Vol. 15 No.2 (February 2005), pp.94-95

ADOPTION POLITICS: BASTARD NATION & BALLOT INITIATIVE 58, by E. Wayne Carp.  Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2004.  248pp.  Cloth. $29.95.  ISBN: 0-7006-1305-6.

Reviewed by Zvi H. Triger, The College of Management, School of Law, Rishon LeZion, Israel. Email: zvit@colman.ac.il.

E. Wayne Carp’s fascinating account of the campaign to open up adoption records in Oregon should be of interest to various audiences—legal historians, political scientists, grassroots leaders, legislators, and attorneys. It is a careful study of the forces that promote (or hinder) legal changes, and as such, it is a must read for anyone invested in any kind of a project of legal activism.

Carp tells the story of the passage of Measure 58 in Oregon in 1998, which allowed adoptees to request and receive their original birth certificates, and enabled them, eventually, to contact their birth parents (usually, their birth mothers). The controversy around releasing this information stemmed from what was viewed as the tension between the adoptee’s right to know (or, put differently, their right to equal access to their birth information), and the birth parent’s right to privacy. According to those who opposed the initiative, allowing adoptees, retroactively, to access their birth records and obtain their birth parents’ identities, would infringe upon their parents’ right to privacy. On the other hand, the initiators of Measure 58 argued that the right to know the identity of one’s biological parent is a fundamental right, and thus, to deprive them of this right is a form of discrimination.

Carp follows the history of record-keeping by adoption agencies and information availability to all members of the “adoption triad”—birth parents, adoptive parents, and adoptees. He maps out the evolution of the various adoption rights movements, and analyzes the possible reasons for their failure to change adoption laws so that information about birth parents would become available to the adoptees. Interestingly, those early failures came at a time when the leaders of these movements avoided legal campaigns and believed that employing measures taken from the legal toolbox, such as the promotion of legislative changes or filing lawsuits, would be counterproductive.

It was not until the birth of “Bastard Nation,” an adoptee rights organization founded by four women in the late 1990s, that things began to change. Employing tactics used by queer activists (such as “Act Up”) as well as entering into the legal arena, Bastard Nation with its uncompromising stance on unconditionally open adoption records gradually became the dominant voice in this debate. Even the chosen name, “Bastard Nation,” was inspired by queer politics, which strived to (and largely succeeded) recharge the pejorative word “queer” with new and affirmative meanings. [*95]

Interestingly, the vast majority of the members of Bastard Nation, at least in its inception, were women, and most birth parents to be affected by the opening of birth records would be, in fact, birth mothers. Bastard Nation, according to Carp’s account, distanced itself from this question, which to my mind, is perhaps one of the most critical questions that this issue raises: I believe that one cannot divorce the controversy around women’s reproductive rights in this country from the question of open adoption records.

Except for a brief discussion of the role that abortion played in Bastard Nation’s campaign, Carp does not address this question. Indeed, Bastard Nation did all that it could to emphasize that open records will not promote more abortions (as the opposition claimed).  There is another question, absent from this account (and maybe from the debate itself) but which should be addressed, regarding the ethics of forcing birth mothers out of their anonymity in a culture in which abortion is (at best) controversial and extremely inaccessible, whether due to legal, social, or economic reasons. Thus, it would have been helpful to include a brief discussion of the legal status of abortion in Oregon, and the extent of its accessibility in this state. In addition, some analysis would have been useful regarding the reasons for limiting this highly flammable controversy to trying simply to demonstrate that opening adoption records would not encourage pregnant women who consider giving up their newborns for adoption, to abort.

And what are we to make of the fact that women, for the most part, were those who lead the campaign which, at least potentially, had such serious implications on the lives of other women, many of them deprived of at least some control over their reproductive rights? Bastard Nation seemed to be silent on this issue. The very rhetoric of the right to know one’s origin versus the birth mother’s right to privacy shows how the question of reproductive rights was expelled from the debate.

Another question which the founders and members of Bastard Nation seem to have taken for granted was the sanctity of biology. Why is biological kinship so important? Indeed, when it comes to disease treatment and prevention, it is extremely important to have full access to one’s medical history and genetic information, but why is the identity of the biological parent so fundamental to so many of us? Why do we prefer biology over psychology? It seems that despite Bastard Nation’s appearance as a radical organization, its goals were profoundly conservative: the restoration of biological kinship, and, perhaps of maternal responsibility and “correct” motherhood.

All the questions I have raised are meant to demonstrate the richness of Carp’s analysis and the many insights that one can derive from this excellent book. Carp presents a multidisciplinary study, combining analysis of legal and historical texts, news reports, and interviews with key players which enhance our understanding of the complex issues that are at stake.

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© Copyright 2005 by the author, Zvi H. Triger.