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Archive for the ‘England’ Category

Open records in Britain: Robin Harritt on the incest story

Posted in Adoption, Adoption Advocacy, Adoption News, England, International Adoption on January 13, 2008| Leave a Comment »

The story I wrote about yesterday out of the UK on one consequence of inaccessible birth information has prompted much attention across the adoption world.

While my contribution to the discussion prompted by this story in the Telegraph was short and general, one made by Robin Harritt, a British adoptee who has been working for adoptee rights in the UK for a long time, is longer, specific and extremely informative on the fight for open records in Britain.

With Robin’s permission, I am cutting and pasting a comment he posted on a UK adoption group, a close version of which also appeared on the alt.adoption group.

Isn’t it the case that problem with incestuous marriage and inherited health problems tends to be more of an issue in endogamic communities or groups where it happens over and over again within the same family, e.g. the European Royal families?

In exogamous cultures such as ours the problem is the social stigma that traditionally surrounds incest even when it is accidental incest as a result of the parties involved, not knowing that they are within the
prohibited degree of consanguinity

That adoption is still set up in such a way that it is possible for people to marry not knowing that they are brother and sister is an absolute disgrace in modern Britain. I wrote to Alan Milburn the then Secretary of State for Health and Social Services about this via my MP, at the time of the Adoption and Children Bill. He signed the Bill off as conforming to the Human Rights Act, which of course in this respect, it does not. We did not get an answer from Milburn. Jacquie Smith the health minister overseeing the second Bill was equally unconcerned at the time.

The problem with issues such as this and getting the law changed is that it needs more than just a few people at a time to express their concern.

In the recent Sexual Offences Bill some people involved in the post adoption field tried to get the law changed so that it would no longer be a criminal offence where incest took place between two people who had a relationship as result of unknowingly being of the prohibited degree of consanguinity. I believe their attempts at changing the law were unsuccessful and that incest between adoptees is still criminal offence once they become aware of their relationship. Though quite unlikely to be prosecuted, it seems

Under the 1956 Act

10 Incest by a man

(1) It is an offence for a man to have sexual intercourse with a woman whom he knows to be his grand-daughter, daughter, sister or mother.

(2) In the foregoing subsection “sister” includes half-sister, and for the purposes of that subsection any expression importing a relationship between two people shall be taken to apply notwithstanding that the relationship is not traced through lawful wedlock.

11 Incest by a woman

(1) It is an offence for a woman of the age of sixteen or over to permit a man whom she knows to be her grandfather, father, brother or son to have sexual intercourse with her by her consent.

(2) In the foregoing subsection “brother” includes half-brother, and for the purposes of that subsection any expression importing a relationship between two people shall be taken to apply notwithstanding that the
relationship is not traced through lawful wedlock.

So therefore although they may have lived a normal married live and have perfectly happy healthy children, not knowing them selves to be brother and sister, once they discover their genetic relationship, any kind of normal married life between them becomes a criminal offence!

At least this case and the publicity that it has attracted in the media across the world may help to get the adoption laws changed and the necessary amendment to Sexual Offences Act to ensure that no one is ever
prosecuted for accidental incest.

So from the point of view of legality, if you are a couple in that situation, in many ways it’s best not to know.

However if you were born to a mother or father who is a carrier of an inherited disease, it is quit important that you do know. You can then at least have a chance to have early foetal tests to decide whether to
continue a pregnancy. If you have religious or ethical objections to termination of pregnancy you can be tested yourself and avoid having children if you are positive and don’t want to risk having a child who
is affected.

Of course what is so for adoptees in this respect, is also so for those born as a result of gamete donation. We all need to know who our genetic parents are, that is surely a basic human right.

My sincere thanks to Robin for passing along this info, and for allowing me to reprint it here.

You can learn more about the wrangling for rights in the UK on his site here, read some of his story on his blog … although it’s not been active for quite a while … and learn about his search for birth family here.

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How to be a girl … in England: Yikes!

Posted in England, Entitled to opinions, Expat Living on July 8, 2007| 13 Comments »

As regular readers know, my adored husband is a half-Brit, which is not the same as a half-wit, but not totally unrelated.

Yes, that’s extremely unkind and so veddy-veddy not PC, but Hey!, some things just must be said.

Mark was born in England and passed some of his childhood there, but most of his growing was done on this small, tropical island instead of that large chilly one … a factor that factors in greatly in the fact that he and I ended up together.

I lived in England for a couple of years, and as Mark so Britishly puts it, life there “didn’t suit me.” It may have been an easier adjustment if we’d lived in London … truly one of my favorite cities, and as much a city as a city must be to be interestingly livable … but we were in Bournemouth, which isn’t.

One good thing, however, about having lived in the UK for a spell is that it prepared me for life on a tiny rock in the middle of nowhere better than anything could have. I learned what education and medical care look like in developing nations, how poor service is no matter to anyone, how to cope with small mindedness as the order of the day, and what the world looks like from a vantage point that relies on shoulder chips and wannabes.

By comparison, Seychelles seemed progressive, lavish and open-minded … but there’s not all that we-used-to-be-an-Empire thing going on here.

Lest anyone think I went into English life prepared to rebel — until I moved there I was as Anglophilic as most Americans. All my impressions had come from encounters with the original Potter (Beatrix), Beatlemania, and London vacations that had me shopping at Harrods and hanging at Stringfellow’s.

I was convinced that life there was bound to be a combination of quaint and literary, with overtones of historic significance … and no little romance, of course, since I’d relocated to be with the love of my life.

Well, the romance was certainly no letdown, but the rest of it … ?

What I encountered was a rude population of cold fish with thought patterns I assumed had been left far behind in Western cultures. Racism, homophobia, religious intolerance, sexism, were all alive and well in Southern England in 1994.

One need only look at television programs like “Father Ted” to get an idea of how easily the British ‘take the mickey’ out of their Irish neighbors, and although the show cracked me up I was always aware of how offensive it must have been to Catholics.

If you’re wondering why I’m on this jag this morning, I’ll point you toward an article from the Telegraph that reminds me today of the backwardness of the UK that drove me up a wall while I was there. (This, in conjunction with summer day after summer day that saw the weather in Moscow 20 degrees warmer than the drizzly, damp and dreary days in Bournemouth.)

“How to … be a girl: 10 Things Every Girl Should Know” is the title of the piece that begs the question, “What year is this?”

Apparently a review for “The Great Big Glorious Book for Girls”, it’s all sugar and spice and everything vomit-inducing.

Some of the ten things?
1. How To Deal With Boys
2. How To Have A Best Friend
3. How To Cope When Your Best Friend Gets A New Best Friend
6. How To Keep A Secret
7. How To Tell If An Egg Is Fresh
8. How To Sulk

And some of the advice?

The main difference between boys and girls is that boys like doing things – driving cars, playing football, throwing stuff, eating, farting – and girls like feeling things, such as love, friendship, happiness and excitement.

Boys are very physical; girls are very emotional.

Boys are often spoilt by their mothers, so they have a tendency to think girls should do all the boring things in life, such as cleaning, cooking and ironing their T-shirts, while they do all the exciting things: jet-skiing, playing in rock bands, being spies.

The best approach is to put on a smiling public face. Be charming, be polite. Soon the horrible feelings of rejection will pass and you will be able to look back with gratitude that you behaved with dignity.

Excellent elements of sulking are the Black Look, the Deep Sigh and the No One Ever Understands a Single Thing I’m Going Through Shrug.

A sulk should be short and intense.

Thankfully, I’m raising my daughter on this island, not that one.

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