses residents of the mothers' home states, and unfairly limits a woman's right to travel.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Larry Jenkins, a Salt Lake City attorney who represented Act of Love, Adoption Center of Choice Inc. and ATLC Adoption in the lawsuit, said the ruling would benefit adoptive and birth parents throughout the state.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">• • • • •</span><br />
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<h2 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;">A Act of Love in Action</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Here's how this agency and others in Utah are able to bypass ICPC regulations by transporting mothers-to-be into their lairs. Bear in mind that once in Utah, these vulnerable women not only are subject to that state's agency-powered laws, but they are effectively separated from family and any potential support systems in their own states. How free would a new mother feel to decide to parent her own child when she would be dependent on the agency to fly her back home? And to whom would she turn to help her with her immediate needs and those of her baby? Yes, the agency has seen to it that she is enrolled under Utah's Medicaid to pay her medical bills, but would she know how to get additional state help for postpartum care?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">And that's just the mother's dilemma. Then there is the father's battle to assert his rights.</span><br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; letter-spacing: -1px; line-height: 47px;"><a href="http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/52512581-78/shaud-adoption-utah-office.html.csp"><span style="color: blue;">Did Utah four-day work week cost dad rights to his child?</span></a></span></h3>
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<h3>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 17px; text-align: left;">Excerpts</span></h3>
Shaud immediately filed with Arizona's Putative Father Registry but said he was unable to locate information on government websites about what he needed to do to protect his rights in Utah. He hired a Utah attorney, who on Jan. 12, 2010, filed a paternity petition and faxed a notice of paternity to the state records office.<br />
<br />
Daniel Drage, Shaud's attorney, also mailed a notice that day to the records office, which marked it received on Jan. 14. With the baby due in February, Shaud thought he was acting in plenty of time.<br />
<br />
But Tew gave premature birth to a baby girl on Jan. 15.<br />
<br />
The records office happened to be closed that day, a Friday, because of the state's four-day work schedule, and was closed the following Monday, which was a federal holiday. A clerk filed Shaud's paternity notice on Jan. 20, a day after Tew relinquished her rights and the infant was placed with adoptive parents through A Act of Love Adoptions.<br />
<br />
A trial court judge ruled Shaud had failed to met a statutory deadline and had no right to object to the adoption. Drage argued the lower court improperly refused to let Shaud submit evidence detailing his filings.<br />
<br />
"In this case, Mr. Shaud ran this race, ran through the maze and initiated his paternity proceedings and filed his notice prior to the birth of his child," his appeal states. But, the office failed to act in a timely manner, a failure that was "unquestionably the result of gross negligence.<br />
<br />
"To bar Mr. Shaud from asserting his biological right to his daughter in these circumstances contravenes all notions of fairness and due process," Shaud's petition states.<br />
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<h2>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;">Ethics in Keeping with the Mother Ship?</span></h2>
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Remember this: The whole is equal to the sum of its parts.<br />
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A Act of Love Adoptions is a 'part' of National Council For Adoption, which makes the following claim on its website:<br />
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"For 33 years, NCFA has been the authoritative voice for adoption. Our research, education programs, and advocacy have led the way in promoting sound, ethical adoption policies and practices that have enabled children to find nurturing, permanent families through adoption."<br />
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<br />
Uh huh. Case in point: A Act of Love Adoptions<br />
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<h2>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;">UPDATE:</span></h2>
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The pieces of the puzzle may come together in my next post.<br />
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The Adoption Diggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15586652169070015589noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733691678866467830.post-33095558189938268822011-01-18T10:05:00.000-08:002017-01-30T19:51:27.061-08:001: Original Social Work Philosophy on Adoption & Identity<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: medium;">Adoption history in the U.S. is generally thought to be divided into two distinct periods of time: before records were sealed and after records were sealed. But that's an over-simplification, and it's inaccurate. Here's why.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;"></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The line was actually drawn at the precise point at which the <i>"sacred rights"</i> of the adoptee, as described by New York adoption supervisor Grace Louise Hubbard (See <i>'A Child's Identity is His Sacred Right' </i>in next post)<i> </i>were desecrated by corruption of the original purpose of adoption records sealing.</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">You can get a sense of the original intent of adoption "confidentiality" by reading this excellent <a href="http://pages.uoregon.edu/adoption/archive/UscbTCNOBR.htm"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">historical piece</span></a> describing the early philosophy of the U.S. Children's Bureau, precursor to today's Child Welfare League of America.</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">A thorough examination of the corruption of original intent has been made by Elizabeth Samuels (Associate Professor, University of Baltimore School of Law; J.D., University of Chicago School of Law, 1980; A.B., Harvard College, 1975). The results of her research are spelled out in an article in the Winter, 2001, issue of Rutgers Law Review. The article, entitled <i>'The Idea of Adoption: an Inquiry Into the History of Adult Adoptee Access to Birth Records,'</i> is downloadable in pdf file <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><a href="http://www.americanadoptioncongress.org/pdf/idea_of_adoption.pdf" style="background-color: white;" target="_blank">here</a></span>.</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It's helpful to go back to the period before adoptee rights were stripped from them to see the purity in the thinking of the people whose job it was to arrange for the transfer of children from their original families to their adoptive families. Purity lay in the fact that this transfer was made without destroying the children's identities and heritage.</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">A few years back I discovered a document that elaborates on that thinking.</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Presented originally as a speech in 1946, it was published in '<i>The Child</i>,' a year later. I borrowed the original printed document from inter-library loan - I don't know where it had been archived. It was four pages long, but I have condensed the most significant elements into a one-page document, illustrated with a photo that I felt fit the topic: <i>'Who Am I? Social agency helping a child to answer this question has a grave responsibility.'</i></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I'm posting my condensed version for now, but may add the full four-page version at a later date.</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15.6px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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The Adoption Diggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15586652169070015589noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733691678866467830.post-44943198432149605582011-01-17T08:20:00.000-08:002013-01-24T08:07:45.613-08:002: "A Child's Identity is His Sacred Right"<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiysayigFtY5JghC0LWLENOhxftQidvOuYYt5v8BlZhGy0U_p-U0nxqEzjrztZFxn2j-HkkZTLMA1O-yzHim0QZAwQhF7w3273YDNgEN8G_TtopS-oidnT8ardES86SZfWmYnBXXed3nNM/s1600/Screen+shot+2010-11-08+at+1.33.51+PM.png"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537250412208549682" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiysayigFtY5JghC0LWLENOhxftQidvOuYYt5v8BlZhGy0U_p-U0nxqEzjrztZFxn2j-HkkZTLMA1O-yzHim0QZAwQhF7w3273YDNgEN8G_TtopS-oidnT8ardES86SZfWmYnBXXed3nNM/s200/Screen+shot+2010-11-08+at+1.33.51+PM.png" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 109px; margin: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 200px;" /></a><br />
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<b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">WHO AM I?</span></b></span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Social agency helping a child to answer this question has a grave responsibility</span></span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">by Grace Louise Hubbard</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Supervisor of Intake, Child Placing, and Adoption,</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> State Charities Aid Association, New York</span></span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Condensed from a paper given May 23, 1946, at the</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">National Conference of Social Work, Buffalo, N.Y.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Printed in </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">THE CHILD, February, 1947</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></i></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><i>Who am I? is a question that cannot be answered completely by any birth record, no matter how expertly devised or carefully handled. Every individual has a right to accurate and complete identification of himself, but he has also the right to understand his identity in its broadest meaning.</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><i>Webster's dictionary defines identity as "unity and persistence of personality" - a dynamic concept, implying something that comes from within, something made by the person himself.</i></b></span></div>
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A right to our identity really means the right to be able to create for ourselves that degree of unity and persistence of personality that gives us a sense of self-direction, of relatedness to people, and to our environment. It includes what we know about ourselves and about our origin, and also what we have been able to take out of our life experience.</div>
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A young person who is trying to fuse an unknown past with his present, needs more than to know his ancestry. He wants to know his heritage.</div>
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A person who as a child was placed by a social agency in a foster-family home, whether for adoption or for permanent supervised care, is assured of a record of his origin and identity, and of a source of help in finding out not just what the record shows but what human experience lies behind it.</div>
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Sometimes........they want to know about themselves, and when this happens their interest may range from a sort of general curiosity about such things as their nationality and the first names of their parents and how they looked, to an active desire to find out all they can, and perhaps even locate and meet their relatives.</div>
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My agency has always recognized the right of the child to know about his own family, if he wants to - at a time when he is adequately prepared for the knowledge - and if the foster parents sympathize with his interest and are ready to have him know. The agency knew the mother who had to choose how her child would live - with her or apart from her - and is in a position to give him not only the facts but some interpretation that led to her choice.</div>
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When a child asks, "Who am I?" he does need to know his name and lineage, but what he is really seeking is to sustain his awareness of self so that he can achieve a unity and persistence of personality, in spite of the break in the continuity of his life. This is his right, a right that we are under obligation to secure to him to the greatest extent we can.</div>
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Careful and accurate recording of one's birth is a basic step, and the right of every person. But a sense of one's heritage is also every person's right, and if a child does not have his own parents to give him a sense of his heritage as well as his birth identification, interpretation should be given by someone with understanding, as well as knowledge, of the facts.</div>
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A child's identity is his sacred right.</div>
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* * * * * *</div>
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Did you read that right? Yes, you did!</div>
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<b><i>"A child's identity is his sacred right."</i></b></div>
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The above article includes a photograph of a social worker counseling a woman, who, of course, has her back to the camera. The caption reads: "Planning to place her baby for adoption, this mother hopes he need never know about his origin. But the social worker who is helping her with her planning explains that the child has a right to his identity, and that it should be preserved for him."</div>
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Another photograph shows a young man sitting at a social worker's desk examining a document from his file. The caption reads: "Ted has learned from his birth certificate that the parents he has always known are not his real parents. A member of the staff of the social agency that helped his mother to plan for his adoption 18 years ago is telling him about his original family."</div>
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<b>Can anything possibly be clearer?</b></div>
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There was a time when the "best interests of a child" were considered paramount when, for whatever reason, it was not possible for him to remain with his original family. It was assumed, and carried out in policy and practice, that every child should only <i>gain</i> from being adopted – never <i>lose</i> from it. He should <i>keep everything he had</i> and <i>gain more</i> in the form of a stable home and a loving family.</div>
