One of Bastardettes’s favorite adoption bloggers Grannie Annie nails it in today’s blog, Original Birth Certificates: Right or Privilege.
The Deformers in New Jersey have fashioned a “Mother, May I?” amendment allowing birthmothers 12 months following passage of the bill in which to file an affidavit of nondisclosure. This means that if a birth mother signs a statement saying she doesn’t want her identity known to her child of adoption, then that adoptee doesn’t get his or her birth certificate- possibly forever.
New Jersey is actually handing over its constitutional responsibility of issuing birth certificates to birth mothers who claim they want their privacy. These are the same birth mothers, I might add, who legally and irrevocably gave up all legal rights to their children at the time of the relinquishment.
THE MOMMIE/STATE OF THINGS
Tagging S1087 as a “Mother May I? bill” is a stroke of semantic genius. The phrase strips away the progressive façade of compromising adoption deform and exposes its underpinnings of self-defeat and internalized unworthiness.
Mother May I? bills accept the false claim that parents have the right to dictate the terms of identity retrieval to their adult children who they signed (willingly or not) into the adoption mill. These bills codify some weird recreation of a child asking Mommie for permission for the trivial: a Toostsie Pop. A pair of Hello Kitty panties. I’m not worthy, but if you’d be so kind…Mother may I?
Not satisfied with simply sealing parental information from adopted persons, Mommie/State, in collusion with self-deprecating Deformers in New Jersey, propose a bigger insult than the current law (if that is possible!): the release of original birth certificates to all adoptees, but with the identifying information deleted if a parent objects to being outted to her or his own adult child. And to top it off, if this bill passes, the Mommie/State wants to run an ad campaign to warn natural parents about the threat the law poses to their “right to privacy” so reluctant parents will have plenty of time to access their own special right to hide inside the WhiteOut bottle. Boo!
The keystone of adoptee rights has always been access and identity for all adopted persons who want it–without prejudice– as a right, not a favor.
I know that many Jersey Deformers understand this principle. They have long held and still claim to hold the rights argument. Yet after 25 years of struggle, they now disown that principle out of expediency They will take what they can get–a soppy bill that solidifies the state view that adopted persons are different from the not-adopted. Adoptees, as the product of unbridled lust and de facto guilt, require special state supervision and monitoring simply because they exist. Something-is-better-than-nothing-at-this-late-date Deformers embrace the infantilizing S1087, which segregates adoptees into legal classes, treats women as incapable of personal responsibility and in need of state protection, and thrusts the long fingers of the state into the personal business of families and individuals. They call this progress. Or maybe they’re just tired.
THE TREE OF SHAME
Adoptee identity rights is not about reunion, though reunion can be a side effect of access. Adoptee identity rights is not about therapy, though some people are bound to feel better when they hold their own documents. Adoptee identity rights is about overthrowing a corrupt state system that seizes our most precious possession: our names, our histories, our heritages, our genealogical contexts–our identities. No amount of adoptee begging and compromise will fix that rotten system. By ignoring the real issue and framing the right to identity in terms a Mother May I? game, where adoptees remain scary and scared, compliant and obedient to the whim of state authority and a bogus “right to privacy” from one’s own offspring, we all lose. Is it any wonder that politicians continue to slam the file cabinet on our fingers? What’s to respect?
Bastardette is sad for the adopted people of New Jersey. And she is sad for those who push S1087 knowing that the bill betrays the adoptee class that will reap the rotten fruit fallen from the New Jersey Tree of Shame, not just in Jersey but in the remainder of closeted states. Ironically, the New Jersey folks have named S1087 the Adoptees’ Birthright Bill, yet they have sold the birthright of all for a favor to some.
As I quoted Maureen Dowd earlier, “The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get less than you settled for.” The legacy of shame continues in New Jersey.
Read Grannie Annie. And pull on your boots.
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I would like to point out that it is the LEGISLATORS who added this amendment, NOT those who have been working tirelessly in New Jersey for TWENTY YEARS (and elsewhere in the country) to get an open records bill through both houses….NOT birthparents themselves.
Birthparents over the course of the last 30 years have been far more courageous and outspoken than adoptees ever have! Five hundred of us – UNANONYMOUSLY – supported Measure 58 in Oregon and likely helped it pass! We write letters to the editors and legislators all the time saying we were NOT promised anything and do not want protection from our children. We point out that 90-99% of birthmothers WANT to know their children.
Please don’t make US sound like the enemy – we are NOT! These amendments set all of womanhood and feminism back to pre-ERA days when women were thought to need needed “protection” and were treated differently/less capable than men – who are pursued to ADMIT parenthood and support their chidlren.
Additionally, BN’s stance on always using the word “ADULT” is asking “Please may have I have the right to peek at my records when I am a grown up” is what keeps you in this position of having to ask for what should be rightfully yours.
You hand your life over to the control of your adopters and are still afraid, even as adults, to demand it back – fully and without restrictions. Instead of callign a spade a spade and referring to your birthcertificates as falsified documents YOU accept a life of lies and secrets until such time as you are able to handle the hard. ugly truth. That is what you present to the world.
True EQUALITY with non-adoptees woudlbe to have access to your records as the same as anyone else. You put your own restrictions on your rights and then complain about bills not being “clean” and having restrictions.
What you are asking for is akin to slaves having asked to remain in slavery all of their lives if they could be freed when adults!
No wonder amendments like these are added. You present yourselves as needing to be protecting all of your lives from the truth and from US. Your present yoruselves as what you are: AFRAID TO HURT THE FEELINGS of your adopters; afraid to BITE THE HAND THAT HAS FED YOU!
You want your cake and to eat it too. You want the privaleges adoption has given you and the right to peek at your truth AS ADULTS! Grow up and take back control of your lives. Ask for wat you deserve – FULL equality!
What you are doing now is shooting yourselves in the foot in many ways.
1. You act like you need protection from the truth
2. You ostracize your greatest supporters and the ones you need to get these bills passed – birthparents
3. You are unfair to those among you who do not even know they are adopted and may never know!
All of this you do until you face the issue of FALSIFIED birth certificates and refuse to accept them anymore.
In the bastard Quarterly – the argument against this approach was said to be that some adoptees are embarrassed to have a BC that says they are adopted. How many time sin life does one show anyone a BC? When you get a driver’s license and SS card. After that you never use it again! What is your real issue???
