House Judiciary Chairman Jerold Nadler, D-NY, has declared that our country is in a “constitutional crisis” as a result of the executive branch’s refusal to honor congressional subpoenas for documentation and testimony regarding the Mueller Report and other congressional investigations. He went on to say that the survival of the Republic was now at stake. Others in politics, the media, and academe have expressed concern over the erosion of democracy in the United States. If democracy in America, a seemingly successful experiment which has withstood the test of time over the past 231 years, is in jeopardy, who is at fault and what can be done to remedy the situation?

Even when a person has health insurance, healthcare in the U.S. is largely inaccessible. Copays and deductibles are enough to put people in thousands of dollars of debt. Investopedia cited an NPR poll that found, “27 percent of respondents struggled to cover food, utilities, and housing expenses because of medical bills.” In fact, due to the impact medical bills have, “Medicare for all” has become a popular political conversation, as more Americans are unable to afford healthcare and begin to compare our healthcare system with that of other countries.

John Brown is one of American history’s most fascinating characters. The American Spartacus, Brown led an anti-slavery revolt in 1859 and has often been depicted as overzealous and even stark raving mad. After all, to racists, any white man who’d place himself in harm’s way by taking up arms in order to free Black slaves by definition had to be a lunatic. After his failed raid at Harpers Ferry a crowd of southerners questioned the militant firebrand while he was imprisoned at the armory and a bystander called Brown “fanatical.” Indeed, in the 1940 Hollywood movies Santa Fe Trail and Abe Lincoln in Illinois, Raymond Massey and John Cromwell portrayed Brown as insane.

But those whom Brown defended - and their descendents - did not think the freedom fighter was crazy. Of course, during the Civil War, the Union hymn “John Brown’s Body” paid tribute to the bold abolitionist. And in 1965 Malcolm X told whites who were expressing solidarity with Blacks: “If you are for me and our people’s problems then you have to be willing to do as old John Brown did.”

A few weeks ago, Ohio became the sixth state to pass a so-called “Heartbeat Bill” that prohibits abortion after a “fetal heartbeat” can be heard–around the sixth week of pregnancy when most women don’t even know yet they are pregnant.

Ohio’s “Heartbeat Bill” has been covered extensively, and I don’t intend to reinvent that wheel. Little has been mentioned, however, about how these bills, especially in Ohio, originated with individuals opposed to adoptee civil rights and how implementation can stymie adoptee rights and adoption reform.

“Heartbeat” and Adoption: Background