What rights have adoptees, children and adults lost?

Question

What rights have adoptees, children and adults lost?

Answer 1

Many, many WHITE birthmothers were forced into giving up their children by family because they are SINGLE.  Nobody would ever hound a married woman or widow, no matter what economic circumstances, to give up her child.  You lose the right of choice when needed information and assistance is kept from you.

Answer 2

The fundamental right to the truth of our origins - a right that every other citizen takes for granted

Answer 3

The right to be rised according to the comandements and the will of God..

Answer 4

I don't feel like I've lost any rights.  I have great parents, I've always had a good life, and I do have my family history.  My family is the people who I've grown up around, who've raised me.  My bio family is blood relatives, but that's all.

Answer 5

Besides everything that Gershom and eharrah1 have listed, I lost my right to know where I was for the first few months of my life. I have no idea where I was and who I was with. The state feels it is necessary to keep that a secret from me.

I have lost the right to know about my life simply because I am adopted.

Answer 6

The loss of origins, family and history. My adoption was private so the only way to get information was to petition the court. Fat chance of any info from the judge.

Answer 7

May I please reference the Charter of Adoptee Rights

( http://adopteerights.net/nulliusfilius/?... )

If anyone is unfamiliar with the Declaration of human rights you can read about it here:

( http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html )

The Charter of Adoptee Rights reminds us which laws from the Declaration of Human Rights are being denied to adoptees.

For the people who believe that adoptees haven't lost any rights, I ask you then why have 4 states in the last 10 years re-opened their records unconditionally to adoptees? Why are so many adoptees working twords reform? Why do at least 8 European countries provide adult adoptees access to their records, Most of Canada, and all of Australia?  

"Every other American citizen has a right to obtain his or her original birth certificate. The laws in the United States do not require that adults, in general, receive permission from their parents before obtaining a birth certificate. Even if the adult was the child of long-divorced parents and even if one parent has abandoned the family, the adult still has the right to his or her birth certificate. In fact, many American citizens seek out the birth certificates of others in their family as part of genealogical research. The laws of the United States do not require that citizens obtain family permission before doing genealogical research, nor is permission needed to obtain birth certificates for ancestors. The inequality of this situation raises considerable concerns about the constitutional rights of adult adoptees to equal protection under our laws." ~ Ethicanet.org on open records http://www.ethicanet.org/openrecords.pdf << downloadable file

Not having our records IS a loss of rights. Having to get my amothers signature to access my non identifying information on MY mother and father IS a violation of my rights. Being denied my birth certificate upon application at the Vital Records Office, in a petition to the courts ( even having to petition the courts is too...) these are all examples of the violations of the legal rights adoptees are having violated.

Anyone who denies this, either has an agenda, or hasn't researched the laws. Because the laws are being brought to the table as we speak and great changes are going to happen in the near future.

This is only a touch onto the bigger picture of how many rights adoptees are having violated, but we need to take baby steps, jumping into the deep end with some of the folks on here, could be fatal.

And just don't even for a second think that a right to your family shouldn't be on that list. We have a right to our parents, if they are capable of raising us, which, many of ours were. Coersion happens everyday, lack of family support happens and children are lost. Thats a loss that scars our lives. We're not fullfillment of infertility, dreams, goals, we're HUMAN BEINGS. And we deserve the same rights as all non adopted human beings. And until we get that, our rights will be being violated.

Answer 8

They've lost the relationship with their history.  They've lost everyone who looks anything like them.  They've lost the connection to a genetic likeness - emotional, cultural, habits, abilities - which they can't get from strangers no matter how much those strangers love them.  They've lost their original birth certificate so they may never know the names of their natural parents.

Answer 9

Okay, whoever it was that thinks an adoptee can just stroll into the adoption agency and get their records needs to jump off the turnip truck NOW.  That's got to be the FUNNIEST thing I have read today.  lol

Adoptees are treated like second-class citizens in regards to our records, our family and medical histories, our entire natural families.

Adoptees' very characters are defamated by the belief that we are somehow going to cause great harm to our own mothers, simply because we want to know who they are.

Our status as "adoptee" seems to give people the right to treat us like dirt, tell us we should be happy to be alive, dictate to us how we should feel, who our "real" families are, tell us how grateful we should be, etc.  (If you don't believe me, just read some of the other Q&A here on YA.  See for yourself).  We've lost the right to make decisions about our own lives without interference from others.

We've lost a whole lot, and none of it was asked for.

Answer 10

I lost the right to be loved and nurtured by my mother.

I lost the right to drink of her milk, which would have been perfect support for my developing immune system. The milk her body produced just for me to help me grow strong and healthy.

I lost the right to be mirrored by those who would instinctively understand my needs.

I lost the right to grow up as nature intended me too.

I lost the right of knowing my great grand parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles and cousins.

I lost the right to be myself, to live a life free of identity, confidence, self-esteem issues......

Answer 11

Depends on the individual adopted person.  For me, I lost my history, who I am.  I lost a part of me that I did not find until I found my mom.  I was not complete until I found her.  When you are adopted and people are talking about their genetics, people that have come and gone, you don't have that same ability.  I didn't feel like (except for my cousin Lois, whom I found out was blood kin on her dad's side and not just adopted) I was a part of them.  My parents were always the goody goody's who had different parenting styles than the rest of the party.  It was like they were adopted too and not part of their family, which in turn, made my feelings of not belonging more intense.  

