ADOPTEE RIGHTS NEWS BLOG

CANADA - ONTARIO: The Search for One's Roots, August 11, 2008

2008-08-11T11:27:00.000-04:00

HAMILTON SPECTATOR
August 11, 2008

The search for one's roots
Paul Zadvorny

For weeks at a time, I have sat in Hamilton's Central Library, searching for my resemblance in the black and white pages of old yearbooks. My eyes have tirelessly scanned hundreds of headshots, looking for a girl I imagine has red hair, blue eyes and a smile like my own.

I know my birth mother's face is there, and until new Ontario law comes into effect, Hamilton's Class of '78 is my only hope of solving the riddle of my identity.

Searching for people and information held in sealed adoption records has been a notoriously difficult endeavour for birth parents and for adoptees in Ontario. I am but one of thousands of people throughout the province who have had to endure the indignity of being denied the right to know where we came from.

Last fall we won and lost the chance to know our past when the government passed the Adoption Information Disclosure Act, only to have it immediately stuck down by the courts. The government has now introduced new legislation that corrects its past failure and may finally provide answers, and perhaps closure, to thousands of adoptees like myself.

It's a bizarre sensation knowing that for a short time early in my life, I was someone else. In the few days that I spent with my birth mother, she named me Christopher Paul 'D.' Thanks to the current law, the Catholic Children's Aid can tell me little else about my background. I know my mother's family came to Hamilton from Scotland. They were Catholic, upper-middle class with three children, my mother the eldest. She was 16 and heading into Grade 11 when I was born in September 1976. I know even less about my father -- he was 17 and born to a German family -- and I'm unsure he even knows I exist.

When I was 10 days old, I became Paul Gregory Zadvorny, son to parents every child should have. My parents never hid the fact that I was adopted, and they have always been supportive of my search for my birth mother. But as a kid, and even now, I've hesitated to discuss my adoption with them. I fear that I might upset my mum, or make her feel as though she has somehow become secondary. Consequently, much of what I have done in regard to my search has been on my own -- which at times makes things emotionally difficult.

At an early age, my longing for information was sporadic -- often triggered by family functions and uneasy feelings of not belonging. As a teen I recall curiously digging through my dad's filing cabinets, in search of something, anything, to satisfy my need to know. Finally, lingering amid old receipts and tax forms, I discovered my adoption papers. I remember crying when I read Christopher Paul D. -- it seemed to finally make my adoption real. Still, my discovery gave me a clue and a sliver of hope that one day my search might end, that I would finally find my roots.

With a starting point, I began to explore my options -- immediately finding that they were limited. I requested non-identifying information (where all of the aforementioned details of my former life originated), and added my name to the Adoption Disclosure Registry. After years of waiting for a response, I hit a brick wall. I had exhausted the only active search option provided to adoptees in Ontario.

It became an onerous waiting game. The registry is a list consisting of tens of thousands of adoptees in search of their past, weighted against three provincial employees conducting the searches. A veritable needle in a haystack. Something had to be done.

In April 2005, Community Services Minister Sandra Pupatello introduced a bill that promised to finally give adoptees in this province the right to finally know where they came from. I was ecstatic, and celebrated a moment that I and many others had anticipated for some time. If passed, Bill 187 would allow adoptees over 18 and birth parents to get information that had been sealed, such as birth certificates and adoption orders that would inevitably reveal identities.

Included in the bill was a "contact veto," which was similar to a restraining order where a concerned party could request not to be contacted by his or her birth relative. However, the bill did not have a universal "disclosure veto" provision that would allow a party to stipulate that his or her identifying information not be released.

The bill seemed to address both the wishes of the adoptee and birth parent, and was readily supported by the numerous children's agencies and adoption groups. It would also have brought Ontario in line with Alberta, Newfoundland and British Columbia, the only three provinces to have open adoption records.

In September 2007, the bill was passed. I took comfort that the answers I sought would soon be available. Two days later, Mr. Justice Edward Belobaba of the Ontario Supreme Court struck down the law. The act, he ruled, breached the privacy provisions granted by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In an instant, the hopes and efforts of many were simultaneously quashed.

Revised legislation was introduced by the provincial government and became law in May. Its one critical amendment allows either party to apply for a disclosure veto to prevent the release of the adoption records if the adoption was finalized before this Sept. 1.

Adult adoptees and birth parents will be able to apply for copies of original birth registrations and adoption orders starting in June 2009. Disclosure vetoes, by either party, will be accepted by the province starting in September.

I am cautious about getting my hopes up once again, so in the meantime I will continue to scan through yearbooks and make phone calls to strangers hoping to solve my personal mystery.

There seems to be an unspoken bond between mother and child. It is an experience that most people take for granted, and one that I arduously work to attain. It exists between my children and my wife, and between my brother (who's not adopted) and my adoptive mother. The optimistic outcome of my search would be to one day experience that bond.

However, with every idyllic foreshadowing of how my search may end, I have obviously had to consider the contrary. I cannot begin to imagine the emotions and circumstances that my mother faced, and thus have had to empathetically consider things from her perspective. And as difficult as it may be if she chose to remain anonymous, I would respect and accept her decisions.

Still, I continue to hold onto hope that one day my search will come to an end.

It is impossible to predict the results of my efforts, so I have had to prepare myself for whatever the outcome may be -- a harsh reality, softened by the fulfilment of having tried.

Paul Zadvorny lives in Hamilton. zadvorny@hotmail.com

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2008-07-24T21:00:00.000-04:00

GAY CITY NEWS
July 24, 2008

Two Men Are Birth Dads
By: ARTHUR S. LEONARD
07/24/2008

Judge Lloyd Cutsumpas, of the Connecticut Superior Court in Waterbury, ordered that two gay men from New York who contracted with a Connecticut woman to be their "gestational surrogate" are entitled to have only their names listed as parents on the final birth certificate.

In a June 13 ruling, Cutsumpas rejected the state Health Department's argument that genetic testing should be used to determine which of the men is the child's genetic father and that the other father should have to adopt the child through a second-parent adoption procedure after the birth. Instead, he ruled, an "intended parent" under a gestational agreement, including one who may not be genetically related to the child, could become a legal parent by being listed on the birth certificate.

This ruling has no direct appellate precedent in Connecticut.

Peter Griffiths and Angel Naranjo are, according to the court's opinion, "registered domestic partners in the State of New York." They wanted to have a child genetically related to both of them, so Naranjo's sister donated an egg to be fertilized by Griffiths' sperm, and Griffiths' niece donated an egg to be fertilized with Naranjo's sperm. Both embryos were implanted last November in Kenisha Taylor, a Waterbury resident, who contracted with the two men to be their surrogate. One viable fetus resulted.

As part of the agreement, Taylor promised not to engage in sexual intercourse for a specified period of time to ensure that the child would be conceived from one of the implanted embryos. She says she kept her promise, which means the fetus is not genetically related to her.

Wishing to be considered equal parents of the child in every sense, Griffiths and Naranjo refrained from any genetic testing to determine which of the embryos developed into the fetus. But, in either case, they would both have a genetic relationship to their child.

State law requires a hospital to file a birth certificate naming the woman who bore the child as the mother as soon as a child is born. However, a court can order the Health Department to issue a replacement birth certificate listing the child's legal parents, which would replace the original as the formal legal documentation of the child's birth and family status.

Anticipating their child's birth this summer, Griffiths and Naranjo filed suit in the Waterbury District of the Circuit Court to get the requisite court order for a replacement birth certificate naming them as parents. Taylor, the hospital, and the state Health Department were the nominal defendants, and unexpectedly the Health Department opposed them, arguing that because a birth certificate is required to be an "accurate" public record, "only biological or adoptive parents can have their names placed on birth certificates."

The Department stated that logically, then, genetic testing is necessary to determine whether Griffiths or Naranjo is the genetic father, and only the genetic father can be listed on the certificate by a court order. The other father would have to wait for the birth to initiate adoption proceedings. After an adoption proceeding, a third birth certificate would be issued with the names of the two men as legal parents.

Griffiths and Naranjo objected, and argued that the existing law authorizes the court to declare them the "intended parents" for purposes of the replacement birth certificate. A recently-enacted Connecticut law explicitly supports this conclusion, but does not go into effect until October. With the child due earlier, the court had to rely on earlier statutes.

"This court of equity is left to fashion a remedy for the litigants using what statutes and previously decided cases are available regarding this evolving subject matter," Cutsumpas wrote.

In light of emerging reproductive technology, the Connecticut Legislature has been tinkering with its birth certificate statutes since 2001. The first draft of the revised law made explicit references to gestational surrogacy, but those references were dropped from the final version of the statute, which resulted in ambiguities only partially addressed in subsequent amendments. It was not until the 2008 amendment due to take effect in October that an explicit reference to gestational surrogacy appears.

However, in reviewing the legislative history and the court decisions interpreting prior versions of the statute, it was clear to Cutsumpas that the Legislature intended to allow the replacement certificate to be used to establish a legal birth record for this kind of case.

However, all of the previous rulings in gestational surrogacy cases involved "intended parents" who were heterosexual couples, in which at least one and usually both were definitely the child's genetic parent. In this case, the Health Department argued, since only one of the men can qualify as the father, the men must undergo a genetic marker test, with only that one having his name on the first of the revised birth certificates.

The Department also argued that "despite Taylor's testimony that she abstained from sex during the time period surrounding the conception, there was in fact a chance that neither man was the father.

Griffiths and Naranjo responded that at least one prior unpublished Connecticut trial court decision ordered that two men be listed as parents on the replacement birth certificate with no indication that genetic testing or an adoption was required. Unpublished trial court opinions are not binding legal precedents, but Cutsumpas found the Department's arguments to be "inaccurate" in any case.

He pointed out that there were prior published Connecticut Supreme Court decisions supporting the proposition that a man need not invariably have to prove genetic parentage in order for the courts to declare him a legal parent.

"It should be further noted," he wrote, "that on almost a daily basis, in our Magistrate Court and in our Superior Court, men and women are declared to be parents of children without a genetic test... Often an acknowledgment of paternity will suffice."

He concluded that even the law in effect now could be interpreted to establish parentage "by being named as an intended parent in a gestational carrier agreement."

The judge wrote that it was "unclear" why the Department insisted on a genetic test to list Griffiths or Naranjo, but seemingly had no objection to listing Taylor on the initial birth certificate, even though she "has no genetic relationship to the child"; to do so would be to record "inaccurate information, in violation of what the department states is the public policy underlying the vital records statute."

The possibility that Taylor could be a genetic parent impregnated by another man is an issue that could be raised about all gestational surrogacy situations, Cutsumpas noted, yet the Department did not routinely call for genetic testing when the intended parents were a heterosexual couple, so it was being inconsistent here.

"It is clear that the public policy of the State of Connecticut favors the issuing of orders regarding surrogate parentage," Judge Cutsumpas concluded. "Our legislative history and case law supports this view. [This] case is not about the establishment of genetic, or biological parents, but rather the establishment of legal or intentional parents. Names on a birth certificate are not necessarily just an acknowledgment of paternity but can also establish legal responsibilities to a child. In this era of evolving reproductive technology and intent-based parenthood, our laws must acknowledge these realities and not simply cling to genetic connections as preconditions to being placed on a birth certificate."

Finding that the gestational carrier agreements was "valid, enforceable, irrevocable, and of full legal effect, Cutsumpas declared that Taylor is not the parent of the unborn child, ordered that upon the child's birth, Taylor be listed on the initial certificate, and that the Health Department then must issue a replacement certificate, "removing Taylor's name and naming Peter Griffiths and Angel Naranjo as parents."

The court's opinion was issued on June 13 but did not show up on the Westlaw electronic database until July 17. Since the embryos were implanted in November, it is likely the child will be born in August.

©GayCityNews 2008

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USA: Protesters Seek to Change Laws Sealing Birth Papers, July 23, 2008

2008-07-23T21:36:00.000-04:00

NEW ORLEANS TIMES-PICAYUNE
July 23, 2008

Protesters seek to change laws sealing birth papers
But opposition notes mothers' privacy rights
By Nicole Dungca
Staff writer

Since finding out last year that she was adopted as a baby, Judy Galliand Adams, 58, has been on a hunt for information about her birth mother. But she faces a major roadblock.

In Louisiana, as in many states, adoptees are denied easy access to their original birth certificates. Instead, they can get only amended birth certificates, which name their adopted parents as their biological parents.

Aiming to get the policy changed, Galliand Adams joined about 60 protesters Tuesday on a march from Lafayette Park to the site of the 34th Annual Legislative Summit of the National Conference of State Legislatures at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.

Organized by The Adoptee Rights Demonstration, protesters urged lawmakers attending the five-day conference to change laws that require the birth certificates of adopted people to be sealed.

For Galliand Adams, Louisiana's law makes the search for her biological history "incredibly frustrating."

"I have no idea who I am, and there's just a big void there," she said.

Even in states that have so-called "mutual consent registries," adoptees only can contact their birth parents if the parents agree. In these states, access to original birth certificates is often possible but usually requires hearings in civil court.

Other protesters said the laws amount to discrimination.

"This isn't about searching and reunion. This is about our rights," said Michelle Edmunds, who came from Canada to join the march.

Across the aisle, adoption advocates expressed opposition to changes that would loosen restrictive laws to grant adoptees easy access to their birth certificates. States that already have such laws include Maine, New Hampshire, Oregon, Alabama, Alaska and Kansas.

"We're not opposed to open adoption or open records. We're concerned about the right of privacy for the birth mother," said Rodney Huey, spokesman for the National Council for Adoption.

"A birth mother, for whatever reason, decided at one point to have her own confidential adoption, and that (confidentiality is) what she was guaranteed," he said.

. . . . . . .

Nicole Dungca can be reached at ndungca@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3321.

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UTAH: Adoption Records Thieft to Get Mental Evaluation, July 23, 2008

2008-07-23T21:07:00.000-04:00

SALT LAKE CITY TRIBUNE,
JULY 23, 2008

Sentence suspended
Adoption records thief to get mental evaluation
Woman placed on probation pending exam results

A woman who stole hundreds of confidential adoption records from Farmington's 2nd District Court will undergo a mental health evaluation before a judge decides whether to send her to jail for up to a year.

Jill Ekstrom, 43, had pleaded no contest to five of 21 original counts of stealing public records, all class A misdemeanors. Prosecutors say Ekstrom stole the records to sell them to adopted children hoping to identify their biological parents.

Ekstrom - who called herself a "confidential intermediary" - was caught in a stin
g when a Davis County sheriff's deputy posed as an adopted child seeking a birth parent.

On Tuesday, 1st District Judge Ben Hadfield sentenced her to a year in jail, but suspended the term until the mental health evaluation is completed, Deputy Davis County Attorney Rick Westmoreland said after the hearing.

He said some statements Ekstrom made to pre-sentence investigators caused the judge concern. "He ordered the mental health evaluation to see if these things are real or imagined," Westmoreland said.

Because the theft occurred in the 2nd District Court, the case was prosecuted in Brigham City's 1st District Court. A review hearing was set for Sept. 29.

Meanwhile, the judge placed Ekstrom on probation for 18 months and fined her $540.

The judge also ordered her to pay $850 restitution to the Davis

County Sheriff's Office for the cost of the sting operation, and $30 to the 2nd District Court, to replace stolen microfilm records. - Stephen Hunt

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NEW YORK: An Emotional Call for Change, July 22, 2008

2008-07-22T21:42:00.000-04:00

ROCHESTER NEWS AND CHRONICLE
July 22,2008

An Emotional Call for Change
Reported by: Katrina Irwin

Adoptees from across the country rallied at the National Conference of State Legislators in New Orleans Tuesday morning while some local adoptees called for action here in New York State. They are calling on state lawmakers for help.

“Open the records,” said Emily Daszkiewicz. “Unseal these records.”

Local adoptees and birth mothers joined together in the genealogy section of the main library in Downtown Rochester this morning. It’s a place many of them have done research to find their birth parents.

The group is one of several across the state calling for what they say is a civil rights issue: Allowing adoptees to open sealed birth records.

“These people are adults,” Daszkiewicz said. “They can vote. They can drink. They can go to war for us. Who are you to say these adults can't have access to these records?”

Daszkiewicz, a birth mother, has not been successful in finding the son she gave up for adoption in 1975.

However, Katherine Tuttle, 41, found her birth mother, Claire Gmelin, in October of 2007. It took seven years worth of research. Having access to her birth records, she says, would have saved a lot of time and grief.

“I would have found her immediately,” Tuttle said. “She started looking for me in the 1970s and 80s when I was a little girl and had to give up because she was told that it was closed.”

The executive director of adoption resource network at Hillside Family of Agencies says a bill of adoptee rights is nothing new. In fact, there's been proposals for one in the state legislature since the 1980s. But ethical concerns and questions with opening up records have kept a bill from passing.

“Did we make a commitment and provide an assumption to women who were making adoption plans that their identity would be protected forever?,” said Lisa Maynard of what some people and agencies ask regarding opening records that were promised to be closed forever.

For the local adoptees and birth mothers, opening the records isn't necessarily about having a relationship with a birth parent or child.

“It's strictly to find out your heritage, any birth concerns you might have, any medical problems you feel, (or) if you want to know your ancestry,” said Jeff Hancock, 43, who found out he was adopted just 15 months ago.

“It's closure for me,” Daszkiewicz said. “It's closure I'd like to have before I'm gone.”

Assemblyman David Koon is sponsoring the Bill of Adoptee Rights in the State Legislature. He says he's been pushing it for three years, but the bill is still in codes committee in the Assembly.

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TEXAS; Midwives Deliver New Problems in Citizenship, July

2008-07-20T21:28:00.000-04:00

HOUSTON CHRONICLE
July 20, 2008

Midwives deliver new problems in citizenship

BROWNSVILLE — Many South Texans who were delivered by midwives are facing extra scrutiny as they apply for U.S. passports.

The federal government is pressing these border residents to essentially prove their U.S. citizenship all over again if they hope to gain a passport, The Brownsville Herald reported Sunday.

Officials suspect many South Texans who were delivered by midwives are applying for passports with fraudulent birth certificates. Some of them, officials say, were actually born in Mexico.

The number of passport applications is rising in the Rio Grande Valley because of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which will require a passport to travel into Mexico.

"Normally, a birth certificate is sufficient to prove citizenship," said Cy Ferenchak, a spokesperson for the U.S. Bureau of Consular Affairs. "But because of a history of fraudulently filed reports on the Southwest border, we don't have much faith in the (midwife-granted) document."

From 1960 to 2008, more than 75 South Texas midwives were convicted of signing birth certificates for children they did not deliver.

Mireya Salgado, who was denied a passport and is now having to provide additional proof of her U.S. citizenship because she was delivered by a midwife, said the extra scrutiny is unfair.

"After 56 years, it's like they're questioning whether my citizenship was a big mistake," said Salgado, a 10th-grade English teacher at Porter High School. "I was born here. My mother was born here. This is the only place we've known."

Many families like Salgado's couldn't afford hospital care and depended on midwives as an alternative, especially before 1984 when Medicaid began covering childbirth.

The Texas Midwifery Board reports that in 2004, 6.6 percent of babies born in Texas were delivered by midwives.

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VIRGIN ISLANDS (US): Forced Secrets,July 15, 2008

2008-07-15T17:42:00.001-04:00

THE VIRGIN ISLANDS DAILY NEWS
July 15, 2008

Forced secrets
Court blocks mother's search for son taken from her at birth
By JOSEPH TSIDULKO

Infant Sherman, as he is named in court documents, is a 38-year-old man who may have strong family ties to St. Croix.

Aside from those facts, his biological mother knows next to nothing about the son she gave up for adoption soon after he was born.

She does not know his name.

She does not know where he lives.

She does not know whether he has a family of his own.

But she wants to know. She yearns to know.

Leslie Carter-Farington has spent the last 17 years trying to trace her son, the "Infant Sherman" who was taken from her for adoption. She wants to be reunited with the only child she ever had, and she also wants to leave him a substantial inheritance.

Carter-Farington's difficult and frustrating search has led her to the Virgin Islands, where, she discovered, the baby's adoption was finalized in 1970.

Then she hit a roadblock - possibly an insurmountable one - when the V.I. Supreme Court last month affirmed a V.I. Superior Court decision rejecting her petition to unseal the adoption records that would reveal her son's identity.

Her St. Croix attorney, Curt Otto, argued that the territory's appellate court had an opportunity to be in the vanguard of a nationwide trend toward greater openness and transparency in adoptions - a trend reflecting increasingly liberal attitudes and the lifting of social stigmas.

Otto suggested that the court appoint a guardian as an intermediary between the natural mother and the adoptive parents to avoid the possibility of an unwanted encounter. He included data from studies suggesting that the great majority of reunions are positive experiences for the person who was adopted.

The Supreme Court justices, however, agreed with the lower court that Carter-Farington's reasons for wanting access to the records - to meet her biological son and to leave him her estate - were not sufficient under V.I. law to prompt them to unseal the adoption records to the biological mother or to a guardian acting on her behalf.

Despite the court's rejection of her request, Carter-Farington still believes she will find the son she gave birth to in Miami Beach on Sept. 26, 1969, when she was a 25-year-old fashion model.

"I loved my son, I wanted my son," Carter-Farington said.

But her first husband insisted he would not raise a child, she said.

Against her wishes, she says, she caved in to her domineering husband and gave up the newborn boy - a decision she has regretted ever since.

A mother's search

Now 65, Leslie Carter-Farington is a Christian counselor with a doctorate degree in theology. She long ago divorced Infant Sherman's father, and she is happily married and living in the small town of Boerne, Texas.

But the deeply religious woman, who never gave birth to another child, says a spiritual wound has existed ever since her first husband persuaded her to give up her baby.

Carter-Farington was born Alba Leslie Ramirez-Perez in Puerto Rico. She and her husband moved to St. Thomas in the late 1960s and lived here for three years.

Back then, people in the Virgin Islands knew her by the name Abbie Sherman. She worked as a model and lived what some would consider a glamorous life. But the marriage was profoundly unhappy, Carter-Farington said.

When she became pregnant in January 1969, her marital problems worsened.

"After I let him know I was pregnant, that's when hell broke loose," she said.

On the afternoon of Sept. 26, 1969, Alba Leslie Sherman - her legal name when she lived in Florida - gave birth to a healthy 6-pound boy at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach.

She says she had only 15 minutes with her son before the medical staff carried him off at the behest of her husband, who already had completed the necessary legal arrangements with a Florida agent to ensure that the adoption would proceed.

"I was so young and naive. I didn't know I had any rights," Carter-Farington said.

The child had blue eyes and blonde hair, Carter-Farington remembers.

She never saw him again.

"For seven years, I cried daily. It was the most difficult thing for me to do to let go of my son," she said.

"I had to cry to God and ask Him to give me comfort."

The strained marriage ended in divorce the same year Infant Sherman was born.

Alba Leslie Sherman went to visit her sister in Texas and ended up staying. She remarried in 1970.

Leslie Carter, as she became known after her marriage in Texas, founded a sporting goods store with her husband. She operated two branches until 2001, despite their divorce in 1986.

For years, she did not tell even her closest family that she had given birth to a boy in Miami so many years earlier. Keeping quiet pained her, especially when her sister had a child of her own.

In 1990, Leslie Carter married Ron Farington, her current husband.

About that time, her son should have been celebrating his 21st birthday, the age at which she believed she would be allowed access to Florida's adoption records.

"The day he was 21, I immediately sent a letter to an attorney in Florida," she said.

By that point, however, Florida's disclosure laws had changed and she was denied the information she had awaited for so long.

She hired a private investigator, but he was not successful in discovering more about the adoption or about her son's identity.

After retiring from the sporting goods business, Carter-Farington obtained her doctorate degree in 2004.

In desperation, she wrote a letter to the White House, and another to the president's brother, Jeb Bush, then governor of Florida.

The long shot proved fruitful.

In November 2004, the Florida Department of Children and Families replied to Carter-Farington at the behest of the state's governor.

"I got everything, I got all the documentations. They found out where he was adopted."

But Florida could not provide any information about her son because the adoption did not take place there. Instead, Carter-Farington learned, it was finalized June 4, 1970, in Municipal Court in Christiansted, St. Croix.

Carter-Farington hired Otto, who found records kept by the Superior Court's Family Division. A notation in a book of old case numbers read: "Adoption of Infant Sherman."

In considering the case, the territory's courts verified that they do possess Infant Sherman's adoption records.

Legal barrier

When she gave her son up for adoption, Carter-Farington signed consent documents forfeiting all rights to the child.

Virgin Islands law stipulates adoption records can be unsealed only at the request of the person who was adopted, once he or she becomes an adult, or by someone who demonstrates "good cause" - a term simply meaning the existence of an adequate legal reason for the court to take action.

Infant Sherman has not sought out his birth mother.

In February 2007, Superior Court Judge Patricia Steele denied Carter-Farington's request for the adoption records, finding that the law was clear in establishing her reasons did not amount to "good cause."

The next month, Steele denied a request to reconsider her decision.

Otto appealed to the V.I. Supreme Court, arguing Steele's interpretation of the adoption statute took into account only hypothetical interests of the parties involved in the case when determining whether "good cause" existed for disclosure.

The real interests of the parties could be known only if contact is made with Infant Sherman and his adoptive parents, he argued.

Because the specific factors that constitute "good cause" were not defined by the V.I. Legislature when it enacted the territory's adoption laws almost 50 years ago, Otto said that the case was one of first impression and that the court had a chance to essentially create new law, in accord with accepted social norms, that would set precedent for future cases.

The attorney offered a method to determine the interests of the adoptee without exposing him to a potential negative situation that the law was designed to shield him from.

That method was to appoint a guardian to access the records and contact Infant Sherman's family.

The adoptive parents, who know their son is not their biological child, then could decide whether to tell him about her desire to meet him.

They also could let him know he stands to inherit a large amount of money.

That approach would mitigate any ill feelings that might result from a meeting not desired by Infant Sherman, who may not even know he was adopted. Information obtained by the guardian would help the court determine "good cause" on a case-by-case basis, according to Otto.

The court's clarification of the law would be made in light of the territory's tolerance and "relaxed attitude toward out-of-wedlock childbearing," Otto wrote.

But the three Supreme Court justices all agreed that Steele correctly interpreted the law and that there was no reason to reverse her decision.

In her published opinion, Justice Maria Cabret wrote that the V.I. Legislature would have enacted a provision allowing for the appointment of a guardian if they intended for that process to be available to biological parents seeking their children.

Instead, Cabret wrote, the law makes clear that "good cause" must first be demonstrated before anyone can have access to records, not the other way around.

Cabret did not take into consideration Otto's references to literature regarding changing societal attitudes and psychological studies because the arguments they supported were not made to the trial court and therefore could be raised on appeal.

But she wrote that implementing a system for accommodating people in Carter-Farington's position was the province of the Legislature, not the territory's courts.

In a consenting opinion, Justice Ive Swan wrote that the biological mother's "generosity towards her son is praiseworthy and commendable."

But identifying someone for inheritance is clearly not a case for which the law allows unsealing adoption records. Nothing in the law mentions an adoptee's right to inherit from his natural parent, according to Swan.

The adoption laws represent "an unequivocal attempt to terminate the relationship between natural parents and adoptee," Swan wrote.

