Dear Mr. Biden:
I am writing this on behalf of every single American that is adopted whether we are adults or still minors. That’s at least ten million adults, plus adults who don’t know they’re adopted, plus millions of children. I am voting for you because I do not like Trump for a variety of reasons. I will be honest, Mr. Sanders was my initial decision prior to him dropping out.
I see on your official campaign page that you are writing what you will do for specific groups of Americans: veterans, military families, rural Americans, women, older people, LGBT people, Catholic, Latinos, Black people, students, and Asian and Pacific Islander people. Without a doubt a large majority of adoptees cross into those demographics as well. For example, I am an adoptee who is also bisexual, a woman, Catholic and I live in a rural town.
Nevertheless, you can win over even more people by the millions Mr. Biden if you gear your campaign as well to adoptees. It is time to have a president that acknowledges the dire problems of America’s multibillion dollar, uncredentialed loosely regulated adoption industry. It is time to have a president that acknowledges the discrimination of adopted people in the United States and how this has literally killed people and contributed to the high suicide rates and high incarceration rates amongst adoptees especially amongst adopted people of color and adopted LGBT members of society. Past presidents, including fellow Democrats Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, were given the opportunity to fix several of these issues and chose not to. Republicans fair no better as currently the largest money making producing adoption agency Bethany Christian Services is run by DeVos who works for the Trump administration. Trump will not listen to us, but then again Trump won’t listen to reason. Bethany Christian Services, like so many others, has been involved in unethical behavior, corruption, lies, exploitatation, and manipulation and has also profited off of the children being kept in camps at the border.
I’ve been an advocate for adoptee rights and adoption reform for the past twenty years. In late 2017 I was nominated out of thousands of US citizens to audition for Ted Talks edu to discuss psychological problems, the lie of birthparent privacy, and how to implement solutions. Unfortunately, I did not make it to the final round to be on the show.
Mr. Biden, we are requesting you to add adoptees to your campaign concerns and address our issues as well. By making a promise to us you will, without a doubt, can numerous support. You will also prove yourself to be progressive as well as caring about all second class citizens in this beautiful nation of ours and making us all become first class citizens during your presidency. The following information below is what we adoptees need you to add to your campaign and to promise us once you become president. You may fact check everything I say with various organizations such as: The American Academy of Pediatrics, The Donaldson Adoption Institute in which I can give you former President Adam Pertman’s email, Unsealed Initiative, New York State Adoptee Rights Coalition, Saving Our Sisters, and Concerned United Birthparents just to name a few. For economic research on the industry I would strongly advise reaching out to Mirah Riben.
We request you to implement the following in your presidential campaign and during your presidency if elected:
- Over fifteen thousand people in the United States are illegally adopted through international adoption many of them hailing from South Korea and mostly born in the 1950s through the early 1980s. Their adoptive parents either did not know they needed to naturalize them or purposely chose not to in order to keep them as modern day slaves. Now adults, they are unable to naturalize themselves as United States citizens. They are people without a country who face deportation, and some have been deported, nor are they allowed to legally work, vote, or marry. Both former President Obama and current President Trump have chosen to ignore this horrendous brutality that has led to suicides amongst Asian adoptees. Mr. Biden, we know you can do better by signing all illegally adoptees born outside of the United States as U.S. citizens with full rights.
- According to the American Academy of Pediatrics adoptees are four times more likely to commit suicide compared to non-adoptees. This number is exacerbated to even higher dangerous levels if the adoptee is a person of color or a member of the LGBT community, and worse yet if all three. Psychological majors at most universities are not discussing this with psychology students. The traumatic effects of children living in orphanages prior to adoption is discussed, but not other types of adoptees. It is important that we have a stronger program nationwide to address the specific issues of adoption trauma. For decades the adoption industry has muted us adoptees by falsely claiming most adoptees are happy and have suffered no trauma using skewed statistics. Whether or not an adoptee is completely happy with adoption, millions of adoptees are not content with the discrimination and the adoption industry’s tactics and counselors, therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists need to become better prepared to work with the adoptee population dealing with adoptee trauma which includes but is not limited to: past abuse, current abuse, PTSD, depression, anxiety, and separation anxiety. As president, you would make sure that all two and four year government funded higher learning institutions with psychology majors teach adoptee related material and use actual adoptees to either teach the courses or to verify what is taught is true.
