Without your birth parents anme how do you think you will get family health info?

I am a 55 yr old adoptee. I believe we should have the right to our birth certificate, especially our medical history, to know what we may be facing in life. Take the parents name off. I don't wish to know their names. I feel they would have looked for me if they wanted. I am grateful for my life and not being aborted. I have no ill feelings as I had a good life. Sure, I had many questions as to why I was given up but they had their reasons. It may have been better this way, but not knowing your medical info is difficult. Your children are concerned with their growing up and their children and what they may face. Non-adoptees don't have to worry about these concerns that we face , so they don't give it a thought, but I am sure if they were adopted-their thoughts would be different. At this age, we should be given this info. We are not out to cause problems, but we should be given that decision. I hope this changes before I pass on and I am guessing the ones opposed to this are not adopted.

I know a retired social worker who promised confidentiality if that was what the b.moms wanted to hear. Where did she get this authority?
Was it ever put in writing? No, it was simply the policy of the agency (social services). Albany, NY did not promise any such thing and that's where the power originates. The NY legislature is lawyer-driven.

To Lisa Marie from NJ

I only recently have seen your comment of Sept 2011. I thank you for your comments. Since that time I have gotten a blog of my own @ http://gertmcqueen.wordpress.com called reclaiming the family honor that Joan Wheeler stole. I would encourage all to know and understand the full extent of the damage that Joan Wheeler had and still is doing to visit my blog and my sister Ruth’s @ http://ruthsippelpace.wordpress.com called refuting the lies of Joan Wheeler.
and here is my newest blog post about this...

http://gertmcqueen.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/the-lies-and-ugly-statements-of-joan-wheeler-are-there-for-the-whole-world-to-seeforever/

Again, thank you Lisa Marie from NJ

Rubby Red Slippers ,I am a 63 yr old from Florida near the Childrens Home Society in Jacksonville,my email is arlinehunter 386@gmail.com and Facebook under ArlineHunter,that agency has social workers that lie and lie,they found my son at 36 ,2 yrs ago,said he said yes to contact ,then said it was nice of his PARENTS to send him through law school,was a dart to my heart.then she said communication was bad,his secretarys sent her fake email,said she was a telephone salesladie-then it went on ,what no telepnone at his home? Faxes at work ,I was told to write the 1st letter then filled out med forms sent to her office,she said the 1st letter was lost ,another sent ,it to lost,she made up months up lies to tell me ,she then said my son might noy be a lawyer ,why? because of noises in his offices? she can lie because she can,she said he wanted a very slow contact when she closed the case,she does nothing .How about you? Her favorite lie that she quotes that has mothers die wating is (He isn,t ready to have contact,he maybe never got any papers I sent,I did not recieve anything but her invisibble lying word !!!!!!! Angry yes,I set money to up state for donation ,didn,t have a Florida adress,hope Fla.gets a rally? Do you know I,m clueless,have Chiagos adress but pay pal is not working right ,maybe so many at once,gave money to a search angel a known one to eat with the group,thanks so much.

This thread is a wonderful 'first person' account of the social construction known as the 'closed adoption experiment' and it's impact on those required by law to live the lie. It is useful to remember that prior to the late 1930's, the sealing of birth certificates and the creation of falsified birth documents was unheard of.

In a free and open society, it is simply not the business of government to seal and then to falsify the birth identity of it's citizens. As with the Salem witch trials, this history will one day be reduced to a curiosity for scholars and playwrights; a lesson in prejudice and fear, in large part, based in women's sexuality.

In another 25 years, I imagine few states will continue to seal and falsify birth documents. It is not necessary in order to provide children with a safe and permanent home. And ACLU will be left with a very suspect sensibility.

Emma from California,
I am an adoptee and have tried getting my original birth cert. I feel as if my rights have been taken from me. Social Services took me from my birth mother when I was around six I was placed in three different foster homes.The last family adopted me and that was where my trauma beganSince then both my birth mom and adoptive parents have passed away. I served in the military for three years,the trauma just got worse. In there I experienced trauma from being raped. I now suffer from PTSD. I live with it each day. I heard somewhere that I may be able to have my records unsealed and have my orininal birth Cert. Can you help me?
Thank you,
Emma

I am an adoptee. I was born 02/19/1974 at Pomona Valley Hospital in Los Angeles,CA I was always curious about my birth parents. I was an only adopted child. I know at the time of my adoption my parents felt they didn't want kids but I have always had a feeling I may have a brother or sister out there. I would like to find out if that is true. I know some people don't want to be found but I would like to see what my mom and dad looked like so I could see who's characteristics I have and would like to hear about where the family came from and whether or not later in life they decided that they did want kids and regretted the decision they made. I could understand if they wanted to remain anonymous I can respect that but I would like to understand who they are as people. My adoptive parents will always be my parents. My mother God rest her soul was a beautiful person and my dad always did what he could for me and I appreciate everything they did for me but I always wonder if my natural parents are still alive and how their lives are now. Can anyone else relate to this? Or have any info for me?

Montoya, if you are Native American, check out the Indian child Welfare Act which should give you access to your records.

i'm one of the billion adoptees who needs help on retaining my sealed BC, attornees fees ranged from 500 to 700 bux i feel that if it is costing them to hold it then i will be gladly to take it off their hands. native american looking for his BP ... montoya

I'm a adoptee that was relinquish 30years ago I feel every adoptee should have the right to there origin it seems the laws are to only protect the birth parent's and as if the adopted where never going to grow to adulthood get married and have children I for one. Don't want my kids or myself to marry and have children with blood relatives and even going to the doctor I was giving my adoptive family history and only when I had kids myself found out I have sickle cell because my daugther had it and I still have problems that doctors can't find what's wrong so just knowing medical info is so imporant and also I would want to tell my kids there ethnicity I was only told a story of how I came to be my children look mixed I be wondering looking at them sometimes I mean good or bad everyone should know and have that right the laws should really change adoptee are not just bitter little brats that should be grateful we are people adults with children of our own that need to know for a lot of various reasons

Is there any hope for my daughter to get her original birth certificate? She knows her mothers name and her fathers names but wants to know her heritage. She is Native American we know that but how do we get proof for her to know what tribe she belongs to. She wants to be apart of her tribe and learn her heritage and can't without her first birth certificate. She even knows her real birth name she is 25 years old now so how do I help her?

I am a birth mother who gave up my son 35 years ago. Today I emailed him to wish him a happy birthday only to have him reply that his birthday is on Sep 25 not the 23rd. I know his birthday is the 23rd. I contacted Children's Home Society in Florida and was advised that the date on his birth certificate is the 25th. I'm assuming this is all part of the baby scoop era. Now I'm sure he thinks I've lost my mind but I know that I haven't. I'd just like to know how I can prove it

I too am tired of the angry adoptees as well.

Also tired of the birth mothers crying about choices THEY made.

Get over yourselves and instead of screwing up other peoples lives learn to enjoy the time you have on earth.
Mutual consent fair to all.

Ruth and Gert the best to you for opening up your heart and lives. To bad your sister is so busy being angry and so busy with adoption reform movement instead of mending relationships with your family.
Everyone should go to your website "refuting a book of lies" and read about an adoption reunion and what an angry adoptee has done to her reunited family.

Not all reunions are happily ever after fairy tales. Opening up birth certificates not only affects birth parents and adopted person also affects siblings and extended family.

I'M here to say 1 thing.. I have the right to know my babyboy ! KYLE FRANKLIN OWENS .. I gave him up due to HIS illiness. I had no other choice. He was a preme. I need to to keep in my heart ,and PRAY something or someone will help me through this. SCEARD of what I will find out! I can only belive he feel's the same as I do . I have not a thing to hide. Only dream's and nightmere's stay in my mind. I LONG for my BABY-BOY .. He is all the reason to make it possiable..

thank you very much Laurel.
While I understand adoptees right to a birth certificate and passport and such, I do NOT understand adoptees trashing other human beings. Infertile women, birth mothers, adoptive mothers, siblings who were NOT adopted out,- are all frequent targets of hate from these "angry" adoptees. And to have to suffer from slander and libel from one own bloodkin, and all I ever did was be reunited with my sister who was relinguised to adoption.
I was only 3 years old when Joan was adopted, I did nothing. I welcomed her back into my life when I was 22, with open arms and heart - and got stabbed in the back for it. Then had to open a book and read awful lies about myself.
We were reunited with Joan in 1974. Worst thing we ever did.

Congratulations on getting Forbidden Family pulled. I have been following your story.

It needs to be pointed out that the book Forbidden Family, written by Joan Wheeler, published by Trafford Publications
has been pulled from their selling markets. The book in unavailable and no further copies of it's present form will be printed.
The book was pulled by the publisher after several months of investigating the documented proof sent to them by the birth family.
The pulling of the book proves that what the birth sisters have been saying, that the book is full of lies and hate, is correct.
For further details see: ruthsippelpace.wordpress.com/

There is a wonderful group of women who have 'relinquishing fathers' who are members.
Look them up if anyone is interested.
They can be found on Google; Origins Inc New South Wales Adoption Support.

I am an aging baby boomer adoptee. I have accomplished a great deal in my life but my contacting my birth mother over 30 years ago is seared in my memory. she was not thrilled to hear from me but did provide me with the information I requested. Adoption issues are lifelong for many adoptees and the mothers that dealt with the pain and trauma of relinquishing their children. I never heard from my birth mother after my initial contact but did hear from one of her sons when she revealed mr existence to both him and his brother on her death bed. She lived on the west coast and I lived on the east coast and requested a letter that she had written to me be sent. Eventually I met several of my siblings from both my birth parents. The shadow of adoption follows us throughout our lives. Sealing our records is designed to spare us the stigma of our births. I do have a copy of my original certificate, as well as a copy of the 15 months I spent in the care of Catholic Services. I know my 16 year old mother refused to relinquish me. Even with this information healing has been difficult for me. I firmly believe in adoption but also firmly believe that adoptions should be open. we as adoptees have deep wounds from a social experiment that is deeply flawed. Just as President Reagan called upon the USSR to tear down the Berlin Wall so to do the states with antiquated adoption laws need to open up the records to adult adoptees. I also request at the least psychological help for all the damage inflicted upon adoptees by these ill conceived laws.

I was born in Detroit Michigan. I was the last of 8 in which all of my siblings were taken away from birth mother, I have my non-identifying info, & adoption papers, & registration of birth, but no birth certificate. I would give anything to meet a sibling or parent. Adoptive mom born of German decent, in 1914. Dad, just says no info known, except served in armed forces. 3 different men, supposedly the 2 born. The last name on my adoption papers says Carr, but adoptive mom wrote the name Gilmore also involved somehow. Before me, could have same birth dad. I would give anything to hear or meet a sibling or parent if alive. In my non-identifying info have the mo. & yr. each sibling born, & adoption, first boy born never adopted, would be about 74 now.

Being a genealogy buff, I was drawn into watching the television show "Who Do You Think You Are?" episode Friday night about Emmitt Smith's ancestry.

What disturbed me the most was when it was pointed out to Emmitt that purebred horses in the United States can be tracked back all the way to the 1600's in England; but, Smith's family cannot be tracked back that far because the records stopped at the slavery point about 200 years ago. It was discussed how slaves were treated as property and were "bred". It was disgusting to hear about this barbaric time in our country's history.

However, it infuriates me that even with the horrific slavery in his ancestry, Mr. Smith (with the help of genealogists) was able to trace back his family for 200 years! He even traveled to Africa and visited the area his family's African DNA was believed to have originated from. Why does that make me angry? Because I can't even go back in my family history to find my biological father. Why? Simply because I was adopted. The only record of me on Ancestry.com is a one line entry on the California Birth Index. It then appears that I cease to exist. My birth name belongs to a ghost now. My ancestors will not be able to trace back our family tree past me. It stops with me. My branch was severed from the family tree.

Sealed/amended birth certificates are modern-day sales receipts for adoptive parents that assure them that our (adoptees) family histories, nationalities and cultures are irrelevant. We are legally transformed into living "blank canvasses or slates" during the adoption process and then have new identities painted onto us. We are issued fake (amended) birth certificates with new names and new parents listed on them.

It is 2010. I want the truthful documentation of my birth unsealed NOW. Ownership of human beings did not cease to exist when slavery was abolished. Emmitt Smith seemed to be under the impression that people are not treated like chattel anymore in the United States. He couldn't be more wrong. The horses that recently raced at all the county fairs have pedigrees, but the adopted PEOPLE in this country do not.

This injustice and blatant discrimination against fellow human beings continues in the "land of the free" because the non-adopted majority has refused to take a stand against it.

Where does one begin to comment on something that should be my right to have, while politicians, legislators and others make false arguments, relying on misconceptions and untruths to block votes and stonewall the legislative process? It is really sad that in today's day and age one's own identity comes into question by thousands who have no stake in it. Our lives are regulated by federal, state and local jurisdictions. Each believes they know what is in our best interest, but none can be so wrong when it comes to my rights as an individual to have my original birth certificate. Each spouts rhetoric about the importance of heredity when it comes to health care issues, insurance and the like, but none believe that my right to this information is important to meet my family’s medical needs. Each decides, through its own arduous process the writing, submitting and passing of legislation, but none see the corruptness and layers of personal agendas that the legislators seem to abide by. If we are a government of “by the people, for the people” then why are 6 – 8 million people ignored or tossed aside in the process? I am for equal rights for ALL people and it seems that this message has been lost while many have fought so long and hard to bring it to the forefront. Each legislator, Assembly Member, Senator and Representative has information about their heritage, culture and history that allows them to celebrate this with their families and communities. The 6 – 8 million adult adoptees are asking for the same opportunity. After all, they are adults, age of majority individuals who vote, pay taxes, and yet are denied the same rights and celebrations as the rest of the citizens of our country.

I just realized that I didn't have a passport before 9/11...instead I just found my adoptive mother's passport with my baby picture in it and me listed as "1 child". Children were attached to an adult's passport in the 60's/70's?

What does this mean for me? My amended birth certificate was issued over a year past my birth date. I've been told that adoptees in my situation have been denied passports out of the country because of the late amending. Am I going to have to jump through a bunch of government hoops to navigate the brick walls and snake pits the government has already constructed for me?

I'm adopted and am considered lucky to have my original birth certificate, I shouldn't be, all adoptees should have access to this basic right, just like everyone else is.

I became a birth mother in 1978. I was 16 years old, forced to either surrender my daughter or figure out where her next diaper was coming from. .. I was 1600 miles away from home (yes, I was one actually sent away) and terrified.
Never a day went by that I didnt worry about or love my child.
13 years later I had my second daughter.. Now, grief overwhelmed me as I could see developmental milestones that I missed.. 1995 I bought my first computer .. I didnt know how to turn it on but I looked at it and said "this might actually be something that could help" Back then there were very few places that even had web sites but I networked, found government employees, state workers and searchers. In 1998 when my daughter was 18 she was located. It has been a bittersweet relationship.. She knows I love her, she has sisters and brothers. She suffers from depression, Anxiety disorder, addictions and more. I find it difficult to believe as I look at my raised children and see the differences in the outcomes. Ironically, Im blamed for these "heriditary traits" that I or my kept children do not possess. I know closed adoption harmed me, I fear it has mentally damaged my child. Even an open situation would have benefitted her more.

It's important to know that all chapters of ACLU do not agree with the NJ chapter. Two chapters, Oakland, MI, and SW Florida chapters published Policy Statements in support of adoptee access to OBCs in 1987. Here is the text of the FL statement:

This chapter agrees with the policy statement accepted by the Oakland County Chapter (Michigan Affiliate) and hereby accepts their policy which has been adapted to conform to Florida.
In recent years, the issue of adoption has increased in complexity and has involved the interest and efforts of the courts, social agencies, and media. A person adopted in infancy, unfortunately continues to be referred to as an “adopted child” even after reaching adulthood. If this person chooses (or in some cases needs) to discover his or her birthparents or birth records, they find such records are sealed by the courts and are inaccessible.

