Adoptees up against backward laws protest at the National Conference of State Legislatures

By Joyce Bahr

Members of New York’s Unsealed Initiative ending a legislative session lobby in Albany for the Bill of Adoptee Rights will be joining protesters at the National Conference of State Legislatures annual conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 21, 2009. Fed up with outdated laws dating back to the 1930’s sealing original birth certificates forever, advocates for change and reform want legislators to know they will no longer tolerate unfairnes, discrimination and disrespect. Kansas and Alaska never sealed birth certificates. Why in the twenty-first century are there laws nullfying a person's right to know the basic facts of their birth?

England gave adopted persons rights to original birth certificates in 1975 and some countries never sealed birth certificates. Many countries have changed their laws since the 1980's giving adoptees long overdue rights, while U.s. adoptees intentions are unequivocally stated with recent success for full rights in Alabama, Maine, New Hampshire and Oregon.

The delay in the U.S. in passing legislation stems from adoption agencies and certain legislators unwillingness to listen and change with the times. Certainly adoptees should not have to feel shame or fear in wanting knowledge of their origins, and speaking out against discrimination facing them. Sealed records discriminate against the very adoptees they were originally meant to protect. Advocates ask do sealed records serve to help anyone when an adoptee reaches the age of majority?

Sealed birth certificate statutes in the U.S. state nothing of confidentiality of birth/natural parents, only confidentiality of birth certificates. Some legislators believe birth/natural parents were given confidentiality however recent research conducted by Elizabeth J. Samuels with the Baltimore School of Law published in the Rutger’s Law Review titled The Idea of Adoption: An Inquiry into the History of Adult Adoptees Access to Birth Records concludes laws closing records to the parties were enacted not as a shield to protect natural/birth parents from their adult children’s ever learning their identity, but as a sword to to prevent them from interfering with the adoptive families raising the child.

Confidentiality of birth/natural parents has been a bone of contention in the struggle for rights and advocates will agree a smokescreen for other reasons to object. One being objection by adoptive parents who reject the idea of a birth/natural parent as an extended family member. In 1997 a study conducted by Cornell University found adoptive parents overwhelmingly support the adoptees right to know. It’s not surprising some adoptive parents in the legislature are sponsors of adoptee rights legislation.

Possibility of numbers of abortions climbing , fear of adoption placements slowing or any other unproven reason, adult adoptees are demanding they alone make the decision to request their birth certificate. And the state should not be an acting Father Knows Best standing in their way to access what is rightfully theirs.

A November 2007 comprehensive study conducted by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute the foremost think tank on adoption issues concludes adoptees behave with maturity and respect when contacting birth/natural parents and that birth/natural parents lives are not ruined from being contacted. The report urges all states to follow states with open record laws and unseal birth certificates. Times have changed with thousands of adoptees and birth/natural parents searching every year. Several states have pending legislation and several states have partial open records, meaning adoptees born in certain years have access. Do natural parents have access?Three states have enacted laws giving them search assistance but not direct access. These states are Illinois, Georgia and Tennessee.

The July 2009 protest organized by members of the Adoptee Rights Demonstration is a demand for legislators to vote on adoptee rights legislation. Not to table it or assign it to a committee known as hell where bills go to die. Protesters are asking legislators to think hard about an adoptees inalienable right to identity and need to know. Advocates describe sealed records laws as outdated, antediluvian, slow to catch up and backwards. It’s time to bring state laws current with society and give adoptees the respect from the state they deserve.

http://www.adopteerights.net

http://www.unsealedinitiative.org

Singing, and Rapping, for Their Rights as Adoptees

Two musicians have written and recorded a song they hope will revive a bill that would open private adoption records.

read more | digg story

Birth mothers punished before & continue to bear brunt of NYS legislators

Should this onus be on us?

As an unwed 18 year old in the summer of 1962, I became pregnant and with the climate the way it was back then, I was sent away and gave up my baby because as a "single" parent I could not provide for him. Whoever heard of single parent way back when? The innuendos did speak loudly. I was the tramp and my son, the bastard child but nobody knew that because it was a secret. To hide my shame and disgrace [I did not know that I had either], I stayed at an unwed mother's home, gave birth alone, and sent home without my beloved baby. I signed the surrender papers on July 1,1963, when my son was less than 2 months old. For many years, I did not understand why I was treated like a pariah with my first pregnancy. My parents experienced no joy knowing that soon they would become grandparents while still in their 40s because they and society would not accept his birth.

