Welcome to the 10th Biennial Adoption Initiative Conference

The Evolution of Adoption Practice: Activist and Community Perspectives

Password for the Vimeo Videos: AIC2022PAID

AM Saturday Session A, Pt.1 Valerie Andrews https://vimeo.com/717445618

AM Saturday Session A Pt. 2 Mirah Riben https://vimeo.com/717461898

AM Saturday Session A Pt. 3 Gregory Luce https://vimeo.com/719399804

Mother Activism in Canada: The Road to the Senate 

In 2009, following in the footsteps of Australia, Origins Canada took up the mantle to obtain a national inquiry/senate study into forced adoptions in Canada. After ten years of persistent activism, a senate study was obtained, culminating in the Senate Report "The Shame is Ours". This presentation follows the very difficult road followed by activists and reformers in Canada to obtain the study, and the ongoing fight to have its recommendations implemented; including the right to mental health supports.

Valerie Andrews, PhD Student, York University, Executive Director, Origins Canada

Links Shared During Zoom Chat: 

report from the Canadian Senate in French and English: 

https://sencanada.ca/en/info-page/parl-42-1/soci-adoption-mandate/

at minute 01:08:48 Valerie Andrews: here are apology videos: https://www.google.com/search?q=youtube+apology+to+those+separated+by+adoption+julia+gillard&oq=youtube+apology+to+those+separated+by+adoption+julia+gillard&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i64.16376j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

o Links shared

o Report from the Canadian Senate in French and English: https://sencanada.ca/en/info-page/parl-42-1/soci-adoption-mandate/ 

o Link to multiple apology videos: https://www.google.com/search?q=youtube+apology+to+those+separated+by+adoption+julia+gillard&oq=youtube+apology+to+those+separated+by+adoption+julia+gillard&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i64.16376j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Ensuring Ethical Practice in Child Adoption: A Guide for Legislators, Practitioners and Consumers of Adoption Services 

Everyone assumes adoption is in the best interest of children. Is it? In whose best interest are fraudulent birth certificates? Are there sufficient regulations and enforceable guidelines in place to eliminate corruption, commodification, exploitation, coercion and conflict of interest? How much does money play a part?

Links shared by Mirah Riben:

o https://tinyurl.com/Mirah-Riben-ethics (slideshare.net)

o https://mirahriben.blogspot.com/

MIRAH RIBEN is author of two internationally acclaimed books: shedding light on… The Dark Side of Adoption (1988) and The Stork Market: America's Multi-Billion Dollar Unregulated Adoption Industry (2007) and more than 250 articles. Her works are cited in more than 80 books, professional journals and theses. An advocate for family preservation and ending falsified birth certificates since 1980, Riben investigates and writes to expose corruption, coercion, exploitation, commodification of children for adoption and anonymous contract conception. She co-founded the original Origins of NJ in 1980, and is former director of the American Adoption Congress, and past VP of Origins-USA.org.

o Links shared by Mirah Riben:

o https://tinyurl.com/Mirah-Riben-ethics (slideshare.net)

o https://mirahriben.blogspot.com/

The History and Parameters of Undoing Your Adoption 

West Virginia once had a law that allowed an adult adopted person, at age 18, to "dissent" to their adoption and void it automatically. So why are there no laws today that allow a specific right of an adult adoptee to annul or undo their own adoptions, especially when it may no longer be in their best interest? 

What legal barriers to annul an adoption exist and how hard is it to overcome those barriers? If the right to annul your own adoption was more widely recognized, what would that right look like? 

Ultimately, the power to end your own adoption as an adult would constitute a shift in political and personal power and the reclaiming of adopted people's autonomy. Gregory Luce, an attorney who represents adult adopted people - including a client who vacated her own adoption - will outline the history of annulments in the United States and how that history could influence efforts to establish a right to annul your own adoption, something very few states have ever allowed.

Links Shared: Powerpoint presentation 

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vSNFVqBjobx_sN9KKoenpzRLhblbAc6e43T-SFjRC_9eQounWxC86L_ghxtYM4Wg-jzy2-rql_QjLec/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000

o Links Shared: Powerpoint presentation https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vSNFVqBjobx_sN9KKoenpzRLhblbAc6e43T-SFjRC_9eQounWxC86L_ghxtYM4Wg-jzy2-rql_QjLec/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000