Historically this was considered to be for the protection of privacy, and maintenance of secrecy was ostensibly for the good of all involved. However, careful scrutiny of adoption statutes and practices has indicated that legal changes are necessary, and that civil liberties of adopted adults are being violated in the absence of any state or national policy on this matter, and with the belief that adopted persons should be treated no differently than other citizens, the Southwest Florida Chapter Board has voted to endorse the following policy:

“Numerous states have laws or procedures which impede the ability of adopted adults, their birthparents and other relatives to ascertain each others’ identities. The ACLU believes that so long as state and/or local governments choose to maintain birth records, such records must be maintained and accessible without discrimination by virtue of adopted or non-adopted status.

Toward this end, the ACLU believes that laws suppressing information about adoptees and/or their birthparents, and laws allowing access to such information only upon consent or registration, or laws allowing access to such information only upon court order, deny adopted persons, their birthparents, and their relatives equal protection of the laws and constitutes unwarranted interference by the government with the right of people to choose whether to associate.”

The political debate on the adoption issue has tended to be framed in terms of psychological issues; emotional issues; medical issues and sociological issues. The above policy confines itself to a civil liberties analysis.

I recently had to order a certified copy of by birth certificate (the amended one) from PA. To my surprise, PA is still mucking about with their records. I know for a fact that my adoption was finalized in 1953 and previous copies of my ABC acknowledged that. The new one has been altered yet again and back dated to the same day in 1952. This is because the gap between my DOB and the registration date on the ABC would have caused me problems in getting a passport.

What Amanda said about clan really hit home. The day I met my sister -- my one and only sibling -- was the first time in my life that I saw someone who looked like me. I matched my adoptive family's coloring to some extent but I looked like no one. Now, ever time I meet or see a photo of a cousin, I can see the resemblance. It's a powerful experience that only those who have been denied it until the age of 50 can grasp.

The really odd thing is that I would most likely not have searched if I could just have had my OBC. My adoptive parents were shocked to find out that I could not and my entire adoptive family and many friends, adopted or not, supported my efforts to learn the truth. The benefit that searching brought to me was that I know many of the persons who joined me in listening to your radio show and took the time to comment.

Thanks, Diane for explaining it so well. And thanks to the hosts for giving our side of the argument a hearing! And I guess I even should thank Mr. Snyder for delivering such baseless arguments against open records.

My husband is a 71 year old adoptee born in NYC. He had the obligation to serve his country as an Army Veteran. He has served his community as a volunteer fireman and as a first aid volunteer. Why is he, then denied the right to his original birth certificate?

I was empowered to search for my son in 1986 not very long after the women's movement of the 70's and am educated on women's issues as are many of us mothers who surrendered to adoption. In 1986 I was aware of the ACLU and their book THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN The Basic ACLU Guide to Women's Rights and that it does not include anything about a right to privacy for women who surrendered. It does not include any information informing women that surrendering to adoption is terminating parental rights. We unwed mothers are women who have a history of having no rights and no voice. For the NJ ACLU to say we have a right to privacy when there's absolutely nothing in their book of women's rights is proof they are perpetuating lies against us when they should speak the truth. The ACLU throughout our country has done nothing to address the injustice done to mothers forced to surrender.

I was reunited with my son by a feminist social worker at Lutheran Child and Family Services in Chicago in 1986 who never mentioned anything to me of confidentiality or a right to my privacy then or now because it never happened. I terminated my parental rights in the presence of my mother and the social worker. The social worker could have at that time signed a document giving me confidentiality or a right to privacy but she did not. My mother told me the only thing that meant anything was signing the surrender paper terminating my rights and that is the truth. This truth must set adoptees free.

Thank you, Erich from Brooklyn!

Your acknowledgement that there is a great deal more to the adoptee rights issue than meets the eye gives us hope. When we first speak to our legislators, we get largely the same reactions you exhibited early on. These "urban legend" arguments against granting adoptees access to their own authentic documents are difficult to put to rest. However, when most reasonable folks are presented with all the facts, they begin to see what a grave injustice has been to adoptees and they join us, in spirit at least, in our efforts.

So...for your understanding and well wishes, we say, "God bless you!"

One more response to Erich's questions -
1. What is it that birth parents supposedly need "protection" from? Embarassment? Shame? Guilt? Erich, the resuilt of sealed adoptions is to move that guilt, shame and embarassment from the ones who "did the deed" away from the birth parents and onto their children. It's a form of being protected from having to wear a Scarlet Letter in public, by hiding the child and pretending we don't exist. Agencies, churches, pastors, and parents used shame and fear of exposure to push their pregnant children in to surrendering their children for adoption. And that still goes on!

2. Why do I want my OBC? Partly to see for myself when and where I was born - but since I already discovered the identity of my birth parents without my OBC, more for proof for myself.
And if I want to confront those who made such a profound change in my life by asking them why? That's my business, thank you. I have a right to ask a question; they have a right to answer or not.

And by the way, we adoptees are liberals, conservatives, athiests and Bible believers; political affiliation has no bearing on this issue. Unfortunately, only "liberal" media are willing to have a discussion about this with people from both sides; I have yet to hear the subject discussed on conservative or Christian radio (and I listen to a fair amount of that.)

I’m not going to take up space reiterating things that everyone has talked about here. I do want to say I agree with everyone except Tom Snyder and mr. Erich who seem to be living in a time warp somewhere in the ‘50’s or 60’s. Times change, attitudes change. Nothing is under wraps anymore, not bra straps, not sexual orientation, not adoption, egg donors, sperm donors. We celebrate our differences, our achievements, our contributions, everything (well, maybe not the bra straps). The unmarried pregnant daughter of a vice presidential candidate was trotted out for the entire world to see and know and everyone celebrated. Ask anyone who’s run for public office if his or her past is in lock down. We’ve all seen those “secret” children on the news. When they’re grown up they certainly will know their origins.

Those of us who made it through the 50’s and 60’s know full well the options today were never options back then. We whispered the word “cancer”. We were told, “Oh, she had a nervous breakdown and is in a sanitarium for a while.” We even whispered, “divorce.” Today we have OPEN adoptions, sperm donors and egg donors can be part of the child’s life if they so choose. Nobody seems to need protecting now, why do events of 40, 50 yrs ago, that happened to people still living today, that have grown with the times….why do they still need “protecting”.

In 1966 I “had a nervous breakdown and went to a sanitarium for a while.” It was less embarrassing for my parents to say I was crazy than to say I was pregnant. I was well cared for at a home for unwed mothers run by the agency to which I would relinquish my baby. I never doubted, questioned or changed my decision; relinquishment was the right thing for me. I don’t remember being promised anything regarding privacy or not, I just knew that NY records were sealed. On Dec. 31, 1966 in NYC I became a birth mother; on April 29, 2010 I became David Bandler’s birth mother. The lack of an OBC didn’t keep him from finding me. What do you have to say to that, Mr. Erich? I’m 64 yrs. old, not 20, I don’t need PROTECTING, neither does David, or his parents. I’ve slowly been filling in the gaps for him, all families involved are CELEBRATING, Life is Good! What would make it better would be for David to have his OBC. WAKE UP NEW YORK! For a state that’s supposed to be so sophisticated and progressive, when it comes to adoption, NY is in the Dark Ages. Step into the light people, I did and there’s no looking back.

Erich- your sudden politeness and wishing “us” luck in working this out does nothing to actually change the laws, nor change public opinion. In the past as well as present, unmarried women who give birth are considered as deviants, as pointed out by Carol Whitehead. So, their illegitimate children were, and are, also considered deviants because they are illegitimate bastards, politely known as adoptees. However, as I have pointed out, many adoptees are not illegitimate, we are half and full orphans, or other legitimately-born people who were adopted out of foster care or by stepparents. Yet, as the law was written nearly 80 years ago to “legitimize” illegitimates, adoptees who were legitimately born and then adopted face misplaced stigma and discrimination. These are all moral judgments yet when one looks at the current state of affairs – pun intended or not - of unmarried couples living together and producing children, and so many divorces and remarriages giving rise to so many blended families, why is it still considered deviant behavior for adoptees to want truthful birth certificates? Many people answered your questions, Erich, now, I’m asking you to address all the points I’ve raised in my posts here. Clearly, with white Christians rushing to adopt all those black unfortunate orphans from Haiti and Africa, (and other racial children from Korea and China and South America) there are many children being removed from their families who are not orphans at all and who are not illegitimately born yet these adoptees are subject to the same mangled birth certificates as illegitimate white, domestically born, bastards. No one deserves to be mislabeled and mistreated due to the assumptions and value judgments of others. I am a legitimate half orphan bastardized by adoption. What do you say to that, Erich? How about all of you who oppose adoptees’ access to the truth of our births? How many more decades will pass before you self-righteous bigots stay out of our lives and give us back our civil rights? Just how many priests have fathered illegitimate bastard children? Is that the real reason the Catholic Church opposes adoptee access to our sealed birth certificates? Why are our birth certificates falsified at all? Why not do what other more progressive countries do – issue a Certificate of Adoption and keep both documents unsealed?

@Erich

You're most welcome.

As you can tell, adoptee rights advocates have been working on this issue for decades and have gathered (and shared) much in the way of historical records (legislative notes, policy statements, newspaper clippings), current policies and recent statistics.

All I keep hearing from the "other side" (the adoption agencies and their lobbyists) are the same myths that we have disproved over and over again with cold hard facts and historical research.

I don't know why they oppose us. Some people have alleged that the agencies (particularly Catholic Charities) have a lot to hide and don't want the adoptee and the birth parents comparing stories.

1 - Mother was told the baby was stillborn or died in infancy.
2 - Adoptive parents were told the child was 100% white or Irish or Jewish or whatever their preference was.
3 - Adoptive parents were told other lies about the birth parents (ages, drug use, other circumstances).
4 - Birth parents were told that their child would be raised by a family of the same religion, or raised by a professional dad (doctor, lawyer, whatever) and a stay at home mom, or raised by wealthy people.
5 - Certain men (Catholic priests, in particular) are afraid that the adoptee will be able to discover the birth FATHER's name by contacting the mother.
6 - Some adoptive parents (the paying customers) are still unhappy about the prospect of adoptees connecting with their families of origin.

GayeTannenbaum...

I appreciate the time and thoroughness in which you put into answering me. Clearly, the system, as it is, is absurdly flawed.
I wish you and everyone else involved, from what ever perspective they come from, the best of luck in working this out.

Erich- Searching and Reunion have nothing to do with unsealing birth certificates.
Protecting parents who do not wish to be found is purely an American ideal. This question is not an issue in other more progressive parts of the world.
Parents who give birth, or who sire a child are obligated to be named on a birth certificate for the person they created. Those are the facts of life. Would you suggest that unmarried fathers should not be forced to take paternity suits and pay child support? These men don’t want to be found but they are found, even if they are married to someone else and have a first family.
Women whose names are on an original birth certificate factually gave birth. Removing their names from a birth certificate to “protect” them from embarrassment is fictionalizing the truth of what happened in the birth of a real person. It is also fraud.
As I stated in a previous post, my natural mother died 3 months after my birth. She did not relinquish me for adoption, my natural father did so 1month after Mom’s death. There was no shame in my birth, yet the law sealed my actual birth certificate from me and issued a false Certificate of Live Birth with the following information on it: that a woman gave birth to me, (who factually did not), that this birth was a “single” birth, that the birth took place in a designated hospital at a specific time. NONE of those facts took place. Those details were taken from my actual birth certificate and re-stated on my amended birth certificate. The mother named on my new birth certificate did not factually give birth to me, therefore, the amended Certificate of Live Birth issued one year and three months after my actual birth is factually incorrect. NO hospital records recording that mother’s labor and delivery will ever be found, yet my amended birth certificate clearly states that she gave birth to me vaginally in a single, not twin, not triplet, birth. How do you justify that, Erich?
The gov altered my identity. To be factually correct, the facts of my adoption ought to be presented on a Certificate of Adoption. But the American government has not caught on to what is done in other more progressive countries, such as The Netherlands. There, each adoptee has one and only one unsealed birth certificate, and one adoption certificate and BOTH of these documents are needed for identity purposes.
For more information, please visit my website: http//forbiddenfamily.com and buy my book, Forbidden Family. My adoptive mother threw my original birth certificate and adoption papers at me when I was first reunited with siblings she never wanted me to know. I have published these documents in my book. Even though I have all of my personal papers, and no other new information will be found, I am still legally banned from receiving my original birth certificate from New York State.

It has nothing to do with birthparent privacy. It has everything to do with equal rights.

Adoptees just want to sit at the front of the bus with everybody else.

@Erich -

Response to Question 2. - continued

Revising the registry system will not solve the following issues:
1. Dead people don’t register.
2. Some mothers were told their babies were stillborn or died in infancy. They will not register.
3. WHO can register? Adoptee and birth parent, certainly. What about the birth father if he is not on the birth certificate? What about siblings? What about aunts, uncles, grandparents, adult children or the spouse of a deceased adoptee?
4. How is the matching to be done? Since dates and places of birth may be changed or unknown, whoever is running this registry is going to need access to sealed adoption records to match “a” to “b”.
5. What if the adoptee wants to know the accurate details of his or her birth but has no desire to contact his/her birth family, at all or without knowing a bit more about them? They can’t register without saying they are open to contact.
6. Who is going to PAY for this national registry and who is going to run it? How will this be different than ISRR?

“Or is the medical history, ethnic past and a possible path to reunion not really the point here?”

Each adoptee has his or her own reasons for searching or not searching. My reasons may or may not be the same as most or any of my friends and they don’t have to be. You don’t need a reason to get your birth certificate, so why do you insist that adoptees need to provide you with a reason in order to get ours.

“Is it really just a need to know the name of the person who did the abandoning?...”

Not all adoptees feel they were abandoned. Some do, some don’t. It’s really irrelevant to the issue of access. Like I said – you’ve got yours, we want ours. Period. When you can’t get yours for some reason, we can talk about WHY you feel you need it.

@Erich -

“Question 2.
What is it about this piece of paper?”

It records the actual details of my birth. You have yours, I want mine. Since you don’t have to supply a reason to Vital Records to get yours, I don’t feel obligated to give you a reason why I want mine. Maybe I want to line my cat’s litter box with it.

“The birth certificate an adoptee gets has all the same legal rights and privileges as any other birth certificate. I've yet to meet an adoptee (immigrant or domestic) who was unable to get a passport or any other documents or felt discriminated in a real legal sense because of their amended birth certificate…”

How many adoptees do you actually know? I have over 200 friends on FaceBook (many of whom I’ve met in person) who DO feel discriminated against. Some of them have been denied passports. Some of them have amended birth certificates that look so phony, or have missing information (name of hospital usually) that the adoptee has been told “go home and bring me a REAL birth certificate”. Real people, real stories.

One of these friends has been stuck in Mexico for weeks because US Passport Services will not issue her a replacement passport. Why? Because she’s an adoptee and her Michigan amended birth certificate isn’t good enough. Now there are worse places to be stuck than Cabo, but you get the picture.

Post 9-11 passport rules state that ANY birth certificate filed more than one year after the date of birth is INVALID for passport application purposes. That includes MOST amended birth certificates, including mine. I’m lucky that I got my passport in 1996. I would have a hard time getting one now.

“If the system were reformed so that every adopted child in America was provided with (1) a FULL medical history and (2) a THOROUGH breakdown of their ethnic past and (3) we revised the entire registry forum as a federally mandated/regulated state run system would that be ok? Could we all get along and play nice nice then?”

Medical histories taken at the time of relinquishment (1953 in my case) are useless. I was told that my great grandfather died of TB in the 1920s and that “everybody else was healthy”. Is that the kind of FULL medical history you envision? What is an adoptee (and the adoptee's children) supposed to do with an outdated, minimal medical history?