Just as adopters need to deal witht heir underlying issues of infertility, I suggest you all deal wth your feal of hurting them once and for all and then start acting like adults who deserve and need to demand real equality. STOP BLAMING YOUR BIRTHMOTHERS for your not getting what you want. You are acting like spoiled brats having a temper tantrum!
AND…at the very least, if you cannot use the term FALSIFIED BC – which is what it is – then at least ask for EQUALITY like gays are doing using the term “Marriage Equality” instead of asking to OPEN Pandora’s box, for God’s sake!
If you act like victims, you will be treated as victims. The choice is yours.
Hmmm…my comment has not been published as of yet. Perhaps it is being screened. Gives me an opportunity to add a post script:
Granny Annie says the NJ Bill:
“solidifies the state view that adopted persons are different from the not-adopted. Adoptees, as the product of unbridled lust and de facto guilt, require special state supervision and monitoring simply because they exist. Something-is-better-than-nothing.”
Isn’t that what YOU in BN do when you ask for permission to see your records as ADULTS and accept being lied to prior to that? Where is the equality in that? Does that not “solidify the state view” of you being treated differently than non-adopted people? In case you didn’t know it – non-adopted people do not get birthcertificates stating that people who may not have even present at their birth – nor even in the same state – are their parents! They don’t have to spend their lives wondering, guessing who may be. They are not at the behest of parents who may or may not tell them the truth even if their lives depend on it.
Is YOU who are accepting “something-is-better-than-nothing.”
STOP PROJECTING and BLAMING others! Take back control of your lives for real! Be as radical as you claim to be! getting your records WHEN YOU ARE ADULTS does nothing to help the 12-year-old who is suicidal and on drugs because he feels rejected and abandoned and is not allowed to meet a loving mother who might tell him that she longed to keep him but had no support to do so and that she thinks of him every day.
I have always questioned the right of the state to issue a false ‘birth certificate.”And I have written and stated many times that adoption secrecy was forced on us biological parents…by the sealed record statute which we didn’t lobby for. Age 18 is rather late to find out “what happened”.. a person is born and then hidden…for 18 years? People should always know who they are and who their relatives are.And I have always wondered why this does not seem to offend the adopted people I work with on legislative issues…I agree with Adopttalk there are questions about this.
Non-adopted people do not have an “original birth certificate”..because there is no such thing..there is only one birth certificate. And some of us non-adopted people are bastards too.
The amended one is a falsified document that amounts to identity theft, not just for the adopted person but for the mother and father as well. Our medical history of giving birth is on the fake certificate..but where our names were..there are the names of 2 strangers.
Effectively, when I give my doctor the medical history of giving birth to my lost child, I am telling the doctor something that, according to the state…is a lie. Why?? Because the fake birth certificate is stamped with the ‘official” state seal that says it is a “true document.”
This is an outrage..state-sanctioned identity theft and false identities….. these are not conferred on people by the surrender of children. NO. A surrendered child retains his/her real, only, true birth certificate and identity. What confers the false identity is the adoption of children..and we are not the ones who did that.
So who wanted the childrens identities changed? Does the law even require that names be changed in an adoption?If so, then why?Because by the time the childs name is being changed, the coerced biological parents are long out of the legal picture………
Good points kitta3…but, me wonders if the selfish bastards will care ’cause they don’t care about our pain one iota. After all – we “signed [our kids] (willingly or not) into the adoption mill” and have no right to “dictate the terms of identity retrieval to their adult children.” We – willingly or not –
signed away all of our rights – even our right to know if our kids are alive or dead…being abused… needing us…
The thing is that the so-called “DEFORMERS” – those busting their asses for the past 25 years in NJ are ADOPTEES, not birthparents!
And the ones who add restrictions to the bill are the legislators, not the activists.
I challenge BN to introduce and get a CLEAN bill passed in NJ. When you do that, THEN rank on those who are doing the best they can!
This is as stupid as fighting over the use of a word. We need to work together not KNOCK one another’s efforts and name-call like children in a school yard!
Adopttalk,
another question I have asked…many times..of the adopted people I work with in my state is “what about the adopted people who want their mothers to find them??” And judging by the many adopted people I have met who feel that way, there are a lot of them.
We are just as related to our children as they are to us…no more and no less..and that is what the birth certificate shows, clearly.
Our relatedness is not conditional upon an adoption..the act of adoption does not change it.
Adopted people do not need to be hidden in the state secret adoption witness program anymore than we do…and as they have pointed out many times…they didn’t ask to be hidden anymore than we did.
Adopttalk, when I was threatened into signing papers(or be taken to court, a nasty trick they did back then) I read the papers…there was nothing about ‘ never searching’ or ‘confidentiality forever” or any agreements.It was just a surrender of parental rights and custody…all of which became moot when my child became an adult.
I also found out that there are some older Americans who have no birth certificate at all..the laws requiring birth registrations didn’t start to be passed until around 1900..and some of the more outlying areas of the country still were not issuing them as late as the 20s.I have relatives who do not have one and have had to use other identification instead.
“If you act like victims, you will be treated like victims”
I don’t know any adoptees who post here who act like victims. I don’t see any of us projecting and blaming others.
Support for open records is welcome from all quarters. However, don’t start acting like you “own” the issue. And, please don’t try to twist the cause to fit your own notions of ending adoption. I’m perfectly happy with my “adopters” as you call them.
kitta3: I have always wondered why this does not seem to offend the adopted people I work with on legislative issues…
We make for more convenient scapegoats.
I agree with Adopttalk there are questions about this.
I think so too, and think it makes perfect sense to address the matter of the issuance of falsified “birth certificates”…get to the root.
We [bio mothers] make for more convenient scapegoats.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Regarding victims of crime, civil rights violations, and other matters:Petitioning the government for redress is one of the rights listed in the First Amendment.
I have sat in legislative committees, testified, and worked on bill writing committees(records issues and a number of other family rights)….for many years.
Invariably,in OBC access bills, at least one mother will tearfully testify that her”life will be ruined” if the records are opened.
On the other hand, adopted people will usually say they are perfectly happy being adopted, would “never” want to be raised by their bio family, …but they want the OBC because it is their civil right and/or they “need medical information.”
