MICHIGAN: Adoptee--Unseal Birth Records

DETROIT NEWS
March 4, 2008

Jerry Robertson always wanted to know who his birth parents were.

Born in 1945, Robertson was adopted during the first year that birth certificates of children adopted in Michigan were permanently sealed. That era ended in 1980, but it left thousands of people without access to their original birth certificates and clues to their ancestry.

Today Michigan lawmakers will begin contemplating one of the most heated questions within the adoption community -- should upwards of 20,000 people be allowed to access family information that has been kept secret for decades?

Bills in both chambers of the Legislature would allow people adopted between 1945 and 1980 to obtain their original birth certificate. It also would allow birth parents to tell the state whether they want to be contacted, and how. A hearing on the matter will be held today before the House Families and Children's Services subcommittee.

Robertson died in 1996 without knowing his family roots, but his daughter, Terri Koch, hopes a change in the law will allow her to fulfill his wish.

"It was excruciating and heart-wrenching and so unfair," said Koch, of Battle Creek, who continues the search for her father's birth parents. "He was the most caring person who ever lived but he was also the most tortured soul. I will never give up searching."

Opponents counter that the records should be kept secret to keep intact the parameters that were promised to birth mothers years ago.

They support opening the records but only if there is consent from both sides.

"The main concern is that the adoption was done at a different time, under certain rules that promised birth mothers confidentiality," said John VanValkenberg, spokesman for Bethany Christian Services, a Grand Rapids adoption agency with offices in 30 states.

"It's a balancing act," he said. "The rights of adoptees to have access (to their adoption records) is an important part in shaping their identity. We recognize those rights, but they must be balanced by the rights of the birth parents who were promised confidentiality."
Concerns now 'unfounded'

As society has become more accepting of childbirth outside of marriage and Internet tools have helped reunite families separated by adoption, a growing number of adoptees are pushing their states to open records to help them trace their genealogy.

Since 1996, six states have allowed adoptees access to their adoption records, including three states in 2007, according to Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute in New York. Kansas and Alaska have never closed adoption records.

In November 2007, the Adoption Institute released a study examining reasons why some oppose releasing adoption information to adoptees once they become adults, such as concerns of violating the birth mother's anonymity, increased abortion rates and decreased adoption rates.

"The concerns that people had about allowing access simply are unfounded," said Adam Pertman, executive director of the institute. "The bottom line is, if adopted people want these birth certificates for some legitimate reason and there's no negative consequences, then why not do it?"

Michigan has allowed anyone adopted after Sept. 12, 1980, to acquire their original birth certificate when they become an adult, so long as there isn't a confidentiality request from their birth parents.

But those adopted between 1945 and 1980 only have access to a birth certificate with their adopted parents' names on it. Original birth certificates cannot be released without a court order, according to Nanette Salyer, adoption inquiry specialist at the Michigan Department of Human Services.

That has prompted people such as Pamela Hewitt to try all kinds of strategies to find their birth parents. Hewitt is glad she found her birth mother in 2001, thanks to the Internet. But it took 26 years.

"There were a lot of dead ends and a lot of closed doors," said Hewitt, who lives north of Port Huron. "It was very, very sad."
Search program not enough

Michigan also changed its adoption law in 1980 to allow people adopted during the closed era to obtain nonidentifying information such as the birth parents' health history, ethnicity and educational background.

It also set up the Michigan Adoption Central Registry, a list of birth parents and siblings indicating whether they want to be contacted. Currently, 95 percent of the 26,311 people in the registry have indicated they would like identifying information to be released about them.

In 1996, Michigan established the Confidential Intermediary Program, which allows adoptees, birth parents and their family to petition the Family Court to appoint someone to search for relatives at a cost of $250. The confidential intermediary obtains the adoption file, attempts to update the information and contacts the person to see if they wish to be contacted by the person who petitioned the court.

"There's no guarantees you'll find someone," said Daryl Royal, a confidential intermediary in Wayne County, adding that the program is not well-known.

But many people adopted during the closed-record era say that is not enough.

