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

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

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

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.

Link to article

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

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.

Link to article

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

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.

Link to article

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

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

Link to article

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

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

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

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

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

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

Link to article

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

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

NEW JERSEY: Editorial--Ocean View--A Journey into the Labyrinth, March 31, 2008

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.

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NEW YORK: Letter from Joyce Bahr--Pending Bill Opens Records to Adoptees, March 29, 208

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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ILLINOIS: State Lawmakers Present Legislation Targeting Birith Records, Costs of Adoptions, March 20, 2008

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.

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MICHIGAN: Release of Adoptee Medical Records Could Expose Birth Parents, March 17, 2008

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

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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NEW JERSEY: Birth Records Focus on Debate, March 12, 2008

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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MINNESOTA: Commentary--Proposal Does Not Pit Adoptees, Birth Parents, March 11, 2008

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

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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.

----------

kkridel@tribune.com

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ILLINOIS: Lawmakers Work to Get Adult Adoptees Acess to Certificates, march 10, 2008

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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NEW JERSEY: NJ Adoptees May Get Access to Records

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BERGEN RECORD
March 10, 2008

N.J. adoptees may get access to records
BY ELISE YOUNG

New Jersey adoptees, historically denied their full life stories, soon may gain access to their birth parents' medical histories and cultural backgrounds.

They also could learn the names and addresses of their birth mothers, even if those women once were guaranteed anonymity forever.

For some people, the prospect of unsealed records invokes unmitigated joy. For others -- some who had their babies decades ago, when out-of-wedlock births were a stigma -- the feeling is sheer terror.

"The truth is I can never have any real peace," one woman wrote lawmakers preparing to vote on the matter, "because now I never know whether a knock on the door or call on the phone will be his attempt at trying to intrude in my life against my repeatedly declared wishes to be left alone."

She submitted anonymous, written testimony and recalled the shame and fear of a high school pregnancy. When she gave up her son, she was assured they could meet in the future only if both agreed. More than 30 years later, the woman wrote, "my birth son ... is trying to hunt me down."

"This is really about identity and truth of a human being's existence," Darryl McDaniels -- better known as the rapper DMC -- told a state Senate committee when he testified about learning he was adopted. "I want my book to begin from Chapter 1 and not from Chapter 2."

Philip Foley of South Jersey testified on behalf of his wife, who as a teenager was raped, conceived and sent to a home for unwed mothers.

"She held on to the only comfort that she was offered -- promises that once her ordeal was over and adoption papers signed, her secret would never be revealed to anyone, ever," he said. For more than 30 years, he said, not even he knew.

Ten years ago, the child located her birth mother.

"I cannot describe the pain I saw on my wife's face when she was forced to tell me her secret as her world was falling apart," he said.

The state Senate approved the bill last week. If it gets support in the Assembly and is signed by Governor Corzine, adoption information could be available as early as next year. Information about all adoptees' pasts would be available, no matter how long ago they were given up and what promises were made to their birth mothers.

Maine, New Hampshire, Delaware, Tennessee, Alabama and Oregon have changed their laws to allow such access, according to the American Adoption Congress, a non-profit group that advocates for greater availability of birth records. Kansas never restricted such records to adoptees.

In New Jersey, activists have tried to unseal the state's adoption records for nearly 30 years, citing needs from the practical (concerns about genetic health conditions, for instance) to the philosophical (a curiosity about one's roots.).

For just as long, a coalition of opponents – including the American Civil Liberties Union and the New Jersey Catholic Conference -- have pushed back just as hard, chiefly arguing for rights to anonymity granted to birth parents.

Patrick Brannigan, executive director of the Catholic Conference, said the group -- whose members include the Archdiocese of Newark and the dioceses of Paterson, Metuchen and Trenton -- supports the release of medical information. But to disclose birth parents' names without their consent, he said, would be "a callous betrayal."

"A simple and fair approach would be a mutual-consent registry," he said.

But state Sen. Loretta Weinberg, D-Teaneck, said the bill takes birth mothers' concerns into account.

