GOALS


A. Seek acknowledgment from the public and the government for the inhumane way we were treated. Such acknowledgement shall include the following:


1. We would like a public acknowledgment of the illegality of the methods used to obtain our surrenders.

2.We would like to see prosecutions for some of the individuals involved and sanctions against the agencies or organizations that profited.

3. We would like to see some of the onus transferred to the people in our own lives who, for whatever reason, initiated the processes that lead to our losses, which could include the fathers of our children, our own parents, our extended families, our ministers, priests, pastors, physicians.

4. We would like a public apology from the Federal and State governments for the policies that were in place that made it impossible to keep our children, which will forever put to rest the insistence that we "had a choice" to "place" our infant children.

5. We would like to have equal access under the law to the Amended Birth Certificates of the children we lost. If the AP's and Adoptees have access to the Original Birth Certificate, which has our name and information on it, then equal access under the law would require we have theirs as well.

6. That all mothers of loss be immediately given their medical, social, psychiatric records and Social Worker case notes. Additionally, all records that pertain to our infants prior to the termination of parental rights, when we were still the legal parents of our children.

7. To stop responding to language created and embraced by the adoption industry and the AP communities, well after the fact of our losses, designed to distance us from our children further, and diminish the reality of the relationship we had with them. Terminology such as Birthmother, placing, adoption plan, have no relevancy to the period of our losses, and cannot be used to describe the experience of the EMS/BSE mother.

8. To change the general concept of our experience to increase the awareness that what was done to us and our children at the time of surrender is in no way compensated for or remedied upon reunion. We can never regain what we lost. We expect to be treated as the strong respectable women survivors we are and not as reformed sluts or crackwhores.



B. Make accountable the agencies and agents responsible for the violation of our Civil and Human Rights

C. Be a Voice for the Senior Mother, the women who lost children during the EMS, or Era of Mass Surrender, to seek justice for their unnecessary, unethical and often illegal losses.

D. Make public appearances, raise funds and advertise, educate and inform the public, legislators, politicians, students, and others of our experience and our place in history.

E. Make our experience such common knowledge that the tactics that were used on us will never again be used against young women to force them or coerce them to surrender their children for adoption. To make it common knowledge that adoption is a lie based on lies, perpetuating lies.

F. To change the common language of adoption to language that is truthful and conveys the pain and loss involved, rather than sugar coats it to make it more palatable to the public

G. Provide upon request to the mother, certified, unaltered copies of all documents relating to the mother, the infant prior to surrender for all mothers. Such records should include all medical, psychological, counseling, and other records that mention or are relating to the mother or her as yet, not surrendered child. If such records are no longer available, a certified copy of a record of destruction, a police or fire or insurance report of a disaster, such as flood, fire, etc. shall be provided.

H. To discourage the practice of the government sanctioned theft of vital records by changing the Birth Certificate and sealing the original.

I. Insure that when an adoptee reaches adulthood, no adopters shall have access to any records, medical or otherwise, of the mother. Such records can only be obtained by the adult adoptee, and not by their adoptive parents, without a court order showing a compelling need.