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What transpired in the decades since Ms. Hubbard made that speech is that the needs and rights of the child being transferred from one family to another were not just overlooked – they were deliberately destroyed. In order to be accepted by, and integrated into, another family, the child was required to forfeit, without legal representation to protect his interests, his ancestry, association with living blood relatives, knowledge of the circumstances of his birth and relinquishment, access to vital family health information, and even authentic vital statistics documentation of his own live birth.</div>
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So who benefited from this disenfranchisement? One need only study the shameful history of secret adoption to see who has been protected by denying adoptees access to their own personal histories. One thing is clear: the claim of "promised confidentiality" allegedly given to original mothers has been disproven by the failure of its claimants to produce a single relinquishment document in any state that makes such promise. What's more, surrender documents didn't even guarantee mothers that their babies would be adopted - they could end up in long-term foster care - so they couldn't even have been verbally "promised" that sealed adoption records would conceal their identities.</div>
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It isn't just horror stories like those of <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1131282/The-Hollywood-Baby-Snatcher-The-sinister-story-woman-stole-children-sold-stars.html"><span style="color: #ff1d17;">Georgia Tann</span></a> of the infamous Tennessee Children's Home Society or Miami doctor <a href="http://freepages.misc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~msroots/BMA/COLE1.htm"><span style="color: red;">Katherine Cole</span></a> that reveal the seamy underside of adoption secrecy. Across the nation, searching adoptees and original parents have uncovered unimaginable deceit perpetrated on them by adoption brokers of every stripe: agencies, attorneys, doctors, and 'facilitators.' Safe in the knowledge that their deeds would not be uncovered, brokers have committed the most egregious of acts, from telling newly-delivered mothers their babies died to concealing children's medical histories to separating twins for double-the-money adoption fees and much more. Another common deceit, falsifying places of birth (including the state) and dates of birth – by as much as a year – on amended birth certificates has interfered with adoptees' eligibility for Medicare and other entitlements.</div>
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The down-and-dirty truth is that sealed adoption records and denying adult adoptees access to their own authentic birth certificates have formed a protective shield against responsibility and liability for those who have enjoyed total control over all facts - or fallacies - in adoption files for decades. It's no wonder many of them are engaged in a fierce battle to retain that control!</div>
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Not all brokers have enjoyed a permanent mantle of protection, however. As you will see in subsequent posts on this blog, adoption brokers' deeds have been publicly exposed and vigorously litigated in recent years. The chickens are coming home to roost! Examples in future posts.</div>
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The Adoption Diggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15586652169070015589noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733691678866467830.post-12532594915414113992011-01-16T08:03:00.000-08:002011-08-09T16:42:37.204-07:003: When Rights Came Close to Being Restored<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">For one brief and shining moment thirty years ago, adoptees caught a glimpse of the possibility having their civil rights restored.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The year was 1978. Jimmy Carter was President, and Joseph A. Califano, Jr., was Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare (now Health and Human Services). Under Califano's leadership, a panel of seasoned adoption experts from throughout the country was brought together for the purpose of drafting a Model State Adoption Act. Although such Act would have no federal teeth, it would be presented to, and recommended for, passage in each of the individual states.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Unbelievably, the original draft panel had no representation from either adoptees or original mothers – the two parties most intimately and permanently affected by adoption. With some effort, our adoption reform activists were able to get an adoptee, Joanne W. Small (Adoptees in Search, Bethesda, MD) and Lee H. Campbell (President, Concerned United Birthparents, Brewster, MA) included on the panel. Others were:</span></span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Executive Secretary to the Panel: </span></span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Diane D. Broadhurst, Children's Bureau, Administration for Children, Youth and Families, Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Washington, D.C. </span></span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Advisory Panel:</span></span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Albert Burstein, Panel Chairman</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Majority Leader, NJ General Assembly</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Sydney C. Dunca, Executive Dir.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Homes for Black Children</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Detroit, MI</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Mary Lee Campbell Allen</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Program Specialist - Child Welfare</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Children's Defense Fund</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Washington, D.C.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Elizabeth Cole, Director</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">North American Center on Adoption, Inc.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Child Welfare Leaghue of America (CWLA)</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">New York, NY</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Marie W. Copher, Chief</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">State Placement Unit</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Georgia Div. of Family and Children's Services Atlanta, GA</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Willie V. Small</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Director of Social Work</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Children's Services, Inc.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Philadelphia, PA</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Laurie M. Flynn, Exec. Dir.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">North American Council on Adoptable Children (NACAC) Washington, DC</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Linda Hanton, Staff Attorney</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Mexican American Legal Defense &amp; Educational Fund, Inc. San Francisco, CA</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Donald Lewis, Chairman</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">American Academy of Pediatrics</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Adoption &amp; Dependent Care Committee</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Seattle, WA</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Helen Ramirez, Director</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Los Angeles County Department of Adoption </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Los Angeles, CA</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Margaret A. Sullivan, Director</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Placement Division</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Catholic Charitable Bureau of Boston</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Boston, MA</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Kenneth W. Watson, Assistant Director</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Chicago Child Care Society</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Chicago, IL</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Thelma J. Stiffarm</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Native American Rights Fund</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Boulder, CO</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">John P. Steketee, Judge</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Kent County Juvenile Court</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Grand Rapids, MI</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Sproesser Wynn, Chairman</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">American Bar Association Committee on Adoption </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Fort Worth, TX</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">As you can see, the panel was well-rounded, representing all aspects of adoption and all geographic regions of the country.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The panel met a number of times over the early months of 1979, and among the provisions of the final draft were these:</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Title V</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Would have given adult adoptees, at age 18, unqualified right of access to their records. One of the sections of Title V, §504 (f) (2) states: </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">"It shall not be a violation of the privacy of a parent whose rights were terminated, for a record to reveal the identity of such parent to his adult son or daughter." </span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Section 507 </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">"The rights of access to records established by this Title shall have retroactive effect, and shall not be limited by reason of prior law or of assurances of confidentiality not required by this Act." </span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The panel expressed its philosophy in the statement: </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">"...that there can be no legally protected interest in keeping one's identity secret from one's biological offspring; parent and child are considered co-owners of the information regarding the event of birth." </span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Support for the Model State Adoption Act</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Here are some excerpts from letters written in support of the Model State Adoption Act: </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">"<i>I support vigorously the adoptee's right to have their records opened. For some time now, I have been opening records with tremendous success. Therefore, I support Title V of the Model State Adoption Act and urge that everything be done to insure its passage."</i> Robert B. Watts, Judge, Supreme Bench, Baltimore City </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><i>"In the name of mental health, which is consistent with freedom, understanding and love, we would like to keep that core of the Model Law that demolishes the stonewall which has so frustrated adopted adults search for identity."</i> Terry J. Zenner, Director, Catholic Social Services, Diocese of Lafayette, LA </span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><i>"If we believe in 'one nation, indivisible with liberty and justice for all', then we should fight to the end for that group of citizens who are adopted and who are deprived of fundamental decency and justice." </i>Wade S. Weatherford, Jr., Resident Judge, Circuit Court of South Carolina </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><i>"Not all adoptees will wish to know the birth parents, nor to meet her/him. But surely the option should be there as opposed to a rigid secrecy which can leave adoptees feeling that there is some monstrous secret in their past. We therefore applaid the concept of more open records..." </i>National Assn. of Social Workers</span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">War is Declared on the Model State Adoption Act</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Organized resistance to the Draft Model State Adoption Act (DMSAA) materialized in the person of Ruby Lee Piester, Executive Director of the Edna Gladney Home, the country's biggest and oldest maternity home/adoption agency, located in Ft. Worth, Texas. At the time, Gladney was a member of the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA).</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">When Piester learned of the provisions of the Draft Model State Adoption Act that restored identity rights to adoptees, she immediately began to badger CWLA to join her in organizing national resistance to that portion of the draft. She was unable to stir up any support for her proposed attack from either CWLA's leader or its board. Undaunted, Piester managed to stir up enough of a stink at Congressional hearings on the issue. At a Senate hearing, she met William L. Pierce, CWLA's Assistant Executive Director and head of the organization's Washington office. At last she had found an accomplice.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The offspring conceived of the union of Piester and Pierce was National Committee For Adoption (NCFA) - which later changed 'Committee' to the larger-sounding 'Council.'</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">According to a Pierce-written tribute to Piester in a </span><a href="https://www.adoptioncouncil.org/images/stories/documents/NAR%20Spring%2003.pdf"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">NCFA publication</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">, </span></span><br />
<blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><i>"</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #1a1a18; font-family: Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><i>This Act was produced in 1979 by a 'runaway' advisory committee... Because of the 'open records' provisions and other noxious elements in the Act, Ruby Lee correctly concluded that, if the DMSAA were to become law, domestic infant adoption would be snuffed out and tens of thousands of women who made adoption plans in previous decades would be betrayed."</i></span></span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #1a1a18; font-family: Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Interestingly, three short years after insisting she must protect the reputations of Gladney's previous residents by leading the battle against the DMSAA, Piester subjected the Home's current residents to a four-page promotional spread in Life magazine, including full frontal photos, that went into news stands and subscribers' homes everywhere. (Details in a future posting.)</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #1a1a18; font-family: Times;"></span>Piester and her agency, Gladney, provided $50,000 in "seed money" in 1980 to create a "new voice for adoption." The tribute goes on to say that Piester <i></i></span></span><br />
<blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><i>"raised money and awareness, enlisted adoption agencies across America to get involved, and handpicked some of Gladney's best volunteers to serve on NCFA's board."</i> </span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">And she asked Pierce to head the NCFA staff. Pierce brags: <i></i></span></span><br />
<blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><i>"Within two years, DMSAA was returned to its original focus on children with special needs. And NCFA was launched, a strong advocate for adoption, despite shaky finances."</i></span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Gladney Home and William Pierce both dropped out of Child Welfare League of America and declared war on the Draft Model State Adoption Act.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">What Piester brought to NCFA by way of finances and opposition-organization, Pierce provided by way of Washington DC savvy. Having formerly had a leadership position with the nation's largest child welfare organization, he had valuable experience as a lobbyist, something that would come in handy in building Congressional opposition to the DMSAA, and which neither the panel nor the newly-burgeoning adoptee rights organizations had at their disposal.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">National Committee For Adoption - In the Beginning</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Original elected officers for the newborn "strong advocate for adoption", in addition to Pierce (President) and Piester (Vice Chairman), were:</span></span></div>
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</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Chairman: William E. McKay, Pres., Fort Worth Chevrolet Dealership</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Secretary: Michael Barone, Political Analyst/Writer, Washington, DC</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Treasurer: Dr. Frank Mastrapasqua, Economist, Portfolio Investment Strategist, CT</span></span></div>
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</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">With that slate of officers, three of whom had neither experience with - nor expertise in - the field of adoption work, NCFA went head-to-head with the seasoned adoption experts represented on the Draft Model State Adoption Panel. Gladney's many 'auxiliaries,' comprised of its obligated adoptive parents, were urged to mount a massive letter-writing campaign through their member newsletters and Pierce set about creating and nurturing abortion fear among highly-sensitized legislators and National Right to Life activists.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">NCFA's efforts succeeded in gutting the portions of the Draft Model State Adoption Act that would have restored to adoptees their civil and sacred rights. </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Original NCFA Members</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The minutes from the organizational meeting indicate that membership was to be limited to <i>private</i> agencies. Ineligible, then, were state social service organizations, the very entities which are responsible for children in foster-care. This fact alone sets up a red flag of intent. Why would an organization that purported to focus on "children with special needs" choose to exclude from its membership the very agencies whose case loads were comprised of those children?</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Drop-outs from the original membership of NCFA soon included such prestigious agencies as Holt International Children's Services, Eugene, OR, and Spence Chapin, New York, NY, both of which were NCFA <i>charter members</i>. This, alone, says something about the lack of consensus among members regarding the organization's goals and purposes for existence.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">With regard to the restoration of adoptees' rights to their identities, both of those defecting charter member agencies are in support of adoptees' obtaining copies of their original birth certificates.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><b>National Adoption Organizations that Approve of Restoration of Adoptee Rights:</b></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Child Welfare League of America (CWLA)</span></b></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">American Adoption Congress (AAC)</span></b></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">North American Council on Adoptable Children (NACAC)</span></b></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">National Adoption Center (NAC)</span></b></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute</span></b></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Parents for Ethical Adoption Reform (PEAR)</span></b></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Adoptees’ Liberty Movement Association (ALMA)</span></b></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Concerned United Birthparents (CUB)</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">More to come.....stay tuned!</span></span></b></span></div>
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The Adoption Diggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15586652169070015589noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733691678866467830.post-36782296636661967952011-01-15T08:55:00.000-08:002013-01-24T08:15:57.244-08:004: Uniform Adoption Act: Thankfully DefeatedAs disappointing as it was to lose our battle for adoptee rights restoration by the gutting of the Draft Model State Adoption Act (see '<a href="http://adoptionsecrecytakingtheglovesoff.blogspot.com/2010/11/original-social-work-philosophy-on.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">When Rights Came Close to Being Restored</span></a>,') we would learn in the 1990s that things could have gotten a whole lot worse! And if it hadn't been for the diligence and hard work of our adoption reform activists, adoptees' rights could have been deep-sixed for over a generation.<br />
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<br /></div>
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Predictably, National Council For Adoption (NCFA) played a significant role in the horror that was to unfold. From its website, NCFA boasts: "In 1992, we educated policymakers on the need to pass the Uniform Adoption Act (UAA), which facilitated adoption placements and protected confidentiality in adoption."</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
<b>What was the Uniform Adoption Act, and how would it have impacted all of us?</b></div>
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Rather than expound on it here, I'll simply provide links to excellent sites that others have created in response to the Act and do a little commenting to augment them.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="http://www.plumsite.com/shea/uaa.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">This page</span></a> by Shea Grimm explains how the Act came to be drafted, who vigorously opposed it (besides us), and gives a brief summary of its provisions.</div>
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<br /></div>
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A good commentary on the Act can be found <a href="http://www.adopting.org/uniform.html"><span style="color: red;">here</span></a><span style="color: #4c1130;">.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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You can read the official UAA document for yourself <a href="http://www.law.upenn.edu/bll/archives/ulc/fnact99/1990s/uaa94.htm"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">here</span></a>.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">NCFA's View of the Uniform Adoption Act</span></b></div>
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If you do a Google search for the Uniform Adoption Act, one of the sites that's sure to show up early in the list is the adoption.com website. It is to be expected that NCFA would hasten to provide its interpretation of the UAA "facts" there. As expected, then, the text provided to describe UAA was credited as "Reprinted from the Encyclopedia of Adoption," a NCFA volume written by Christine Adamec and Bill Pierce.</div>
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Here, in part, is NCFA's interpretation:<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"></span></span><br />
<blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><i>Although there are many articles and publications in print and on the Internet describing the contents of the UAA, most are extremely biased. One of the best brief objective summaries is by Joel D. Tenenbaum, who served as the ABA liaison to the NCCUSL UAA committee.</i></span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"></span></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"></span><br />
<blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Despite the substantial differences of opinion that were aired during the drafting process, the NCCUSL aims to resolve issues by compromise and consensus. Therefore, each time the UAA was taken to the floor of the NCCUSL annual meeting, it was clear that there was a large majority in favor of the act and its recommended approaches to the controversial issues under consideration.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"></span></span></div>
<blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><i>The most heated debates, in both the drafting committee and on the floor at the annual meeting, had to do with access to sealed records. A minority of the drafting committee and a tiny percentage of the commissioners as a whole opposed the UAA recommendation that </i></span></span><a href="http://encyclopedia.adoption.com/entry/mutual-consent-registries/235/1.html"><span style="color: #393139; text-decoration: underline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><i>MUTUAL CONSENT REGISTRIES</i></span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><i> be used as the usual legal means whereby persons who had been involved in an adoption in which records had been sealed could indicate their interest in exchanging identifying information.</i></span></span></blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"></span></span></div>
<blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><i>Eventually, in 1994, the commissioners voted to approve the UAA and to promulgate it. Early in 1995, the ABA overwhelmingly endorsed the UAA. The </i></span></span><a href="http://encyclopedia.adoption.com/entry/National-Council-For-Adoption/243/1.html"><span style="color: #393139; text-decoration: underline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><i>NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR ADOPTION</i></span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><i> and a number of other organizations also endorsed the UAA.</i></span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"></span></span></div>
<blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><i>The American Academy of Adoption Attorneys, according to one of its past presidents, Samuel Totaro, Jr, by contract voted to ". . . disseminate the Uniform Adoption Act to the various states for its consideration." A substantial number of organizations that had participated in the process were unsuccessful in each instance in convincing the commissioners to accept their views on controversial issues, among them the American Adoption Congress, the Child Welfare League of America and Concerned United Birthparents. These groups launched a vigorous campaign to keep the UAA from being adopted by any state.</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"></span><br />
<blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><i>The outlook for the UAA is uncertain at this writing. Although it has been introduced in several states, there has been little or no organized support for the UAA either from NCCUSL commissioners in those states or from state affiliates of the ABA. By contrast, opponents of the UAA have utilized a variety of means to express their objections, and have staged protests and overwhelmed hearings. In the face of such uneven support, many state legislatures have either backed away from considering the UAA, or, in at least one instance, passed legislation directly opposed to key principles of the UAA, such as the privacy of adoption records.</i></span></blockquote>
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As the title of this blog indicates, the Uniform Adoption Act went down in flames. But we must not let down our guards. At any time, another attack could be launched against adoptee rights at the national level. </div>
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The time has come to change course from defensive to offensive. It's time to take off the gloves and begin exposing the character and deeds of those who seek to cover their tracks with sealed adoption records.</div>
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My next post will lay bare the character of one of the "players" in the UAA attempt.</div>
