The right to know your origins in an inalienable right

The authors of the Declaration of Independence identified certain rights granted by our creator. These natural rights are inalienable--they can't be taken away by governments. Among them, the authors wrote, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It's not an exhaustive list. The Supreme Court has expanded it to include the right to decide on the upbringing of our children, the right to marry the person of our choosing, and the right to make our own reproductive decisions. Surely the right to know where you came from should fall within this list. 

Adoptees made this argument in a 1979 New York court case, Alma v. Mellon.* The federal Court of Appeals pooh-poohed the claim, contending the need to protect the adoptive family and the first mother's family trumped the adoptees' need to know their heritage. The judges made the patently absurd claim that mothers gave up their children on condition of anonymity. Does anyone believe that any first mother had a conversation which went like this: "If you don't guarantee me that my child will never, never, find me I'll just keep him?"

A whopping YES to the question: Should adoptees have their birth certificates?

Lorraine

Ninety-five percent of the people who voted in the poll sponsored by New York NOW , a NPR affiliate from Albany, were in favor of adoptees having unrestricted access to their original birth certificates at age 18. The voting is closed.

Yes, we know this is not a scientific poll. But it is a no-brainer that adults--who have every other right and obligation of society--should unequivocally have the right to his or her original birth certificate, the official record of an individual. The amended "birth" certificate is a lie. It is not a record of a birth; it is a record of a legal adoption. Yet in all but eight states some restrictions prevent all adopted people from having the right to own this piece of paper--about themselves.

When a child of surrogacy asks: Who is my mommy?

Lorraine

"And Surrogacy Makes 3" reads the big headline in the New York Times yesterday under a picture that takes up half the page--two gay men and their adorable surrogate-gestated daughter, Sylvia, now 3. The story is all about the difficulty of having a child this way in New York because a 1992 state law bars surrogacy for money and equates it with baby-selling. 

But wait! Of course there is a way out. One of the fathers is Brad Holyman, state senator from Manhattan, and he is co-sponsor of a bill that would overturn the current law and make it legal to pay a surrogate in New York to carry a baby for you. The bill's sponsors argue that it makes no sense for New York, with both a large number of fertility clinics as well as gays seeking their services, not to be able to offer "commercial surrogacy" to those who want it, and can afford to pay for it. Why let places like California have all the benefits of hiring wombs?

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.