After reading Rickie Solinger's book Wake Up Little Susie did I learn that losing my son to adoption would pay for my sin of having non-marital sex, or in other words, look what I can do without a man and the sanctity of marriage. So our legislators made sure that our punishment would be forever by sealing the adoption records from me, my son, and his adoptive parents. Did I have another choice? Sure, marriage would have been the acceptable choice but it was not an option back then. Foster care – never heard of it. Welfare – never heard of it. So with the adoption & its sealing, so were our fates.

Fast forward to the present. Over the years, both adoptees and/or their birth parents have sought information since the birth & surrender. The agency that I surrendered to painted a picture of my son and his placement in his newly adoptive family. It sounded really good but I still was not content with the aspect of having my own baby be someone else's and me not knowing who, what, where, when and why. There are several states that recently started to issue original birth certificates to adoptees. Kansas & Alaska records were always open. I truly believe that each & everyone would benefit from disclosing the names of parents, medical history, extended family and so forth.

Yet the legislators in NYS are afraid to pass such a bill saying that it has to respect the mothers' promise of confidentiality without which we are told, women would choose to have abortions over surrender. Truth be told in states where records are open, abortions have gone down, adoptions have gone up. It is truly amazing that our elected officials have used the birthmothers as their scapegoat first in instilling that we be punished for our crime and now alternately, records must be sealed to maintain confidentiality. I did not ask for it but was told it was the law. I did not sign any papers where I was promised confidentially. When I tried to have a waiver of confidentiality placed in my file, it was rejected as it violated NYS laws. I was never issued a birth certificate for my son because the agency withheld it from me. That is a real violation of NYS law, depriving the parent of her baby's original birth certificate. Our elected officials should try to remedy some of their past actions by bringing Bill Nos A8410 and S5269 to a vote.

Carole L. Whitehead. NYSAR Board Member for Unsealed Initiative

Adoptee Linda Zoblotsky on Texas law reform, her story and play "Luvchild"

I am Linda Zoblotsky.I lived in NYC for 18 years and then I moved to Texas 4 years ago in 2004, where I was born, to help my adoptive brother in Dallas with his computer business. I was born in El Paso, Texas. My adoptive parents were allowed to take me to Oklahoma, where I grew up, when I was only 8 days old.

Birth records are sealed in Oklahoma and in Texas. In 2005, after many years of the lobbying efforts of the triad community in Austin, Gov. Rick Perry signed a bill to open birth records, but only if you know the name of your natural parents, then you can apply for your original birth certificate.On the application, it says if you commit perjury, you can be fined up to $10,000.In a few weeks you get a Xerox of your birth certificate and it costs $10.00.

I had reunion with my natural parents in 2003. When Rick Perry signed this bill, I was just curious, so I sent in my application and $10.00 and now I have a Xerox copy of my original birth certificate.But for people who are still searching, I find this law cruel and inhumane.It is a tease to people in the position that I was once in, when I had no idea of the names of my natural parents.

I was very very lucky in that when I started searching in 1993, it took a while, but ALMA, the Adoptee Liberation Movement Association, matched me with a man and a women who were looking for a girl born in El Paso born on my birth date. By the time the letter with the match from ALMA arrived in 2001, I knew it was my natural parents, just because I figured there wouldn't have been a whole lot of Jewish children surrendered for adoption on my birth-date in 1963.

When ALMA sent me the information, after so many years, after I registered and my natural parents registered in the 1980's, the addresses and phone numbers were old. I had to use a combination of intuition, nerve and determination,like so many adopted people, to begin dialing. One day in 2003, when I turned 40, I encountered a voice that I liked on an answering machine in Berkeley. It took me a while to get the nerve to leave a message and when I did, I found my natural Mother. She contacted my natural Father immediately and it has been a very happy reunion. Both of my parents were thrilled!

