What adoption records belong to whom?

Jane

Adoption records are spread all over adoptionland--at the offices of adoption facilitators, adoption agencies, attorneys, hospitals, state departments of children's services. And that's just domestic adoptions.

Some adoptees contend that, as the epicenter of all this paper and electronic bits, they are entitled to access all of these records. We at FMF disagree. Many of these documents contain details about the private lives of the natural parents and the adoptive parents. Some of it is likely to be subjective interpretations of the social workers who took the information from a distraught woman.

But it is not just the name and last known address of the adoptee--it is the personal data of another person, or persons--and thus should not be shared

Whose name is on your 'birth' certificate?

Jane

When Lisa Phillips Stackman of Indianapolis gave birth to her daughter, Lola Jean, seven weeks ago, she expected that her spouse's name would appear on Lola's birth certificate. If Lisa's spouse had been Jack, instead of Jackie, it would have.

Under Indiana law, the husband of a woman giving birth is presumed to be the father and his name goes on the certificate--even if he's not the father. But because Lisa's spouse was a woman, Indiana officials have refused to put her name on the certificate. Lisa and Jackie are suing with six other same sex couples claiming their constitutional rights have been violated because Indiana officials refused to place both spouses names on the birth certificate.  Lisa and Jackie's case may be more compelling because Jackie is Lola's biological mother. She had embryos created with her eggs and frozen two years ago, before she met Lisa.

Lobbying for OBCs in New York

Lorraine

What is it like to lobby for a bill that gives adoptees the right to know who they are? We in New York have worked long and hard for a clean bill only to be rebuffed year after year. We need more bodies, more people willing to be strong and stand up for their own rights, and while mothers must be part of the effort, it is adoptees in numbers and unafraid to ask for what should be theirs by fiat are the ones who will bring this victory home.

As noted previously, a very bad bill supposedly for adoptees did pass the New York Assembly in the last hours of the session this year and was sent to the Senate. Our hope is that the bill dies there and next session a new clean bill that gives adopted individuals the right to a copy of their Original  Birth Certificates (OBCs) will be introduced. A well-place source in the Assembly tells me that the counsel of the Speaker of the Assembly was the person who amended our bill and tacked on ridiculous restrictions, but that he retired at the end of the session.

Wrong name on birth certificate?

Jane

Just when we thought we heard it all, Jane read about a new twist in the make-believe world of birth certificates. A Portland, Oregon lawyer wrote recently about a case where:

"Bio mother had child and her girl friend was at the hospital. The hospital checked the box as thought the girlfriend was a registered domestic partner and put girlfriend as parent on birth certificate. Parties were not registered domestic partners. Vital Stats says they will not correct the hospital error without a court order."

'CERTIFICATE OF TITLE' 
Once upon a time, birth certificates contained the child's name, date and place of birth, and the names of the child's biological parents. Then the

Even in 'modern families' the need to know biological heritage

Jane

Opponents of gay marriage often raise the specter of gays raising children they adopt or create through "modern fertility techniques" claiming that gays raising children would lead to the breakdown of the family, which would lead to the disintegration of civilization. Well, of course gays have been raising children long before recorded history. Those Greeks doing it in bath houses were often married with children. And gays like my late sister Helen married members of the opposite sex, had children, divorced, and taken up with a same-sex partner.

 Since the 1970's gays have adopted children both from foster care and as newborn infants. They have also created children through sperm and egg donations, IVF and surrogacy. With courts striking down gay marriage bans, it's likely that more gays will marry and acquire children. The critical question

Let's put to rest the myth that mothers were promised confidentiality

Prof. Elizabeth Samuels

Legal scholar Elizabeth J. Samuels, who has written about the laws surrounding sealed birth certificates before, has published a new report in the Michigan Journal of Law and Gender that counters the "promised confidentiality" myth. In "Surrender and Subordination: Birth Mothers and Adoption Law Reform,"* she writes that an analysis of 75 surrender documents, dated between 1936 to 1985, from 26 states "definitively supports birth mother advocates' reports that women were neither offered a choice of nor guaranteed lifelong anonymity." And, since all state laws allow records to be unsealed under some circumstances without notice to first mothers, they could not have been intended to protect mothers.

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.