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The Adoption Diggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15586652169070015589noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733691678866467830.post-71158039593042536732011-01-14T07:37:00.000-08:002011-08-09T16:42:06.401-07:00Adoption Mafia? Adoption Cartel?<div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Two weeks before the United States signed the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption (which wasn't ratified until 2007 and enforced in 2008), a battle was raging in Washington between treaty-supporting and treaty-opposing factions. The latter insisted on the continuation of the status quo: privately-brokered foreign adoptions. The former supported the Hague Convention's agency-only provision that included the establishment of a federal authority to regulate and oversee its implementation.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">National Council For Adoption, with Bill Pierce leading the charge, was a Hague Convention proponent, and for admirable reasons, but that was only part of its enthusiastic support. NCFA envisioned itself being appointed - or anointed - as the regulating federal authority. Puffed up from over a decade of declaring its tiny clutch of private agencies </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">"the authoritative voice for adoption in the United States"</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> (from its website), NCFA had been positioning itself to make the biggest coup yet: international clout.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The battle between factions was described in an article in </span></span><i><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The Philadelphia Inquirer</span></span></b></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> on March 7, 1994. Here's an excerpt, beginning with the expressed concern of an adoptive mother who previously had adopted two children from Colombia with just the help of an attorney:</span></span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">She and others expressed worry about the treaty's requirement that the U.S. government establish a federal authority to regulate and oversee each of the 6,500 annual adoptions of foreign children by Americans.</span></i></blockquote>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">They're worried about the influence of a Washington lobbyist who represents the National Council for Adoptions, a private association that has been mistaken by at least three nations – Russia, Ethiopia and Poland – for a federal adoption clearinghouse.</span></i></blockquote>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Critics contend that the lobbyist, William Pierce, perpetuated that mistaken assumption. Pushed by complaints, the State Department last fall wrote to 50 nations explaining that the National Council for Adoptions was not an official agency and that governments could work with whomever they choose.</span></i></blockquote>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"I've been accused of running an adoption mafia, of trying to set up an adoption cartel," Pierce said. "It's absolutely nuts."</span></i></blockquote>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Pierce says he never misrepresented his organization, which charges 125 U.S. adoption agencies up to several thousand dollars to join. National Council for Adoptions researches and lobbies on adoption and provides information, for free, to the State Department.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Thankfully, NCFA was neither appointed nor anointed to oversee the Hague Convention protocols and enforcement. However, implementation of the Convention would eventually bite at least one NCFA member agency in the butt, as it had to desist its exportation of U.S.-born Gerber babies to Europe and elsewhere.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">More on this in the next post.</span></span></div>
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The Adoption Diggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15586652169070015589noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733691678866467830.post-58580995705602596992011-01-12T22:45:00.000-08:002012-02-09T08:42:01.788-08:00Smithlawn Maternity Home: First RICO Lawsuit<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzUJLE5Nmw4A34lpYuhyCdvTuM7Uzks3qZxNp50OBTjmmIApNA0cBaIhCN2yEGxHUXec-DHIKhvLGICEeiFLvjO2r4hp-L2uDe9vPnBHwt6Juvzps6jNEF6Cz0l0HOJU1HmA8JGm_70ME/s1600/Screen+shot+2010-11-25+at+1.01.03+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="115" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzUJLE5Nmw4A34lpYuhyCdvTuM7Uzks3qZxNp50OBTjmmIApNA0cBaIhCN2yEGxHUXec-DHIKhvLGICEeiFLvjO2r4hp-L2uDe9vPnBHwt6Juvzps6jNEF6Cz0l0HOJU1HmA8JGm_70ME/s320/Screen+shot+2010-11-25+at+1.01.03+PM.png" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Smithlawn has the dubious distinction of being the first adoption agency in the nation to be sued under the federal Racketeering and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In 1980, Smithlawn became a charter member of a fledgling organization formed to defeat the proposed Model State Adoption Act, which would have restored identity rights to adoptees. Then-named National Committee For Adoption (NCFA), representing a handful of private adoption agencies, dedicated itself to protecting alleged "promised confidentiality" of mothers who had surrendered children for adoption. (See Post #3, 'When Rights Came Close to Being Restored')</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">A little more than a decade later:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">April 21, 1992 (Page 17A)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Couple sue over 2 kids' health; agency declines to comment</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">By Tracy Everbach</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Staff Writer </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In 1988, Debra and Chris Burgess decided to adopt an infant boy and girl from a private Lubbock agency. Both children, the Burgesses say they were told, were healthy and had excellent backgrounds.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> But nearly four years later, the Nacogdoches couple’s children are not in excellent health. In fact, they need constant care.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0nybwHC0l9iKJG0yCbfJ0Boc3woeh7_2ojWaytDAS4jaYzJnBGokw7Ckttmu7tSGVEoMn-CYqbC5xH5qnq-ROGesGGGsU14lnN2CSr6ihQwpmdUwCtuTO9V2_Lxl_n3x_UlBhp33SWbg/s1600/Screen+shot+2010-11-27+at+10.04.57+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0nybwHC0l9iKJG0yCbfJ0Boc3woeh7_2ojWaytDAS4jaYzJnBGokw7Ckttmu7tSGVEoMn-CYqbC5xH5qnq-ROGesGGGsU14lnN2CSr6ihQwpmdUwCtuTO9V2_Lxl_n3x_UlBhp33SWbg/s320/Screen+shot+2010-11-27+at+10.04.57+AM.png" width="233" /></a> Three-year-old Caleb Aaron is mentally retarded and autistic. His sister, 4-year-old Sarah Suzanne, suffers from a brain disorder, a personality disorder and developmental problems.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> Only recently, say the Burgesses, did they learn that Sarah’s mother had serious behavioral problems and used drugs before and during pregnancy. They also discovered that Caleb had been delivered by forceps and vacuum and had undergone severe distress during birth.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> The children are at the center of a $105 million lawsuit that the Burgesses filed against Smithlawn Maternity Center. The couple allege that the agency’s employees lied to them, withheld information and denied them access to medical and other records.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> Smithlawn executive director Howard Hulett, who is named as a defendant in the case, said last week that he could not comment on the suit. He also declined to comment for two other Smithlawn employees named as defendants: Isla Whorton, the coordinator of adoption services, and Frances Phillips, director of maternity services.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> In their suit, the Burgesses allege that Smithlawn and its employees lied and withheld information in a pattern of corrupt actions that the couple contend should be prosecuted under federal racketeering statutes.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> According to their Dallas attorney, Neil Cogan, their claim is the first adoption suit in the country to be filed under those racketeering laws.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“People go to private adoption agencies expecting professionalism,” said Mr. Cogan, a Southern Methodist University law professor. “People think private agencies will be more forthcoming (than state agencies). Unfortunately, in a number of cases, they’ve been disappointed.”</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> As little as four years ago, adoptive parents in Texas were not entitled to see their children’s medical, educational, social and other records. A page or two of background information was usually all they received.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> “In many cases, no records were sent,” said Mr. Cogan, who filed a number of lawsuits on behalf of adopting families whose initially healthy children later required medical or psychological treatment.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> But in 1989, the Legislature passed laws requiring the release of specific information to potential adoptive parents. The information includes medical and psychological records and family health and criminal histories.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> “The reform allows folks to look at the records and decide if they can care for the child,” Mr. Cogan said.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> The Burgesses had previously filed a complaint against Smithlawn with the Texas Department of Human Services, which monitors 168 private and state-run facilities involved in child placement.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> Investigator Barbara Clark subsequently determined that Smithlawn had violated several state regulations in dealing with the Burgesses and other families. The agency, she said, “withheld vital information from adoptive parents, failed to provide needed medical treatment for a foster care child, divulged confidential information and pressured birth mothers to place their babies.”</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> In Smithlawn’s November 1991 answer to that report. Mr. Hulett said the home admitted no wrongdoing but had made policy changes and would comply with state regulations.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Not until last month, however, did the Burgesses receive complete medical records for Sarah, the couple say. They had received Caleb’s records 10 months earlier. The children’s records revealed their medical history.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicUs2CLIqi0hKhzEYUujXTtSwwqhHR1pfnUILLSs4OORBAaVhxERNQgf7BXtgK49gZjNrxtqI2dhy6XoiiFl_TVVsUHIz7Ncb80uuNBiwNaCb-ibYlLDqHqx2K91_vwh8WNA94V6wLKFM/s1600/Screen+shot+2010-11-27+at+1.28.44+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicUs2CLIqi0hKhzEYUujXTtSwwqhHR1pfnUILLSs4OORBAaVhxERNQgf7BXtgK49gZjNrxtqI2dhy6XoiiFl_TVVsUHIz7Ncb80uuNBiwNaCb-ibYlLDqHqx2K91_vwh8WNA94V6wLKFM/s320/Screen+shot+2010-11-27+at+1.28.44+PM.png" width="320" /></a> The family’s lawsuit says that it will cost about $250,000 a year to care for the children. Mrs. Burgess now cares for them at home. Her husband, who has worked as a laborer, was injured last year in an automobile accident and also is at home. They recently moved from Memphis, Tenn., to be near relatives who could help them financially and emotionally, Mr. Cogan said. The couple could not be reached for comment.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> They are receiving some state money to help care for the children, but it’s not nearly enough, Mr. Cogan said. “They live very, very modestly,” he said.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> In their federal lawsuit, the family also sued Lubbock lawyer George Thompson III, contending that he had a conflict of interest when he represented them during the 1988 adoptions. The Burgesses say he failed to tell them that he sat on Smithlawn’s board of directors.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> Mr. Thompson did not return a telephone call to his office.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> • – • – •</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Follow up stories:</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Story 2</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS, 02/13/93, Page 35A</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Adoption agency to pay parents over $1 million</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Tracy Everbach, Staff Writer of The Dallas Morning News</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">A couple who sued a Lubbock adoption agency last year, alleging that it failed to disclose the health problems of two infants they adopted, will receive more than $1 million.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> Debra and Chris Burgess of Nacogdoches, Texas, and their children, Caleb Aaron, 4, and Sarah Suzanne, 5, were awarded the damages in a settlement approved Friday by U.S. District Judge Jorge Solis of Dallas.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> The parents had accused Smithlawn Maternity Center of Lubbock and three officials of lying, withholding information and denying them access to records about their children. The agency and its employees did not admit to any fraudulent acts, but they agreed in the settlement to pay damages for failing to provide medical information to the parents before the adoptions.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> In the lawsuit, the family said that it would cost about $250,000 a (year? - unreadable/blurry on original news clipping photocopy)...Sarah, who suffers from a brain disorder, personality disorder and developmental problems.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> Not until last year -- four years after the 1988 adoptions -- did the Burgesses learn that Sarah's mother had behavioral problems and used drugs before and during the pregnancy. They also discovered that Caleb had been delivered by forceps and vacuum, and had undergone severe distress during birth.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> Under Texas laws passed in 1989, potential adoptive parents must be provided such information as medical, psychological and family health records.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> The parents also sued Lubbock lawyer George Thompson III, maintaining that he had a conflict of interest in representing them during the adoptions because he sat on Smithlawn's board of directors. Under the settlement, he must pay the family $25,000 in damages. Three Smithlawn officials must pay $25,000 each, and the adoption agency must pay $950,000.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">STORY 3</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS, 04/15/96, Page 18A</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Pregnant women's home struggling with changes</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Associated Press</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">LUBBOCK - The face of adoption has changed drastically since Frances Phillips began taking in pregnant South Plains women 36 years ago. In the years since, attitudes, laws and situations have changed, and the struggle to keep pace has meant some problems for Ms. Phillips and her Smithlawn Maternity Home.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> State regulators who put the home on probation for six months say Smithlawn has cleared up most of its problems, but what began in 1960 as an in-home foster program has seen its share of trials since.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> "Everything is in flux," Ms. Phillips said.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> Adoptive parents who recently lost custody of a 2-month-old baby girl to her birth father have sued the home, and it's not the first court battle for Ms. Phillips.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> But Smithlawn's problems aren't unusual and they aren't serious, state child welfare officials say.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> "In general, some [adoption] agencies have had a more difficult time than others in recognizing that there has been a change in our culture, that more and more women are choosing to . . .single-parent their children," said Nanci Gibbons, who oversees facilities such as Smithlawn for the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> Mrs. Gibbons downplayed a report filed a year ago that said Smithlawn wasn't doing a good job of telling mothers-to-be what alternatives to adoption were available.