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ALL TEXAN'S
DESERVE
THEIR
ORIGINAL BIRTH CERTIFICATES
In this day and age, one would think that everyone already has, or could get, a copy of their Original Birth Certificate (OBC). After all this is the day of the Freedom of Information Act. The "full-disclosure" mentality - not to even mention something as basic as Equal Rights For All.
The sad truth, though, is that there is a huge segment of the American populace who is discriminated against every single day. Discriminated in the eyes of the LAW. Does that shock you? Perhaps not - it seems we've gotten pretty shock-proof, but it should! How can a government agency deliberately and intentionally not only ignore a basic civil right - remember Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence "ALL men are created equal"- well, the sad truth is - we're not.
For the thousands (the actual number is unknown) of people unlucky enough to have been born in Texas and placed for adoption through adoption agencies, the Original Birth Certificates are completely unobtainable. The reason for this secrecy? The adoption centers in Texas have created a wall around activity that was and is very "suspect" primarily due to the money-making aspect of selling babies.
Let's investigate this a little further:
PREGNANCY
Let's start at the beginning. When a woman becomes pregnant, she has to make one of two choices: Either to murder her baby, or to deliver it.
We say murder the baby, because that's what abortion is. It's not what we believe it is - the state of Texas has joined many other states in deciding that if a mother is murdered while she is pregnant, the perpetrator can be charged with a double-murder. Therefore the state has decided that the infant inside the mother is a child - not a "group of cells". That's according to the LAW - and the law says "Murder". We also say murder, because, according to the Bible, the Lord told Jeremiah “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb." (Jer. 1:5) He could not have "known" a group of cells, but He could have and would have known a person.
Also, remember that the opposite of "Pro-Life" isn't "Pro-Choice", it's "Pro-DEATH", by simple definition. The opposite of "life" isn't "choice", it's "death"!
CHILDBIRTH
Again, let's look at the choices: The FIRST of course, would be for the mother to take her baby home to her family life and rear the baby in the traditional way. Of course, this is still done, thousands of times every day, all over the world.
The SECOND choice involves allowing someone other than yourself to raise the baby. This can be done in several different ways. Originally, the baby would probably have been reared by the grandmother, or another close family relative - and it's still being done that way all over the world.
The THIRD way is give the baby away for someone outside the family - a total stranger - to rear. This is usually done through an Adoption Center. We are, generally speaking, not opposed to this form, but will point out a HUGE group of "negatives" about this choice.
ADOPTION/ADOPTION AGENCIES
The FIRST objection to Adoption Agencies is that there are too many Adoption Agencies that take the baby from the mother, and
the mother will worry, fear, and feel guilt for the rest of her life. There are no words to describe the hole
that's left in the heart when a child is "surrendered" (just the name sounds bad doesn't it? That's why
Adoption Agencies don't use it. But that's what the law says it is! No one wants to WILLINGLY
"surrender" anything! These mothers didn't either!)
Be aware that anything an Adoption Agency promises a mother-to-be verbally isn't worth the time it took the "promiser" to utter the words! NOT ONE THING can be believed, unless it is on paper and both of you have a signed copy. And the Agencies are EXTREMELY reluctant to do this - it binds them to something they don't want, and they know it!
The SECOND objection to Adoption via an Adoption Agency is that the adoptive parents - and therefore the "adoptee" (Okay the word is not in the dictionary, but for our purposes that's what I'll call the baby who is being adopted) will never know their familial history. And, of course, since they won't know their genetic family's history, then they won't know their medical history.
His reply after he, too, thought for just a moment was that he had never thought of it that way, and of course she deserved to know! Then I had to tell him that there was little or no chance that she would ever find it out. The only way she would ever know would be to re-unite with her birth mother.
(I'll mention, just as an aside here, that MANY of the adoptees search for their birth mothers as soon as their adoptive parents die...but of course, it's generally too late, then).
The THIRD objection that we have towards Adoption Agencies is that the Birth Certificate given upon adoption is an AMENDED Certificate. It's not the original. Because of having a birth certificate that shows no familial history, we've seen cases where adoptees cannot get Top Secret Security Clearances, VISA or Passports, and in some cases have even had difficulty getting Social Security. More about this later.
The FOURTH problem with Adoption Agencies is their stance towards International Adoption. How can that be a bad thing, you might ask.
Here's how...and the ugly side most people never hear. Adoption Agencies DO bring babies in from other
countries to adopt, BUT they also send AMERICAN BORN BABIES - that's right, American citizens, born here in the United States legally, to women who are American citizens, to second and third world countries! One agency that we know of sends all of the black babies to countries that were members of the Soviet bloc. They state that they also send almost all of the bi-racial babies the same place!