The laws make clear Carter-Farington's stated reasons for wanting to find her son are not substantial enough for the court to circumvent the measures taken to sever the mother-child relationship, he said.

Having reached that conclusion, Swan wrote there was no need for the court to further interpret the law to create a framework under which "good cause" could be established in such cases.

Shifting mores, happy reunions

Otto said he believes the Supreme Court's decision amounts to a missed opportunity. The territory could have been at the forefront of a national trend toward liberalizing adoption laws, something that will inevitably happen across the country in the coming years, he said.

"The reason for secrecy laws has evaporated," Otto said.

The court "had a real opportunity to take a giant step forward on behalf of all parents in the United States. The adoption laws are awaiting a progressive court," he said.

In the early 1900s, adoption records generally were open and accessible, according to Otto.

"The veil of secrecy that descended on the adoption process was created because of societal stigma and prejudices," Otto wrote in his appeal.

Those prejudices reflected society's view toward out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Back then, "adoption was viewed as somehow shameful, something to be hidden," Otto wrote.

The secrecy laws became stricter after World War II as the number of illegitimate births increased in this country. They were meant to protect children from the pejorative label of "bastard" and shield mothers from the scorn of society.

Since the 1960s, however, the pendulum of public opinion has been swinging in the other direction.

"In the law, there is a slow trend toward openness," Otto wrote. "Secrecy, however, remains the law in most jurisdictions."

To support his arguments, Otto included an affidavit from a psychologist who has studied the relationships that form between adults and the biological parents who gave them away.

In the affidavit supporting Carter-Farington's appeal, Wayne Etheridge wrote that studies overwhelmingly suggest most reunions are happy. A 1989 study concluded that 95 percent of adults who had been adopted wanted to be found by their birth parents.

According to Etheridge, 90 percent of the people interviewed for another study claimed their reunion with their biological parent proved to be a positive experience.

Psychological literature "found that the searching process to encounter birth parents helped fill a void that seems to arise from the adoption process itself," Otto wrote in his appeal.

Longing for reunion

Leslie Carter-Farington is convinced that a reunion with her son will be a day of profound joy and love.

She still believes she will meet him - someday.

When she does, she is certain she will love him, even though she knows nothing about his life.

"We are certain in our hearts that my son is a good man," she says.

Carter-Farington is a woman of faith, and her faith convinces her that "love conquers all things," she says.

Her husband has told her he will love her son as if he was his own, just as she loves her husband's two daughters.

"I have a desire, when we meet, it will be like we have never been apart. My desire is to be part of his life and him be part of our life and family," Carter-Farington says.

Link to article

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MAINE: Heir's Adoption of Lesbian Lover Annulled in Maine, July 7, 2008

2008-07-07T20:49:00.000-04:00

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
July 7, 2008

Heir's adoption of lesbian lover annulled in Maine
By JERRY HARKAVY

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — An adult adoption involving lesbian partners and a claim to a share of a family fortune built on IBM has been annulled, bouncing the case to Maine's highest court.

At issue is whether it was legal for a judge to allow Olive Watson to adopt Patricia Spado in 1991 in Knox County, where the longtime partners spent several weeks each summer on an island in Penobscot Bay.

Watson was a daughter of Thomas Watson Jr., who took International Business Machines Corp. from punch cards into electronic computing.

The relationship between Spado and Watson ended a year after the adoption was approved, and in 2005 — after Thomas Watson and his wife had both died — the adoption was challenged in court by other heirs to the Watson fortune.

After Thomas Watson and his wife died, their grandchildren became eligible for cash payouts and Spado claimed the adoption made her a beneficiary.

The probate judge who granted the adoption granted the heirs' petition and annulled it on a residency issue on April 24, but her sealed ruling didn't come to light until an appeal brief was filed with the state supreme court, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. In Maine, adoption records are confidential, even though the women were in their 40s when the adoption took place.

Spado and Olive Watson had lived together for 14 years before their breakup, spending only five nights apart. Under their separation agreement, Watson paid her ex-partner about $500,000 in exchange for relinquishing her claim to certain real estate.

The settlement, however, was apparently not intended to terminate Spado's rights to inheritance as a granddaughter. Her court filings contain a letter signed by Watson after the breakup in which she says: "I shall at no time initiate any action to revoke or annul my adoption of you."

Gay rights activists say the case shows the lengths to which same-sex couples would go to ensure a partner's financial security in the days before they were allowed to form civil unions or to marry.

Olive Watson and Spado had been living in New York at the time of the adoption, but that state barred the adoption of a homosexual partner.

Maine law required that the adoptee had to "live" in the state and the adopting parent had to "reside" there, but the state's adoption law does not specifically define either term. During their 14 years together, Spado and Watson spent several weeks each summer at Watson's home at her family's compound on North Haven, known as Oak Hill.

In their legal appeal brief, Spado's lawyers argue against annulling an adoption that had been allowed to stand for so long on the basis of undefined domicile requirements.

"Most disturbing, this challenge can come not just in a direct appeal, but at any time, even decades later, in a collateral attack long after final judgment and longstanding reliance on the adoption," the brief stated.

Even though the heirs reached their goal of annulling the adoption, they also are appealing in a bid to broaden the foundation of their case. Their attorney, Stephen Hanscom, plans to argue that the adoption should also have been annulled on other grounds: that it was obtained by two partners seeking to manufacture inheritance rights and that they did not intend to establish a normal parent-child relationship.

Hanscom plans to file his legal brief at the end of the month.

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court is likely to hear arguments on the appeals this fall.

Link to article

NEW YORK: Parents Seek Special Birth Certificates, June 20, 2008

2008-06-21T12:58:00.000-04:00

POLITICS ON THE HUDSON
June 20, 2008

Parents seek special birth certificates

Families of stillborns who are pushing for state legislation that would provide them with a special birth certificate are concerned that the legislative session will end next week without final passage. Parents of stillborns around the country have advocated for birth certificates as a means of acknowledging that they carried a baby to full term or close to full term, and to bring them closure. All they can get now in New York is a certificate of fetal death.

The bill was approved by the Senate in March, but it has been stuck in the committee process in the Assembly. The Senate passed the bill last year too, but the Assembly did not. People who are against the legislation said it creates a slippery slope that could result in a loss of reproductive rights for women.

The bill was changed in 2007 to include protections against that, advocates said. It received support from powerful Assembly Health Committee Chairman Richard Gottfried, D-Manhattan, which was expected to help its chances of passage.

“There is no way possible that there can be any confusion between reproductive rights and rights for mothers of stillborns,” said Jeff Tieger of Staten Island, whose wife, Lori, gave birth to a stillborn in February 2007.

“It really serves the parents and that’s all that it serves,” he added.

There are about 30,000 stillbirths across the country each year. There were 1,785 stillbirths in New York in 2004.

“There’s not a day that goes by that we don’t think of our son,” Lori Tieger said of Daniel, who was born at 39 weeks gestation. “As time goes on, it (getting the birth certificate) actually becomes more important.”

“There’s no political agenda here. It’s a women’s issue, just as any of the other issues that are women’s issues,” she said.

Link to article

NEW ZEALAND: 1975 Decision Haunts Birth Mother, June 19, 1008

2008-06-18T19:48:00.000-04:00

OTAGO DAILY TIMES
June 19, 2008

By Sarah Harvey

In 1975, Dina Shannon, of Gore, was 20 years old, unmarried and pregnant.

She gave her child up for adoption as she felt she had no other choice.

That decision haunts her more than 30 years later.

Her baby was one of 3321 adopted nationally in 1975.

In 2007, just 60 babies were adopted nationally.

The figures are the lowest in 30 years and as waiting lists for adopted babies stretch past 300 couples, women in "crisis" pregnancies are being encouraged to consider adoption rather than abortion.

Mrs Shannon, a University of Otago social work lecturer, said the low number of adoptions was because pregnant women now had choices and government support if they kept the child.

Either way, the choice was a personal one, she said.

"You are going to lose something either way.

You are either going to lose a child, or if you keep the child you are going to lose a part of the life you once had."

The fall in adoptions has been matched by an increase in abortions, which is cited alongside the domestic purposes benefit and society's better acceptance of single motherhood as reasons for the trend down.

Statistics New Zealand figures showed the number of women terminating their pregnancies increased from 5945 in 1980 to 18,380 in 2007.

The general abortion rate in 2007 was 20.1 abortions per 1000 women.

Mrs Shannon, who now lives in Palmerston, said when she became pregnant she may as well have committed murder, as it was viewed in the same light.

"The choice [for adoption] was made partly by my parents and partly by society.

I didn't know what being a mother would involve and if I could look after a baby.

"I saw some social workers but they did not tell me what my rights were," she said.

She was sent to a farm in Ranfurly where single women went to have their babies away from the public eye.

The mother of the baby's father offered her money to term-inate the pregnancy.

"It was strange. I can remember my girlfriend's mother going on about [the pregnancy] but her daughter was in the same situation - it was just that she was getting married."

Mrs Shannon said the trauma of the birth and having her baby taken away left her with a memory blank.

She even had to battle to see her newborn son.

The fight has continued today and the lack of contact with her son continues to haunt Mrs Shannon.

She has met her son once but he did not know he was serving a cup of coffee to his mother.

The situation was set up by the adoptive father and for Mrs Shannon it was "terrible".

She knows where her son is and what he is doing but he refuses contact.

To deal with her issues and push for a change in the adoption laws, Mrs Shannon founded the Dunedin Adoption Support Group in 1979.

It achieved major change with the Adult Adoption Act of 1985 which meant people who were adopted could see their original birth certificate and birth parents could access information on their child.

Mrs Shannon said up to 20 people still come to support group meetings.

Most are dealing with issues after having been reunited with their parents or child.

Adoption was not a black-and-white issue.

It was a personal choice and a difficult one for women to make, she said.

"I think society still sees it very much as a positive thing. Many think open adoption is the answer, but I think children will still feel abandoned."

For many people, it can disrupt their formative years as they experience feelings of loss and abandonment.

"I can always remember an adoptee coming to me saying he had a loving adopted home but had always felt like he didn't fit in.

The family all played sport and he loved mathematics. If he had grown up having some sort of contact with the birth family, he would have known they were a family who loved numbers," she said.

Adoption

What is adoption?

• Adoption is the legal transfer of all parental rights and responsibilities from a child's birth parents to the adoptive parents. When this process is completed, the child's legal status becomes as if the child had been born to the adoptive parents.

The procedure

• Prospective parents who contact Child, Youth and Family are checked to see whether they are suitable.

• They must be New Zealand residents, with a clean criminal record and be in good health.

• Classes are held for prospective adoptive parents where they learn what to expect from the adoption.

• Many people at the meetings are in the same situation, having explored all other options for having a child of their own.

• Social workers are intimately involved, and parents know once they are on the waiting list it is just a matter of waiting.

• As few as three babies in the Otago region are put up for adoption each year.

• The birth mother chooses the parents for her child.

• The choice of adopting the baby is the birth mother's right, and social workers tend to favour keeping the baby with its birth mother.

International adoption

• People must apply to Child, Youth and Family where they undergo the same checks as for adopting a New Zealand child. They attend three days of education courses.

• Organisations such as Inter Country Adoption New Zealand will organise the paper work for what can be a lengthy process.

• Countries such as Russia, Lithuania, Thailand, the Philippines and India are accepting inter-country adoptions. This changes frequently with new legislation and the availability of orphans.

• All children in inter-country adoptions are wards of the state and if not adopted will often live in orphanages until they turn 15.

• Inter-country adoptions are expensive. The major cost is for travel, translators and facilitators in the country concerned.

• Parents are more or less guaranteed a child at the end of the adoption process, unlike national adoption.

Link to article

MALAYSIA: Doc Faces Trial for False Info on Babies, June 17, 2008

2008-06-17T20:12:00.000-04:00

THE NEW STRAITS TIMES
June 17, 2008

Doc faces trial for false info on babies

Doctor faces up to eight counts of falsifying information to obtain birth certificates for babies. -NST

By R. Sittamparam

JOHOR BARU, MALAYSIA: A gynaecologist was charged yesterday with falsifying information on the biological parents of four babies to obtain birth certificates.

He was also charged with using the forged application forms for the birth certificates and endorsing certain couples as the biological parents when they were not.

Dr Robert Luk Tai Kong, 61, was charged in two Sessions Courts with eight counts - two counts for each baby.

In the first court presided by judge Muhammad Jamil Hussin, Dr Luk was charged in relation to one baby.

Before judge Aliman Musri, there were six charges pertaining to three babies.

Dr Luk claimed trial to all charges.

Before Muhammad Jamil, Dr Luk was charged with giving information to the National Registration Department (NRD) in a birth certificate application form that the biological parents of Fabian Naveen were Cynthia Darshan Singh and Ferliex S. Stanislaus at 11.43am on Oct 25 last year at No 33B, Menara Landmark, Landmark Medical Centre here.

By doing so, he impelled NRD staff Nayagie Kumarasamy to issue a birth certificate (BC) no BX33581 for the baby.

Dr Luk was also charged with using the BC application form as a genuine document for Fabian Naveen by endorsing the personal details of the baby's parents as the biological parents, knowing well that the document was a forgery.

Deputy public prosecutor Idham Abdul Ghani proposed bail of RM50,000 on the two charges and for Dr Luk's passport to be surrendered to the court.

Defence counsel R.K. Menon objected, saying that as Dr Luk would be facing six other charges in another court and possibly other charges later, the bail was excessive and asked for it to be reduced to RM10,000.

He also requested that Dr Luk be allowed to keep his passport because he did not have a place to stay in Johor Baru as he resided with his family in Singapore.

He said there was no danger that Dr Luk would abscond as he was a professional and had abided by requirements of the police bail after his arrest.

Muhammad Jamil set bail at RM20,000 on the two charges and instructed Dr Luk to report to Johor Baru Central Police Station on the first week of every month pending trial.

Before Aliman, Dr Luk faced six similar charges in respect of three babies.

* For baby Rubhashri Thiagarajan, he stated Kogula Sundari Periasamy and Thiagarajan Nadarajan as the biological parents, impelling NRD employee Suriyani Mohamad Noor to issue BC no BT97692 at 10.50am on Nov 23, 2006.
* For baby Loong Yu Xuan, he stated So Sai Hong and Loon Cher Heong as the biological parents, impelling NRD employee Nayagie Kumarasamy to issue BC no BX32598 at 10.23am on Oct 8, last year.
* For baby Serena Swathi, he stated Evensia Mary D. Stanislaus and Gerard Joseph as the biological parents, impelling NRD employee Sh Ramdzan Sh Abdullah to issue BC no BY76130 at 3.34pm on Feb 2.

In all three cases, he used the application forms for the birth certificates as genuine documents by endorsing the personal details of the parents as the biological parents, knowing well that the documents were forged.

Aliman set bail at RM60,000 for the six charges and ordered Dr Luk to report to the Johor Baru Central Police Station on the first week of every month pending trial.

Both judges fixed Aug 15 for the cases to be mentioned.

Link to article

2008-06-11T19:59:00.000-04:00

SALT LAKE CITY TRIBUNE
June 11, 2008

Woman accused of stealing records pleads no contest
The Associated Press

Posted: 12:56 PM- BRIGHAM CITY -- A woman accused of stealing adoption records from a Davis County courthouse pleaded no contest to the charges.

But Jill Ekstrom may have defendant's regret. She tells an Ogden newspaper that she had taken painkillers Monday and may withdraw the plea.

Ekstrom is the former owner of UtahFinders.com. She gained notoriety for reuniting adopted children with their biological parents.

A Davis County prosecutor, Rick Westmoreland, says 300 to 400 adoption case files from the 1970s were contained on several rolls of microfilm. The microfilm has not been recovered.

Ekstrom, 43, was accused of selling some of that information to an undercover officer.
The Standard-Examiner says Ekstrom pleaded no contest to five misdemeanors. Sentencing is set for July 22.

Link to article

NORTH CAROLINA: June 9 at the North Carolina General Assembly, June 10m 2008

2008-06-10T16:32:00.000-04:00

CHARLOTTE OBSERVER
June 10, 2008

June 9, 2008, at the North Carolina General Assembly

The Associated Press

HEADLINES:

- House panel to consider expanding confidential intermediary program for adoptees

- Rucho sworn in to return to NC Senate

- Boseman, ex-domestic partner default on home mortgage

- National Guard company that lost five during deployment honored by NC House

THE BRIEF:

ADOPTION RULES: Lawmakers are considering expanding a program that enables adoptees to learn the identities of their birth parents using an adoption agencies as a confidential intermediaries. A House judiciary committee is slated to consider a bill Tuesday that would allow adoptees to obtain death certificates for their deceased birth parents through the intermediary. A 1949 state law prohibits adoptees from accessing their original birth certificates, which contains their biological parents' names. Without the parents' consent, the intermediary agency also can't provide information to adoptees - even if the parents are dead. The other measure would allow the family members of either deceased biological parents or deceased adoptees to use the intermediary. Roberta MacDonald, chairwoman of the N.C. Coalition for Adoption Reform, said the plans would provide a new way for adoptees to gain valuable data, including medical information, about their biological families.

RUCHO'S BACK: Sen. Bob Rucho is back in the Legislature after being away for four years. Court of Appeals Judge Ann Marie Calabria swore the Charlotte Republican into office before Monday night's session. The dentist will serve the rest of the term belonging to Sen. Robert Pittenger, who resigned last month to focus on running for lieutenant governor. Rucho served in the Senate for eight years before the 2003 redistricting put his house in the same district as Pittenger's. Rucho was chosen to serve out Pittenger's term by Mecklenburg County Republican leaders. Gov. Mike Easley formally appointed him Monday.

MORTGAGE DEFAULT: Sen. Julia Boseman and her former domestic partner have defaulted on a $1.3 million mortgage on a New Hanover County home. Documents show Boseman, D-New Hanover, and Melissa Jarrell have failed to pay the $7,156 monthly payments since last August. The home will be auctioned June 25 at the county courthouse. County tax records show $4,700 in taxes are also owed on the property. Boseman is seeking a third Senate term in November. She said the situation was a private matter that wouldn't affect work for her constituents.

NATIONAL GUARD: The House officially thanked a North Carolina National Guard unit that served overseas and is scheduled to return home Tuesday. The 1132nd Military Police Company, based in Rocky Mount, Tarboro, and Mount Olive, deployed in June 2007 and ultimately reached Iraq in September. Five members of the unit died during the deployment, four of them from North Carolina. One was from New Hampshire, part of a platoon the served with the company. The House passed a resolution honoring the work of all who served and the memory of those who lost their lives.

MONDAY'S SCORECARD:

In the Senate:

- H724, to remove the requirement to use Social Security numbers on child support court orders. Approved 45-0. Next: Return to House for concurrence motion.

AROUND THE STATEHOUSE:

Mount Olive College leaders and the coaching staff of the baseball team were in attendance as the Legislature passed a resolution praising the team for winning the NCAA Division II championship two weekends ago. The Trojans beat Ouachita Baptist 6-2 in Illinois on May 31 to capture the national title.

ON THE AGENDA:

- The Appalachian State University football team will be honored Tuesday for their third consecutive NCAA Football Championship Subdivision title with a resolution celebrating another title. The Mountaineers also plan to stop by the Executive Mansion earlier in the day to meet Gov. Mike Easley.

- House and Senate members of both parties hold a news conference Tuesday to promote a bill that would allow parents of children with special needs to seek a tax credit for sending their children to a tuition-paid school.

OVERHEARD:

"It's good to be back." - Sen. Bob Rucho, R-Mecklenburg, in brief comments after he was sworn back into office Monday evening. The four-term senator is filling out the unexpired term of Sen. Robert Pittenger, who resigned to run for lieutenant governor.

By Gary D. Robertson and Whitney Woodward.

Link to article

NORTH CAROLINA: Panel Approves Plan to Log Birthparent-Adoptee Searches,

2008-06-10T16:18:00.001-04:00

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/BLUE RIDGE NOW.COM
June 10, 2008

Panel Approves Plan to Log Birth-Parent-Adoptee Searches

A House committee is backing a plan that would require adoption agencies to report how many birthparents and adoptees use a program to help the adults learn each other's identities.

The panel approved a plan Tuesday that would require the state to record how many adopted individuals and biological parents try to find their counterparts.

Lawmakers created a program last year that allows adoption agencies to act as confidential intermediaries between adoptees and biological parents. The individuals' names and medical information can be shared if both parties agree.

But members delayed approving or rejecting a plan to allow family members to use the intermediary service if either an adoptee or birthparent had died. The panel is scheduled to consider the plan Thursday.

Link to article

ANNOUNCEMENT! BASTARD NATION WITHDRAWS FROM A DAY FOR ADOPTEE RIGHTS

2008-06-02T00:39:00.001-04:00

June 1, 2008

To: Members, Bastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organization

Re: Withdrawal of Bastard Nation from A Day for Adoptee Rights

Bastards,

The Executive Committee of Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization announces with regret the withdrawal of our organizational co-sponsorship and official participation in A Day for Adoptee Rights, (DAR) scheduled for July 20-25 during the National Conference of State Legislature's annual meeting in New Orleans. We had planned to hold a "Bastard Boot Camp Teach-In" on July 20, participate in the protest on July 22, and help staff the DAR space inside the Mariol Convention Center July 23-25.

We sincerely regret any inconvenience or discouragement this decision may cause.

As of this writing the event itself has not been canceled, only Bastard Nation's co-sponsorship and participation. Please check the DAR website for updates on the status of the event. http://adopteerights.net/nulliusfilius/

Bastard Nation has been concerned for some time about the cost effectiveness of the project. While many people exhibited an interest in attending all or part of the event, the number of people who actually registered or made a serious commitment to attend was minimal. There were also hidden costs at the convention center, of which DAR and BN were not aware of until recently, which put our participation extremely over budget.

Bastard Nation believes that the Day for Adoptee Rights project is a sound idea. There is no dispute between BN and DAR. We have concluded that this is not the time or place for Bastard Nation to take part in a Day for Adoptee Rights. The cost of the event this year spiraled and did not balance with the number of participants coming forward to show our strength to the politicians who hold the keys to the records cabinets. Bastard Nation is an all volunteer organization that works on the foundational financial principle of bringing you the best bang for your buck. Spending several thousand dollars in member dues and donations on a project that at this point was sputtering is fiscally irresponsible, movement careless, and takes time and funds away from legislative and educational activities that can make a direct difference now.

Moreover, we are concerned with the participation of Abrazo Adoption Agency in San Antonio, Texas. Unknown to DAR and BN until just a few days ago, Abrazo has been raising funds for the event in DAR's name. http://apps.facebook.com/causes/85456?recruiter_id=15092383

These funds went and continue to go directly to the agency, raising huge ethical issues for Bastard Nation and the equal access movement. Records and identity access is about our rights and has no connection with the marketing schemes of adoption agencies. BN has a long-standing, hard-line policy of accepting no support from the adoption industry. Bastard Nation specifically, and the adoptee rights movement in general, cannot and should not be co-opted or used by the adoption industry to promote its own agenda. We disavow all industry involvement in our work. Any entanglement with the adoption industry endangers the integrity and credibility of the adoptee rights movement.

Although BN solicited funds for our specific DAR activities, the only official fundraising site for DAR is on the DAR site. Do not send funds to any other solicitor.

Bastard Nation is in the process of working with the Country Inn and Suites by Carlson to release the rooms in our reserved block. We will personally contact everyone who registered under our agreement with the hotel about the procedure for you to cancel room reservations should you desire to do so.

We greatly appreciate the work that volunteers from Bastard Nation and A Day for Adoptee Rights have put into this event. Without them and you there is no movement. We applaud your enthusiasm, commitment and we look forward to future activities to restore our rights.

Please write to our Executive Chair, Marley Greiner (maddogmarley@worldnet.att.net) if you have any questions.

Yours in Bastardy,

The Bastard Nation Executive Committee

Anita Walker Field

Patricia Marler

Marley Greiner, Executive Chair

SPAIN: Twins Who Were Separated at Birth Sue for Damages, May 27, 2008

2008-05-27T16:40:00.000-04:00

ASSOCIATED PRESS
May 27, 2008

Twins who were separated at birth sue for damages

By DANIEL WOOLLS

MADRID, Spain - Spanish twins who were separated at birth through a hospital error — then reunited as adults through a fluke — are suing for millions in damages, as is a third woman who grew up thinking, erroneously, that she was one of the twins, a lawyer said Tuesday.
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The real twins finally met each other in 2001. The case has been working its way through the courts since 2004. A decision is expected soon on whether the three women deserve damages, said Sebastian Socorro Perdomo, a lawyer for one of the twins.

He would not release the names of any of the women, who are all 35 years old.

Socorro Perdomo said in an interview that his client is seeking $4.7 million from the government of the Canary Islands, where the error occurred in 1973 in the city of Las Palmas. The other two women are also suing, he said.

He said his client was taken out of her crib as her twin sister lay in one right next to her, mistakenly replaced by another baby girl, and ultimately raised by the family of that child.

The other two girls were brought up in the mistaken belief they were twin sisters.

"It does not take a lot of effort to put yourself in the position of any of these people in order to understand the damage that has been done," Socorro Perdomo said.

Of the three, he said his client — taken away from her twin sister and real family — is the most devastated. "Since this discovery, her world has turned a bit upside down," he said.

"The first right of any child is the right to their own personal and family identity," he said. "In this case, that right has been violated."

The error emerged a generation later, through a chance encounter at a clothing store in Las Palmas.

A friend of Socorro Perdomo's client worked in the shop. When a woman who was the spitting image of that client came in and failed to recognize the employee, the clerk was dumbfounded.

When the dead ringer came by the store a second time, the clerk began to put two and two together and arranged for the women to meet.

DNA tests proved they were identical twins, the lawyer said.

Link to article

OHIO: Surrogacy Birth Certificate, May 23, 2008

2008-05-24T08:12:00.000-04:00

KENTUCKY POST
May 23, 2008

Surrogacy Birth Certificate
by Hagit Limor

Peter and Paula Dantzig love playing soccer, reading books and sharing meals with their dad. He's the only parent they've ever known. He recalls the day they were born with a smile on his face.

"I felt the greatest joy in the world. I saw the two most beautiful kids in the world," said Dr. Paul Dantzig, a dermatologist with a successful New York City practice, as he watches his two-and-a-half year old twins play outside their Scarsdale home. The children squeal and laugh and are oblivious that the man who's raised them, loved them, and provided for them isn't their father at all, according to Ohio law.

"If God forbid anything happened to them and they're in the hospital with a serious illness and somebody has to make a decision, they're going to say, 'Are you the father?' Prove you're the father. Where is the mother?'" says Dr. Dantzig.

The twins' surrogate mother
There are simple questions with not so simple answers. Yes, Dr. Dantzig is Peter and Paula's father. If anyone has any doubts, a court-approved DNA Paternity Test proves it beyond the shadow of a doubt. But who is their mother? According to their Ohio birth certificates, it's Jennifer Biron. But check out her DNA Test. The chance she's the mother: 0%.

"I'm not their mother. By any possibility I'm not their mother," says Biron. So how did she end up on the birth certificates? Biron served as the children's surrogate mother. She carried the babies and gave birth to them, but genetically, they're half Dr. Dantzig's and half an anonymous egg donor's, and there lies the problem: Ohio has no surrogacy law.