"We've made a great step forward to protect everyone in the system," Weinberg said.

Under the law, information now sealed by the courts would be accessible by adoptive parents, adoptees over 18 and the adoptees' children.

Shortly after birth, the biological mother would indicate how she wants to interact with the child in the years ahead: directly, through an intermediary or not at all.

The mother also would submit family information, including medical, cultural and social histories. Those details would be released to adoptees upon request. But the mother could stipulate that her name and contact information be withheld.

Birth mothers who gave up their children years ago would have to contact the state to indicate their preferences. Critics say such a requirement is risky: What if some women never learn about a change in the law? What about women who fear that contacting the state somehow would lead to mailings or phone calls from a government agency, which would tip off family members to an old secret? What if the birth mother's name were released accidentally?

"Our position is that a person should not have to opt out of having their name released," Brannigan said. "We always have said that we are supportive of reunions and of people finding out information about their heritage -- if it's of mutual consent."

State Sen. Bill Baroni, R-Mercer, who was adopted, said his vote to release the bill from the Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee was one of the most difficult he ever cast.

"This is an imperfect compromise," Baroni said. "One some level you're dealing with contrasting values. You have promises made 20, 30, 40 years ago. And you have many adopted kids who have a real need to understand their past. This is not legislation that everyone is going to be happy with. It's incumbent on people like me to publicize the opt-out provision."

McDaniels, the rapper who was 35 when he learned he was adopted, recounted how a clerk denied him access to his birth certificate in New York State.

"She said, 'That don't exist' -- and this is what killed me -- 'to you,' " he said.

Eventually, McDaniels said, he reunited with his birth mother. But at 43, he said, he continues to reassure his adoptive parents that he considers them his family.

"I want to fix it so adoptees don't have to go through what I'm going through today," he said.

E-mail: younge@northjersey.com

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MINNEAPOLIS STAR-TRIBUNE
March 6, 2008

Editorial: Adoption bill puts birth parents at risk

March 6, 2008

Should adoptees have access to their original birth records, allowing them to identify birth parents without their consent?

A bill before the state Legislature would give some adoptees access to their original birth certificates, essentially elevating the interests of adoptees above those of birth parents who requested anonymity.

Changing the rules decades after the fact seems unfair, but state rules should balance the rights of all parties by helping adoptees get access to valuable health data without compromising privacy.

Since 1982, birth parents in Minnesota who choose to give up a child for adoption have been required to fill out an affidavit either allowing or preventing the disclosure of their identities at the request of the child, once that child has reached adulthood. In that time, about one in 10 birth parents have opted to prevent disclosure, according to the Minnesota Coalition for Adoption Reform, which is promoting the "open records" change in adoption law.

The proposal would apply only to adoptions made before the enactment of the 1982 affidavit procedure. Birth parents in those pre-1982 adoptions who want their identities to remain concealed would need to file an affidavit.

Heart-warming stories of reunions of adoptees and birth parents receive significant public attention and give open records advocates a strong platform on which to make their case. Meanwhile, birth parents who want their records kept private, almost by definition, lack a voice in the public debate.

Currently, adoptees who want access to their records can appeal to a judge, who would then weigh the interests of the adoptee against those of the birth parent. That can be an expensive and time-consuming process, but one where a third party adjudicates and requires adoptees to make a case beyond genealogical curiosity.

Adoptees can also request that their adoption agencies contact their birth parents or provide information such as health histories. Any legislation should give adoptees access to health information even if birth parents choose to remain anonymous.

The proposed bill would change a sensitive and fundamental aspect of the adoption process retroactively. Doing so could have the unintended consequence of discouraging birth parents from considering adoption in the future, even when it's the best alternative for them and their child, because of concerns that the state might change the rules again in the future.

The individual circumstances of birth parents and adoptees are so varied that it seems unwise and unfair to completely discard such a key privacy provision in a covenant as sensitive as adoption. Before requiring birth parents to come forward, more should be done to encourage disclosure and require sharing of health information without violating the privacy of birth parents.

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