"Michigan's adult adoptees who were adopted during the closed adoption era really require just one thing, and that is access to their original birth certificate," said Debby Fraser, 49, of Dearborn Heights, who was adopted in 1961 when she was 17 month old. "Being no less and no more than any other American citizen, and in keeping with the status quo that all nonadopted people have access to their birth records -- with logic and fairness -- our records should be opened to us."

kkozlowski@detnews.com

(paid archive)

MINNESOTA: Opinion--Most Adoptees Welcome Reunion

ST, CLOUD TIMES,
December 18, 2007

Most adoptees welcome reunion
By Natalie Miller Rotunda


One of the most controversial aspects of adoption — access to birth records — was the subject of a recent news story. “Should adoptees see records?” It focused on a report released last month by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. They say yes, and have ample support for their stand.

At present, only eight states allow that type of access, and the institute would like to see every state make birth records available to adult adoptees who want to know who their birth parents are.

For those adults in the eight states who found birth parents, the Institute reports, “Outcomes appear to have been overwhelmingly positive for adult adopted persons and birth parents alike.”

Most birth parents actually welcome rather than fear contact with the children they gave up. My daughter Robin not only will welcome the day she sees her daughter in the flesh again; she yearns for it. By then, maybe Illinois will be another in a long list of states to accommodate records access.

More than 50 years ago, adoptions were closed. Birth parents and adoptive parents had little or no contact or information exchange, and adult adoptees consequently had no connection to their past. By the 1970s, a few alternatives became available. Total secrecy is rare now, and, thankfully, a growing number of professionals regard it as a poor practice for everyone involved.

Heart of the issue

Peel away the layers of closed versus open adoptions and the birth records controversies and what’s left? The heart of the issue — what’s best for those directly involved?

The institute uncovered information that helps us understand the benefits of openness in adoptions. It concluded that the best of all possible adoptive situations is an open one, where the birth mother meets, or at least helps choose, her baby’s new parents.

Mothers who place their children and have a hand in knowing where the child is have fewer grief issues. “Research on birth mothers who relinquished children for adoption in the era of total secrecy chronicles a negative, long-term impact of this experience on many areas of their lives, including triggering chronic, severe grief reactions and contributing to ongoing complications in future parenting and marriage relationships.”

Not knowing what happened to their children was the hardest reality with which they coped.

Living with adoption

When Robin made the gut-wrenching decision to give her baby up, she didn’t know much about the process. She did know she wanted some control over who would rear the baby. The caseworker at the Catholic adoption agency in Quincy emphasized repeatedly that, once she signed the papers, she would forever relinquish parental rights. Forewarned, she continued meeting with her caseworker in the months before the baby’s birth.

They called it a closed adoption. Yet, Robin looked through stacks of profiles of couples who desperately wanted to adopt a child, couples with no names, just stories describing their lives and why they wanted a baby.

The couple she chose must have seen their hopes crumble when they learned that Robin brought the baby home. But she hadn’t changed her mind. She wanted a week, just one week, before she gave her baby to the loving couple who would give her child the home she wasn’t able to give her at the time. For one week, she was the baby’s mom, and she crammed a lifetime of memories into each day.

Then came the cold January day when the caseworkers picked up the baby. We’d all written loving messages telling her we loved her, and tucked meaningful mementos into envelopes we hoped the new parents would someday give the baby.

Robin signed the papers that ended her parental rights. Would we meet again someday? We all hoped so.

Our family has lived with the realities of adoption. By the time Robin’s baby is an adult, the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute may have achieved its goal — that all states will have legislated an open-door policy for adult adoptees who want to know their family roots.

This is the opinion of Natalie Miller Rotunda, president and co-founder of the Quincy, Ill., Writers Guild. She moved to Minnesota in 1995. Her column is published the third Tuesday of the month.


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UNITED STATES: States urged to Let Adoptees See Records

CBS News,
November 12, 2007

States Urged To Let Adoptees See Records

NEW YORK, Nov. 12, 2007 (CBS/AP) It is among the most divisive questions in the realm of adoption: Should adult adoptees have access to their birth records, and thus be able to learn the identity of their birth parents?