When the twins were born at Highland District Hospital in Highland County, Ohio, Dr. Dantzig may have rocked them in the nursery, but the hospital made a decision that's rocking the kids' world to this day. They put Jennifer Biron's name on their birth certificates and left out Dr. Dantzig altogether.

Hospital guidelines

"The hospital followed the Ohio Department of Health birth certificate guidelines," said Kathy Jones, the hospital's vice president of community outreach. Jones can't say much about the case, just that the hospital only has one set of rules from the state, which it follows in filling out birth certificates.

Biron said she should have no parental rights to the children. She can't believe her name appears as their mother on the only legal piece of identification they possess. "I feel horrible," she said. "I think it's ridiculous."

In fact, the woman Ohio calls the twins' mother hasn't seen them since their birth. As she plays with her laughing 14-month-old son, she says it's her love of her own children that set her on the path to surrogacy so that parents like Dr. Dantzig could experience the same joys.

Dr. Dantzig has only praise for Biron for making his dream of parenthood come true. "I didn't want to go through life without raising a child," he said. But in his late fifties he found himself unmarried and realized time was running out. "I'm in good health and good shape. I have the stamina and the energy," he said, "But really, it was my only option [to have children.] I tried adopting, but everybody rejected me because of my age."

So he turned to surrogacy, but the State of New York doesn't allow it. He found an egg donor through an agency in California and a surrogate to carry his children in Ohio. He thought he had all his bases covered. "The only thing I worried about was having a child and being successful at that," he said. "I never even thought of the birth certificate 'til the problem arose."

It's a problem that looms much larger than a blank spot on a piece of paper. "Theoretically, I do not have legal custody of the children. Without the birth certificate, I am not going to be able to get them into school. Without the birth certificate, I am not going to be able to get then on an airplane, take a trip or get a passport," Dr. Dantzig explained.

Science vs. law

Family law attorney Ellen Essig said any father would be correct to be deeply concerned about his name not appearing on the birth certificate. Essig said she's handled more than 100 surrogacy cases in the last five years. She wouldn't speak specifically about this case, but says our country uses birth certificates as the basis of our most fundamental rights. "The father of that child who is not on the birth certificate has no right," she said. "The children under that scenario have no legal identification to their parent."

Dr. Dantzig tried to fix the problem. He petitioned the Highland County Juvenile Court to get his name on the birth certificates and get Biron's name off, as she concurs. But to both of their surprise, Judge Kevin Greer ruled that he couldn't change the birth certificates, unless the children's "natural mother," as Ohio calls the biological donor, waives her rights to the children in court.

"First of all, I don't even know who she is," said Dr. Dantiz. "The natural mother was an anonymous egg donor. You can't notify someone that is anonymous of a child she doesn't even know exists at this point," he said.

In addition, the egg donor already waived her rights in her contract with the donor agency in California, promising to "waive any rights [...] to the donated eggs or any offspring" and that "[she] will not assert any claim of parentage." But Judge Greer said that's not enough. He wants the donor to say the same thing to the court.

Essig said in her experience, no judge has ever forced her to produce an egg donor in court. She says most judges accept the donors' waiver of rights in their agency contracts. However, "without a statute on surrogacy and with 88 different counties in Ohio, we have 88 different approaches" from judges, she said.

"Caught between rules and regulations"

As surrogacies have tripled in recent years, lawyers and judges are building new precedents. There may be no state law, but there is case law that judges can follow. Most often, the details work out. Essig calls this case extremely unsual. "Science and law don't often go hand in hand but we're getting there," she said.

Biron said Dr. Dantzig and the children are seemingly caught between rules and regulations that haven't kept up with science. "It's ridiculous because there are other surrogates all over the State of Ohio who do the same thing every day," she said, wondering why this one case didn't work out as intended.

For Dr. Dantzig, there is sadness and anger. "The children have rights and they have to be protected by society," he said. He added that as a physician, he wouldn't reveal the donor even if he knew who she was. "It's not right. She came to this program as an anonymous egg donor, and that's the way it should be kept. You've got to respect her rights."

As for the other woman involved, Jennifer Biron said she may have carried those children, but she has no relationship to them. She's bewildered that she is the only parent that Ohio recognizes to this day. "They should look at it for what it is," Biron said. "It's a father just trying to raise his two kids. I hope that they can get it taken care of so that he can move on with his life."

Dr. Dantzig appealed Judge Greer's decision all the way up to the Ohio Supreme Court but lost. He's hoping to refile the case with an attorney with more expertise in Ohio family law. To read the court decisions and see the entire interview with lawyer Ellen Essig about why parents increasingly turn to surrogacy, click on the links on the top of this page.

Have a comment on this story? Email the I-Team's Hagit Limor at hlimor@wcpo.com.

Link to article

CANADA/ONTARIO: Editorial: Adopting a New Law, May 23, 2008

2008-05-24T07:55:00.000-04:00

THE SCUGOG STANDARD
May 23, 2008

Editorial: Adopting a new law

After 80 years of secrecy, the Province of Ontario is about to throw back the shroud of shame that it dropped on adoption in this province in the 1920s.

Adoptees and birthparents will soon be able to access the records kept on them by Children’s Aid Societies and the province’s Registrar General. For adoptees, it will mean the facts of their birth and arrival on the planet will become as available to them as they are to the rest of the population.

The ability to track relatives for health reasons or simply for the knowledge of one’s self that can be gained from such searches will become commonplace and an accepted part of our social structure.

In a column in today’s Standard local MPP John O’Toole searched for, and thinks he found, the one possible flaw in the system. He decries the fact that children taken from abusive homes could be sought out by their former parents in their new adopted homes after such children reach the age of majority.

Mr. O’Toole seems to want to continue the practice begun by his party in the 1920s of deciding for Ontario adotpees what will and won’t be good for them even into adulthood. It apparently did not occur to him that once such adoptees become of age they can get any number of legal guards put in place to stop unwanted contact and even though the relationship was abusive, the adoptee may require such contact for health information.

It is interesting to note that Mr. O’Toole turned down two requests in the 1990s to sponsor legislation to open the adoption files in Ontario even while other provinces turned out aged and morally corrupt adoption laws. The mistake that Mr. O’Toole and many of his fellow politicians have made over the last 80 years - and continue to make - is the characterization of adoptees as infants requiring protection.

The majority of adoptees in Ontario are fully grown adults with a well-formed sense of what is beneficial to them and what is not. They have the same curiosity about the good side and dark side of their families that all people have and they have the same rights to genetic history that all citizens of Ontario do.

All adult adoptees can judge the legislation on its face. All can read and write. One wrote this editorial.

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MINNESOTA: Commentary by James Hamilton: Adoptees Should Have the Right to Know Their Origins, May 21, 2008

2008-05-22T11:07:00.000-04:00

ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS
May 21, 2008

Commentary: Adoptees should have the right to know their origins
By James M. Hamilton

ov. Pawlenty vetoed an obscure bit of legislation on May 16, one that few Minnesotans have heard of and in which even fewer have any interest. But for tens of thousands of Minnesotans whose lives have been touched by adoption over the last 90 years, it was a significant event, one in which Gov. Pawlenty reached the right result for all the wrong reasons.

Every birth in Minnesota is memorialized by a birth certificate. A second birth certificate is issued for any minor adopted in Minnesota. Since 1917, Minnesota has sealed the original birth certificates of those born and adopted in this state. Initially, the information was locked away only from the general public. Over the years, however, the law was changed to prohibit anyone from seeing the original birth certificate, parent or offspring, adult or child. Under current law, some adult adoptees have access to their original birth certificates, some don't. It all depends upon when they were born and whether one of their biological parents has told the state not to release that information to them.

The bill in question would have changed the situation slightly, allowing any adoptee at least 19 years of age to obtain an uncertified copy of his or her original certificate upon request, provided that one of the birth parents had not already vetoed the adoptee's right to that information.

Neither the existing law, nor the bill vetoed last week by Gov. Pawlenty, makes sense to this adoptive father. Why my son should be denied the right to obtain a copy of his original birth certificate from the state, while I have the absolute right to my own, is a mystery. Both of our births were public events, like that of virtually every other person in this state. Yet, the state decided at some point in the distant past that some adults in this state should be denied access to this most fundamental personal information: who they are and where they came from.

No one should have the right to tell the state whether my son may have access to this information. Yet our current law and the failed attempt to modify it place that right in the hands of the man and woman who conceived him. Why? Because he was adopted after being born. Had he been placed in foster care, he would have the same rights I do. Whether he was born inside or outside of marriage, he would have the same rights I do. Whether he had been raised by one parent or two, he would have the same rights I do. But because he was adopted, the State of Minnesota has granted either of his biological parents the power to deny him the right enjoyed by every other non-adopted person in Minnesota: the right to know from whence he came.

The exercise of this power would not affect only my son. It would affect all those to whom he is related by blood and who may be deprived of the possibility of ever knowing him: his father, mother, grandparents, uncles, aunts, siblings, nieces, nephews, and cousins. All because he was adopted.

Gov. Pawlenty was right to veto a bill that would have perpetuated this injustice. Sadly, he did so for all the wrong reasons. His veto was based not on a recognition of the rights of adult adoptees, but on the erroneous belief that those who relinquished children for adoption were in some way promised that the fact of the adoption would be kept forever secret by the state. He also cited a report that fewer than one-quarter of biological parents contacted by a single Minnesota adoption agency preferred not to have identifying information released by the agency.

Fortunately, my son was born in a country that does not seal original birth certificates. He already has a certified copy of his. He knows his origins. But thousands of others adopted in Minnesota since 1917 (and their descendants) will never know theirs, so long as Minnesota continues to meddle in their private lives.

Ninety-one years of such meddling is more than enough. Perhaps our next Legislature and our next governor will recognize that the state has no legitimate role to play in this area of our lives. Perhaps they will recognize that adult adoptees are indeed adults, not the children they once were. But they'll need to hear from us to do so.

James M. Hamilton is a St. Paul attorney in private practice and an adoptive father. His e-mail address is jamesmhamilton@aol.com.

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ENGLAND: Two Mother IVF Families Enshrined in Law, May 20, 2008

2008-05-20T18:56:00.000-04:00

Adoption Related!

LONDON TELEGRAPH
May 20, 2008

Two mother IVF families enshrined in law
By Andrew Porter Political Editor

A child will legally be able to have two mothers and no father after MPs voted to take away the need for fathers when parents undergo fertility treatment.

In a controversial move both women in a lesbian relationship will be able to have the status of legal parents when one of them gives birth.

It came as MPs prepared to vote on lowering the time limit on abortion.

Family campaigners have attacked the move which will change how families have been historically defined.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill will update previous legislation to remove the reference to a father.

Where two women are in a relationship and one has fertility treatment in order to conceive then the partner should be treated as the other “parent” even if they are not in a civil partnership.

In those circumstances no man - such as the sperm donor - can be treated as a father, the Bill says, to avoid a child having three legal parents.

Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative leader, led the opposition to the plans. He denied he was attempting to return to a former age where two-parent families were the norm.

He told MPs: “I am not trying to paint some incredible rosy picture. On the whole the absence of fathers generally has a detrimental effect on the child.”

On the clause requiring clinics to consider the need for a father before agreeing to IVF treatment he said: “Taking it away would be as though we are saying to those couples, particularly in the heterosexual world, that this is not an issue, that fathers are not important, they're less important than mothers and therefore you don't need to take them into consideration.”

However his bid to ensure the need for a father in fertility treatment was rejected by 292 votes to 217, a majority 75. Another Tory amendment which called for “a father figure” was also rejected by a majority of 68.

Last night Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, the leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales said it would be “wrong to pass a law” where parenthood was not recognised, “because clearly there must be a father for a child.”

Mark Simmonds, the Conservative health spokesman, earlier said there was no evidence single sex couples or single women had been disadvantaged or faced barriers to fertility treatment.

He suggested it was “odd and inconsistent, incompatible and paradoxical” that ministers promoted the importance of fathers through policies but wanted to eliminate the need for a father to be considered before IVF.

David Taylor, the Labour MP, added: “Wouldn't it be absolutely perverse at this stage to write the father out of the script?”

The change reflects the fact that in a heterosexual couple when the woman is inseminated with donor sperm the man is treated as the father even though he has no biological link to the resulting child. Male gay couples who have children via surrogate mothers or by adoption are not covered by the new legislation.

The Bill says that where there is reference to the father of a child such as on birth certificates this is to be read as reference to the female parent who did not give birth.

It will also say for the first time that babies born through fertility treatment do not need to have a father figure and parents will be banned from choosing the sex of their child.

Emily Thornberry, the Labour MP for Islington, said: “Why are we doing this in the 21st century? I always worry when people start saying they are only applying common sense, because so often common sense is a cover for discrimination, narrowness and an inability to face the 21st century.

”The important point is to give legal rights to lesbian couples and single women. Particularly when it comes to lesbian couples, at least you will then have two legally recognised parents, instead of one, and what is wrong with that.”

But Sir Patrick Cormack, who represents the Tory seat South Staffordshire, said: “Whatever may be the case in Islington, in Staffordshire it is thought normal for a child to have a mother and a father.

Most Tory MPs, including David Cameron, were against the move. He believes there should be a father figure involved with every child.

Dawn Primarolo, the Health Minister, said reinstating the need for a father would be discriminatory as it would “create an additional hurdle” for lesbian couples and single women.

It was “wholly inappropriate” to retain the “additional discriminatory burden” following the decisions to allow civil partnerships and adoption by gay couples.

Iris Robinson, the DUP, asked Miss Primarolo: “Can you envisage down the road a child going to primary school and being collected by two females or two males and the bullying and the abuse that these children will be exposed to?

”Or going into the parents' bedroom and finding two women making love or two men making love? And that's natural for a child to see?”

The abortion debate ended with MPs voting on the issue for the first time in 18 years. Mr Cameron hardened his view in the course of Tuesday.

He had originally indicated he would vote for a reduction on the time limit for abortions from 24 to 22 weeks. However, he subsequently decided to back a 20-week limit.

Gordon Brown backed the current limit of 24 weeks.

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UNITED STATES: The Anonymous Gift of Adoption, May 20, 2008

2008-05-19T19:05:00.000-04:00

WASHINGTON TIMES
May 19, 2008

Editorial: The anonymous gift of adoption

It sounds like a dream come true for the tens of thousands of adoptees in the U.S. — the ability to find and reconnect with a birth parent or parents. That was the case for Maine Sen. Paula Benoit, whose highly publicized ordeal to find her birth parents not only led to meeting new relatives ( at least three of whom are also ironically lawmakers) but also to legislative action that changed the law in her state so that other adult adoptees could do the same. Her efforts propelled and initiated efforts in a handful of other states to move forward with similar measures. But in the state of New Jersey, the measure has failed several times — and for good reason.

What Mrs. Benoit failed to consider in her identity quest is the potentially detrimental effect that her law (and others like it) to unseal birth records could have on parents who choose to privately put their child up for adoption. It is estimated that there are about 1 million children in the U.S. who live with adoptive parents and 2 to 4 percent of American families include an adopted child. There are several kinds of adoption arrangements that include open, closed (confidential), mediated (non-identifying) and fully disclosed. While the majority of adoptions (69 percent) are open, those who choose to take such a step confidentially should have that option honored, not overturned.

Some adoptees cite medical and heredity reasons for tracking down birth parents. And while that may be a legitimate concern in some cases, it is not the norm. In a study of American adolescents, the Search Institute found that the majority of adolescents simply wanted to know what their parents "looked like" (94 percent) or "why" they were adopted (72 percent).

And, while openness can be a liberating experience for birth parent and adoptee, it's not for everyone. Some birth mothers have started new families and for personal reasons may not want their identity disclosed. It should be up to them — when and if they want to share this information. Anything else is a clear invasion of privacy. Even adoption advocates caution adoptees when seeking out a birth parent about the kind of mistakes that happen when a random search goes awry. Search site adoption.com warns: "Unfortunately, there have been cases of people contacting ... birthparents claiming to be their ... child, or sibling when this is not the case. Be aware that this can happen."

There are other not-so-obvious implications of taking away a birth mother's request for confidentiality. In USA Today, Thomas Atwood, president of the National Council for Adoption, surmised: "Birth mothers were promised privacy, and if that promise is broken, fewer women will choose adoption over abortion." Catholic groups have echoed this sentiment.

There are many famous adoptive parents — Al Roker, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Magic Johnson — who are championed for their selfless acts of love. There are also famous adoptees, including John Lennon and Victoria Rowell, who are grateful for the loving homes they were provided. But you don't often hear about the not so "famous" birth parents, who for personal (likely hardship) reasons of their own choose to place their children up for adoption in the hope that it will provide them a better life.

Adoption is often referred to as a gift. And just as charitable organizations rely on private "gifts" from anonymous donors, parents who give the gift of adoption also have a reasonable right to remain anonymous. It's not up to the recipient to find the donor.

The state of Michigan gives a confidential-adoption birth mother the opportunity to submit her identifying information to the state at any time, should she have a change of heart. Other states would do just as well to leave this choice up to the birth mother.

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FLORIDA: Hatian Adoptee Forced to Work Wins Case, May 18, 2008

2008-05-18T18:18:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK TIMES/SEATTLE TIMES
May 18, 2008

Haitian adoptee forced to work wins case
By CARMEN GENTILE
The New York Times

MIAMI — Amid tears, Simone Celestin recalled the repeated beatings she endured at the hands of her adoptive family while working for them as an unpaid servant for six years.

Celestin, 23, told a South Florida court in March that she was brought to the United States from Haiti at age 14 and never attended school. She recalled for jurors how she was hit with a broom or shoe, worked 15-hour days and was forced to sleep on the floor and eat table scraps.

Her recollections persuaded jurors to convict members of her adoptive family, Evelyn Theodore, 74, and Maude Paulin, her 52-year-old daughter, of conspiring to violate Celestin's civil rights and compelling her to perform forced labor. The women, who are also Haitian and adopted Celestin when she was 5, are to be sentenced Tuesday.

Celestin told jurors her situation was so dire she contemplated suicide, debating one day in March 2004 whether she should drink "motor oil or bleach" after she was beaten for not making the bed properly.

Eventually, she fled and was taken to an area hospital, and she linked up with the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center.

State Department statistics indicate 14,500 to 17,500 of the immigrants coming to the United States every year find themselves in a forced-labor situation.

According to a department study, slightly more than a fourth of the cases of unpaid servitude involve forced domestic labor, and nearly half of the victims fall prey to sex rings and prostitution.

But cases like Celestin's are rarely tried, as victims are often afraid or unable to come forward. However, since the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act was passed in 2000, prosecutions have increased from less than a handful nationwide a year to about a dozen.

Lawyers for the defendants said that they would appeal the verdict and that Celestin lied about her living conditions to remain in the United States.

"She exaggerated her case, and it suited everyone's purpose to just go along with it," said Leonard Fenn, the lawyer for Theodore, who characterized his client as a strict disciplinarian and "an old-fashioned woman from an old-fashioned country."

"But I don't think she was a slave owner or slave master, as the verdict found," Fenn said.

Even a lawyer for a defendant acquitted in another case took exception to the ruling.

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"There were numerous inconsistencies in the government's case," said the lawyer, Joe DeFabio, who represented Claire Telasco. Telasco was acquitted of conspiracy and forced-labor charges. He noted how Celestin's hospital records did not indicate any signs of bruising or other trauma.

"Her not being in school was certainly wrong, but forced labor and slavery, I don't agree with that," he said.

He said Celestin's living conditions as an adoptive child reflected a practice in Haiti known in Creole as "restavek," or "staying with," in which children from poor Haitian families are turned over to wealthier ones that care for them in exchange for domestic services. Though a common practice in Haiti, restavek is widely denounced by international rights groups as a form of modern-day slavery.

The lawyer for Celestin refused to comment.

But Grace Chung Becker, acting attorney general for the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, said the "defendants used their power and affluence to coerce a vulnerable 14-year-old girl into their personal service for six years."

Celestin was given housing assistance by the immigrant-advocacy center and attends remedial-education classes and receives counseling.

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NEW YORK: Adoptees Should be Able to Get Birth Certificates, May 18, 2008

2008-05-18T18:07:00.001-04:00

Albany Times-Union,
May 18, 2008
Letter: Adoptees Should Be Able to Get Birth Certificates

As a citizen of New Yorks state, I can serve in the armed forces, vote, drive, own property, get married and raise my own children, but I can not get my own birth certificate. The current law in New York state, which was enacted 73 years ago, denies adult adoptees this basic human right that every other citizen takes for granted.

Because of this archaic and discriminatory law, adult adoptees are legally denied their medical and psychiatric histories, as well as their identities and heritage. They are unable to pass on this information to their children and grandchildren who then also suffer from this lack of knowledge.

In states where adoption records and birth certificates are open, the data show that the vast majority of biological mothers want to know their adult children. And in cases where birth parents did not want contact, there were no instances of stalking. Adult adoptees are adults and they are not looking for new "mommies or daddies."

The proposed adoptee rights legislation strikes a balance between an adoptee's right to know and the confidentiality concerns some may have regarding the biological parents. To learn more about this issue, go to http://www.unsealedinitiative.org and http://www.adoptioninstitute.org.

Please contact your state senator urging support of bill S235 and your assemblyman of bill A2277.

CHERYL HORNING

Greenwich

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NEW YORK: Letter from Cheryl Horning--Adoptees Should be Able to Get Birth Certificates, May 18, 2008

2008-05-18T16:09:00.000-04:00

ALBANY TIMES UNION
May 18, 2008

Letter: Adoptees Should be Able to Get Birth Certificates
Cheryl Horning

As a citizen of New Yorks state, I can serve in the armed forces, vote, drive, own property, get married and raise my own children, but I can not get my own birth certificate. The current law in New York state, which was enacted 73 years ago, denies adult adoptees this basic human right that every other citizen takes for granted.

Because of this archaic and discriminatory law, adult adoptees are legally denied their medical and psychiatric histories, as well as their identities and heritage. They are unable to pass on this information to their children and grandchildren who then also suffer from this lack of knowledge.

In states where adoption records and birth certificates are open, the data show that the vast majority of biological mothers want to know their adult children. And in cases where birth parents did not want contact, there were no instances of stalking. Adult adoptees are adults and they are not looking for new "mommies or daddies."

The proposed adoptee rights legislation strikes a balance between an adoptee's right to know and the confidentiality concerns some may have regarding the biological parents. To learn more about this issue, go to http://www.unsealedinitiative.org and http://www.adoptioninstitute.org.

Please contact your state senator urging support of bill S235 and your assemblyman of bill A2277.

CHERYL HORNING

Greenwich

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MISSOURI: MO Legislature takes on Voter IS & Immigration, May 15, 2008

2008-05-15T21:14:00.001-04:00

KTVI-TV, ST. LOUIS
May 15, 2008

MO Legislature Takes On Voter ID & Immigration

Charles Jaco reports:

A lot of states are passing laws on illegal immigration. And a lot are considering voter ID laws.

But Missouri is the first state to combine the two issues.

This raises questions on everything from constitutional voting rights to political opportunism. The bill's supporters say it'll prevent vote fraud and keep illegals from voting.

Critics say there has never been a case of anyone trying to vote with a phony ID in Missouri.

Since 1875, the Missouri constitution has contained the following clause:

All elections shall be free and open. And no power, civil or military, shall at any time interfere to prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage.

By Friday night Missouri lawmakers could draft a proposal asking voters to change that one simple sentence. It would not only require you to show a photo ID when voting. It would require you show proof of U.S. citizenship with a passport or birth certificate, before you could even register to vote:

The Missouri Secretary of State's Office guesstimates that there are 240 thousand Missourians who could lose the right to vote because of a lack of photo ID thousands more might never be able to register to vote because they don't have birth certificates or passports.

And the whole idea of proving citizenship rolls the debate over illegal immigration in Missouri into the debate over voting.

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MISSOURI: Missouri's Proposed Voting Reauirment Could Disenfranchise More Than 200,000 US Citizens, May 15, 2008

2008-05-15T21:07:00.000-04:00

BILOXI (MS) SUN-HERALD
May 15, 2008

Adoption Related!

Missouri's Proposed Voting Requirement Could Disenfranchise More Than 200,000 U.S. Citizens

WASHINGTON, May 15 -- Missouri's legislature is considering a constitutional amendment permitting the state to require residents to provide documentary proof of their U.S. citizenship in order to vote. If implemented, it risks disenfranchising large numbers of Missouri residents who are U.S. citizens, according to a new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The amendment does not specify the forms of documentation the state would accept as proof of citizenship, but it appears likely that residents would have to produce a certified birth certificate or passport. Proof of citizenship is generally established in one of two ways, either through production of a birth certificate or passport or through production of certain forms of government-issued photo ID, but these IDs themselves generally cannot be obtained without a birth certificate or passport.

Results from two national surveys show that a large number of citizens lack birth certificates or passports including disproportionately large numbers of people in potentially vulnerable groups such as low-income, African American, and elderly residents. In addition, a similar requirement recently imposed in Medicaid effectively pushed tens of thousands of eligible people off the program and demonstrated that obtaining the documents can prove difficult, time-consuming, and, in some cases, essentially impossible.

Large Numbers of Missourians Lack the Required Documents

A January 2006 survey that Opinion Research Corporation conducted for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that nearly 11 million native-born American adults, or 5.7 percent of the native-born adult population, lack the documents the Missouri proposal would require. A survey the same firm conducted for the Brennan Center for Justice found similar results.

Assuming that this 5.7 percent share is the same in Missouri as in the nation as a whole, we estimate that 238,000 Missourians lack these documents. Many would likely be unable to obtain them on a timely basis and thus would effectively be disenfranchised.

The survey also found that certain demographic groups are much less likely than others to have the required documents and thus would suffer disproportionate harm under the Missouri requirement. These groups include people without a high school diploma (9.2 percent of whom lack the documents), rural residents (9.1 percent of whom lack them), African Americans (8.9 percent of whom lack them), households with incomes below $25,000 (8.1 percent of whom lack them), and the elderly (7.4 percent of whom lack them).

One reason many African Americans lack the documents is that a substantial number of African Americans born in the South before World War II were born at home and thus never received birth certificates, largely because of racial discrimination or poverty that kept their mothers from delivering in hospitals. One study estimated that a fifth of African-Americans born in 1939-40 lacked a birth certificate.

Assuming that the above percentages are the same for Missouri as for the nation as a whole, the estimated 238,000 Missourians who lack these documents would include:

-- more than 90,000 rural residents;
-- 70,000 low-income residents;
-- 50,000 residents without a high school diploma;
-- 50,000 elderly residents; and
-- 40,000 African Americans.

Similar Requirement in Medicaid Has Harmed Tens of Thousands of U.S. Citizens

Obtaining a birth certificate or passport can take weeks or months and involve costs that can be difficult for some low-income families to absorb: it can cost $5 to $23 to get a birth certificate, depending on the state, while a passport costs $87 to $97 and now entails extended waits. Obtaining a birth certificate can be especially time consuming for people not living in the state of their birth. This is a significant problem for Missouri, since more than one-third (36 percent) of its adult residents were born in another state.

