Category Archives: OBC legislation

Information and Access: An American Civil Right Denied

Posted on by
10

Like me, Susan Perry is a grandmother, with children and grandchildren whom she adores. She also has many family members to whom she is not biologically related.

Susan Perry is an adoptee. I am an adoptive parent.

Unlike Susan, I have access to my birth certificate and my medical history, without even needing to think twice about it. I would take it for granted, surely, except that I know people whose lives have been held hostage, who have faced grave illnesses that could have been treated differently, who have been told to just accept the way things are–they are denied access to their own birth certificates.

And we both agree that adopted people have a basic, civil, human right to know who they are. Access to original birth certificates remains an absurd issue in this country. We saw some progress in Washington state recently, though it’s not what it could or should have been. This week, legislation made its way through the Pennsylvania legislature. Information about Pennsylvania is available here. These are glimmers of progress, some good news in an arena that has been too often met with opposition from legislators, lawyers, adoption agencies, and adoption lobbyists.

Susan writes this from her heart: I wish every adoption attorney, agency official, legislator and religious group that opposes adoptee rights would read this post and then tell me to my face why they think it is their right to deny me my own original birth certificate and make it difficult for me to ascertain the basic truths about my own life. How can they not see how discriminatory it is to treat an entire minority group differently by law than we treat everyone else — especially now that we have hard data to show that adoptee access bills without restrictions work best for all concerned parties?

I wish the same thing, as a grandmother, a mom, a daughter.

Read the rest of Susan’s powerful post here.

This is not an adoptee-only fight, though they should be the leaders. I urge my fellow adoptive parents, my fellow grandparents, all grandparents of adopted children, all siblings of adoptees, all partners of adoptees to join me in urging access to original birth certificates without restriction. The world hasn’t ended in Kansas or Alaska, where adoption records have never been sealed. In Oregon, Alabama, New Hampshire, and Maine, adult adoptees can access their records. In these 6 states, adopted adults have the right to access or not access their own records.

May Susan Perry and others be allowed to access a basic human right–to know who they are. May we all recognize that we can do better than secrecy and shame. May grandmothers (and others) not suffer through physical and other illnesses because they are denied basic truths about their own lives.

Update: I will write more specifically about this, but for those looking for ways to help improve access to original birth certificates, here’s some quick information. Essentially, this is a state issue, so you can look into what your individual state’s policy is.  Check my post “OBC Outrage: Adoptive Parents?” as well. Good sources of information are the American Adoption Congress,  Adoptee Rights Coalition, and Bastard Nation.

Also, DNA technology is an option for some adoptees to fill in their medical history. Certainly it’s not a substitute for firsthand knowledge, and it’s absurd (again) that an adoptee should have to pay for this information. Nonetheless, services such as 23AndMe, Family Tree DNA, and others are available. More information is available here.

Human Rights in Adoption: Blog Action Day 2013

Posted on by
2
                                      Courtesy of: http://www.blogactionday.org

As part of a global community connection, Blog Action Day (today, October 16) means that over 2000 bloggers from 126 countries are posting today about Human Rights. I am participating for the first time, and I encourage you to look at the Blog Action Day website and the Blog Action Day Facebook page: lots of fascinating, provocative, important posts.

Human rights–an enormous topic–resonates with me in terms of adoption for these reasons:

(1) Adoptees have the right to know who they are. Talk about a basic human right. All adoptees deserve access to their original birth certificates. Yet many, here in the United States, are denied that right. I’ve written about OBCs here, and I will continue to speak out about it.

(2) International adoptees brought to the United States for purposes of adoption should automatically be granted US citizenship. It is beyond shameful that this is not an automatic process, that our US government is still dithering over it, and that international adoptees have been deported. See my posts “Citizenship Isn’t Automatic for Internationally Adopted Children to the US?” and “All They Will Call You Will Be Deportees.”

(3) The United States should ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. According to UNICEF, “The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the first legally binding international instrument to incorporate the full range of human rights—civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights. In 1989, world leaders decided that children needed a special convention just for them because people under 18 years old often need special care and protection that adults do not. The leaders also wanted to make sure that the world recognized that children have human rights too.”

