ASBURY PARK PRESSApril 3, 2008
Letter: Report sheds light on adoption
Regarding William Watson's letter stating that "this (adoptee) legislation breaks legal promises,'' let me say that at a N.J. Senate hearing on Dec. 4, 2006, on this matter Thomas Snyder of the New Jersey Bar Association and Deborah Jacobs of
ACLU-NJ, when asked to show where in the law privacy was promised, they both acknowledged that it didn't. ("Unsealed record breaks promise,'' March 21.)
If anyone made a promise of privacy it was contrary to the law. The proposed law pertains only to access to the original birth certificate by an adult adoptee, not adoption records. After all it is their document.
I recommend that Watson and all concerned parties go online and read the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute report "For The Records: Restoring a Legal Right for Adult Adoptees'' (www.adoptioninstitute.org) and learn of the historical context of sealed records. The facts are there for anyone who truly is interested in being pro-adoption.
The proposed legislation is restoring a right to a class of people who have been the least represented in adoption, the adoptees.
And finally "the wonderful people who adopted and raised'' me are and always will be Mom and Dad. Finding out my heritage, health history or anything else will in no way diminish our family. To suggest otherwise is an insult to them. They always put the best interest of their children first.
Thomas McGee
OCEANPORT
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1 comment:
Thomas,
"The email you sent in regard to your "parents"
always being your mom and dad those wonderful people who raised you."
That remark is exactly why the legislators don't take adoptee's seriously. Too many of you claim to be so happy, so content, and want to prove adoption has been a great thing for you. Why would they consider opening records when adoptee's are content with what the what those that adopted wanted closed in the first place..sealed records for their protections the hell with you. yep those are your "parents" the ones that fear you being able to know your true indentity.
Think about it.
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