Thorough breakdown of ethnic past? My husband has a family tree going back to 1700s Virginia. How “thorough” is thorough enough? What do you plan to do with those cases where the “ethnic information” recorded is limited to “Mother: 23, Catholic”?

Proposing changes going forward is really sweet – but what about the six million of us who are already here? What about our family members who are trying to find us? Don’t we count?

@Erich -

"Question 1.
How do you propose to protect the parents who wish not to be known... Regardless of how SMALL the percentage of these people is."

They are not "protected" now. Many adoptees KNOW the full or partial names of their parents. Others can piece together enough information from non-ID even without a name.

How would YOU protect those who do not want to be found? Would you make it illegal for adoptees to use Ancestry.com or any one of the “people search” engines out there? Would you make it illegal for adoptees to use certain sections of public libraries?

"This question is not about the adoptee, it is about the other half of the equation."

The “other half of the equation” is NOT the birth parents, who are overwhelmingly in support of adoptees having access to records. The “other half of the equation” consists of some, not all, adoption agencies who are rewriting legislative intent by claiming that “birth parent privacy” was the original reason for sealed records when historical documents show conclusively that records were sealed to protect the ADOPTIVE family.

Ask yourself these questions: Why else would the records seal upon ADOPTION, not upon relinquishment? Why do records seal in STEPPARENT adoptions? Why do some states allow the ADOPTIVE parents to choose whether the file is sealed or not?

"How can we, as a society, be better then the past and make things right for adoptees who long for an identity while protecting the rights of the few who also deserve that degree of respect as well."

By following the lead of the six states with unrestricted access and allowing those parents who do NOT wish to be contacted to have their wishes known. Sealed records do not prevent adoptees from finding their parents nor prevent those parents from finding their relinquished sons and daughters. In most states there is currently no way for a parent to make his or her wishes known. Where should government draw the line if MOST people are helped but a FEW might be inconvenienced?

Let’s be realistic here. Nothing is absolute. Trying to "protect" parents-in-hiding down to the last man or woman is a futile endeavor. And what exactly do you think these few people need to be protected from anyway? We’re not talking assault, kidnapping, rape and murder here. We’re talking about, what, embarrassment?

Of course, you’ve said NOTHING about those adoptees who have DIED from lack of an up-to-date family medical history. I even know of a case where a member of the biological family died from something the ADOPTEE had. But since the adoptee was not allowed to know who gave birth to them, that information was not passed on.

ugh, one more comment directed toward Erich.

You say you have yet to meet one adoptee who has been unable to get their passport with their Amended Birth Certificate.
Well, you've met a few on this thread.
Since increased security measures have taken effect post 9/11, if there is more than a 12 month span on an Amended BC between DATE of birth and DATE it is certified, guess what, YOU do not get a passport. You have to produce an ORIGINAL birth certificate, but cannot, since it is against the law.
There are several adoptees on this comment forum who at one time enjoyed the freedom of traveling out of the country (such as to Canada for sports) but no longer can, because they had the misfortune of being in foster care for over 12 months after their birth, and so their Amended bc's raise a "red flag" to national security.

Therefore, these U.S, citizens literally CANNOT leave the country of their birth, all because of something that happened to them at birth and is well beyond their control.

Now, you tell me, is THAT discrimination??

As well, tell me, is that not enough to be what is driving this conversation? You are ill-informed, and persist in being so, as it seems you have no desire whatsoever to absorb and learn about this topic, but to ridicule those who live it, and make yourself seem more enlightened.

Erich, I can answer your question very simply.
Any protections offered to any birthmother cannot be paid for with my right to my original documentation of MY birth.

There is no right to this special protection. The only way it exists is by stripping an adoptee of THEIR rights.
That is not provided for in the US Constitution.
It is not acceptable in any circumstance!

The cry of birthmother secrecy has died down from every birthmother has the "right" to anonymity. That falicy has been disproven so many times that opponents of adoption reform have shrunken back to (and you were so predictable when you posed the question) "even if only one birthmother is harmed as a result..."

Thing is, EQUALITY would dictate that if even ONE adoptee is denied their OBC...

This isn't a two sided issue.

I could promise you (or a state official could) that if you break XXX law, you will be protected from any prosecution.
How well do you think that would work out?
If the state official allows you to get away with the crime, he/she would be derelict in his/her duties of defending state law.
The fact that you committed the crime cannot be changed, just the corruption that gets added on... JUST LIKE ADOPTION

What is it about this piece of paper?

My daughters ammended birth certificate does NOT have all the same information on it. I can't remember what time she was born because i was in labor for 3 days before having a C section. Her weight and length are also missing. I don't remember even being told that information, why would they, she was being put up for adoption and I'm going to forget it ever happened. Hard to do with this scar but.....

A true and accurate record of birth, same as everyone elses, what's so hard to understand? Why insist that its going to turn into something you have no way of knowing it will? Why can't surrendering parents who do not want a relationship with their children go about it the same way non surrendering parents who don't want a relationship with their children do? JUST SAY NO.

I have been fighting for my rights to my original birth certificate in NYS since 1974 when I was 18 years old and found by full blood siblings my adoptive parents did not ever want me to know. This discussion currently revolves around not-married natural parents and illegitimate adoptees and an assumption that all natural parents must hide in shame of unmarried sex. Not all adoptees are of illegitimate birth. I am a half orphan. I was born to married parents, Mom died, leaving behind a newborn and 4 other children. The Catholic Church stepped in and suggested to our father that the only way to proceed was to give up the newborn so she could have two parents and keep the others. My birth certificate was intact for the first year of my life. I lived as a foster child with my pre-adoptive parents for 9 months before my adoption was finalized, after which my birth certificate (of a legitimate birth) was sealed, and a new “amended” birth certificate was issued claiming that my new parents were my parents of birth --- thus claiming they were my biological parents. My true mother of birth was stripped of her right to be my mother for all eternity --- and she did not give her consent for my adoption! Her “right to privacy or confidentiality” was never in question, but her right to be my mother was obliterated. My natural father, however, signed an agreement that stated he “hereby consents to said adoption and covenants and agrees to acquiesce therein and to refrain from doing or causing to be done any act or thing whatsoever which will in any way interfere with the rights, duties and privileges of said child when so adopted.” He was never told that my birth certificate would be altered and sealed. He was verbally told to stay away from my adoptive parents but they were not told to stay away from him. Other adoptees who are forced into adoption slavery are those who were also born legitimately but were kept in foster care and freed for adoption, step-parent adoptees and full and half orphans. The full spectrum of adoptees must be considered to see the full inequality of the sealed and falsified birth certificate issue. What is needed is to replace the amended and falsified birth certificate with a Certificate of Adoption, and better yet, eliminate adoption, period. Guardianship and kinship care are far superior to the irrevocable finality and destruction of adoption. Also, keep in mind that natural parents, particularly the mothers who give birth, are forbidden any copy of a birth record --- as if the birth never took place. The only reason my natural father had my birth certificate was because I was born within a marriage and adoption was not the priority at my birth --- the fact that my mother was dying was the priority. Adoption as practiced in America is terribly wrong on so many levels.

As a birthmother who unwilling surrendered in 1963 because society treated me as a deviant, the records remain sealed in NYS because our elected officials consider our children better off without knowing us. Today, our children are the new generation of deviants by denying them fundamental access to their own birth certificates, heritage, medical info, and contact if agreed upon by both child & parent. NYS faces an uphill batlle because the same legislative people who want the right to marry but cannot because they are gay oppose our bills. They want to be treated the same as everyone else but cannot see the correlation between their rights and the adopted population's rights. As for confidentiality, I was never told that in 1963. I never would have wanted it. The abortion rates increasing is a fallacy perpetuated by those who oppose original birth certificates. Abortion is not the opposite of adoption. Giving birth & raising your own child is. I could not wait for my own child to want to find me so I found him instead giving him the choice of staying in contact or not. I would love for him to see his original birth certificate & hope that he would share it with me as I have never seen it either. It was withheld from me so that I would foget as if I ever would.

Record sealing

An old newspaper clipping from California demonstrates the primary reason for sealing records in that state: preserving adoptive parents' secrecy if they chose not to tell their child he/she was adopted. Here's the text of the clipping, and notice that nowhere does it mention "protection" of birthmother privacy:

Bill To Keep Adoptions Secret Is Introduced

Assemblyman Charles W. Fisher of Alameda County introduced two bills yesterday which would require all adoption records to be filed with the state department of vital statistics and would place the records on a secret file.

Fisher said there have been cases in Southern California where unscrupulous persons have obtained access to the adoption records and blackmailed the adopted parents by threatening to tell the child it was adopted.

Erich

I suggest you visit the following website for more history on what was stripped from adoptees, and which may help you understand their present efforts at restoration.

http://www.uoregon.edu/~adoption/archive/UscbTCNOBR.htm

The U.S. Children's Bureau, predecessor to today's Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) issued a policy statement in 1949 entitled "The Confidential Nature of Birth Records." Excerpts here will give you a picture of how this organization felt about the "sacred right" to identity that Grace Louise Hubbard proclaimed in my earlier post:

(Quote)
The original goal of confidential adoption records was not to prevent adoptees from obtaining the information on their original birth certificates. As this 1949 excerpt makes clear, the U.S. Children's Bureau considered it “very important that the child’s original birth certificates be identified so that his complete birth record will be available to him when needed.”

The following clarifies the purpose of sealing the records:

"It is also essential that in such cases the records in the local office be fully protected from inspection by the public."

The right to inspect or to secure a certified copy of the original birth certificate of a legitimated child should be restricted to the registrant, if of legal age; his parents or parent, guardian, or their legal representative; or upon court order.

Grace Louise Hubbard, continued:

Sometimes........they want to know about themselves, and when this happens their interest may range from a sort of general curiosity about such things as their nationality and the first names of their parents and how they looked, to an active desire to find out all they can, and perhaps even locate and meet their relatives.

My agency has always recognized the right of the child to know about his own family, if he wants to - at a time when he is adequately prepared for the knowledge - and if the foster parents sympathize with his interest and are ready to have him know.

The agency knew the mother who had to choose how her child would live - with her or apart from her - and is in a position to give him not only the facts but some interpretation that led to her choice.

When a child asks, "Who am I?" he does need to know his name and lineage, but what he is really seeking is to sustain his awareness of self so that he can achieve a unity and persistence of personality, in spite of the break in the continuity of his life. This is his right, a right that we are under obligation to secure to him to the greatest extent we can.

Careful and accurate recording of one's birth is a basic step, and the right of every person. But a sense of one's heritage is also every person's right, and if a child does not have his own parents to give him a sense of his heritage as well as his birth identification, interpretation should be given by someone with understanding, as well as knowledge, of the facts.

A child's identity is his sacred right.

Erich

Perhaps a little history will help you understand. The rights adoptees seek today are not new rights, but the restoration of rights that originally were theirs decades ago but got swept from under them.

In a paper delivered at the 1946 National Conference of Social Work, presenter Grace Louise Hubbard, Supervisor of Intake, Child Placing and Adoption, State Charities Aid Assn. of New York, said:

Who am I? is a question that cannot be answered completely by any birth record, no matter how expertly devised or carefully handled. Every individual has a right to accurate and complete identification of himself, but he has also the right to understand his identity in its broadest meaning. Webster's dictionary defines identity as 'unity and persistence of personality' - a dynamic concept, implying something that comes from within, something made by the person himself.

A right to our identity really means the right to be able to create for ourselves that degree of unity and persistence of personality that gives us a sense of self-direction, of relatedness to people, and to our environment. It includes what we know about ourselves and about our origin, and also what we have been able to take out of our life experience.

A young person who is trying to fuse an unknown past with his present, needs more than to know his ancestry. He wants to know his heritage.

A person who as a child was placed by a social agency in a foster-family home, whether for adoption or for permanent supervised care, is assured of a record of his origin and identity, and of a source of help in finding out not just what the record shows but what human experience lies behind it.

Takeaway was wrong to imply that the wall between birthparents and their children was the result of the birthparents wishes or influence. The influence of birthparents is negligible compared with the influence of adoptive parents, who tend to be wealthier, and of state agency, which are intensly political and see adoptive parents as their constituency. And because they are less powerful, the interests of birthparents are the last to be considered.

Erich said "I'm not even adopted".
Then what IS your relationship to adoption, and why are you taking such an interest in this discussion? I'm not adopted either. However, I know more than a few adopted people rather well, and it is clear to me that the main reason they want their OBCs is because of what that document represents. Go figure.
Adopted adults in the UK have had access to their OBCs for years. My son in the UK has his. I assume that since you aren't adopted, you have yours/
My adopted son on this side of the Atlantic is denied his, as are innumerable other adoptees in America and Canada.
That's not right.

Why did I want my birth certificate?

To quote John Proctor from The Crucible, "Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!"
Knowing my original name gave me a sense of rootedness that I never had before. Rather than showing up on someone's doorstep, like a Cabbage Patch kid, I now had a starting point. A beginning.
My amended birth certicate was one big series of x's and blank spaces.
My new one has ALL kinds of information- my time of birth, the hospital, the doctor and nurse who attended. It was mind blowing to finally have these facts. And it seems small to others, but to me? One of the first things I did was to finally have my astrological chart done, because I had a time when I began to exist. That was important to me.

Regarding the no contact clause for those who wish to never be found:

My father was not available at the time of my birth. If my birth mother had signed a "no contact" on his behalf, she would have erroneously spoke for him, and I would have spent my life thinking he did not want to meet me. However, that could not be farther from the truth....

Adults in our democratic nation are not guaranteed any sort of 'protection' from others. (And birthmothers were never afforded any extra privilege in that way, in their relinquishment documents). To be protected is the fate of children. 'Protection' has long been used as a code word for keeping certain classes of people quiet and tractable. Women's rights were denied for many years (and sometimes still are) under the pretense that we need to be 'protected' from the ugly truths of life.
To 'protect' birthmothers who conceived under unsavory circumstances (such as rape, incest, or even just during the time when women were shamed for their sexuality) is demeaning and disrespectful to their identities as whole persons. It perpetuates the indignities and prejudices of former eras. Women should not have to wallow in the shame that was forced on them by the procedures of that era. Secrecy often equals shame, and only openness can remedy that.
Every birthparent has a right to deny contact with his or her child--just like any other person. Adopted people are being portrayed as stalkers before the fact, which is an injustice.
On the other hand, I, too, wonder about the importance of the birth certificate. It is apparent that most non-adopted people do not really think about that 'piece of paper' as any real measure of their identity. I think that this is part of the reason more states do not open records. I think that focusing instead on the incredibly totalitarian measure of officially amending a citizen's most basic personal document is a far better way to argue for adoption reform and restitution. Everyone should be frightened that the government can legally alter their official documents. But it is also important to note that one's identity is neither made by nor embodied in a piece of paper. The paper is symbolic of the intrusion of the government into what has been seen as one of the most basic realities of life.
Lastly, to treat adopted people as mistakes to be covered up denies their personhood. We are real, we are people, and we are more than the circumstances under which we were born.