Evidence that the difficulty of obtaining these documents can cause otherwise-eligible people to lose valuable benefits comes from Medicaid, which in 2006 began requiring most U.S. citizen applicants and recipients to document their citizenship by providing an original birth certificate, passport, or similar document. This is what has happened:

-- Tens of thousands of eligible citizen children have been denied
coverage. In numerous states, thousands have been removed from, or
denied entry into, Medicaid; many apparently became (or remained)
uninsured.

-- Virtually no cases of fraud have been found. The six states that have
examined this issue in greatest detail found that the new requirement,
which had delayed or denied Medicaid coverage for tens of thousands of
people and had cost states $17 million to administer as of July 2007,
had identified a total of eight undocumented individuals seeking to
obtain Medicaid illegally. It is worth noting that some or all of these
eight people might have been caught under the previous procedures.) In
addition, in Oklahoma -- which has yet to identify a single undocumented
immigrant on its Medicaid caseload -- 13 percent of the 20,000 people
who had been dropped from Medicaid as of January 2008 under the new rule
are Native Americans (and thus are clearly not immigrants).

-- Whites and African Americans have been hit the hardest. The Medicaid
requirement was ostensibly aimed at undocumented immigrants, most of
whom are Hispanic. Yet the children who have lost coverage due to the
requirement are disproportionately non-Hispanic, according to the three
states that have reported these data. This fact demonstrates that the
requirement's main impact has been on U.S. citizens. (Hispanic
citizens might be less affected than white or African American citizens
because they are often concerned that their citizenship status may be
questioned and thus are likely to make sure that they have readily
available vital documents to prove it.)

-- Medicaid enrollment has dropped, while administrative costs have risen.
Thirty-seven states say the new requirement has caused eligible citizen
children to lose Medicaid coverage, while 45 states say it has increased
administrative costs, according to the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and
the Uninsured.

The fact that tens of thousands of American families were unable to meet this documentation requirement, even on such a high-stakes matter as obtaining health coverage for their children, speaks volumes about the likely impact on Missouri if it were to adopt a similar rule for prospective voters. Missouri's proposed voting requirement would undermine the legitimacy of elections in the state by making it difficult or impossible for many of the state's citizen residents to exercise their right to vote.

This analysis can be found at: http://www.cbpp.org/5-15-08citdoc.htm.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization and policy institute that conducts research and analysis on a range of government policies and programs.

SOURCE Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Shannon Spillane of Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, +1-202-408-1080, spillane@cbpp.org

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CANADA: Ontario to Open Adoption Records, May 14, 2008

2008-05-14T18:32:00.000-04:00

CNW GroupMay 14, 2008

Ontario to OPen Adopton Records:
McGuinty Government Helps Adoptees, Birth Parents Unseal Personal

    Information

TORONTO, May 14 /CNW/ -

NEWS

A new Ontario law will soon give adult adoptees and birth parents access
to information that is currently sealed in their adoption records.
For years, adoptees and birth parents have worked to get personal and
family information from their original birth certificates and adoption
records. Ontario's new law will help adoptees find out what their original
names were, as well as who their birth parents were. It could also help birth
parents learn the name their child was given after he or she was adopted.
The law includes a new disclosure veto
(http://www.mcss.gov.on.ca/mcss/english/pillars/community/questions/adoption/a
bout_adopt_disclose_sys.htm) for adoptions that take place before September 1,
2008, and maintains no contact notices
(http://www.gov.on.ca/ont/portal/!ut/p/.cmd/cs/.ce/7_0_A/.s/7_0_252/_s.7_0_A/7
_0_252/_l/en?docid=STEL02_160608) for all adoptions registered in Ontario.
Adoptees and birth parents can begin to apply for disclosure vetoes in
September 2008. Adoptees and birth parents will be able to apply for
information from their adoption records starting in June 2009.

QUOTES

"For many, the bond between parent and child continues far beyond the
adoption process. So does the need to know your identity," said Minister of
Community and Social Services Madeleine Meilleur. "Now our adoption laws
finally recognize that reality."
"This act will have a profound impact on thousands of people who have
been longing for years, often decades, to know their roots or the names of
their children," said Wendy Rowney from the Coalition for Open Adoption
Records. "Finally, as adults, we can make private, responsible decisions
regarding contact."

QUICK FACTS

<<    -  Approximately 250,000 adoption orders have been filed      (http://www.mcss.gov.on.ca/mcss/english/pillars/community/questions/adoption/a
bout_adopt_disclose_sys.htm) in Ontario since 1921.

-  Almost 75,000 people have registered with Ontario's voluntary
   Adoption Disclosure Register
(http://www.gov.on.ca/ont/portal/!ut/p/.cmd/cs/.ce/7_0_A/.s/7_0_252/_s.7_0_A/7
_0_252/_l/en?docid=STEL02_160616) since 1979, searching for information about
their birth
   relatives.

-  Ontario is the fifth Canadian province to open its adoption records.
   British Columbia (http://www.vs.gov.bc.ca/adoption/releas_adopt.html),
   Alberta (http://child.alberta.ca/home/602.cfm), Manitoba
   (http://www.gov.mb.ca/fs/childfam/registry.html) and Newfoundland and
   Labrador (http://www.gs.gov.nl.ca/gs/vs/adoption-records.stm) already
   have open records, as do the United Kingdom
   (http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/adoptions/adoptioncontactregister/)
   and New South Wales
   (http://www.community.nsw.gov.au/DOCS/STANDARD/PC_101095.htm).

LEARN MORE

-  Visit ServiceOntario to learn more about services and information for
   adoptees and birth relatives
(http://www.gov.on.ca/ont/portal/!ut/p/.cmd/cs/.ce/7_0_A/.s/7_0_252/_s.7_0_A/7
_0_252/_l/en?docid=STEL02_160609).

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                                               ontario.ca/community-news
                                                  Disponible en français

KOREA: Adoptees Say Local Adoption System Not Free from Irregularities, May 14, 2008

2008-05-14T08:03:00.000-04:00

YONHAP NEWS,
May 14, 2008

Adoptees say local adoption system not free from irregularities
By Kim Young-gyo

SEOUL, May 14 (Yonhap) -- Following recent allegations of irregularities in international adoptions from Vietnam, Korean adoptees said Wednesday South Korea's adoption system has also had serious problems.

"Earlier signals about trafficking from Vietnam ... has significant comparisons with those of South Korea in earlier 1970s and 1980s," said a Dutch activist, who was adopted from South Korea, in an interview with Yonhap News Agency.

Hilbrand Westra has been actively involved in international adoption, working as a chairman of the Netherlands-based United Adoptees International, the first independent and international foundation by adoptees, since 2006 with a political and social aim to address problems involving adoption.

"In the seventies and eighties, many children disappeared from streets in Seoul and Busan. Many older Koreans in these cities have been confirming that they knew or heard about this. Still, no one ever asked for a thorough investigation in South Korea," Westra said.

Last month, the U.S. embassy in Vietnam released a report, describing cases in which children had allegedly been sold and families pressured to give up their babies. The report also said adoption facilitators were engaging in fraudulent operations to conceal the identity of the birth parents.

Dismissing the accusations, the Vietnamese government said it would end an adoption agreement with the United States after July 1.

"Since adoption exists, child trafficking is a booming mechanism behind it. But since child trafficking is not called abduction and is used for adoption it is internationally not forbidden. In other words, stealing children for adoption is allowed as long as you keep the child safe and healthy afterwards," Westra said.

He argued that South Korea has not ratified international agreements on adoption, leaving possible corruption in the adoption system uncontrolled.

"It is not very surprising that South Korea still does not want to ratify the Hague Convention of Adoption if you understand that the country belongs to the 11 biggest economic societies in the world and still let children go for intercountry adoption, instead of investing in good and controlled child," he said.

Han Boon-young, a Korean adoptee who was adopted to Denmark, agreed in general with what Westra said.

"South Korea is without doubt the 'mother' of modern adoption and brings much legitimacy to the adoption practice. Therefore, when cases as in Vietnam surface, I wish people in general know that similar concerns have been raised about South Korea," said Han.

Adoptions of Koreans overseas began in the aftermath of the 1950-53 Korean War, peaking in the mid-1980s when over 8,000 children a year were sent abroad, mostly to the United States. Since the 1990s, many of the adoptees have been children of single mothers.

In recent years, South Korea, which was labeled as a "baby-exporting" country by western media around the time that it hosted the 1988 Olympics, has been making efforts to encourage domestic adoptions.

There were 1,264 children adopted overseas from South Korea last year.
However, along with China, Russia and Ethiopia, it is still one of major "sending" countries in terms of U.S. adoptions, according to the annual U.S. State Department report on "orphan" visas.

"David Smolin, an American professor of law and advocate for international adoption reform, has once argued that not only does the legal systems allow these most questionable cases to happen, it actually incentives the practices of 'child-laundering.' In the Korean context for example, it is important to understand that the country has yet to ratify the Hague Convention," said Han, who teaches at an alternative school called Jeonin Yongnam School, located near Ulsan, South Gyeongsang Province.

The Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, a multilateral treaty, was approved by 66 nations in 1993 at the Hague. The convention covers adoptions among countries that become parties to it and sets out for such adoptions certain internationally agreed-upon minimum norms and procedures. The goal of the convention is to protect children, their birth parents and adoptive parents involved in intercountry adoptions and to prevent abuses.

Han also criticized the South Korean government for exempting itself from Article 21 of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child, which ensures that individuals and private organizations do not influence the adoption process extensively, but rather adoptions be handled by a central independent authority.
"The idea of adoption itself is not to blame for these cases of abuse, but rather does the current inadequate legislation allow for such a practice," she said.

"The international standards are not perfect, but South Korea must start living up to international standards and go further from there. Even if South Korea is trying to reduce the international adoption, it still needs to commit to protecting those fewer children it is sending overseas."

The South Korean government has recorded about 158,000 foreign adoptions in Korea's over 50 years of foreign adoption history. According to government statistics, 13,068 overseas adoptees made efforts to locate their biological families in 2005, but only 316 -- about 2 percent -- were reunited.
Some of the foreign adoptees claim that they found out in the process of searching for their biological parents that their adoption documents were switched.

Molly Holt, head of South Korea's largest adoption agency Holt Children's Services, admitted last week that some child placement agencies in the past used fraudulent documents in order to get children adopted overseas.

"Though people would sign their parents were dead, but they were not. We didn't know that," she said. "Some of their adoptees had their names changed."
ygkim@yna.co.kr

Link to article

MINNETOTA: Rep. Tingelstad Authors Bills on Adoption Records, Surrogate Motherhood, May 12, 2008

2008-05-12T18:41:00.001-04:00

HOMETOWN SOURCE.COM
May 12, 2008

Rep. Tingelstad authors bills on adoption records, surrogate motherhood
by T.W. Budig
ECM Capitol reporter

Adoption records and surrogate mother bills passed the House on Monday (May 12) but not before emotional debate.

Rep. Kathy Tingelstad, R-Andover, authored both bills — Tingelstad has focused on adoption issues her entire legislative career.

Both bills had vocal opposition.

“I cannot tell you how much I oppose this bill,” said Rep. Mary Liz Holberg, R-Lakeville, of the adoption records legislation.

gestkathy.jpg Under Tingelstad’s bill the birth records of adopted children — children born between 1945 to 1982, the bill author explained — would be available to adopted persons over the age of 19 unless an affividat of nondisclosure exists on file.

Adoptees, besides the desire to know their birth-parents, argue that a lack of family medical history can complicate their health care.

Rep. Kathy Tingelstad, R-Andover, stood on the House floor Monday (May 12) while presenting her surrogate mother legislation. The lawmaker had two bills, the other dealing with adoption records, pass the House on Monday. (Photo by T.W. Budig, ECM Capitol Reporter)

Current law provides for adoptees to seek birth record information through adoption agencies, but adoptees have argued the process is expensive, drawn out, and often inclusive.

Betrays privacy of women, says Holberg

But Holberg views the bill as betraying the privacy of women who confronted a different society than exists now when dealing with the pregnancy — having a child out of wedlock was considered shameful decades ago, she argued.

True, some of these birth-mothers have died, Holberg argued.

But what will surviving family members think to have someone show up at the door one day — when the birth-mother perhaps never told anyone about her pregnancy — and have a stranger tell them they’re related.

“What a shock,” said Holberg.

Birth-mothers across the country could receive similar shocks unless they “get with the program” and file an affividat of nondisclosure if one doesn’t already exist.

But Tingelstad countered by arguing the reason birth records of adoptees were sealed wasn’t out of concern for the birth-mother’s privacy but rather the child’s — they didn’t want children to be subject to possible humiliation because they were adopted.

“There was no confidentiality guarantee (extended to the mother),” said Tingelstad.

Perhaps it was verbal, she said. But it wasn’t in writing.

National trend

Tingelstad said her legislation — which has been criticized by some as being too restrictive, she noted — follows a national trend relating to adoption birth records.

The bill passed the House on a 78-52 vote.

Tingelstad’s other bill, dealing with gestational carriers or surrogate mothers, drew amendments dealing with abortion, surrogate mother compensation, and even prostitution — the latter was ruled out of order.

Tingelstad presented her bill by saying that for some couple, unable to have children on their own, Sunday was less Mother’s Day than Unmother’s Day.

Supporters of the legislation argue the bill merely puts into effect guidelines for gestational carrier arrangements — the practice has gone is, is going on, and will continue, they’ve argued in committee.

The bill passed on an 86-46 vote.

Link to article

MAINE: Beavers Takes 2nd tab at Lewin, April 29, 2008

2008-05-02T12:18:00.001-04:00

SEACOAST ONLINE
April 29, 2008

Beavers Takes 2nd Stab at Lewin
By David Ramsay

news@seacoastonline.com
April 29, 2008 6:00 AM

SOUTH BERWICK, Maine — Roberta Beavers has announced her candidacy for representative to the Maine Legislature, District 148, which includes all of Eliot and part of South Berwick. She will be running against Republican incumbent Sarah Lewin.

Beavers said she has been busy since she narrowly lost her first election bid against Lewin in 2006.

"The primary thing was working on the Adoptee Human Rights Bill that passed in 2007," she said. "I was commuting often to Augusta, where I hand-selected a bipartisan team of sponsors for this bill.

"It was the right combination of people from both sides of the aisle and from the House and the Senate," she added. "The bill empowers adult adopted people to obtain a copy of their original birth certificate and pay the same fee as anybody not adopted, and also empowers the parents of origin whether of not they wish to be contacted."

In addition to the legislative work, Beavers said she has become involved with the Eliot and South Berwick historical societies, both garden clubs, both libraries as far as fund-raising, and the same for the Great Works Regional Land Trust.

For her work in adoption, Beavers received a U.S. Congressional Angel in Adoption Award and went down to Washington to receive it along with nine other members of her legislative team, including the bill's sponsors.

"I have been listening carefully to the people of Eliot and South Berwick, respecting their concerns and advocating for them in Augusta and will continue to do so," said Beavers.

She said that two of the most critical concerns are energy costs and health care.

"Since Maine consumes less power than it exports, let's run our own electricity system or join the neighboring Canadian grid and reduce the barriers to clean renewable energy resources," she said. "The Canadians are willing to talk, and we should be too."

To reduce health-care costs, she said: "Let's get rid of the near monopoly by one health insurance company. Our people and our businesses are being hurt badly. Without radical change here, there will be no change in the overall business environment."

Beavers' work experience includes 18 years in the chemical industry as a research chemist, marketing analyst and marketing manager, and seven years as a small business owner in computers. She gained her greatest career satisfaction as a career counselor and as an art gallery manager for nonprofit organizations, she said.

Link to article

CANADA: Jones Says Revised Adoption Bill Endangers Abused Childen, May 1, 2008

2008-05-01T09:02:00.000-04:00

ORANGEVILLE CITIZEN
May 1, 2008

Jones says revised adoption bill endangers abused children
By DAN PELTON Staff Reporter

Dufferin-Caledon MPP Sylvia Jones fears the provincial government's latest attempt to provide access to adoption records will open up the possibility of abused children being victimized again.

As the Progressive Conservative Community and Social Services critic, she introduced an amendment to the bill during a committee hearing that was aimed at ensuring that children who are abused, removed from the home and subsequently adopted, would be automatically protected from having their personal information disclosed to the abuser without the adoptee's consent.

The original intention of the Access to Adoption Records Act was to open up all adoption records in Ontario, so birth parents and adopted persons could find and contact each other.

It was challenged in court, however, and the court ruled that past adoption records could not be opened.

The revised bill states that previous records cannot be opened without the consent of all parties involved.

Records of future adoptions, on the other hand, can be disclosed once the adopted person reaches the age of 19.

Ms. Jones says she is puzzled by this apparent lack of protection for formerly abused adopted persons, noting that such a provision was in the original legislation.

"This was in the original Liberal bill. I think it's an oversight, but it's not in the bill now."

There is a provision that allows either the adopted person or the birth parents to effectively veto any contact by those applying to do so.

"In today's environment, if there is an adoptee taken as a ward of the court because of abuse, the adoptive parents will know of the abuse and can inform the child of the abuse," said Liberal MPP Liz Sandals, one of four Liberals whose votes defeated Ms. Jones' amendments at the hearing. "The adopted child can then vote for a no-contact order."

Trish Keachie, executive director of Dufferin Child and Family Services, sides with Ms. Jones on the issue. "Our concern is that, even if they are over 18 and choose not to reconnect, (the adopted person) will have their personal information disclosed. That can be disconcerting. They do have a choice, but it forces them to relive what they've gone through."

Link to article

2008-04-30T09:10:00.000-04:00

CLEBURNE TIMES,
April 30, 2008

Larue Barnes: Motherly love part II

Editor’s note: This is part two of a two-part series.

Happy Morris, the first Johnson County nurse, entrusted me with precious things.

Inside scrapbooks were notes from jail inmates who thanked her for giving them direction and motherly love. There were documents from her career as a registered nurse — and records from her past history that had once been carefully guarded by her adoptive parents.

She agreed to share her story with you.

Happy retired after 28 years as nurse at the Johnson County jail.

She was the one who, accompanied by a sheriff’s deputy or a policeman, had the grisly job of pronouncing someone dead at murders, accidents and suicides. She performed autopsies under the supervision of the county medical examiner.

She also trained a staff of nurses and gave instructional training to correctional officers.

Her greatest joy, however, came from serving as a physical and emotional lifeline to the jail’s inmates.

Many wrote letters of appreciation to her — some presented on Mother’s Day.

Finding her mother
Ironically, she never knew the woman who gave her birth.

She was adopted from Hope Cottage in Dallas when she was a month old by Kelly and Ethel Stephens in Cleburne. Her birth records had been sealed.

“In 1990, when my son, Brad Lemley, had a serious health problem, I needed to know my family history,” Happy said. “My father, who had fiercely guarded any information about my adoption, had died. My mother was in a nursing home.

“I decided to try to find out medical information about my birth parents on my own. I wrote to Hope Cottage in Dallas.

“Although I received a reply it was very general in nature, and provided no precise information. They referred me to Searchline in Irving, Texas [no longer in service.]

“When I started going to the meetings at Searchline, which met in a private home, I met many adoptees and birth mothers. I was shocked at what I learned there.

“I had never agonized over the fact that I didn’t know my biological mother, but I met others who had been traumatized by not knowing theirs.

“The mothers there, who had given up their babies for adoption, were deeply grieved. Some found out where their children lived, watched their homes from the street, and one had even gone through the family’s garbage, desperately trying to find out anything she could about her child. I learned that some attended ball games to secretly watch their children play. Some had tried to make contact and had been rejected.

“I found out how to get my birth records. Judge C.C. ‘Kit’ Cooke ordered them opened — since I needed the family history for health reasons. I had to certify that I needed the information for that purpose only.”

Judge Cooke explained, “In 30 years I’ve only opened adoption records for six people. Those have all been for the purpose of securing essential family medical history for the treatment of disease. In the state of Texas this privilege is very guarded.”

Happy said, “Richard and I went to Austin to get the records, turned it all over to Searchline, and within five days, I knew my birth mother’s name and address. It was helpful that she had not moved.”

An answer at last
On a hot, summer day, Happy’s letter — which she had worded very carefully — arrived at a Dallas residence.

It read, “In searching for [medical] information I found the name of my biological mother and have reason to believe that you could be she.

“If you are my biological mother, I do not want to make you uncomfortable or cause problems for you; however I would like to meet you, if you are agreeable. If you are not comfortable with meeting me, could I please send you a medical form to fill out?”

Then, she told her mother about her own life.

She continued, “If you are my biological mother, I know that it must have been hard to give me up, but at the time you felt you did the best thing. My mother would always say on my birthday that she was thinking of you and how thankful she was to be given the opportunity to adopt and raise me. My father died in 1974, at 87. My mother is 93, in a rest home with Alzheimer’s Disease and has not known me for 12 years.

“I have prayed that I would find you alive and in good health, just to thank you for life — and what a loving and thoughtful thing you did for me.”

A response came quickly.

“Oh, what a joy and a shock!” the woman wrote. “You can’t imagine how I felt. I’d read a while and cry. I hope you don’t think ill of me for giving you up. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. There wasn’t a way I could have kept you. I was working in a beauty shop for $1 a day.

“Every night I ask the Lord to take care of you. I am so proud you had good parents and have done good. I’m proud of you.”

She then gave the medical information Happy needed. She had no present husband but had never told her daughter and son her secret. She needed time to think about it.

She closed with, “I would love to see you, but I don’t know if I could stand to look at you and think of what I did. The nurse told me the night you were born it would be better if I didn’t look at you, but as one nurse handed you to another nurse you had your little hands up. I’ll never forget that.”

Happy sent photographs. One of her photos compared to one of her mother at a younger age showed striking similarities. Her mother told her of her own personal traits: She is a perfectionist, never put things off, her hair must be “fixed” before she goes out. She is afraid of storms and heights.

She invited Happy to bring her husband for dinner “in a few weeks.”

Happy and Richard did visit. They met her birth mother, Juanita, Juanita’s daughter, her daughter’s husband, and their two children.

“I feel sure that if my sister had known about me, she would’ve found me before now,” Happy said. “It was good to meet my mother and to have so many questions answered. I remember thinking things were funny, growing up, when Mother and Daddy didn’t see the humor in it. Juanita and I laugh at the same things. She is a good friend.”

Bittersweet endings
Happy said she realizes that all searches do not end so well. Happy’s older sister, Patsy Jean Norris, also adopted by the Stephens, searched diligently for her birth mother, only to find that she had died three years earlier. Her sister was able, however, to get in touch with other family members.

Happy’s discovery, however, was bittersweet.

“On Sept. 19, 1990, I met Juanita,” she said. “The next day my mother passed away. My mother was 93 years old, in a rest home with Alzheimer’s disease.

“She had not known me for 12 years. I felt guilty that she didn’t know about my findings — but my pastor said it was her time to go, and to let Juanita take over from here.”

She added poignantly, “But Mother will always be my mother.”

Melody Walls Light, one of the three Walls children Happy raised during her marriage to Neal Walls, wrote, “Three years ago, Happy’s true love and husband of 19 years, Richard Morris, died. I moved home after living in Grapevine to be with them during this time.

“Together we served Richard at home through his cancer battle with the loving support of Happy’s pastor, Bro. Charles Payne and the Calvary Baptist Church until the Lord took him home.”

Happy said of her pastor and music minister, “I’ll always be grateful to brother Payne and brother Eddie Carroll. Richard accepted Christ as his Savior here at the house before he died.”

Picking up her Bible, she said, “After Richard was saved, my life has never been the same. I try to live by Psalm 19:14, ‘Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.’”

She admitted there had been times through the years when she was cooking in her kitchen that she wondered if the woman who gave birth to her liked to cook, too.

“I knew Mother loved it. She was a great cook. And I wondered whether I liked to cook because of heredity or environment. It turns out Juanita loves to cook, too.”

During recent stormy weather, Happy’s home telephone rang.

“Put your clothes on,” the voice said. “You don’t want a storm to blow you away with your pajamas on!”

It was Juanita. Just checking to be sure her daughter was safe.

This story was suggested by Melody Light.
Larue Barnes may be reached at laruebarnes@yahoo.com.

Link to article

MICHIGAN: John Doe No 73 Hunts for Birth Parents,, April 25, 2008

2008-04-25T08:52:00.000-04:00

DETROIT NEWS
April 25, 2008

John Doe No. 73 hunts for birth parents
He was abandoned as an infant at a Detroit Crowley's store forty-five years ago.
Kim Kozlowski / The Detroit News

DETROIT -- He was just a few days old when someone put him in a shopping bag and abandoned him in a women's restroom at a Crowley's department store nearly half a century ago.

After someone discovered the newborn, he was taken to Detroit Receiving Hospital and called John Doe No. 73. For two consecutive days, photos of the infant appeared in The Detroit News, with police officer Frances M. Clinepleading for his parents to reclaim the baby.

"There are no problems which can't be solved," Cline said in the Feb. 15, 1963, edition. "It appears (this) was the act of a confused woman who panicked in the face of what seemed insurmountable problems."

No one claimed the infant. He was alone in the world.

Forty-five years later, John Doe No. 73 has identified himself as Richard Lane, a happily married father of two and owner of a successful public relations company in Mainz, Germany. He is now making a plea for his birth parents to come forward.

"I would simply like to be able to understand what forced someone to leave me and my life completely up to chance," said Lane, who grew up in Southgate.

Lane's quest to find his birth parents comes as Michigan lawmakers are pushing to open records to upwards of 20,000 adults who were adopted between 1945 and 1980. These people cannot get copies of their original birth certificates, but a pending bill in the Michigan House seeks to change that.

Lane, 45, has pondered since he was 18 and learned that he was abandoned: Who are his parents? Where are they now? Why does his 20-year-old son, David, have red hair?

He said he never wondered about his birth parents while growing up because his adoptive parents, Charles and Margaret Lane, gave him a family life that felt completely normal. But that changed when he found out he was abandoned.

"It was an extremely lonely feeling," Lane said.

He decided to try to find his birth parents because his adoptive parents are now deceased and he wants his birth parents to know that they taught him an important lesson that shaped his life and the person he's become.

"The first lesson they taught me was to learn to embrace difficult challenges," said Lane. "Now, my return gift is perhaps the message that their decision did not lead to the disaster they may have spent the last 45 years thinking about. I'm fine, and I hope they are, too."

Adoption rules changed

Lane only recently learned he doesn't have an original birth certificate because he was abandoned, so the state bill, if passed, wouldn't help him.

Even so, those who could identify their birth parents if the law was different say they share a kinship with Lane.

"There's a yearning in the heart, in the soul, in your being to know from where you came," said Wixom resident Dave Weaver, who was adopted as a child. He found his mother's identity, but she was already deceased. "It feels like there is a piece inside of me, inside the soul, inside the heart, that is missing. I wanted to fill it. And this is how you fill it: You search to find answers."

Nearly a decade before Lane was born, his adoptive parents started the process of adopting a child through Lutheran Children's Friend Society, now known as Lutheran Child and Family Services of Michigan.

At the time, the Lanes did not qualify for adoption because Margaret had already borne a son, and the agency only worked with infertile couples. But six months after her son's birth, Marge Lane had a hysterectomy and was no longer able to have children.

It was 1954, and the waiting list of people wanting to adopt a child was long -- a sharp contrast to today, when 4,200 Michigan foster children are waiting to be adopted and every year 450 children enter adulthood in the state without ever being adopted.