The legislators job is to keep the peace..that is why in some states there is a ‘safety clause’ at the end of most proposed legislation.
Legislators hear that mothers’ “lives will be ruined” and they conclude that opening records might be disruptive.
They hear that ‘adopted people are happy in their adoptive home.”
So, they ‘side” with the mother, who appears threatened, rather than the adopted person who says “I am happy”.
If you want the OBC, you have got to make a stronger case than “I am happy but it is my civil right… and I need medical information”(which is protected under the federal HIPAA law anyway).
It is very hard for mothers to argue for a lost civil “right” for adopted people who say they are “happy with the way things turned out”.
If we mothers are not needed, then, we might as well not bother.
Invariably,in OBC access bills, at least one mother will tearfully testify that her “life will be ruined” if the records are opened.
I’ve read that the NCFA et al have made sure to get mothers in to testify like this. Somehow I just don’t buy that someone is coming in and doing this on her own. And why do they listen to one or two (coached?) testimonies if there is evidence that the majority of us (I’ve seen 90-99%) actually are in favor of open records and disclosure?
mary e, I have witnessed these”tragic” mothers many times now. Sometimes they are coached by agencies which do not want the records opened, IMO.Other times they are there on their own, having found out about the bills from friends or the newspaper or other lawmakers.
NCFA is only one of the enemies that we have…ACLU, Planned Parenthood and NARAL, and others, want the records to stay sealed also.
The adoption agencies are fearful of lawsuits from all parties in adoptions.They know there is evidence in the records that could implicate them. They keep asking for a ” waiver of liability clause” in the bills so they cannot be held liable for anything that happened in the past or that is revealed after the fact.
They don’t get the clause and then they go against the bills, but they really don’t support them anyway.They want control over the whole situation.They really do think they “own” all of us.
One legislator said that lawmakers assume that there are more than a few people who share the feelings of anyone who testifies, so one ‘tearful mother” is seen as a larger number.
Of course, we have pointed out to them that vast numbers of mothers want the records opened and that we didn’t want to surrender in the first place.
The agencies have a lobbyist and money is being funneled in that direction. The agencies lobbyist told me to my face, “The adoptive parents don’t want the records opened.” They also testify before the legislature.
So, it isn’t just the “tearful mothers” who are the problem.
That is why I think that if adopted people could get across the idea to the lawmakers that adoption did not make them “happy” and in fact has done them harm,caused a great loss, it might help open things. The late Carole Anderson wrote in an article about opening records that adopted people needed to show legislators that they have a “bone-deep need to find family/reconnect with original identity”…but they are not saying that.
Adoption is still being touted as ‘wonderful” even as a “miracle”.
Lawmakers think that the “status quo” is good enough and will maintain the peace.
Kitta 3 is right. It’s all about money. No law ever is made to appease 1-10% of the population! It’s absurd. Birthmothers’ protection is a huge smoke screen. The lobbyists are concerned with those who profit from infant adoptions, and they must appease those who pay for it all – adopters. The rest is all BS!
We all know that the records were never sealed to protect birthparents and are not now kept sealed to protect us.
As for the “accusation” of being anti-adoption, I plead guilty! I am damn proud to be totally 100% against the current practices of adoption in this country that coerce and exploit poor mothers — here and abroad — and sell their kids to the highest bidders while thousands of children who can never be reunited with their families languish in foster care. IMO, if you are not against that, you are not paying attention. Take off your rose-colored glasses and face reality. There is nothing pretty, altruistic, noble or beautiful about infant adoption today!
I also do not support a system that issues a totally FALSE BC and puts lives of innocent children – who had no part in any agreements – at the behest of their adopters. If that doesn’t bother YOU, you need to ask why not! Have they bought your loyalty along with you? Are you party to your own inequality…like college girls who make “Girls Gone Wild” videos who allow themselves to be exploited for others’ pleasure?
HOWEVER, I would like to get back to the issue of this post: The BLAMING of activists who are working for open records because legislators seek ‘compromises’ or to appease lobbyists.
PROJECTING and playing victim? Yes, IMHO BN does this when they themselves ask for far less that parity with their non-adopted peers who do not have to wait until they are all grown up to know the truth of their lives!
I would really like someone from BN to address these issues.
Hmmm – Okay am a member of BN. Unfortunately, my birth mother is the reason why I can’t get mine. She refused contact. I don’t believe anyone should have control over my birth certificate. I do try to present that argument. I don’t have the right to reunion but I have the right to have the information that records my birth. From what I hear, courtesy of post 9/11 I am going to need it. Unlike the non adopted folks, I can’t get it. One of my best friends likes to argue the medical issue stuff. No I am not entitled to someone else’s medical information but I again I am entitled to my birth certificate and the medical information concerning my birth. Unlike what the NCFA says about adoptive parents, I am finding more and more adoptive parents wanting that information as well along with the many birth parents. Yes I am “happy” with my adoptive parents but that doesn’t negate my thoughts and feelings about my adoption paperwork. I do believe that we can’t make it without birth parents and adoptive parents. When I write to Indiana state legislators, I include the websites that post information on all of them. That all of us want our information. I refuse to allow someone else control over my records and my life. I would like to see birth certificates to include all names. I am also not offending my mother by demanding this information. She stands right next to me.
I know of a couple of adoptive parents that sued a big time agency here in Texas because their children were mentally ill. I guess many of us adoptees don’t like to have our adoptive parents bashed. I have one of those moms that you wished for your children. She so welcomes the extended family that I have. She just like all of you is totally boggled by my birth mother’s choice.
As far as being anti-adoption, yes I am also one of those. I have lost a couple of long time friends because I believe adoption as it stands should be changed.
Calling each other names is not going to win this war. Even though I don’t always agree with the true “anti-adoption” crew, I believe that they do have the same goal as I do. The same is said about the adoption reform crew. So with that in mind, I do my best to unify with everyone.
In case anyone noticed recently, New Jersey allowed gays to be married but adoptees – we are just so controversial. Go figure
The New Jersey folks could have withdrawn their bill when the compromises were introduced. That’s what you do when your bill is hijacked. You dump it. It’s painful, but you dump it.