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> The inspector also was "concerned that birth mothers are continuing to be told they do not have to name the father of the child."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> A Texas Tech student entered the home, and her baby was adopted by a Dallas-Fort Worth couple without the father's consent.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> Last week, Michael Hernandez, 19, won custody of the infant, resulting in a tear-filled courtroom scene in which the adoptive family gave the baby to Mr. Hernandez. The judge ordered Smithlawn to pay all legal fees involved in the case.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioy7o5aPr6qfNBfyl6PzbJrW7YPK9RRslnc88kEtmY-1oNjeIlaJ4NO-_5GOQGj80drXCHe07WgLBo6LDEtn-rVYAnpn9KYx5KpT4V3EnjuvYwaue8ke924A7gtFDYU6gz5tfRv232AcA/s1600/Screen+shot+2010-11-27+at+11.06.14+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioy7o5aPr6qfNBfyl6PzbJrW7YPK9RRslnc88kEtmY-1oNjeIlaJ4NO-_5GOQGj80drXCHe07WgLBo6LDEtn-rVYAnpn9KYx5KpT4V3EnjuvYwaue8ke924A7gtFDYU6gz5tfRv232AcA/s320/Screen+shot+2010-11-27+at+11.06.14+AM.png" width="320" /></a> Smithlawn settled the last lawsuit filed against it four years ago, when a Nacogdoches couple said that the home didn't tell them of their two adopted children's medical problems.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> A state investigation then found the home withheld medical information from adoptive parents and actively steered women toward adoption. The investigation resulted in a six-month probation, which Ms. Gibbons said is one step short of license revocation.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> Ms. Phillips said the autism the couple cited doesn't show up until after birth, making their suit groundless.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> Changes in the adoption market also are putting the squeeze on Smithlawn. Ms. Gibbons and Ms. Phillips agree fewer women are choosing adoption, but services offering adoption have increased more than threefold over the past 10 years, from 60 to 200. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> "It is a business, and there is money to be made," Ms. Gibbons said. Parents who aim advertisements directly at pregnant women to bypass adoption services such as Smithlawn hurt the nonprofit agency as well, Ms. Phillips said.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> A home that once housed 16 mothers and was placing others in private homes now averages about nine mothers at a given time. But the home still plays an important community role, supporters say.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> "Frances told me that about half of the children they place are minority or mixed-race kids," said Bill Pierce of the National Council for Adoption, ". . . if you look at a lot of adoption placement folks, you will perhaps not find a similar kind of picture."</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> • – • – •</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Serious Ethics Issues</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">For an allegedly 'Christian' agency, there are issues involved here that are totally incongruous with both Christian ethics and the <i>"sound ethical policies and practices"</i> touted by the organization it helped to form in 1980.</span></div>
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<ol>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Exerting pressure on mothers-to-be who come to them for help to forgo their own God-given maternal instincts so that others, deemed to be more deserving, could enjoy the blessings of parenthood. It's pretty difficult to picture Jesus approving of this.</span></li>
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<li>Disenfranchising fathers in defiance of laws designed to protect their interests in their own children.</li>
<li>Risking failed adoptions and creating heartbreak for adoptive parents by trying to sneak adoptions through without acquiring legal consent of fathers.</li>
<li>Concealing and/or lying about medical backgrounds in infants it placed.</li>
<li>Permitting an attorney member of its own board of directors to represent a couple filing suit against them.</li>
<li>Bowing to the dog-eat-dog pressures of "the adoption market" that was "putting the squeeze on them" by lowering itself to the least common denominator of professional practice.</li>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Questions:</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">How objective could this agency have been in counseling women with problem pregnancies when there was an admitted decrease in the supply of adoptable babies but a more than three-fold increase in adoption brokers competing for them? When a 'live one' walked through their door asking for help, what were her chances of getting impartial advice, including parenting assistance?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I ask you to superimpose this picture over the New Testament of our Holy Bible and tell me how it fits with the teachings of Christ or His Disciples. Is this <i>really</i> what Our Lord taught us?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I think not.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">CONTINUED: To read additional accounts of NCFA member agencies conducting unethical practices, click on individual agencies listed on archive column, under the numbered entries.</span></div>
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</div>The Adoption Diggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15586652169070015589noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733691678866467830.post-57624861031297622912011-01-12T16:31:00.000-08:002019-06-26T11:22:21.494-07:00Adoptions by Choice: First Degree Grand Theft<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000; font-family: "georgia";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I pondered in the previous post why agencies might be attracted to membership in National Council For Adoption (NCFA), an organization formed for the specific purpose of preventing adoptees from learning the truth of their origins. One reason for the attraction may be demonstrated by the agency I'm featuring today.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Consider: If adoptive families and families of birth could be prevented from coming in contact with one another at some future time, they can't compare notes on their adoption process or the agency that brokered it. The adoptive parents can't learn, for example, that the exorbitant amount of money they paid for "birth mother expenses" went, instead, into the pocket of the agency's director. The birth mother can't reveal to the adoptive parents that her medical expenses, in fact, had been paid by private insurance or Medicaid. It makes the deal just so much sweeter for the agency if these little insignificant details don't have to surface.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">So must have thought Debra West, director of </span></span><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Adoptions By Choice</span></span></i></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">, of Tampa, Florida, who </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; font-size: medium;"><a href="http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/ex-adoption-agency-director-debra-w-west-pleads-guilty-to-bilking-adoptive/1047045" target="_blank">pleaded guilty</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> in 2008 to defrauding dozens of adoptive parents out of $178,000 for bogus birth mother medical and living expenses. Had it not been for the discovery of these phony charges by agency employees, and their reporting same to law enforcement, West might just have gotten away with it - at least a little longer. </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Being a member of an organization that lobbies to protect agency secrets like hers surely would be worth the annual membership dues.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Although the criminal charges brought against West were for thefts that occurred from specific dates from 2002 to 2005, her activities allegedly stretched back to the mid-1990s. An</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #330000;"> </span><span style="color: red;"><a href="http://poundpuplegacy.org/node/29436" target="_blank">article</a></span><span style="color: red;"> </span><span style="color: #330000;">in the St. Petersburg Times reports:</span></span></span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Also, Thursday's arrest is not the first time ABC's finances have come to the attention of law enforcement.</span></span></i></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office investigated ABC in the </span></span></i><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">mid 1990s</span></span></i></b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> after former ABC workers complained that adoptive parents were often charged for bogus birth mother expenses. In one case, a Pinellas judge threw out $30,000 in supposed medical expenses when ABC could not provide documentation.</span></span></i></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">One former worker told authorities that she discovered several copies of "checks" to mothers in her files that couldn't match up with bills because they were written out of sequence.</span></span></i></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The investigation was dropped because the adoptive parents, who were the alleged victims, refused to cooperate.</span></span></i></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Reclaimed Babies</span></span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">In addition to West's fraud and theft, there was the matter of the 11 infants her agency had to take back from adoptive placements due to her trying, unsuccessfully, to outfox birth fathers. Still another case – 'Baby Sam' – made U.S. headlines for five years, as the father and adoptive parents battled for custody in the courts in two states. According to one </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">news account</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">, </span></span></div>
<blockquote>
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">"West and ABC's lawyer knew about the (father's custody) suit, but pushed the adoption through in Tampa anyway without telling Hillsborough authorities."</span></span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">This same account quotes a former agency employee who worked with mothers: </span></span></div>
<blockquote>
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">"At ABC, you did whatever the girl wanted," Free said. "I didn't ask her about the birth father or anything. I never knew it was important."</span></span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">One of ABC's father-bypass tricks was used in the Baby Sam case. According to the news account mentioned just above,</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><i></i></span></span></div>
<blockquote>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">His biological mother went to ABC a few weeks before the birth and said she didn't know who the father was, which was a lie. State law required ABC to seek out the father with newspaper ads. Though Baby Sam's mother lived in Pinellas County, ABC advertised for an unknown father in a small paper that circulates only in Hillsborough County.</span></span></i></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">"We publish in the county where the agency is located,'' West said.</span></span></i></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Social Worker Tells it Like it Was</span></span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">So how about ABC's treatment of mothers? Is it possible this agency had the protection of birth mothers' "confidentiality" in mind when they hooked elbows with NCFA, stalwart keeper of birth mother virtues?</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">That question would be humorous if it weren't so monumentally preposterous.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Two former ABC social workers described conditions of their employment thus: </span></span></div>
<blockquote>
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">...</span></span></i><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">they said birth mothers were pressured to give up babies, sometimes by workers who stood by their side as labor coaches.</span></span></i></blockquote>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">"Every time a girl chose to keep the baby, we were called into the office and asked: What did you do wrong?'' said St. Petersburg resident Christy Hallas, who worked at ABC from 1990 to late 1992.</span></span></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">And this:</span></span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">In her last case, Hensley said, a birth mother was in labor when the father called to say she had changed her mind about adopting. Assistant director Nancy Nagelhout "told me to offer her services as a labor coach to further enhance her bond to me,'' Hensley said. "She reminded me how I would be saving a child from a terrible life.''</span></span></i></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">After Hensley refused, she said, Nagelhout drove to the hospital, two counties away, trying to secure the mother's signature.</span></span></i></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">"When a girl went to the hospital, you basically went there and you camped out,'' said Clearwater resident Elise Free, a birth mother worker who left at the end of 1993. "I remember not feeling comfortable. But I felt pressure from Debra and Nancy. You were to sign a surrender as soon as possible. The sooner the better because you didn't want her to change her mind.''</span></span></i></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Another Ponzi Shell Game</span></span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Like <b><i>Commonwealth Adoptions International</i></b> (previous post), </span><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Adoptions By Choice</span></i></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> made no secret of the fact that the only way they could keep afloat was to bring in more paying clients on the front end of the operation.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">As a result of the debacle that was the Baby Sam case, both the father and the adoptive parents sued </span><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Adoptions By Choice</span></i></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> and won settlements of confidential amounts. (The father also sued ABC's attorney for $1.1 million and received a separate settlement from him.) However, according to the </span><a href="http://www.sptimes.com/News/012301/TampaBay/Dad__adoption_agency_.shtml"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">St. Petersburg Times</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">, Jan. 23, 2001:</span></span></div>
<blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It's unclear whether </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Adoption By Choice <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">(sic)</span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">, still in business despite the additional financial burdens, and Boyer (ABC's attorney) have paid any of the settlements.</span></i></span></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Anthony Marchese, the Johnsons' Tampa attorney, said his clients were told that the agency could not pay them until it received payments from new couples willing to adopt. </span></i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It's not likely there would be any new clients; the agency's license was due to expire a few months later, on May 1. And who would trust an agency that had it's fraudulent activities broadcast far and wide for five years?</span></span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Lawmakers vs. Private Adoption Agencies</span></span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">An </span></span><a href="http://www.a-team.org/adoption.txt"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">editorial</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">published in the </span></span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">March 29, 1998 </span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">issue of the </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">St. Petersburg Times</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> describes the battle between adoption reform legislation attempts and the lucrative adoption industry flourishing in Florida. Please note the date of this editorial and the mention – ten years before Debra West pleaded guilty to grand theft – of the accusations made against </span><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Adoptions By Choice</span></i></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">. </span></span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Lawmakers in Tallahassee are making headway on a much-needed overhaul of Florida's adoption system, but private adoption agencies are already mobilizing for a fight. And no wonder. Some adoption agencies and lawyers are milking the system for all it's worth, and they are not eager to be weaned. In a particularly cynical move, they are now using their adoptive-parent clients as fronts, betting that lawmakers would be reluctant to disappoint desperate couples willing to pay high premiums for the chance to adopt a healthy newborn. </span></span></i></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Legislators should not be fooled. If anything, the lobby's self-interest scheme should stiffen the state's resolve to put more safeguards in a system that for too long has escaped adequate oversight and regulation. Left mostly to their own devices, private agencies and lawyers have fostered an adoption system that comes close to baby-selling, with high costs to all parties involved -- except the middlemen, of course. </span></span></i></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">As detailed in a recent report by the Times' Stephen Nohlgren, ex-employees of Tampa's </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Adoption By Choice</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> say adoptive parents are snookered into paying thousands of dollars in bogus expenses, while birth mothers are pressured into giving up their babies within hours after delivery -- with no chance to change their minds -- and birth fathers are kept in the dark until it's too late. The rush to get the birth mother to sign away her rights, and the failure to notify the birth father of his, only increase the risk that the adoption will later be challenged. </span></span></i></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">A comprehensive measure recently approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee could change the system for the better. By strengthening the rights of birth parents early on, it gives adoptive parents -- and, most important, the child -- greater stability later. </span></span></i></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The bill would give birth mothers time to reconsider their decisions. A pregnant woman who has signed a contract to put her newborn up for adoption may change her mind once the baby arrives. Women should not be pressured to give their consent from the hospital bed, when emotions are high and resistance is low. Under the proposed legislation, birth mothers would have a week after delivery to reflect on their decision -- and to back out of an adoption contract if they changed their minds. </span></span></i></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The measure also would give birth fathers notice of adoption plans. The "Baby Sam" case, involving a Palm Harbor man's still-ongoing attempt to regain custody of his natural son from an Alabama couple, is only the latest example of the instability and heartbreak that can result when adoptions proceed without the birth father's consent. This bill would require greater efforts to locate and to hear from those fathers. </span></span></i></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Membership in National Council For Adoption to the Rescue?</span></span></b></div>
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</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">This may explain why Debra West saw fit to enroll </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Adoptions By Choice</span></i></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> in the membership of National Council For Adoption. A battle was raging to reform Florida's adoption laws, and not only were West's golden eggs in jeopardy – the geese that laid them were in danger of getting away. In addition to protecting her many incriminating secrets, the drastic changes these proposed reforms would bring would seriously curtail her baby procurement practices. She needed a bigger gun than those of her Florida agency cohorts. Who better to help her keep the lid on than NCFA?</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">We know that </span><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Adoptions By Choice</span></i></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> was a NCFA member in 1996, </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000; font-size: medium;">the year Baby Sam was born and illegally placed with a Georgia couple and </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000; font-size: medium;">two years before the above editorial was published. How? We know it from the 'Directory of Member Agencies' that was downloaded from the NCFA website on September 9, 1996, as shown on the following documents: the cover page and the first page of member agency listings, beginning with Alabama. (Crossed-out agencies were noted because they were absent in a subsequent NCFA member list.) Notice the download date and time on the upper left corner of each. It also shows up, more clearly, on the bottom of the cover page, which I've enlarged here:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5543498433111253410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAjYsz8A7yBi9zh4hfiH-p-LER8YMqB166DJLsC-df5OX8XvDoV-pJopn8k8mdRjFdsGxypp0jmuo26c5iSULE3B2b4OiCWfqpP1vHZ6eIazhnpowVGObApkmCE9kppor7-jfoxD807Xc/s400/Screen+shot+2010-11-25+at+9.43.14+AM.png" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 98px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center; width: 284px;" /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5543319105377405394" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipqYAtDMtNVgjgQOk1OraG3EydD4yvRKEHFwRP9pUOYlk-gHaBfKI_U8Avlq9pl0fu4FN53yHGoZBx20SmTKZWyOeNLaOWRLOYjUv5_-xj7lU0i7AmPbIDx3jYJVRjxIskO0dGZpV2cN4/s400/Members+Cover+1996.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center; width: 294px;" /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5543563312366867858" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhla77LbyN1YcQLd7zNW2-Fwy2EvBFDz1e3HBwykrZEUHzFZiUKpUUdmJ2aPrj-v18dcFJ_00nb3tN8QUp1-y1g9LMn8gqH-Hr-rX1imq8ceb1uIxMo1sZVawxQ5jVNUoft06LCSo5bXgQ/s400/Enlarged.png" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 239px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">(I'm sorry these can't be enlarged; I uploaded the largest version permitted.)</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">By way of disclaimer, I make no accusation that National Council For Adoption either knew of the illegal activities of Debra West at the time her agency became a member or that NCFA would have approved of such activities had it known. Neither do I imply that all agencies which join NCFA have ulterior motives like those I suspect Debra West of having.</span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Perhaps the greatest point I wish to make is that, since NCFA has no vetting process for the agencies which bring their own agendas</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> to the membership table</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">, NCFA is neither capable of, nor authorized to, "credential" any agency for anything. (See credential claim on <b><i>Commonwealth</i></b> post.) It is, quite simply, a lobbying organization whose clients are members of the out-of-control adoption industry.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #330000;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Next:</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> One of NCFA's charter members sued under federal racketeering laws.</span></span></div>
The Adoption Diggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15586652169070015589noreply@blogger.com57tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733691678866467830.post-57930547653388799302011-01-11T12:46:00.000-08:002015-01-22T11:48:04.657-08:00Commonwealth Adoptions International<div style="text-align: left;">
What qualifies an agency to join National Council For Adoption? Is there any kind of vetting process that NCFA utilizes to screen out agencies that don't measure up to its allegedly high standards? Or does an agency qualify for membership by simply paying its dues?</div>
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Well, one thing we know for sure: Even though NCFA is a sponsoring organization of the Council on Accreditation (COA), and even though it gives its membership 25% discounts on "certain COA fees," COA accreditation is not a requirement for NCFA membership. And if you'd care to check for the <a href="http://www.coanet.org/front3/page.cfm?sect=7&show=org&showState=USA&ctry=3892"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">COA accredited organizations</span></a> throughout the US, you'll find only a tiny handful of NCFA members.</div>
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It appears that NCFA membership, in and of itself, "credentials an agency as a professional, licensed operation among its peers." From NCFA's website:</div>
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<img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOKstUfKlt0AIpmIF32JUtxF3k_8zHnHTnyt48UUzaQbTdwAH9x-_kWuquj7yCiSZXoZwyZvz3Y0ubLeQUWk6X75K2lAG7cO5w8Ca2qEwkhW9v6-1y93PJFzAcWJG-GeiILmBHkuV7KCU/s400/NCFAmember%253Acredential.png" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5541745728791281170" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 187px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></div>
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So are the agencies that join NCFA already corrupt and just manage to sneak in somehow, or do they become corrupted after they've been "credentialed" by NCFA? It's hard to tell, but one would be hard pressed to find a national organization with as many tainted members as NCFA.</div>
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To begin with, a count on its website in late August 2010 revealed it only had 58 member agencies, not counting satellite offices. So when agency after agency makes national headlines for their unethical - and even illegal - policies and practices, NCFA's credentials don't amount to much.</div>
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Commonwealth Adoptions International of Tucson, AZ, was one of those agencies. It was welcomed into membership by NCFA in the summer of 2006.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRF-WFoNYNb4tJM-yCf3TXEK8Q5odlRtJz5YBExtvJ-hV2WbWxg-YciqAOIPgnY11uaTHHjyjuwz_iN054kV77tK_LKppwSF4tDUJQYOMT9Mx-nUhFc-6iWeiBrctgyGu5i8x_tsLEKLM/s400/NCFA+Welcomes+Summer+2006.jpg" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5542105042056264514" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center; width: 354px;" /></span></div>
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Two years later, Arizona's Attorney General Terri Goddard was filing suit against Commonwealth after it filed for bankruptcy, sticking prospective adoptive parents for $215,000 in unrefunded placement fees.</div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Attorney general seeks to get money back for families from adoption company</span></b></div>
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<a href="http://tucsoncitizen.com/morgue/2008/11/19/102995-attorney-general-seeks-to-get-money-back-for-families-from-adoption-company/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">Tucson Citizen</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, Nov. 19, 2008</span></div>
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<i>Local families that lost thousands of dollars when an international adoption agency went out of business have a chance of getting reimbursed.</i></div>
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<i>State Attorney General Terry Goddard filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Commonwealth Adoptions International Inc., saying it violated the Arizona Consumer Fraud Act, according to a news release from his office.</i></div>
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<i>Goddard said the adoption agency, which operated out of Tucson and three other locations, failed to refund nearly $215,000 to families when it closed July 31. The suit names the agency as well as its president, Marina Mayhew; its director of operations, Dawn Hill; and board members Jim Sellers, James Mayhew, Dan Bish and William Hundelang, the release said.</i></div>
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<i>Commonwealth’s closure initially left 340 families, including 44 from Tucson, in the midst of the international adoption process in the lurch, said the Arizona Department of Economic Security, which handles adoption agency licensing.</i></div>
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<i>Goddard said about two dozen Arizona families requested refunds when they never received the services promised by Commonwealth.</i></div>
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<i>Refunds were denied, he said, for various reasons, one of which was the agency had pooled the money and used fees paid by one set of parents to finance adoption services for other families.</i></div>
