Sunday, August 07, 2011
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
The Jersey "COW" Fed Adoption Attorney
With his/her booty brought across state lines into New Jersey, what does the DHS do when an adoption attorney gets caught dispensing stolen infants as opposed to stolen cartons of cigarettes? __ Answer, absolutely nothing. __ However, the ICPC does tax him/her on the smokes!
Being the most corrupt state in the union, it is easy to invent attorney jokes at the "Garden State Elite" esquires' expense. However, as the subject matter and "butt" of the joke, it is this smooth, "Joe Cool" practitioner of wrongful adoption that gets the last laugh! Yet, unscrupulous adoption attorneys are only a minute part of the problem!
New Jersey is the most friendly infant adoption state in the country since 1998. This is when amended into law was state statute N.J.S.A. 9:3-39 1[b, c]. _ An enactment brought about, _ NOT by popular vote! There are many affluent people in New Jersey. That said, I wonder how many of this state's legislatures had stock in Toys "R" Us, or the likes thereof...
In the nineties, any child product company that was in business prospered right along with the multi-billion adoption industry. Everyone made off like bandits. Only now are children oriented stores beginning to feel the state of our economy. [No doubt, gobbled up by the corporate Willy Wonk's; "Ooompa, oompa..., what do you get?"]
This perspective shows how easy a changed law coupled with the lame, and inept, "Where is Big Brother," Interstate Compact for the Placement of Children further fuel this industry.
Is it enticing? Just ask Veronica Serio, the former executive director of Children of the World Adoption Agency. Incredulously, this woman, a co-writer of New Jersey adoption law with Seton Hall Proffesor James Boskey recklessly crashed her career in search of golden child.
Coerced Adoption Should Concern Parents - Associated Content from Yahoo!
When you sent your teen to off to school today, you worried that she would fail her test, bomb her audition for the school play, or cut out of gym class to see her boyfriend. You never thought that while in the hallowedhalls of academia, she would be convinced to take her baby and run away from your loving home on the advice of her guidance counselor. Yet that's exactly what happened to Judy Bennett.Stephanie Bennett was a 17 year old mother and student, living at home in Ohio with her supportive mom and step-dad when she revealed concerns about motherhood to guidance counselor Thomas Saltsman. Instead of bolstering her confidence and encouraging her in her role as a parent, he immediately arranged for her to meet with A Child's Waiting adoption agency on school grounds, during school hours.
Days after their first meeting and feeling pressured to "do the right thing" by her daughter, Stephanie took baby Evelyn and ran away from home. Hours later, she signed the paperwork allowing the agency to take her daughter away.
Soon reunited with her mother and step-father, Stephanie and her family began fighting to overturn the adoption. The agency has hidden the identity and whereabouts of baby Evelyn's adopters, and the Bennetts must now prove that Stephanie was coerced before the adoption can be overturned. Justice seems unlikely for Stephanie Bennett and her daughter.
Coercion Common in Adoption
Things infertile couples should know | The Manila Bulletin Newspaper Online
Thursday, June 16, 2011
American Life Expectancy Dropping
While the United States has seen an increase in life expectancy over the last several decades, that trend is reversing, partially due to the lack of health insurance, accessibility to health care, and our sedentary lifestyles.
Population Health Metrics published its newest study titled, “Falling Behind: Life Expectancy in U.S. Counties.” From 2000 To 2007 in an International Context.” Using newly released mortality data by age, sex, and county for the U.S. from 2000 to 2007, they were able to compute life tables separately for each sex, for all races combined, for whites, and for blacks.
Life expectancy, across the United States, ranged from 65.9 to 81.1 years for men and 73.5 to 86.0 years for women. Life expectancy for black men ranged from 59.4 to 77.2 years; for black women, the range was 69.6 to 82.6 years. Average overall life expectancy is 73.5 years for men and 80.8 years for women.
According to the report, the US has extremely large geographic and racial disparities, with some communities having life expectancies already well behind those of the best-performing nations. At the same time, relative performance for most communities continues to drop.
