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

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.

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

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.

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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)

NORTH CAROLINA: Biological Connections, March 2, 2008

HICKORY DAILY RECORD
March 2, 2008

Biological Connection
by Jennifer Menster

CONOVER -- Toni Jones and Ryan Peedin don’t share the same last name. They can’t reflect on childhood memories of Ryan making As, playing sports or getting married.

But Toni and Ryan have the same eyes. Their laughs twine together, and a current photo of Ryan resembles a younger version of Toni’s brother, Bob.

The two are biologically connected: Toni was 15 when she got pregnant in the 1970s. Her parents made her give up the child. Ryan, a name later given to him, went to a wonderful set of parents in Johnston County. He grew up knowing he was adopted.

“I was always curious, and I would think about it long enough to feed my curiosity,” Peedin says. “I knew adoption records were sealed, and I didn’t have a lot of encouragement legal-wise.”

Peedin grew up, got married and has two daughters who favored him. He couldn’t help but wonder where his daughters’ eye color or facial features really came from. As he aged and his daughters grew, Peedin questioned if he should be worried about diabetes or high blood pressure or other medical concerns that might run in his biological parents’ families.


The search begins

In June 2004, Peedin began his search. He was 32 years old. The agency Peedin worked with in Johnston County, where he lives, couldn’t give him identifying records. A copy of his birth certificate was false: It listed his adopted parents as his birth parents. Peedin tried three or four registry Web sites where adoptees and birth parents sometimes go to the find one another. Matches are rare.

His adoptive parents were open in helping Peedin with the search. Mom and Dad told Peedin everything they could. Peedin knew he was born in 1972 (birth days never change) in Catawba County, and he knew his biological mother was around 15 when he was born.

Copies of non-identifying information gave him several clues. His birth parents’ names were blacked out, but on one sheet, Peedin could make out a T. Another clue was that the birth mother’s father was born in Ohio and her mother was born in Catawba County.

Peedin took the clues - a T, her age, Ohio and Catawba County - and went to the Catawba County Register of Deeds Office to search birth records. It took him 15 minutes before he found Toni’s birth certificate.

“There was no doubt in my mind that we had found her,” Peedin said.

However, it would still be a while before Peedin confirmed she was the one. He figured she was married and had a new last name. He didn’t know if she was living out of state or maybe even dead. Peedin went to Sybil Good at Family Builders, a division of the Department of Social Services that handles adoptions and foster home licensing.

What a small world: Good was the same social worker who helped place Ryan more than 30 years ago. She knew his birth mother, but by law couldn’t tell him. Instead, she offered him what services and advice she legally could.

Disappointment, then success

A frustrated Peedin was a little disappointed and uncertain about what to do, but he didn’t give up. His wife called a private investigator. The P.I. refused to take the case because Peedin had come so far by himself. The investigator gave Peedin a tip.

Peedin had looked up Toni’s parents’ telephone number in the phone book, but he was uncertain whether to call them, not knowing if they’d be willing to help. With a little white lie and the P.I.’s advice, Peedin had a female call Toni’s mom asking for her contact information for a class reunion. Peedin had his birth mother’s married name, her address and telephone number.

What now?

He called Good for advice, and she told him to write a letter. A letter? Peedin didn’t know what to say. He had been so focused during his two-month search, but the emotions were beginning to swell. He wanted to be fair - to himself and Toni. What if she didn’t want to have anything to do with him? In the letter, he said that would be her decision. He told her good parents raised him and he understood the circumstances of his adoption. Peedin didn’t want to get his expectations too high and a lot of the letter was curiosity about medical history.

Peedin sent the letter to Good, who served as a go-between. Toni said when she heard the phone message from Good she knew exactly what it was about.

“Whenever she said, ‘This is Sybil Good,’ I could have fell to the floor,” Jones said. “I was never expecting this to happen. I gave up on that a long time ago.”

On Sept. 12, 2004, Peedin met his birth mother. He, his wife, Joy, and Toni and her husband, Keith, met at Valley Hills Mall for dinner. They wound up returning to the Jones’ home and talking for hours.

Peedin and Jones talk at least once a week. They’ve vacationed together and visit several times a year. Jones has met Peedin’s adopted mother and several other family members. It’s still not time for Peedin to meet his biological father or grandparents.

A new law

Peedin spent more than two months searching for his birth mother. It was worth it, but it would have been nice if he could have skipped the work and gone straight to an agency to get his answers.

Now, adoptees, their lineal descendants if the adoptee is deceased and biological parents can do just that. A law that went into effect Jan. 1 allows North Carolina counties the option to serve as confidential intermediaries between adult adoptees and biological parents.

