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Adoption Reform “Mary” and her husband were returning from an extended RV vacation in Canada. When they crossed the border into the United States, they were directed to produce their identity papers. In addition to her driver’s license, Mary gave the customs officer her birth certificate. In a matter of minutes, she and her husband were separated and taken to different rooms. A female officer soon entered Mary’s room and told her to disrobe and prepare for a body cavity search. Shocked and disoriented at hearing these words, Mary felt herself gasp for breath as she asked the officer what she had done wrong and why this was happening to her. The officer replied only that the search could be done “the easy way” or “the hard way.” In a zombie-like daze, Mary disrobed and submitted to the search. “Sharon” was a forty-five year old professional woman whose life could be captured in just one word: successful. She was financially secure, had a coveted position at her firm, and a personal life that satisfied her emotional needs. Yet, on a hot summer day she found herself skulking inside a high-rise parking garage. A man in a black car stopped beside her and instructed her to give him the envelope containing five hundred dollars. As she left the drop site, Sharon couldn’t help feeling she was an actor in an international spy movie. She also knew she was now a criminal. “Jack” was finishing his freshman year in college and had been accepted by the National Council of Churches to do missionary work in Africa for the summer. He arrived, filled with anticipation for his upcoming adventure, in New York for a week of orientation and to obtain visas for Ghana, Nigeria and Togoland. He had sent the required documents to the embassies months earlier, and was shocked when the ambassador of Togoland told him they would not issue a visa. What do Mary, Sharon and Jack have in common? They were all adopted in states that have closed adoption records. When their adoptions were finalized, their original birth certificate was sealed by the state and a surrogate document called an “amended birth certificate” was created. Mary didn’t know her birth certificate was different from that of anyone else. Because the customs officers had never seen an amended birth certificate, they assumed her birth certificate, and by extension her driver’s license, were false documents. Customs officers were expecting a pair of international bank robbers to attempt a border crossing, and Mary and her husband became unwitting suspects. Sharon was recently diagnosed with a life-threatening hereditary disease, and her doctor needed her to know the medical history of her biological family members. Knowing that the courts rarely open closed adoption records, even when the adoptee has a terminal illness, Sharon did the only thing she felt she could. She paid an unscrupulous private investigator to bribe a records clerk who would make copies of the sealed records she would need to begin her search. Jack was able to participate in his summer missionary project. However, when the other students went to Togoland, he was forced to stay in Ghana. The government of Togoland considered his amended birth certificate a “false” and “fraudulent” document. These are examples of just a few of the ways the system of permanently closed adoption records, known as the system of secrets and lies by adoptee rights activists, seriously hurts the lives of adopted adults. Far from providing the protection touted by opponents of open records, the closed records system is a system of disenfranchisement, depersonalization and dehumanization. The Evan B. Donaldson Institute in New York released the most comprehensive statistics compiled on how many adoptees there are in America. The Donaldson survey showed that nearly six of every ten Americans have had a “personal experience” with adoption. That means they, a family member, or close friend were adopted, adopted a child, or placed a child for adoption.” The statistics documenting the number of adoptees who have had their lives disrupted, their civil and human rights taken away, and their dignity trampled by the system of closed adoption records are as much of a well hidden secret as the number of women who are raped. However there is one organization, Bastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organization, that gives voice – in the words of adoptees, birth parents and adoptive parents – in protest against this pernicious system of secrets and lies that persists in America to this day. Bastard Nation works to restore to all adoptees the records of their birth and has been successful in reopening closed records in Oregon, Alabama, and New Hampshire. To find out more about the fight for open adoption records and why going to court, mutual consent registries, retroactivity, confidential intermediaries, disclosure vetoes, contact vetoes, and mandatory counseling prior to unification are directly oppositional to open records check out the Bastard Nation website below.
Sunday, December 18, 2005 07:36:47 PM |