Geographically, the lowest life expectancies for both sexes were in counties in Appalachia and the Deep South, extending across northern Texas. Counties with the highest life expectancies tended to be in the northern Plains and along the Pacific coast and the Eastern Seaboard, with longevity being highest in the states of Colorado, Minnesota, Utah, California, Washington and Florida.
Despite having the largest spending per capita on health care, the U.S. is outperformed by many industrialized nations. National life expectancy was lower than the international frontier by 3.2 years.
The study addressed the poor performance of the United States, suggesting that health care reform could help to improve these statistics. Given that the reform debate centers on three strategies—extend insurance to all, improve the quality of medical care, and focus on preventable causes of death—there is hope on the horizon.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Grandma Contacts United Nations Seeking Justice in US Adoption Fraud Cases
Grandma Contacts United Nations Seeking Justice in US Adoption Fraud Cases
Beginning with the loss of her own granddaughter due to fraudulent adoption practices right after Christmas in 1999, Ms. Melinda Walmsley has made it her mission to fight adoption fraud in support of a parent's right to keep their own child. She has been bringing cases to the attention of the United Nations when the means used to obtain a baby was clearly illegal and yet has been upheld by US courts refusing to take action. In desperation, after finding newspapers in the United States unwilling to print the stories, she has resorted to submitting articles to newspapers in countries such as Germany and Russia in an attempt to keep the United Nations involved.
Minneapolis, KS April 19, 2004 -- On December 13th 1999 Ms. Melinda Walmsley, part owner of Walmsley Trucking, learned her daughter, Tarin, a high school senior was pregnant. Her due date was Dec. 25th. It was the beginning of a nightmare for both of them.
Two weeks prior to her due date, Tarin had been approached by the receptionist in her doctor's office who had been looking for a chance to obtain a baby for a friend of hers. Prior to that day, Tarin had not even considered adoption, but she agreed to meet with the receptionist for supper, just to talk. The receptionist and her friend got Tarin to meet with a lawyer. The lawyer was friendly and seemed non-threatening at first. It seemed harmless and even the non-binding consent the lawyer had her sign seemed like no big deal. A possible open adoption "plan" was worked out, which would provide Tarin lots of visitation with her as yet unborn child.
But after signing, Tarin was told that although the binding document could not be signed until 12 hours following birth the judge had already been chosen and the judge would consider the pre-birth agreement to be binding.
Well, it turned out that the judge had not been chosen. It also turned out that the agreement signed by her baby's father was binding, but the agreement Tarin signed was not. But Tarin did not know this.
And Ms. Walmsley was completely unaware that her daughter, prior to being approached by the receptionist, intended to keep her child.
"When she told me the details of the baby's conception, and knowing she had hid it for so long, I assumed all the wrong things and we failed to communicate those two critical weeks. If only I had known she wanted her baby, before being coerced by that lawyer, being lied to, being made to believe she didn't have the legal right to keep her, I would have stood by her no matter what."
The prospective adopters were friendly and assured Tarin that they were looking forward to having frequent visitation. The lawyer told Tarin that if a conflict occurred and they had to go to court over a contested adoption, the adopters could close the adoption, cutting off all contact. The matter would have to be settled in court and the party who changed her or their mind would have to pay everybody's legal fees.
A week after signing this agreement, Tarin went into labor and her daughter was born. She loved her as her mother reported "with all her heart, like no love she had ever dreamed possible." But she believed if she did not go through with the adoption, they would take her to court and she had been told the judge was an adoptive father who considered pre-birth consents binding. She could end up spending a lot of money to contest the adoption but Tarin's absolute worst fear was that she might lose all contact with her daughter forever.
Ms. Walmsley was still unaware of her daughter's reasoning, still thinking she wanted to go through with the adoption. "I actually stood outside the hospital praying out loud for anyone to hear, that God would stop this from happening, stop her from signing, but I never told her how I felt because I didn't want to influence her."
