Death to mothers...birth of orphans.

[femrap]

A friend just forwarded me an interview of Kenneth Blackwell (current Sec'y of State of Ohio...yea...the guy who counted Ohio's votes and gave w the '04 election) who is now running for Ohio Governor. This took place on 1/19/06..interviewer was Dan Williamson....Question to Blackwell:

If Roe v. Wade were to be overturned, would you sign a law that would outlaw abortions in the case of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother?

Yes.

Including the life of the mother?

Yes.


Kenneth Blackwell is Black...one would think he would have some sort of comprehension of what it means to live under oppression. Maybe men like this like being able to do the oppressing for a change. I will never understand.

He is running for Governor while Sec'y of State so he will be counting the votes...gee, I wonder who will win????

Are women nothing more than incubators?

GRRRRRRRRRRRRR

[politicat]

1. Remember, the adoption industry is very lucrative.

People pay $10K, $20K and more to get a healthy newborn. I see ads all the time locally for "We can give your child a home - compensation" (as long as the child is a newborn).

And for the long term, it keeps wages down - an unlimited workforce will work for peanuts when there are 7500 people lined up outside the door waiting for your chair.

[mzteris]

2. you forgot something here

"(as long as the child is a newborn)".

I think you meant - as long as the child is a healthy non-black newborn.

(I was going to put white, but you know how popular those little Chinese girls are right now. And there seems to be a surge of interest in Latin American babies, too - but that will probably abate as the resentment against hispanics increase in this country.)

[politicat]

3. I stand by newborns.

I've got a couple of friends from university - she's interracial and he's black - and they have been seeking a black, healthy newborn for six years. They're one of the couples that told me about the "finder's fees" people pay to private adoption agencies.

[mzteris]

4. They're the exception.

For a clear example check adoptuskids.org - and see the type of kids desperately waiting to be adopted.

Why don't your friends go through a social services adoption? There are PLENTY of black and biracial babies waiting to be adopted there? (Former foster mom and now adoptive mom of AA child.)

[politicat]

5. She has sickle cell.

Social services won't approve them, and they don't want to pass it on.

[mzteris]

6. Why

does her having SC make her ineligible to adopt from SS?

"While an applicant may be rejected for poor health or limited life expectancy, and standards can vary from agency to agency, agencies are precluded by the Americans With Disabilities Act from establishing rejection criteria based on a disability per se (e.g., blindness, deafness, HIV infection, cancer and more). The act prohibits the "imposition or application of eligibility criteria that screen out or tend to screen out an individual with a disability or any class of individuals with disabilities from fully and equally enjoying any services unless such criteria can be shown to be necessary for the provision of the services being offered" (42 U.S.C. §12182<2><1>); see, also, D.R.L. §110: agency may not reject applicant solely on the basis he had or has cancer). The essential inquiry is how health affects an applicant's child-caring capacities and ability to perform the routine tasks of childcare and daily living. An applicant may not be rejected for past alcohol abuse, drug use or mental illness except as it affect present ability. The only mandatory disqualification is for current abuse of alcohol or drugs (18 N.Y.C.R.R. §421.16

)."

(edit - I don't where the bolding is coming from - something embedded, I guess.)

[politicat]

7. Hey, that's what they told me....

I haven't exactly gone into the offices with her and reviewed her paperwork!!

I think she would be fine as a parent, but there are times when the sickle cell wipes her out entirely. It may have been that when they had the home study done, the social worker saw her not at her best (or possibly at her worst) and that was the issue.

I know that some states and some social workers are more flexible than others and moving would mean starting the whole process over again....

[mzteris]

8. I'm sorry . . .

I guess it sounds like I'm jumping on you - or them - and I'm not. I get frustrated with the frickin' paperwork - and narrowminded attitudes - that keeps good (potential) parents from adopting!

(And the fact that just any old ijut can pop one out without regard to the health, care, and welfare, of a child.) :sigh:

[Heddi]

9. A friend of mine is trying to adopt, and what you say is correct

at least the part about some social workers being more flexible than others.

My friend is trying to adopt 2 brothers. She wants to keep them together. They had a horrible childhood and are still rather young (I think one is 3, the other is 5). Their previous lives were filled with abuse, drug use, neglect, etc. They've been shuffled from foster home to foster home, and my friend is trying to ensure that her household is the last one they'll ever live in.

She is a nursing student, like me, and is gainfully employed at a local hospital. Her husband is gainfully employed as well and they have above-average incomes for this area. They already have one biological daughter between the both of them.