To answer the questions of how a birthmother "loses" her child and does not
"give it away". I was sixteen years old when I gave birth to my son thirty five years ago. My parents forced me to keep my "secret" from everyone, including my own sisters and sent me to a home for unwed mothers for five months where all the adults who took care of me told me I was unfit to be a good mother and that I'd be selfish if I kept my son. My mother told me that if I kept my son I couldn't come home. I'd never been away from home for more than 5 days before my stay at the home for unwed mothers. I was counting on my boyfriend to do the right thing but he panicked and ran away to join the army. No one ever promised me privacy, nor did I want it from my own flesh and blood. I told my caseworker that I'd find him someday, just as I told every boyfriend after my son's father left that I had a child that I would one day look for. My son and I were reunited when he was 21 years old. I waited until then because people were still telling me I would ruin his life with his "real"
parents. As it turned out, he was looking for me at exactly the same time! He has
been loyal to his adopted family while making a place for me in his life at the same time. His mother told me her biggest fear was that I would come looking for him. I've talked to a lot of adoptive parents since then and many are afraid that the birthmother will come back. When in fact, the birthparents have no legal rights to a relationship with an underage child they gave up. The adoption business is a multi-million dollar industry. Middle class girls like me were sent by their ashamed parents to homes where they were tended to with some degree of kindness but with the purpose of shaming them into giving up their children to childless middle class couples. None of
the girls I knew there kept their children. The Catholic Church ran many of these homes. It was our family priest who suggested that I be sent away in secret and once I returned I could return as if nothing happened. No one mentioned or dealt with my grief because my pregnancy "never happened". Adoption used to be a charity where a home was sought for parentless children, Now it is an industry that finds children for parents who can't give birth. Those people deserve to be parents whenever possible but not at the expense of a famial bond that is already there in an unplanned but not unwanted pregnancy. My son's generosity with everyone in his family has changed my view of the world, my place in it and the power of forgiveness. My immediate family took longer to accept my son but they finally give him the respect and love he deserves. A child, no matter what age, can never be given too much love.

In response to Erich's questions:
1. Relinquishing parents should be provided a form on which they may indicate their preference for contact/no contact. Simple, effective, and no one's rights are compromised.
2. The original birth certificate is the one and only true document recording the birth of a human being. Need I expound on that fact further?

I can see that there is simply no room for decent on this page. Honestly, I think the christian right is more capable of seeing multiple sides of an argument then the liberals of public radio. scary.

I have two questions.

Question 1.
In pushing to reform adoption policies (and clearly reform is needed), how do you propose to protect the parents who wish not to be known... Regardless of how SMALL the percentage of these people is. It is a simple question but one that no one seems interested in even trying to answer. And please do not respond about how you deserve this or that, or how i don't know what it's like to__, or lecture me on the horrors and injustices society takes out on women, i get it. This question is not about the adoptee, it is about the other half of the equation. How can we, as a society, be better then the past and make things right for adoptees who long for an identity while protecting the rights of the few who also deserve that degree of respect as well.

Question 2.
What is it about this piece of paper? The birth certificate an adoptee gets has all the same legal rights and privileges as any other birth certificate. I've yet to meet an adoptee (immigrant or domestic) who was unable to get a passport or any other documents or felt discriminated in a real legal sense because of their amended birth certificate, (longing for and explanation of their past ~ Indeed!, discriminated against ~ No). So in this sense i am simply confused about where this discrimination actually lies. If the system were reformed so that every adopted child in America was provided with (1) a FULL medical history and (2) a THOROUGH breakdown of their ethnic past and (3) we revised the entire registry forum as a federally mandated/regulated state run system would that be ok? Could we all get along and play nice nice then?

Or is the medical history, ethnic past and a possible path to reunion not really the point here? Is it really just a need to know the name of the person who did the abandoning? To one day be able to ask them why? And to have them say: i'm soo soo sorry i was in such a horrible place, i was taken advantage of and received such horrible council. God i would take it all back in a heart beat if i could! but i've loved you every day of your life and regretted every single moment of mine since we have been apart...

I'm not even adopted and i know how the later feels. it sucks, it hurts and it makes you feel like you are some how less of a person. but seriously if this is what is actually driving this conversation, why can't anyone just say that?

Reunited mother (surrendered '62) and adopter ('83) here (adopted son doesn't
have his OBC because of stupid laws).
Of course adopted people have a natural
right to their original birth certificates and all pertinent information. It's THEIR property, not the original parents', not the adoptive parents' and not the state's.
Non-adopted people don't have to question this as a right, so why should adoptees? It is discriminatory, unjust and treats adopted people as second class citizens.
Personal history is a significant component of personal identity, and everyone has the right to theirs, especially the birth certificate
which is issued to *everyone* after birth. The OBC should not be locked away and
a second altered one issued to look as if it were the original.

'Birthmother privacy' is a smokescreen created to obscure the fact that birth is not just a private event. There is, after all, more than one person involved in the process and it is that that brings it into the public realm. Consequently "privacy" for women who has relinquished a child to adoption is a misnomer. As the Evan Donaldson Adoption Institute has stated, there is "scant evidence that birthparents were explicitly promised anonymity from the children they relinquished for adoption." http://www.adoptioninstitute.org/research/2007_11_for_records.php
"Relinquishment documents provided to courts that have heard challenges to states' new "open records" laws do not contain any such promises. To the extent
that adoption professionals might have verbally made such statements, courts have found that they were contrary to state law and cannot be considered legally binding."

Greetings, I gave birth to twin sons March 25th, 1986, and had to surrender(not by choice). I am their Natural Mother, once a mother always a mother....I DO NOT need protection, my sons may need/want to know "who" they are, and where it is they come from. They may wish to have children of their own 1 day, or not, and if they wish theis, they should be able to have this...just like you and I! It is their right. Again open records, I am a BIG girl and can handle what ever comes from doing so. Give these people, what they desrve, their heritage, their families, and their dignity, C.J

erich from Brooklyn wrote: unless the adoptees and pro-adoptees in this forum are willing to acknowledge this and move toward a mutually benefitting solutions in this debate, this thread is, tragically, just another opportunity lost to hot air.

I have stated before, that if ALL my daughters parents went hand in hand to the court house, signed papers allowing her her OBC, she would STILL be denied. We are her parents, all 4 of us. We would do this for her, we want her to have this paper work, and yet she is still denied. Why? Can you tell me in your non adoptee opinion why, when no one, in her tiny circle in the grand scheme of life, objects, she is still denied?

Myths About Adoptees' Access to Their Original Birth Certificates

MYTH # 6: Adoptees conceived by rape or incest (and birthmothers too) will be devastated by search, reunion and/or learning truth about origins.

While unsavory details of one's past are not pleasant to cope with, they still are a part of one's life. Denying access to one's personal information about himself/herself is robbing that person of his/her heritage. The contents of the information are not as important as the fact that information becomes available, and questions are able to be answered.

New Zealand found that adult adoptees can better cope with such traumatic revelations than with not having any information. Oddly enough, many had already fantasized the event. Most adoptees know that in exploring the unknown void of their origins, anything is possible, realizing that there must have been difficulties or they would not have been placed for adoption. This information remaining secret increases the shame. The reality, once it is confronted, is less than the enormity of the secret.

One adoptee conceived from rape said, "When we met things were pretty tense between us. I knew that my birthmother was holding back something. I asked her and she told me. We both held each other tight and bawled for about an hour. Then we shared exactly what had happened and we shared our hurts and fears. It was one of my birthmother’s fears that one day I would find her and ask her. And now that traumatic time had come. Somehow, in the sharing of our deep personal grief feelings, we built up a relationship. We now understand each other on an issue that no one seems to understand." (The Right to Know Who You Are, Keith C. Griffith)

© http://www.americanadoptioncongress.org

Myths About Adoptees' Access to Their Original Birth Certificates

MYTH #5: Opening up adoption will break up adoptive families.

With a law that gives adults access to their original birth certificates, nothing changes while the adoptee is a child under the care of adoptive parents. Birth information and contact with birth family does not replace one’s relationship to adoptive parents but rather leads to a more cohesive identity for some adult adoptees.
Research from the United Kingdom on the results of access found that the loyalty and love adopted people felt towards their adoptive parents and family did not lessen as a result of the search and reunion process. In some cases adopted people reported that the experience of searching enhanced their relationship with their adoptive families. (British Association for Adoption and Fostering, 2004).

Many therapists believe the process of finding past history is so helpful to the adoptee that it strengthens the adoptee’s relationships with their adoptive families.

After New Zealand allowed adult adoptee access to adoption records, researchers found that reunion actually strengthened relationships between adoptees and their adoptive parents, often laying fantasies about birth family to rest. Results showed that adopted children and adults can successfully integrate two or more families into their lives. Finding birth relatives does not mean they relinquish their adoptive ones. (The Right to Know Who You Are, Keith C. Griffith)

Research conducted by the University of Minnesota and University of Texas reveals that parental fears about entitlement in open adoptions were unfounded, and in many ways, contact with the birth family strengthened the bond between adoptive parents and children. (Openness in Adoption, Harold D. Grotevant and Ruth G. McRoy)

Myths About Adoptees' Access to Their Original Birth Certificates

MYTH # 4: Lifting secrecy will increase abortion.

Data from states where access exists reveals that if access has had any effect on adoptions and abortions, it was to increase adoptions and decrease abortions.

Since adult adoptees in Oregon and Alabama obtained access to their original birth certificates in 2000, abortions have declined much faster in those states than in the nation as a whole. Between then and 2003 (the last year for which national data are available) resident abortions declined 10% in Oregon and 13% in Alabama, but only 2% in the nation as a whole. In other words, after adoptees gained access in those states, abortions declined five times as fast as in the country as a whole.

Workers at pro-life centers such as Birthright report that young women today will only choose adoption if they are assured of updates or contact with the adoptive family. Gretchen Traylor, Birthright counselor in Minnesota, says, "When adoption is under consideration, the young woman’s overriding concern is that she will be unable to contact her child later in life, and that the child will not be able to find her as well. Pregnant women tell me that if such contact is NOT available, they would rather abort."

In a national survey of 1,900 women having abortions, not one woman cited the inability to choose a confidential adoption as a factor in her decision to have the abortion. "Reasons for Terminating an Unwanted Pregnancy," Guttmacher Institute, 2003.

A September 24, 2004 (Page D1) Wall Street Journal article reports that those parts of the country practicing open adoption currently do not have enough couples to adopt infants being relinquished by birth parents wanting open adoption.

Myths About Adoptees' Access to Their Original Birth Certificates

MYTH # 4: Lifting secrecy will increase abortion.

Data from states where access exists reveals that if access has had any effect on adoptions and abortions, it was to increase adoptions and decrease abortions.

Since adult adoptees in Oregon and Alabama obtained access to their original birth certificates in 2000, abortions have declined much faster in those states than in the nation as a whole. Between then and 2003 (the last year for which national data are available) resident abortions declined 10% in Oregon and 13% in Alabama, but only 2% in the nation as a whole. In other words, after adoptees gained access in those states, abortions declined five times as fast as in the country as a whole.

Workers at pro-life centers such as Birthright report that young women today will only choose adoption if they are assured of updates or contact with the adoptive family. Gretchen Traylor, Birthright counselor in Minnesota, says, "When adoption is under consideration, the young woman’s overriding concern is that she will be unable to contact her child later in life, and that the child will not be able to find her as well. Pregnant women tell me that if such contact is NOT available, they would rather abort."

In a national survey of 1,900 women having abortions, not one woman cited the inability to choose a confidential adoption as a factor in her decision to have the abortion. "Reasons for Terminating an Unwanted Pregnancy," Guttmacher Institute, 2003.

A September 24, 2004 (Page D1) Wall Street Journal article reports that those parts of the country practicing open adoption currently do not have enough couples to adopt infants being relinquished by birth parents wanting open adoption.

Myths About Adoptees' Access to Their Original Birth Certificates

MYTH # 3: Birthmothers need to be protected from searching adoptees.

Adopted persons are most often reticent to pursue reunion in fear of risking rejection.

Birthparents have the same protections under the law as anyone else. They have the right of privacy and boundaries as does everyone, but privacy does not equal secrecy. Privacy is about healthy boundaries; secrecy prevents people from having information about themselves.

Researcher John Triseliotis from University of Edinburgh found in 25 years of study that adoptees needed genealogical and background information to confirm their identity based on both adoptive and birth family. In researching the impact of opening records in Great Britain, he found those who did search “did so with considerable forethought. Furthermore, the vast majority are over-careful not to hurt anyone’s feelings.” (In Search of Origins: The Experience of Adopted People by John Triseliotis).

Ninety-four percent of non-searching birthmothers when contacted by their adult birth children were pleased, according to a recent British study. (“The Adoption Triangle Revisited: A Study of Adoption Search and Reunion Experiences,” British Association for Adoption and Fostering, 2005)

Myths About Adoptees' Access to Their Original Birth Certificates

MYTH #2: Most birthmothers want to forget the past and not have "old wounds reopened."

Through registries and data collected in states and countries where access was legislated, 95% of birthparents who were contacted wanted reunion. (1989 Maine Department of Human Resources Task Force on Adoption)

In Oregon, only 0.25% of birthparents requested no contact.

Myths About Adoptees' Access to Their Original Birth Certificates

MYTH #1: Only a small number of adopted persons want to know their birth information.
In a study of American adolescents, the Search Institute found that 72 percent of adopted adolescents wanted to know why they were adopted, 65 percent wanted to meet their birth parents, and 94 percent wanted to know which birth parent they looked like.

Psychological literature has established that whether mental or actual, searching is an understandable, common and part of healthy adaptation for adopted persons. (A Psychosocial Model of Adoption Adjustment by David Brodzinsky, Marshall Schechter and Robin Marantz Henig).

In Oregon, as of February 1, 2007, seven years after passage of approving access in 2000, 9193 adult adoptees have requested and 8,878 have received their original birth certificates.

@Erich from Brooklyn

I see that you have some concerns about the tiny percentage of birth parents who do not wish to be contacted.

What about the vast majority that DO want to be contacted but are waiting for their relinquished son or daughter to contact THEM? Don't they have rights?

What about the ones who reluctantly agreed to relinquishment BECAUSE they were PROMISED that their child would receive their contact information upon turning 18. Should we tell them it was all a lie told just to get them to sign away their rights?

What about the mothers who were told their child was stillborn or died in infancy when he or she was actually adopted? What about their rights to know what REALLY happened to their child?

What about adoptees searching for siblings who had also been adopted? In some cases, sibling groups were split up and adopted separately. When do THEY get to find each other again?

Do you still want to support a system that prevents the vast majority of people (adoptees, parents, siblings) from connecting with each other while professing to "protect" some tiny minority who might be put in an uncomfortable position?

Oh, and that "open records = more abortions" argument? Even the NCFA has backed off their "abortion rates will skyrocket" pronouncement in favor of "if only one". They choose to ignore the Guttmacher Institute report (Concern for Current and Future Children) which says that at least some women having abortions "indicated that adoption is not a realistic option for them. They reported that the thought of one’s child being out in the world without knowing if it was being taken care of or by whom would induce more guilt than having an abortion."

So there you have it --- sealed records cause abortions.

What most birthmothers and fathers,who want to keep the secret, is you have no right to take away the beginning and the ending of a child's life.

They deserve to know the first chapter and complete a last chapter in their lives.They deserve an ancestry, you have yours, if not adopted you know who your ancestors were and can complete a family tree. They do not have that choice, because you have denied them of the information. They aren't a book you can just put away on the shelf, they deserve to know their background, whether you choose to participate in the rest of their lives is your choice, but they deserve answers.

Adoptees are NOT skeletons in closets. We are not THE PAST. We are living human beings and very much in the PRESENT. We are not ashamed and we are NOT dirty, immoral little secrets to be hidden away. We are beautiful human beings who have the moral right to our personal family histories, our ethnicities, and the cultures of our ancestors.

I´m in Portugal about to visit the birth place of my adoptive mother. I so wish she was still with us. My mom could not have her own children because when she was 15 years old, after giving birth, her father had the delivering doctor tie her tubes and put her first son up for adoption. I found this out after her death. Did secrecy serve my mom? Shame on the National Organization for Women. Shame on the ACLU. How did they let secret adoption become part of "Pro-Choice"? They must know that before you can find a pool of adoptable babies, you will find the rights of women crushed. China has a brutal one child policy and the others had a no child policy for unwed mothers. I´m sickened that many law makers are making this a political issue and others are taking cues from the brokers in adoption and not the experts. Oh and where is the press..bought and sold like the politicians.
adopteeswithoutliberty.com

Erich, my non-answer actually was the answer.

Based on your comment, I'm wondering why parents who raise their biological children aren't afforded the same rights as natural parents.