Disappointingly, while the United States helped draft the Convention and signed it in 1995, we have not ratified it. The other countries which have also not ratified are Somalia and South Sudan.

I call for the US to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

(4) All children have the right to be raised in a safe, loving family, preferably the one they were born into. Adoption is an option for children, and must always be done in a transparent, ethical way, with integrity and compassion. The voices of first parents must be heard, along with those of adopted persons: it is a human right that they should no longer be marginalized or victimized in the adoption process.

A Basic Civil Right, Still Denied

Posted on by
Reply

It’s been a big week for Supreme Court judgements. We are reminded of old ones, and celebrating new ones: black people and women can vote. Asian people can marry white people, or Asian or black or whatever combo. Gay people can marry other gay people.

Those are significant civil rights victories.

How long will it take until another basic civl right is allowed? The United States continues to acquiesce to an enormous violation of civil rights: denying access to thousands of adopted adults, by refusing them full access to their own birth certificate.

No other group of citizens is denied such a basic right. As of today, only 7 states allow adopted adults to know who they are, and only 3 states allow unrestricted access.

It is way past time to allow adopted adults the right to their birth certificates.

Parents, grandparents, siblings, partners, friends, spouses, everyone: If you’ve been pleased with any of these landmark civil rights decisions, join us in insisting that adopted adults have the right to something the rest of us take for granted: our birth certificates.

Get more information here: Adoptee Rights Coalition

Update, Previews, and Teasers

Posted on by
2

It’s good to be back.  In the last few weeks, I’ve gone from Seattle to Vancouver and back, and then from Washington State to Maryland to New York City to Maryland to Washington State.

Update:

During these 3 weeks: One of my daughters ran her first 5k, and finished in the top 20. My other daughter made the honor roll for her college semester, and was asked to be a teaching assistant this fall in the psychology department. One of my sons received the certification for sanitation at the Culinary School he’s attending. My other son closed on several real estate/rental contracts.

I attended my granddaughter’s dance recital in Maryland.  She has since had two tee ball games, Field Day in kindergarten, and her piano recital.

IMG_8370

In New York City, I saw the play “The Call,” about a white married couple considering adopting a child from Africa. I also attended the annual conference of the Joint Council on International Children Services. I presented a session on “Standards of Practice for Adoptive Parents: Ethics, Economics, and Responsibilities,” as well as a lightning talk (20 PowerPoint slides in 5 minutes) on The Art of Adoption, featuring poems, paintings, and plays by adoptees.

IMG_0266

And each Friday, whatever time zone I was in, I skyped with my dad in Massachusetts. He’s in amazing physical health for an 83 year old.  He lives in the Harbor unit of an assisted living facility, diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.  He’s delightful to talk with, often asks if any of my kids are getting married. No word on that yet, Dad.

I’ve had lots to reflect on in terms of family, adoption, being in the moment, the futility of art-directing others people’s lives, and more.

Previews and Teasers

Tomorrow night (Tuesday June 4), 7 pm pdt/10pm edt: Angela Tucker (of Closure) and Aselefech Evans via Google + Hangout. The conversation will be about transracial adoption (US and Ethiopia), hair, race, diversity, search: how perception and understanding of adoption changes over time for adoptees, how our definition of “family” can be so complex.

In the next week or so, I will be posting my JCICS workshop information about Standards of Practice for Adoptive Parents.  (Teaser: The basics are citizenship, DNA testing, and role models/mentors who are adult adoptees.  The more controversial: Insisting on equitable pre-adopt and post-adopt services for birth families.)

I’m thrilled to be soon getting an advance review copy of The Declassified Adoptee‘s soon-to-be-published book. It’s going to be wonderful, powerful, provocative, insightful. A tremendous benefit to the adoption community.

Washington State has also provided two items of fodder recently for writing and commenting. For one, a less than adequate “compromise” bill on access to OBC’s. The second item is still not having a trial for Hana Alemu, more than two years after she was found dead in her adoptive parents’ back yard. A hearing is scheduled this week.

So.  There’s lots going on. Lots to write about, think about, reflect on. It’s good for us to be here.