In December, the Catawba County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a Confidential Intermediary Program in the county. Family Builders heads up the program.

“We’ve been ready to serve since (the beginning),” Sybil Good said. “Now we can actually search for a person, and we have avenues to search databases this agency has access to.”

These are the standard services of the Confidential Intermediary Program offered by Family Builders:

• Provides initial consultation regarding the county’s policy in addressing House Bill 445;
• Conducts an in-house record review and a search for the person listed above, including, but not limited to, an Internet based search;
• Initiates contact with any person found in an attempt to obtain current non-identifying health and background information;
• Ascertains that person’s willingness to share identifying information or have contact with the applicant; and/or
• Provides the intermediary services needed to ensure all parties are addressing the psychological and social issues in a healthy and productive manner.

Additional services would include facilitating contact if both parties agree and continue to provide services regarding psychological and social issues. There is a fee for the services.

The program has backing from the county and state, but across the country the issue of opening birth records of adoptees has raised concerns. Opposition has come from the National Council for Adoption, some Catholic bishops, abortion opponents and civil libertarians, according to a recent article in USA Today. Opponents believe open records violate a birth mother’s right to privacy and some women may choose abortion over adoption.

But in Catawba County, everyone is allowed choices, and it’s up to the biological children and parents if they want to meet.

Peedin is grateful Jones was willing to meet with him. It not only gives him a chance to learn about his past, but it gives them a chance for a future.

jmenster@hickoryrecord.com | x5409 or

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NORTH CAROLINA: Adoption Law Changes Help Adoptees, January 10, 2008

NEWS 14 CAROLINA
January 10, 2008

Adoption law changes help adoptees
By: Stephanie Stilwell

GREENSBORO -- A new state law could make it easier for adoptees searching for their birth family. The new law went into effect Jan. 1 and allows adoption agencies to help connect people with their biological parents. Until now, people searching would have to go through the courts.

Pat Bryant always knew she was adopted. In the late 1970s, she was able to track down health information, but because of the laws at the time, that was it.

"Then in the late '90s, I started to pursue it in earnest," she said, "and I was really wanting to meet my mother, especially the moment I had my first child. That is the moment I really realized the love that is a bond between a mother and child."

For 10 years, road blocks plagued that search, but those roadblocks were taken away once changes with North Carolina’s adoption law went into affect Jan. 1.

"[Children's Home Society] has been an active supporter of the changes in the legislation in North Carolina. From our work with adopted persons through the years, we really advocate that they be entitled to have more access to information about their heritage,” said Sandy Cook, executive director of CHS.

The new law would allow agencies like CHS to act as a liaison between biological parents and children.

“We can give them that information, the non-identifying, and then if they want more, we'll be able now to go through an investigative process to locate birth families,” added Cook.

But the law doesn't come without problems. There is no state money to fund the changes; instead each agency has to decide how much to charge for these services and how it will deal with the extra workload.

“Well obviously this is going to have to be a fee-for-service," added Cook. "We are working very hard to keep the costs as low as we can because again we believe in this work, but we will be asking for a fee so that we will be able to do the services that are required."

Right now, the law says adoptees can't search for possible brothers and sisters, and Bryant says she's realistic about the situation. If for some reason she's unable to meet her birth mother, she'll continue the fight to meet her birth family.

As of Jan. 1, the Greensboro CHS already had 100 people on a waiting list to find their birth family. To be eligible, the adoption must have been completed in North Carolina.


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MISSOURI: Fighting an Uphill Battle for Adoptee Rights

BLUE SPRINGS EXAMINER,
January 5, 2008

Fighting an Uphill Battle for Adoptee Rights

By Hugh S. Welsh | Hugh.welsh@examiner.net

If you're an adoptee living in Missouri, four words teeter on the tip of your tongue:

"House Bill No. 509," said Jeff Quibell, a Blue Springs City Councilman and adoptee.

Five years ago, Quibell was reunited with his birth parents.

Fortunately, he was able to locate them quickly through the use of a searcher provided by the court.

The searcher met with each of his birth parents, both of whom agreed to release all identifying information (name, date of birth, place of birth and last known address).

Before Quibell knew it, his arms were curled around his birth mother, and his hand was enclasped within the hand of his birth father.

His journey was unusually easy in a state where original birth certificates and adoption records are off-limits for adoptees.

Most aren't so lucky.

According to Quibell, mutual consent between adoptee and birth parent is a sensible request, but what about adoptees born before birth parents had an opportunity to say "yes" or "no" to future contact in the form of an affidavit at the time of the adoption?