As Ms. Walmsley wrote: "Tarin was devastated. At 12 hours after birth the binding agreement was to be signed. By 10 hours after birth she was so distraught over the thought of the loss of her baby girl she could barely speak. Out of fear of never seeing her daughter again and with regular assurances throughout the day from the woman hoping to adopt that Tarin was welcome in her home any time, at 12 hours after her daughter's birth she signed the papers. She was released from the hospital shortly thereafter, falling into hysterical tears the moment she stepped outside the hospital without her baby. "
"The next morning she begged me to call a lawyer and see what could be done to get her baby back. The lawyer said there was nothing we could do. We approached the woman seeking to adopt and she refused to call it off, instead reassuring Tarin that she could visit any time and attributing her feelings for her daughter to hormones."
Three weeks later, the visitation was cut down to just a few times a year. Tarin knew she could never live with that and the adoption would be final in two weeks. She hired a lawyer to contest the adoption.
It came out in court that many of the things Tarin had been told by the lawyer were untrue and that the prospective adopters had not even signed their part of the agreement, although the lawyer had signed a statement stating that they had already signed their part of the contract. At least one piece of evidence was shown to be altered with a name added after the fact and the judge pointed out that the font was different.
The lawyer was uncooperative in her testimony, covering her statements with words like "I may have" and "I might have" rather than stating what actually occurred.
When asked about signing the statement that the prospective adopters had signed their part of the paperwork, the lawyer claimed to have lost that part of the paperwork.
Tarin's petitions to the Kansas State Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court were denied.
Ms. Walmsley has listed many other cases of adoption fraud in her article published by the Russian newspaper Pravda. Pravda had to cut many more cases out of the article because of space limitations.
The cases presented include a mother who clearly stated her intention to keep her child although she had at one time considered adoption. She was harrassed mercilessly by a social worker until the social worker happened to come by while she was in a heavily sedated state and obtained a signature.
Another mother signed while under powerful prescription narcotics.
A mother under 18 years of age and her baby's father were invited to a meeting ostensibly just to look over the visitation contract that had been drawn up. Her parents did not go, thinking that this meeting was just to review the proposed visitation, and no final decision had yet been made about adoption. But when the young parents arrived for the meeting, they were surprised to discover that their own lawyer had withdrawn to represent the prospective adopters he'd found and they themselves had been given a new lawyer (to meet the Kansas legal requirement for a minor to have separate legal representation from the adopters). The new lawyer then pressured them to sign the actual document surrendering their parental rights at a time when her parents were not present. By the time her parents found out, it was too late, as they had already been pressured to sign and Kansas has no revocation period.
A father's parental rights were severed after the father's lawyer accidentally filed the required papers with the wrong clerk.
In another case, grandparents of a mentally incompetent mother were denied custody in favor of unrelated persons adopting, apparently the result of the lure of an adoption bonus from the federal government.
In another highly publicized case, the father had been told his baby died at birth. Learning the truth 11 weeks later, he contested the adoption and wound up paying child support to the prospective adopters and getting four supervised visits a year.
In all cases, custody was given to prospective adopters and the natural family given little or no visitation while the case was in court, giving prospective adopters what Ms. Walmsley calls the "best interest" defense. Courts use the fact that the parents did not have contact with their child to permanently sever their parental rights.
Adoption is promoted in the United States not so much for children who need homes, but in the interest of people hoping to adopt an infant. Every day unsuspecting parents who are not yet through college or who have some other temporary situation fall prey to the slick advertising and well rehearsed tactics utilized by adoption lawyers and the adoption industry. Afterwards, they suffer for a lifetime.
Ms. Walmsley states: "Adoption fraud exists and is promoted by the government....Fraud and coercion is ignored by the courts, even when acts of fraud and coercion are not in dispute."
Her plea: "Citizens of the United States of America desperately need the help of the United Nations." is a sad testament to how things are going in the United States for parents wishing to exercise the right to keep and nurture their own child.