Unfortunately, NJ made a conscious decison to try to get what they can get rather than walk away with dignity. In taking the low road they have the potential of taking everybody down with them. They have compromised the rights of all for favors to some. That bill will come due some day.
Mirah, you of all people, know what the history of this is. Has any state come back and granted full access once touchy-feely protective access is in place? The answer is NO. Have states, when given the chance, restored unrestricted access when those who brought the bill held their ground and refused compromise? YES: Alabama, New Hampshire, and of course, Oregon through the ballot. And after the vote was in we still had to fight to let the voice of the people be heard when the legislature attemptedto screw with it. We were told repeatedly that M58 would be the death of the movevment. We got very little support from Oregon deformers who trembled in fear. We won, yet the complainers keep on with their tired old bills and tactics.
“Our state is different.” If the right to access can be restored in Alabama it can be restored anywhere. If the right of access can be endorsed by the Manchester Times Union, one of the most conservative newspapers in the country, then your conservative newspapers can endorse, too.
Disclosure and contact vetoes, whiteouts, mandatory CIs…none of these compromises have come from NCFA, the Bishops, or any of their ilk They have come from deformers who will take anything they can get. Oh, please, Mr. Legislator. Give me my crumbs and I’ll go away. That’s the legacy of the adoption deform movment. Take anything and limp away in gratitude. We know that we can get more if we stick to our guns, but we’re nice middle class priviledged white folks and we don’t want to upset anybody. Meet the Lady and Gentleman Deformer.
It’s your friends in New Jersey who are letting leggies frame the debate. It’s your friends in New Jersey who have let NCFA, CC, NARAL, PP and whatever scum has crawled out from its rock use nmoms to hide behind. It’s your friends in New Jersey who are letting nparents be slimed by the state. It’s your friends in New Jersey who are disempowering women. It’s your friends in New Jersey who are selling adoptees and npaents down the river–not Bastard Nation.
Don’t’ complain about Bastard Nation. We’re carrying the banner of truth.
It’s certainly not adoptees or nparents or aparents who create the so-called rift between and amongst us all It’s the state.
Marley,
You and Amy are just as much my “friends” as the adoptee activists in NJ.
My whole point was summed up by Amy: “Calling each other names is not going to win this war.” Divided we fall!
I find using a pejorative term like “deformer” to degrade the hard work of others who are doing their best – even if their strategy or tactics disagree with yours – far worse than the stupid fights over what name any of us choose to call ourselves. The name issue remains within our ranks and does not effect legislation and politics.
FURTHER, you continue to avoid a major issue that I brought up in the BN Quarterly and again here:
How do you rationalize allowing yourselves to live with a lie until you are adults and then ask for the right to your own records, IF you know you are adopted…and IF it is not already too late??? What good is knowing a name if that person is already dead…or the adoptee is before he is an adult? What good is revwersing a life of lies for someone who has felt distressed over it as a teen?? What good does it do those who may live and die a lie and never know they are adopted – giving false medical info all their lives? WHY DO YOU SETTLE, FOR THAT?? How do you equate that with not taking crumbs? How do you call that equality???
Do you not see that by keeping that word ADULT in their you are playing into the enemies view that there is danger in the truth? That you need PROTECTION from it?
And why do you never answer these questions and address this issue???
Rev. Lanie Petersen who answered the point-counterpoint in the Spring/Summer 06 BN Quarterly said she is essentially in agreement with me about BCs being falsified (how can anyone not?). Her first argument was that “this is what BN has always always done”…kinda like the “because I’m the Mommy argument.” That was followed by “not every adoptee wants his/her adopted status on a document that has to be seen by so many people.” WHO? A grade school administrator who enrolls you in school and a clerk at motor vehicles? Who else ever sees it???
AND…if it that’s troublesome, then just use a short form BC that has your name and date of birth and nothing else.
SOOO…PLEASE tell me why you accept living a life of lies and ask for your records only when you are adults, and not access at any time anyone else has access to know who their parents are???
And for God’s sake….why on earth do you people insist on using the phrase OPEN RECORDS which rings of Pandora’s Box. Yes, NJ just passed gay marriage. WHY? Because they did not call it gay or same-sex marriage. It was presented as MARRIAGE EQUALITY. Equality is a very important American value. We don’t like legally denying people equality. Use this popular value instead of framing it with the enemies terms ans using the phrase “open records” which reeks of pitting you against those who want them sealed and those who claim that it invades the rights of others.
EQUAL ACCESS is about YOUR RIGHTS and involves no one else but you!
In closing I think you should look at what BN does to hurt yourselves and keep yourself infatilized and in need of protection before you sling mud at others for doing it. You need to look at how you are accepting crumbs – and a lesser life with age restrictions etc that do not apply to anyone else – before blaming others for doing that to you.
Amy,
You have a wonderful adoptive mom and a selfish, frightened birthmother. Many have the reverse, or both good or both bad. Everyone’s situation and circumstance is unique.
Statistically the vast majority of birthmothers support open records while the same cannot be said about adoptive parents. It is a small, albeit hopefully growing, minority of them that support open adoption and open records.
Be that as it may…no one’s birth or adoptive parents should have control of their child’s life and deny them their truth. The law should simply not allow it. States should not commit fraud to begin with in issuing falsified BC’s. When someone divorces – even if their child is an infant – both parents are still their parents, even if one deserts or remarries.
Despite how good any adoptee’s parents and life – the fact is that they were NOT “BORN TO” their adoptive parents! They may love them, adore them, have zero interest in finding their original families or even knowing any medical history…but that does not change the fact their BC is a fraudulent document that certifies that they are biologically connected to people with very different DNA, innate talents and likely even different ethnicity than they, and they are denied knowing the truth.
This is an OUTRAGE and should not be accepted. It is not accepted in other countries. It was not accepted here until the 1940s. Why should it continue to be accepted?
Why should adoption be based on a LIE? Why is that acceptable? In whose nest interest is it? How does it help one develop a healthy sense of self? How does it help if one is ill and knows little or nothing about medical history…or gives false medical history?
When BN asks for legislation to open the records for adults it condones the notion that they need protection from some horrible monster – the truth and their very own real life flesh and blood family.
Why? Because it would shatter their reality to INTEGRATE their life in a healthy manner? Because they’d rather remain split? They don’t want their worlds to collide?