Also, we have no right to any biological health information that everyone else who is not adopted has a right to.  In my situation, there is a very bad heart condition that runs in my birth father's side of the family.  If I had not already found my birth mom, then I might be dead right now.  It was having that health info and knowing where the conditions stemmed from and how it affected my family that gave me the ability (with the help of excellent doctors) to survive three heart attacks by the time I was 40.  Adoptees have a right to the same information as anyone else.  Adoption laws supposedly are in place to help protect us.  They hinder us instead.  We do not have a choice when we are adopted.  At least those of us who are adopted too young to have a voice.   But all that happens is that we are told we do not have a right to know our mom and dad.  Why is that legislators choice.  Why is it not the choice of the man and woman who gave me up.  Part of my problem was that my birth father was in Germany for the vietnam war.  He did not have a choice either.  My mommy wanted to keep me but she didn't have a choice either since her parents gave her no choice.  It is too simple to just check a box on a paper that gives us a right to that information if all three biological people involved so choose.  Adoptees lose the basic right that citizens of this country are supposed to have.  We lose the right to know our family if we so chose.  We lose the right to medical information that in some cases saves our lives and in a lot of cases, just makes existence better.  We lose the right to live our lives as we chose, not as someone else choses for us.  We lose the right to have a bond with the lady who carried us for nine months and would give up her life for us.  Why is that the choice of perfect strangers.  Why is that not the choice of the two people involved.  Why did I not have the right to know my mom until years later.  Why did she lose the right to see me get married.  Why did she lose the right to see her grandkids born.  Why are these choices which are given to everyone who is not adopted, not given to us adoptees too.  Adoption is supposed to protect us but it strips us off all our rights.  Adoptees don't have the same rights as everyone else.  Why not just add a block on the paperwork so that the birth parents and child can be reunited when the child is 18.  Or if the mom and child so desire or if the dad and child so desire.  It is so simple and would give us the rights everyone else has.

Answer 12

I don't think there are any rights that you lose....you can go to the adoption agency and ask for your records they do have to show them to you.....You are very fortunate that your birth parents wanted the best for you and gave you what quite possibly is a better life...

Answer 13

Hi,

Gershom, eharrah Lillie, & others here said it very well.   I’d like to add PEACE OF MIND to the list of losses suffered by adoptees.

What does that entail?  Adoptees live in a constant state of "unknowing." Many find this a difficult, painful state in which to exist.  Some to a greater degree than others. Questions persist. Adoption is not a one-time event. It is a continuous existence with no closure, even upon reaching adulthood. A truth, no matter what it is, can be accepted and dealt with. Unknowns cannot. Adoptees are not looking for fantasies, they are searching for truth, their own personal truths. In that respect, all adoptee searches are successful, regardless of the outcome, in that they put to rest lingering fears and doubts, and replace them with reality.

Connecting with one's past brings a sense of connectedness to others and to the world, an inner peace, knowledge, and the real ability to go on with life. It may be difficult for non-adopted persons to relate to what it feels like to know nothing of one's medical, geneological, or ethnic history, to not know the circumstances that led them to where they are today, to not know anybody who shares your appearance or talents or interests.

It is shocking to find that when he/she seeks those answers they are told they have no right to know.  Not now, not ever! A lifetime sentence, and for what crime - being born out of wedlock?  Adoptees are the only citizens who are denied rights based soley upon the circumstances of their births.  To have to verbalize how deep that pain can go & how empty those missing puzzle pieces can feel & then to have to justify that to others who have taken all of those things for granted all their lives seems overwhelming.

julie

reunited adult adoptee

http://www.scadoptionreform.com/Facts.ht... includes the following:

Ruling on approving an adoptee’s petition to gain access to adoption records by Judge Wade S. Weatherford, Jr. Resident Judge, Seventh Judicial Circuit Court, South Carolina. Bradey v. Children’s Bureau of South Carolina, (Spartanburg County, S.C., Ct. C.P., Apr. 9, 1979), rev’d, 275 S.C. 622, 174 S.E. 2nd 418 (1981).:

“ The law must be consonant with life. It cannot and should not ignore broad historical currents of history. Mankind is possessed of no greater urge than to try to understand the age-old questions: “Who am I” “Why am I?” Even now the sands and ashes of the continents are being sifted to find where we made our first step as man. Religions of mankind often include ancestor worship in one way or another. For many the future is blind without a sight of the past. Those emotions and anxieties that generate our thirst to know the past are not superficial and whimsical. They are real and they are “good cause” under the law of man and God.”

The petition is conditionally granted.

IT IS SO ORDERED

April 9, 1979

[Signed]

WADE S. WEATHERFORD, JR.

Resident Judge, Seventh Judicial

Circuit Court, South Carolina

Answer 14

In a closed adoptions, the adoptee has no rights to any original paperwork, medical history, background information, or anything that would identify their birth parents, the records are sealed unless the birth parent allows the records to be opened, usually when the child reaches 18.

Answer 15

The right to their original birth certificate, for starters.

Answer 16

Meeting one person in the world that resembles you.

Answer 17

The right to their history.  OBC.  completness.  honesty.