On balancing rights...?

Question

Adoptive parents have their birth certificates. Natural parents have their birth certificates. Why should it not follow that adult adoptees should have theirs? Sounds balanced and fair to me.

Answer 1

Thats right ms craw... JUST ABOUT ANYONE, EXCEPT ADOPTEES in 44 states of the United States and one province of Canada.

No, we can't just order our birth certificates OVER THE INTERNET, because if we did, do you know what would arrive, a copy of an amended birth certificate that says that my amom gave birth to me, which...SHE DIDN'T. Its a falsified, fake, replacement birth certificate that has lies on it.

Adoptive parents have their birth certificates, first parents have their birth certificates, but not adoptees, we're supposed to settle for a new fake ancestry, a lie about where and who we came from, no details of our births, no length, weight, or attending physician.

My amom didn't even know I was being born on MY birthday.

New jersey allows the adoptive parents to change the time and place of birth to where they were residing at the time of the birth.

The box to "seal" the records in california is on the paperwork that the adoptive parents fill out. Its in the hands of the adoptive parents.

Our records don't seal when our mothers surrender us, ( like they would if our mothers were REALLY promised privacy )

It happens when the paperwork to finalize the adoption is completed, it happens when the adoptive parents check the box that "requests" a new one to be issued and the paperwork omits that the original will be sealed.

our rights aren't balanced in adoption. The adoptees and first mothers come behind the rights of the adoptive parents. Interesting that an adopter is the head of the NCFA, our largest opponents to opening sealed records.

This isn't to say that ALL adoptive parents are bad, or are even aware of the box that has the power to seal our records. The industry isn't doing its job of informing all parties, and the industry is doing a d**n good job at keepign secrets, manipulating the general public, manipulating adoptive parents and manipulating first parents as well as adoptees.

Great question Julie!

Answer 2

Sound right to me too. I ran and got my son's before his adoption was final. Although it's not legal anymore, at least he has it.

Answer 3

I agree

Answer 4

Some good answers so far.  I agree that it would be balanced and fair.

It's not really a right to privacy that is asserted on behalf of natural parents.  It's a right to anonymity.  Even though many people know who the mother was (doctors, nurses, state officials, social workers, etc.) the adoptee is not allowed to know.  No one else has a right to have their identity hidden from their children.  With all due respect to natural parents, that is a special right that no one else has, and no one should have.

Answer 5

Adoptive parents and natural parents all have the very same privacy rights as every other citizen.  However, adopted persons are the ONLY people in 44 states who have FEWER rights than their non-adopted counterparts.  They do not have unconditional access to their own birth records.  Hmmm, where's the balance in this?  Non-adopted people don't need their parents' permission or the state's permission to access their birth certificates.  Relinquished people don't need it.  It's only if someone ended up getting adopted that this right is taken from him/her.

In case anyone still isn't aware, it's impossible to give natural parents an extra right that others don't have in our society, i.e. a right to anonymity.  By the way in which adoption law itself is written, it cannot be promised, given, granted, achieved or any other way one may like to state it.

Here's why:

1. It is highly notable that records only seal upon the finalization of an adoption. They only stay sealed if an adoption remains intact. They do not seal upon relinquishment, are not sealed while the child is in foster care and are not sealed while the child is in an adoptive placement that is not yet finalized by the court. How does this protect a natural parent's anonymity?

2. If an adoption fails, i.e. the adoptive parents "return" the child, the original birth record with the natural parents' names on it, is unsealed and re-established as the child's only legal birth certificate. How does this protect the natural parents' anonymity? Incidentally, I'm sad to say that there have been stories in the papers lately about failed adoptions occurring.

3. Adult adopted citizens in states with sealed records can gain access to their birth records as long as they petition the court and get a court order. How does this protect a natural parent's anonymity?

4. No one has ever been able to bring forth a relinquishment document that promises anonymity. Even the greatest opponents of open records, such as the National Council For Adoption, has ever been unable to produce such a document.

5. In some states with sealed records, it is the prerogative of the adoptive parents or the adoptee (if old enough to state a desire) as to whether or not the original birth certificate is sealed. The natural parents have no say. How does this protect a natural parent's anonymity?

Balance?  All I'd like is the same right as every non-adopted person in my state.  I want to be treated with the same dignity under the law.  The fact is also true that a good number of adopted persons know their natural parents (open adoptions, step-parent adoptions of older children.)  I know mine.  I can't get my birth certificate, though.  

I'd also like my privacy rights.  The Constitution states that people have a right to be free from government intrusion.  The government has intruded by holding my own birth certificate from me.

If people want to search, they are going to search. Reunions happen all the time under the closed records system.  This is about equal rights.  Again, adoptive parents and natural parents already have equal rights.  Adopted persons don't.

