| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.4

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Adoption Politics: Bastard Nation and Ballot Initiative 58. By E. Wayne Carp. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004. xvi, 238 pp. $29.95, ISBN 0-7006-1305-6.)

E. Wayne Carp's thoughtfully written book provides an in-depth account of an unprecedented legal and political battle over adoption rights. His interdisciplinary approach draws on "oral history, demography, psychology, psychiatry, social work, political science, history, and the law" (p. 3) to illuminate the struggle over the passage of Oregon's Ballot Initiative 58.

By 1998, only two states, Alaska and Kansas, which had never sealed their records, permitted adopted adults unconditional access to their birth certificates. In that year, however, Bastard Nation, a radical adoptee rights organization, made history by victoriously running the first citizen-enacted adoption initiative, Oregon's Measure 58, which gave adopted adults the right to access their original birth certificates. A milestone in the history of the adoption reform movement, Measure 58 has the potential to revolutionize adoption practices in the United States by serving as a model for other states. (p. 1)

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