Lutheran Children Friend's Society changed its policy in 1962 and allowed couples such as the Lanes to adopt children. The Lanes applied again and were approved as adoptive parents in January 1963.

A month later, John Doe No. 73 was abandoned. Detroit was bidding for the 1965 Olympic Games, British surgeons completed the world's first kidney transplant and unwed teenage girls who got pregnant were sent away for nine months to give birth to "illegitimate" children.

"Today there's so much less stigma with having a baby without being married," said Barbara MacKenzie, regional director of the Lutheran Child and Family Service of Michigan.

MacKenzie suspects Lane's mother abandoned him because society scorned motherhood outside of marriage. She likely was young and scared, because those are usually the mothers who abandon infants today.

Finding parents not easy

Whoever abandoned Lane didn't have the option of dropping the baby off at a hospital, fire or police department within 72 hours of birth, as parents have today. Since Michigan passed its Safe Delivery law in 2001, 55 infants have been safely given to authorities, who turn the newborns over for adoption.

Indeed, it was a more difficult time for unmarried pregnant girls because they tried to keep it secret, said Effey Winkel, who at age 91 remembers Lane's abandonment because her late husband, Robert E. Winkel, was president of Crowley's department store.

It's possible Lane's birth parents may have their own families now, Winkel said, and they may not have told their spouses and children about what they did in February 1963. But Winkel hopes at least one of his parents opens their arms to him.

"I would hope they would come forward so he knows them and feels like he has parents," said Winkel, who lives in Arizona.

Lane's longing to reunite with his birth parents is colliding with a world where people often connect more on an electronic level than human, and that may add to his urgency, said MacKenzie, of Lutheran Child and Family Service.

"We're cocooning with our computers and televisions," she said. "Because of that, the need to feel connected is stronger today."

Lane had happy childhood

Because Lane was abandoned, a judge estimated his age and gave him a birthday of Feb. 6, 1963.

Soon after, the Lanes adopted him and renamed him Richard Lane.

He says his parents gave him a happy, healthy upbringing. He attended Christ the King Lutheran School in Southgate and graduated from Southgate High School.

"Our lives are probably much better off that we were adopted," said Michele Lane, Rick Lane's sister, who was adopted three years after him.

"I have no hard feelings against my birth mother as an adult. I thank her. I wouldn't be where I am today or had any of the opportunities if I hadn't been adopted."

Though she is not interested in finding her birth parents, she understands why her brother wants to find his.

Rick Lane says he wants his birth parents to come forward so he can share with them that he turned out all right, holds no grudges and is open to what happens afterward.

"We'll see what happens," Lane said. "Life is usually most exciting when you don't know where all the roads will be taking you."

You can reach Kim Kozlowski at (313) 222-2024 or kkozlowski@detnews.com.

Link to article

NEW JERSEY: Letter by Patrick Brannigan, NJ Catholic Conference--State's Adoption Law Protects Privacy of Birth Mothers, Too--April 22, 2008

2008-04-23T04:45:00.003-04:00

ASBURY PARK PRESS
April 22, 2008

State's adoption law protects privacy of birth mothers, too

By PATRICK R. BRANNIGAN

I write to point out misstatements and misrepresentations by individuals and groups who are trying to eliminate an important privacy for birth mothers — a privacy that has been protected by law for decades. Those who want to eliminate a mother's privacy claim that New Jersey's adoption law protects only the adopted child. That claim is wrong. New Jersey's adoption law protects all of the parties: the child, the birth mother and the adopting parents.

The Catholic Church has provided adoption services in New Jersey for well over a century. The New Jersey Catholic Conference has long supported mutual consent reunions and the sharing of health information between adoptees and birth parents. Catholic Charities provides adoptees with information about their social background and health information even in instances when they are unable to facilitate a reunion.

In the 1977 Mills case that challenged a sealed adoption record in Atlantic City, the court reviewed at length the interests that are involved in placing adoption records under seal. Superior Court Judge Philip Gruccio noted that the purpose of the Adoption Act is to protect the child placed for adoption, the adopting parents and the birth parents. Analyzing each of their respective interests, Gruccio first addressed those of the birth or natural parents, and the adoptive parents.

He determined the assurance of secrecy regarding the identity of the natural parents enables them to place the child for adoption with a reputable agency, with the knowledge that their actions and motivations will not become public knowledge. Assured of this privacy by the state, the natural parents are free to move on and attempt to rebuild their lives after what must be a traumatic and emotionally tormenting episode in their lives.

The adopting parents also have an interest in having the birth records placed under seal. They have taken into their home a child who they will regard as their own and who they will love and raise as an integral part of their family unit. It is important to these adopting parents that they may raise this child without fear of interference from the natural parents and without fear that the birth status of the illegitimate child will be revealed or used as a means of harming the child or themselves. The state has an active interest in protecting and nurturing the growing family relationship it has statutorily created.

Clearly, the court recognized that the state has an obligation to protect the interests of all three parties. Gruccio wrote, "The statute requiring that the records be sealed clearly serves the interest of all three parties in the adoptive triangle: adoptive parents, natural parents and the child." Thousands of birth mothers placed their children for adoption through the New Jersey courts in reliance on that statutory assurance of privacy.

It is time for those trying to end the privacy of birth mothers to tell the truth: New Jersey's adoption law protects birth mothers, adoptees and adopting parents.

Patrick R. Brannigan is executive director of the New Jersey Catholic Conference, which represents the Archdiocese of Newark, the dioceses of Camden, Metuchen, Paterson and Trenton, Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Passaic and Our Lady of Deliverance Syriac Catholic Diocese.

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ILLINOIS: Letter by Ed Smetana--Don't Discourage Adoption Option, April 21, 2008

2008-04-22T04:51:00.001-04:00

(CHICAGO SUBURBAN) DAILY HERALD
April 21, 2008

Letter: Don't Discourage Adoption Option

I feel empathy for all the adopted people who are looking for their roots -- family trees -- and are resentful that their moms and dads did not want ever to be connected to them.

The important thing to remember is, they chose life for you and to countless generations to come as you are Adams and Eves.

Please do not encourage changes to the law or seek remedies in the courts because this will in most cases make adoption not a viable option in the eyes of the baby donors.

This was the case in England. All adoptions were made transparent, offering no privacy to the baby donors, and the result was that the baby donor programs have become almost non-existent. And, in the minds of the would-be donors,abortion has become the only answer.

Please do not enact court cases or laws that will mean the death sentence for your brother, sisters and cousins.

Ed Smetana

Arlington Heights

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OHIO: Betsie Norris' Personal Quest Propels Adoption Network Clveland's Search for Answers, April 20, 2008

2008-04-21T09:54:00.004-04:00

CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER
April 20, 2008

Betsie Norris' personal quest propels Adoption Network Cleveland's search for answers
She started nonprofit 20 years ago

James Ewinger

The roots of Adoption Network Cleveland grow out of Betsie Norris' quest for her own.

She is an adoptee. She found her birth parents 22 years ago and two years later founded the network in her living room.

Norris has been seeking ever since -- to open records to adults who were adopted, to help people find their own birth relatives and, indirectly, homes for thousands of children stuck in the gray abyss of foster care and county custody.

If that makes her sound like a tireless crusader, it would make her late, adoptive father proud and show just how much influence such a parent can have.

He was William B. (Brad) Norris, a towering man in every sense.

Brad Norris was tall, magisterial and driven by a passion for public service. He was a partner at the Hahn Loeser law firm, campaigned with others to put WCPN FM/90.3 on the air, joined the fight against the county's plan to pave over Shaker Lakes and represented Cleveland in its antitrust case against CEI.

At 16, in World War II, he was also the youngest platoon leader in his rifle company as it fought its way across southern France.

Betsie Norris, the gentle warrior, is driven by her knowledge of the man who raised her and her curiosity about the birth parents who did not.

It is not a frivolous or selfish quest and cannot be dismissed as idle curiosity.

There are emotional issues that go with the knowledge of being adopted and some that flow from a lack of knowledge, including the medical histories of people who came before them.

Then there is a sense of shame that can seep out of the secrecy that enveloped the adoption process.

And finally, there is the concern about how the search will affect the birth family, and the adoptive family.

"You don't know how many times I went to call the agency that handled my adoption and slammed the phone book shut because I thought it was selfish and it might hurt my parents," Norris said.

When an adoptee says "my parents," the reference is to the people who did the raising. As Norris said of her birth parents, "I am their daughter, but they are not my parents."

She found the couple from which she sprang, and it had a happy ending. She was embraced by her blood siblings and was in two of their weddings.

But Norris rarely uses the word "ending."

Historically adoption was viewed as an event that occurred, then people moved on. "Adoption is a lifelong process," Norris said. "There is so much more to it that unfolds over the years."

After World War II, many restrictions were placed on adoption records, in part to insulate the adoptees from the birth parents, Norris said.

However, many courts and state legislatures have been loosening the reins, especially in the past 20 years.

But not in Ohio. Last week, a pending bill was gutted of any language that would have given adoptees access to their original birth records.

One of the great ironies is that attorney Brad Norris played a major role in closing Ohio records. Betsie Norris said her father reacted to the ease with which he - or anyone else - could get birth records. His intent was to keep the public at bay, not the adoptees and birth parents.

But the legislature of 40 years ago went so far that anyone adopted after 1964 cannot get the records - their own records. Brad Norris in 1994 said the law created an absurd situation because two of his adopted children, born before 1964, have access. But his youngest son, born in 1963 but adopted the following year, does not.

Which is not to say that such searches are impossible. One of Adoption Network Cleveland's fortes is assisting people who want to find their birth parents.

But that is not the extent of its work. With "adoption" in its name, one might suppose that the network does a lot of placement work. One would be half-right.

The network is not a placement agency but has reshaped the way those organizations - both public and private - do business.

For example, Cuyahoga County had 2,000 children in permanent custody eight years ago. Today the number is 783, ranging from infants to older teens, thanks to the network.

Jim McCafferty, director of the county's Department of Children and Family Services, said Norris and her group were chosen as the lead agency to formulate new adoption strategies that placement agencies could use.

One is Child Centered Recruitment, which gives a social worker a small caseload, so he or she can get to know the children, and get to know people who know the children, which makes it easier to find adoptive homes.

Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court Judge Peter Sikora said, "One of the court's most difficult jobs is when we grant permanent custody to children and Family Services." He said the court and the county then "are making a pledge to these kids that we will do better by them."

Sikora also said that if the child has no permanent home by the age of 18 "we've failed them." He said the network is one of the most effective means of making sure the children and teens "don't age out of the system" before finding a home.

Another feat is the expansion of the number of local therapists who understand issues unique to adoption.

The idea was to educate established psychologists and social workers, said Zoe Breen Wood, director of field education at Case's Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences.

The issues include the sense of loss that adoptees and birth parents can feel, she said, as well as adopted children's difficulty in identifying with an adoptive family or with establishing a sense of their own identity.

Wood said the Adoption Network is the only organization in the country that deals with all the issues, all the organizations and all the members of extended families before, during and long after the adoption has been formalized.

In 20 years, it has grown from an all-volunteer group to a private nonprofit with an annual budget of $2.8 million.

More information about Adoption Network Cleveland is available at 216-325-1000 or www.adoptionnetwork.org.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

jewinger@plaind.com, 216-999-3905

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ILLIINOIS: Letter by Jane Edwards--Many Birth Mothers Want Children to Know Identity, April 20, 2008

2008-04-20T09:40:00.001-04:00

Bloomington Pantagraph
April 20, 2008

Letter: Many birth mothers want children to know identity

Megan Bakaitis who wrote the letter published April 13 (``Oppose proposal about adoptee birth certificates'') is the daughter I surrendered for adoption in Dec., 1966. Megan argues that adoptees should not have the unrestricted right to their original birth certificates.

While Megan is a fine person, I strongly disagree with her views on adoptee access.

I live in Portland, Ore. On Nov. 3, 1998, Oregon voters passed Ballot Measure 58 with 57 percent of the vote. This measure allowed adult adoptees to obtain their original birth certificates.

Opponents immediately challenged Ballot Measure 58 in the courts as violating birth mother privacy. The Oregon Court of Appeals upheld the law and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review the decision. The measure became effective May 31, 2000.

While opponents of the measure claimed that birth mothers did not want their children to know their identities, birth mothers said something quite different.

Two days before the election, over 500 birth mothers - including me - placed their names in a full-page ad in Oregon's largest newspaper, the Portland Oregonian, supporting the measure.

When I learned in 1997 that Megan was looking for me, I was terrified, but also overjoyed. Since our reunion, I have felt much more complete. It is indeed true that the truth will set you free.

My experience is not unique. Over 9,000 Oregon adoptees have received their original birth certificates. There have been no reports of birth mothers becoming distressed over being contacted by their child.

I have met birth mothers and birth fathers from all over the country. I have never heard any regret having a reunion - regardless of how the reunion turned out.

Jane Edwards

Portland, Ore.

Link to article

NEW YORK: Letter by Catherine Gordon Litofsky, April 16, 2008

2008-04-17T09:19:00.002-04:00

BINGHAMTON PRESS & SUN-BULLETIN
April 16, 20

Letter: Adoptee's Search Takes Her to State Capital

Are you my birth mother? For the better part of the last 35 years, I have asked this very question over and over again. I have never received an answer.

As Mother's Day approaches, I want my birth mother to know that I have never stopped wondering who she is. I have also never stopped thanking her for being so brave and courageous when she gave me up for adoption in or around November 1957.

I have searched for her. I have registered in the New York Adoption Registry. I have stood up for my human rights by lobbying in Albany to get more support for and a vote on Assembly Bill A02277 and Senate Bill S235: the Adoptees' Bill of Rights.

I hope to return to Albany this month to lobby some more. Maybe this year I will finally get the answer to my question: Are you my birth mother?

Catherine Gordon Litofsky

Owings Mills, MD.

Link to article

ILLINOIS: Letter from Marilyn Strohkirch, April 13, 2008

2008-04-13T15:01:00.003-04:00

BLOOMINGTON PANTAGRAPH
April 13, 2008

Letter: Give adoptees access to their birth records

State Rep. Sara Feighenholtz, D-Chicago, an Illinois-born and adopted person, is sponsoring legislation to make birth records available to adopted persons born in Illinois as noted in The Pantagraph (``More open records for adoptees?,'' March 22, Page A1).

Rep. Feighenholtz said, ``Existing Illinois law robs tens of thousands of Illinois adults of the right to know who they are.''

As a longtime adoption advocate and former confidential intermediary for the state of Illinois, I can honestly say most people touched by adoption feel their rights have been violated by the present Illinois law that prevents adoptees from obtaining their original birth records.

Original birth records for Illinois-born adopted persons have been closed since 1947. Our legislators now have the opportunity to change the law and allow persons adopted before 1946 access to their original birth records.

Those adopted after 1946 will have to wait six months to allow biological parents who wish to keep their identity a secret to do so through the Illinois Adoption Registry.

The Illinois Department of Public Health maintains the registry and records indicate only 17 biological parents have filed forms to prevent identity disclosure.

Eight states now allow adult adopted persons to access their birth records.

Illinois has laws to prevent identity theft.

For more than a half century, adoptees in this state have been denied access to their identity in the first place. Passage of House Bill 4623 could end what amounts to ``identity theft'' for individuals who were born and adopted in Illinois.

I urge you to ask your representative to vote ``yes'' for HB 4623. A public meeting about this important adoption reform and open birth records will be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday at St, John's Lutheran Church, 1617 E. Emerson, Bloomington. For more information, call (309) 820-0230.

Marilyn Strohkirch

Bloomington

The writer is co-founder, Healing Hearts Adoption Support Group.

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ILLINOIS: Letter from Megan Bakaitis--Oppose Proposal about Adoptee Birth Certificates, April 13, 2008

2008-04-13T14:52:00.007-04:00

BLOOMINGTON PANTAGRAPH
April 13, 2008

Letter: Oppose proposal about adoptee birth certificates

I am an adult adoptee. About 10 years ago, I made the choice to search for my birth mother and I found her!

I knew nothing about the ``adoption rights'' movement. It was just something I wanted to do for myself.

The reunion with my birth mother was satisfying for me, and we still correspond and visit each other. After we met, I even attempted to obtain my original birth certificate, but was denied.

Since that time, I have been exposed to many, many communications from various groups pushing for legislation that would allow all adoptees the right to obtain their original birth certificates, regardless of the wishes of birth mothers.

At first, the political arguments made a lot of sense to me. However, after much careful study, pondering and prayer, I have decided for myself that I cannot embrace these groups' basic philosophy regarding family.

God has a plan for families. Children should be nurtured in loving homes by a father and a mother who are also husband and wife. ``Redefining kinship,'' as advocated by the some of these groups, is a dangerous thing.

Furthermore, to obtain one's original birth certificate is not a civil or human right.

Because I don't believe in the basic goals of ``adoption rights'' organizations, I cannot and will not support their political agendas, including open records for all adoptees.

Megan Bakaitis

Lexington

Link to article

NEW JERSEY: Letter from Linda DeBrango--Adoption Bill Fair and Balanced, April 10, 2008

2008-04-11T00:12:00.004-04:00

ASBURY PARK PRESS
April 10, 2008

Letter: Adoption Bill Fair and Balanced

As an adult adoptee, I have been following the progress of the pending state legislation to permit adoptees access to their original birth certificates. I find the views in the March 21 letter "Unsealed record breaks promise" to be perpetuating the negative stereotypes that were the prevailing wisdom for years.

Until the 1970s, unwed mothers were sent away to give birth in shame and secrecy. Birth mothers were counseled by social workers to forget their babies and to go on as if nothing had happened. Keeping their babies was never an option, as they were told their babies would bear the stigma of illegitimacy.

Opponents of the proposed legislation miss a key point about anonymity. No one is proposing that birth records be made public. The purpose of this legislation is to give adoptees, the people who are the subjects of the sealed documents, access to records pertaining to them. For adoptees, our legal identity does not match our genetic identity. In this age of DNA testing, we are at a distinct disadvantage. Learning the identity of one's birth parents can be a matter of life or death, not idle curiosity.

The proposed legislation adequately balances the adoptees' need for accurate family medical information with preserving the promise of anonymity made to birth mothers. Upon passage of the law, birth mothers will have a one-year period in which to indicate whether or not they wish to be contacted by their children. If a mother does not wish to be contacted, she must provide a detailed family medical history to be placed with the original birth certificate. Currently, adoptees must hire an investigator, who obtains the birth record by suspect means and makes the first, often unsettling contact with the birth mother. It makes for a great Lifetime TV movie, but it causes more pain and expense for the parties.

It is my hope that this bill becomes law in New Jersey.

Linda DeBrango

BRICK

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ILLINOIS: Letter from Natalie Jones--Adoption Shock, April 9, 2008

2008-04-09T11:35:00.005-04:00

CHICAGO TRIBUNE
April 9, 2008

Letter: Adoption shock

This is in response to "Adoptees look for their identity; Illinois bill would give better records access" (Metro, March 11), and the editorial and letters to the editor that followed it.

What many of adoptees don't understand is that if it were not for the privacy promised their birth mothers, they might not be here. Many women didn't have abortions because they were promised that they could count on secrecy.

I am adopted and cannot think of a good reason to disrupt someone's life. She gave me a life; that's good enough for me. I try to take care of myself and probably have the same chance of being healthy as anyone.

Some of these mothers will not be notified of this; what a shock for them. Rethink this unfair new development.—Natalie Jones

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NEW YORK: Commenty by Joyce Bahr--Adoptees Deserve Family Info, April , 2008

2008-04-08T18:49:00.006-04:00

BINGHAMPTON PRESS AND SUN-BULLETIN
April 8, 2008

Adoptees deserve family info
By Joyce Bahr

Adoptees will have the same right to their birth records and early health histories as every other person has always had, under legislation pending in the state Senate and Assembly. Currently, eight other states offer this right, and several others are considering it. Adoption records in Kansas and Alaska have never been sealed.

New York began sealing adoption records in the mid-1930s to protect adoptive parents from possible interference from biological parents. Contrary to popular assumption, however, there has never been a legal guarantee of secrecy offered to birth parents who have given up their children for adoption.

Since the 1930s, social perceptions and medical research have evolved to the point where most professionals in the field of adoption agree that open adoption and background information is to the benefit of all concerned. For example, one of the first things a doctor needs to know is a patient's medical and psychiatric history. Currently, that potentially life-saving information is obtainable only by court order and at considerable cost to the individual. Unfortunately, it is usually not sought because of those deterrents to a patient's serious disadvantage.

Other adoptees seeking their birth records believe that the matter is one of basic human rights, including the right to know one's heritage, something that is taken for granted by everyone else. Such denial of access consigns adoptees to second-class citizen status.

The proposed adoptee rights legislation strikes a balance between an adopted person's right to know and the confidentiality concerns of biological parents.

With the political fray in Albany this year, these bills need the attention and support of your elected officials. Please contact your state senator urging support of bill S235 and your Assembly member of bill A2277.

Bahr, of Gracie Station, is president of the New York Statewide Adoption Reform. Contact her at Unsealedinitiative@nyc.rr.org

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ARGETNINA: Maria Barragan Succeeds in Getting Adoptive Parents Jailed, April 6, 2008

2008-04-06T16:02:00.008-04:00

LONDON TIMES
April 6, 2008

Maria Barragan succeeds in getting adoptive parents jailed
Mike Elkin

In a landmark decision, a court in Buenos Aires sentenced a former military officer and the adoptive parents of one of the country’s many babies “stolen” during the dictatorship to prison for concealing the child’s identity and falsifying adoption documents.

Maria Eugenia Sampallo Barragán, 30, had brought charges against the three after discovering her true identity seven years ago. Ms Sampallo is one of hundreds of people who were snatched from their parents or born in captivity during the country’s dictatorship of , but she was the first to face her adoptive parents in court.

Osvaldo Rivas, 65, and MarÍa Cristina Gómez Pinto, 60, her adoptive parents, were sentenced to eight and seven years in prison respectively. Enrique Berthier, a former army captain who handed Ms Sampallo over to the couple when she was a baby, received ten years.

“These are not my parents,” Ms Sampallo said at a press conference on Monday. “They are my kidnappers . . . there is no emotional bond that binds me to them. These are my parents,” she said, picking up photos of her biological parents.

Argentina’s military regime arrested Leonardo Sampallo and Mirta Barragán, suspected leftist dissidents, in December 1977. Soon after Ms Sampallo was born, her parents died in prison and the infant was given to Captain Berthier to pass on to another family, which hid her real identity.

Ms Sampallo learnt about her past from the human rights group Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo. They have found 88 people like Ms Sampallo, children of their own sons and daughters who “disappeared”.

The Argentine military imprisoned tens of thousands of people suspected of being subversives and killed as many as 30,000. The junta also decided to “rehabilitate” its enemies’ children by placing them with families that supported the dictatorship. Many of the children were given to the families of men who may have participated in the torture and deaths of their parents.

The Grandmothers say that up to 500 children were abducted by the military or were born in captivity. During the dictatorship the group kept note of women who suddenly appeared with babies without being pregnant, and began investigations that, with recent advances in DNA technology, have begun to get results. Cases involving abducted children have proved crucial to bringing the dictatorship’s architects and executioners to justice. An amnesty for military and police officers imposed by the first postdictatorship government did not include the theft of babies, jurists contended.

“My hope is that each conviction acts as a step toward building the truth,” said Victoria Donda, an MP and activist who was taken from her biological parents at birth and learnt of her real identity in 2003.

The Dirty War

— Approximately 30,000 Argentinians disappeared during the Dirty War, a campaign of violence and intimidation by a series of governments

— The collapse of the alliance between left and right factions in the Peronist movement is seen as the catalyst of the trouble. A paranoid conservative Argentinian group backed the army in taking extreme action to control the Left

— Most disappearances occurred under the military regimes that ruled the country from 1976 to 1983, after the overthrow of Isabel Perón by Jorge Rafael Videla, then head of Argentina's army

— Democracy was swept away and the military became increasingly violent. It regarded a “cleansing” of Argentine society as necessary to the country’s survival

— Liberals, trade unionists, and others suspected of less than wholehearted support for the regime were rounded up. After their interrogation and murder, their bodies were never returned

Sources: desaparecidos.org ; nuncamas.org; National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons

LINK TO ARTICLE

NEW JERSEY: Letter from Tom McGee--Report Sheds Light on Adoption, April 3, 2008

2008-04-03T15:33:00.003-04:00

ASBURY PARK PRESS
April 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

Link to article

NEW YORK: Letter by Joyce Bahr--Adoptees Deserve to have Rights to Records, April 3, 2008

2008-04-03T04:35:00.003-04:00

ELMIRA Star-Gazette,
April 3, 2008

Letter: Adoptees deserve to have rights to records
April 3, 2008
StoryChat Post Comment

Under legislation pending in the state Senate and Assembly, adoptees will have the same right to their birth records and early health histories as every other person has always had. Currently, eight other states offer this right, and several others are considering it. Adoption records in Kansas and Alaska have never been sealed.

New York began sealing adoption records in the mid-1930s to protect adoptive parents from possible interference from biological parents. Contrary to popular assumption, however, there has never been a legal guarantee of secrecy offered to birth parents who have given up their children for adoption.

Since the 1930s, social perceptions and medical research have evolved to the point where most professionals in the field of adoption agree that open adoption and background information is to the benefit of all concerned. For example, one of the first things a doctor needs to know is a patient's medical and psychiatric history. Currently, that potentially life-saving information is obtainable only by court order and at considerable cost to the individual. Unfortunately it is usually not sought because of those deterrents, to a patient's serious disadvantage.

The proposed adoptee rights legislation strikes a balance between an adopted person's right to know and the confidentiality concerns of biological parents.

With the political fray in Albany this year, these bills need the attention and support of your elected officials. Please contact your state senator urging support of Bill S235 and your assemblyman on Bill A2277.

JOYCE BAHR

President

New York Statewide Adoption Reform

New York, N.Y.

Link to article

ENGLAND: Donor Children Demand to Be Told Parents' IDs, March 31, 2008

2008-04-01T03:49:00.004-04:00

DAILY STANDARD
March 31, 2008

Donor children demand to be told parents' IDs
Sophie Goodchild, Health Editor

Ministers today faced a fresh challenge over fertility reforms.

A new campaign group has accused the Government of refusing to recognise the rights of children born through sperm or egg donation.

The International Donor Offspring Alliance says children who are not told the identity of their genetic parents are at risk of trauma in later life.

It is lobbying for a new style of birth certificate that would record the names of sperm or egg donors so children can track down their parents.

Last week, Gordon Brown was forced to allow MPs a free vote on plans to allow scientists to create embryos with animal and human cells under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. This was in response to pressure from the Catholic church.

About 40,000 Britons have been born through donated sperm or eggs. The Government has already changed the law to allow children conceived after April 2005 to trace their genetic parents.

Peers have tabled an amendment to the Bill, which will be debated next month, that would mean birth certificates being marked with a symbol so children would know they were born through egg or sperm donation. But campaigners say this does not go far enough. Tom Ellis, 25, of the Offspring Alliance, said: "All we want is parity with the rest of society. Adopted children have this information from birth, but our birth certificates are the only ones that can contain a lie."

