It’s a basic human right
Because I am easily astonished (and live in an adoption world populated by you nice, reasonable, progressive people), I can’t believe that open adoption records are still controversial.
States urged to open adoption records - CNN.com
In New Jersey, where a long-running campaign to pass an open-records bill was derailed again this year, the opposition includes New Jersey Right to Life and the New Jersey Catholic Conference. They argue that eliminating the prospect of confidentiality might prompt a pregnant single woman to choose abortion rather than adoption.Marlene Lao-Collins of the Catholic Conference said she knew of no data supporting the concerns about abortions, “but even if it just happened once, that would be one too many.”
Nationwide, one of the major foes of open records is the National Council for Adoption, which represents many religiously affiliated adoption agencies. Its president, Thomas Atwood, says any reconnection between an adopted adult and a birthparent should be by mutual consent — which is the policy in most states.
“I empathize with anybody who feels the need to know their biological parents’ identity,” Atwood said. “But I don’t think the law should enable them to force themselves on someone who has personal reasons for wanting confidentiality.”
So wait — open records are a pro-life tactic??? They’re arguing that even one POSSIBLE embryo lost is enough to keep actual living, breathing people from their constitutional right to know their birth histories — it’s just ludicrous.
Want to read more about the history of closed adoption? Check out How Adoption Grew Secret and then support the rights of adoptees.
The law shouldn’t enable them to “force themselves” on someone? “Someone” being the person responsible for their existence on the planet?
I am so far from understanding this it sounds like gibberish to me.
I “empathize” with birth mothers who may indeed not want a relationship with the person they gave birth to however many years ago. But I feel that begetting a child and giving birth to a child are irrevocable acts that change your life whether you’d like them to or not and if that kid-now-grown comes knocking, you have to at least answer the door. Invite them in or not, but you have to face them. Basic responsibility.
And anyway, I think those birth [mothers at least] are few and far between who don’t want to at least meet their [grown] children.
OK, so we’ve been trying to get women who are pregnant with an unwanted child to opt for for adoption rather than abortion. That’s reasonable. But now, we’re telling them that if they take that alternative, they have no right to privacy and may be forced into an unwanted relationship with an adult later. Hmmm, if she’s sitting on the fence, which way will she jump, when faced with these two choices. Yeah, you get it.
This is controversial only because Americans insist on black-and-white thinking. A child given up for adoption has the right to the medical history of his or her birth parents, but he/she does not have the right to know the identity of those parents unless they chose to release this information. If one or the other birth parent later choses to allow the adult child to find them, then they can release whatever information is necessary to affect that outcome.
Can having a child once given up for adoption come knocking unexpectedly at your door be ruinous? You bet it can and often has been. If we insist that adoption records be completely open, then such laws cannot be retrocactive. We have no right to impose new legal requirements on those who followed the law, when once they made a decision.
As far as I am concerned, adopted adult need only concern themselves with the parents who loved and cared for them them entire lifes. While they may be curious about their birth parnets, they have no right to know anything about them unless the birth parents agree. If they do not, life will still go on and not knowing the birth parents will only be an life-deminishing issue if they choose to make it one. They must choose to be “victims.”
(Allison didn’t leave her email address although her IP shows that she’s coming from work and where she works — no I won’t share it but I’m letting her know here so she can be aware that she’s not as anonymous as she thinks she is.)
Allison, I know you’re not a regular reader here (because, again, I can see how you got here) but if you dig through my archives you can see that you and fundamentally disagree on a number of issues here. For one, I’m pro-choice and frankly, if a woman is that afraid of being found then maybe abortion IS her best option. For another I refuse to believe that adoptees should be infantalized by adoption laws. I’m with Shannon here — having a baby will change a person’s life whether or not they parent.
I have always believed that the most important and meaningful gift I received as an adopted adult was the gift of life that my biological mother gave me. I will be giving birth to my son in a couple of weeks and I can not for the life of me understand what she must have been going through while pregnant.
It was the most selfless act a women could do and I have always believed that in my heart.
A couple of years ago, my half sister and I tried contacting her through a court liason and was told that she did not want contact with us.
The most selfless thing that I can do as an adopted adult is to allow her to live a life of privacy. It is a gift that could never match what she gave me but it is the only gift that I can give her.
Having a court rule that she HAD to reveal her identity to me would be the biggest insult I could think of.
May she live her life in peace and privacy.
Amy, if you had her name (I’m assuming you don’t?) you wouldn’t have had to force contact — she could still have refused you. Having your original birth certificate doesn’t then force you to trespass on your bio mom’s privacy — you could choose to do with it what you wish. Information doesn’t dictate specific action; it just creates choice.
It seems farfetched to me that an adoptee would “force” themselves on their birth parents — I mean, if an adoptee were to seek out a birth parent and were rejected, I doubt most adoptees would continue to “force” the relationship. I mean, what would their next move be? Stalking? Harassment? I really, really doubt it. And from the adoptee’s POV, even knowing that the birth parent does not want further contact would be useful (although no doubt painful) information.
If I were adopted, I would so want to know what the circumstances were surrounding my birth, and why my birth mother made the choices she did. Knowing the basics of one’s own history, not to mention medical history etc., is a basic human right.
The idea that a newly pregnant woman in crisis would decide to have an abortion rather than have the child and place him or her for adoption because she couldn’t face the idea that her grown child would someday get in touch with her — I guess it could happen, but it doesn’t strike me as a particularly compelling argument.
[...] read this awesomeness from Dawn in It’s a basic human right who feels much the same way that I do: Because I am easily astonished (and live in an adoption [...]
[...] read this awesomeness from Dawn in It’s a basic human right who feels much the same way that I do: Because I am easily astonished (and live in an adoption [...]
Amy and Allison, we cannot deny every adoptee the same basic human rights that everyone else has just on the possiblity that a minority may feel uncomfortable.
All adoptees have the right to their medical records and information regarding their heritage. I agree with you they do not have the right to a relationship if that is not a mutal desire. Birth parents can tell an adopttee that, and I believe most adoptees would respect that.
Don’t close the doors for everyone because of the few who disagree.
If you are interested in learning about the birth mother’s point of view on open adoption records, please view the short video I made that goes with a song I wrote to my birth daughter when she was only 15 (and before I met her). It has been sent to State Senators by others in the pursuit of open adoption records. http://www.AdoptionRecords.com/Child_I_Cannot_Claim.wmv
Feel free to use this short video however you may want to. It takes a minute to open (at least on my computer), but it will load.
I am a reunited birth mom for 22 years now. Our reunion gave my daughter a sense of herself and where she came from. She gained self-confidence in who she was and learned her medical and genealogical history. Her roots.
I am also the sister to an adoptee and I know the fear my mother felt that the birth mother would try to take my sister away. In fact, the woman did show up when my sister was about 4. She was under the impression that she could get her back. I understand the adoption relationships from many points of view and have lived around it my whole life.
I want to add that my daughter and I have had our ups and downs and hotly disagreed from time-to-time, but most parents have those same types of arguments and ups and downs with the children they raise, so it was no more nor less than any family complications in life. We worked through it.
Teri Brown
Birthmother
Thanks Teri for sharing your point of view. I hope soon the laws will reflect the rights of both child and birth mother and birth father. Fear shouldn’t govern access.