Lobbying for OBCs in New York

Lorraine

What is it like to lobby for a bill that gives adoptees the right to know who they are? We in New York have worked long and hard for a clean bill only to be rebuffed year after year. We need more bodies, more people willing to be strong and stand up for their own rights, and while mothers must be part of the effort, it is adoptees in numbers and unafraid to ask for what should be theirs by fiat are the ones who will bring this victory home.

As noted previously, a very bad bill supposedly for adoptees did pass the New York Assembly in the last hours of the session this year and was sent to the Senate. Our hope is that the bill dies there and next session a new clean bill that gives adopted individuals the right to a copy of their Original  Birth Certificates (OBCs) will be introduced. A well-place source in the Assembly tells me that the counsel of the Speaker of the Assembly was the person who amended our bill and tacked on ridiculous restrictions, but that he retired at the end of the session.

UNJUST Sealed Birth Certificate Laws

My original birth certificate--everyone should have the same

As the legislative session wound down in New York, the Assembly passed a bill that allows natural birth parents not only a veto, but put in place a confidential intermediary system, those assuring that many more birth mothers will deny their children knowledge of their original identity. The bill (S5964) was referred to the Senate Rules committee but in the flurry of activity that engulfs the legislative chambers in the last hours of every session, it stayed in committee as the session ended.

After years of work on giving adoptees the right to know who they are--without any restriction, without a natural parent veto--this legislation was disappointing. Assemblyman David Weprin who has been the main sponsor and spark plug for this bill obviously felt that he could not get a clean bill--no restrictions, no confidential intermediaries--despite strong lobbying at the end to kill the bill. It passed 125-19. My own assemblyman Fred Thiele, who has been a staunch supporter of the original bill that had no restrictions, in the end joined those who voted for this bill.

How to F--- up adoptee 'rights'

the Mad Hatter Lorraine

So again this year we in search of justice for the adopted are going down in ashes in Albany. Another year in which thousands of adoptees born in New York state like my daughter will be denied their original birth certificates which would have the er, real, parents in the lines where one's real mother and father are to be named. 

Today I am too riled up to not use Real because first mothers are the er, real biological mothers in the minds of real people, so though we understand all parents are in a sense, real, go with this today. We mothers not in the closet are the oppressed today, and yesterday, and just as native Americans do not want to be called Redskins, we do not want to be called anything other than real mothers today. 

The bills in New York that we had so much hope for were amended way beyond reasonable. It includes a birth parent veto. Period. Before anything at all is released, the birth parents must be found (within four months) and give their notarized permission. If the birth parents can't be found to give their permission for their names to be released, or they do not respond, a judge can decide that doing so would be detrimental to the "welfare" of the "birth or adoptive parents." 

Rosie O'Donnell Learns What a True Heritage Means

First mothers and adoptees everywhere who know that Rosie O'Donnell is an adoptive mother three times over. We have never seen any support of any kind for adoptee rights coming from Rosie. Her kids are still young but are adolescents now. Was she ever going to wake up? Signs did not point to Yes.

Feelin' Blue about Mother's Day

Whoa! The other day I thought I was going to sail through this Mother's Day with nary a problem...my daughter took her life two years ago--I might as well put it out there rather than not, that's what happened--and my mother died eleven years ago on the first of May, and so, I stupidly, thought, well, Mother's Day and all it's friggen' reminders will just sail over me, just as Linda remarked about her own feelings in her comment to the last post, To Search or Not: That is the question for adoptees/birth mothers.

What's Mother's Day got to do with me this year?  I am neither the daughter of a living mother or the mother of a living daughter, though I have been both. I'm cool, right?

Fool that I am.

Yesterday afternoon I got stomped on somewhat by an angry adoptee over at Facebook for posting a comment on the site You Know You're Adopted When...and that led to a group of adoptees who have read the blog remarking on what they do not like about BirthMother, First Mother Forum....including the name, because if we are first mothers, what does that make their other mothers? And that depressed me because I'm thinking, damn, I picked the name because I thought it would be easy to remember, and because, well, I'm not crazy about the appellation "birth mother," whether one word or two, but I will live with it because it's become part of the nomenclature. Hell, all of us, first/birth/natural/and adoptive: we all prefer just plain old "mother," no qualifiers.

