News flash: Michelle Obama didn't invent the crusade to improve Americans' well-being. Her focus (as we all know) is childhood obesity but, for the last several years, the office of the U.S. Surgeon General has been waging an even farther-reaching, get-everyone-healthy campaign that centers on this website.
Essentially, citing the obvious fact that many diseases are inherited, the top health official in our country is encouraging all American families to keep abreast of their medical histories, not only in the past but in an ongoing way. And, to make this important task easier to accomplish, the surgeon general's site includes software that everyone can download at no cost to help track medical information about our parents, grandparents and other relatives.
For tens of millions of people, however, this well-intentioned initiative is nothing more than a mirage, an enticing glimpse of water in the desert that they know they cannot reach. Because all of the Americans whom this campaign targets do not in fact include the vast majority of those who were adopted, rather than born, into their families.
Adoption in the United States has made enormous strides in the last few decades, moving out of the shadows and becoming an increasingly conventional, normal way of forming a family; that's especially good news for children who need permanent, loving homes.
But progress has been uneven. One way in which adoption has not yet entered the 21st Century is the anachronistic reality that most states still prohibit adoptees, even after they reach adulthood, from obtaining their birth certificates or other documents that would enable them to follow the Surgeon General's sage advice.
Proponents of keeping these records sealed assert that it's a necessary measure to maintain the anonymity that was guaranteed to birth mothers at the time their children were placed for adoption. That argument, unfortunately, is based on cultural myths and faulty stereotypes.
In fact, nearly every shred of research and experience over the last few decades shows that none of these women were given legal assurance of anonymity; at least 90 percent of them want some level of contact with or knowledge about the lives they created, regardless of what they might or might not have been told verbally; and adopted people are not stalkers or ingrates, but simply human beings who want the most basic information about themselves.
The good news is that we have learned an enormous amount about adoption and its participants as the institution has steadily moved into the mainstream, and many positive changes are occurring as a result. Among them are that parents adopting domestically, and an increasing number who adopt from abroad, routinely receive medical information about their sons and daughters at the outset and -- because relationships with birth families are becoming increasingly commonplace -- on an ongoing basis as their children grow up. Indeed, providing such information is now a widely accepted "best practice" for adoption practitioners.
Some states have changed their laws to permit adopted people, once they become adults, to gain access to their records. And there has been no hint, anywhere, that the recipients of those records are violating their birth mothers' privacy or otherwise disrupting their lives.
States from coast to coast -- from New York and New Jersey to Indiana and Hawaii -- today, right now, are considering legislation that would enable adult adoptees to comply with the Surgeon General's potentially life-saving advice. And next Thursday, March 10, the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute is holding a unique event on this subject at the Hard Rock Café in Manhattan; for more information, go to www.adoptioninstitute.org.
With all that activity on the ground, it's a propitious time for U.S. health officials at the top, starting with the Surgeon General, to use their influence to break down the legal barriers across our country that for far too long have relegated adoptees to a special, less-privileged class of citizenship.
There's good reason for them to do it. After all, their medical advice is supposed to apply to all Americans.
Evidence of anonymity birth certificates would be sealed upon adoption only through going to courts with good cause will they be opened. Promises, paperwork there doesn't need to be anything else, one birth mother wasn't promised confidentiality another was doesn't matter. If the gov't believed you were entitled to your birth certificates and that birth parents had no rights you would of had them long ago. You have 60, 70 and now going on 80 year old woman who will now after 30,40,50,60 years (NJ) of confidentiality now be told they were never told they would be able to keep this confidential.
No matter how much you want things to be different you will always be an adopted person. Your birth certificate should work like anyone elses by law. Birth parents there are consequences to having sex if you got pregnant you made your choice. You chose adoption.
Well, you have it backwards. No matter how desperate you are to get the government to lie and cover up for your personal situation, you will never change the circumstances of your pregnancy and birth of the person you gave up.
As for a "guarantee" given to birthmothers...give me a break.
There were no guarantees given to birthmothers. There may have been "promises", for instance, that adoption would ensure that their baby would go to a loving family and have a better life. Where are the laws that were hammered out to protect this promise? What if a birthmother was promised that she would forget? Is there a battle for a law to protect that promise too? Those promises, if they were made, were verbalized, never documented.
