Sign to Support Adoptee Rights to Their Original Birth Certificates

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

SIGN TO SUPPORT

ADOPTEE RIGHTS

TO THEIR ORIGINAL BIRTH CERTIFICATES

Adoption Loss is the only trauma in the world where the victims are expected by the whole of society to be grateful —The Reverend Keith C. Griffith, MBE

I invite adoptees, their families (both adoptive and biological), friends, and professional workers who support OPEN ADOPTEE RECORDS to add their names to the list below by placing the appropriate information in the comment box at the end of this post. Strength is found in numbers. Show our strength.

Feel free to distribute the link to this post Sign to Support Adoptee Rights to Their Original Birth Certificates on your FaceBook or other social network accounts, and/or to copy this post and email it, including the link, to persons on your email list.

The request is supported by a years-long Adoption Institute examination of relevant judicial and legislative documents; of decades of research and other scholarly writing; and of the concrete experiences of states and countries that have either changed their laws to provide these documents or never sealed them at all (see below for further information).

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THOSE IN FAVOR OF ORIGINAL BIRTH CERTIFICATES FOR ADULT ADOPTEES

(e-mail chollandnews@yahoo.com , with ADOPTION NAMES in the subject line, to obtain an electronic or a  paper copy to collect names to add to this list):

Adoptees and bioparents, please add your signature on the list by adding the appropriate information in the comment box below—your email address will not be published).

List your name and status (adoptee, their families (both adoptive and biological), friends, and professional workers)

Adoptee and bioparents: please include the state of the adoption. Others should include the state holding the records you are concerned with.

I will move your information to the appropriate listing below:

PENNSYLVANIA

1/21/2013         Adoptive-Parent       Carolyn Cornell Holland

1/22/2013         Adoptee                     Sandra Murawski

1/28/2013        Bio-parent                 Thomas Furman

2/16/2013        Adoptee                     Hewlet Jerry Harris

5/1/2013          Adoptee                      Kay

GEORGIA

2/3/2013          Bio-parent        Linda Marie Bondurant

NEW YORK

OTHER STATES

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The lengthy study by the Adoption Institute (For the Records II: An Examination of the History and Impact of Adult Adoptee Access to Original Birth Certificates) noted that efforts to accelerate the rights of adoptees to their original birth records is impeded by misunderstandings about the history of this controversial issue, misconceptions about the parties involved (especially birthmothers), and mistaken concerns about the impact of changing the status quo – e.g., legislators often assume that negative consequences will occur but, in fact, they do not.

The study leads to these primary findings:

• Barring adopted adults from access to their original birth certificates wrongly denies them a right enjoyed by all others in our country, and is not in their best interests for personal and medical reasons.
• Alternative solutions to providing adopted adults access to their OBCs, such as mutual consent registries, are ineffective and do not adequately address the needs of adopted persons.
• The overwhelming majority of birthmothers do not want to remain anonymous to the children they relinquished for  doption and support (or do not oppose) those children’s access to their OBCs.
• Providing adult adoptees with access to their original birth certificates does not threaten the integrity of adoptive families or the institution of adoption; indeed, the evidence suggests that the opposite is the case.

In other countries and in U.S. states that have restored adopted adults’ access to OBCs, or never sealed these records at all, there is no evidence of any of the significant negative consequences critics predict.*

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Key to the adoption experience are seven core issues that effect the children, the adoptive parents and the birth parents.

• Rejection
• Guilt and Shame
• Grief
• Identity
• Intimacy
• Mastery and Control, and above all…
• LOSS **

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ADDITIONAL READING:

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS online magazine: Adoption category

Adoptees Right to Original Birth Certificate in Pennsylvania

Pa. House Bill 162: Adult Adoptees Right to Access Original Birth Certificate

SOURCES

http://www.adoptioninstitute.org/research/2010_07_for_records.php*

http://www.adoption-wraparound.org/difference.htm **

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