Information and Access: An American Civil Right Denied

Like me, Susan Perry is a grandmother, with children and grandchildren whom she adores. She also has many family members to whom she is not biologically related.

Susan Perry is an adoptee. I am an adoptive parent.

Unlike Susan, I have access to my birth certificate and my medical history, without even needing to think twice about it. I would take it for granted, surely, except that I know people whose lives have been held hostage, who have faced grave illnesses that could have been treated differently, who have been told to just accept the way things are–they are denied access to their own birth certificates.

And we both agree that adopted people have a basic, civil, human right to know who they are. Access to original birth certificates remains an absurd issue in this country. We saw some progress in Washington state recently, though it’s not what it could or should have been. This week, legislation made its way through the Pennsylvania legislature. Information about Pennsylvania is available here. These are glimmers of progress, some good news in an arena that has been too often met with opposition from legislators, lawyers, adoption agencies, and adoption lobbyists.

Susan writes this from her heart: I wish every adoption attorney, agency official, legislator and religious group that opposes adoptee rights would read this post and then tell me to my face why they think it is their right to deny me my own original birth certificate and make it difficult for me to ascertain the basic truths about my own life. How can they not see how discriminatory it is to treat an entire minority group differently by law than we treat everyone else — especially now that we have hard data to show that adoptee access bills without restrictions work best for all concerned parties?

I wish the same thing, as a grandmother, a mom, a daughter.

Read the rest of Susan’s powerful post here.

This is not an adoptee-only fight, though they should be the leaders. I urge my fellow adoptive parents, my fellow grandparents, all grandparents of adopted children, all siblings of adoptees, all partners of adoptees to join me in urging access to original birth certificates without restriction. The world hasn’t ended in Kansas or Alaska, where adoption records have never been sealed. In Oregon, Alabama, New Hampshire, and Maine, adult adoptees can access their records. In these 6 states, adopted adults have the right to access or not access their own records.

May Susan Perry and others be allowed to access a basic human right–to know who they are. May we all recognize that we can do better than secrecy and shame. May grandmothers (and others) not suffer through physical and other illnesses because they are denied basic truths about their own lives.

Update: I will write more specifically about this, but for those looking for ways to help improve access to original birth certificates, here’s some quick information. Essentially, this is a state issue, so you can look into what your individual state’s policy is.  Check my post “OBC Outrage: Adoptive Parents?” as well. Good sources of information are the American Adoption Congress,  Adoptee Rights Coalition, and Bastard Nation.

Also, DNA technology is an option for some adoptees to fill in their medical history. Certainly it’s not a substitute for firsthand knowledge, and it’s absurd (again) that an adoptee should have to pay for this information. Nonetheless, services such as 23AndMe, Family Tree DNA, and others are available. More information is available here.

OBC Outrage: Adoptive Parents?

Adopted children grow up. As adults, as US citizens, they should have the (basic, human, civil) right to access their Original Birth Certificate.

Access is a matter of state law. In only 6 states do adoptees have full access to their own OBC.

Birth parents were never guaranteed privacy through legislation on the federal, state ,or local level. Never. Yet they hold the legal rights (via vetoes written into state laws) to prevent the child they placed for adoption–the child to whom they gave up all legal rights–from accessing knowledge of who he or she is.

I believe in the rights of birth parents. I recognize how often they have been marginalized. The playing field, though, needs to be level here. It’s simply not fair to deny adoptees the fundamental right to know who they are.  No other group in the United States is cut off like this.

I’m disappointed in what seems to be happening here in Washington state, as adoptees’ rights are again being crushed. I’ll be writing to the Seattle Times and elsewhere, and I hope other adoptive parents join me.


The right to one’s original birth certificate should be a real option, not an impossible, illicit act.

It puzzles me that adoptees and birth parents favoring open records have not been more successful. Very frustrating, but I think it shows the imbalance of power in adoption policy. We adoptive parents have been historically mighty in the World of Adoption Policy; it’s time we wielded our clout in this arena for our children to have access to their original birth certificates.

Adopted children grow up. It’s time we treated them as adults.

For some good advocacy, look at the following:

Adoptee Rights Coalition: Information about the status of legislation across the country.

Family Ties:  Thoughtful blog written by a grandmother like me, though she’s an adoptee.  And has 5 more grandkids than I do.

Bastard Nation: Great name, right? Provocative, helpful information. Here’s the Washington state info.

Washington Coalition for Adoptee Rights and Equality: Information specific to Washington state adoptees.

Advocacy in Olympia, Part 1: The Value of the OBC

Adoptees, birth mothers, adoptive parents--rallying together for OBC access 3/21/13. I'm on the far left.

Adoptees, birth mothers, adoptive parents–rallying together for OBC access 3/21/13. I’m on the far left.

Washington State is known to be progressive: gay marriage, legalization of marijuana, more recycling buckets than you can shake a stick at (Yard Waste). So it’s surprising, in some ways, that the debate over allowing adult adoptees to access their original birth certificates (OBC) still swirls.

Around the world, most industrialized nations allow adult adoptees unrestricted access to their OBC as a matter of civil rights. (My daughters from Ethiopia arrived here with their OBC.) That’s not the case here in the US. Two states, Alaska and Kansas, have never sealed adoption records, meaning that adopted people have always had the right to obtain their OBC.  New Hampshire, Maine, Alabama, and Oregon currently allow adult adoptees to get their OBC, without restrictions. Most other states allow some sort of access, often fairly complicated, subject to some sort of veto (by the first/birth/biological mother)–and that is unfair.

No legislation exists (or has ever existed) by the federal government or any state government that guarantees privacy to birth parents following an adoptive placement. None.

Adult adoptees are the only group of Americans that are denied the right to know who they are, a basic human and civil right.

Whether they choose to exercise that right is highly individual, but there is no doubt in my mind that they should have the option. Adoption is undeniably complex.  Adoptees and birth families should have support and resources available to them, if and when they decide to search. A fundamental right, though, is access to one’s identity.

Last Thursday, I drove from Seattle to Olympia, Washington’s state capitol, about an hour and a half away.  The Senate Human Services and Corrections Committee was holding a hearing on 2 adoption-related bills, and, as an adoptive parent, I testified about both. The OBC legislation generated a lot of interest and testimony, from a few adoptive parents (older than me, even), several adoptees who ranged in age from mid-20’s to 70, and several birth mothers. We (adoptive parents, adoptees, birth mothers) were on the same page, urging legislators to allow adult adoptees unrestricted access to their original birth certificates. It’s overdue.