However, Infertility Network UK, a support group for couples who have had children by fertility treatment, said parents should be left to inform their offspring privately about their origin rather than having new-style birth certificates. Spokeswoman Susan Seenan said: "We polled our members and the response was an overwhelming 'no' because a certificate is very much a public document.

"We are in favour of children being told they are conceived through donor conception but putting it on birth certificates is not the way forward."

Eric Blyth, professor of social work at Huddersfield University, suggested a solution that took account of both sides. "All birth certificates should carry a statement that there may be other information relating to the individual whose birth is recorded," he said.

"If this statement were on all birth certificates it would not compromise the privacy of any individuals."

'THEY LIED TO ME... IT FELT LIKE A BETRAYAL'

TOM ELLIS learned the secret about his birth when his parents split up three and a half years ago.

His mother told him the man he called "father" was in fact infertile and his genetic parent was a sperm donor.

Mr Ellis, a 25-year-old Cambridge mathematics graduate, said he was stunned by the revelation.

He said: "They [my parents] never really intended to tell me at all. It was a big shock - a really big thing to take in.

"It's very difficult - if someone lies to you then it's hard and feels like a betrayal." Mr Ellis added: "My brother was also donor-conceived but with a different father. I'd always assumed he was my full brother." The clinic where he was conceived, the Infertility Advisory Centre in London, has since closed down and former staff have refused to help him trace his father.

But he is determined to uncover the truth and has already registered with a DNA matching website to trace any other siblings his father may have helped create.

Mr Ellis said: "It's hard because there is very little information out there but we're going to keep pressing for this."

Link to article

NEW JERSEY: Editorial--Ocean View--A Journey into the Labyrinth, March 31, 2008

2008-04-01T00:40:00.001-04:00

TRI-TOWN NEWS,
March 31, 2008

Ocean View
A journey into the labyrinth
PATRICIA A. MILLER

Born 8-20-50
Baptism - done
Birth weight
Present weight - 111/2 pounds approx.
Full term - normal delivery
No immunizations given as yet
Parentage - American of German, English
and Slovak ancestry

That was all the information my adoptive parents had to go on when the Catholic Children's Aid Association placed me in their home two days after Christmas. When my adoption was finalized inMarch 1952, the court papers noted that my natural mother had surrendered me in writing and that my father was "unknown."

The two-page judgment of adoption also noted "the condition in life of the child's parents" and said the adoption would be in my best interest.

"...from the date hereof, the rights, duties, privileges and relations heretofore existing between the said Patricia Ann Zurick and his parents shall in all respects be at an end..."

But it didn't end there. And it still has not ended.

That long-ago legal document provided only bare details about my beginnings in this world. But it did hold one all-important clue- my natural mother's last name. It's a detail the state of New Jersey decided that no adult adoptee should have, back when adoption records were sealed in 1940.

I was lucky. My adoptive father handed me the final adoption papers on the day I turned 21.

"You have a right to see this," he said.

Most adult adoptees aren't so fortunate. Their ancestral quest can't even begin without that last name.

The questions began in my childhood. My earliest memory goes back to age 3. It was New Year's Eve and the bells and honking cars wokeme.Mymuch-loved parents came into the room to comfort me. It was then, if my memory is correct, they dropped the bombshell and told me I was adopted.My natural parents, they said, had died in a train wreck.

And my life changed forever.

Occasionally, I would summon up the courage to askmymother aboutmy natural parents. It made her uncomfortable. She told me she thought the last name had started with a Z.

My phantomparents hauntedme. I had an irrational fear they would snatch me off a street corner on my way home from school. At night, I imagined them in the shadows of my bedroom.

When I was in my early teens, my mother dropped another bombshell. My natural parents had not died in a train wreck.

It tookme untilmymid-20s to begin the search. I went to my birthplace, Margaret HagueMaternityHospital in Jersey City.A kind lady in the records department listened to my plight and told me she was sorry she couldn't give me the hospital records. But she gave me some very important advice.

"Go to your family doctor, sign a records release authorization form with your original name, then send it back to me," she said. "We get a lot of people like you here."

The papers arrived in my doctor's office soon after. That was when I learned I weighed 5 pounds, 13 ounces, that I was 19 inches long, that I arrived three weeks early and that I was my natural mother's fourth child. The papers had another stunning bit of information - both my natural mother's and father's names. My parents had been married at the time of my birth. They were both from Shamokin, Pa., a small coal-mining town.

My then-husband went to the Jersey CityHall of Records and wove a story about a medical emergency. We needed my family's history and we needed names, he told the clerk.

The clerk was angry. He said the information was sealed by state law. My husband persisted. I was very sick, he said, and we needed the information.

The clerk walked away. He came back several minutes later with a ledger book and dumped it on the counter.

"Here," he said. "You didn't get this from me." The birth records matched the hospital records. I knew who I was.

But the subterfuge the adoptedmust resort to continued. I went to St. Aedan's Church in Jersey City, where I had been baptized six weeks after I was born. The rectory receptionist greeted me warmly when I asked for a copy of my original baptismal certificate. I gave my last name as Zurick. She left the room and returned a few minutes later. Her demeanor had changed. "What are you trying to pull?" she asked angrily. "You know we can't give that information out."

Shortly after that, I dialed Pennsylvania information and asked for any Zurick listings from Shamokin. There were quite a few. I closed my eyes and picked out one. It landed on the name Joseph Zurick.When I dialed the number, his wife, Gertrude, answered. Instead of being annoyed by a stranger's call, she was intrigued.

That was the beginning of a five-year friendship. I learned the man listed as my natural father had been an alcoholic, who brutalized my mother and three brothers. She left him and moved to North Jersey in 1946. They never divorced. He tried many times to get her to return.

We visitedmyAunt Gertrude andUncle Joe in 1977. No one answered the front door, so we walked around back. My aunt and uncle had just returned from church. They had a group of relatives assembled to see the stranger who had come to visit. When I rounded the corner of the house, there was a collective gasp. To use an old cliché, I was the spitting image ofmy natural mother.

I never met her. We did reach her by phone once. She denied ever having me.

I wrote to her. I told her I had no wish to intrude on her life, that I just wanted some basic medical information and family history. She never answered.

Adult adoptees should not have to resort to lying or misrepresentation to find out who they are. Imagine telling an African- American, Chinese, Hispanic, Irish or person of any ethnicity they are not entitled to their original birth certificates.

The New Jersey state Senate approved bill S-611 recently. The bill would allow adult adoptees to petition the state registrar for their original birth certificates. The bill now heads to the Assembly.

That's the good part. But the bill also gives biological parents a year to file a "no contact" letter to allow them to remain anonymous. The birth parents would instead have to provide a family history form and update it every 10 years.

That's too big a loophole.Adult adoptees have a civil right to their original birth certificates. It's that simple.

Patricia Miller is a managing editor with Greater Media Newspapers.

Link to article

SOUTH CAROLINA: Adopted Man Seeks Biological Parents, March 30, 2008

2008-03-30T14:22:00.001-04:00

SPARTANBURG HERALD-JOURNAL
March 30, 2008

Adopted man seeks biological parents
Closed records keep 4 brothers from knowing their roots
By Kim Kimzey

Kelvin Eaker and his brothers are looking for their biological parents, who could live in the Spartanburg area.

Kelvin Eaker likes to imagine what it will be like when he meets his mother for the first time.

The 34-year-old has gone through many scenarios in his head. In one, an old lady answers the door. Kelvin tells her, "You need to sit down, 'cause I've got something to tell you."

Kelvin just hopes she's happy to see him.

The Myrtle Beach resident is searching for his birth parents and thinks they might live in Spartanburg. He was born here June 25, 1973, but has no memory of his birth parents or the five or six foster homes he lived in before his adoption at age 3.

"I don't even have a last name to go by," he said.

He wants to know why he and his three brothers were given up for adoption. He also wants to know his family's medical history. And the scar on his back - where did that come from?

"I don't know if I was shot or stabbed," Kelvin said.

The quarter-sized scar was there when he and his three brothers were adopted the day before Valentine's Day 1976 - they call it "Gotcha Day" - by Hershel and Annie Eaker.

Kelvin's first name used to be Joey. Chad, born July 24, 1974, is the next oldest. His original name was Tony. Then there are the twins, Jonathan and Jason, once named Ronnie and Donnie. They were born Aug. 10, 1975.

Kelvin said he was about 15 years old when his adoptive parents told the boys they were adopted.

"I was shocked," he remembered. "I think we all were."

They were raised in Marion and later moved to Mullins, and their family was a tight-knit one.

"We had a real, real good life," Kelvin said.

Growing up, he and his brothers were typical, rambunctious boys who enjoyed baseball.

Kelvin has always liked to fish. He fishes off the piers at Myrtle Beach, where he moved a couple of years ago. He's divorced and said he was recently hired as a driver and stocker for Pepsi.

Chad lives in Latta and is a general foreman for a tree company. He now has a son of his own.

Jason still lives in Mullins and is a father to three daughters. Jonathan lives in Nichols and has two sons, 2 and 4 years old.

"It's amazing. It's just wonderful, having someone, a part of you," Jonathan said of fatherhood during a phone interview.

After Jonathan learned he was adopted, he said he changed.

He became angry and upset, but as he grew up, he realized what the Eakers did for him and his brothers.

"It takes wonderful parents to take kids in that weren't their own and love them," he said.

He wants his biological parents to know that he appreciates their decision, too.

"You couldn't have given us a better life than we have now," he said.

"We don't have no regrets or anything," Kelvin said.

Kelvin said his birth parents probably thought they were adopted separately.

He wants them to know "we're all together. We're doing OK. We want them to contact us."

Their adoptive father, Hershel, died two years ago. Kelvin said his father handled the details of the adoption.

Jonathan remembers his adoptive father telling him that his biological parents were young when he was born and that they did not have much money. Jonathan said his biological dad might be a car salesman.

Kelvin said their closed adoption was through the Department of Social Services.

It was a very closed time for adoptions, explained James Fletcher Thompson, a Spartanburg attorney whose practice covers adoption law.

"But the fact that it was a DSS case makes it even more closed," Thompson said.

He said children who are privately adopted have been voluntarily placed, but 97 percent of children placed for adoption through DSS have been abused, neglected or abandoned, or one of their siblings has.

Thompson said that might not be the case for the Eakers.

Kelvin said the lawyer who handled his adoption did not keep any files.

Thompson would not be surprised if the attorney who handled the case no longer has the records, since many attorneys dabbled in different areas of law years ago.

The courthouse, however, would still have the sealed records.

People adopted through DSS can register for the reunion registry. The adoptee must be at least 21 and apply in writing to DSS for information, according to Thompson. Adoptees and their biological parents can be reunited if both parties are willing to reveal their identities to each other, but it's unlawful for someone, such as an attorney or employee of a private adoption agency, to release information in adoption records.

Another possibility is registering for the International Soundex Reunion Registry, a nonprofit that matches people with their next of kin-by-birth.

In order to have the records unsealed, Thompson said Kelvin would have to request that a judge open the records based on good cause.

"You can find someone without their birth certificate, and that's often true, but it's certainly not always true. If you have a genuine need to know and you can't find, then this access becomes really much more critical," Adam Pertman said.

Pertman is executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, a national nonprofit that is a research, policy and education organization.

The institute released a report in November recommending in part that every state amend laws to restore adult adoptees unrestricted access to their original birth certificates.

Among the arguments against unsealing records is that it will increase the incidence of abortion and decrease adoptions, Pertman said in a phone interview.

"The thinking is, if you don't allow women this lifelong anonymity, maybe they'll have an abortion instead of carrying the child to term and placing them for adoption," Pertman said.

Eight states now have open records.

"In the states that have unsealed these records, the adoption rate appears to be going up, rather than down," Pertman said.

"People really do want to have this sense of fulfilled identity, to know that they started at Point A, and not at Point B, i.e., Point B being adoption, A, birth," Pertman said.

"I have way too many e-mails in my files of adoptees who really need medical information and they just can't get it," he said.

Thompson said South Carolina is trending toward openness in adoption.

A bill introduced last year in the state Senate would allow adoptees 25 and older access to non-identifying health and medical histories of their biological parents. That bill was sent to a Senate judiciary subcommittee on Jan. 11, 2007, and has remained there.

Meanwhile, Kelvin's search continues.

"I just don't want to give up," he said.

Despite all the questions about his past, of one thing Kelvin is certain: "Somebody's got to know something."

"You don't just give up four boys and forget about it," he said.

Kelvin welcomes calls from Herald-Journal readers who might be able to help him find his parents. Call Kelvin at 843-455-5738 or contact his friend Jason Layton at 843-602-3404.

Link to article

NEW YORK: Letter from Joyce Bahr--Pending Bill Opens Records to Adoptees, March 29, 208

2008-03-29T04:58:00.000-04:00

AUBURN CITIZEN
March 29, 2008

Pending bill opens records to adoptees

Adoptees will have the same right to the birth records and early health histories as every other person has always had, under legislation pending in the state Senate and Assembly. Currently, eight other states offer this right and several others are considering it. Adoption records in Kansas and Alaska have never been sealed.
New York began sealing adoption records in the mid-1930s to protect adoptive parents from possible interference from biological parents. Contrary to popular assumption, however, there has never been a legal guarantee of secrecy offered to birth parents who have given up their children for adoption.

Since the 1930s, social perceptions and medical research have evolved to the point where most professionals in the field of adoption agree that open adoption and background information is to the benefit of all concerned. For example, one of the first things a doctor needs to know is a patient's medical and psychiatric history. Currently, that potentially life-saving information is obtainable only by court order and at considerable cost to the individual. Unfortunately, it is usually not sought because of those deterrents, to a patient's serious disadvantage.

Other adoptees seeking their birth records believe that the matter is one of basic human rights, including the right to know one's heritage, something that is taken for granted by everyone else. Such denial of access consigns adoptees to second-class citizen status.

The proposed adoptee rights legislation strikes a balance between an adopted person's right to know and the confidentiality concerns of biological parents.

With the political fray in Albany this year, these bills need the attention and support of your elected officials. Please contact your state senator urging support of bill S235 and your assemblyman of bill A2277.

Joyce Bahr

Gracie Station

Bahr is president of New York Statewide Adoption Reform, Unsealedinitiative@nyc.rr.com

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ARGENTINA: Babies of the Disappeared, March 27, 2008

2008-03-27T18:06:00.000-04:00

THE NEW STATESMAN
March 27, 2008

Babies of the Disappeared
Chris Bradley

Details of the fates of many children of Argentina's "disappeared" - adopted and given new identities by military families - are only now starting to emerge

As a child, María Eugenia Sampallo Barragán had a fiery relationship with her mother, who chose unusual ways of showing affection. Outbursts such as "If it wasn't for me you would have ended up in a ditch" and "Badly educated brat - only a child of a guerrilla could be so rebellious" were common, but would not be fully understood until years later.

The truth was finally revealed in 2001 and María Eugenia, 30, is now demanding 25-year jail sentences for the couple who raised her, Osvaldo Rivas and María Cristina Gómez Pinto, and their associate Enrique José Berthier. The trio are accused of removing her from her parents, falsifying her birth certificate and erasing her true identity. The verdict is due in a Buenos Aires court on 4 April.

María Eugenia was five when a family friend told her she had been adopted after her real parents died in a car crash. Strange, then, that Rivas and Gómez were listed as her biological parents on her birth certificate. Other versions of her origins soon emerged: that she was the daughter of a maid who had given her up for financial reasons; that she was the daughter of an air hostess from Europe, who came to Argentina and became pregnant through an extramarital affair.

In 2001 María Eugenia became the 72nd grandchild recovered by the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, a group that works to find the children of their children, who were tortured and killed under the military dictatorship of 1976-83. They calculate that among the 30,000 "disappeared", more than 400 were babies, either kidnapped along with their parents or born in captivity. Many were raised with new identities by the same military families that had had a hand in the fate of their biological parents.

Mirta Barragán was six months pregnant when she and her partner, Leonardo Sampallo, were kidnapped in 1977. There is no further record of either of them, but six months later their baby was delivered to Rivas and Gómez by Berthier, a friend in the military. With the help of a now-deceased doctor, a birth certificate was signed in their names.

María Eugenia has become the first child the grandmothers have found to seek justice against her appropriators. When she took the witness stand she could only answer "I don't know" when asked her place and date of birth. She also told the court that, when she left home after finishing school, "I didn't take any photos of my past, with them, as it was something I preferred not to remember."

Not all of the children had such unhappy upbringings. Many were sent to good schools and were treated with love and affection. Some couples claim not to have known the true origins of the babies they raised, and many of the recovered grandchildren choose to believe that, remaining close to both their biological families and their adoptive parents.

The right to an identity was enshrined in the International Convention on the Rights of the Child at the instigation of the Grandmothers, through what are known as the "Argentine clauses". However, as these children approach their thirties, most feel an instinctive bond with their adoptive parents and are reluctant to see them punished. Others prefer to keep a low profile and try to get on with their lives.

Not so María Eugenia. The Grandmothers hope that her case will encourage more to come forward, and that it will help speed up the process of justice for the children of their children.

Link to Article

ENGLAND: He Was Always Nicknamead Crazy Geeoerge So It is No Real Surprise when He Married His Sister, March 22, 2008

2008-03-22T23:25:00.000-04:00

DAILY MIRROR
March 22, 2008

'He was always nicknamed Crazy George so it was no real surprise when he married his own sister' - EX-WIFE MABEL YESTERDAY
Lottery winner George Wass married to his sister Alice
Dark secret of £5m George

By Laurie Hanna 22/03/2008

A married couple who won £5.3million on the lotto are brother and
sister.

George and Alice Wass share the same mother from different
relationships.

The couple, who live in a caravan on an East London tip, met in 1983
when she traced her family roots. But the pair insist they had been
told at the time they were not related.

Alice, 61, said last night: "I showed my mother photos of George and
she said she'd never seen him before in her life."

They were introduced as long-lost brother and sister 25 years ago -
and ended up as husband and wife.

George and Alice Wass insisted they had disproved claims they were
related when they fell for each other at an emotional meeting in 1983.
But the £5.3million lottery winners' tangled love life was unravelled
when the Mirror yesterday confronted them with records that showed
they shared the same mum, Margaret Wass.

Alice, 61, who lives in a caravan on a rubbish tip with George said:
"This is all coming out now. What am I supposed to do?
"If I'm getting you right, we've got the same mother but different
fathers. You have learnt a lot more than I have." George, 63, walked
out on his wife Mabel and their three children after he met widowed
Alice.

Mabel said last night: "He was always nicknamed Crazy George so it was
no real surprise when he did something like this."

Alice was introduced to George after she asked the Salvation Army to
look into her childhood history when her 19-year-old daughter Valerie
was murdered in 1983.

She said she never knew her mum - by then wed to Frederick Holding -
was married before and was shocked to learn she had a half-brother.
But her mother's marriage certificate shows she was previously known
as Margaret Wass.

Alice added: "The Salvation Army came back with the name George Wass.
We met and George thought I was his sister and I thought George was my
brother." They soon fell head over heels for each other and five
months later he moved into her house in Stratford, East London.
Alice said: "We started having feelings for one another so I told
George we had to part and never see each other again."

But she showed Margaret a load of photos he had given her of him and
his dad Lionel Wass with brother Joseph. She denied knowing them.
Alice added: "I said 'Mum, is that my father?' It was an elderly man.
She said, 'Alice, where have you got this from?'

"I replied 'I've been made to believe that is my father and if he is,
this man here, George, is my brother.'

"She said, 'I've never seen that man in my life before.'" George
added: "I don't know what my mother was and frankly I don't give a
damn. If that was my mother, my old man would have told me."

The couple, who won the lotto jackpot last Saturday, wed in 1987.
George was born in India where Lionel was in the Army. After his birth
the family moved back to England but his parents split. He was brought
up by Lionel and lost touch with Margaret. Two years later, she gave
birth to Alice in Ireland.

Nine years after that, in 1955, Margaret married Frederick, who Alice
lists as her father on official documents. No birth certificate exists
for George, who was born in a military hospital. And there appears to
be no record of Alice's birth. It is possible, in the absence of these
papers, that Alice was adopted which means they do not have the same
biological mother. But Alice said the only mum she has ever known was
Margaret.

Mabel, of Grays, Essex, confirmed he and Alice were introduced as
brother and sister.

She said: "The Salvation Army wrote to him in 1983, saying they had
tracked down a half-sister of his and asking if he would like to meet
her.

"She came down to visit us. They had a connection but I had kind of
expected that because they were brother and sister after all.
"Then she kept inviting him round to hers, asking him to help her do
little things.

"That's when I thought they were a bit too close."

George and Alice, of Barking, East London, were thought to be staying
in a hotel last night.

DAUGHTER MURDERED
Alice Wass is still grieving for daughter Valerie, who was murdered by
her dad before he committed suicide.

Heartbroken Alice told the Mirror: "I might have won £5.3m but it will
not give me back the one thing I want - Valerie."

Valerie, 19, was strangled and hidden under her bed in the family home
in East London in October 1983.

The gruesome discovery only came after Aubrey Playfair, Alice's first
husband, was found decapitated at a nearby railway line

Alice, who met George two months after the tragedy, said: "This money
will do me no good because the one thing I want is dead. Since Valerie
was murdered I've lived on tablets. I do not live the high life."

FORBIDDEN SEX APPEAL
By Tom Pettifor
Half the people separated from relatives at a young age experience
strong sexual feelings when they are reunited.

Psychiatrists believe the natural repulsion brothers and sisters
experience for each other as children acts as a barrier to incest.
But those who miss out on this process can develop obsessive feelings
for their sibling in adulthood.

Research published in the British Medical Journal in 1995 found 50 per
cent of people seeking post-adoption counselling "experienced strong
sexual feelings in reunions" with their real family.

One example was Nick Cameron, 28, and his half-sister Danielle Heaney,
22, who were found guilty of incest.

The story of their bizarre relationship will be told in full in a
Channel 4 documentary next week - Sleeping With My Sister.

Heaney, who has one child, was raised by her mother while Cameron was
brought up in foster care. They had sex weeks after meeting in the
summer of 2006.

The pair, from Kirkcaldy, Fife, were each put on probation for a year.
But the court allowed them to continue their relationship as long as
they didn't have sex.

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ILLINOIS: Editorial--Adoptees and Their Records, March 21, 2008

2008-03-21T12:27:00.003-04:00

CHICAGO TRIBUNE
March 21, 2008

Editorial: Adoptees and Their Records

A decade ago, a bid to open many adoption-related records for adult adoptees in Illinois failed in the General Assembly. Bombarded by fierce opposition from bar groups and adoption agencies, lawmakers backed off. In effect, they respected the wishes of birth parents who had been granted anonymity when they placed children for adoption.

Now there's a new effort to open one type of record for people who have been adopted.

State Rep. Sara Feigenholtz (D-Chicago) has introduced a bill that would allow adults who were adopted to obtain copies of their original birth certificates. The bill would allow adoptees who were born before Jan. 1, 1946, to get copies of their original birth certificates when the proposed law takes effect. Those born after that date would have to wait until April 1, 2009. That lag period would give each birth parent a chance to file an official document asking to keep his or her identity confidential.

At the moment, adoptees can't get their original birth certificates, which typically bear birth parents' names. When a child is adopted, an amended birth certificate is created, with the adoptive parents' names only.

Since the 1980s, more adoptions have moved toward openness—an ongoing relationship between a child and his or her birth parents, or at least an exchange of information as a child grows. That's a personal choice for biological and adoptive parents to arrange. Adoption agencies typically help them decide what their mutual degree of openness will be.

Parents who relinquish a baby to adoption and choose not to maintain contact essentially strike an agreement with the state and with the adoption agency. The agency and the state say they will honor the birth parents' privacy; the records are sealed.

This bill would break that agreement.

Many adoptees argue that they're the only Americans routinely denied such basic and vital information as their birth certificates. They say they often can't get family health histories. They know nothing about their ancestors.

If there were no other way for an adoptee to get such information, we'd be inclined to support this bill. But there are other ways. Illinois has set out a reasonable path that this page supports for adoptees to find biological parents or other relatives, if those blood relatives want—or with prompting, if they agree—to be found.

First, there's a state registry where adoptees and birth relatives can sign up to find each other. It's run by the Illinois Department of Public Health. As of last December, there were 10,034 people registered, including 6,719 adoptees and 2,391 birth mothers and 366 birth fathers, according to a department spokeswoman. The registry has tallied 618 matches since its inception in 1985.

A second program allows an adoptee to ask a court to appoint a confidential intermediary to try to make contact. These intermediaries are granted access to sealed court records to help them find birth parents or other relatives. Their track record is impressive. They locate a birth parent or other relative about 90 percent of the time.

But here's something to remember: Only about half the time do the birth parents or relatives consent to some contact. Some of that contact is anonymous, with birth parents and adoptees exchanging letters without identifying information. Some of the contact is more open, leading to meetings.

Deciding that original birth certificates should suddenly be open would be a reason for many adoptees to celebrate. But it also would raise the possibility that some birth parents could get an unexpected and unwanted phone call or knock on the door.

Under the proposed law, there would be a six-month general information campaign to let everyone know about the changes in the law. That would allow birth parents a chance to file the official requests to keep their identities private.

In effect, the legislation would shift responsibility for maintaining anonymity from the state to birth parents.

But that hardly guarantees birth parents will hear about the change in law; some will have moved out of state.

If those parents didn't hear about their new responsibility and react, the proposed law would presume their consent to release the birth certificate.

The possibility of a birth parent getting blindsided tips the balance against this bill.

Link to article

UTAH: Adotion "Mediator" Says She's Innocent, March 19, 2008

2008-03-21T12:20:00.004-04:00

DESERET MORNING NEWS
March 19, 2008

Adoption 'mediator' says she's innocent
By Ben Winslow

BRIGHAM CITY — Jill Ekstrom says she's innocent.

"I'm not going to plead guilty to something I didn't do," she said Monday, after appearing in 1st District Court to face 21 counts of altering public records, a class A misdemeanor.

Ekstrom is accused of stealing hundreds of sealed adoption records from Farmington's 2nd District Courthouse. But she told reporters outside of court that she did not take dozens of rolls of microfilm, and she questioned Davis County prosecutors' motives for charging her.

"Davis County had microfilm in a room that was unmarked as being off-limits. Records that were supposed to be sealed were left in a room that was unattended," she said. "Anybody could have taken them."

Ekstrom says she did know that sealed adoption records were in the room behind the clerk's counter at the 2nd District Courthouse. She was told that much when she was let in by a clerk to look up some other public records.

As a "finder," Ekstrom has made a career of helping reunite long lost relatives or adopted children with their birth parents. Ekstrom claims that in her career, she has arranged more than 9,000 reunifications.

"I was a mediator," she said Monday. "I never gave information unless all parties agreed to it."

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ILLINOIS: State Lawmakers Present Legislation Targeting Birith Records, Costs of Adoptions, March 20, 2008

2008-03-21T11:05:00.001-04:00

JOURNAL GAZETTE/TIMES COURIER
March 20, 2008

State lawmakers present legislation targeting birth records, costs of adoptions
By KARTIKAY MEHROTRA, JG/T-C Springfield Bureau

SPRINGFIELD — About 5,000 children are adopted in Illinois every year, at a cost of approximately $25,000 per adoption.

Once the process is complete, the adopted child is severed from their birth records for life unless they go on a hunt for their biological parents.