To those who are maintaining that the promise of anonymity for birthmothers must be upheld and protected - please produce the legal evidence that is being used as a roadblock to restoring equal rights. Lets see how that proof holds up to the evidence that protects and provides equal rights of all babies born in the US - as US citizens they are protected by our Constitution, a document readily available.
Pertman's argument that open records is about "medical information" is what has led to the NJ atrocity, which would allow a birthparent to veto access of adult adoptees to the original unaltered records of their birth (instead creating and issuing a defaced document) in exchange for a medical history. What a convoluted and mangled interpretation of "rights"!
I can't really speak for anyone but myself. But I have observed, and it's been my experience that when people become aware of the restrictions placed on an adopted person, they are outraged by the breach of human rights and the inequity, first. The medical issue dawns on them, in my own experience, as they consider the consequences of living without knowledge of genetic history. I don't think it's possible to measure the consequences across the board as each layer of a secret adds more outrage and indignation.
I'm only asking questions here to better understand... Is it possible that our courts have not seen civil liberties as a strong enough argument to restore adoptee rights in the past? Is it possible that in the effort to restore adoptee rights, it is necessary to pull out all the stops and cite every inequity and indignity - withheld civil liberties AND defaced documents, and cite medical consequences both physical and psychological, and the fact that the potential for damage and harm brought on by all of these factors is not limited to one adopted person but that the consequences reverberate throughout generations immeasurably?
I can not imagine that any person would disagree that every US citizen should share the same rights under our Constitution. But apparently, our lawmakers and courts need convincing.
My original question is still, how can we make this happen on a national level?
Can you tell us how to make this happen on a national level?
The use of personal inference and what seems to be some kind of insider's code language is anything but inclusive for the majority of readers.
Consider how much more effective your words could be if you used them to educate by stating your impassioned opinions more clearly, rather than assuming that this blog is read exclusively by people who know you and are familiar with (your code words), the topic, it's history and issues.
Why not take the opportunity to engage a larger audience and explain why you feel the way you do. We all have stories to share and they should be heard because that is one of the critical elements of knowlege. Shared knowlege can bring about change. And different opinions can be debated. A good debate can be enlightening - it can pull others into the cause, create more conversations, possibly create new solutions. Would that be an agreeable common goal?
And as someone said, this information does go both ways. As an example, I found out I had a genetic clotting disorder and was able to then notify my sister and other family members along my maternal line. If I didn't know my genetic family, odds are my sister would have suffered life threatening blood clots, since she was taking medication that she shouldn't have taken given the disorder. I was able to prevent that with my information.
well, how am I supposed to treat you?" . That is frustrating for me. I do not know what inherited diseases I may face as I progress in age. Is it asking too much that I be given this information?
You were blessed to be adopted, regardless of how you feel now. I do not know anything about my biological parents and it isn't until now (26 years later) my adoptive mom wants to seriously talk,other than when I was a child. I have a biological brother that is only 16 months older than me (which she kept), but I love both my parents just the same, because I am here and I am wonderful!
I had as much of a chance of being tossed in a dumpster as growing up as a member of the British Royal Family - and I still don't have my birth certificate. Should I be grateful for the chance to be discriminated against?
But that's separate and different from closed records. Our OBCs don't tell us medical information. And our adoption records contain only what was known at the time of surrender. The correlation would be then that opening OBCs is about searching and finding. As Linda said, not every one who has an OBC or knows a name has been able to find someone using it. Not everyone who wants their OBC is searching for reunion. Not everyone needed their OBC to reunite. Reunion is a private matter. OBC access is a Civil and Basic Human Rights matter.
There is talk of considering legislation in my state where a person cannot run for public office without original birth documentation. Adoptees already have difficulty renewing/getting passports and driver's licenses. Not having the Basic Human Right to identity from birth-forward continues to get complicated for adopted adults. We can see how identity is so important to others, yet there's a double-standard when it comes to adopted persons. Being treated like everyone else is of utmost importance. I was born in one of the states that allows relatively easy OBC access to Adult Adoptees. My fellow adoptees in other states are no less American than I and we should all be afforded the right to equal treatment under the law.