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<i>One set of prospective parents in Goddard’s lawsuit, who were not named, paid the agency as much as $11,200 for services that were never rendered, according to court documents.</i></div>
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<i>Goddard’s lawsuit aims to prohibit the defendants from conducting future business in Arizona and to make monetary restitution for damages.The lawsuit says the defendants should be required to pay $10,000 for each violation of the Consumer Fraud Act, fully refund fees collected from each family that was defrauded and pay the state for all investigative costs and legal fees.</i></div>
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<i>Commonwealth’s demise came soon after the agency was denied accreditation under the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoptions.</i></div>
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<i>The convention, designed to prevent illegal trafficking of children, set higher standards that agencies and parents had to meet for international adoptions. It went into effect April 1.</i></div>
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<i>Tucsonan Tom Stevens and his wife took the agency to court in 2006 after their efforts to adopt a child from Colombia failed. Colombian authorities require an extensive psychological evaluation of prospective parents before any adoption is approved.</i></div>
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<i>Stevens, 64, said the evaluation came back with statements that were not true, and he brought it to his caseworker at Commonwealth with the hopes of refuting the evaluation or getting it redone.</i></div>
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<i>Instead, he said, the caseworker submitted it to Colombia, and the adoption process was terminated. The court awarded the Stevenses $1,100 in a partial refund of Commonwealth fees, records show.</i></blockquote>
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Notice that the Stevens case was brought against Commonwealth the very year it became a "credentialed" member of National Council For Adoption - 2006.</div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Ponzi Scheme?</span></b></div>
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There isn't a whole lot of difference between the way Commonwealth dealt with its prospective parents and the way Bernie Madoff dealt with his investors: use the funds from new clients to pay the dividends/adoption expenses of previous clients. When the emphasis of an adoption agency is on finding foreign babies and toddlers for would-be parents instead of finding parents for U.S. children who need them – of which there is an endless supply, to say the least – the house of cards tumbles quickly when the supply of foreign babies dries up.</div>
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Quoting Arizona Attorney General Goddard from 'Everything Arizona,' on <b>abc 15.com</b>, '<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090218163627/http://www.abc15.com/content/news/investigators/story/State-sues-local-adoption-agency-couples-lose/czeV6HNzU06wkkOaY7p6GQ.cspx" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">State sues local adoption agency; couples lose thousands</span></a>':</div>
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<i>“Although they no longer could get children, they continued to open their doors and to take deposits from perspective (sic) adoptive parents,” said Goddard. </i><i>Goddard says the agency lost its international certification. That certification allowed it to adopt children from overseas. No certification, yet it allegedly continued to take couple’s money.</i></div>
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<i>“They knew to a fact that they weren’t going to provide these adoptive parents with children,” said Goddard.</i></div>
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By early fall, angry Commonwealth clients were swarming on the <a href="http://www.adoptionagencyratings.com/commonwealth-adoptions-international-inc.htm"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">adoptionagencyratings.com</span></a> website, sharing their horror stories and discussing with an attorney the possibility of filing a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) lawsuit. As of this writing, I have been unable to learn whether a RICO case was actually brought against Commonwealth. However, if such a suit was filed, it would be the fourth such case filed against a member agency of National Council For Adoption.</div>
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More about those actions in future postings.</div>
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The Adoption Diggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15586652169070015589noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733691678866467830.post-25712889962848546662011-01-10T12:57:00.000-08:002015-01-23T05:53:54.510-08:00Adoption House and Harlan Tenenbaum<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: -webkit-xxx-large;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Tenenbum's Deep Affiliation with National Council For Adoption</span></span></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><b>"Unparalleled Expertise and Integrity"</b></span></span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">"...gentle hands-on approach and expansive vision of adoption, establish him as</span></i></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">one of the nation's foremost authorities on adoption today."</span></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">For a few years, Harlan Tenenbaum was a bright and shining star in the crown of National Council For Adoption. Among</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium;"> Harlan's other <a href="http://www.jcrisconsultinggroup.com/teambios/TenenbaumBIO.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">achievements and awards</span></a>, he served as NCFA's legal advisor and helped to develop the federally-funded </span><span style="color: #ff1d17; font-family: Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Infant Adoption Training Program</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium;"> (IATP), bringing NCFA a handsome $6.1 million grant "...to develop a national program curriculum consistent with the best-practices guidelines and implement a national training program based on that curriculum."</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: ArialMT; font-size: 9pt;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium;">. IATP's stated goal was:</span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">To develop and implement programs to train designated staff of eligible health centers in providing adoption information and referrals to pregnant women on an equal basis with all other courses of action included in non-directive counseling to pregnant women.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Harlan subsequently served as an IATP instructor in Delaware.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">He apparently represented NCFA's tenets well. <a href="http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/tgr/07/3/gr070310.html"><span style="color: red;">Reviews</span></a> of the training program by attendees reported:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Kelly
McBride of Planned Parenthood of Indiana noted the exclusive and "constant
focus on 'child-centered' counseling" and "how to inform clients that adoption
is a 'good choice for the child.'" She said she was given "tips and
techniques...about how to work against [women's] resistance, make them
proud of their decision and convince them that adoption is a good choice." One
family planning provider from Planned Parenthood of Collier Country, Florida,
said she was told to repeatedly bring up adoption as an option, even if a
woman says she is not interested. These examples border on coercion and
clearly violate both Title X guidelines and principles of medical ethics.</i></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Another key criticism was the negative lens through which trainers viewed
clients. Marquardt noted that counselors were encouraged "to identify clients
as deluded, not living in the real world, not being practical, participating in self-
betrayal, being ignorant, and generally being unable to make good choices,
unless...it's the choice the counselor would make for the client." He
commented that such a negative view of the client is counterproductive, by
preventing the counselor from establishing a constructive rapport with the
client or aiding the client to make the choice that is best for her. </i></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Not only was Adoption House a member of NCFA, but it was actually the stepchild of another NCFA member, Adoption Associates, Inc., headquartered in Jenison, Michigan. In a 1999 Adoption Associates newsletter, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Accept Adoption</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">, founder and president Richard Van Deelen boasts:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifkJMU-kyRMGowDPj8ufybuc-LJm36AdPt_nR9rLt-SXOQ0N_nEFGwreI0mNI3giWnSDQWGx2v9CVpvph0AC1L2KQcAeWqnI7JUNaLSpEV8pHkoI8KZN79hV-OVoWhRB3pEDK9BwqpLZk/s1600/02.png"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifkJMU-kyRMGowDPj8ufybuc-LJm36AdPt_nR9rLt-SXOQ0N_nEFGwreI0mNI3giWnSDQWGx2v9CVpvph0AC1L2KQcAeWqnI7JUNaLSpEV8pHkoI8KZN79hV-OVoWhRB3pEDK9BwqpLZk/s320/02.png" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5540629682721973442" style="cursor: pointer; height: 320px; width: 188px;" /></a></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB0YURUvUEki7cuXSHFADMOG2cwQ4qQW24r7rnlIt35uQE-kHwCpsBFIocTOrnL5AjLIpAL5oFzuSxuHJNLH7TrismhkIUA9iORJJiWfqMwcivj6qbYumn6od_-I09RmSN4eVTgQyD6F0/s1600/Adoption+House+tie+to+Adoption+Associates.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB0YURUvUEki7cuXSHFADMOG2cwQ4qQW24r7rnlIt35uQE-kHwCpsBFIocTOrnL5AjLIpAL5oFzuSxuHJNLH7TrismhkIUA9iORJJiWfqMwcivj6qbYumn6od_-I09RmSN4eVTgQyD6F0/s400/Adoption+House+tie+to+Adoption+Associates.jpg" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5540684113603013682" style="cursor: pointer; height: 380px; width: 396px;" /></a></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Van Deelen's history with NCFA goes back to at least 1984, when he testified, along with Bill Pierce, on behalf of NCFA in a Senate hearing. More about Adoption Associates in a forthcoming posting.</span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Back to Harlan Tenenbaum</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Something was out of synch between the achievement/award persona projected on his and his step-parent agency's websites and that of the one that managed Adoption House. Adoptive parents and prospective parents had little good to say about either Harlan Tenenbaum or his agency. A good example is the fiasco at a 'Babies R Us' store on 'Adoption Day' 2007. '</span><a href="http://dagerhart.blogspot.com/2007/11/nightmare.html"><span style="color: #ff1d17;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Nightmare!</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">' describes the arrogance and total insensitivity of this man and the effect his behavior had on one prospective adoptive couple.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.9722px;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib5F-4YEFbG54Z_SElgPhjlHpcPMZE6rXFB9VSRBCu8brrVKsWARHXRiFZ7886Nk9aIN4aiUx6mk1Jz2La37VWSJLKTRGRufRETmJIiKsOv9jgCawXAJV3qfkXq2LBsG_rIP9BTAsfEdY/s1600/Nightmare.jpg" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5540678367955008226" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"></span></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">On the website</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span><a href="http://www.adoptionagencyratings.com/adoption-house.htm"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Adoption Agency Ratings</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">, Adoption House drew an average of one star out of a possible 5, with allegations of unexplained additional fees, "emotional blackmail," inept agency counselors and more.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">More telling, however, is what happened in the summer of 2008, as described by shocked Adoption House clients:</span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Some couples did report being notified of the agency's closing, but missing in those cases was any explanation for it. In the coming months, other clients made vague references to a possible explanation. From a </span></span><a href="http://www.adoptionagencyratings.com/node/1747/talk/1349"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">comment</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> added to the Adoption Agency Ratings website:</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">By September, Joint Council on International Children's Services, of which Adoption House was a member, noted that the agency was closing.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">By February, there seem to have been previous discussions about Adoption House's troubles, as revealed in this posting:</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDlyDpLSBg9pq1RFEHgJCc64bxMbcEGp9A8NmJOl8RjJI6Tqq9X_O4IVdaPn4epva8Vt6PhPX0mLLE7Lb8IzkSyU-_FMWx7DDmwR4P71JvRUMSUYSZEhjRnQcDS-2RT4Us-zGnpr3YFjw/s1600/Adoption+House+investigated.png" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5540685140282405842" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-size: medium;">Whatever the reason, Harlan Tenenbaum has not renewed his </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; font-size: medium;"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20130114212139/http://www.adoptionattorneys.org/grievances/decisions.htm" target="_blank">membership</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; font-size: medium;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-size: medium;">in the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys. (Notice that listings on the grievance decisions page </span><i style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">"may or may not be related to any Grievance matter."</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-size: medium;">)</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">So the "Angel in Adoption" who proclaimed himself to be "one of the nation's foremost authorities on adoption today," and who served as legal counsel to National Council For Adoption is no longer even an adoption attorney.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">So what is he doing today?</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">He is now an "Executive Coach and Leadership Development Consultant" for </span></span><a href="http://www.jcrisconsultinggroup.com/teambios/TenenbaumBIO.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">JCris Consulting Group</span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">, apparently a virtual entity, since it lists no brick-and-mortar address on its website.