In a comprehensive report being released Monday, a leading U.S. adoption institute says the answer is "Yes" and urges the rest of America to follow the path of the eight states that allow such access to all adults who were adopted.

"States' experiences in providing this information make clear that there are minimal, if any, negative repercussions," said the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. "Outcomes appear to have been overwhelmingly positive for adult adopted persons and birthparents alike."

For years there has been an assumption privacy was in the best interests of the birth parents who give up their children and the families who adopt them, reports CBS News correspondent Cynthia Bowers.

Today's report suggests otherwise. It found when states open records:

# The number of adoptions did not drop.
# Abortions did not rise.
# There were no unwanted intrusions.
# Ninety-five percent of birth parents said they were open to contact by their children.

Opponents of open access argue that unsealing birth records violates the privacy that birthmothers expected when they opted to give up their babies. They raise the specter of birthparents forced into unwanted relationships with grown children who have tracked them down.

But the Donaldson Institute says most birthparents, rather than being fearful and ashamed, welcome contact with the children they bore.

Kansas and Alaska never barred adoptees from seeing their birth certificates. Since 1996, six other states - Alabama, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, Oregon and Tennessee - have decided to allow access to all adult adoptees.

However, the progression has been slow, and open-records legislation has been rebuffed in many states by a determined and diverse opposition.

Opponents in Connecticut, where bills have failed in each of the past two years, included the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. It depicted itself as a voice for birthmothers who opposed the measure but were reluctant to speak out publicly.

In New Jersey, where a long-running campaign to pass an open-re+cords bill was derailed again this year, the opposition includes New Jersey Right to Life and the New Jersey Catholic Conference. They argue that eliminating the prospect of confidentiality might prompt a pregnant single woman to choose abortion rather than adoption.

Marlene Lao-Collins of the Catholic Conference said she knew of no data supporting the concerns about abortions, "but even if it just happened once, that would be one too many."

Nationwide, one of the major foes of open records is the National Council for Adoption, which represents many religiously affiliated adoption agencies. Its president, Thomas Atwood, says any reconnection between an adopted adult and a birthparent should be by mutual consent - which is the policy in most states.

"I empathize with anybody who feels the need to know their biological parents' identity," Atwood said. "But I don't think the law should enable them to force themselves on someone who has personal reasons for wanting confidentiality."

The Donaldson report says evidence from the states with open records rebuts every argument against the concept. Notably, it says there is no proof that abortions rise, that adoptions decline, or that birthparents are harassed following a switch to open records.

"There has been no evidence that the lives of birthmothers have been damaged as a result," the report says. "In the states that have amended their laws ... few birthmothers have expressed the desire to keep records sealed or the wish not to be contacted."

The most recent state to opt for open records is Maine; a law signed in June will allow adult adoptees to access their birth certificates starting in 2009.

One of the bill's main sponsors was state Sen. Paula Benoit, an adoptee who personally lobbied all her colleagues. While working on the bill, she uncovered her own biological background and learned, to her amazement, that two Democratic lawmakers she was working with were her nephews.

"There are so many adoptees who want to know who they are," she said. "Can you imagine being denied your identity?"Among the many birthmothers grateful to have been found by children they relinquished is Eileen McQuade of Delray Beach, Florida, who is president of the American Adoption Congress and a fervent advocate of open records.

"Secrecy was the way it was done at the time - it was not a choice or a preference on the part of the mothers," McQuade said of the 1960s, when she placed a daughter for adoption. "We treat adoptees as if they're forever children - it's absurd."

The Donaldson report depicts adopted people as the only class of Americans not permitted to routinely obtain their birth certificates.

Giving them full access "is a matter of legal equality, ethical practice and, on a human level, basic fairness," the report said. "It is an essential step toward placing adoptive families, families of origin, everyone connected to them and, indeed, adoption itself on a level playing field within society, without the stigma, shame and inequitable treatment they have experienced in the past."

"The mythology around adoption is based on the notion that you should be protecting someone from something," said the institute's executive director, Adam Pertman.

"But that's not the reality," he said. "Adoptees are not behaving poorly, they're behaving very respectfully, and birthparents do not appear to be a frightened class that wants to hide."


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