'X' instead of a name on a birth certificate is just plain wrong

Lorraine and Jane at Rockefeller Center, 1982

A few days ago I read a story about Missouri adoptees born before 1941 being able to actually get their birth certificates, and dammit by the time I got to the end I was just furious that states are so slow to realize what sealed records have done to people!  Yes, they go about their lives and grow up, go the school, have jobs, get married, have children and all the rest, but in most states they still are unable to have that piece of paper that might unlock--most likely would unlock--the key to their identities: original birth certificates with the names of the parents.

Indiana passes compromise OBC bill; MO in the wings

A Simple Piece of ORIGINAL Paper denied the adopted

Try as we might, clean bills with first birth parent vetoes are what states are taking up as a compromise between allowing adopted individuals the right to their own birth certificates and "protecting" (that damn word!) the privacy of birth parents from the dark ages of closed adoptions. That would include Jane and me. 

Indiana yesterday passed such a bill that now only awaits Gov. Mike Pence's signature, which is a expected, as he worked with Hoosiers for Equal Access to Records, according to Pam Kroskie, president. "Today marks a tremendous victory for hundreds of thousands of people adopted in Indiana," she said, "...regardless of the year they were born. The bill covers people who were adopted from 1941 through 1993, the group that was left out of previous legislation and had no access to their original records.