The Year 2011 in Adoption: some good news, some setbacks

Jane and Lorraine, 1983

Some gains, some frustrations...that's the year in adoption news.

• Adoption was in the news this year starting in January with Oprah's revelation that she had a sister who had been adopted. This being about Oprah, her sister's lengthy search was documented everywhere, providing a spotlight on the fact that individuals who are adopted are still denied free access to their original birth records in the vast majority of states, though many have half-way measures in place.

• The best news of the year was the Rhode Island--the smallest state in the Union--passed a bill that will allow anyone 25 and over full access to their original birth records come July 2012.  The age of 25 was a compromise after Senate Majority Whip Maryellen Goodwin, a Democrat from Providence, wanted to raise the age to 30 so adoptees wouldn't ask for their birth certificates out of spite. Goodwin's sister has two adopted children. “I think 18 is too young,” said Goodwin. “It’s a tender age. I want them to be able to find their records in an appropriate and meaningful kind of way,

CHRISTIE Vetoes Adoptee Rights in New Jersey and other legislative news

Lorraine

Deflated. That's how I felt when New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's threw out the adoptee-rights bill (some 30 years in the making) with a massive, unconscionable, cave-to-the-closet statement on Thursday:

"The decision of any biological parent to seek adoptive parents for a child is an enormously complicated choice. The emotional struggle preceding any adoption is unlike any other step facing a parent, with ramifications for the mother, father and child that will endure throughout their lives."