OR, is it about CONTROL? As adults, they can get access and then the decision is THEIRS what to do with it. If the truth is always there – never sealed from them – it is also never sealed from their birth family. Oh horrors! They might actually grow up in an honest open family knowing that one set of parents created them and another nurture them. Gee, how terribly confusing that might be – like having parents and step parents. Or parents and grandparents, or aunts and uncles!
But the horror of it! Just imagine if they had relatives who were…less educated, possibly, less wealthy, less “advantaged”…maybe shopped at WalMart…or were blue collar workers. Oh my! Yes, those are shameful secrets. Better keep it sealed until the adoptee can maintain control of this horrible monster – the truth behind the curtain. Cause what if the neighbors or our friends at school ever saw them at our house. How could they explain even knowing such low-lives, much less being related to them?
And, BTW, the gays in NJ did NOT get everything they asked fr. They did not get same-sex marriage. They got a civil union with all the same rights as marriage but not th word marriage.
That was how the legislators COMPROMISED on that one! Keeping “marriage” – the word – sacrosanct.
I wonder if the gays and lesbians in the Garden State (and elsewhere)are cheering and celebrating their victory, or finger-pointing and name-calling those who “settled” for civil union when they were asking for marriage equality?
adopttalk, I agree with what you are saying about the lies.
I have never been able to understand why it is acceptable to live a lie until age 18 and then the truth should be revealed.
Non-adopted people grow up with all kinds of “unpleasant truths”…including the knowledge that some of us are bastards.We are simply bastards living in our family.
If the truth is good enough(or bad enough) at age 18, why is it unbearable before that..
I have heard over and over that adopted people want the same rights as other, non-adopted people.
Right…then why the secrecy until age 18..and why is this so controversial that we can’t get an answer.
This is not about BN.. for me…I have heard the same statements from the adopted people I work with here and they are not, for the most part, BN members.
This is what I mean when I say that adopted people have to convince lawmakers that the loss of heritage and relatives has been felt since birth.It can’t very well be something that doesn’t matter for 18 years and then all of a sudden it does.Records should not be falsified…what is the point of keeping records if they are going to be false? The reason for keeping official documents like birth certificates is to record the truth.
Amy, I am glad you have a loving adoptive mother.But I also agree with Mirah that your amom is exceptional. There is no large vocal group of aparents out there fighting for access to records for adopted people.And I have been challenged by quite a number of them who don’t want us to ever find our children or have a relationship with them.This is one reason so many of them are going to foreign countries to adopt.They admit that.
I have read about the lawsuits for medical history…but have they ever sued an agency so that the underage child could find the biological mother just so the child could know the mother? Not for medical history..but for a personal relationship…an emotional need.
If there are such cases on record I would like to know about them..they might be good for the cause.
Adopttalk suggests “You are acting like spoiled brats having a temper tantrum!”
Kudos to you for saying what so many of us moms now share behind the scenes – that our found children are often whiney, narcissictic brats! We’re always held up to be the bad guys and although there are always a small percentage of adopters will support open records – you’re spot on when you point out that it’s almost always a disproportionate # of first mothers writing letters, marching and speaking out. In fact, in the over 16 years that I’ve been involved with this stuff – I’ve had to beg and cajole most of the adoptees I know to actually make a phone call or write a letter! Yet they’re the first to critizize behind the scenes.
I’ve also noticed that now that mothers who lost children to adoption are are finally getting some attention for injustices that were committed to US in the name of adoption – lots of adopted people I know are whining because the attention is off them.
I know how hard you’ve worked in NJ – it’s been a long haul to even get to this point. This isn’t like the case we had in PA a year or so ago when an adoptee went by herself to a legislator asking for a bill that came out of the gate with veto disclosures and all kinds of unfair amendments! And then she wondered why the rest of us wouldn’t support it! You’ve worked hard to get this far and personally I think if you’re accused of settling – it’s a petty temper tantrum again because BN couldn’t get anywhere in NJ themselves.
I also hate to watch the Bastardette’s tired old ploy of coming in at the 11th hour claiming to be looking out for all adoptee’s rights and waiving that Oregon flag as if they were totally responsible. Quite frankly, it’s no wonder it takes so long for change.
I have read on Adoptive Family’s online website that they support access to records. I have also been to NACAC’s website. They too support access. In fact, NACAC recommends using access in exchange for open records. I also have seen a survey done by Cornell that states 80% of adoptive parents support access. It does seem the tides are changing for us.
I don’t think we should be alienating adoptive parents just like anti-adoption people should not be alientating adoption reformers and vice versa. Calling us whiny children does not help either.
We need to be unifying. I use triad access in my terminology. We shouldn’t be figuring out who got what passed. The only way we can change things is by being adoptees and parents fighting for the change to allow all of us access.
Carol C wrote:
I also hate to watch the Bastardette’s tired old ploy of coming in at the 11th hour claiming to be looking out for all adoptee’s rights and waiving that Oregon flag as if they were totally responsible. Quite frankly, it’s no wonder it takes so long for change.
Please get your history straight. Read Wayne Carp’s book: the Politics of Adoption to know what happened in Oregon.
Who in the world do you think Helen Hill was? Hint. She wasn’t the AAC or OARA who barely lifted a finger to support the measure, and wouldn’t even let Helen attend its meetings to discuss the bill because its members didn’t like to get their hands dirty with politics. Nearly 10,000 adopted persons have received their obcs in Oregon. I went to one of OARA’s meetings a few years later when I lived in Eugene. They even had Kleenix boxes. Jesus Christ on a crutch!
Oregon was won by an coalition of people outside the liberal deform movement. It was not all BN to be sure, but without BN, Oregon would never have happened. There would have been no ballot measure.
If you want to see how deformers ruin a right simply look at how namby-pamby NARAL has let abortion rights be destroyed. As someone wrote on dKOS recently, would the NRA let this happen. Of course not. And we won’t let this happen to identity rights in the US.
Why or why do ya’ll continue to let the state set the discourse? Why do you except NJ as the best you can get when the politicians have arm-twisted worn out long-dedicated activists into settling for a compromised bill that says nmothers are weak fragile girls that demand state protection from their own children. Why is is OK for the state to lie about you, just so some may get a reunion (if they even want it.