She first began fostering these kids about a year ago and was immediately interested in adopting them. The first social worker they had to do the interviews and inspections was (according to her), VERY rude and just nit-picked over everything. She questioned my friend's sincerity to become a nurse because she (my friend) misused a word, basically thought the word meant one thing but didn't. It wasn't an offensive word--something everybody probably gets wrong (I can't think of the example but it was VERY common). She pointed out that my friend had buttoned her shirt wrong. That her baby was wearing a stained bib. That the baby was wearing miss-matched socks. My friend was like Look, lady. I'm sorry I forgot a button and made my shirt askew. My baby's wearing a stained bib because bibs get stained. It's clean. And she's wearing different socks because they're both orphan socks and she's just playing on the floor.

The social worker wrote on their application that they were unclean because she had some dishes in the sink. That they were messy because there was a pile of unfolded laundry sitting in a basket on the chair.

I know this woman. She's not slovenly. Her child is not neglected. She's a mom, a person. My gosh...I don't have a pile of laundry in a basket on the sofa--it's unfolded and still in the freaking dryer!

After so much crap AND the social worker threatning to take her foster kids away, she requested, and got, another social worker to deal with their case. Nothing but greatness since then. They've been treated like humans, who live in a human house, who *gasp* put stained (but clean) bibs on their baby, who are okay with their 2 year old wearing mis-matched socks, and who aren't obsessive about folding laundry as soon as it's piping hot from the dryer.

So yes, social workers can have their own agenda that is completely unrelated to the process related to adoption. For some reason, the first social worker didn't like my friend or SOMETHING and was set from that point to ensure that she found any way possible to keep these kids from being in her home---completely ridiculous reasons, in my opinion. If she was screaming at the baby, or there's moldy food in the fridge, and cat shit on the carpet, and the baby is sucking a lead-paint popsickle--yeah, that's bad. Her issues--not bad, and I think indiciative of a human, not a bad parent or bad foster parent.

Thankfully, I think the adoption is fully set to go now. She's so excited!

[Hello_Kitty]

10. Glad to hear it.

Your friends are the coolest for doing that and sticking to their guns. That 1st social worker was a real piece of work! Most people who get into social work really want to help people but I guess a few control freaks slip in.

Their experience is quite a contrast from my own childhood. My sister and I were adopted as infants from a Catholic maternity home. There's no way in hell my folks were subjected to any kind of grueling inquiry or home inspection because - though I loved them dearly - they were a couple of dysfunctional, alcoholic trainwrecks who shouldn't have been entrusted with a houseplant, much less children. I was told there were a few post-adoption visits by social workers. Surely they must have seen us parked in front of the TV while our shitfaced mother nursed her latest bruises from our father. But...sigh...it was the late 60s/early 70s.

[we can do it]

11. No We Are Just Property

This makes me so mad - I could just scream....

[Katherine Brengle]

12. it is morally reprehensible to value the life of an unborn child over the

life of a flesh and blood living woman.

ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!

[femrap]

13. I've been thinking about what the South

Dakota House has voted for....no abortion in cases of rape or incest.

In that case, do we then have all rapists vascetomized? This, to me, seems to be the only sane alternative to this law. Or would it be less expensive to castrate? Now, many people will say that this response is TOO SEVERE. I think this solution is no more severe than forcing a woman to carry a rapist's child to term. And then what happens to the child? Are these crazy American Taliban going to raise it?

And incest? I believe many of the children of incest can have physical and mental problems. Who is to care for them?

Is there anything in South Dakota worth boycotting? Don't a number of Credit Card companies have HQs there due to lax usury laws? I believe Citibank is there and they employ a number of people. We could all cancel our credit cards and put a lot of people out of business there. See how the legislature would like that.

I guess the vote still has to go to the Senate. But so overwhelmingly voted for: 47 to 22, I believe.

[Nikia]

15. It is sad that anyone would want this

Even if someone is against abortion, one would think that they would still value the life of a woman over a being who has not known living outside the womb, who has no understanding of life, and who may not survive anyway. I cannot believe that any man who is married would really believe this. My husband has said that if I were pregnant and my life was in danger that he definitely would want me to save my own life and that not to would be more selfish, in a way than, having an abortion and living.

[geniph]

14. If women's uteruses are now the property of the state,

are they going to send around state-certified Menses Examiners to examine every woman's menstrual flow to make sure she hasn't ejected a fertilized egg?

(More than 25% of spontaneous miscarriages occur before the woman even realizes she's pregnant.)

Why don't they just focus on keeping their own dicks in their pants, and stop fussing so much about whether or not women are controlling their own bodies? If these people were truly about stopping abortion, they'd be supporting research into better methods of birth control. But they don't want birth control any more than they want abortion. They want women helpless to control their own fertility.