- Make the adoption industry credentialed.
- Currently, across the United States and U.S. territories open adoptions are not legally enforced. This has resulted in approximately seventy five percent of open adoptions closing by the time the child or children are age five, nearly always by the adopters and nearly always not because of safety reasons. In fact, closed adoption is never necessary and is not necessary to keep a child safe. We request that as president make all current and future open adoptions legally enforced so that safe biological family members can have contact with the adopted child which will include: letters, photos, emails, phone calls, school visits if they attend school, and at least four face to face visits per year. Psychological studies have proven that open adoptions are much healthier.
- Abolish closed adoptions. Any current closed adoptions will become open. Closed adoptions were created several decades ago at a time when unwed pregnancy was seen as horrendous. Mothers were forced to give their children away as punishment for having sex outside of marriage, and were fully blamed for the pregnancy even though it takes two to tango. Closed adoptees suffer enormously high rates of depression and anxiety. The discriminatory act of closed adoption forces people to not know who they get their features from, their heritage, their biological family medical information or updated information, and sometimes a passport. Closed adoption does not allow an adoptee and biological family member to connect who want to and makes people lose decades together. Due to the inhumane practice of closed adoption I lost thirty two and thirty three years with two biological aunts of mine. Worse yet, many first mothers look for their child but die before they can find them or find their lost to adoption child died young due to suicide, cancer, etc. Closed adoption allows rapists to not be apprehended. It allows biological mothers and biological fathers to be held responsible for their actions. Case in point, closed adoption blames the adopted person for circumstances they did not control. Biological mothers and biological fathers who choose close adoption due so because they are either lied to and told it will make them forget they were ever pregnant or they do it as a means of legalized abandonment. My own biological mother has been referred to as the coldest mother ever by my local police department for her choice in discriminating me, inventing lies about me, and sabotaging my relationships with other biological family members and being pleased with getting rid of me through the legalized abandonment that is closed adoption. My biological father is equally vicious and has threatened me with imprisonment because of his inability to be ever be a responsible adult, and invented legal lies about me. The two were absolutely made for each other. Closed adoption discriminated me, took me away from two fantastic aunts, and supported deplorable behavior for too long not just in my case but in the case of several other closed adoptions. I came from a biological family that had both large amounts of children and money, so there was no excuse for my adoption other than the maintain a certain image within the Catholic church. Most closed adoptions, however, occurred due to force. Whether that is because the open adoption was closed or because the first mother lived in a time where her only option was a closed adoption even though she very much did not want to lose her child. It is falsely believed among the pro-birth population that abolishing closed adoptions and unsealing all original birth certificates will result in more abortions. Mr. Biden, nothing is further from the truth. States with high infant adoption rates already have high abortion rates. Sealing original birth certificates and using closed adoptions has done nothing to lower the rates of abortions in the United States. According to the Guttmacher Institute, the United States would need a very conservative estimate of a 5,400% increase in infant adoptions in order to eradicate abortion in the United States. This is but one reason why its comparing apples to oranges.
- Sign an executive order to unseal all original birth certificates without redactions. Previous explaination above discussed why a biological parent does not deserve privacy. Furthermore, there is no state or Federal law claiming birthparent privacy. The original birth certificate is not sealed, Mr. Biden, until the adoption is finalized so if a baby is given away or lost to adoption and he or she ends up growing up in the foster care system they keep their original birth certificate with the name of the first mother and possibly father making privacy nul and void. If it were about privacy, and it’s not, the original birth certificate would’ve either never been created or sealed at the time of birth. By signing an executive order you allow good people to reconnect. You will also be helping sheriff and police departments across the nation solve cold case homicides. For too long the multibillion dollar uncredentialed adoption industry has used to the lie of birthparent privacy to not only hide rapists, men who had affairs who possibly brought home a STD to their wives, and corrupt activities, but also has not allowed hard working forensic departments access to mitochondrial DNA when necessary to solve some cold case homicides devastating communities across our nation. Mr. Biden, people deserve what rightfully belongs to them, family deserves to find each other instead of finding a grave, and police ought to be allowed to do their job without a greedy industry being in the way.