I’m not without sympathy for the NJ people. I know how hard they have worked in a miserable church controled state for a quarter of a century. There are many wonderful people in the NJ coalition that I have a tremendous amount of respect for. But that doesn’t negate their complicity in the potential destruction of civil rights. NH is an important state that should stand for the rights of all, not the priviledge of some.
Just wait until some of those NJ activists get a veto slapped on them. Will that be OK with them?
One never compromises on rights.
I’ll add, Carol, that I am thrilled that the PA people rejected that wretched bill recently. I’ve only heard an outline of what happened. Would it have been OK to give a pass on this is the adoptee had spent years working to change PA law?
Kitta wrote:
I have read about the lawsuits for medicalhistory…but have they ever sued an agency so that the underage child could find the biological mother just so the child could know the mother? Not for medical history..but for a personal relationship…an emotional need.
If there are such cases on record I would like to know about them..they might be good for the cause.
Marley:
That’s a really good question, and I don’t know. It’s difficult to find lawsuits (not just adoption-related) because they usually aren’t recorded except on a local level where there is a record of the filing, docket, and other papers, until they hit the appeal level. To search for them, you usually need specialized paid databases such are as available through bar association membership or law schools.
If cases were brought and not appealed you’d need to know the names of the parties, the year/date and the jurisdiction and go through the files at the courthouse.
I do know of cases where aparents or adopetees have sued for medical histories or access to identities and lost since it’s none of their business and you can’t disburb the privacy of that selfless parent.
Marley
Mirah wrote:And, BTW, the gays in NJ did NOT get everything they asked fr. They did not get same-sex marriage. They got a civil union with all the same rights as marriage but not th word marriage.
Marley:
I don’t want to get off the track here, but shouldn’t the secular state use “civil union” and not marriage” for all such arrangements? Marriage is a church concept. Both, however, demand the stamp of approval by some higher authority to be held legitimate. Unless you bow to the state, you or your relationship doesn’t exist. Isn’t there something wrong with this?
I intend to answer your comments separately in the next couple days when I have more time. Maybe I’ll even blog them.
I am finding more and maore adoptive parents wanting that information as well as many birth parents.
My adoptive parents could not have been more supportive of my searching. The experience I’ve had here in California trying to help get records opened has brought me into contact with people connected with adoption in every conceivable way. What I don’t see there that I see here is “mean-spiritedness” where groups spend more time bashing one another than working for the same end.
Many of us adoptees don’t like to have our adoptive parents bashed.
Yup…I see some real winners here. They only support open records because its a way of getting at the adoption system. Take that away and I suspect they’d slide out of movement pretty fast. Its not true of all birth parents. But there is a segment of whackos that simply uses open records as a forum to wail against the system. I suppose it can be argued that any support is good when you are struggling to pass a law.
I wonder sometimes. When your movement becomes associated with demented people who hold an agenda that 95% of all people don’t swallow, I question whether that kind of support helps. My goodness the crap and garbage I hear spouted sometimes by some of the dingalings. Whether it ought to or not, adoption isn’t going to just go away.
At the very least, such people shouldn’t be in the front of the movement. I’ve been to legislative hearings and I’ve just cringed when I’ve seen some of these people get up to speak.
Sorry, I’m not in a very Christmasy mood after reading about the situation in NJ.
Kitta3 said:
“then why the secrecy until age 18..and why is this so controversial that we can’t get an answer.
This is not about BN.. for me…I have heard the same statements from the adopted people I work with here and they are not, for the most part, BN members.”
That’s because this is what they hear from the organization that is representing adoptees. It spreads. It gets into the media and into mainstream accepted thoughts and terminology. People accept it.
I sincerely hope that no one is referring to anything I have said or interpreting anything I have said or written as “bashing” adoptive parents. I have worked alongside adoptive aparents for 30 years. I am very pleased to read Amy’s comment that 8-% of the aps now support open records.
As I said, I am against those who seek to adopt for the purpose of filling the void left by infertility and want an infant – often with no strings (read: birthmother) attached. I am opposed to the broad brush painting of adoption as altruistic and wonderful when much of it is meeting the needs of adults and not children who need to be adopted. I am against people BUYING babies simply because they have the money to do so…and others loosing their children because they do not. Parenting should not be a class privilege.
Marley, I look forward to you response. I recognize that I have given you quite a lot to chew on. Hopefully planted some seeds for deep thought, not defenses. I did not mean to come off sounding mean…but as I have been told in private “someone had to finally say it outloud!”
I do believe there is an issue of control behind it all and I can well understand why that would be. I too, if I was adopted, would be angered by the lack of control I have had in my life. The truth is none of us can control who are parents are, though adoption is definitely more contrived…a kind of weird social experiment.
I sincerely hope that you can turn your collective anger at the lack of control away from birthmothers and toward those who have taken the control away from all in adoption — the legislators who see fit to tamper with government documents that our very lives depend upon and issue us false identities to those who did not request to be put into a witness protection program.
Yes, it’s scary territory. It might perhaps leave you vulnerable to being found more easily….perhaps even before you are an adult. But it also gives more control to your adoptive parents while you are a minor in the event of serious medical or emotional need to know.
I have received untold number of calls over the years from desperate adoptive parents trying to seek out their child’s family in a last ditch effort to save their child’s life. Unfortunately, once the adolescent is already displaying severe acting out it is often too late to restore his self-esteem and allow him to not feel rejected and abandoned.
You cannot have your cake and eat it too. You cannot request to be protected and accept your second-class status all of your life, asking for freedom only upon reaching a magic age. It doesn’t make sense. It is YOU who are saying “MOTHER MAY I” to your adoptive parents…that si what the public and legislators hear when you ut a stipulation on your own request for so-called equality.
Equal is equal. it is without qualifications or any hoopes for adoptees than non-adoptees. You cannot put your own restrictions on access and then express anger at legislators added their own additional restrictions. You are setting the stage for it to begin with, IMHO.
ENOUGH. I look forward to your thoughtful reply and hope that you continue to keep and OPEN MIND about these very emotionally charged issues that we all feel very passionate about.
PS I have had nothing to do with the legislation in NJ other than writing some letters.
PEACE
Mirah, I have heard the testimony of adopted people “protecting” the sealed and falsified records until age 18 for over 15 years.That was before BN started, and so I am assuming that your reference to an adopted peoples'”association” did not single out BN.
