We Survived the Holidays but are Mad as Hell

We survived the holidays with scant abrasions on our wounds. Only a few people continued to offer their condolences over my daughter's suicide two years ago, thank the lord, because each reminder demanded a change in tone--Oh, remember you daughter died around this time of year, they are thinking and so they say just that...Why Yes, I do remember, I would imply in tone and look, but I'm thinking, You know, I don't need to be reminded, I think of her quite often, really, and I miss her like hell, and can we just get on with life and not have you think of  THAT every time you see me at the holidays?

...I know people's tongues are loosened by the merry spirits, but hmm....I'd rather not be reminded in the midst of merry-making, thank you very much. People mean well, I know, but there are times when one (that would be me) would rather be just a friend, not an acquaintance with a story trailing me around like a tattered boa I can't quite drop, it's always there.

But in the meantime, the newspapers around the country are filled with reunion stories, from Long Beach to Montgomery, Alabama but still the New Jersey clock continues to run out on the bill that would give adopted people the right to their original birth certificates. The New Jersey Senate passed the bill in 2008, but to become law it needed passage in the Assembly within two years, and now it is clear it will die because the Speaker of the Assembly, Joseph Roberts, refused to let the bill out for a vote, even though the Assembly had to votes to pass it! With a super majority, no less! Even though we flooded his office with letters! A Mommouth College poll showed that the public--75 percent--is for giving adoptees their birth records and right to know who they are.

What's wrong with you, Joe? Have you no decency? Have you no compassion for the thousands of people adopted in New Jersey who had their rights stripped from them at birth? We get quite heated up on the issue, because, because, well, Roberts and his ilk in New York and every other state are on the wrong side of history. And I'm mad as hell.

Yes, those few natural mothers who fear their own children would be able to file a non-disclosure form, for up to a year, and their names would be blocked out from the searching adoptee, but other states with similar laws (Tennessee and Delaware) have had only a minute number of people asking to remain anonymous from their own children, a concept I understand intellectually but emotionally can not fathom. Why would any mother not want to know her child? The mind boggles.

In Oregon, birth parents may file a no-contact form, but the number has hovered in the low eighties of those requesting no-contact for several years, while more than 9,000 original birth certificates have been requested.Who are these women, I wonder? How did their mothering instinct become subverted?

I dunno what's wrong with the world. And while we can't even get the open records for adoptees passed in New Jersey, and New York, where the painstaking step-by-step, legislator-by-legislator work continues, I'm having dreams of throwing opening the records for us first/birth mothers too--as in, why the hell not?

In Canada, our fair neighbor to the North with egads! universal health care, the four provinces (out of ten, along with three territories) that's nearly a quarter of the provinces in number if not in population) allow birth mothers the right to see the adoption court orders, and so they are privy to the names of those who adopted the children they bore. Imagine that. Over her in the backwards U.S.A., the collective mind goes pretty much gaga over that thought, and when we work for open records we don't even bring it up. Are we too brain-washed?  To polite to upset the applecart? Alberta's law has a non-disclosure veto that either side can file, but in British Columbia, Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador the door is open to birth/first mothers as well as the adopted.

Here we are more likely to struggle with the attitude that seems to me to be nearly universal among the unknowing: that we mothers HAVE NO RIGHT to search, because we will be disrupting a happy person (and his [adoptive] family) who does not want to be disturbed with their real identities and mothers coming back. Of course we know that is hogwash, but we have gotten into some pretty sticky situations ourselves with acquaintances who brand us selfish for searching. (As in, what part of your pie chart was selfish when you went searching for your daughter?) Those folks are the ones who want to take us out to the woodshed and give us a good thrashing for having such radical thoughts.

I realize I'm rambling on, and getting worked up over this and Christmas is not really over. Time to wash my hair and take off for the movies for several adoption-free hours. --lorraine

Note: The records are sealed in the three territories also. 

What Rights do First/Birth Mothers Have? Not many in the US

Allowing first/birth mothers access to the names of their children after being adopted is an issue that does not come up in the United States in the battle to give adoptees their original birth certificates. Given the way some legislators act about first mothers--that most of us are all still cowering in the closet and fear contact from our children--a lot of them would keel over if we started lobbying to be included in the legislation.

After all, what rights do we have? We are the poor women who had the babies we couldn't care for, and we ought to thank our lucky stars that someone else came along and took over.

Yet there is enlightenment across the border in Canada. In Ontario as of June 1, first mothers are able to get their children's new names--unless the individual has filed a disclosure veto, and vice versa. Yes, it's true! Here's how the official Canadian website outlines the law:

Adopted adults and birth parents also have the option to protect the privacy of their post-adoption birth information. Adopted adults and birth parents can:

• file a notice of contact preference to specify how they would like to be contacted
  
• file a no contact notice if they do not want to be contacted, but are willing to have their identifying information released
  
• file a disclosure veto if the adoption was finalized before September 1, 2008. This will prevent identifying post-adoption birth information from being released.

As of June 1, approximately 1,100 people--closely divided between adoptees and first parents--had asked that identifying information NOT be released to the other party, according to Canada's premier newspaper, the Globe and Mail. That's less than half a percent of the estimated 250,000 adoptions since 1921 the new law covers. Since this law was hotly contested in Ontario, one assumes that most people became aware of this provision through the many stories in the media. Another 1,400 filed affidavits indicating the identifying information can be released but they wish no contact, or how they might like to be contacted, such as by email. The "no-contact" preference includes a steep penalty if it is violated.

The Canadian law makes me want to stand up and cheer.

While any rights for first mothers are not even whispered as we work for adoptee access to their original identities, it was not always so in the U.S. of A. As one of the old war horses involved in adoption reform for a long time, I remember that back in 1980 when the then U.S. Health and Human Services Department proposed changes in the adoption law, giving first mothers the new names of their children upon reaching adulthood (can't remember if it was 18 or 21) was amazingly enough included. Before the proposed legislation was written, hearings were held all over the country. Florence Fisher, B.J. Lifton, and I were among the many many people who testified at Columbia University to testify for such openness in adoption. Lee Campbell, founder of Concerned United Birthparents, served on the advisory committee (and was the only first mother who was) which wrote the legislation. Here is the wording from that long-forgotten Model Adoption Act:

“There can be no legally protected interest in keeping one’s identity secret from one’s biological offspring; parents and child are considered co-owners of the information regarding the event of birth….The birth parents’ interest in reputation is not alone deserving of constitutional protection.”

We did have some support in Congress, but we also had a strong foe in the late Senator John Tower of Texas, adoptive father, known drunk and womanizer in DC, as well as the National Council of Adoption. To those who do not know, NCFA is a consortium of adoptive agencies (including Mormon [LDS] and Bethany Christian Services) who have been opposed to openness in adoption from their origin. In fact, NCFA is a direct outgrowth of the movement for open adoptions. The Gladney agency in Texas is a founding member.

Somewhere in my voluminous files I have the original 1980 bill, and when I can fish it out I will post the wording that speaks more directly to first mothers and their rights.

In the meantime, what do First Mother Forum readers think? Adopted people, first mothers, adoptive parents, let us know. --lorraine