Just a quick factual update on Adoptee Rights to their Original Birth Certificates for all.

In the US, 42 states continue the practice of sealing adopted children’s original birth certificates (the OBC) upon finalization of the adoption. This is one of the many areas of adoption legislation where the states have power over making the laws. Alaska and Kansas never sealed theirs at all, but the other 48 did, some as early as the 1930’s and some not until the 70’s. Some sealed records laws, such as NY, can trace their roots back to the corrupt practices of Georgia Tann and other unscrupulous lobby groups who must have been hiding something.

Right now unless your child’s OBC is in Alaska, Kansas, Maine, New Hampshire, Oregon, Tennessee, Alabama and Delaware or, unless the birthparents had the knowledge that they could apply for the OBC before the adoption records were sealed, then your child might never see the record of their birth.

Now, we all know that a birth certificate is a very important legal form of identity needed at various times throughout one’s life for many reasons such as getting a driver’s license or a passport or getting married and the states, in their supreme wisdom, do issue adopted children another birth certificate for them to use. This is called the amended birth certificate of the ABC. On it, depending on what your states artistic license, the adoptive parents are frequently listed as giving birth to the child in the city of which they live, but which the child was not born in. It works for getting into school and getting married. It might or might not work if the government ever goes for that whole ID law since they frequently look different than the standard OBC, but as a parent it will serve you well.

Adoptees are the only group of US citizens denied access to their OBC. It truly is a form of discrimination as the adoptee has no way of choosing the circumstances of their birth, relinquishment and adoption, but the circumstances of their birth is held against them long into adulthood.

The arguments for allowing adult adoptees to have access to their OBC are thus:

• It’s their right along with every other American.
• It allows them their identity; which is a right of all children according to the UN Convention on the Rights of a Child ( see articles 7 to 10)
• It gives them access to their medical history; which is recommended by the US Surgeon General’s Family History Initiative
• The government has no business legislating to whom adults can have or not have a relationship with.

All these facts are true.

The arguments against allowing adult adoptees access to their OBC are:

• Birthmothers were promised confidentiality and they can’t break those promises even if they are only implied
• If adoption was not confidential, then the abortion rates would rise
• If adoptions were not confidential then adoption rates would fall.
• Mothers who relinquish their children to adoption do not want to know their grown children.
• If we open records then adoptees might force themselves on their poor unsuspecting mothers and ruined their lives.

All these points, despite being promoted by the National Council for Adoption, many agencies, many churches and religious organizations and right to life groups, are false.

Mothers who relinquished could not have been promised anything of the sort by the state governments because there was no confidentiality to give. Let us remember that the OBC is a matter of public records until the adoption is finalized. That can take months and until that time, the birth certificate clearing stating who gave birth to whom is sitting at a country clerk’s office. Look who can get access for instance just in Georgia. What do you think would happen if the child never was adopted? The record would continue to be open forever. Now mind you the birthparents have no rights after signing the relinquishment papers, so they can’t force the child to be adopted nor seal the record. No confidentiality. Period.

Plus if there ever was one shred of paper claiming a birthmother anomininity, then the NCFA would have it plated in gold like the Holy Grail. They have not because it does not exist. Many mothers have gotten their records from agencies to check and no written promise has ever been found.

In Kansas and Alaska where the OBC was never sealed, abortion rates were lower than neighboring states. In states that opened up the OBC’s, the abortion rates sub-sequentially dropped.

On the same note, the same states have higher adoption rates when there is open records and no secrecy. In fact, the some of the openness in adoption can be traced back to a study done by the NCFA and the Family Research Council called The Missing Piece where they studied the feelings of mothers who relinquished (while blindfolded) and learned that women would be more open to adoption as a choice for an unplanned pregnancy if they could know where their child is and how they are fairing. The findings of that study were turned into the federally funded Infant Adoption Awareness Training Program. Kind of odd that the same information they use to create more adoptions is also use to keep records sealed.

In other countries and in the US where we can see historically the rates of the contact vetos issued by birthparents, across the board less than 1 to 4 % of relinquishing mothers employ the contact veto. The contact veto allows a birthmother to say that she refuses contact. In fact, in New Zealand, after 20 years of open records, they decided to forgo the veto clause since the numbers were so low. The great majority of mothers desire to know what happened to their babies and, in fact, had never forgotten them at all.

Adoptees don’t always want full on relationships with thier birthparents, but even if they do and even if their birthparents don’t, we have other laws in this country that are set to keep unwanted people in our lives. Stalking, harassment and privacy laws come to mind.

The discussion can go on and on, but this is the ONE area where universally adoptees, adoptive parents and birthparents, all agree:

Adult Adoptees over the age of 18 should have the unilateral right to access their original Birth Certificates because it is their truth, their history and their lives.

What they do with that information, as adults, is their business as adults to make adult decisions based on what they personally need.

Bastard Nation, CARE, The Evan B Donaldson Adoption Institute, the American Adoption Congress, Concerned United Birthparents and Adoptee Rights, plus many more groups, support adoptee access to the OBC as well. .

This summer, on July 21, at the 2009 National Conference of State Legislatures, Adoptee Rights is organizing a protest in Philadelphia.

There, in front of the state legislators who have the ability to change the laws or corrupt clean bills and make then horrible (see Massachusetts law on the OBC for example), adoptees, adoptive parents and birthparents will demand again to have the rights of adoptees restored. You don’t have to go to Philly, though all are invited, but support can take many forms.

To support your child’s access to the document of their legal birth you can:

• Write letters to your legislators and if you are an adoptive parent, then your voice actual will carry the most weight.
• Send in Donations.
• Talk to people because most regular folks have no idea this issue is happening and are also horrified when they are told the facts. Educate the masses.

You might not think that this matters to you if you child is in an open adoption or from an international situation and won’t need a new original birth certificate or just can’t ever get one.  Maybe you can understand better some of the fears that allow folks to not want to see a reunion because you can identify better with the older adoptive parents who were never, erroneously, prepared for this possible scenario. Maybe you can dismiss the needs of the adoptees because you want to think they are the adoptee minority or something. I don’t know.

But as a parent of an adopted child, this issue will affect us all.

It is the government sentencing of legal discrimination against adopted people and guess who you are raising…. an adopted person.

They cannot use their voices now and raise them with other adoptees, but you, as their parent, can.  It’s not an issue that only affects “them”. Not just the adult adoptees now. Not just the ones who want to search. Not just the ones that think they are being denied their civil rights. Not just the birthmothers who are declaring no privacy promises. Not just the adoptive parents who are supporting their grown children’s searches. But each and every one of us who have a smallest role in this adoption picture should be screaming for justice.

I, as a parent of an adopted person, can and I do. This is why my vacation time at work is going to be used when I go to Philly for the Adoptee Rights Protest in July.

Sometimes being a parent is not just about boo boos and school supplies. Sometimes being a parent is about making the world a just place for our children. Sometimes being a parent means we have to act on a bit more than making cookies for a PTA bake sale. Sometimes being a parent is about fighting injustice. This is one of those times.

If we do not raise our voices against the blatant second class treatment  that is faced by Adopted persons  by our own government, then one day you might have to explain to your child why Adoptees are still discriminated against.

And I do not know if your reasons will be good enough for them. I just don’t. The question you need to ask is:  Do you want to take that chance?

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Claudia Corrigan D’Arcy can be found ranting and ranting and raving about Equal Adoptee Access to their OBC”s and the Fight for Adoption Records, plus more stories about Life as a Birthmother on www.MusingsoftheLame.com