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Nanaimo-born woman’s search for sperm-donor dad goes to court

Born through artificial insemination, Olivia Pratten is fighting to have the Adoption Act declared unconstitutional so that children conceived by sperm donors can find out who their father is. Olivia Pratten’s battle to learn the identity of her biological father — an anonymous sperm donor — went to court Monday with her lawyer arguing she […]

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Adoption records spell heartbreak and happiness

May 31, 2010 Living Reporter Nicole Baut The past year has been emotional for many adults who were adopted in Ontario, and for their parents, both biological and adoptive. On June 1, 2009, Ontario opened its adoption records, after a 30-year fight launched by members of the adoption community. Adult adoptees and biological mothers could […]

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Yukon to unseal adoption files

– CBC News The Yukon government is getting ready to open up adoption records it has kept secret for decades, making it easier for adopted children and their birth parents to find each other. Parents or adopted children who want their adoption files kept confidential have until the end of April to make that request. […]

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Children’s Aid Society workers should be reined in, critics say

By Kevin Libin, National Post Published: Friday, June 12, 2009 They are charged with the most essential of duties: protecting vulnerable children from abuse and neglect. They will intervene in the lives of roughly 200,000 Canadian children this year. For most of us, they are generally unseen, save for occasional mentions in news reports, when […]

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Lost children: Why they should stay in Haiti

The high price of foreign adoption is corrupting – meaning parents may be getting `paper orphans’ By Nicole Baute There is no fool like the one who wants to be fooled. Professor David Smolin wrote those words in 2005 referring to adoptive parents in the Western world. Eager to believe they are saving orphaned children […]

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Adoptees can find Mom, but not Dad

From the Toronto Star By Nicole Baute December 10, 2009 When Ontario opened its adoption records on June 1, adult adoptees yearning for information about their birth parents applied in droves. But as the replies came back, it became clear something was missing: the names of their fathers. Out of all 250,000 Ontario adoption registrations, […]

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Ontario Opens its Old Adoption Records – Surprise! No Dads!

From Men’s News Daily By Robert Franklin, Esq. Saturday, December 19, 2009 Back on June 1st of this year, the province of Ontario opened all its old adoption records so that adoptees could locate their birth parents if they wanted. Read about it here (Toronto Star, 12/10/09). And, to no one’s great surprise, a lot […]

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Taking babies from mothers in prison punishes the children

By Linda Korbin / straight.com The Alouette Correctional Centre, located in the Fraser Valley, is the only separate women’s prison in B.C. and is where more than 150 women are serving time or awaiting trial. Most have been jailed for relatively minor offences, and three-quarters of them serve sentences of less than three months. Until […]

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First mothers; Being reunited has brought with it both indescribable happiness and terrible grief

Lara Bradley/The Sudbury Star Lifestyles – Monday, November 20, 2006 Editor’s note: This is the second part of the First Mothers. The first part ran last Monday. A reunion with their babies was a long time in coming. Both Esther Tardif and Mary (she didn’t want to give her name on the grounds that it […]

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First Mothers

The emotional toil and punishment young girls went through when they became pregnant By Lara Bradley/The Sudbury Star Lifestyles – Monday, November 13, 2006 They never “gave up” their babies. They surrendered them. Between the two expressions is a gaping hole of difference. November is adoption awareness month. For birth mothers, or first mothers as […]

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