Opening Sealed Records for Adoptees: It is just, it is right, and it is time

My letter to the Speaker of the New York Assembly:
 
                      Box 968
                      Sag Harbor, NY 11963

Sheldon Silver, Speaker of the Assembly

Legislative Office Building 932
Albany, NY 12248

Dear Speaker Silver:

You are probably aware that there is a movement afoot to give adopted people the same rights as the rest of us: the right to know who they were at birth. Today there are two bills, one in the Assembly (A8410) and one in the Senate (S5269) which would restore equality to this class of people who were stripped of the right to know their original identities when they were born.

Why Is Adoption Like Slavery?

Lorraine

When adoption reformers such as myself make the connection between adoption and slavery, some people--adoptive parents in particular--get very upset. I can understand their objection. When I made the connection the other day in an earlier post, we received a couple of comments objecting.

After all, adoption is not slave labor, incarceration, and inhumane treatment, though such troubling adoption stories do bubble up now and then--as they do with biological children. But slavery involves the buying and selling of human beings against their will. Slavery treats the slaves as lesser human beings, not entitled to free will. Adoption is not like that, right?