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Notice on his bio how he minimizes his role in his previous enterprise, Adoption House. His info, which one would assume he wrote - or at least approved - states he </span></span><i><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">"was asked to serve as the CEO of a non-profit adoption agency..."</span></span></b></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> Granted, his mother probably asked him to serve, but c</span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">ontrast this with the bio blurb he furnished for the Angels in Adoption Award he received in 2001: (bold print added)</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Harlan S. Tenenbaum</span></span></b></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Rep. Michael N. Castle</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Harlan Tenenbaum is an “Angel” and worthy of the Congressional Coalition’s Angel in Adoption Award. The child of an adopted mother, Harlan learned how important it is for each child to be brought up in a loving family. </span></span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Together, he and his mother have opened an adoption agency in Wilmington, DE, called Adoption House.</span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> Adoption House is a non-profit, full-service adoption agency that handles domestic and international adoptions. </span></span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Harlan serves as managing director</span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> and his mother, Leah, serves as its Executive Director.</span></span></i></span></span></span></span></span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Notice how he lists himself as "managing director" in the Angel award, while on his present job bio he "was asked to serve as the CEO" of (an unnamed) agency.</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Is there a reason Harlan Tenenbaum has divorced himself from past affiliation with Adoption House? If so, why? Inquiring minds want to know.</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">One thing we do know is that one of NCFA's bright and shining stars somehow took a fall. And in doing so, it seriously sullied yet another piece of NCFA's integrity and credibility.</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; color: #0000ee; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size: 15.8333px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><a href="http://adoptionsecrecytakingtheglovesoff.blogspot.com/2010/11/joel-d-tenenbaum-protector-of-womens.html">But that's only the beginning. You need to know about Harlan's dad and business partner, Joel. Are you ready for this? <span style="color: blue;">Go for it!</span></a></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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The Adoption Diggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15586652169070015589noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4733691678866467830.post-1311699353753850622011-01-09T15:12:00.000-08:002013-01-24T07:56:58.226-08:00Joel D. Tenenbaum – Protector of Women's Virtues<div>
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In the NCFA description of the Uniform Adoption Act that I posted yesterday:<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 22px;"><i></i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; line-height: 22px;"><i>Although there are many articles and publications in print and on the Internet describing the contents of the UAA, most are extremely biased. One of the best brief objective summaries is by Joel D. Tenenbaum, who served as the ABA liaison to the NCCUSL UAA committee.</i></span></blockquote>
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So who was Joel D. Tenenbaum? And what was his connection with NCFA?</div>
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To begin with, he had some very impressive credentials, many of which involved pregnancy and adoption matters (in bold). The website of <a href="http://www.feiblemancase.com/other_lawfirms.php"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">Feibleman Case</span></a> Attorneys at Law described him thus:<br />
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Joel was a recipient of the American Bar Association Presidential Recognition Award for Outstanding Achievement in Adoptions, 1996. He was a U.S. Magistrate, District of Delaware, 1973-1974. Assistant District Attorney, King's County, New York, 1967-1968. Counsel, New York State Constitutional Convention, 1967. Assistant Public Defender, Delaware, 1972-1973. Executive Director, Community Legal Aid Society, Inc. Delaware, 1971-1972. Member, <b>Governor's Task Force on Teen Pregnancy, 1989—</b>. He is a fellow of the AAML, the International Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers and the American College of Family Trial Lawyers. Joel's membership includes Brooklyn, Delaware State, New York State and American (<b>Chair, Family Law Section Adoption Committee, 2002-2003</b>; <b>Step Families Rights and Adoption Committee, 1993—</b>; <b>Liaison, National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, 1989—; Uniform Adoption Act;</b> Member, <b>U.S. Department of State Study Group on Intercountry Adoption</b>) Bar Associations; <b>American Academy of Adoption Attorneys</b>; International Bar Association.</blockquote>
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His connection to NCFA is that his family-owned four-state agency, Adoption House, was a NCFA member in good standing. Tomorrow's blog will address issues related to the agency itself, but for now I want to focus on the Adoption House attorney Joel D. Tenenbaum.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8yUjl3PO03H7iDKM0m-yh21oCfOd2oeFIqjYUHMNZ59CKblDVRtkKfz4eaPPBI5Ty4U7zFOHsnCNBekUWJXihCimKRPro_xopf1xb_eYZp_hNiiGbMW87VC0Eo0L4SBQwCjYQsU-yWH8/s1600/Adoption+House%253ATenenbaums.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538342143275740482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8yUjl3PO03H7iDKM0m-yh21oCfOd2oeFIqjYUHMNZ59CKblDVRtkKfz4eaPPBI5Ty4U7zFOHsnCNBekUWJXihCimKRPro_xopf1xb_eYZp_hNiiGbMW87VC0Eo0L4SBQwCjYQsU-yWH8/s400/Adoption+House%253ATenenbaums.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center; width: 336px;" /></a><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Ok, so that's the 'shiny' side of Joel D. Tenenbaum. The man whose family agency joined NCFA, a trade organization formed expressly to keep adoptees from learning the truth of their origins and protect the virtues of women who surrendered babies to adoption in the past. It must be an extremely important matter for him, since he also contributed his 2 cents (and probably a good deal more) to the Uniform Adoption Act in an attempt to seal adoption records for 99 years. Surely no mother would live long enough to have her reputation stained after all that time. What a gentleman! What a hero to the <i>'Women of the Scarlet A'</i> club.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Now for a reality check on the character of this knight in shining armor.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><a href="http://www.rightfulowner.delaware.gov/odc/digest/?ID=494"><span style="color: red;">Delaware court records</span></a> show a history that includes:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;">In 1984, the Respondent was privately admonished for dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation and conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice, because he testified as a witness in support of his claim for fees and knowingly misrepresented that records indicating the amount of time and services rendered to the client were destroyed as a result of a fire in the building in which his offices were located.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;">In 1995, the Respondent was privately admonished for knowingly failing to disclose a material fact to a tribunal when disclosure was necessary to avoid assisting a criminal or fraudulent act by a client and for engaging in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice when in a Family Court matter he failed to disclose to the Court that his client had encumbered certain property with notes secured by mortgages.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">But that's just the mild stuff. Hold your hat!</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The above document is actually a record of Tenenbaum's three-year suspension for violating Delaware Lawyers' Rules of Professional Conduct as follows:</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;">In an opinion and order issued on August 5, 2005, the Delaware Supreme Court suspended Joel D. Tenenbaum for three years, retroactive to January 5, 2005, the date on which Tenenbaum ceased the practice of law. The Court approved a report from the Board on Professional Responsibility (“Board”), finding that Tenenbaum had violated the Delaware Lawyers’ Rules of Professional Conduct (“Rules”). In imposing the maximum three-year period of suspension, the Court found as follows:</span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;">The evidence establishes that, during the past 5 - 10 years, Tenenbaum has sexually harassed female clients and employees, both verbally and physically........ Tenenbaum engaged in a pattern of illegal activities that harmed clients and employees. He has substantial experience as a Delaware lawyer, having been admitted to practice in 1972, and he has a prior, though unrelated, disciplinary record. Although the Court recognizes that Tenenbaum has experienced emotional problems and that he has a record of public service, the severity of his misconduct mandates a three-year suspension.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The Court found that Tenenbaum’s conduct violated the following Rules:</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Former Rule 1.7(b)</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">: When representing a female client, Tenenbaum had a conflict of interest because his representation was materially limited by his personal interest in having sexual relations with the client;</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Rule 1.8(j) </span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">(which became effective July 1, 2003): Tenenbaum had sexual relations with a female client when he was prohibited from doing so because a consensual sexual relationship did not exist between them when the client-lawyer relationship began;</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Rule 8.4(a)</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">: Tenenbaum’s conduct with respect to a female client was an attempt to violate the Rule which prohibits sexual relations between a lawyer and a client unless a consensual sexual relationship did not exist between them when the client-lawyer relationship began; and</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Rule 8.4(b)</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">: Tenenbaum engaged in criminal conduct which reflected adversely on his honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in that he sexually harassed and offensively touched a client and members of his law firm’s staff.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Oh, but that's not the end of it. Before he had even completed his three years of suspension, a woman client he had sexually assaulted in his office back in 1983 finally grew strong enough to report the attack to police. This time he was </span><a href="http://caselaw.findlaw.com/de-supreme-court/1002930.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">disbarred</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">. And since his agency also had an office in Pennsylvania, the PA bar reciprocally disbarred him, as well.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The Delaware order included the following (with bold emphasis added):</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">When Tenenbaum was suspended for three years, “the evidence establishe [d] that, during the past 5-10 years, Tenenbaum [had] sexually harassed female clients and employees, both verbally and physically.”</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Lucida Grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span style="color: #006699; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">21</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Lucida Grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">In this case, the clear and convincing evidence establishes that Tenenbaum engaged in felonious conduct that would subject him to possible imprisonment, except that a criminal prosecution is barred by the applicable statutes of limitations. </span></b><span style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Lucida Grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> This evidence and the evidence from the prior suspension proceeding demonstrate that, for more than two decades, Tenenbaum has committed egregious abuses of his female clients' trust, by engaging in a repeated and systematic pattern of sexual misconduct that was not only unethical but also unlawful. </span><span style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Lucida Grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> Accordingly, we are in complete agreement with the analysis and recommendation in the Board's Discipline Report. </span><span style="font: normal normal normal 13px/normal 'Lucida Grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> We conclude that any sanction other than disbarment would not provide the necessary protection for the public, serve as a deterrent to the legal profession, or preserve the public's trust and confidence in the integrity of the Delaware lawyers' disciplinary process.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Conclusion</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It is ordered that Joel D. Tenenbaum be disbarred from membership in the Delaware Bar. His name shall be immediately stricken from the Roll of Attorneys entitled to practice law before the courts of this State.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Do you like juicy details? </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><a href="http://www.delawaregrapevine.com/2-07tenenbaum.asp"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">This account</span></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> isn't for the prudish, so decide now. If you proceed, you can even see a picture of his bare-naked-lady birthday cake.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Now you know how this pervert <i>really feels</i> about women! And all the while he was pretending to be concerned about women whose birth-and-relinquishment secrets would surely "devastate them" (NCFA's claim), he was committing the foulest of acts against women.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">My next post will deal with Adoption House and its other attorney - Joel's son Harlan.</span></span></div>
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The Adoption Diggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15586652169070015589noreply@blogger.com9