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Thursday, May 19, 2011
Sperm donor anonymity overturned by B.C. court
Olivia Pratten succesfully sued the B.C. government to force changes in the B.C. Adoption Act to allow the offspring of sperm, egg and embryo donors to find out who their donors are. (Jonathan Hayward/Canadian Press)The B.C. Supreme Court has struck down provincial legislation that protected the identity of sperm donors. The court also prohibited the future destruction of any records and ordered the province to draw up new legislation in line with the Charter of Rights.
Lawyers for Olivia Pratten had argued that the existing rules discriminated against the children of sperm donors. The court ruled in her favour on Thursday.
"It is a total win for us. No more anonymity. Donor offspring have been recognized as having the same rights as adoptees in B.C.," said Pratten after the ruling was released.
In the decision, Justice Elaine Adair wrote that the rights of the child must be protected in sperm donation, much like they are protected in cases of adoption in B.C.
"I conclude, based on the whole of the evidence, that assisted reproduction using an anonymous gamete donor is harmful to the child, and it is not in the best interests of donor offspring," wrote Adair.
"I grant a permanent injunction, in accordance with these reasons, prohibiting the destruction, disposal, redaction or transfer out of B.C. of gamete donor records in British Columbia," she wrote.
The ruling gives the province 15 months to enact conforming changes to the B.C. Adoption Act that are in line with the Charter of Rights.
Pratten was conceived through sperm donation. The 28-year-old journalist fought for years to learn her biological father's identity, but was eventually told the doctor legally destroyed the records in the 1990s.
She then decided to sue the B.C. government on behalf of other children who still have hopes of learning their parentage and to ensure donor records are preserved indefinitely and that children can have access to the records when they turn 19.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Stress During Pregnancy can Affect a Child's Health
Vijai P. Sharma, Ph.D"Seeds of health are planted even before you draw your first breath, and that the nine short months of life in the womb shape your health as long as you live." These words of Sharon Begley and William Underhill in a Newsweek article Shaped By Life In The Womb eloquently describe the importance of the gestational period on an individual for his or her life-time.
Some scientists now believe that the effect of the life in the womb on emotional and physical health may be greater than that of the genes we inherit. The conditions in the uterus, ranging from mother's hormones to the nutrients supplied through the placenta, may significantly determine how a baby's liver, heart, kidneys, brain and mind will function during the adulthood.
In the Seventies and the Eighties, we learned that if mothers during pregnancy ingested such substances as the alcohol, cocaine, caffeine, and tobacco, they could harm their babies' physical and mental health, notably, lower the birth weight, height, and head circumference, and impair attention, memory, intelligence, and temperament. Likewise, we have known for a while that if a mother experiences excessive stress or suffers from an emotional trauma, her baby may be born with certain deficiencies which may persist into adulthood and cause more complications.
In the Nineties, we are beginning to understand how the stress and mother's emotional state affects her unborn baby. Take, for example, a stress hormone called Cortisol. When we are under stress, we manufacture cortisol. If you experience occasional stress, cortisol doesn't create a problem. However, if you remain under stress for a long time, cortisol may be too much for your body to handle. Cortisol can cause high blood pressure problems. A mother's excessive Cortisol can reach the baby in the womb and raise the baby's set point for blood pressure forever. This baby, when reach adulthood, is likely to suffer from high blood pressure.
Many mothers during pregnancy face extremely stressful circumstances. They are confronted with such unhealthy situations as the break-up of their marriage, physical or emotional abuse, open infidelity or simply disinterested and uninvolved partners who prefer staying out to staying home and supporting their pregnant partners. These mothers experience constant stress, shame, loneliness and, sometimes, clinical depression during pregnancy or after giving birth.
The babies of these mothers are exposed to a variety of stress hormones, toxins and malnutrition inside the womb. Some of these babies will continue to live in the same or often worse noxious environment. No wonder some will later become hyperactive, underactive, inattentive, or temperamental and exhibit poor self-control. Many of these children are later medicated with Ritalin or antidepressants. Not everyone understands that the problems a child exhibits today may have resulted from events that occurred several years ago.