Another agency has confessed to sending up to 20% of ALL babies that they handle to Mexico to be adopted, particularly if the mother was blonde and fair skinned. They are "worth" more there!
This particular organization is no longer in business. I'll mention here, that the doctor in charge of this Adoption Agency (a zoologist, by the way, not a medical doctor) was Jewish. Any time a birth Mother specified that she wanted her baby raised as a Catholic, he would specify that the baby was born Jewish and would make certain that they went to Jewish families.
These children will grow up without an American heritage, without American history, and without American citizenship!
And here's the FIFTH problem with adoption agencies. They are in the business of "selling" babies. Let me explain: When an expectant mother enters an adoption agency, and it works pretty much this way with all of them, THEY (the expectant mothers) pay all expenses! They pay the doctor's visits, they pay for their room and board, they pay for EVERYTHING! The Adoption Agency isn't out one red cent! Then when the baby comes, and the girls "surrender" their babies to the adoption agency, usually signed while they are still under the effects of the anesthesia or meds that are given during delivery (which is by the way against the law), the adoption agency can SELL the babies pretty much to the highest bidder.
The baby becomes a marketable commodity, nothing more and nothing less - and price is driven by demand, as it is with any other commodity.
Currently the low-end of adopting a new baby is about $30,000. The prices go up from there! This money is all given to the agency, and the agency is classed as a non-profit. (As a non-profit business, the salaries of the executives (minus perks, imbursements, etc.) have to be reported) - the last data that is available is for 2007, and I will mention that ONE agency has one employee who made over $500,000 salary for that year. (Catholic Charities). This information is all available from the internet.
You might ask, then, how can we say that we are not, generally speaking, opposed to Adoption Agencies. The reason is that it's better for the birth-Mother to at least know they gave the baby a chance for a good life.
With abortion, of course, there is no chance at all for life, good or otherwise. Also, in the last few years major strides have been made towards open adoptions - there are only a few agencies in the state of Texas now that won't permit anything but closed adoptions.
EDNA GLADNEY FOUNDATION
To properly understand the position taken against the Gladney Foundation you would have to understand the difference between open and closed adoptions.
OPEN adoption is where the birth mother can be in contact with the baby as it grows, and has the original birth certificate. The baby's adoptive parents own an AMENDED Birth Certificate, which is marked by a letter "A". There are six states in the U.S. that have never had closed adoptions - in every case the adult adoptee can get an original birth certificate upon request.
(These states are: Alabama, Alaska, Delaware, Kansas, New Hampshire, and Oregon).
As of February 2009, 24 of the U.S. states had some form of provisions for legally opening the Original Birth Certificate. (I'd also mention here that at age 18 in Great Britain, ALL Birth Records are AUTOMATICALLY opened! German-born children are allowed full access to their Original Birth Certificate - allowing and encouraging genealogical research.)
The Edna Gladney Foundation is in a class by itself. Close to 100% of the babies adopted out of Gladney are "closed" adoptions. All contact with the birth mother is broken upon delivery of the baby to Gladney.
To fully understand the meaning of this, you have to realize that until 1974 there was NO CONFIDENTIALITY promised to birth mothers. Gladney says that the reason they don't want adoption information made public is because it might hurt the birth mother, knowing full well that the birth mothers were never promised anything like this. In fact, most of them have been promised exactly the opposite!
Gladney is THE ONLY Adoption Agency in the state of Texas to fight against legislation to open birth records for adult adoptees.
For the last two legislative sessions I have joined with many others to make a stand before the Texas House of Representatives. There has been NO OTHER opposition to gaining access to the Original Birth Certificates, other than the Edna Gladney Foundation. NONE!
We believe the reason for this is that for too many years, lies have constantly been told to the birth mothers (they still are), and laws have been broken, all in the interest of enriching Gladney managers and employees.
Doing anything about the laws that have been broken is next to impossible due to the way that Gladney has also embedded themselves in Texas politics. It's not unusual at all for a Texas or National politician with Texas ties who wants a baby to get one from Gladney - and if they pay anything at all for it, it's usually a VERY reduced rate! (President Bush's younger brother, Marvin adopted two babies from Gladney. It's also claimed that one U.S. Senator from Texas who just ran for Governor in 2009 has two babies she got without paying anything at all from Gladney - the first one when she was 58 years old!)
CHRISTIAN PREGNANCY RESOURCE CENTERS
It would be a mistake to explain Adoption Agencies without mentioning the Christian Pregnancy Resource Centers, or "Crisis Centers". Since 1970 these have grown larger and more influential than almost any other type adoption facility. The biggest of these is Bethany Christian Center.