My husband's mother could hate his guts and not want anything to do with him yet still be happy she didn't have an abortion. How come she can't legally protect herself from the past or have any guarantees if she so pleases? And how come she can't legally keep him from an accurate record of his birth?

Based on your comment, it should be perfectly acceptable for my mother-in-law to simply decide she never wants to see my husband again, move away and then have his birth record legally falsified and sealed away because she wants nothing to do with him.

If denying access to a adult's factual and accurate birth record is so incredibly necessary, why can't every parent do it?

The bottom line is that it doesn't matter if my natural parents have regrets about the past. That's not my responsibility or concern. I never agreed to the sealing of my birth record. And I should not be expected to tolerate discrimination.

(I am "Amanda, Adult Adoptee" and "Amanda Woolston" as well as "AdopteeAmanda" my computer keeps going back and forth with the auto-fill. The hyperlinked username "Amanda" is a seperate person).

And for the abortion nonsense, I find it ver disheartening that whenever anyone thinks of an adoptee, they think of an abortion. I have always thought of us as people.

The vast and wide majority of women who experience unplanned pregnancies who bring them to term choose to parent. It is highly more likely that those who were "saved" from abortion are walking around the non-adopted and not the adopted. But an ill-informed society peristently looks at adoptees as "walking abortions"---the living "unwanteds" and that very notion is marginalizing, offensive, and unfair.

I am a human being with rights. The fact that my mother may or may not have considered abortion (which she did not) has no bearing on me being a full-fledged human being with the right to be treated as such under the law.

For those who aren't aware of the adoption process, here is how it goes...

1. Born

2. Issued a birth certificate with factual information which is a matter of public record.

3. Original Mother surrenders--she signs away ALL rights. She agrees that she has no right to notified of an adoption hearing, to be present at the hearing or to be NOTIFIED of any adoption taking place or a decree of adoption being issued. (Yes, this is in the actual legal document she signs). She has no right to know if the adoption fails. She has no right to know if her child becomes institutionalized. She therefore, has no right to know or be guaranteed that the birth certificate will ever be sealed or that no one will access it before the adoption is finalized.

4a. Adoption proceeds. At this point, Adoptive Parents who are aware and are willing to obtain the OBC on behalf of their prospective child can and often do obtain it before it becomes sealed.

4b. A child who is never issued a decree of adoption, such as children who become institutionalized or age out of foster care, do not have their birth certificates sealed or amended.

5. For those who become adopted, a decree of adoption is issued and at some point afterward (several months to several years after surrender) the original birth certificate is sealed and an amended one issued. Except for in Kansas and Alaska--they do not seal OBCs.

Who are these adoptees anyway?
Anyone issued a decree of adoption. This includes Foster Care Adoptees (about 15% of all adoption), the majority of which are adopted by biological relatives. This includes Step-Parent adoptees (about 50% of all adoption) who live with one biological parent and likely have access to the other. The remaining portion is International adoptees (which access legislation does not impact) and Infant/Domestic adoptees.

ALL of these adoptees have their OBCs sealed as an automatic act of the state.

"Confidential adoptions" in domestic adoption existed for only a very small period of time and even then many adoptees from that era knew their parent's identities. Those of us who know absolutely no identifying information about our Original Parents are in a very, very, very tiny minority. Yet ALL of us are discriminated against--and for what? "Anonymity" provisions that do not even exist?

Again, no compromise here. There are some issues that are right plain and simple. You can't enslave someone for the color of their skin. Period. You cannot deny someone safe access to a government building for being disabled. Period. You cannot keep a woman from voting because she is female. Period. You should not be able to deny me birth documentation for being adopted. Period.

There is no negotiation on human rights. The moment we negotiate on Human Rights and Civil Rights is the moment that we admit we are less human and less American than everyone else. I for one, do not think that is OK.

Erich- did you listen to the whole interview? Anonymity was NEVER promised, and nothing happens to the original birth certificate when children are relinquished.
Records are not sealed until children are adopted. So if a child stayed in the foster system, he or she would have had the original birth certificate the whole time.
Meanwhile, there are laws in place to protect people when they want no contact.
Sealing the records and erasing facts and history are not the solution to a problem that happens so infrequently.

Erich, you have brought abortion up more than once.
Me, as an Adult Adoptee and a U.S. citizen owning my original birth certificate, has as much to do with abortion as the sky being blue because I waxed my floors.
The two have NOTHING to do with another.
And if you believe otherwise, then you have bought into the myths and media hype that I mentioned this morning.

ps.

None of us here are "children."

I've yet to meet one non-adopted person who did not know the name of the people who gave them birth, who had trouble getting a passport or driver's license or entrance into the military. When we have our OBC, we will have the opportunity to know the same things that the non-adopted know. We are not asking for anything special

This "piece of paper" might not mean anything to you if you're not adopted--and that's the point. It means something to the adoptees. I've been living the life of an adopted person for 25 years now; take my word for it, being treated equally under the law is really important.

I have my OBC and the sky has yet to come crashing down.

Erich, this isn't about power, this is about equality.

When you allow an Adult Adoptee to obtain their birth certificate the same way as any other citizen would, you are providing them with equal rights. There is no special right here for anyone and no power-lording for anyone.

There is no "compromise" to equality. You are either equal, or you are not. I don't know about you, but I don't think your equality should rest on whether or not other citizens think you should be equal---do you? Should you only be able to vote if your spouse gives you permission? So on and so forth.

We all have the right to privacy, but not to secrecy. Privacy is about health boundaries--which are already available within state laws to all citizens. To say that extra protection is needed against Adult Adoptees is to condemn us as a class. We should be treated no differently than any one else.

There is no legal basis for anonymity in adoption. There is no logical basis for anonymity in adoption. And to say that it should be provided now at the expense of the human and civil rights of adoptees is unacceptable. To provide legalized hiding for this one class of women is to promote a culture of shame in adoption. And as a women, I am not ok with the perpetuation of government-sponsored shame of other women.

Equality. Period. There is no "compromise." My birth, my record, my right. Either they give us our birth certificates or they make birth certificates unavailable to EVERYONE unless they have their parent's permission. Either one. But let's be fair about it.

David Bandler ~
Yes noted and agreed. I think it is safe to say that everyone here agrees that young mothers in distress with questionable council who sign away their rights over their own children against the better judgment is a sad thing indeed... and perhaps more so if it happens in the 60's.

Julie from Pennsylvania ~
I see where you are coming from. And I have to agree with you, this is in fact discrimination. No getting around it.
However, you will have to forgive me, for i seem to have failed to see where you answered, or even tried to answer my question for that matter?
Unless i missed something your response sounds strikingly similar to the greater majority of posts in this thread... Like you are hurt (and rightly so), and feel like you have been denied something that is deserved to you, legally if not morally. And maybe that is true.
But either way your answer offers no protections of guarantees for the parent who, while happy they did not get an abortion, wishes only not to be reminded of the past.

As a birthmother I would like to answer this question from @erich from brooklyn:

"What about the parents who do not what to be found? I mean seriously. What about their rights? Or perhaps we are not so interested in them. Perhaps they didn't have any in the first place? Why did these people decide giving up their flesh and blood was the right thing to do? Could this have possibly been an easy choice? ... And if not maybe you could simply try to accept that you can not possibly begin understand what was going on in that person's life at that time?"

The thing is.. we CAN ask what was going on in the mother's life's at the time that we relinquished. We are NOT sitting quietly and allowing ignorant people such as Tom Snyder make decisions for us or speak for us. We are openly saying what it was like, how it was to make the "choice" ( said with quotes as a great number of birthmothers NEVER even had the chance to choose, but were forced to surrender their babies against their will). And if you look into what birthmothers are saying: the great majority support adoptee rights! Why? Because it's BEST for our children.

Plus, we have the statistical numbers of the "poor" birthmothers who are cowering in secrecy: If one looks at the stats form every other country that has opened adoption records, and even take the numbers form the states in the US that have unsealed the OBC, then across the board we see that it is less than 1% of mothers who request "no contact". You know what happens when an adoptee is denied contact? They don't become crazed stalkers who out their natural mothers in line at the supermarket or at church. They respect the decision made and go off quietly to feel the rejection all over again and wonder why they aren't good enough to be treated decently. I think adults, even if they are adopted, can make that decision on their own, don't you?

Heck, if anyone has the ability to understand what goes on with birthmothers, at least the adoptee has the invested interest. Lord knows Tom Snyder only has the interest of keeping his pockets filled with the profits made off our selling our children.

You want to know why all the "
professionals" are worried about these laws getting passed? because they know that when the truth comes out that A LOT of people, adoptees, natural parents AND adoptive parents are going to find out that we were All LIED TO. It's not about mothers. it's not about adoptees, it's not medical information.. it's not about what is BEST for anyone except for those who make the $$ and they are all scrambling to CYA.

Claudia Corrigan D'Arcy
http://www.musingsofthelame.com

Babies & children don't have voices when they are adopted. They are not given legal representation (CASA) to protect their rights as United States citizens.

When the adopted babies/children grow into adults, they want us to remain quiet and in the dark. You see we have been treated as chattel and our rights and identities were erased when we were sold to our adoptive parents.

Well, I'm BACK and I want my rights as an American citizen restored to me.

Good job mamma! You knocked 'em out of the park. And continually make me proud to call you "Mom" :] Hopefully, with the help of your voice of reason, these ignorant politicians will get their facts straight; then one day, millions of other adoptees may be able to use that magic word too.

I would like to answer Erich's question of how do we, as a society, do better for both sides.

This isn't about sides. It is about an entire class of people not being afforded the sames rights as everyone else. Adult adoptees are the only class of people in the United States who are denied access to an accurate record of their birth. Period. This is discrimination.

I'm a 39-year-old woman who is a tax-paying citizen of the United States and the State of Pennsylvania. Why should the fact that I was adopted as an infant--something that was completely beyond my control--cause me to be treated differently than any other adult, tax-paying citizen?

What I do with MY birth certificate as an adult, tax-paying citizen, is nobody's business. It is my personal and private business.

Erich, let add one another dimension to "the other side of the story". Most young women (usually single and barely voting age, though likely younger), have to make the decision to relinquish a child under duress, with little or no council representing their interests.

Bring this back to the 60's, and you end up with a whole different universe of outlandish storytelling from the families (she had a breakdown and is staying in a sanitarium for a few months) to the agencies (providing only the answers that served their purpose to frightened girls (with no internet to do any real research), and the legal/legislative community, that crafted laws that boxed in adults that are still treated like children.

Boy, you can really tell there is a lot of astroturfing going on with this topic. The anti-adoption email generating machine is out in force. Lots of terms like "my child was lost to adoption". No, your child didn't get lost. You made a decision to relinquish a child, and another family made a decision to parent that child.

Aside from that, speaking as an adoptee, the whole sealed record thing is a crock. It was adults entering into a contract on behalf of a child. Well, I'm an adult now. I don't want to be bound by the contract that my birth family, adoptive family, and adoption agency all agreed was in my best interests.

To the best of my knowledge and adoption agreement is the only contract made on a child that is binding after that child becomes an adult. As and adult adoptee it should be my right to void that contract, and to have full information about the contract made on my behalf. Including the name of my birth family.

Hairy

PriscillaSharp...

I am really sorry about your daughter. I do not understand how one looses a child to adoption, but all the same it sounds like a painful thing to go through. And i agree with you that people deserve the right to their personal information. But, again, what about people who wish for nothing but anonymity?

From what i have read in this forum it does not seem to work so well when one side has all of the power. So how do we do better as a society for both sides?

Amanda from...

I see where you are coming from. Though, admittedly, not being adopted myself my ability to fully "get it" is limited at best. That being said, however, my argument is not against adoptees or their rights by any means. Rather, it is for parents who, in a difficult time, had to make a complicated decision under circumstances they thought they understood. One that i'm sure many do not want to have to be reminded of 5 years or 35 years down the line. This forum has spelled out all the reason under the sun for why a birth certificate is in fact the birth right of the adoptee and perhaps it is, but regardless of how you want to spin it, there is simply another side to these stories. And unless the adoptees and pro-adoptees in this forum are willing to acknowledge this and move toward a mutually benefitting solutions in this debate, this thread is, tragically, just another opportunity lost to hot air.

Erich from Brooklyn ~~ Yes, I am a mother who lost her daughter to adoption in 1964 and I absolutely believe that all citizens of the U.S. should have access to their personal information and that adopted persons should not be discriminated against.
As a search angel, I have facilitated over 150 reunions in the last year and a half, and I can document that over 95% of the mothers (or birth families in the case where mothers are deceased) are delighted to be found and eager to know their children. These statistics can be verified easily by doing a little research.
Not all adoptees will want to avail themselves of the privilege of getting their birth certificates. That's their right and their personal business. The point is, it should not be denied.
Last time I looked, the denial of a civil right (OBC) to a class of people (adopted) that is available to every other citizen who is not a member of that class was unconstitutional. That's it, in a nutshell.

I am Diane's biological father. We have never met. She contacted me for the first time a few months ago. My heart skipped a beat. I've always wondered and never knew. Her family and my family will become one family in two weeks when she travels across the country for our first hug. Diane, to say that I am proud of you would understate my feeling. Why has it taken this long. I love you Darline, and I'm counting the hours until we are, at last, together. Your Dad

To erich from brooklyn--
Adoptees have lost more than their natural parents. They have been separated from their clan. They have lost out on growing up and being surrounded by people who mirror and reflect them. People who share ethnicity, culture, heritage, personality traits, physical attributes, etc. And the clan has also lost a member of their shared gene pool. They have been denied an extra cousin, nephew, niece, or half sibling. This decision, and its results have a trickle down effect, that goes FAR beyond the loss of the natural parents.

Meanwhile, the medical history you receive is a snapshot in time, most likely, when the parents and family members are relatively young and healthy. What about the medical events that take place 10, 20, 30 years down the road? How are those discoveries shared, when the adoptee is gone, without a trace?

Hmmm... It's not very often you find 50 or so people in complete agreement on something, then again this being public radio and all, i guess i should't be so surprised.

What about the parents who do not what to be found? I mean seriously. What about their rights? Or perhaps we are not so interested in them. Perhaps they didn't have any in the first place? Why did these people decide giving up their flesh and blood was the right thing to do? Could this have possibly been an easy choice? Perhaps you'd prefer the child to have been aborted, and honestly, why not - right? Have you ever had to make a choice like this? If you have, surely, you can can find it in that big ol' bleeding liberal heart of yours to empathize with someone's desire for anonymity. And if not maybe you could simply try to accept that you can not possibly begin understand what was going on in that person's life at that time?

I know for some adoptees (certainly not all), there is a great deal of longing for a past or an origin story. But what is it that they're/you're really looking for? Is it really this piece of paper? Half the time non adopted folk only get a copy or incorrect version (Oprah being the most famous). Does it really matter if the birth certificate has the name of the parents on it? What if adoptees were provided with a brief medical history, the details about their ethnicity, (their sign in they live on the west coast) and given the option to learn the names of their parents after they've passed away? This is often time more information then most non adopted children get anyway.

I lost my son to adoption. (No,I did not 'make a decision' to surrender him, I was given no alternatives) I was not promised anonymity. I was not told his records would be sealed and he would be thwarted in finding me if he chose. I was told, on the relinquishment papers, that I was not allowed to search for or contact him, and to a very scared 17 year old, in a judge's chamber for the first (and only) time, I was frightened into thinking I would face the authorities and jail if I did. I was told it was best for my child to be adopted, that I was an inadequate mother and selfish if I wanted to keep him. I was told it was better for him if I stayed out of his life. I was not told that mothers who lost children to adoption face a lifetime of depression, PTS, anxiety and sorrow. I was told to 'move on with my life' then discouraged by school counselors from going to college because after all, I had had a baby and was probably not the right type of girl for college. I was not told that adopted kids long for their mothers, wonder and have thousands of forever unanswered questions about their mothers and fathers. I was told he would never care about me, and would love his adopted parents as his only parents.