“You’re forcing somebody to do something they don’t want to do or aren’t ready to do,” said state Rep. Sara Feigenholtz, D-Chicago, House sponsor for legislation to make birth records available to adopted people in Illinois.

All of that could change in Illinois if two measures are approved this year. One proposed law would curb the cost of adopting a child. The other would allow adopted individuals the opportunity to freely gain access to their birth certificate.

“The right to one’s own identity is a basic and unalienable human right,” Feigenholtz said. “Existing Illinois law robs tens of thousands of Illinois adults of the right to know who they are.”

The law would nullify legislation approved in 1947, and would allow adoptees born before Jan. 1, 1946 to access to their birth certificate. Feigeholtz says current state law protects the interests of biological parents who wish to maintain secrecy. But her data, courtesy of the Illinois Adoption Registry, declares only 17 biological parents who have filed forms to keep their identities disclosed.

Even so, Feigenholtz says the new law would include a series of safeguards to ensure that birth parents seeking confidentiality may do so.

Birth parents whose children were adopted in 1946 or later will be protected by a six-month waiting-period when they can declare their wishes to remain anonymous. Those parents may also ask that their names be scratched from the original birth certificate upon their son or daughter’s request to view the document.

The legislation passed out of a House committee on adoption reform earlier this month on an 8 to 1 vote. It now heads to the full House for further debate.

“Whether I’m three-months-old or 51-years-old, they can receive the document that has my birth mother’s name on it,” said Feigenholtz, who was adopted as a child.

State Sen. Dave Luechtefeld, R-Okawville, has proposed a tax break to encourage more adoptions by adoptive parents.

If approved, adopting parents could qualify for a $1,000 state income tax break.

“We don’t want to see these kids in foster homes,” said Luechtefeld. “It’s already terribly expensive and this isn’t a whole lot of money, but it is some sort of deduction to encourage the process.”

Luechtefeld said the discount would be more fruitful if the cash-strapped state wasn’t in dire need for every penny it can get.

“What I didn’t want to do was take a large chunk of revenue of the state’s hands,” he said. The proposal has advanced out of a Senate committee and awaits action in the full Senate.

The Feigenholtz legislation is House Bill 4623.

The Luechtefeld legislation is Senate Bill 2282.

Link to article

TENNESSEE: Decades After Adoption Two Sisters Long for Siblings Left at Orphanage, March 20, 2008

2008-03-20T11:10:00.001-04:00

MEMPHIS COMMERCIAL APPPEAL
March 20, 2008

Decades after adoption, two sisters long for siblings left at orphanage
By Michael Lollar

Adoption was like a "voodoo word" in Mary Lamb's family. She and her younger sister weren't allowed to ask questions about where they came from or why.

Nashville's Mary Ann Lamb is searching for her siblings who were separated after leaving the St. Peter Orphanage in their youth in Memphis. Mary Ann is shown with her husband, Chuck, and a photo of her when she lived in the orphanage.

Nashville's Mary Ann Lamb is searching for her siblings who were separated after leaving the St. Peter Orphanage in their youth in Memphis. Mary Ann is shown with her husband, Chuck, and a photo of her when she lived in the orphanage.

Mary Lamb, 55, of Nashville was 3 when she and her baby sister Teresa were adopted. After learning they'd left three older siblings at St. Peter Orphanage, Lamb has tried to find them but had no luck. "It's killed me," she said of not knowing the fate of her two sisters and brother.

Mary Lamb, 55, of Nashville was 3 when she and her baby sister Teresa were adopted. After learning they'd left three older siblings at St. Peter Orphanage, Lamb has tried to find them but had no luck. "It's killed me," she said of not knowing the fate of her two sisters and brother.
Loretta Williams in 1963

The two youngest children in the Williams family, Mary (left) and Teresa, were adopted by a Middle Tennessee couple. For years, the two girls did not know they had any other siblings. Bill Waugh Special to The Commercial Appeal

The two youngest children in the Williams family, Mary (left) and Teresa, were adopted by a Middle Tennessee couple. For years, the two girls did not know they had any other siblings. Bill Waugh Special to The Commercial Appeal

"When my adoptive mom and dad were alive, that was constantly embedded in us, and we learned to stay away from it, not to upset them."

Mary was 3. Her sister Teresa was 1 when the nuns of St. Peter Orphanage here delivered them to a childless family in Madison, just north of Nashville. The family owned restaurants, and the girls would grow up comfortably, but with questions that grew as they did. At first, they were too young to understand adoption or to know what to ask, says Mary. As teenagers, there were questions but no answers.

It has been more than 50 years since their childhood journey began. It led recently to the classified advertising section of The Commercial Appeal with a 2-by-4-inch ad that displayed little of the emotion Mary has harbored since learning, little by little, that she and Teresa left behind two older sisters and a brother who remained in the Memphis orphanage until they "aged out" at age 18, then, seemingly, vanished.

"It's killed me," says Mary, 55, who now operates a trucking and freight company with her husband in Nashville. "We tried for many years to get information -- when we were in our 20s and 30s -- from our adoptive mom and dad. They said we didn't need to know. Even before dad died in 2001, I tried to get him to tell me and he wouldn't. They probably just didn't want us hurt."

As adults, Mary and Teresa, who now lives in Idaho, began their search. It was before Tennessee's adoption records were opened to children seeking the identities of birth parents or lost siblings. The hitch was that if the state found those relatives, it would be up to the relatives whether they would agree to be contacted. Mary and Teresa were determined to find their brothers and sisters without the state being able to tell them what they couldn't do.

As they grew up, Mary and Teresa married and had lives of their own. Mary and her husband, Chuck Lamb, a former Army intelligence officer, have been together 30 years, devoting much of their lives to building their trucking company. Teresa had children and moved from Tennessee. They were occupied with the toil of living.

Still, they couldn't let go of the past. "We didn't really know how to go about it," says Mary, but they asked around. They wrote to the state. They contacted the orphanage. Each time, they hit a dead end, says Chuck Lamb.

Recently, though, Mary developed a mild case of multiple sclerosis that sometimes causes her to walk with a cane. She wonders about her family's health history, says Chuck. "But, more than that, she just wants to know something about her family," he says.

As Mary and Teresa became more serious they dredged up as many memories as possible. The biggest break came when one of them remembered their adoptive parents telling them once that they were baptized as infants. It was an unguarded moment for the secretive couple who saw no harm in telling their girls it was in a Catholic church in Dyersburg, where their birth parents had lived. Mary and Teresa contacted the church, which sent baptismal records to them as confirmation of the adoptions. On the records was a revelation -- the names of birth parents "Delbert Williams and Margaret Estes."

"I don't know why they had different last names. I just don't know how that pans out," says Mary, who was even more mystified when she and Teresa were unable to find any definitive clues about the couple. "They may have moved from somewhere else to Dyersburg. One person thinks my father may have worked a farm for someone else, and my mom, I guess, took care of us (the five children)." The father may have contracted tuberculosis and been unable to work, someone suggested.

Again, Mary and Teresa receded into their own daily lives, letting the search grow cold until, finally, there was another breakthrough. Their calls to St. Peter did not go completely unheeded. A woman, a social worker who once worked at the orphanage, agreed to talk to them. The woman, like Mary and Teresa, grew up in an era in which adoption rules were supposed to be inviolable. Mary slowly gained the social worker's confidence and promised her confidentiality. It led to names of the lost siblings and to the schools they attended in Memphis. That led to high school annuals and to photographs that to Mary were like looking into a mirror.

"There's no doubt it's them. The noses, the chins, the hair, their foreheads. We all look alike. We are all small-framed people, even the brother," she says.

The brother's name was James Thomas Williams. He attended Catholic High School. The sisters' names were Rose Marie and Loretta. They used their birth father's last name, Williams. The smallest details now are tantalizing links that Mary hopes will lead to a reunion. Rose Marie graduated in 1960. She was in the Sacred Heart business education club and Quill and Scroll. She was class treasurer, home room president, a member of the glee club. She played basketball and volleyball. She acted in a school play and had perfect attendance. Loretta graduated in 1963 and had been a member of the student council, the French club, athletic club and business education club. There was less detail about James, who used the nickname "Jimmy" and graduated in 1968.

"It's just me and my sister now. We don't have any of the blood family. We just think that before we get too much older or aren't able to get around we want to know about them," says Mary, grateful for the one sister she has always known.

It was Chuck who placed the ad with Mary's brother and sisters' names in large letters at the top and the simple message: "Mary Ann & Teresa Searching for you. Call Chuck ."

Contact reporter Michael Lollar at . To read more stories by him, click on Contact Us at commercialappeal.com and click on his name.

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UTAH: Woman Accued of Stealing Adoption Records, Investigation Said Unethical, March 19, 2008

2008-03-19T11:55:00.000-04:00

KUTV-TV, Salt Lake City
March 19, 2008

Woman Accused Of Stealing Adoption Records, Investigation Said Unethical

A woman who helps adopted people find their birth parents is now facing charges for stealing sealed adoption records. The woman claims innocence and adds that police were unethical in the investigation.

In an emotional interview, Jill Ekstrom tells 2News reporter Jennifer Stagg of how police used another man’s identity to have her notify the real birth mother that she would be able to see her birth child.

“A Davis County detective had me call a birth mother, and tell her she was going to get to meet her child!” Said Ekstrom, with tears streaming down her face. “They stole a man's identity, they had me call his birth mother,” she briefly pauses to regain control of her emotions and says, “imagine if it were your mother!”

It all started when a man named “Chris” contacted Ekstrom through an e-mail.

Chris, who was in fact a Davis County detective, told Ekstrom that he was an adopted person looking for his birth parents.

As she has done for thousands before, Ekstrom agreed to help find the birth parents.

For the past ten years, Ekstrom has made her living reuniting families as a confidential intermediary. This is someone who, for a fee, tracks down birth families and adopted children.

“I would go to court, I would be given the birth mother's name, she would need to be located, she would have to give permission, the adoptee would have to give permission, and the adopted parents would have to give permission,” says Ekstrom.

This time, Davis County Police say that Ekstrom broke the law when tying to help the undercover detective find the birth parents.

Authorities say that Eksrtom went to the Davis County courthouse to conduct research. There she allegedly stole three to five rolls of microfilm.

Ekstrom denies the claims.

“I never stole them. I never stole adoption microfilm,” says Ekstrom.

Police say that they are confident that Eksrtom is guilty because she was in fact able to contact the birth mother.

But what about the overjoyed birth mother who was lied to, when told that she would be able to see her birth child?

Davis County Prosecutor Rick Westmoreland says that officer did not foresee the potential ethical problems when planning the investigation.
“There's certainly things that could have been done that weren't. We live and learn in law enforcement all the time,” says Westmoreland.

Jill Ekstrom is now facing 21 counts of altering public records.

The adoptee and birth family whose information was used in the sting, without their consent, has reached an agreement with Davis County. The specifics of that deal are being kept confidential.

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UNITED STATES: In Juno, Adoption Pain is Left on Cutting Room Floor by Jean Strauss, March 19, 2008

2008-03-19T10:55:00.003-04:00

USA TODAY
March 19, 2008

In Juno, adoption pain is left on cutting room floor
By Jean Strauss

Ever since I watched it, the film Juno has kept me up nights. I know millions of people love this film about a pregnant teen and would skewer me for my concern about it. Yes, it's witty and Juno is a unique character. But the film doesn't portray important realities about adoption. Juno is a modern-day Pied Piper that could lure many young women to a far different reality than the one implied on screen.

(Photo - Girl, interrupted: Ellen Page was nominated for an Oscar for her pregnant Juno. / Reuters)

Supposedly representative of today's generation, wisecracking Juno's solution for her unwanted pregnancy is strangely wrapped in pretty paper from a half-century ago. When she decides to have a closed adoption (meaning that she'll never have any contact with her child again, nor will the child ever be able to know her), the film reflects not current adoption practices but a bygone era. When the adopting parents' lawyer suggests they're willing to negotiate an open adoption (with at least some contact between the parties), Juno responds, "Can't we just kick it old school? … You know, like Moses in the reeds."

The adopting parents and the lawyer share a glance, like antique hunters at a swap meet about to make off with a treasured heirloom for pennies. Asking whether Juno means she wants a traditional closed adoption, she responds, "Sh— yeah. Close it up." Toss in a sweet ending where the audience is assured that Juno will be just fine as she strums her guitar on the curb, and she becomes a dead ringer for all those birth mothers of the '40s, '50s and '60s who supposedly gave up their babies and got on with their lives. The problem is, those mothers who relinquished children long ago would tell you there was never a "happily ever after."

My experience

After a quarter-century of listening to and writing about birth mothers' experiences, I am comfortable suggesting that Juno is pure fiction. No woman, whether 16 or 36, gives up her own child with the words, "He didn't feel like ours. … I think he was always hers." This is simply dialogue made up by screenwriter Diablo Cody, a former stripper who has never relinquished a child nor even given birth.

In the film, Juno's baby is called "the thing." As an adoptee myself, I identified a bit with "the thing" and its impending closed adoption. I grew up with no knowledge of my birth family, no medical history, no past — and no right to ever know these things. Like anyone who feels she understands something from "inside" an experience, I cringed at the film's implication that preserving a lifelong connection between Juno and her son was somehow less important than the adoptive mother's desperate need to have a baby, any baby. I cringed as the audience laughed at lines such as, "You should have gone to China. I heard they give away babies like free iPods. They shoot 'em out of those T-shirt guns at sports events."

But whether Cody got it right or not, my real concern is the influence this film might have on teenage girls and young women. They believe that Juno is a hero who blissfully returns to her young life, unaffected by giving up her son. This same myth was promulgated to Baby Boomer-era birth mothers. They were convinced by agencies, lawyers, social workers and even their own parents that they would forget about their babies and move on. But they didn't. As a birth mother in a recent USA TODAY article said, "We hoped the pain would go away, but it never did." Her experience is echoed in the stories of hundreds of thousands of birth mothers.

Painful secrets

Juno would have us believe that a birth mother's offer of a closed adoption is a sign of the character's generous spirit. But openness doesn't imply selfishness. Openness exists in adoption today because the secrets caused too much pain. Today's birth mothers want openness — as do many adoptive parents — because they feel it is in their own best interests and their child's.

Don't misunderstand — I am not against adoption, nor am I against finding humor in painful situations. What I am against is the idea that secrecy benefits anyone, and I'm deeply concerned about the misrepresentation of adoption's realities. Juno makes an unwanted pregnancy look like a great experience, akin to a year in the Peace Corps. The film's light finale, with Juno unchanged by what she has gone through, is harmful fiction of the worst kind. She is seducing girls and young women into believing that they could — and even should — give away their own child, as if they were giving away a favorite toy, just to be nice.

Jean Strauss is a writer and filmmaker from Bainbridge Island, Wash. Her work includes Penguin's Birthright: The Guide to Search and Reunion and the award-winning short adoption film The Triumvirate.
Posted at 12:15 AM/ET, March 19, 2008 in Family - Forum, Forum commentary, Lifestyle issues - Forum | Permalink

USA TODAY welcomes your views and encourages lively -- but civil -- discussions. Comments are unedited, but submissions reported as abusive may be removed. By posting a comment, you affirm that you are 13 years of age or older.

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UTAH: Adoption "finder" proclaims her innocence, March 17, 2008

2008-03-18T10:22:00.007-04:00

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DESERET MORNING NEWS
March 17, 2008

Adoption 'finder' proclaims her innocence
By Ben Winslow

BRIGHAM CITY — Jill Ekstrom says she's innocent.

"I'm not going to plead guilty to something I didn't do," she said Monday, after appearing here in 1st District Court to face 21 counts of altering public records, a class A misdemeanor.

Ekstrom is accused of stealing hundreds of sealed adoption records from Farmington's 2nd District Courthouse. But she told reporters outside of court that she did not take dozens of rolls of microfilm, and questioned Davis County prosecutors' motives for charging her.

"Davis County had microfilm in a room that was unmarked as being off-limits. Records that were supposed to be sealed were left in a room that was unattended," she said. "Anybody could have taken them."

Ekstrom says she did know that sealed adoption records were in the room behind the clerk's counter at the 2nd District Courthouse. She was told that much when she was let in by a clerk to look up some other public records.

As a "finder," Ekstrom has made a career of helping reunite long lost relatives or adopted children with their birth parents. Ekstrom claims that in her career, she has arranged more than 9,000 reunifications.

"I was a mediator," she said Monday. "I never gave information unless all parties agreed to it."

Ekstrom said she remembers complaining to a relative about the sealed records being in a publicly-accessible room, and that's what led to the charges against her. That relative, she claims, was under investigation for raping another family member. When she sided with the family member, she claims the man then ran to prosecutors with the allegation that she had stolen the microfilm.

Meanwhile, she said, Davis County sheriff's deputies posed as an adopted child searching for a birth mom and "pressured" her to find them.

"Defendant charged $850 to find the natural parents and was able to locate the mother of the adopted child," Davis County sheriff's detective Jon West wrote in a probable cause statement filed with the charges.

It was that sting operation that led to her being charged, after dozens of microfilm records came up missing. Prosecutors have said the microfilm has never been found. Initially, Ekstrom faced felony level theft charges. Recently, the case was amended to the misdemeanor counts.

Davis County prosecutors deny Ekstrom's allegations.

"It's asinine," Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings said Monday. "We did not pursue that (rape) case because there was a lack of evidence. These cases are totally independent."

In court, Ekstrom's court-appointed defense attorney told Judge Ben Hadfield they may be able to reach a plea deal.

"We're hoping it's something we can resolve," said Bernie Allen, scheduling a March 31 hearing. Davis County prosecutors said they were also hopeful for a resolution, but said nothing specific had been discussed.

Outside of court, Ekstrom vowed to fight the case all the way to trial to prove her innocence. She was surrounded by a small group of supporters.

"The truth will come out," said Pat Cory, who escorted Ekstrom in and out of court. Ekstrom carted an oxygen tank with her and said she was scheduled to undergo surgery for a broken neck.

Meanwhile, the 2nd District Courthouse has upgraded its security in light of the criminal case against Ekstrom.

"The court has now put a (keypad) lock on that door," said deputy Davis County Attorney Rick Westmoreland. "It's not as readily accessible. No one can get in there without a clerk."

E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com

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MICHIGAN: Release of Adoptee Medical Records Could Expose Birth Parents, March 17, 2008

2008-03-18T10:14:00.005-04:00

GRAND RAPIDS PRESS
March 17, 2008

Release of adoptee medical records could expose birth parents
Posted by Kyla King | The Grand Rapids Press March 17, 2008 07:51AM

ALLENDALE -- Until she was reunited with her birth mother three years ago, Karen Kemme never knew the hereditary disease cystic fibrosis ran in her biological family.

Even so, the Allendale Township mother of three has serious concerns about a proposed state law supporters say would help adult adoptees in her situation.

A bill that soon could be voted on in the House would allow some adult adoptees to get information about their biological family's medical history, and possibly copies of their original birth certificate.

The proposal is controversial because, as written, it could also allow access to the names of birth parents even if they wish to remain anonymous.

"I think there should be consideration on both sides because it's a very emotional thing -- my (biological) brothers and sisters didn't even know about me. (My biological mother) had to sit down with her family and say, 'Listen, I had a baby I released for adoption when I was 16,'" said Kemme -- who, it turns out, does not carry the trait that causes breathing and digestion problems.

Bill sponsor Rep. Lisa Wojno, D-Warren, says the legislation is aimed at helping adoptees learn if they are at higher risk for cancer, hereditary diseases or illnesses.

But the bill has raised concerns at Grand Rapids-based adoption assistance agency Bethany Christian Services because, as now written, it could allow access to birth certificates that previously could not be accessed without the consent of the biological parent.

Adoption advocates worry pregnant women will be discouraged from choosing adoption because of privacy concerns, said Bethany spokesman John VanValkenburg.

"In many cases those records have been sealed for decades," VanValkenburg said. "That confidentiality has been there for sometimes very valid reasons."

Michigan law allows some adopted individuals to get birth certificates once they become adults. But for those adopted between May 1945 and September 1980, a copy of the original birth certificate showing the names of biological parents is available only with a court order. Otherwise, the documents are sealed.
Adapting adoption

A look at legislation that would let adopted individuals get a copy of their birth certificate when they turn 21:

Why: To help adoptees get information about their biological family's medical history.

What is the concern: Birth certificates of children adopted between May 1945 and September 1980 previously have been accessible only with a court order. The proposed law could identify birth parents who may wish to remain anonymous.

Changes being considered: Lawmakers are considering revisions to protect privacy concerns.

State Rep. Fulton Sheen, R-Plainwell, opposed the bill when it passed out of committee saying it could violate confidentiality promises made to birth parents years ago. Sheen said the legislation is undergoing revisions he hopes will address privacy concerns before it comes for vote before the full House.

"I don't think we should be choosing whose rights are more important," Sheen said. "For those parents who don't want to be found, they ought to be able to give them the health information but have their names removed."

In Kemme's case, the 42-year-old used a confidential go-between at Bethany to make the initial contact with her birth mother, even though her birth mother had signed a form letting the state release her identity.

But even if her birth mother had not wanted to be identified, Kemme said she could have used the same confidential process to exchange medical history information.

"There was no law stopping me from doing that," Kemme said. "It would have happened the same way."

Bonnie Baker Harris, a post-adoption specialist at Bethany, said the agency regularly helps adult adoptees and their biological parents confidentially share medical histories about allergies, heart disease and other conditions.

"Birth moms are usually very relieved to find out that is an option for them to help that child access that information without having to jeopardize their need for confidentiality," Baker Harris said. "Usually, that's because the birth mother never shared with anybody the fact that she did have a child and released this child for adoption."

-- The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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NEW JERSEY: Commentary--Adoptees Back Action by Legislators for Right to Learn Who They Are, March 16, 2008

2008-03-16T14:27:00.008-04:00

ASBURY PARK PRESS
March 16, 2008

Adoptees back action by legislators for right to learn who they are
By PEGGI STURMFELS March 16, 2008

Our state legislators are considering legislation to restore to more than 150,000 citizens their right to know who they are. Adoptees over the age of 18 would have access to their original birth certificate, or access to their family history, including medical, cultural and social information.

As these deliberations take place, I would ask that the legislators take a moment to see a moment (or many moments) of my life. Sometimes it is a seemingly benign comment. At a lively discussion with a group of friends, one member decries what the "bastards" did. While others laughed, I cringed a little. Bastard was the offensive word and bastard is what I am.

I have lived for more than half a century in a world that defines me as less than — or must prove myself as worthy of personage as — my friends, my neighbors, strangers and my family.

Our culture diminishes adopted children in many subtle ways most folks don't even think about. In words and laws, adoptees have been thrown into a caste system that encourages secrecy and shame. And somehow we have allowed the children who have had no say in the causative circumstance or the behavior to be the bearers of that secrecy and shame.

For centuries, bastard children could not inherit from their biological parent, unless that parent acknowledged them. That acknowledgment often happened by adoption. Then and even today, adopted children have to be specifically acknowledged in some wills.

"Orphans" are thought of as poor souls, conjuring up images of Oliver Twist, malnourished children and rat-infested living quarters. Adoption became a way of rescuing them. But with the rescue, we often put upon them the burden of showing they are worthy of that effort.

We feel that they should be grateful for the chance of being adopted. And we question the appropriateness of their behavior should they ask the questions that all people have a birthright of knowing the answers to.

Have you sat with your kids, looking through the family album or old pictures, telling them the stories of their history? The stories passed down through generations that completes their legacy and gives them a past to build their future.

I've got that, too. But the nagging truth is that mine is borrowed. So who am I really? The agency said I was the shame of a one-night stand. I preferred my version of the love child of two people torn apart by circumstance and time. Newfound family members share different facts that bear no resemblance to the ones my adoptive parents were told.

Critics of these bills talk about a presumed pact made with birth mothers to protect them from public scrutiny.

But who protected the children from public ridicule? Who went and stood beside the children in the school yards as kids taunted them, telling them that something was so horrible about them that their own mothers didn't want them?

Who benefited from the incomplete grade received on the seventh grade science project requiring students to trace their family tree? What pact held these kids in their arms at family reunion gatherings that made them outsiders? What regulation explained away the fear and hurt of hearing your cousins being referred to as the "real grandchildren" by your grandmother?

What document gave comfort or support every time a doctor asked about family medical history and the answer is always "I don't know"? And who was served when polite people and the state decided that bastards were to be labeled illegitimate.

Protecting the privacy of one family so often abused the everyday living of the child given away. And their family, too.

Tell me what day you were born? Me? On or about Dec. 10, no one is sure. Tell me what ethnic background you claim? Me? I've been told either Irish or Scottish, maybe some English. Recently, I might be Swedish.

When did you take your first step? What were your first words? Where did you spend the first three years of your life? Whose eyes do you have? Whose smile? Nose? Me? Again, nothing.

One of my quirky little "adoption" phobias? I refused to date anyone with red hair, because I was afraid he might be my brother.

How was your parents' health? Arthritis, strokes, breast cancer, Alzheimer's, etc.? And your children, who do they look like? Do they have a heart condition? Hearing loss? Kidney disease? Allergies and asthma?

And their children, a new generation now faced with having to have genetic testing because there are no answers to basic questions. My decades-long search for answers has revealed half-sisters and half-brothers, cousins, aunts and uncles and stories that didn't match the agency's "unidentifying" information. But only possibly — because absent my birth certificate — there is no verification, no certainty that I belong to these people.

Let me say one more thing about this need to protect the birth mothers, or the adoptive mothers from this horrible secret pain (their child) that they have had to endure. As a mother, both biological and adoptive, it is my obligation to do everything I can to ensure the emotional health of my child. When my daughter needed to find answers, my husband and I did whatever was needed to help her make that journey, even though we were frightened by what she might find.

Passage of open records for adoptees will restore to hundreds of adoptees in New Jersey and their families the basic human right to know who they are. It's what you've known all along. Why can't we?

Peggi Sturmfels, Jackson, is a member of NJCARES, a network of volunteers, donors, service groups and charities.

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UNITED STATES: States that Provide Certificates for Stillbirth, March 15, 2008

2008-03-15T12:28:00.004-04:00

GRAND FORKS (ND) HERALD
March 15, 2008

States that provide certificates for stillbirth

The Associated Press - Saturday, March 15, 2008

Nebraska lawmakers have given first-round approval to legislation (LB1048) that would create a certificate of birth resulting in stillbirth.

Twenty-one states already have laws allowing such certificates. They are: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin.

An additional 12 states - Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Oregon and Wyoming - have laws that provide for certificates of stillbirth.

There are 17 states without laws on birth certificates for stillborn babies. Legislation is pending in Alaska, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania. Three states - Georgia, Iowa and Kentucky - have no formal laws on the certificates, but allow the documents to be granted upon request.

Sources: National Conference of State Legislators, The MISS Foundation

___

On the Net:

National Conference of State Legislators: http://www.ncsl.org/

The MISS Foundation: http://www.missfoundation.org/

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NEW YORK: No Jello-o Fortune for Longview Woman, March 14, 2008

2008-03-14T20:06:00.000-04:00

LONGVIEW (WA) DAILY NEWS
March 14, 2008

No Jell-O fortune for Longview woman
Friday, March 14, 2008 8:41 AM PDT

A Longview woman born out of wedlock to a direct descendant of the family that struck it rich marketing Jell-O more than a century ago has been denied what she considers her just desserts.