But they do have a right to say, stay away, as there is also a Facebook page started that is You Know You are a First Mother When....It was the accusatory tone of the discourse, except for one of our regular readers who was sweet in her responses and saved my spirits, somewhat. But the incident put a black cloud over my feelings about continuing FirstMotherForum at all, and though you think these things do not bother you, there they are, gnawing at you, and then the Mother's Day !@#$. Ads on television. Ads in the New York Times this morning. Ads on the car radio--Shop at this local pharmacy, and we have a complete line of bath and grooming products for MOTHER'S DAY! Brunch special for MOM this coming Sunday! Et cetera, et cetera et cetera, as Yul Brunner so famously said as the King of Siam. 

No matter who much I've tried to tune out the drumbeat for Mother's Day, apparently I'm not doing so well. This morning I snapped at the clerk at the cable outlet when I picked up a new cable box. I was nice to the technician who gave me a mammogram later that morning, but when she asked if anyone in my immediate family ever had breast cancer, I thought of all those adopted people who can't answer that question, and asked her how that goes. She said it was sad, that they had to be super vigilant about their health, and get a lot of checkups and tests. I told her that it was the legislators' fault that it was that way. Probably I should have added it was the fault of adoptive-parent legislators (at least in New York) such as convicted felon Joe Bruno, long-time open-records opponent Steve Saland, and always nasty adoptive uncle Danny O'Donnell, New York past and present legislators, but I didn't think of that fast enough. (To all adoptive parents reading this, don't go bananas here, I know many of you are for giving adoptees their original birth certificates, and if that's the case, will you please write your legislator in whatever state you are and let him know? Hell, you might as well write President Obama, while you're at it. You spent enough time and money getting your child, spend some time to give him or her the right to know their true and complete identities and be equal to the rest of us.)

And now...now I just am feeling the tears inside me bubbling up and over and out. In the past, since all restaurants are jammed with mothers and daughters and mothers and sons come Mother's Day, I have invited people over for brunch myself. I have one friend whose mother was truly wretched and abusive and is now in a funny farm, and she and her husband are childless, and having them over on Sunday has worked in the past, but I'm thinking I'm just not up to that today. Maybe I will be by tomorrow.

For now, this birth mother says "Mother's Day" feels like hell.--lorraine

PS: And then...the mail arrives and it's a card from my step-son., Evan...and I say to his Dad, the indubitable Tony, I hope it's funny. I slide it out of the envelope and I see a vase with pink hydrangea: not funny. Then I read the greeting: Myslac z mitoscia o Tobie...it's in Polish from my Scottish/English/Welsh American step-son. And neither he or I have any idea what it says....I laugh. The inside message: w Dniu Matki i zawsze. Pozostan w mojej pamiece, i bada szczexliwa przez caty rok. 

And hand written in is Drogi Babci 'Raine, which I know means, Dear Grandma Raine...and it's signed: Fortunny Dzien od matka! Kochajacy...which I will have to have translated, but I know the root koch is love. (I am not doing the Polish justice because some of the letters have extras marks.)

Translation anyone? Maryanne?

Good job, Evan and Karen and Dylan!   

National Institutes of Health Supports Open Records for Adoptees

National Institutes of Health Supports Open Records for Adoptees!  
Well, not exactly. According to Dr. Francis Collins, the NIH Director and former Director of the Human Genome Project, by obtaining complete family medical history, physicians can determine risks for various cancers including breast, ovarian, and colon cancer and order tests and procedures accordingly. This is more effective than a "one size fits all" approach to disease prevention. - "Dramatic Breakthroughs in Cancer Treatment" (Parade 9-20-09)

(A woman has a higher risk of getting breast and ovarian cancers if she has two or more close family members who have had breast or ovarian cancer or breast cancer has been found in family members before the age of 50.)

Dr. Collins advises that "we all should be aware of our family medical histories. A medical history is essentially a genetic test. It won't cost you any money to collect the information and ... it could save your life.”

Well, that's fine and dandy, but what about those adopted people who can't get their medical histories because the government is hell-bent on preserving the privacy of women who most likely do not want "privacy" from their children? Those women hold the keys to the real medical histories of children they lost to adoption because they are the REAL mothers of the children. Obviously, a medical history of one's adopted family does not help one whit, and if the adopted person were to use it, the doctor would just be befuddled and make incorrect medical decisions. And then there are the offspring of anonymous sperm and egg "donations" (really sales). These folks have even less ability to obtain their genetic history. As Lorraine said, anonymous donations ought to be illegal.