I was placed in a home for unwed mothers. Some of the girls there had been raped, but 'even they' were loving and caring towards their babies, and, there were luckier than me, because they were girls of color, they were able to keep their babies.

Records must be opened without restrictions. It is only fair to those who were adopted, and their mothers and fathers who loved them forever and longed for them. It's not just a matter of medical information, but a human right to know one's origins.

Talk to actual mothers who lost children to adoption in groups like Origins USA and Concerned United Birthparents. If all mothers want anonymity, why are those groups advocating unrestricted open records?

Boy, you can really tell there is a lot of astroturfing going on with this topic. The anti-adoption email generating machine is out in force. Lots of terms like "my child was lost to adoption". No, your child didn't get lost. You made a decision to relinquish a child, and another family made a decision to parent that child.

Aside from that, speaking as an adoptee, the whole sealed record thing is a crock. It was adults entering into a contract on behalf of a child. Well, I'm an adult now. I don't want to be bound by the contract that my birth family, adoptive family, and adoption agency all agreed was in my best interests.

To the best of my knowledge and adoption agreement is the only contract made on a child that is binding after that child becomes an adult. As and adult adoptee it should be my right to void that contract, and to have full information about the contract made on my behalf. Including the name of my birth family.

Hairy

My birthday is December 31. My re-birthday is April 29. That is the day that I, as an adoptee searching for 25 years, finally located and spoke with my birth-mother. Mine was a two-pronged approach: 1. I filed a lawsuit against the adoption agency to acquire my records (including hopefully, my OBC), and 2. With the help of my searcher Pam Slaton (with whom I had been working with for more than 2.5 yrs), located and connected with my b-mom.

The lawsuit unfortunately did not succeed, but my relationship with my b-mom has been nothing short of a perfect hollywood success story, which will culminate in our first face-to-face meeting (including my 1/2 brother & sister) on August 20.

What frustrates the two of us, now that everything is out in the open, is that my b-mom even reached out to adoption agency, and was met with same answer, 'We'd love to, but we can't. The information is sealed short of a court order compelling us to..." You get the idea, but seriously, who are they actually protecting at this point?!

**please feel free to contact me if you would like to discuss any of this in greater detail.**

Adoptees have been able to get their OBC's in Scotland since 1930. The problems that were forecast have not materialised. What do the naysayers say about that?

I'm from Canada. I was promised that I would reunite with my son. Never was confidentiality ever mentioned to me. Abortion was never ever in my head.

I wanted my son but was denied my rights - I didn't even consent to his adoption. He was taken from me because there was no ring on my finger. I was denied the right to name my son's father.
They tore up the first registration form when I tried and told me to do it again without his name on there. Then my son was told that I didn't know who his father was. All lies.

After a 30 year battle, we have managed to get my son his original birth certificate. We had already reunited so reunion was not the objective. Finding the truth about his roots was. Having his story told from the very beginning was so important to him.

We are now fighting to get his father's name on there but I don't know if we will succeed. I will keep fighting until I die for my son's rights.

BTW - sometimes the registry doesn't work because people are given the wrong names to begin with, and what about the dead - they can't register at all.

Something I'd like to mention that I did not have the opportunity to on air, due to time constraints.
In my hand I have a copy of the original NJ Adoption bill, circa 1940, that closed the records. Not only does it mention NOWHERE confidentiality for the surrendering parents, in fact, it explicitly states that it's purpose is to:

"assure people adopting children that a [birth] parent or the parents of the child adopted may not turn up at some future date to embarrass both them [adopting parents] and the child and possibly even do harm. A parent may surrender a child in good faith and subsequently have a change of heart or mind and upon discovering the whereabouts of the child the problem may become an embarrassing one to. Then too, there is always the danger of such information being used illegally."

Now, does it sound like they're much worried about the surrendering mothers privacy here?

I was born in 1988 immediately into the foster care system with my natural mother (also an adoptee). I was relinquished at 6 months old, yet my adoption didn't become finalized until 1999.

Until age 11, I had my original birth certificate. Once the process was completed my original was taken and I was given an amended certificate. I'm 22 years old and the state seal above my adoptive name has the year 1999.

Despite being the product of an OPEN adoption, I'm not worthy of the documentation that belonged to me for 11 years.

Discrimination formed sealed records, now it's nothing more than social dictation. It has never had anything to do with the protection or rights of the adopted child.

There has always been a significant disconnect between what surrendering mothers are claimed to have been told and what the courts and agencies did in implementing the adoptions. Here in Michigan, as in many other states, for a long time the birthmother's full name was included on the adoption decree given to the adoptive parents. And even after the code was revised, it still allowed for the child's full birth name - which, of course, revealed the birthmother's surname - to be included on the decree. For over thirty years, I have been helping adoptees successfully complete their searches, armed with their birth names, provided to their parents by the courts. I have downloaded nearly 3,000 listings from Internet adoption reunion registry sites posted by Michigan adoptees who list surnames - often full names - of their birthparent/s. An adoptee friend gave me copies of documents his parents were given: the decree revealing his mother's surname, and a letter from the adoption agency mentioning his birthmother repeatedly by her first name. Were all these birthmothers "promised confidentiality?" Were some promised it and others not? Where is it recorded which mothers received the "promise" and which didn't? And if it was promised, or even implied, why was it betrayed by the very entities that "led them to believe" it" as Tom Snyder argued?

My daughter's adoptive parents were provided with my surname in 1960. They were also told the approximate area of the state I was from and general information about my age, the year I graduated high school and more. I've been reunited with my daughter for 26 years now, but recently I decided to try a little experiment to see how long it would take for her to find me today, given only the info her parents were given about me. The whole search process on the Internet took me roughly fifteen minutes, including a Google Earth photo of my house! If I was "promised confidentiality," should I have bought any stock in it? The judge who presided over my relinquishment explained to me all the rights I would be forfeiting by signing that document. He did not, however, explain the rights that my child would lose in tandem with mine. He did not tell me that, despite the wording on the surrender document - where I stated that I would "...lose all rights to, in, and concerning said child, forever" - that certain rights were nonetheless preserved to me - like control over my child's authentic record of birth. Why did he not inform me of that? And if I was not so advised, why is my daughter denied her authentic birth certificate based on an alleged "right" reserved to me by virtue of having given up all my rights?

The paired bills in NY State (A8410 and S5269) have overwhelming support in both houses of the NY State Legislature.

In the NYS Assembly, 72 assemblymembers (out of 150) are SPONSORS of A8410, yet, for the past two sessions, it has not been allowed out of committee for an honest up or down vote on the floor.

S5269 has 15 senators (out of 62) as sponsors. Same story there.

It not for lack of support that the NY bills do not progress. It is because NY's legislature is mired in an antiquated system that allows leadership (an oxymoron) to control what bills get voted on and what bills pass. This is not democracy.

Unfortunately, adoptees do not have a choice. Adoptees who have moved out of their state of birth no longer have any representation in the state legislature that decides whether or not they have the right to their own birth certificates. Any other person with any other issue, you have the option of moving to a state (or country) with more favorable laws or a more progressive legislature. But not if you're an adoptee.

Thanks to The Takeaway for covering this vital issue to voters across the country. In California, adult adoptees still do not have access upon request to their vital record - the original birth certificate, despite a 30 year effort. We continue to gather at California Open http://www.calopen.org to organize voters around this basic identity right.
Our key issue remains: equal access by all citizens to government held birth certificates. For those of us born in the United States, even our US citizneship is called into question, when seeking a passport. In this day and age, it is frightening!
We are no longer cute and cudly infants who need a home. We are not rebellious teenagers with developmental angst. Rather, we are adult voters, your neighbors, making our way in this country, without an identity document, without medical histories, without knowledge of our genealogy. I work toward and pray the United States, all 50 of them, will allow the families of adoption to dictate good law - not those who profit from our personal losses.

My son, adopted by my then husband and me when he was three weeks old, died last year at age 35, never having achieved his dream of locating one or both of his birth parents. My son was denied access to his birth records, filed in Hennepin County, Minnesota following his birth on August 20, 1973. I know it's fanciful thinking on the part of a mother who misses her beloved child when I tell myself that perhaps had he been able to see his birth records, connect with one or both birth parents, and learn his family history he might still be alive today.

Since the NCFA is one of Mr. Snyder's "coalition," if he would like the 1983 report presented to the NCFA at one of their conventions on "Birth Mothers" and confidentiality, I would be more than happy to send it to him.

Theoretical researchers in that report, which was later professionally published as an article in 1985, stated that "confidentiality" in adoption served to keep a "Birth Mother" from interferring in the adopted child's developmental stages and also keeping her from preventing the Adoptive Parents from bonding with the child.

Not once was "confidentiality" mentioned as a benefit to her to protect her from her own flesh and blood.

The NCFA is a very selective historian of adoption, "Birth Mother's" rights, and the origins of confidential adoptions.

As an adoptee whose birth father was also her adoptive father, he shared my birth mother's name & state of origin w/ me. It took me 20 yrs to find her, only to learn she'd already passed away. I learned from her husband & sister that she wanted to reunite w/ me, but didn't know how or where to begin.
I'm a law abiding, taxpaying voter. I also had an abortion at the age of 16. I rest easier knowing my child is in the arms of our Lord rather than having to lay my head down at night & wonder where they are or if they're safe. Statistics actually show that abortion rates DECREASE in states w/ open records.
I have every right to know who I am, what my heritage is, my medical history, etc. So do my children & grandchildren!
Tom Snyder, have you EVER had to wonder about any of these things?!?! NO!!!

Snyder mentioned that the New York Bill failed, which is yet another lie he is fostering.

We have a bill in New York State that when passed will grant adult adoptees equal access to our original birth certificates. Originally introduced under different numbers in 1993, our bill sits in committees untouched.

New York state has been rightfully branded "dysfunctional" by the standards of The Brennan Center for Justice. This directly applies to our bill, as only two members of the states legislature refuse to place our equal rights bill onto their committees agendas for a democratic vote.

Assembly member Helene Weinstein chairs the judiciary committee in Albany while Senator Thomas Duane chairs the senate health committee. Neither of these elected representatives appear willing to permit their committees a democratic vote on our bill, which when approved will pass onto the floor for a complete vote. Neither Weinstein or Thomas emulate the beliefs or wishes of the New York voter.

It's a lie fostered through the belligerence of Mr. Snyder that New York has failed. In actually, we haven't had as yet the opportunity to fail given that two long term career politicians do not stand to personally profit by allowing our bill to pass through their committee.

For someone who has appointed himself an expert of adoptee rights, it seems to me that Mr. Snyder's lack of truth not only in referring to the NY bill, but also his many other miscues completely negate his stance.

In addition to the comment I made about Adoptive Parents getting the OBC, which was public record, before the adoption is finalized so that the adoptee could have it completely blowing the "anonymity" nonsense out of the water, I wanted to make another point.

No one should ever make a promise to someone else that violate's someone elses Civil Rights and Human Rights. The idea that such alleged "promises" are even entertained at the expense of equality to the citizens of this country is deplorable on the part of our various state governments.

Let's talk about the "promises" of anonymity because Mr. Snyder said mothers are supposed to have the "understanding" that there will be anonymity because of the OBC that will *eventually* become sealed.

What about the countless mothers who are saying they were "promised" the opposite?

What about the countless mothers who said they had no idea that the practice of amending and sealing existed and that no one told them?

What about the countless mothers who were told that the adoptees would always know who they were and would have access to them the moment they turned 18?

What about THOSE "promises?" Where were "Birth Mother's Rights" when these women, my First Mother included, were being told things that were not true? Where was the Bar Assoc et. al. swooping down to save the day when my mother was being lied to?

Quite frankly, Mr. Snyder, I think it's safe to say that there are lawyers and agencies out there who will tell an expectant mother just about anything she wants to hear whether or not there is any legal or logical basis to it.

When research shows that less than 2% of mothers want to remain anonymous and more than 98% of mothers want their names to be known----who is the Bar Assoc et. al. really protecting here?

I was adopted in 1973 in Massachusetts.
My natural mother was told that when I turned 18, I would have access to my records. But when my records were sealed the following year, no one contacted her or asked for her permission to deny my access.
She was given "privacy" that she never wanted.
Massachusetts reopened the records in 2007, which enabled me to finally see my original birth certificate. My mother chose not to fill in my father's name, which would have been a huge loss, had I not located her and obtained that information.
In the 2 years I have spent locating and meeting my biological relatives, not one person has protested a loss of privacy.
My desire to locate my roots has filled in gaps in families and brought peace to those who always wondered what happened to me.
And both families have confirmed that I look and act more like my natiral parents than any of the children they raised.
We are all adults. Let us make adult decisions and decide for ourselves whom we want to keep in our lives.

As a birth mother who was gratefully reunited with my surrendered son 9 years ago, when he was 31 years old, I want to second (third and fourth!) the other comments about a promise of confidentiality. I was not promised any such thing, and I believe that so-called promise, if it existed at all, was really to protect adoptive families from being sought-out by mothers who regretted their decision to give up their child.

And, even it that is true, *certainly* once an adoptee is 18 or older, she/he should have *every* right to the original birth certificate.

Also, matching registries *don't* work - I registered with at least two, as did my son, including NYS where he was born - neither of us ever heard from any of them. It was only through the advice of an online friend who is an adoptee and the efforts of the woman she put me in touch with that we found each other.

As a 63 year old ADULT ADOPTEE from the wonderful State of NY, who has found all her birth family, with both birth parents now deceased, I think it is appalling that NY still keeps ADULT ADOPTEES from attaining their Original Birth Certificates. In this day and age, any adoptee who does know their original name at birth, can and will find their birth parents, siblings, aunt, uncles, grandparents, etc. So what are you trying to hide NY State? Why do you keep that piece of paper from us? I could have given the NY Registry more information than they gave me, when I registered with them, and all I really wanted to know at that time was the time of my birth, since I knew everything else. Give up NY and allow us ADULT ADOPTEES to finally get our ORIGINAL BIRTH CERTIFICATES.

I'd bet the Catholics are more interested in the anonymity of the birth fathers than anything else. First, mothers are encouraged not to give the fathers name for the OBC, and second the OBC is sealed. This gives double protection for all of those straying husbands and clergymen from scandal.

I learned I was adopted, at age 15, when I accidentally found my baby book while moving. I asked for years about my real name and was told it is none of your business...let me just say if it is ANYONE'S business it is MINE!! It is who I am. My natural mother and father are DEAD, 2005 and 2003 respectfully, there is no way for me to get their permission to obtain my ORIGINAL BIRTH CERTIFICATE. My adoptive father wrote a letter to the court of Dade County Florida giving HIS permission to open my adoption records and the court REFUSED!!! No medical informatin was within it! I am 60 years old and I will continue to FIGHT this fight in EVERY state that the records are sealed until I take my last breathe.

It is MY right as a taxpaying citizen of the United States to have my OBC. I am a voter and will be watching CLOSELY who votes for and who votes against any bill for opening the records of adoptees...I will campaign AGAINST anyone voting against the adoptee's right to have their OBC.

Diane...GREAT JOB
Tom Snyder...SHAME on you for perpetuating the lies...remember "KARMA"!!

A curious thing happens when adoptees ask for rights to original birth certificates to be restored.

We are asked WHY we need it. No other person is asked WHY they want their birth certificate. All they need is the application, the fee and some proof of identity.

If we say we want to know who we are - it is a foreign concept for those who HAVE their original documents and they want to know the REAL reason.
If we say we want family medical history - we are told we can have it, even if it is decades out of date and useless.
If we say we want the chance to meet biological relatives - we are warned that we will ruin their lives and they must be protected from us.

I found my mother last year. My father's name (which I have) is not on my original birth certificate. My mother would be happy to get if for me, but she isn't entitled to it either. There is nothing on my original birth certificate that I do not already know, with the possible exception of the name of the doctor who delivered me. Why can't I have my birth certificate?

