Australian Birth Certificates.

AUSTRALIAN BIRTH CERTIFICATES
Paper prepared by Janice Benson (Kashin) 24th September 1993.

Every Australian born in this country: is issued with a BIRTH CERTIFICATE. It is the most important document to be issued by the Government to a person, and states the most fundamental information about the person
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Date of Birth
Place of Birth
Mother
Father

It is worth 40 Points if one wishes to open a Bank Account. If applying for a Passport it is an essential prerequisite. Its validity is not questioned.
To date, approximately 250,000 Birth Certificates, issued by the Department of the Registrar General, simply are false.

The Birth Certificate lie, pertaining to the documentation record of Mother and Father, is ignored by State and Federal Governments, who perpetuate the 'myth', decided on by our Colonial forebears, that adoptive parents are the Birth Parents of the people they adopt.

This lie is ratified by lack of interference of successive Federal Governments, unwilling to deal with the untruths of Birth Certificates of adopted people.
The woman who gave birth to the person has been legalistically annihilated.

Her name does not appear anywhere on the Birth Certificate.

She is nullified.

The person, who was not even at the birth, is credited with having been the Birth Mother.

The 'system' perpetuates the lie.
The woman who carried the foetus, and subsequently gave birth, is discriminated against, and the woman whom the State Dep't of Family Services has selected to nurture the child, is, unbelievably, credited with the birth of the child as well!

The original assumptions when this practice began in 1911, are unclear. Possibly Australia was still under the influence of Victorian thinking. But four generations have passed since then.

Mary Daly in 'Pure Lust' says the worst laws are those that pit woman against woman; favour one class of woman over another; discriminate against one woman in favour of another. These laws are designed to keep women unreconciled, and therefore powerless.

JUSTIFIED AND UNJUSTIFIED DISTINCTIONS

3.22 Harmful DISTINCTIONS are DISCRIMINATORY

By leaving the issuing of Birth Certificates to the States the Federal Government turns a blind eye to the interpretation of the word 'mother. 'Mother', on a Birth Certificate, should mean 'that which is the origin of something'.
The law hinders women in achieving their basic human right.
It hinders and prevents women's enjoyment of rights.

3.20 Discrimination is a DENIAL of EQUALITY

Discrimination against the woman who gave birth is a denial of equal enjoyment of rights for all women.

3.19 Discrimination is a DENIAL of HUMAN RIGHTS

The practice of eliminating the names of the birth mother and father from BIRTH CERTIFICATES, denies women and men full enjoyment of human rights.
This practice denies the recipient of the BIRTH CERTIFICATE, the truth. The BIRTH CERTIFICATE deliberately misleads the adopted persons to think the adopted parents actually gave them birth.

3.11 Approaches to EQUALITY

As there is no comparable male experience to pregnancy and birth, and , as men made the original laws, it is understandable that males were legislating, in areas of which they had no experience, by virtue of their gender.
It is now up to women to demand the truth and eradicate past injustices and current discriminatory practices.

FEDERAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

3.8 FEDERAL and STATE Powers
As the Constitution provides that in areas of joint responsibility a Federal Law will override an inconsistent State Law I request, most urgently, that the AUSTRALIAN LAW REFORM COMMISSION

a) Examine current practices in the compilation of BIRTH CERTIFICATES in Australia -

FEDERAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

b) Eradicate inconsistencies that currently allow the compilation of untrue entries being made on BIRTH CERTIFICATES.

C) Demand the re-instatement of names of the women who gave birth, to be on the BIRTH CERTIFICATE used for OFFICIAL PURPOSES.

d) Demand that in States where Surrogacy is permitted, names of the actual BIRTH PARENTS and DONORS must be on the OFFICIAL BIRTH CERTIFICATE.
Doctors may destroy files after seven years, so the genetic forebears must be recorded on an OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT DOCUMENT, 'for all time'.

e) Demand that in cases of I.V.F. Births
Doctors must, by law, provide the names of donors progenitors, and Birth Mothers, to be recorded officially on the BIRTH CERTIFICATE.
Doctors may destroy files after seven years, so the genetic forebears must be recorded on an OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT DOCUMENT, 'for all time'.

All BIRTH CERTIFICATES of adopted people are untrue in two, and sometimes more, fundamental items of information.

I have seen BIRTH CERTIFICATES without a name next to the MOTHER Section; though how aperson was born fifty years ago without a mother one cannot even imagine.
Should the Commission require any further input from myself I am happy to provide examples and any extra information as requested.

Yours faithfully,

Member Adoption Loss Adult Support, Bris.,Q'l'd.
Janice Benson Founder Adoption Triangle ,
Q'l'd Association for Relinquishing Mothers , Q'l'd
Adoption Contact Information
Service , Q'l'd