An action alert for New Yorkers (or anyone) connected to adoption in any way!

Lorraine at a hearing on unsealing
records, 2015

THIS IS AN ACTION ALERT.  While the New York legislature is winding down, and again we have bills to do away with the archaic laws of the 1930s ending up in the dustbin, there is one bill that might have a chance of making even a small difference. A crack in the New York sealed door, you might call it. I refer to the bill that would allow adopted people to find their biological siblings (S2939). That ought to be a no-brainer, right? Why was this crucial information even denied adopted people in the first place? Because people have cockamamie ideas about the importance of knowing your roots and having a sane life. Because people who know their own roots, who are familiar with people who look and act like them, who do not question their biological place in the world, do not comprehend what it means to lack that. They do not understand or empathize the need for everyone to have the same comfort of true identity.

So this morning, I get an alert from Joyce Bahr of Unsealed Initiative to make a call to Sen. John Flanagan (518-455-2071) and ask that the adoptee-siblings bill (S2939) be moved to the Senate floor for a vote. Since I have been crusading on a sometime lonely soap box about unsealing the birth records of adopted people since the fucking Seventies, since I was forced to reluctantly agree to sealed records when I signed the relinquishment papers for my daughter, since sealed records are detrimental to the mental health of millions of adoptees, since they absolutely discriminate against all adopted people, I was in a fighting mood when I made the call.

So I dial 518-455-2071 and go into a short and heated rant about why at least bill S2939--the adoptee siblings bill--ought to be moved to the floor. I said I was a 75-year old birth mother who had been lobbying for this since the Seventies, had found and reunited with my own daughter, criticized the legislature for letting these open-records-for-adoptees bills die one after another, called sealed records emotional slavery--YES, I DID--said that we mothers should not be protected from our own children, that that was crazy!

Then said you can tell I am pretty passionate about this, and she said, I agree with you completely, I am an adoptee! and I will let the Senator know! SO MAKE THE DAMN CALL AND FEEL YOU HAVE DONE ONE THING TODAY FOR YOUR RIGHTS! Don't forget to give her your name and location. My own senator, Ken LaValle, has put his name to the bill. Action can have results! 

And after you make the call, have a nice long weekend everyone. 

 Sen. John Flanagan's office (518-455-2071). --lorraine

Demanding adoptee rights! Now!

Unsealing Initiative demonstrating on the steps of New York's City Hall for adoptee rights legislation in 2013. 

When people ask for something for themselves--rather than others asking for them--they are more likely to get it.  Sounds simple, right?

I'm thinking about rights for adoptees and natural mothers. 

Twice recently I have heard the above idea expressed. On CBS This Morning a woman was talking about this being the week students must make their final decisions about where they will go college this fall. The woman noted that since financial considerations enter into it, if the circumstances of the family have been reduced since the application was filed, they should call the financial officer, explain the changed situation, and ask him to reconsider the aid package being offered.

OBC-access bill with 'birth mother' veto may become law

Jane

"This is not my biological mother's piece of paper," adoptee Nancy Retynski told the Washington House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday holding up her original birth certificate. "This is not my adoptive mother's piece of paper. This is my birth certificate and I have every right to it." As she left the table, Retynski broke into tears and the audience of applauded. Committee members were visibly moved.

Tuesday's hearing was on a bill (SB 5118) that would allow Washington-born adult adoptees to access their original birth certificates as long as their birth mother does not file a veto (variously called an affidavit of non-disclosure or contact preference which would be binding). Such a veto would expire only upon the death of the mother.

While gay marriage is the talk, how about adoptee rights?

Lorraine

I can't be the only person who is following the news about gay marriage and gay rights that is the focus of the Supreme Court these last few days--it's on CNN and MSNBC and all the rest and the front page of the newspapers--but Lord, all it reminds me of is how far we have to go to give adoptees the right to own a simple piece of paper: their birth certificates!

Gay marriage is going to happen, whether or not the Supremes come down on the right side of history or not--but us? Adoptees can't get no respect! And forget about us first mothers! We signed the paper under the OLD RULES that allowed for no contact, no knowledge, no anything in relation to our babies, and those rules now are in place, no matter that we had no choice! I remember so well the social worker saying: If you don't agree to never knowing what happened to your daughter, we can't help you. I signed, under duress, a forced confession.

Adoptee legislator supports birth-parent veto in Washington

Jane (center) and friends showing solidarity in red in WA

At a hearing last week to give Washington state adoptees the right to access their original birth certificates, the unbelievable happened: Representative Tina Orwall, an adoptee, testified  that she was in favor of an amendment that would make a birth-parent veto permanent. Originally Orwall sponsored a bill in the state House that included an expiration date on such vetoes. The bill with an expiring veto (which could be renewed) had already passed the House, but at the Senate hearing Orwell changed her position to making the birth-parent veto permanent.

So who's driving this birth-mother veto nonsense?  None other than a birth mother Sen. Ann Rivers, who blocked a birth-certificate access bill last year

Memo to Gov. Cuomo: Repeal the 1935 law sealing original birth certificates

Lorraine

It's lobby time in New York again, and this year the prognosis looks good and members of Unsealed Initiative, under the guidance of Joyce Bahr, are scheduled to meet with the governor, Andrew Cuomo, or members of his staff, to discuss the Adoptee Bill of Rights giving adult adoptees access to their original birth certificates.

Learning Your Origins -- or not

Jane

When adoptee Wendy Johnson researched her origins, she learned her biological grandmother was either a heroic World War II spy or an unknown Filipino woman. Johnson, now 53, of Albany, Oregon, was told she was adopted when, at the age of eight, she asked her father why she had yellowish brown skin when everyone else in the family had white skin.

Action is the sincerest form of thanks

Jane

It’s hard to be thankful when you read the nonsense coming out of celebrity-land.

“If my [twin] sons want to know about their egg donor when they are older, I will be able to show them photos. But she asked that they not have contact,” singer Ricky Martin told People.

Ricky, you burro, don’t you know that you’re consigning your boys to searching faces in shopping malls wondering if that Nordstrom shopper or that woman sipping lattes at Starbucks is their mother.