And for at least 15 years, I have been asking the adopted people I know to explain why they are still supporting the government issue of falsified birth “‘records”‘…. and why it suddenly becomes a crime at age 18 to continue to deny adopted people the truth.
The first time I heard it in legislative testimony was around 1995..an adopted man who is a group leader here stated before a legislative judiciary committee that he “understood why the records needed to be sealed until age 18 and he wasn’t trying to change that.” And I thought”why is it okay for the government to lie at all?”
By his testimony, he condoned the governments practice of lying on birth certificates.I am not “blaming him” nor am I singling him out. But this does beg the questions of “who supports this dishonest practice?” and”why do adopted people not demand that it be stopped?”
I still cannot get an answer.
Marley,I appreciate your response on the legal matters.
There are a number of lawyers in my family and they do send me Law Review cases on adoption/records access and other family law matters..I think it is important to point out, as you have, that much of what goes on in courtrooms is not readily available, nor easy to find. I have always believed that this is why the public gets a somewhat skewed view of legal decisions and precedents.
I had hoped that someone here might know of a case where adoptive parents had sued to get the records/identities for a minor child, for emotional needs rather than for a specific medical problem..The only cases I know of are the high-profile ones where aparents sued for medical information and it was usually related to emotional/mental behavior that had caused the adoptive parents to state that they would not have adopted the child….had they known in advance..(“so-called wrongful adoption cases)
This can be misleading too because some of the emotional ‘symptoms’ ..the ‘acting out, anxiety, sense of alienation that some adopted people express as minor children may not be hereditary, nor related to the pregnancy. It may be related to being separated from family.
In these cases, waiting until age 18 just prolongs the problems.My own son was one of the people who said he needed to know me long before age 18…had the adoptive parents been able to find me we could have known each other a lot sooner.
Amy, when I first started to work on access bills, my work involved getting support from all whose names appear on the records:the adopted person, the nparents, and the aparents.Out of all those participants, the group who has shown the least interest is consistently the apars, except for their interest in obtaining medical information.Recently, I have heard that apars want access to medical records even before the child is to be adopted… so they can decide whether to adopt the child.
Besides the usual ‘expected problem’ of the nmoms who testify they “didn’t want to be found,” there have been , in my state, a number of aparents who said they had no interest in supporting such access..and who actively worked against access for nmothers..and who tried to control the access for adopted people…and also testified that nmoms were “intruders.”Our group (adopted people, other apars, and nmoms)didn’t alienate them..they alienated themselves.
Your adoptive mom is exceptional….and sometimes, when a person is exceptional, it is hard to understand why others would not be like her.
As I stated before, there is no large group of adoptive parents who are actively working for records access for all parties, or even for adopted people.I have never seen NACAC testify for any access legislation here..and I did make a access support video with some apars I know from NACAC.recently the same apars who made the video 10 years ago, told me that they did not support our access to records bill here…they said they were afraid. I have read the Cornell survey results also.But the results of such a survey do not automatically mean that aparents are actively working for access to identifying records for everyone and that they support reunions and relationships that would result.
There are always exceptions….and there always will be.
I have often heard aparents say they want access to more medical information..but that is not the same thing as wanting access to the people themselves, nor is it the same thing as allowing the bio family to have access to them.
I have also read the articles in the Dallas paper about the Gladney lawsuit.The aparents sued for medical history and Gladney gave them medical history that included the fact that the nmom had had 2 abortions prior to the pregnancy. There were also some medical issues with some distant relatives..that didn’t appear to have any connection to the adopted womans difficulties.This was published in the Dallas paper…I think that was where I read it.
The Louise Wise agency lawsuit was on tv, 60 Minutes I think. The apars said they would not have adopted the child, a boy, had they known of the schizophrenia of his nmom.They even told the boy that.He was on the show and he said he didn’t blame them for feeling that way about thim.After the show was taped, he killed himself.
I think he referred to himself as a “lemon”…
The medical issue is becoming a “‘product liability” matter, as if children were simply products off an assembly line, with interchangeable parts.
Amy,
where does the 80% figure come from?
I read it on the Cornell website. I have a link to it on my blog. The author said that she was going to do another study as well on aparents.I am also very spoiled with Soul Of Adoption’s website. Along with hearing stories of many other adoptees that have support from their aparents.
kitta3: This can be misleading too because some of the emotional ‘symptoms’ ..the ‘acting out, anxiety, sense of alienation that some adopted people express as minor children may not be hereditary, nor related to the pregnancy. It may be related to being separated from family.
In these cases, waiting until age 18 just prolongs the problems.My own son was one of the people who said he needed to know me long before age 18…
My found son, now deceased, had told me about the time he first asked his adoptive parents for his birth certificate when he needed it for something. He was still a
minor at the time; I don’t remember how young he said he was, but pretty young, and he described having felt quite a bit of disbelief and inner distress in viewing the falsified document, knowing already that it was not real or true, knowing already he was not born to them.
I have often wondered how this and all the other misrepresentations of their beginnings impact the minds of children and young people who were adopted, primarily their ability to trust.
I know first hand that for my son, it impacted negatively and none of this was in his “best interest” but only contributed to his confusion and inability to trust, from early on.
Therefore I will never support the continuance of something that is a lie, as in the amended “birth” certificate.
I will also continue to support equal access, even if as one poster implied, some in the movement are just using us for ‘their’ cause (a reality all too familiar from the past), “I suppose it can be argued that any support is good when you are struggling to pass a law. — because obtaining it not only allows adoptees to discover their original identity, but can also be a first step in discovering what was real or not in regards to all the other fantasies, myths and lies one grew up believing, if it results in actual contact and hearing from the horse’s mouth, which is really none other than the original mother who lived through the surrender experience, that is if she is able to ‘go back there’. I know not everyone can.
I want to make it clear that I too support equal aces (or as some insist on calling it, open records).
It is not an either/or…but rather BOTH that need to be addressed The falsification of all FUTURE BCs need to be stopped and those adopted int he past need UNRESTRICTED access, the same as anyone not adopted.
I also am not asking BN to do it all. I thin having a a narrower focus or an area of special focus is better than spreading volunteer members too thin, obviously. I would just like to see BN incorporated some langaugse that supports these options as opposed to them always inserting the word ADULT…from my perspective that is BN putting a restriction on rights and thus asking for what they claim to want: TOTAL EQUAILTY.