With respect to the separate-and-not-equal concept of non-identifying information:
The birth parents I've met are very concerned about the state giving out non-identifying information as it is oftentimes inaccurate, biased, and contains intimate details of that parent's life. These parents are concerned that they have no say and no control over non-identifying information. They would, however, welcome the chance to speak to their son or daughter personally and tell them the story in their own words, not the words of a social worker from another era.

If you are a parent who relinquished a child, would you rather be contacted by a third party or by your own flesh and blood? Would you rather tell your story to your son or daughter in your own words, or would you like somebody else to do it from a dusty file?

States that are open, and countries that make original birth certificates available to adults have had NO problems. It's about a persons right to a piece of paper that documents their birth.

It's discrimination that I, as an adoptee do not have the same right to that document as non-adopted persons have.

I believe this document should never be altered. By the time a person needs their birth certificate they are old enough and should have had their adoption explained to them.

As a late discovery adoptee and my beginning kept a secret until I was 43, the altered document played a key role in my adoptive parents grand-deception.

Everyone should have their OBC, even adopted persons! We need to end discrimination.

Come on ACLU, you should be helping ME!

Awesome interview about the rights of adopted people.

Diane Crossfield effectively articlulated what millions of those separated from their families and that information forbidden to us by law deeply feel.

I found my Mother in 2001 and still can not obtain my own birth certificate. Sealing birth certificates is for those adopting and to hide the corruption in the adoption system. Never has sealed records been about protection for Mothers who lost their children to adoption.The government didn't care about them then, and they certainly don't care about them now.

As Sandra Musser told me a long time ago,"We need to stop treating adult adoptees as eternal children.Laws and antiquated policies that separate people who are related to each other need to be changed." I can't believe,in this day and time,that adopted people still have to beg for their birth certificates,something every other human being has a right to obtain.This birthmom supports your fight.

Ten years ago I wouldn't have cared about adoptees wanting a copy of their birth certificate. But then at age 53 I found out by accident that I was adopted. Try to imagine how I felt going to my doctors and telling them I have no family medical history any longer, to not be able to answer a simple question like what nationality are you, to not know any family history, to realize that your whole life up until this point is a lie. The non-identifying information that I received from NY State told me nothing and since it was a private adoption unless a family member tells me anything I'll probably never find out who I am. My adoptive parents both died over 20 years ago and all their siblings are deceased also. There's no one who can tell me the truth. This is a violation of my human and civil rights. I had no one to speak for my at the time of my relinquishment, I never gave permission to have my records sealed, the laws need to be changed.

On October 19, 1967, I signed a "Consent, Release and Surrender Agreement." I was 20 years old, and my son was 19 days old. The one-page document includes this language: ..."I hereby relinquish all rights and claims to the said child, and I further agree not to seek to effect his removal from any home or homes in which he may be placed by the Children's Center of Metropolitan Atlanta, Inc." There is nothing in this agreement about my so-called privacy or confidentiality. I was told to "get on with my life and forget all about it," but of course, that never happened.

Who was that agreement protecting? Certainly not me as the relinquishing mother.

Fortunately, after 37 lost years of not knowing who, where or how my son was, I was able to find him through the intermediary services provided by the State of Georgia.

But neither of us, to this day, can get the original birth certificate opened. How crazy is that?

And how painful: once my son and I were getting to know each other, and I could actually talk about my family, I would have given anything to have that original birth certificate -- to frame on the wall.

It is cruel to withhold this information from adoptees--and from their mothers! Yes, there may be natural parents who fear contact for whatever reason. But my experience over the last 6 or 7 years convinces me that the vast majority of original parents want to be found.

I agree with other people posting here that the Bar Association is protesting because of their fear that a lucrative business--closed, secret adoption--may be "hurt" by adoptees having the freedom to know who they really are and where they really came from.

Pass these bills, please!

I'm an adult adoptee. I was adopted at 2 years of age, and all of my adoption proceedings were handled through the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Since Massachusetts changed the law, I've been able to get my original birth certificate (I was born and surrendered prior to the 1974 cutoff), and have since been in reunion with biological family.

One of the most important aspects of this (aside from answering personal questions about my origins), was discovering a medical history for myself. I now know that type-2 diabetes and prostate cancer run in my biological family. But, no, that's not important to know to you. You just want to continue to fight to protect those that don't need protecting. A mother doesn't need protection from a child unless that child is acting with violent, criminal behavior. I think someone needs to protect your mother from you, as you obviously have questionable morals that can be swayed by who has the most money.

My question to Mr. Snyder is this: Why does a biological mother NEED protection from her offspring? Why is it OK to you, to have MY identity be stolen (legally), and then have another one 'assigned' to me, and then tell me that I have no right to know about MY OWN ORIGINS?? It is my RIGHT to know who I am. It is my RIGHT to know my true identity. It is my RIGHT to know what kinds of medical maladies may exist in the family tree that I may need doctors to keep an eye on.

But for you sir, you're just happy to take a paycheck from the parties who benefit from (for all intents and purposes), taking babies from mothers in order to sell them for profit. How can you sit here with a straight face and act like a biological parent needs protection from their offspring? How can you sit here and say it's basically ok to steal a child's identity and give them a new one? How can you sit here and tell anyone that they don't deserve, or have a right, to know where they came from? I don't know how much money you make for lobbying against access to obc's, but obviously, those that hired you have plenty of money to throw around, indicating just how much of a profit they get from their baby-selling. I don't know how you sleep at night on that lumpy mattress of cash that you've earned lobbying to prevent a certain group of people from being able to obtain their true identity, but I do know that all the money in the world won't save your soul. Enjoy your baby-selling-based money bribes, as all that money will do you no good at all, as you sold away your morals and principles for a few pieces of silver.

Adoptees have a RIGHT to know who they are and where they came from. A mother should never be expected her information to be hidden from her own child. Period.

Here's what Snyder and people like him fail to realize. This isn't about reunion. It's about a system that falsifies documents upon the completion of an adoption in order to make the adoptive parents feel better, then denies the persons whose documents have been falsified from obtaining their original documents. That's it.

Opening up these records will not open the floodgate of rabid adoptees trying to find poor birth parents promised confidentiality. In many cases, there will not be a paternal listing. There may not even be a legitimate maternal listing. Most of them will give the child's name as "Baby Boy Smith".

The falsified documents that adoptees have been given do often cause them problems. Adoptions may be finalized in states other than that of their birth. Discrepancies between issuing states and birth locations is one of the things, especially in this climate of illegal immigration, that causes passport applications, driver's license applications, etc., to meet with more scrutiny or outright disapproval.

How often does anyone else have to justify their legacy? How often do you look at your birth certificate, anyway? It's a small thing. It would mean so much to so many for so little--not to mention the influx of money to be made from all of the adoptees paying for official copies of their original birth certificates. So what's the problem?

Perhaps rather than unsealing an adult adoptees original birth certificate we should indeed seal EVERY AMERICAN's original birth certificate?

Seriously, how would you feel if you were denied:

The right to a US Passport?
The right to renew your drivers license?
The right to marry within your faith?
The right to Vote?
The right to know your own Identity?

This is the unfortunate and biased world adult adoptees face for lack of our Original Birth Certificates. If I can't have mine, then I want YOURS, Mr. Snyder.

The age old myth about guaranteed privacy has been cut to pieces time and time again.
This IS NOT about reunion or any legal issue of privacy. The ONLY other way to recieve such protections from the government is through either the witness protection program (and their OBCs are not sealed from them) and in a restraining order as punishment for criminal actions. We as adoptees are neither, and the lies need to stop.
WE as adoptees did nothing to deserve being segregated from the EQUAL protections afforded by the US constitution of equal access to public records, and in the case of Mr Snyder's argument the right to free association.
Further, since 911 and homeland security, adoptees with AMENDED birth certificates are having trouble getting passports and "enhanced" drivers licenses if their ABC is dated later than 1 year after the date of birth.
My adoption was finalized 1 year and 6 weeks after my DOB. I'm trapped in the US. I don't have the right of free passage as afforded ALL non adoptees. I cannot qualify for certain employment due to actions that I did not commit.

Mr Snyder fails to mention who is really being protected. LAWYERS and the agencies they work for. States charge adoptees exhorbitant amounts of money to adoptees for just a slight chance that there may be a match, which the states rarely actually do as reported by Gaye and others. They charge us for CI programs, but are not held to any standard expectation of results.
All the while, the adoption industry continues to carry on, unregulated, with large legal teams to back them (bar members?) with the same lies that have been disproven time and time again.
States charge non-adoptees $12-15 for a CERTIFIED copy of their OBC, just for walking up to the desk and asking. This amounts to state sponsored extortion!

That the bar association opposes the equal rights of one class of people in favor of the PRIVILIGE of anonymity illegally offered to but really forced upon natural mothers is a crime and a slap in the face to all that support and believe in equal rights in this nation.

The age old myth about guaranteed privacy has been cut to pieces time and time again.
This IS NOT about reunion or any legal issue of privacy. The ONLY other way to recieve such protections from the government is through either the witness protection program (and their OBCs are not sealed from them) and in a restraining order as punishment for criminal actions. We as adoptees are neither, and the lies need to stop.
WE as adoptees did nothing to deserve being segregated from the EQUAL protections afforded by the US constitution of equal access to public records, and in the case of Mr Snyder's argument the right to free association.
Further, since 911 and homeland security, adoptees with AMENDED birth certificates are having trouble getting passports and "enhanced" drivers licenses if their ABC is dated later than 1 year after the date of birth.
My adoption was finalized 1 year and 6 weeks after my DOB. I'm trapped in the US. I don't have the right of free passage as afforded ALL non adoptees. I cannot qualify for certain employment due to actions that I did not commit.

Mr Snyder fails to mention who is really being protected. LAWYERS and the agencies they work for. States charge adoptees exhorbitant amounts of money to adoptees for just a slight chance that there may be a match, which the states rarely actually do as reported by Gaye and others. They charge us for CI programs, but are not held to any standard expectation of results.
All the while, the adoption industry continues to carry on, unregulated, with large legal teams to back them (bar members?) with the same lies that have been disproven time and time again.
States charge non-adoptees $12-15 for a CERTIFIED copy of their OBC, just for walking up to the desk and asking. This amounts to state sponsored extortion!

That the bar association opposes the equal rights of one class of people in favor of the PRIVILIGE of anonymity illegally offered to but really forced upon natural mothers is a crime and a slap in the face to all that support and believe in equal rights in this nation.

I am a Late-Discovery Adoptee, having learned I'm adopted at the age of 42. I am denied my original birth certificate.

I cannot begin to point out the numerous errors in Mr. Snyders remarks from this interview. One thing I do wish to point out is that Mr. Snyder is a paid lobbyist. He would be fighting for, rather than against adoptee rights for the right price.

Let's take a look at our opponents:

1) New Jersey Bar Association - Paid mercenaries who will lobby on your behalf if you have enough money to hire them.

2) New Jersey Right to Life - Mostly Evangelical Christians who oppose equality for adoptees based on the fear that abortion rates are connected to adoption. Their fight continues even though it has been proven that abortion rates currently have declined in the states with equal access. As a nationwide political party they have unlimited resources available to hire professional lobbyists to represent their interests regardless of how biased those opinions may be.

3) Catholic Charities - Who stands to lose the most business once adoptees achieve the right to his or her original birth certificates than the faith based institute who profits the most from the sale of babies?

We've seen the trustworthiness the Catholic Church is devoted to through the continued molestation of children by their leaders. They fear the truth printed on our original birth certificates will somehow tear down what little remains of their organization.

Under the guise of supporting "Right to Life" Catholic Charities opposes equal rights for adoptees. The reality is their fear that more Americans will learn of the atrocities Catholic Charities committed against birth mothers and the child the church forced to give away.

For reference, please read "The Girls Who Went Away" by Ann Fessler.

4) The ACLU - It appears they have thrown their hat into the ring to support the contrived notion of confidentiality for our mothers without *actually* knowing or speaking with any birth mothers. In all honesty, the ACLU stopped representing individual freedoms long ago, and currently tags onto those various political movements that are profitable.

On a personal note, I'm relieved the ACLU does not support us; their association with groups like "Man Boy Love" disqualifies them as a civil liberties interest, and qualifies them for endorsing naughty priests.

I'd like to sum up why I chose to post here.

First, adoptees deserve to own our original birth certificates. If the US were a genuine Democracy, our identities would never have been sealed to begin with.

Secondly, opponents to our have based their arguments on superstitions, myths, and half-truths. Myths include birth mothers confidentiality and that unsealed original birth certificates will lead to complete social anarchy.

Lastly, I would like to appeal to every citizen whether adopted or not, to write your legislator urging them to support adoptee rights in your state.

Times are changing and to keep original birth certificates locked up and away from those who derserve the right to have them, is a very "PRIMITIVE" way to be.

Does anybody realize how distraught a person who is adopted is and lied to? It's a very devasating thing to go through and there are so many people out there who don't feel they have an identity.

How can they say they are trying to protect mother's, when they (the mother's), themselves want records open. Mother's want to find their children, just as much as children want to find them!

I want to know who I am and have the right to know who I am. I exist just like everyone else does! I want more than Non-Iden info and medical history sent to me. I want to know who my birth parents are or were. I have the right to know as an adult human being.

I am a New York City born adult adoptee who was lucky, despite sealed records, to find and reunite with my birth mother 15 years ago. In all my time searching and since reunion, I have met many birthmothers. To a person, they all have the same thing to say -- that they were never promised confidentiality. Indeed, many tell the tale of being 'courted' by adoption agencies to the point of surrender, at which time they were unceremoniously 'dumped' and treated harshly by these hitherfore helpful, caring entities.

These archaic laws were purportedly created to "protect the child from the stigma of illegitimacy". Such a surprising statement in today's world, when statistics show that more than half the children born in the US today have parents who are not married to one another. But perhaps not a surprising statement when you consider the case of New York State where such a law was put into place by Governor Wagner in an attempt to protect his adopted children from the terrors of being found by their own birth parents.

Imagine the horror of knowing who you look like, what your heritage is or even having information about medical problems in your own bloodline. It hardly bears thinking about. But people are thinking about it. And change needs to come.

All adoptees are asking for is the same rights as every other person born in this country -- we would like own original birth certificates. We are no longer the chattel in the adoption agreement between the state and our adoptive parents. We are adults with full voting rights and the ability to make political contributions -- or not.

I am NJ born and adopted adult from NJ. I currently live in NC, and I am fighting for the rights of adult adoptees here. I will consistently refer to adoptees in this comment as adults, because this is the group of people who are wanting access to their original birth certificate.
There is no State which is trying to obtain this for any 'children', even though that is what all adult adoptees still are within the minds of State legislators, people such as Tom Snyder, etc. We are always referred to as 'adopted children'.
As Diane stated, amended birth certificates are a 'lie' at best which adult adoptees have. An amened birth certificate can get you a nasty letter from the passport agency, questioning your 'citizenship' (such as happened to me). In North Carolina up until just a few years ago, the county of birth was changed on amended birth certificates to reflect that of where the adoptive parents lived at the time of adoption. So adult adoptees in NC do not even know the 'true' county of birth in which they were born.
Also, as Diane stated, records are not sealed until upon the finalization of adoption, thereby making 'birthmother confidentiality' not legally binding. There has never been a guarantee that a child would be adopted once they were relinquished.
A good example of this would be a birthmother who gives birth to twins, and is 'supposedly' promised the mythological confidentiality. One of the twins is adopted, and that childs records will be forever sealed from them. The other child is never adopted. At the age of 18, that child can walk into the bureau of vital records and request a copy of their birth certificate and they will receive their original birth certificate with the birthmother's name on that document. How is that birthmothers confidentiality protected? It is not, could not be and will never be.

