Letter to North Jersey.com – The RECORD online edition
Measure would aid those seeking biological parents
Sunday, March 23, 2008
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updated: Sunday March 23, 2008, EDT 8:47 AM
BY ROSE ZELTSER
Rose Zeltser is senior vice president of Children's Aid and Family Services in Paramus.
THE New Jersey Senate passed a bill recently that would give adopted adults the right to access their own birth records; the bill now heads to the Assembly for a vote.
Without access to birth records, adoptees have no knowledge of their heredity or medical histories. This lack of knowledge has a lasting physical and emotional impact. Adoptees are denied the right to full knowledge of their cultural and genetic identity, as well as the potential health risks against which they otherwise could take preventative medical or lifestyle choice measures.
If you knew that your mother had a chronic heart decision, wouldn't that influence your decision not to smoke? If you were considering having a baby, wouldn't you want to know if one of your parents carried the gene for sickle cell anemia or Tay-Sachs disease?
More than 100,000 individuals who were born and adopted in New Jersey do not have access to their medical histories when making these crucial decisions. These people are being denied the basic right to make educated decisions about their personal health, and their children's health needs.
Kansas and Alaska give adult adoptees access to their original birth certificates. Alabama, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, Oregon and Tennessee have also granted some access. Some opponents of open access to birth records indicate a fear of increased abortions and decreased adoptions if this bill is enacted.
Actually, the opposite has occurred in most places where there has been a change to open records.
The trend in our country has been to involve the birth parents much more in selecting the adoptive family for their child, a process that promotes openness from the beginning of the placement.
Children's Aid and Family Services helps adult adoptees who wish to contact their birth families. We have found that when contacted, the overwhelming majority of birth families are thrilled to learn that their children have had a good life and are safe.
We have found that rather than the fear of discovery by birth mothers that is cited by some opponents, the most common responses are expressions of relief and gratitude birth mothers have in knowing their children are OK.
Positives
Will this bill do more good than harm?
Research and experience in all jurisdictions that allow for open access have shown that it has. The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute published a policy paper last November that supports this.
"As states have amended their laws to provide adult adopted persons with access to their own adoption information, there has been no evidence of the negative consequences predicted by opponents," the report concludes. "Similarly, there has been no evidence that the lives of birth mothers have been damaged as a result of the release of the information to the children (now adults) whom they relinquished for adoption."
The experience of Children's Aid and Family Services echoes these findings. Since 1991, when we began maintaining statistics, we have conducted 715 searches on behalf of adult adoptees for birth parents. Approximately 10 percent of birth mothers decided against meeting with their children, but were happy to provide background and medical information to share with their child.
Is it fair to deny the 90 percent of families who wish open access to protect the 10 percent who wish privacy, especially when that 10 percent have the opportunity to ensure that their privacy will be maintained?
And, like any other mother, those in that 10 percent still want what is best for their children and most will take the opportunity to share the critical medical information if given the chance.
The proposed bill offers birth parents the right to deny access to the birth records and gives them a full year to notify authorities of their wishes.
Another point to keep in mind as we debate this issue is that of the environment of secrecy and the confidential nature of adoptions that was prevalent in the Forties, Fifties and Sixties, when infant adoptions were the norm. That secrecy arose from a desire to protect adoptive families and the children from any possibility of the birth parents changing their minds.
Today, the majority of adoptions that occur in this country are relative and stepparent adoptions, as well as adoptions of older children from the foster care system. In both categories, there is no confidentiality, as older children know their birth history, as do the adopting families.
Emotional costs
So, who are we protecting? And at what emotional and physical costs to the thousands of adult adoptees who are asking for the same rights as others in our society?
We all know change is hard, but this change will enhance the adoption experience by leaving the secrecy, shame and fear in the past.
As Sen. Bill Baroni, R-Mercer, himself an adoptee, put it: "This legislation will continue to promote an amazing gift: the gift of adoption."
I urge people to write to their representatives to encourage them to support this important bill.
Give adoptees the same rights so many of us take for granted: access to information about our origins that allows us to make informed decisions about our health and complete the picture of who we really are.
1. Mary says: As the CEO of a cancer support organization I know how important it is for someone to have access to their family medical history. There are many cancer survivors that owe their survival to early detection because they knew to be on the lookout for something. I am also an adult adoptee. I contacted my birth-mother when I was 30 - yes, partly because medical information was important to me as I was contemplating starting my own family, but also because I wanted to put an end to a lifetime of not knowing who I really was. I believe the real opponents to open adoptions are the adoptive parents. Many are very insecure about the possiblility of "losing" their child. My adoptive mother will simply not even discuss the matter or acknowledge the existance of my birth mother. I love my parents and know that I have had a wonderful life because of them. THEY are my parents and will never "lose" me. I am who I am because of them. I have encountered many adoptive parents who have made me feel like I'm a bad child because I found my birth family. They say things like "my child loves me; he would never look for his birth mother; he knows I am his mother." Searching for one's birth parents rarely has anything to do with the relationship one has with their adoptive parents. I hope that we can all realize this and give adoptees the right to the information - THEIR information -- that everyone else has and takes for granted.
2. Cellobrattion says: From 1976-84, I was a resident of Weehawken, NJ when I searched and found my birth parents in 1981. My search and reunion was with the knowledge and support of my adopted family. Learning the truth of my origins and medical background was beneficial to me, my birth parents, adopted family, and current family. No one's lives were harmed as a result of learning the truth. Nine out of ten reunions have positive outcomes. Let records finally be opened to adult adoptees and truth no longer be suppressed. Not every birth mother was promised anonymity, nor wanted it. My birth parents never wanted anonymity, stayed together their whole lives, and searched for 30 years to find me. Learning the truth of my origins did not replace the role my adopted parents held in my life and heart. The reunion was very positive and a new friendship developed. From 1996-99, I became a care giver to my birth mother after her stroke. Hiding the truth and hiding from it is not the answer. Barbara Hedlund www.cellomusicplus.com
3. PSharp says: Thank you for this cogent, eloquent statement in favor of the adoptees' Bill of Right. Simply put, adoptees are a class of citizens who have too long been denied a basic civil right that has always been available to every other citizen of the United States -- that is, to go to the vital records office of the state in which they were born, pay the fee and receive a copy of their original birth record. The "privacy" sham -- that birth mothers were supposedly promised anonymity when relinquishing their babies -- just does not hold up when weighed with the fact that concealment does not occur *unless* the child is adopted, i.e., the birth certificate of a child who remains in foster care or is returned by adopted family is never sealed. Also noteworthy is something we are coming to recognize, sadly, in the persistent debate about opening records for adoptees, that is, that the "privacy" sham is consistently being raised by men. Why is it that? Why do these male legislators seek to speak for us women and claim that we wanted anonymity, when overwhelmingly nine out of ten of us say the exact opposite? Methinks the men doth protest -- just why is it *they* are afraid of opening records?