OBC Outrage: Adoptive Parents?

Posted on by
1

Adopted children grow up. As adults, as US citizens, they should have the (basic, human, civil) right to access their Original Birth Certificate.

Access is a matter of state law. In only 6 states do adoptees have full access to their own OBC.

Birth parents were never guaranteed privacy through legislation on the federal, state ,or local level. Never. Yet they hold the legal rights (via vetoes written into state laws) to prevent the child they placed for adoption–the child to whom they gave up all legal rights–from accessing knowledge of who he or she is.

I believe in the rights of birth parents. I recognize how often they have been marginalized. The playing field, though, needs to be level here. It’s simply not fair to deny adoptees the fundamental right to know who they are.  No other group in the United States is cut off like this.

I’m disappointed in what seems to be happening here in Washington state, as adoptees’ rights are again being crushed. I’ll be writing to the Seattle Times and elsewhere, and I hope other adoptive parents join me.

The world hasn’t ended in Kansas or Alaska, where adoption records have never been sealed. In Oregon, Alabama, New Hampshire, and Maine, adult adoptees can access their records. In these 6 states, adopted adults have the right to access or not access their own records. Many adopted adults choose not to seek their OBC.

The right to one’s original birth certificate should be a real option, not an impossible, illicit act.

It puzzles me that adoptees and birth parents favoring open records have not been more successful. Very frustrating, but I think it shows the imbalance of power in adoption policy. We adoptive parents have been historically mighty in the World of Adoption Policy; it’s time we wielded our clout in this arena for our children to have access to their original birth certificates.

Adopted children grow up. It’s time we treated them as adults.

For some good advocacy, look at the following:

Adoptee Rights Coalition: Information about the status of legislation across the country.

Family Ties:  Thoughtful blog written by a grandmother like me, though she’s an adoptee.  And has 5 more grandkids than I do.

Bastard Nation: Great name, right? Provocative, helpful information. Here’s the Washington state info.

Washington Coalition for Adoptee Rights and Equality: Information specific to Washington state adoptees.

Advocacy in Olympia, Part 1: The Value of the OBC

Posted on by
Reply
Adoptees, birth mothers, adoptive parents--rallying together for OBC access 3/21/13. I'm on the far left.

Adoptees, birth mothers, adoptive parents–rallying together for OBC access 3/21/13. I’m on the far left.

Washington State is known to be progressive: gay marriage, legalization of marijuana, more recycling buckets than you can shake a stick at (Yard Waste). So it’s surprising, in some ways, that the debate over allowing adult adoptees to access their original birth certificates (OBC) still swirls.

Around the world, most industrialized nations allow adult adoptees unrestricted access to their OBC as a matter of civil rights. (My daughters from Ethiopia arrived here with their OBC.) That’s not the case here in the US. Two states, Alaska and Kansas, have never sealed adoption records, meaning that adopted people have always had the right to obtain their OBC.  New Hampshire, Maine, Alabama, and Oregon currently allow adult adoptees to get their OBC, without restrictions. Most other states allow some sort of access, often fairly complicated, subject to some sort of veto (by the first/birth/biological mother)–and that is unfair.

No legislation exists (or has ever existed) by the federal government or any state government that guarantees privacy to birth parents following an adoptive placement. None.

Adult adoptees are the only group of Americans that are denied the right to know who they are, a basic human and civil right.

Whether they choose to exercise that right is highly individual, but there is no doubt in my mind that they should have the option. Adoption is undeniably complex.  Adoptees and birth families should have support and resources available to them, if and when they decide to search. A fundamental right, though, is access to one’s identity.

Last Thursday, I drove from Seattle to Olympia, Washington’s state capitol, about an hour and a half away.  The Senate Human Services and Corrections Committee was holding a hearing on 2 adoption-related bills, and, as an adoptive parent, I testified about both. The OBC legislation generated a lot of interest and testimony, from a few adoptive parents (older than me, even), several adoptees who ranged in age from mid-20’s to 70, and several birth mothers. We (adoptive parents, adoptees, birth mothers) were on the same page, urging legislators to allow adult adoptees unrestricted access to their original birth certificates. It’s overdue.