Help Adoptees Reach First Parents

By LORRAINE DUSKY

Lorraine

Ask the man on the street if people who were adopted as babies should be able, as adults, to find out the identities of their original parents, and the typical answer is: Sure, isn't that their right?

Only for the fortunate few. In all states but six -- and New York isn't among that half-dozen -- individuals adopted at birth are still denied the unrestricted right to even look at a copy of their original birth certificates. Without that piece of paper, it's hard to have that longed-for mother-and-child reunion.

Adopted: For the Life of Me illustrates how sealed records hurt

Lorraine

Riding on a train not so long ago I struck up a conversation with the man sitting next to me, and in time I was talking about the sealed birth records of adopted people. He was surprised--no, amazed is more like it--that adoptees couldn't get their original birth certificates and find out who they are justlikethat. By asking for them. And ditto for birth/first parents when the kids are adults.

I explained that no, it wasn't like that, and all the movies on television (of which he has some knowledge) and just plain old common sense about what is right to the contrary, adoptees in all but ten states are unable to get their original birth