The Court of Appeals, New York's highest court, ruled Thursday that Elizabeth McNabb of Longview cannot share in the multimillion-dollar estate of her late mother, Barbara Woodward Piel.

Thursday afternoon, a receptionist at Northwest Psychological Resources in Longview, where McNabb works, said McNabb had no comment. McNabb and her husband, Duke, a Norpac operator, are licensed foster parents who have sheltered more than 160 children at their Longview home since 1993. They have two adult children of their own.

Piel's grandfather, Orator Francis Woodward, bought the Jell-O trademark in 1899 from inventor Pearle Bixby Wait. Within a decade, he turned it into a million-dollar business.

Piel became pregnant in 1955 after a liaison with a married man and put the child - later named Elizabeth McNabb - up for adoption in Oregon. Piel soon married and had two other daughters.

At age 19, McNabb embarked on a long quest to find her birth mother. She finally traced her birth certificate through a court order in 1988 and learned about her family history during a four-day visit with Piel in rural Genesee County near Rochester.

In March 2007, McNabb told the New York Law Journal the case wasn't about the money -- it was about establishing her relationship to her family. When she began looking for her birth mother in 1974 at age 19, she half-expected to find a "bag lady" because many women who choose adoption are poor, she said.

A story about McNabb's quest appeared in The Daily News a year ago.

After Piel's death in 2003, McNabb was told two trusts established in 1926 and 1963 barred her from sharing in the family fortune. A county surrogate judge decided in December 2005 that, as an "adopted-out" child, McNabb was not a descendant or child of Piel under the terms of the trust.

An appellate court in Rochester reversed that decision a year ago, effectively awarding McNabb a one-third share. It determined the trusts predated amendments to New York law dictating that an adopted child could not inherit from a biological parent unless it was clear the parent planned to include the child among descendants.

The appeals court in Albany disagreed, saying there's no evidence in the legislative history, even before the amendments, indicating that a child put up for adoption should share in an inheritance.

"The amount involved here is about $12 million," said attorney A. Vincent Buzard, who represented McNabb's half-sisters. "If Elizabeth McNabb had been specifically named in the trust, even though adopted-out, she could have shared in this, but she wasn't named."

Wait, a carpenter in Le Roy, N.Y., mixed fruit flavoring into gelatin and began selling the sweet concoction door-to-door in March 1897.

His wife christened it Jell-O. Door-to-door sales never picked up, so Wait sold Jell-O to Woodward for $450. When Wait died in 1915 at age 44, his widow had to take in sewing jobs and boarders to feed the family.

The Jell-O brand is now owned by Kraft Foods Inc.

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NEW JERSEY: NJ Bill Would Open Birth records to Adoptees, March 14, 2008

2008-03-14T14:20:00.000-04:00

PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
March 14, 2008

N.J. bill would open birth records to adoptees

By Adrienne Lu

Inquirer Trenton Bureau
Like many adoptees, Heather Mulford goes through life with questions she may never get answered.

She wonders why her blond hair started turning gray when she turned 18. She worries about passing hidden genetic problems on to her three young children. And she would like to know which country or countries she could trace her roots to.

But unlike some adoptees, Mulford - a 38-year-old high school social studies teacher from Chester Springs - says she spends very little time pondering such questions.

"I'm not a huge believer in genetics," says Mulford. "Being a mom is getting up in the middle of the night and dealing with the fevers and kissing the scraped knees and rushing to the hospital to get stitches."

"Giving birth," she adds emphatically, "is just biological."

Even so, a TV program broadcast recently about another state giving adult adoptees access to their birth records caught Mulford's attention enough to send her to the Internet to look up information about a similar bill pending in New Jersey.

If signed into law, that bill would allow adult adoptees from New Jersey, such as Mulford, access to their original birth certificates, including their birth mothers' names - assuming the birth mother does not notify the state otherwise within a set period. The bill has cleared the Senate and is headed to the Assembly.

The issue is a sensitive one, given the delicate balance between an adult adoptee's right to know more about his or her origins and a birth parent's right to privacy.

In some cases, birth parents were promised by adoption agencies that the records would be sealed forever. According to the nonprofit Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, the courts have typically found that such promises contradicted state law and are not legally binding. But no matter what the law says, some remain uncomfortable with the idea of the state breaking a promise made by someone else.

In New Jersey, some adoptees and advocate groups, including the New Jersey Coalition for Adoption Reform and Education, have been fighting for years to give adult adoptees access to information about their births and adoptions.

Few with firsthand experience on the other side of the issue are willing to speak out, however, because in many cases to do so would mean revealing secrets they had hoped to keep hidden for life.

Search for information
David Brodzinsky, a clinical and developmental psychologist who taught at Rutgers University for 32 years and now lives in California, said all human beings search for themselves, at some level. An adoptee's search for information about birth families, he said, is simply an extension of that search.

In addition, adoptees can feel emotionally undermined by the lack of control created when a state bars them from information on their own backgrounds, he said.

Mulford, who was adopted from New Jersey, says her parents never made her adoption - or those of her brother and sister - an issue.

Their parents answered questions about their adoptions much like any other parent would answer questions about their children's births, she says. In Mulford's case, the adoption story included an account of a ride home on a corporate jet when she was just three days old, an account that made her, as a child, feel important and wanted.

No grudges
Mulford holds no grudges against her birth mother, she says. Instead, she's grateful that woman made the decision she did so that Mulford could grow up in a loving family.

"If anything, I've felt overloved, because if you think about it, adoptees are wanted," she says. "The parents go out of their way to have their child."

Still, Mulford says, becoming a mother herself prompted her to start thinking about how nice it would be to be able to answer some of the questions at doctors' offices - whether this or that disease or condition runs in her family, for example.

Even so, Mulford says she would never demand to learn her birth mother's name if she would rather not be known.

Such mixed feelings are not uncommon among adoptees, Brodzinsky said.

"It's natural to have some degree of ambivalence," he said. "It may be about many things. You may be curious but anxious about what you'll find out or how you'll be received. We're always anxious about the unknown."

In his experience counseling adoptees, Brodzinsky said, most who do undertake a search are glad they did, even when it doesn't go as well as they had hoped.

"Most people are glad that they searched because it has helped them to answer questions," he said.

Some adoptees develop a compulsion to find their birth families.

Mulford, though, is not one of those people. She is not sure she would want to meet her birth mother, if given the option, although she would like to reassure her that she made the right decision.

Mulford imagines her birth mother was an unwed teenage girl who might appreciate knowing that the baby she gave up is now a mother and a teacher, a productive member of society.

She also worries that she could hurt her parents' feelings by seeking out her birth mother. She takes offense when some people refer to them as her "adoptive" parents. To her, she says, they are simply her parents - no qualifier necessary.

Mulford says she doesn't understand the adoptees who talk endlessly about the emptiness they feel inside because they were adopted.

"Live for what you have," she says. "If you spend your life feeling a void, how about appreciating what you have?"

"I guess," she concludes, "that's the way my parents raised me."

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GERMANY: Sibling Sex Prosecutable in Germany, March 13, 2008

2008-03-13T15:03:00.000-04:00

DER SPIEGEL March 13, 2008

Sibling Sex Remains Prosecutable in Germany

Germany's high court ruled on Thursday that laws against incest do not violate the constitution. The ruling means that a man in a high-profile national incest case will soon be sent to prison for siring four children with his sister.

Siblings Patrick und Susan K. have had four children together. Patrick now faces an extended prison sentence.

Germany's Constitutional Court, the country's highest judicial body, ruled on Thursday that incest in Germany violates the country's Basic Law. The judges rejected a petition by Patrick K. to overturn previous incest convictions

According to paragraph 173 of the German Criminal Code, sexual relations between siblings is punishable by a fine or up to two years in prison. That law, the Karlsruhe court ruled on Thursday, is in accordance with the federal constitution.

In its ruling, the court stated legislators had not overreached their jurisdiction with laws that "protect the family order by punishing the damaging effects of incest." The inferior partner in such cases, the court said, must be protected. The court also stated that children spawned through incest had an increased risk of suffering from severe genetic damage.

The court's vice president, Winfred Hassemer, offered the sole dissent -- saying he felt the punishment must be commensurate with the offense, and that this went too far. "Much speaks for the fact that the regulation in its current state is based exclusively on moral beliefs rather than with the objective of legal protection."

Thursday's decision marks the end of an appeal by 30-year-old Patrick K., a resident of the eastern German city of Leipzig who fathered four children together with his sister. With the ruling, he will now have to serve a two-and-a-half year prison sentence.

Patrick S. and his 23-year-old sister Susan K. grew up in separate households. Patrick, seven years her senior, grew up in orphanages and foster homes, and the two first became acquainted after he had sought out his birth mother in 2000. At the time, Patrick was 23 and Susan 16. Susan would later give birth to the pair's four children, sparking investigations that resulted in several incest convictions.

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UTAH: Prosecutors Amend Charges in Adoption Records Theft, March 12, 2008

2008-03-12T22:40:00.003-04:00

SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
March 12, 2008

Prosecutors amend charges in adoption records theft
The Associated Press
Article Last Updated: 03/12/2008 12:41:02 PM MDT

FARMINGTON - A North Ogden woman who prosecutors say stole hundreds of confidential adoption records from the 2nd District Courthouse is facing new charges that could result in more prison time.

Jill Ekstrom, 43, was charged with second-degree felony theft in January. Prosecutors say she stole the records to sell them to adopted children who hoped to identify their biological parents.

Instead of a felony, prosecutors have amended that charge to include 21 counts of altering public records, a class A misdemeanor. Each count of altering public records is punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine, making Ekstrom eligible for as many as 21 years in prison if convicted.

Under the original charge, Ekstrom would have faced a maximum sentence of 15 years if convicted.

"How do I put a value on somebody's privacy?" deputy Davis County attorney Rick Westmoreland said Tuesday. "There's a reason those records are sealed."

Ekstrom's attorney, Dee Smith, said Ekstrom will plead not guilty to the charges. Smith said he's pleased that the felony charge has been dropped in favor of the misdemeanor charges.

"If she was convicted, it's better to be convicted of a misdemeanor regardless of then number than a felony because of the special consequences that go with being a convicted felon," Smith said

According to a probable cause statement filed with the criminal charges, Ekstrom is accused of going through microfilm records at the courthouse in February 2006.

Shortly thereafter, clerks found microfilm involving several hundred cases concerning adoptions were missing, which were in the same area defendant had been seen," Davis County sheriff's deputy Jon West wrote.

"Defendant was found to have a business which helped people locate natural parents of adoptive children. A sting was set up where defendant was contacted on behalf of one of the missing files. Defendant charged $850 to find the natural parents and was able to locate the mother of the adopted child."

The charging documents say Ekstrom's daughter told police that her mother had between a dozen and 50 rolls of microfilm in her possession from the Farmington courthouse and the LDS Family History Center.

Ekstrom's work is not illegal, if both parties agree to it. She could also petition a judge to unseal part or all of an adoption record on behalf of one of her clients. Under Utah law, adoption records are sealed for 100 years. The Utah Department of Health's vital statistics bureau operates a "mutual consent voluntary adoption registry" which releases information only when both sides register and both sides are over 21.

Ekstrom is scheduled to appear in court on the charges on Monday in Brigham City's 1st District Court. The case was transferred there because of the Farmington courthouse's involvement in the case.

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NEW JERSEY: Birth Records Focus on Debate, March 12, 2008

2008-03-12T22:31:00.004-04:00

EASTON (PA) EXPRESS-TIMES
March 12, 2008

Birth records focus of debate
March 12, 2008
By Trish G. Graber

TRENTON | Amy Lerke-Gonzalez always wondered whether she looked like her birth mother.

But the Washington resident, adopted at 2 days old, never sought out her birth mother.

"I always felt like my mother who adopted me was my mother," said Lerke-Gonzalez.

At 40 years old, Lerke-Gonzalez is still unsure whether or not she will ever contact her birth mother.

But Lerke-Gonzalez, herself an adoptive parent, is sure of one thing: She and other adoptees should at least have the opportunity to learn about their roots.

A state proposal, which has been debated for more than 20 years, is again making its way through the Legislature and would give adoptees the ability do so.

The bill would unseal state adoption records, providing adoptees access to their original birth certificate at the age of 18. It would also allow the adoptive parents of a minor access to the information.

Advocates who have pushed for the measure say that adoptees have the right to know their cultural background as well as their medical history.

"We've done nothing to get born at a time when our parents either believed or were persuaded that they couldn't care for us, and we get punished," said Pam Hasegawa, spokeswoman for the New Jersey Coalition for Adoption Reform and Education.

According to Hasegawa, about 150,000 adoption records remain sealed in New Jersey.

Seven states allow access to records

Only seven states allow adoptees access to their original birth certificates, according to NJCARE. They are Alabama, Alaska, Delaware, Kansas, New Hampshire, Oregon and Tennessee.

Typically, an amended birth certificate is issued for adopted children, naming their adoptive parents and oftentimes giving the child a new name.

The legislation to provide adoptees with their original records has remained controversial because opponents believe a birth mother was guaranteed the right to privacy when she gave up her child.

"Some of these cases are sad; they involve people being raped by family members," said Patrick Brannigan, director of the New Jersey Catholic Conference. "And they were told that they can go on and live their lives and the child will be nurtured and comfortable."

Brannigan has advocated for amending the measure to allow the information to be distributed only when both the birth parents and adoptive parents agree to it.

Advocates for opening the records to adoptees have shown no signs of making such a concession. And supporters, like Lerke-Gonzalez, remain adamant.

"I think that once a child is 18 that they should know," Lerke-Gonzalez said. "I think it helps in a lot of ways, not just health-wise but for their own heart."

Lerke-Gonzalez learned of her mother's background after receiving a letter 17 years ago from the New York state registrar. It said her mother was trying to contact her and included a phone number for her biological brother, Max.

Lerke-Gonzalez made the call and spoke to Max's wife.

She never called her birth mother.

"I just really didn't feel that I had anything to say to her," she said.

Lerke-Gonzalez never sought out her medical information -- but, advocates believe, at least she had the ability to do so.

Advocates hope bill finally passed

Advocates are hoping that this year a law will be enacted to give others the same opportunity.

The state proposal was approved by the Senate last week.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Joseph Vitale, D-Middlesex, would unearth original birth certificates for adoptees.

However, it would allow a one-time, one-year window from the time the law is signed for birth parents to contact the state to specify that they want their identities kept private.

If their identities are withheld, birth parents would have to disclose their medical, cultural and social history, which would be provided to the adoptee upon request.

Birth parents could also stipulate if and how they would like to be contacted.

"This bill has been around in the state Legislature for a long time, and I believe we've been successful in crafting a measure which gives birth parents ample protection, should they desire it," said Vitale.

The measure must still be considered by the General Assembly.

Trish Graber is Trenton correspondent for The Express-Times. She can be reached at 609-292-5154.

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GERMANY: Dangerous Love--German High Court Takes a Look at Incest, March 11, 2008

2008-03-12T22:22:00.004-04:00

DER SPIEGEL
March 11, 2008

DANGEROUS LOVE
German High Court Takes a Look at Incest

By Dietmar Hipp

Must consensual sex between close relatives be punished? Germany's highest court is

Brother and sister, and lovers with four children. Patrick and Susan from Leipzig.

At first sight they look like an ordinary couple, strolling through the park withtheir child and their dog. But when the two adults hug each other their physical similarities are unmistakable. They have the same pronounced nose, the same blue-green eyes, and the same thin lips. Patrick S. and Susan K. are brother and sister. They are an incestuous couple.

Since Susan became pregnant with Patrick's child and their relationship became known to the authorities, they have been prosecuted repeatedly. Their case touches an age-old taboo, it's exotic and tragic at the same time. "Coitus between relatives" is illegal in German law and punishable with a fine or a jail sentence.

Patrick S. has served a jail sentence of more than two years because of his love for his sister, and he may have to go back to jail for at least another year, unless Germany's Federal Constitutional Court rules in his favor. The verdict is expected soon.

The key issue is whether the protection of a powerful moral taboo is sufficient justification for punishment. And whether there are reasons beyond that taboo for locking someone up, for depriving children of their father, a woman of her partner.

Some 2-4 percent of the population have "incestuous experiences", according to an estimate by the Freiburg-based Max Planck Institute. There are fewer than 10 convictions for incestuous sex in Germany per year.

Incest trials usually involve a father's abuse of an under-age daughter, which is punishable under a separate law on abusing minors. Even cases of incest between siblings that come to trial are usually based on sexual abuse charges.

Consensual Incest

But in cases of incest between two consenting partners like Susan K. and Patrick S. there is no victim to be protected. Theirs is a rare case. Patrick S. was born in Leipzig in 1976, the second of five children. His sister Susan K. was born eight years later, and he didn't meet her until he was 23.

The father was a violent alcoholic. When Patrick was three years old his father grabbed him and held a knife to his throat. Neighbors called the police and Patrick was taken into care before being handed to foster parents near Potsdam. His new family adopted him, but they eventually told him they weren't his real parents.

Patrick is a shy man. When he speaks, he frequently looks down at the floor, tells his story with few words and a soft voice. When he was 23 he went to the youth welfare office to find his real mother. A few days later she contacted him.

On May 20, 2000 he travelled to Leipzig to see his mother again for the first time in 20 years. His parents had separated long before and the mother had a new partner. The three other siblings have since died, and the 16-year-old girl staring at him wide-eyed across the living room table was his sister.

Susan K. is a bit slow mentally. She looks up to her brother because he seems so capable and experienced compared to her. He was only meant to stay for a week but Patrick's mother asked him to stay longer. He said yes. "I felt drawn there," he recalls. He gave up everything. A job in Berlin, a relationship with his girlfriend at the time, and moved into a four-room flat in an apartment block near Leipzig.

There was a stepbrother who had his own room, and Patrick and his sister shared a room. No one thought anything of it and the relationship at that time was still platonic, says Patrick. Suddenly, on Dec. 12, 2000, their mother died. She had heart problems but the exact cause of death was never found.

"We couldn't cope with losing our mother," says Patrick. Before her death his relationship with his sister was "quite normal," says Patrick. Afterwards "the connection between us grew stronger because we were the only remaining children of our parents." Initially no one appeared to notice that the relationship between the two had become intimate.

Incestuous Desire Is Ages Old

The phenomenon of incestuous desire is ages old, as is the taboo surrounding it. Napoleonic France stopped punishing incest in 1810 in the wake of the declaration of civil and human rights during French Revolution that the law only has the right to prohibit such actions that are damaging to society. It's impossible, or at least very hard to prove that consensual incest does such damage.

German law since 1973 has stated that punishing incest serves to protect families from destructive influences. But social research shows that incest is more likely to be the result of family problems than the cause. Eugenic aspects, which the German statue book cites regarding sibling incest, are a poor justification for punishment. The risk of hereditary disease for offspring also exists with other people with genetic defects. Yet the German constitution would scarcely forbid such people from having children.

It's the physical proximity of siblings as they grow up that helps to suppress sexual desire between them. But if close relatives only get to know each other as adults, this no longer applies. Patrick S. and Susan K. probably wouldn't have fallen in love if they hadn't grown up apart from each other.

Endless Trials

In October 2001 Susan gave birth to their first child, a boy. A social worker suspected that her brother was the father and reported them to the police. In 2002 Patrick was first taken to court. He got a one-year suspended sentence. Then, they had a second child. The first two children are slightly physically disabled and are a little slow mentally as well. They were both taken into foster care. They then had a third child which had a heart problem, but which is now completely healthy after a heart operation.

In 2004 there was a second trial in which Susan K. was a co-defendant because she was 18 when the second child was conceived. Neither of them was assigned a defense lawyer. Patrick was sentenced to 10 months in jail. Susan was put under the supervision of a social worker for six months.

After his second conviction Patrick approached a lawyer who appealed against the verdict. Meanwhile Susan gave birth to a fourth child. It's healthy and she was allowed to keep it.

Both were put on trial again. Patrick got sentenced to one year and two months in jail, and his sister was again placed under supervision. An experienced lawyer then took over the case and managed to bring it before the Federal Constitutional Court. By November 2006 Patrick had served his second sentence. Only if the court now rules against his third sentence will he be spared a further jail term.

"One can't put this poor person in jail again," said his lawyer Endrik Wilhelm.

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MINNESOTA: Commentary--Proposal Does Not Pit Adoptees, Birth Parents, March 11, 2008

2008-03-11T21:41:00.004-04:00

MINNEAPOLIS-ST. PAUL STAR TRIBUNE
March 11, 2008

Kathy Tingelstad and Ann H. Rest: Proposal does not pit adoptees, birth parents

Instead, it carefully restores a right to basic information for those who have been adopted.

By KATHY TINGELSTAD and ANN H. REST

The March 7 Star Tribune editorial regarding the adoption legislation that we are sponsoring chose to focus on mythology about adoption rather than on the proven need for adopted persons to get their birth information.

The debate over whether adopted adults should have access to their original birth certificates is often mistakenly viewed as birth parent vs. adoptee rights. This is simply not true. The reality is that the debate is more about restoring the right that adopted persons once traditionally had to their birth information, pitted against the mythology that birth parents need protections from secrets and that the state and placing agencies should be the protectors of those secrets.

Minnesotans may not realize that when an adoption takes place, the original birth certificate that contains the birth parents' names is sealed and not available to the adopted adult. In 1917, Minnesota became the first state to seal adoption court records away from prying eyes of the public, in an era when secrets were designed to protect the child and the adoptive family. These records were always available to the adoptive family and in many cases to the birth parents.

In 1945, as secrecy became the foundation of adoption, our state joined others in sealing the birth certificate away from the parties that most needed it -- adult adoptees. As many birth mothers will attest, they were not promised confidentiality (because it could not have been guaranteed), but rather they were encouraged to forget about their adoption placement. Most of them, however, were not able to forget. And society has changed from secretive adoptions to open adoption placement celebrations. That birth parents are advocating for this legislation is evidence they want the best for the children they bore.

We, as legislators, have been working for several years with a group of grass-roots volunteers yearning to update Minnesota's antiquated laws regarding access to the original birth certificate for adult adoptees. These volunteers are adoptees, birth parents and adoptive parents who return, year after year, to advocate for reform.

They are armed with data that shows no state has undone access once the legislation has passed. They have research showing that adopted adults who are denied their birth information are harmed emotionally and are at heightened medical risk.

Our compromise legislation honors provisions for birth parents who wish to prevent the release of a birth certificate to the children they relinquished; they may sign an affidavit of nondisclosure with the Health Department. Since 1982, when this document was first implemented, there have been 1,228 filed. That preference would be honored; these birth certificates would not be released.

The Star Tribune editorial falsely stated that the legislation "would change a sensitive and fundamental aspect of the adoption process retroactively." This is not true, since the affidavit was not in existence prior to 1982, and yet it will be available both retrospectively and prospectively to birth parents wishing to use it.

Our legislation is also based on new data released last month by the Health Department showing that 11,683 birth parents signed documents stating they do wish disclosure. Yes, more than 90 percent of the birth parents signed this affidavit of disclosure! Adult adoptees would be able to get a copy of their original birth certificate; this is something nonadoptees take for granted.

Here is the crux of this legislation: It is mindful of both birth parents' and adopted adults' needs. To be characterized by the editorial as putting birth parents at risk is misleading and perpetuates harmful myths. Our legislation brings this important adoption issue up-to-date with 21st-century standards in society.

Kathy Tingelstad, R-Andover/Coon Rapids, is a member of the Minnesota House. Ann Rest, D-New Hope, is a member of the state Senate.

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ILLINOIS: Adoptees look for Their Identity, March 11, 2008

2008-03-11T21:32:00.008-04:00

Comments

CHICAGO TRIBUNE
March 11, 2008

Adoptees Look for Their Identity--Illinois bill would give better records access
By Kristen Kridel | Tribune reporter

Former Denver Broncos fullback and adoptee Howard Griffith has spent many holidays surrounded by his wife, children, parents and other family. But he's never been able to shake the feeling that something was missing.

"There's always still a sense of loneliness because you truly don't know who you are, even though you have this support system," Griffith said.

On Monday morning, he stood in support of Democratic state Rep. Sara Feigenholtz of Chicago, who is sponsoring a bill that would give many adoptees at least 21 years old access to their original birth certificates for the first time since Illinois sealed the records in the 1940s.

The bill, which has been assigned to the House Adoption Reform Committee, will be voted on Thursday, said Feigenholtz, herself an adoptee.

"We've been deprived of our history and our identity," she said. "Chapter 1 of everyone else's lives begins with a birth certificate, a document I and everyone behind me are prohibited from having."

The law would allow adoptees born before Jan. 1, 1946, to immediately get copies of their birth certificates. Those adoptees had access to their records until the state sealed them retroactively.

Anyone born after Jan. 1, 1946, will have to wait to retrieve the document until April 1, 2009, giving birth parents the opportunity to request anonymity through the state registry, Feigenholtz said. To have their names removed from the certificate, parents have to pay a $40 fee or fill out a medical questionnaire, said Melisha Mitchell, executive director of an organization called White Oak Foundation that provides post-adoption services.

Advocates of the bill are hoping the birth parents will opt to fill out their medical history, so their children can receive vital information, Mitchell said. If the parents do ask for anonymity, the adoptee can go to the courts five years from that date and initiate a search for updated medical information free of charge.

Of the about 2,000 birth parents registered in the state, only 17 have asked to remain confidential, Feigenholtz said.

Mitchell, a birth mother who chose adoption for her child, said many parents long to know that their child turned out all right.

"By the time our surrendered son and daughter reached adulthood, we just wanted peace of mind," she said.

Feigenholtz has spent a decade championing bills aimed at making it easier for birth parents to reconnect with the adult children for whom they chose adoption. In 1997, she proposed legislation that would have opened all Illinois adoption records if it had passed.

In 1999, she got a bill passed that expanded the state's adoption registry, which allows adoptees and birth parents to document their desire to reunite and helps them find one another.

More recently, Feigenholtz succeeded in revising a law that used to require adoptees have a medical reason to petition courts for information about their parents. Now they can seek the help of a confidential intermediary for any reason.

WGN Radio personality Steve Cochran said supplying birth certificates for adoptees like himself is an issue of fairness.

"It's something you ought to have because everyone else gets it," he said.

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kkridel@tribune.com

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ILLINOIS: Lawmakers Work to Get Adult Adoptees Acess to Certificates, march 10, 2008

2008-03-10T20:27:00.008-04:00

ABC7-TV,
March 10, 2008

Lawmakers work to get adult adoptees access to certificates

State lawmakers are trying to help adult adoptees in Illinois get copies of their original birth certificates.

Since 1947, the documents have been sealed under state law. And they've only been available to adult adoptees by court order or in cases where they've been matched with a biological relative.

State Representative Sara Feigenholtz is proposing legislation to undo that law and allow adoptees over 21 years old to request non-certified copies of their birth certificates at their discretion.

She said people have the right to their own identities.

"We have been deprived of our history and our identity. We have been deprived of the chapter that everyone else in this state simply gets," said Feigenholtz, also adopted.

Feigenholtz says 200,000 adopted men and woman were born in Illinois.

The legislation will be sent to the House Adoption Reform Committee for consideration.

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