Most of the gynecologists and obstetricians I have talked with are psychologically sensitive and recognize when their patients need psychological support. However, when referred for therapy, many feel embarrassed and hardly ever show up for psychological consultation. Their partners or families may not encourage them to seek help because the problem it is not seen as a medical one. Doctors are understandably reluctant to prescribe psychiatric medications because of pregnancy or breast-feeding considerations.
Thus, a woman in such a situation suffers alone and remains isolated from her support system. She is expected to transcend all such adverse circumstances, and some do. Others don't have the emotional strengths to cope. Some have struggled with depression and anxiety all their lives. Moreover, even when they are seemingly coping with the excessive stress, they might still be constantly producing stress hormones and toxins and some will reach the baby in the womb.
Maternal stress during pregnancy is also found to cause of asymmetry in coordination of ears, fingers, feet, elbows, etc. As a result, I.Qs of such children are found to be lower. Maternal stress is also linked with imperfections in the developing nervous system which can lead to problems of perception, thinking, and memory.
All of us want happy children. Happy children grow out of happy babies. Happy babies are born to happy mothers. Therefore, partners, families and friends of expectant mothers should do their best to make an expectant mother happy and relaxed. If she is depressed, nervous, or tense, encourage her to seek help.
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Tuesday, May 17, 2011
I Rescued A Human Today
I Rescued A Human Today
by Midwest Rescue of Illinois, Inc. on Tuesday, May 17, 2011 at 8:27amI RESCUED A HUMAN TODAY...
Her eyes met mine as she walked down the
corridor peering apprehensively into the kennels.
I felt her need instantly and knew I had to help her.
I wagged my tail, not too exuberantly, so she wouldn't be afraid.
As she stopped at my kennel I blocked her view
from a little accident I had in the back of my cage.
I didn't want her to know that I hadn't been walked today.
Sometimes the shelter keepers get too busy and I
didn't want her to think poorly of them.
As she read my kennel card I hoped that she
wouldn't feel sad about my past. I only have
the future to look forward to and want to make
a difference in someone's life.
She got down on her knees and made little kissy
sounds at me. I shoved my shoulder and side of
my head up against the bars to comfort her.
Gentle fingertips caressed my neck;
she was desperate for companionship.
A tear fell down her cheek and I raised my paw
to assure her that all would be well.
Soon my kennel door opened and her smile was so
bright that I instantly jumped into her arms.
I would promise to keep her safe. I would promise to always be by her side.
I would promise to do everything I could to see
that radiant smile and sparkle in her eyes.
I was so fortunate that she came down my corridor.
So many more are out there who haven't walked the corridors.
So many more to be saved. At least I could save one.
I rescued a human today.
Thursday, May 05, 2011
Declare July 28 US Adoptee Equal Rights Day
Please sign the petition to declare July 28 National Adoptee Rights Day in the US. We hope to help draw attention to a little known civil rights violation: adopted citizens are routinely denied access to their own birth certificates in most US states.
and please pass the word...http://www.thepetitionsite.com/3/declare-july-28-national-adoptee-equal-rights-day/
Thank you.
Declare July 28 US Adoptee Equal Rights Day
Please sign the petition to declare July 28 National Adoptee Rights Day in the US. We hope to help draw attention to a little known civil rights violation: adopted citizens are routinely denied access to their own birth certificates in most US states.
and please pass the word...http://www.thepetitionsite.com/3/declare-july-28-national-adoptee-equal-rights-day/
Thank you.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Shakesville: Breaking the Silence: On Living Pro-Lifers' Choice for Women
Breaking the Silence: On Living Pro-Lifers' Choice for Women
by Shaker Anonymous
This audience is obviously unfamiliar with the impacts of adoption loss on the natural mother. The article is two years old. Has awareness improved?