In these agencies, abortion is NOT an option. Therefore, through the tactics of moralistic and financial pressure, women are effectively coerced into choosing adoption, thereby artificially creating "orphans" for Christian couples to adopt. The birth mothers are convinced that they will be unable to properly "parent" the baby, are "sinners" and need to be "saved" before they leave the Crisis Center, etc.Bethany Christian Services has been called "the WalMart" of these agencies - the one-stop shop for all Christian child placement services.
Bethany Christian Service is at the epicenter of this movement. It is the most prominent member of the National Council for Adoption (NCFA) and despite it's deceptive name, nothing more than a membership organization of Christian adoption agencies, with an influential voice in Washington DC.
Bethany Christian Services is also a prominent member of the Christian Alliance for Orphans, a coalition of Christian adoption agencies, foster care agencies, orphan care organizations and churches, supported by Campus Crusade for Christ and Focus on the Family. The Christian Alliance for Orphans and its programs Hope for orphans, Faces of the Forgotten, Cry of the Orphan and Orphan Sundays, aggressively market adoption through churches. Bethany Christian Services plays a major role in this movement, sponsoring training sessions to further spread the adoption gospel, motivating Christians to not only adopt children, but to adopt as many children as possible.
To generate the number of adoptable children for this market expansion, the term "orphan" has undergone serious inflation over the years. Its original meaning related to children whose parents had both died. Under the influence of Christian adoption, the word now relates to every child that either doesn't live permanently with its family, or has lost at least one parent. This definition creates the illusion there are hundreds of millions of children screaming to be adopted, helping adoption agencies to expand their client base. In reality, the demand for adoptable children has for more than a century exceeded the supply of adoptable children. Therefore, the inflation of the term "orphan" has two effects, it generates more demand in an already overheated market and it puts pressure on policy makers to make adoption practices even more lenient than they already are, enlarging the pool of adoptable children.
This brings us back to the incestuous relationship between US congress and the adoption industry of which Bethany Christian Services is the most prominent party. It is not uncommon for an industry to write bills for members of congress to introduce. It is not uncommon for former politicians to be involved in lobbying for particular industries, but it unheard of that an industry writes its own bills, has an organization of active members of congress lobby for it and receives awards from those very members of congress mainly for running a business.
FAMILIES FOR ORPHANS ACT
*Bethany Christian Services, who indirectly contributed to the draft of the bill, introduced by CCAI chair Mary Landrieu.*
The bill legalizes an overly broad definition of “orphan”, capturing countless numbers of children who already have loving families, potentially including, for example, children who reside in boarding schools away from their primary caregivers. These children are considered as ORPHANS under this Act!
This bill augments existing financial incentives for countries to favor international adoption by offering additional financial incentives, including technical assistance, grants, trade, and debt relief from the United States, which may sacrifice established child welfare principles by favoring international adoption over local solutions. OUR FIGHT
We believe that EVERY American deserves their Original Birth Certificate! Every American deserves to know their ancestry, their heritage, their genealogy, and their medical history. This isn't an "invasion into privacy" - it's one adult taxpaying citizen seeking information about himself/herself from an office of the government that has nothing to lose in providing that information!
There have been too many cases reported where an adopted child - or even an adult adoptee is found to have some genetic disease that can (and sometimes does) kill - and if they had only known (had access to their familial medical history), they might have been spared the damage altogether.
Or, as Dr. Martin Luther King said it so very eloquently, in his "I have a dream" speech. "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal", and "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
Adult adoptees are no different than anyone else, Dr. King...all they want is what every other American has - a right to their Original Birth Certificate!
We meet at the North Entrance to the Texas State Capitol and march with signs in front of the Legislative Parking Garage, so that all legislators can see us as they park their cars. We also address the House/Senate trying to get Original Birth Certificates released. If you would like to join us, we'd love to have you work with us. We're just common, ordinary people, trying to make a difference!
Any questions/comments, etc., please contact me at: Texxan64@yahoo.com - my name is Tommy Burns, and I live in Texas.
(Click HERE to go the Master Index)
I was talking to a gentleman the other day who had adopted a child thirty-five years ago. He said how much he loved her and how glad he was to have her. He then told me that he guessed he was one of the lucky ones - that his daughter had never expressed any desire to find out about her birth-mother. I looked at him for just a second and asked. "Do you know your medical history? Don't you think your own daughter, that you obviously love deserves to know hers?"
*NOTE: We've contacted several of the African American groups, such as NAACP, and several of the African American leaders, such as Jessie Jackson about this, and they don't seem interested.
(http://poundpuplegacy.org/blog/72)
THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT IS GIVING FOREIGN COUNTRIES MONEY SO THAT WE CAN BRING THESE CHILDREN HERE TO BE ADOPTED!
(http://poundpuplegacy.org/node/38514)
We do much more.