MIRAH RIBEN is author of two internationally acclaimed books, "shedding light
on...The Dark Side of Adoption" (1988) and "The Stork Market: America’s
Multi-Billion Dollar Unregulated Adoption Industry" (2007) and numerous articles.

Riben, former Associate editor of three national magazines is retired from Rutgers
Univertsity.

Riben is former Director of the American Adoption Congress and Past Vice President of
Communications of Origins-USA, a national non-profit that advocates for mothers'
rights and keeping natural families together. Riben has been researching, writing and
speaking about the need to reform, humanize, and de-commercialize American adoption
practices since 1979. She has appeared on several national television programs, and was
keynote speaker at many conferences. She blogs at http://FamilyPreservation.blogspot.com

Riben was among the very first mothers to go public in order to put a face on women who
had been called the invisible party in adoption, publicly addressing the lifelong pain of
losing a child to adoption. Risking imprisonment, she reunited hundreds of families
separated by adoption and helped mothers prevent unnecessary adoptions. In 1980 Riben
co-founded the original Origins, a New Jersey-based national organization for women who
lost children to adoption (unaffiliated with any other similarly named organization).

After the 1987 murder by Joel Steinberg of his illegally adopted daughter, Lisa, Riben
reunited the toddler boy found in the home Steinberg shared with Hedda Nussbaum with his
original family who had been pressured into allowing him to be adopted. Riben has housed
expectant mothers in need, is a former foster parent and raised three children. She
mourns the loss of her firstborn child who she was pressured to relinquish to adoption in
1968 and who departed this earthly plane at age 27 in 1995.

As a proponent of human rights with a focus on the rights of mothers, children and
families in crisis, Riben supports family preservation and opposes all profiteering in
adoption and falsification of original birth certificates. She speaks out against all
coercive and exploitative tactics in both domestic and international adoption. She
supports repeal of the laws that sealed original birth certificates from American
citizens who are and the replacement of closed, secret adoptions with simple or guardian
adoption, after all attempts to provide resources for children to remain safely within
their extended family have been exhausted. Such alternative child care would legally
maintain the child’s name as well as integrity of, and allow for knowledge of and contact
with, the original family.

Riben has been keynote and invited speaker at numerous national and state adoption
conferences as well as the 6th Annual PLI Adoption Law Institute Conference panel, “Costs
of Adoption: A Survey and Ethical Considerations”; the 7th Annual NJ Research Conference
on Women, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey; the 2007 Adoption Ethics and
Accountability Conference sponsored by The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute and
Ethica, Inc; Association for Research on Mothering Conference, York University, Toronto,
Canada 2009.

SelectedWorks of Mirah Riben

Mirah Riben

No institutional affiliation

Expertise

Honors & Awards

Links

Adoption / Family Preservation

Adoption Hype: Media Misrepresentations and Accepted Myths, Dissident Voice (2013)

Child Removal for Adoption: As a Financial “Solution” Versus Humane and Cost Effective Remedies, DissidentVoice (2012)

The Ironies of Adoption, AAC Decree: American Adoption Congress (2011)

Defining Ethics in Domestic and Global Adoption Practice, Open Arms, Open Minds: The Ethics of Adoption in the 21st Century (2010)

Universality of grief experienced by mothers who lose children to adoption, Adoption Community of New England. Inc. (2010)

Adoption: Access to birth certificates

Alison Larkin: The English American Speaks Her Truth About Adoption, The Beacon: American Adoption Congress (2012)

Adopted Citizens Denied Access to Their Birth Certificates: A Little-Known Civil Rights issue, Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Princeton (2011)

Repeal the Seal!, AAC Decree: American Adoption Congress (2011)

American Adoption Access Laws are and Policies are Upside Down and Backwards, AAC Decree: American AdoptionCongress (2010)

"Open Records" versus "Equal Access": Reframing our Issues, American Adoption Congress (2009)

Adoption as a women's issues

Is the war on Abortion Heating Up?, News Blaze (2012)

Reverse Robinhoodism: Pitting Poor Against Affluent Women in the Adoption Industry (with Bernadette Wright), Conducive Magazine (2009)

Adoption Loss, Pain, Irresolvable and Universal Grief (2009)

Empowerment of MothersThough not unfit, abusive or neglectful, expectant mothers were made to feel inadequate and not deserving to parent. , Parts III: Adoption as a Last Resort for Families in Crisis and Part IV: Adoption Through a Feminist Lens. Finding Alternatives (2009)

Who Deserves to be a Mother: The Impact of Class, Age and Powerlessness, (2009)

International Adoption

RT Russian American Television Interview RE: Jan. 2013 Death of Max Shatto (2013)

American Babies Exported for Adoption, Dissident Voice (2012)

Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics and Baby Selling?, OpEd News (2010)

Facing the real issues in international adoption, Russia Beyond the Headlines (2010)

US tries to thaw Russia's adoption freeze, RT America (Russia Today TV) (2010)

Adoption Ethics

Where is the Line Between Adoption and Baby Buying?, Dissident Voice (2013)

Defining Ethics in Domestic and Global Adoption Practice, Open Arms, Open Minds: The Ethics of Adoption in the 21st Century (2010)

Adoption Fees: Ethical Considerations for all Parties in Adoption, Adoption Law Institute, PLI New York Center (2009)

Alternatives Routes to Permanency: is adoption always the best option, The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute and Ethica, Inc., Adoption Ethics and Accountability Conference (2007)

Radio Interview with Judyth Piazza, American Perspective Radio Program, American Perspective Radio Program (2007)

Adoption and the Religious Right

Prophecy, Proselytizing and Profit: Adopting Christian Soldiers, Dissident Voice (2010)

Other

Statistics, Politics, and Solutions in the Gun Discussion, DissidentVoice (2013)

Book Reviews

Between the Lines: Seeking True Culpabaility, CUB Communicator, Concerned United Birthparents, Des Moines, IA (1995)

Book Review: What Lisa Knew, CUB Communicator, Concerned United Birthparents, Des Moines, IA (1991)

Book Review: Birth Bond, CUB Communicator, Concerned United Birthparents, Des Moines, IA (1990)

Book Review: Recreating Motherhood, CUB Communicator, Concerned United Birthparents, Des Moines, IA (1989)

Adopted Child Syndrome

Adoption and Parenticide: Seeking Truth and Justice, Dissident Voice (2012)

Opinion

Opinion: Author, Lecturer, Mirah Riben Repsonds, St. Michael Patch (2011)

Gun control

Statistics, Politics, and Solutions in the Gun Discussion, DissidentVoice (2013)

Adoption Mythology

Adoption Hype: Media Misrepresentations and Accepted Myths, Dissident Voice (2013)

Death by abuse in adoption

RT Russian American Television Interview RE: Jan. 2013 Death of Max Shatto (2013)

Adoption Loss

Sacrificial Firstborn (2013)

No subject area

Russian Ban on U.S. Adoptions: Is if Fair?, DissidentVoice (2013)

Putin Bans Americans from Adopting Russian Children (2012)

Russia Today-TV Interview (2012)

American Home for Russian Kids: A Curse or Blessing? (2012)

Contract (2011)