- There is no reason to be sealing original birth certificates. If a child is adopted as a teenager, for example, from the foster system her original birth certificate is then sealed even though she is well aware of who her abusive biological parents are. Children adopted by gay couples have a falsified amended birth certificate showing that nobody gave birth to them, but instead two dads on the birth certificate. Even if this are extremely loving gay couples, and most of these dads are, it does not make logical sense. Therefore, Mr. Biden, the adoptees of America request that during your presidency you sign an executive order that all adoptees will keep their original birth certificate regardless of age and that a legally binding certificate of adoption will instead be instituted to the adoptive parents.
- Stricter regulations on the adoption industry. In 1984, for example, Pennsylvania decided to seal original birth certificates under the false assumption that it would stem the flow of abortions in the state. It has proven not to and now has become a struggle to unseal the original birth certificates with Pennsylavania adoptees caught in the middle and directly effected by someone else’s negligence.
- Currently, the adoption industry allows minors as young as fourteen years old, twelve in some states, to give their babies to the adoption industry or a private adoption attorney without a trusted adult in that child’s life knowing. Adoption agencies use only propaganda to make a claim that adoption is the best option for the child. Having read the propagandistic material myself pregnant children and pregnant young women are subjected to lies such as a more materialistic family is a better family, your family members aren’t responsible and you shouldn’t ask them to help, you’re being selfish if you keep, and other guilt tripping commentary. In fact, on e adoption agency in New York State in 2018 was so brazen to claim that a married pregnant woman facing possible divorce was better off giving her child away than getting a divorce. Preying on children and vulnerable young women cannot be allowed. Therefore, to enact safety measurements we demand that all pregnant women and girls aged twenty-one and younger who are in contact with an adoption agency must have a trusted adult of their own choice at the meetings whether they are face to face or online be it a parent, other family member, foster parent, or teacher for example.
- Adoption agencies like to claim that the adoption attorney paid for by the agency is also representing the pregnant mother or mother of a newborn that has come to the adoption agency, or who has been dragged there by someone else. These vulnerable mothers are unaware a lawyer cannot represent two parties and this is how they are tricked into open adoptions that close or are lied to and told the closed adoption will make them forget. Please sign an executive order barring adoption agencies, adoption attorneys, and private potential adopting couples from doing so and that all biological mothers and biological fathers must have legal represenation of their own not paid for by any adoption agency.
- A full FBI investigation into adoptions and foster care placements of children who were illegally obtained or obtained through lies, coercion, and manipulation such as drugging a new mother in the hospital and forcing her to sign relinquishment papers.
- Employees of the adoption industry, primarily people at the top, have never been brought to justice for putting a child into a home where he or she was murdered or suffered severe child abuse by the adopters. We ask you to bring these people to trial for placing a child in a dangerous home. It is also time that all adopted children until the age of eighteen have a once a year surprise visit by a teacher, police officer, or social worker to make sure the child or children are safe in the home.
- Mr. Biden, we ask you to abolish the practice of flying pregnant girls and young women out to different states and leaving them stranded with a newborn and no finances if they change their minds and decide to keep the child, often without their parents or other trustworthy and helpful older adults in their being made aware. This clearly shows time and again that several people do not care about the well being of mom or baby.
These are just some easily obtainable changes you can make Mr. Biden that will guarantee a better life for tens of millions of people because it not only positively effects adoptees but our loved ones as well. Promising and acting upon these thirteen steps are a great way to not only win votes but be a truly excellent president who believes in an America for all. We too are tired of the malarkey, won’t you help us end it?
Sincerely,
Megan DePerro
and millions of others.