Answer 6

The excuse for the amended birth certificate was always that it spared the poor adoptee the stigma of illegtimacy--a stigma that is pretty much gone now.  There used to be some controversy over whether or not to tell a child s/he was adopted.  Now we know better.  The current excuse seems to be that first mothers have a right to never be found.  They don't.  And many people believe that adoptive parents have a right to never be contacted by the first mother.  They don't.    

In other words, the system has not yet caught up with reality.  The reality is that adoptees merit the same basic rights everyone else has.

Answer 7

It is a pain in the a** when trying to get a drivers license, or passport--or anything where you have to prove your age.  If they can't give an adoptee a birth certificate, they should at least give them something that's equivalent to one.

Answer 8

Just about anyone can get a copy of a birth certificate over the internet.  If you know your birth name and state, order it over the internet.  I think you have to be 18 though.  I gave my girls theirs on their 18th birthdays.  I don't know why any adoptive parent would keep information from their child if they wanted it.  My oldest asked me after she was in my home about six months if she was ever going to see that Linda girl (birth mother) again.  I told her she could when she was old enough if she wanted to.  Never asked again.  Younger one asked around 10 or 11 if she could look at her info.  I told them both at that time there was a court order that forbid that until they were 18 and on that birthday I would give them both everything I had.  Never asked again, but said many times over the years she couldn't wait to meet them so she could ask them why they "did this to her" (meaning all of her mental, emotional, physical problems).  But is 22 and has never looked for them.

Answer 9

Julie,

It is obvious to most members in State Legislatures around the country that natural parents and adoptive parents have additional rights which normal people do not have.  You see, they have a right to privacy.  This special right trumps those of the adoptee.

I am sorry if this had never been made clear to you before.  I was only told when I tried to get my OBC.

Answer 10

If adoption was handled differently, it would never be this hard. Secrets are bad. I can't begin to imagine what it is like to be denied the very thing I take for granted. I have my daughters birth certificate. She doesn't. Wow.

We are going to have to take adoption "out of the closet". It needs to be completely revamped.

Answer 11

Oh Julie...have you not been told yet that the cute little baby that gets adopted shall remain forever a child?  

It's like a guarentee..if the keep the "baby" forever at the mercy of their parents...really both sets..

...as the adoptive parents got what they wanted and they get to often control the information released to thier "baby"...and then, of course, the first parents have to be protected from the evil ankle biting kid who might blow up thier world...

Oh..and all of that just might have something to do with keeping money in the coffers of the agencies and attorneys...and keeping the secrets of past bad practices in the dirty little closets...and of course, the government...which would never be corrupted by special interest groups who make a profit from transferring children....that never happens!

It's really not about the needs of that commodity..errr..uh child. So fair? haahaahaaa Just keep 'em helpless....so they can shut up and be grateful like a good adoptee should.

Answer 12

EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ADULT ADOPTEES!

Witholding our own information from us is DISCRIMINATION.

Answer 13

*sigh*

If people who relinquished children for adoption have these all-encompassing rights to privacy, then where are MY rights to privacy?

I want a right to privacy from these *&$% telemarketers and Jehova's Witnesses that call and knock on my door.  

Where are MY privacy rights?  Huh??

ETA: You can't just order a SEALED record off the internet.  Once the government worker gets to the file and sees SEALED on it, they aren't going to just copy it and plop it in an envelope and mail it to you.  There are still human beings processing these requests, and they still abide by the SEALED records laws.  Unless you live in an open records state, you can not "just order it over the internet".

Answer 14

I agree with you.

Its funny when you mention this.  This so call right to privacy is being based on the Roe vs. Wade decision.  This is just in my research.

In adoption, it is basically a transfer/contract of rights from one set of parents to another.  In this argument, the right to privacy is about the right to be free from governmental intrusion.  That is what Roe vs. Wade was fought on.  In this transfer of rights, this includes the right to familial privacy.   The natural parents lose it.  For 99% of natural parents, they are thrilled with it.  They don't want to be anonymous from their children who were adopted.  They want to hear from their children.  This is statistically true for Oregon, New Hampshire, Kansas, Alabama, Alaska, and will be for Maine.  This is an agreement between two sets of parents.  Then the child becomes an adult.  In most contract law, contracts are null and void when the child becomes an adult.  In fact, children are not held bound by contract law.  The only time we are held bound by this is in adoption for the rest of our lives without ever having committed a crime against our natural parents or our adoptive parents.  

The states with sealed records are violating not only our fourth amendment rights but also our right to privacy.  They are holding our birth certificates in seizure on the presumption of harm.  If adoption is "harmful" to those living it as it professes so much, the state governments need to explain why adoption is allowed to continue.  Since the constitutional laws have been tested by cases like Roe vs. Wade and many others,  the state governments need to be held in contempt of violating  our right to privacy.  The state governments  need to be held to federal standards when it comes to our right to privacy.  They are withholding our documents again on the presumption of harm.