Why not let the legislators worry about amending it and adding an age limit??? Why GIVE iot to them?
And that leads me right back to the word Amend. Do we as Americans not embrace the concept of an amendment as something ADDED TO, as an afterthought, that changes the original document???
When we amend the constitution we do not destroy the original and print a totally new one. We honor the past while updating it to meet present day values and needs.
Amend is the WRONG word! Using it validates a lie!
I encourage all activists to read George Lakoff’s “Moral Politics : How Liberals and Conservatives Think .”
When you being a counterargument bu using the language set up by the “other” – they have already won the debate.
If pro-choicers had chosent to argue with por-lifers as to when life begins instead of reframing it altogther and eliminating the word “life” rom their proisiton…they would never have stood a chance. Likewise, being anti-abortion is not a very popular stance wither. Both sides of this debate knew how to use language to their advantage.
Their is no advantage to asking for open records because THEY have sealed your records! There is no reason to continue calling a fraudulent falsified document and “amended” one.
Use THEIR words and you concede THEIR framing of the issue and they have won! Don’t allow them to frame your reality!
I continue to patiently await Marley’s explanation of why BN chooses NOT to do any og this.
Adopttalk: And that leads me right back to the word Amend. Do we as Americans not embrace the concept of an amendment as something ADDED TO, as an afterthought, that changes the original document???
When we amend the constitution we do not destroy the original and print a totally new one. We honor the past while updating it to meet present day values and needs.
Great point! Thanks for bringing it out.
I have a copy of my sons government-issued fake “birth” certificate.
It is identity theft.His and mine.The medical facts on the “document” are correct and are part of my, and his, personal medical history, but with another woman’s name on it.Stolen from my life….and his.
The woman wasn’t there…I was…but the government says that she owns that most important part of my life…and my sons heritage.
She didn’t even know him then…but the fake paper contains a ‘filing date” that occured a week BEFORE I even surrendered him.He was still legally my child on that date, and for a week following that.
How is it that some,maybe most, adopted people do not even see this government act of fraud as a problem..and they only ‘ask” for their real BC at age 18?This is not just BN…I have heard this reluctance from adopted people since long before BN ever came into being.They support sealed falsified records and only want a copy(unofficial even) of the real one at age 18…this is not equal access.
Shouldn’t it be a civil right to require the government to issue true records..the 4th Amendment says “the people shall be secure in their persons, their papers, their houses..from unwarranted government seizure”..isn’t the seizure and falsification of a birth record/certificate an unwarranted seizure of a person’s ‘papers”?
It seems that the belief continues that biological mothers caused the birth certificate to be sealed and a fake one issued.And the usual arguments ensue about the ‘confidentiality” of bio mothers… while the process of falsifying records is never questioned.
Not true…and by believing that,by focusing on the biological mothers , the government and the adoptive parents are allowed to collude in this legalized birth certificate fraud….and identity theft.
There was an article on the Evan B Donaldson website awhile back that said that in many states the name of the child does not even necessarly have to be changed in an adoption..but it is the adoptive parents who must request the change.
I have heard some very honest adoptive parents say that issuing fake records makes no sense…I have talked to them.These honest people are troubled by the lies..But the majority of them want the government to keep issuing the fakes.
Why don’t they organize themselves to stop it?Where are the adoptive parents fighting for truth in records..from the start?Why don’t they demand that the government stop issuing false records…which are not records at all since the purpose of a “record” is to hold the truth.
I know of only one adoptive parent who has done that…and he got a law passed to allow for an “adoption birth certificate” which states that the certificate has been issued following an adoption…but it is not required.It is only optional.
why should the truth be ‘optional’ or only available at a certain age, if at all…
The woman wasn’t there…I was…but the government says that she owns that most important part of my life…and my sons heritage.
Destruction of the original to “create” something new.
It seems that the belief continues that biological mothers caused the birth certificate to be sealed and a fake one issued.And the usual arguments ensue about the ‘confidentiality” of bio mothers… while the process of falsifying records is never questioned.
And this attitude and belief was still very prevalent in recent articles and editorials written by nameless people (not mothers) and letters to editors written by adoptees and others this past month in the NJ papers. This is what I meant when I said we are a convenient scapegoat.
As well as being used by people, organizations and agencies who know better, for their own coverups and goals.
…and by believing that,by focusing on the biological mothers , the government and the adoptive parents are allowed to collude in this legalized birth certificate fraud….and identity theft.
Look at your example of what just one adoptive parent was able to do with the “adoption birth certificate”. Imagine what many could do, if they took action.
Do we believe the 80% figure cited in the Cornell study???
Mary e:
‘Do we believe the 80% figure in the Cornell Study?”
I sure do not believe it..I think they want medical history and preferably they want it before they decide to adopt the child..so if the child has ‘negative medical history or a family with difficult genes they simply won’t adopt the child.
Adoptive parents could get the records opened..they could get the laws changed to disallow the falsifications.
They don’t want to.They don’t even want to admit we exist or that we ever had a relationship with our own children…or that we still do.
I have seen adoptive parents work for legislation to make it easier for them to adopt, more quickly. They are right there in testimony for that…and so are the agencies.
They will always show up for that.
I don’t believe it either.
I have seen adoptive parents work for legislation to make it easier for them to adopt, more quickly.
I remember writing letters opposing the expedited adoption procedures they fought for in Colorado, 2003. Do you know if this has happened anywhere else since? If I remember correctly, they won in CO.
There was an article on the Evan B Donaldson website awhile back that said that in many states the name of the child does not even necessarly have to be changed in an adoption..but it is the adoptive parents who must request the change.
Adopters pay for the re-issued birth certificates. It’s never been a freebee, not even if the adoption was through foster care.
mary e,
Elizabeth Samuels wrote an article about surrender laws in the USA for the Winter 2005 Tennessee Law Review. The article is about 60 pages long, and gives an overview of the way these laws are implemented in the USA. She discusses the timeframes and how a number of states have passed legislation to urge mothers to sign earlier and earlier..and how hard it is to revoke…and how mothers often do not realize that the ‘right to revoke” does not automatically mean they will get their child back.