According to the Missouri statute under Adoption and Foster Care, Section 453.121, in order for identifying information to be released to an adoptee either born or adopted in Missouri, the biological parent must submit an affidavit.

If an affidavit is not on file, one is delivered to the parent via a court-driven agency that charges the adoptee a fee (usually $250) for the service.

The statute was revised on Aug. 13, 1986.

Today, birth parents who offer their child up for adoption are asked whether they would like to allow their adopted child access to their identifying information upon reaching 18 years of age.

Prior to that, parents did not have such an opportunity at the time of the adoption.

Of course, parents who have children they've given to adoption can submit an affidavit releasing such information at anytime.

But how many are familiar with this option?

How many really want to remember?

Quibell said for many birth parents - particularly those who had pre-marital children prior to 1973, the year of the landmark Supreme Court abortion case Roe v. Wade - their adopted children are a taboo subject, rarely mentioned but always pondered.

Take Quibell's birth mother, Louise Ann Padmos, for example. In the back of her mind she wondered for years about whatever came of her baby boy. Although Padmos' lips were sealed tighter than a vice, she remembered her adopted son with a new ornament she affixed to the family Christmas tree every year. To her family, it was merely a hobby. To her, it was everything. Now reunited with her adopted son, Padmos gives Quibell a new ornament every year to hang on his own family Christmas tree.

"She never forgot me," Quibell said.

When Padmos was contacted by a searcher wanting to know whether she would fill out the affidavit releasing identifying information to her adopted son, she answered yes to everything that very evening.

Quibell's birth father took the entire summer to make up his mind, then he, too, submitted the affidavit.

But what if the searcher is unable to locate the birth parents? What if the birth parents are deceased and, therefore, unable to submit an affidavit?

"As the statute is written and interpreted right now, there must be an affidavit on file for the identifying information to be released," said state Rep. Connie LaJoyce Johnson, D-St. Louis. "If there isn't one or if it was misplaced for whatever reason, the court will deny the release of the information to the adoptee."

For adoptees in such a situation, the only other possibility of unlocking adoption records and original birth certificates is medical need.

"Supposedly, medical need has to be acknowledged by the court system as a reason to release records to adoptees," Johnson said. "This simply is not true."

The case that drew Johnson into the debate involved an adoptee who was in need of a bone marrow transplant and seeking a possible match within her biological family tree.

A searcher with the court located a few members of the adoptees' birth family and found unfavorable results.

No match.

"The adoptee was simply told 'no match' and denied any identifying information," Johnson said. "I thought that was cold."

Johnson sponsored House Bill No. 509, which, at the moment, sits dormant. The bill would modify sections 193.125 and 193.255 of Missouri's adoption record policy, affording adoptees 18-and-older the right to obtain a certified copy of their original birth certificate, which, of course, would contain some identifying information of the birth parents including their names and birthplaces.

What stands in Johnson's way?

"Catholic charities and evangelists are a well-oiled machine that pulverized this bill the last time it was brought up," Johnson said.

Johnson said Catholic charities and evangelists argue that an open records policy in Missouri would encourage more abortions.

The results of a recent report by the Evan B. Donaldson Institute show a different picture: One of such states as Kansas, which has an open-record policy for adoptees, having lower abortion rates than states with closed records.

But Johnson doesn't care about the findings. She needs testimony. Human voices that can convince the House that the policy isn't constitutional.

"As someone who grew up Catholic, I know where these lobbyists are coming from, and I don't necessarily disagree with them," Johnson said. "Mutual consent and the respect of the birth parents' privacy are dear to my heart, but those adoptees whose birth parents do not have an affidavit on file and are deceased or cannot be located are being unfairly treated; the situation must be rectified, and in order for that to happen we must make this a legal matter, not an emotional one."

One of the voices to give testimony will be Padmos, who plans to visit Jefferson City in the near future.

She will be only one of many birth mothers and adoptees to make the trip as part of an army organized by Blue Springs resident Ina Lewis, an adoptee who has devoted every waking moment to this cause.

Johnson will need them. All of them.

"I won't go before the General Assembly again unless I have guns with real ammunition, ones with stuff that can hit them right upside the head," Johnson said.

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NORTH CAROLINA: IT'S THE LAW - AS OF TODAY, JANUARY 1, 2008

FAYETTE OBSERVER,
January 1, 2008

It's the Law - As of Today
By John Ramsey
Staff writer

Starting today, bars and restaurants will have to recycle all those empty beer and wine bottles left from New Year’s bashes. Life insurance salesmen will find their jobs tougher on Army grounds. Smokers in state buildings will have to find an outdoors spot to indulge their habit. These are among the new state laws that took effect on the first day of the yeartake effect today.