There’s something like six million adopted people out there without their real medical histories. You’d think anything that saves lives and money would be a no-brainer for even the densest politician. Still, we deal with legislators who don't get the message, or, like Danny O'Donnell (NY Legislator and brother to Mama Rosie), just don't give a damn.

The Orphan Trade, Gay Marriage and Open Records Legislation

Though many of my friends seem astonished by the information that international adoption is not simply a great humanitarian gesture, but loaded with corruption and kidnapping for profit, the word is getting out. Yesterday Jane wrote about the commentary and story at the New York Times blog about Madonna and her quest for another child from Malawi. The other day Slate published a piece by E.J. Graff, along with a slide show of pictures and stories. We have trumpeted Graff's work before in Foreign Policy here at FirstMotherForum. Again at Slate, as the New York Times, comments come from "defensive" adoptive parents, some of whom call her journalism incompetent and otherwise attack Graff.

The comments remind me of lobbying in Albany with Unsealed Initiative for open records for adoptees. While most of the people we met were polite, and a growing number were sympathetic to our cause, every now and then we ran into someone who looked at us as if we were crackpots and that we represented only a fringe group.Well-adjusted birth mothers wouldn't be there; neither would good adoptees.

One such legislator, who was absolutely rude and nasty to the three of us who met with him was...Rosie O'Donnell's brother, Danny. I was with two adopted people. In less than three minutes, O'Donnell had the other woman in tears and the man--who had gone to court to get his original birth certificate but been turned down--was so mad that as we left he told the women who worked for O'Donnell that their boss was one of the worst human beings he had ever met. Our few minutes with him reminded me of some of the early talk shows I did back in 1979 when Birthmark came out. When the attacks were almost expected.

O'Donnell told us that he would never NEVER vote for an open-records bills. Rep. O'Donnell (whose district is in Manhattan) is on my mind today because there was a story about him in the New York Times yesterday about how he is shepherding a bill for gay marriage through the Assembly, and how he sometimes twists arms with threats and sharp elbows. Now I am all in favor of gays and lesbians having the right to marry and gain the advantages of legal coupledom, and expressed my views in USA Today some time ago. But just reading about O'Donnell made me crazy mad all over again.

O'Donnell, who is as out as his loud-mouth sister, is all about rights for gays, but all against rights for adopted people. To his mind, they ought to be glad they were adopted at all (by his sister, one supposes) and shut up about their birth mothers because they are all after Rosie's money. He told my group that we were well dressed and were probably nice people before he let loose. He seemed to imply: Hey, I'm surprised you birth mothers aren't all crack whores.

But thinking about the momentum for gay marriage makes me sad that we have not gone further in our campaign to give adopted people equal rights with the rest of us. That we still have laws in most states that prevent adopted people from learning their original names and heritage simply because they want to know. In any other area, curiosity is seen as a sign of intelligence; yet when an adoptee asks Who am I? Who was I at birth? some see it as a sign of ingratitude. O'Donnell is one such person. And so are many of the people who comment about international adoption.

We need more backers such as Paula Benoit in Maine and Lou D' Allesandro in New Hampshire, both of whom were instrumental in getting legislation passed that gave adopted people the right to their original birth certificates, withOUT a "contact veto" tacked on. (Contact preferences are fine.) Benoit is an adoptee; D'Allesandro is an adoptive father. Joyce Bahr of Unsealed Initiative (see sidebar) just informed us that one of the legal counsels of a legislator supposedly sponsoring the bill of adoptee rights in New York was actually very wishy-washy on the issue. No wonder we weren't getting further with his office. Now a new legal counsel is in place.

We need to find people in legislatures who can convince their peers that the time has come for open records. We need more people out. We need more adopted people angry they cannot have their original birth certificates. We need more birth mothers letting it be known they do not want to stay hidden from their children. Yes, I know some want to stay anonymous, and I know some of those children will read this. My heart aches for them but I do not know what to do about these women.

But somehow, we who fight for open records need to make a louder noise.--lorraine
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PS: Unsealed Initiative will be lobbying next week in Albany again. If you have a NY connection (relinquishment or adoption) please consider a day given over to lobbying. Even though you may run into some resistance (as above but I hardly think anyone will be as rude as O'Donnell was), the day is energizing and gratifying, and always results in picking up more sponsors for the Bill of Adoptee Rights. Check out Unsealed Initiative 's blog and contact Joyce at unsealedinitiative@nyc.rr.com.

And do take a look at the Slate story (link above). It's well worth your time. If you comment there, copy and post it here too.