I believe if our legislators want to argue a point, they should have all of the FACTS, and not rule by their emotions, like many of them in our states are currently doing.
Many are waiting for all the adult adoptees to die off, so the problem will in their mind 'go away'.
We all have a right to talk with strangers, at least ONCE. That person then has a right to tell you to never contact them again. Birthparents and adult adoptees are STRANGERS. They should be allowed to work out differences for themselves. Why do we keep allowing our elected officials to govern what group of people can and cannot talk with one another?
Let adult adoptees have access to their original birth certificate and let them act as the ADULTS they are.

Adoptees are denied the rights to documents produced at their birth. These are rights extended to every other American citizen. We are denied equal rights on the basis of fears of what might happen if we were given equal rights. If we generalized the reasoning, we would have to do away with the first and second amendments, on the basis that bad things MIGHT happen if people had the right to free speech and to bear arms. But the ACLU and the NRA have for years defended those rights against the fears of what would happen. Likewise with other civil and human rights. Think of what COULD happen if we desegregate schools. If we allow women to vote.

Fear-mongering makes for good sound-bites, but it is a lousy way to run a democracy and secure the rights of the people. Adoptees are citizens, and we should be afforded the same protections and opportunities under the law that everyone else has.

In the UK, adoptees have had the right to access their original birth certificate since 1975. Over the past 35 years, none of the problems conjured by institutional opponents to this right have materialized.

The premise is simple: an adoptee's life did not begin when they were brought home. Life began at birth. The right for adoptees to know the facts of their birth, as documented on their original birth certificate, should be restored.

Thank goodness I was adopted in Boston, MA. At 53 years old, when I was ready to look for my birth family, I was able to get my original birth record. Not only was my birth mother thrilled that I found her, but I now have an entire family that has welcomed me with open arms. We have enriched each other's lives.

Despite my personal reunion story, I should have had access to my original birth certificate always. It's MY birth certificate. What I decide to do with this information is my right as well. What really upsets me is that most of the people fighting against adoptee rights to access are treating us like we are still the adopted infants. We are not children, we are grown adults and should have equal access to the same information that everyone else in the country can access. To withhold this information smacks of a civil right violation.

My birth mother never signed one document that said she will never contact me. The only reason that she did not try to find me is that she was afraid I'd never been told I was adopted. She was being a protective mother. She had prayed I would finally find her before she died. She is now 74.

How dare others make a decision on my behalf who I can or can't attempt to have a relationship with. But relationship or not, that birth certificate belongs to me.

How typical of Tom Snyder to weep crocodile tears for all those New Jersey born adoptees who are currently without non-identifying information and family medical history. Catholic Charities and DYFS have been supplying these things for years, but only for those adoptions done through their agencies.

Family medical history recorded at the time of relinquishment (30-50 years ago) is useless. I was told my great-grandfather died of TB - in the 1920s!

Non-ID is helpful, but is essentially a workaround. My non-ID was extensive and allowed me to find my mother last year, when I was 55 years old. She asked me why I had waited so long to contact her. She didn't know that I was not legally entitled to my own original birth certificate and that people like Tom Snyder felt that she needed to be PROTECTED from me.

As Diane Crossfield explained, some amended birth certificates change the place of birth and even the date of birth. New Jersey law STILL allows the adoptive parents to change the place of birth. Under New York's non-ID rules, the adoptee's date of birth and place of birth are considered IDENTIFYING information and will not be disclosed. Imagine being told that you are not entitled to know WHEN and WHERE you were born if that information is inaccurate or missing from your amended birth certificate!

Since the relinquishing parents do not control what appears on the amended birth certificate (and are not even notified that one has been issued), how can Tom Snyder say that sealed records serve to protect the birth parents? Try reading the ACTUAL legislative notes and comments from 70 years ago. It was ALL about protecting the adoptee from the stigma of illegitimacy and protecting the adoptive family (usually from the birth parents).

During the debate on New Jersey's bill, Pat Brannigan of the NJ Catholic Conference was noticeably shocked when confronted with actual surrender documents from Catholic Charities. Those surrender documents put the lie to what he said about promises made to birth parents.

The coalition to protect the status quo will repeat the same myths and lies despite solid overwhelming evidence to the contrary. To admit that reform advocates are right will leave them with nothing to say.

I find it rediculous that anyone thought that natural mothers were "given" privacy or secrecy. The facts are simple, at no time, and for no reason, can anyone be guaranteed absolute privacy. For natural mothers, we never asked nor wanted it. There are a few, a very small number, that think that if their truth comes out their life is over. But for over a million women and counting, there is no expectation of privacy on that score. And none wanted nor asked for. Secrecy about origins was developed by adoption professionals - and I use professionals very loosely - developed this "privacy" theme to entice more people to adopt and thereby lining the coffers of the professional. Personally I would love to make sure all adoptees get their own, unadulterated original birth certificate, from birth, not at a certain age. Privacy is for adoptive parents and agencies - not mothers. To say otherwise is to lie to ones self.

It's simple: You have your birth certificate, I want mine. Because I am adopted, the government erased my biological identity to create a new "legitimate" one. That's laughable. The truthful document of my birth is sealed and the fiction that I carry around called an "Amended Birth Certificate" is a forgery and a joke. Why aren't vital records clerks who print out fake birth certificates and the judges who order them in federal prison? Why not? Every other Joe Shmoe who falsifies identity documents ends up serving hard prison time.

I was promised that my daughter would recieve ALL of her information upon turning the age of majority. I was promised jail time if I ever looked for her. I didn't, I kept my end of the bargain. She found me 11 years ago at the age of 28. Michigan also has a registry, my daughter and I are still waiting to be matched through it. In the mean time, she has met both her mother and father. I have met my grand children. I've met and BBQ'ed with her parents, sister, brother in law, aunt and niece, more than once. But even if all her parents went to the court house "together", signed sworn affidavids that its ok for her to have her paperwork, she would still be denied. She will be 40 years old soon, has 5 children, and has only been able to pass on her heritage to them because she DIDN'T wait to be matched. She has 2 younger brothers who are adored by their nieces and nephews. Parents who understand her better through just meeting me, and a peace in her heart that can not be put into words.

You want to talk promises, lets talk about what was promised to me. Lets talk about how no matter who goes to the court house or how many times, my daughters paperwork, that was supposed to be handed to her at age 18, is still sealed away from her. We signed the adoption papers together and willingly. We never signed up to seal her life away from her for ever. So who's promise is going to be honored? The alleged promises made to millions of women, or the alleged promises made to a handful who will not even speak for themselves, only through lawyers and advocates? I want every future surrendering mother to know EXACTLY what promises from an agency and the state mean. LIES.

Adoptees rights are laughable. Being a 59 year old New York adoptee I have found that the words “adoptees” and “rights” do NOT go hand and hand. Even after the death of both my adoptive parents and birth parents, I have still found the doors are shut in locating my siblings who never signed a contract to give up their rights. The registries are questionable. Getting access to medical records is abysmal. Basic human rights are obliterated. Fortunately, through the help of Search Angels who give tirelessly of their time, I have located one of my siblings after almost 60 years. Getting the “critical” family medical history to pass on to my children and grandchildren has been a real eye opener. At the time of my adoption, the medical history had not yet been compiled. The state does not follow you around through your life to give you updates on your birth family’s medical conditions. No photos before the age of two. No life before that date. It is as if I did not exist. This is totally unacceptable and inhumane.

Tom Snyder stating that New York is a failure in passing the Bill of Adoptee Rights shows he doesn't know what he is talking about. The NY legislature has thousands of bills pending, several reform organizations and the Brennan Center for Justice demanding reforms. NY is a state where a small number of bills get passed and many are never even discussed in committee. And prior to 2005 there was no state wide organization lobbying seriously for bills A8410/S5269. A big issue here for many years has been state social services and the states experts in the Department of Health failing to listen to members of our triad and there is no excuse for this! Although recently with much more support for our legislation they have given us a better response.

Often birth parent confidentiality is a smokescreen for some other reason such as adoptive parents who don't want their children to reunite. Surrendering to adoption is terminating parental rights and not about getting any kind of right. In 1973 women received a right to privacy in the early trimester of abortion but nothing for birth mothers.Many birth mothers signed surrender papers agreeing not to interfere with the custody, control and management of said child. Disrupt is the word many of us were told. Do not disrupt
the adoptive family. We were never given confidentiality either or were we presented with options. Our legislation gives birth parents the option to choose if they wish to be contacted or not--meaning the state will give them the heads up that the adoptee wants contact and this is something they do not have now. Also many legislators have told us there is no such right to privacy. --Adoptees and birth parents have emancipated themselves by searching, and up against lies and decrepit laws are not giving up on rights. the current NY law is a violation of human rights,

I was 'unwed' and 17 when I surrendered my newborn for adoption in 1968. After giving birth to him, I was housed on the "Women's Disorders" floor rather than the maternity ward and NOT ALLOWED to even SEE my newborn nevermind hold him, feed him or care for him. I was served papers while in the hospital and never offered copies of anything I signed. I still have no right to obtain copies of the surrender papers in my state. Does this sound like someone who WANTED to be kept from her baby? When I returned home ,neither the pregnancy nor the child was ever spoken of again---until I began an active serch for him 21 years later, when he was an adult.
HOW DARE YOU USE ME TO "PROVE" THAT WE WANT AND NEED LIFE LONG STATE PROTECTION FROM OUR ADULT CHILDREN ! " The State needs to get out of the business of being a busy-body. There are hundrens of thousands of "reunions" in this couintry ---in spite of your stupid sealed records vault--and if contact was "ruining lives" right and left you'd be sure we'd all hear about it. The media would be ALL OVER IT ! There is only ONE reason these original birth records are so-called 'sealed'----and it is because the paying client wants it that way. Where are the horror stories of Natural Mother and Child knowing each other? You still are clinging to the "raped and pregnant and traumatized" story? Why not focus your attention on the criminal in this story instead of the victims? Why continue to say that raped women need to "hide" when they did nothing wrong? You think rape is the only trauma for a woman? Try the trauma of having your infant taken from you and hiden away with complete strangers and told to forget he ever existed and see how YOU like it!
I want to say this again: STOP using Natural Mothers as your reasoning for keeing the birth records sealed from those to whom they belong: the adoptee. No vault will keep away the adoptees' human desire to know they came from. If a Natural Mother does not want a relationship with someone who has contacted her she can tell them herself! For crying out loud, we are grown women -- NOT CHILDREN !

I resent Tom Snyder speaking for me - a mother who lost my only child to adoption in 1966. I was asked to sign what turned out to be a surrender document in the recovery room with no explanation as to what it was. Next day I was told I had surrendered my rights forever to my child.

As far as confidentiality, not only was I never promised privacy or confidentiality, I was told if my son was interested at majority age, he would be given my contact information.

To have anyone say they are trying to protect mothers from something we didn't want in the first place is disingenuous.
Allow adult adoptees access to the same information every other New Jersey resident is entitled to - a copy of their original birth certificate.

I have been an adoption reform activist working on this issue since 1987. Possibly Mr. Snyder just became aware of this civil rights issue; but before he professes to speak or us, he might wish to do a bit of research and reading the hundreds of books and studies on the adoptee rights movement.

Here is an open letter I wrote to the Catholic Church on the issue of restored birth certificates for adoptees; the arguments are apropos to present to the NJ Bar and the ACLU
***
I saw a bumper sticker yesterday that made me think of your curious stance in legislatures around the country in opposition to restoring access to original birth certificates (OBCs) to adopted persons. I should say, frankly, your unfathomable opposition — in particular, your reliance on the ungrounded argument that abortions will somehow increase if mothers are not promised forever anonymity and ‘privacy’ from the shame of bearing an out-of-wedlock child. Come on! Get real! In the 21st century you insist there are pregnant girls so frightened of being ‘outed’ they will run and get abortions before relinquishing their babies for adoption??? This is so ridiculous and ludicrous that it makes the mind boggle.
And you keep bringing this up year after year, in every legislative hearing, even after we have produced piles of studies from states that have restored OBCs that a) the abortion rate has actually gone down and b) the only reason domestic adoptions have slowed is because more girls are opting to raise their babies with more family and society support to keep families together.
You also insist that mothers were somehow promised confidentiality, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. We’ll say it again and keep shouting it until you hear it: There were no promises given to any mother except the threat of criminal prosecution if she ever tried to interfere in the life of her baby and its new family. For every woman who comes forward and asks for anonymity, we can bring you hundreds more, if not thousands, who begged for some assurance from the social workers and nuns, and were ‘promised’, that their children would be told about them and could find them some day. None of these so-called promises are in writing and, in fact, they were all lies. The adopters and their minions, the social workers and adoption lawyers, told the mothers whatever they wanted to hear to pry their babies away and get them to sign the relinquishment.
Today, adopted persons in most of the civilized world and in six states of the U.S. are able to get their original documents and learn their names and heritage and genealogy. Many of your fellow churches are in full support of righting the unequal treatment remaining in the U.S. states which still bar adoptees from accessing their OBCs —a blatant discrimination in that OBCs are and always have been available to every other citizen who was not adopted.
So, would Jesus discriminate? Of course not! Why do you?

Priscilla Sharp (Mother of Loss '64/Search Angel/Adoptee Rights Advocate)

Thank you to NPR for featuring this cause as well as asking an Adult Adoptee to represent the cause. Too often are others asked to speak for us but not we for ourselves.

Great job Diane!

I am a bit dissapointed by the unnacceptable use of the topic of rape/incest by Tom in the beginning of the debate. Rape/incest makes up for less than 1% of pregnancies and not all of these pregnancies result in an adoption. So we are talking about a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent--maybe, of adoptees here. I can tell you personally that the individuals of these circumstances, both the mothers and adoptees alike, do not appreciate having their sensitive life stories used in debate to negate the rights of Adult Adoptees. Legalizing hiding promotes a culture of shame for this group of mothers and Adult Adoptees. Adoption is not the witness protection program and these Adult Adoptees did nothing wrong to be treated unequally.

Tom's representation of "privacy" in adoption and what happens to the birth document was absolutely incorrect. Privacy and anonymity are two different things--all citizens have a right to privacy and privacy does not include the withholding of birth documentation for anyone else, why should it for Adult Adoptees? Upon surrender, a mother surrenders all rights, including the right to know of an adoption taking place. If the birth certificate is not sealed until a decree of adoption is issued (until which time the birth document is PUBLIC record), how can she be "guaranteed" that her identity would never be known or released? She can't. In fact, the increasing awareness brought about by the Adoptee Rights Movement is causing many Adoptive Parents to obtain their child's Original Birth Certificate for their child before it becomes sealed so that their child can have it as an adult. An Original Mother has no control over this. Birth Certificates are sealed, not upon her request, but as an act of the state. Not at surrender, but at adoption.

Tom also misrepresented Adoptee Rights saying that this argument of the rights of adoptees has never been brought up before in adoption practice. The Adoptee Rights Movement has been around for well over 60 years and persistently asked for change being supported by the Child Welfare League of America which has over 800 member agencies. We have been lobbied against and ignored by the adoption industry, its lobbyists and its lawyers who have chosen to ignore our voices.

This isn't about search, reunion or family medical history. This is about the right to equal treatment under the law and Tom should know that by now. This isn't news. NJ has been trying to reform its adoption laws for the past 25 years.

Any listeners/readers from PA, please make sure to visit www.adopteerightspa.org.

Again, great job Diane!

Tom Snyder seems to think that creating a mutual consent registry in New Jersey is going to be "the" solution. I'd like to point out that New York has had one for over 25 years and 95% of registrants are still waiting to be matched. Some have found each other and discovered that both parties HAD registered but New York never matched them.

Why does Tom Snyder insist on repeating New York's failure instead of following the lead of Maine, New Hampshire, Kansas, Oregon, Alabama and Alaska?

It's past time for the rest of the states to join Alaska, Kansas, Oregon, Maine, New Hampshire and Alabama in treating adopted adults as full citizens and accord them all the rights other law-abiding adults enjoy.