Keep your butt outside

• Smoking is prohibited in buildings owned or leased by the state. The ban also extends to state psychiatric facilities.

Who’s your daddy?

• Adopted children will have an easier time finding information about their biological parents with this law change. County Social Services departments and adoption agencies act as third parties to help find family health information, and adopted adults can use the agencies to find their birth parents as long as all parties give written consent. Nicole Callahan with the National Council for Adoption said the change is better than a mandatory openness law but worse than a mutual consent registry.

Taming Loan Sharks

• In response to the national subprime mortgage crisis, the state is making it tougher for lenders to issue loans that consumers likely can’t pay back. The law forces lenders to do more work to ensure that customers can afford loans and will prohibit prepayment penalties, which keep people from refinancing a bad loan. The bill also gives consumers more rights when working with mortgage brokers. “It’s definitely a step forward,” said Al Ripley, counsel for consumer and housing affairs at the N.C. Justice Center. “It will help protect home buyers or people refinancing their mortgages from subprime predatory loans.”

Don’t come knocking

• The activity of life insurance salesmen will be regulated on Army bases. Door-to-door solicitation will be prohibited, as will making appointments at barracks. “The bottom line is, we just don’t think they should be taken advantage of,” said state Rep. Marvin Lucas, one of the law’s primary sponsors. “We think that the commanders are well in charge and know fully what these guys may need ... not somebody coming door-to-door.”

Bob Barker would be proud

• A new law requires 20 cents of every rabies tag sold to go to spay and neuter programs for pets.

Protect your neck

• All motorcycle riders will be required to wear safety-approved helmets attached with a strap, a law that doesn’t sit well with many bikers. John McKenzie, a salesman at Sandhills Cycle Center in Pinehurst, said more than half of his customers have complained about the new rule. “A lot of them think it should be a matter of choice,” he said. “To me it restricts your vision and your hearing some too. ... I’m just as comfortable riding without a helmet.” Bikers around the state have planned rides today ito protest the law.

Green bars

• The New Year’s partyers won’t be the only people waking up to a headache this morning. Bars and restaurants will be required to recycle glass, a law that many bar managers understand in theory but dislike in practice. Smaller bars will have to make room for extra trash cans, and trash cans will all be located behind the bar to keep staff from having to dig through the trash the next day. “I think it’s a good thing, but at the same time, trying to get everything organized, it’s a little bit hectic,” said Dana Donner, manager at The Pour House. “It’s kind of a pain in the butt.”

Residency question

• People arrested for a felony or driving under the influence in North Carolina after today will be asked if they are legal U.S. residents. Latino and civil liberties groups have said the law encourages racial profiling.

Gold Star Plates

• The state will make it easier to get Gold Star license plates by eliminating a rule that required 300 applications and by waiving the fee for them. Gold Stars are issued to family members of military men and women killed in the line of duty.

Check yes or no

• Anyone planning to run for office in North Carolina will have to answer a question common on job applications: “Have you ever been convicted of a felony?”

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MICHIGAN: Rules Limit Connection Between Kids and Biological Parents

WOOD-TV, Grand Rapids, December 18, 2007
Rules limit connection between kids and biological parents

By TONY TAGLIAVIA

GRAND RAPIDS -- Bonnie Baker Harris has witnessed some remarkable reunions, like the one between Steve Flaig and Chris Tallady.

"Sometimes it can get quite emotional," Harris said.

She is the post-adoption specialist for the Bethany Christian Services Adoption Agency. As part of that work, she helps adopted children and biological parents connect.

"I would say we get several calls every week," Harris told 24 Hour News 8.

Those calls can result in a connection, especially for children whose biological parents ended their parental rights after September 1980. In those cases, as long as a parent hasn't asked not to be identified, his or her child can get the parent's name and last known address through the adoption agency.

For the children of parents whose rights were terminated before September 1980, information can only be released if a biological parent specifically allows it.

So what if there is no permission or denial on file?

"That is a very, very common outcome," Harris said. "The state has put into place what's called confidential intermediary services."

That person works as a go-between without telling either party who the other one is.

As Steve Flaig and Chris Tallady's story shows, sometimes an intermediary can be helpful, even when names and addresses are available. In their case, it led to a happy result.

"Best Christmas present ever," Chris Tallady said.

Her son's response?

"I can't wait to get to know each other better."


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