While I was in New York City, I performed in 5 national musical theatre Broadway tours. It turns out that my parents met each other while they were students at the Goodman School of Drama in Chicago.My Father is a professional actor, writer and theatre critic in L.A. My Mother sang and acted in Chicago and NYC. My adoptive sister, who lost her 2 children to adoption, and a dear friend of mine who went to the Goodman School predicted that I would find my natural parents 10 days before I turned 40 and that's what happened.It turns out that my good friend from the Goodman was beginning school there, as my natural Mother was finishing, but he didn't know her, however, he came to realize that he knew my Mother's sister. And when I found my natural Father, an actress friend in NYC told me she knew him from when she was making the auditioning rounds in L.A. While I was making phone calls looking for my natural Mother, I was writing a one woman play about searching for my natural parents called Linda Zoblotsky is Luvchild. I'm glad I had to change the ending and I am thankful that my play has a joyous ending.

Pending Lesislation for adoptee rights in New York Gains Support

Pending Legislation will Give Adoptees The Right To Know

by Joyce Bahr


A strong lobby by activists with New York Statewide Adoption Reform's Unsealed Initiative has brought the assembly bill A2277 to 75 sponsors and 31 supporters. This issue has taken a long time to be listened to because, adoptees who wanted to know their origins were vilified by some who disliked the idea of adoptees and birth/natural parents searching. Adoptees whose birth certificates were sealed beginning in 1935 include those who were adopted near the time of their birth and some who were adopted at older ages by stepfathers or stepmothers. Bill Aronis was adopted by his stepfather at age 19 and his original birth certificate was sealed at that time making it impossible to obtain a copy. Bill who is 80 years of age is not the only adoptee in the same predicament.

Adoptees began searching in large numbers in the 1970's and as of now there are many adoptees and birth/natural parents who already know their origins or the child they relinquished but adoptees are still denied the right to know. With this issue becoming more mainstream legislators are more aware of the issues and many have come around to support this long overdue right. However there are a small number of legislators who feel adoption policy should remain as it was 30 years ago. Adoption Social Workers will tell you adoption practice is always ahead of policy.There are many social workers in New York State along with members of the Child Welfare league of America who support the right to know.

New York State's adoption policy for adoptees and birth/natural parents who want to know pertains only to the New York Adoption Registry, meaning both parties must register and if that doesn't work too bad. The policy says do not search. This is an outdated policy in which human nature is not considered. Human beings have needs and they must be recognized. With current New York law adoptees and birth/natural parents have no say in the matter leaving them frustrated and humiliated.

A comprehensive report by the foremost think tank on adoption issues, the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute released on November 12, 2007 found adoptees must be able to learn their identity, and urges all states to follow the path of the 8 states that allow adoptees access to birth certificates. The report depicts adoptees as the only class of Americans not permitted to routinely obtain their birth certificates. Kansas and Alaska never sealed birth certificates and four states, Maine, Oregon, Alabama and New Hampshire have passed legislation similar to New York's Bill of Adoptee Rights.

New York bill A2277/S235 gives all adoptees at age 18 the right to a copy of their birth certificate and has a contact preference option for birth/natural parents. Meaning they can choose Yes, I want to be contacted, I want to be contacted but only through an intermediary and No, I prefer not to be contacted at this time. Those birth parents who choose no contact are asked to fill out an updated medical history form. Many adoptees have no medical history, even though the U.S. Surgeon General stresses the importance of knowing one's medical history and doctors say most people die from genetic diseases.

Maine Senator and adoptee Paula Benoit who lobbyed for passage of the recent Maine legislation urges you to join the fight in New York to end discrimination to adoptees. Spokesperson for the adoptee rights movement Darryl McDaniels says non adopted persons begin their lives at chapter one while adoptees begin theirs at chapter two and have the right to know the first chapter. New York activists are demanding the right to know now!

Joyce Bahr is President New York Statewide Adoption Reform's Unsealed Initiative

Brazil joins list of countries unsealing birth certificates

England gave adoptees rights in 1975. A new movement to end adoption scecrecy and lies was born. many countries have followed and changed laws unsealing birth certificates for adult adoptees. some countries give birth parents rights too.

read more | digg story