adoptee birth certificate

MPNnow News: Adult Adoptees seek Answers

/ V.L. Brunskill / Leave a comment

Sharing a wonderful article from MPNnow.com on one adoptee’s need to know and pending NY legislation that would allow adult adoptees equal access to their Original Birth Certificates (OBC’s).

Adult adoptees seek answers

Adults adopted as children hope for legislation to make it easier to learn about their birth parents

Only first page of article is shared below. Read the rest at MPNnow.com: http://www.mpnnow.com/topstories/x1910063270/Adult-adoptees-seek-answers#ixzz2VRwOwqC1

East Bloomfield, N.Y. —

A card in Dottie O’Neill Marble’s baby book read: “I wasn’t expected, I was selected.”

Marble’s adoption shortly after she was born was never a secret, said the 42-year-old East Bloomfield resident — but details of her past were a secret.

“My adoptive mom was very supportive,” said Marble. In her teen years, Marble said she began placing ads in newspapers in hopes of finding her birth mother. “It was an overwhelming feeling of not knowing who you really are,” she said.

A possible solution to her identity crisis came one day in 1995 when she got a call from someone with information about a baby born at Genesee Hospital on Sept. 19, 1970, a girl given up for adoption. It led to an eventual meeting with a woman Marble believes is her birth mother.

“It closed a big hole for me,” said Marble, one of a growing number of adoptees and others seeking more openness in the New York state adoption law.

While Marble’s efforts led to some sense of closure — as well as connecting with a grandmother and an extended family she didn’t know before — it also called attention to New York’s adoption law that prevents adoptees from obtaining an original birth certificate to learn about their past.

Proposed legislation in Albany addressing this issue is called the Bill of Adoptee Rights. It clarifies language and procedures for obtaining birth certificates and medical histories of adoptees; permits an adopted adult to access certain records when they reach the age of 18; and creates a contact preference to be filed by birth parents, giving those parents the right to state whether or not they want contact with the child.

“Right now, any adopted adult over the age of 18 cannot get access to their own birth certificate, and this creates obvious problems for the adopted adult,” said Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb, R-Canandaigua. Kolb is a sponsor of the bill.

“This is an important bill to remedy that, and I believe they have a right to know and a right to gain access so they can meet the many identification requirements they have to provide their birth certificate for in their adult life,” he said.

Marble said that while the current law protects parents who give up a baby for adoption, it leaves the adopted person “without any rights.” When she sought to find her birth mother, “I wasn’t out to disrupt anyone’s life,” she said. What she did want was the truth about where she came from and to be able to provide that information to her own children, she said.

Read the rest at: http://www.mpnnow.com/topstories/x1910063270/Adult-adoptees-seek-answers#ixzz2VRwHUveJ

Blessings for equal access,

Vicki-lynn

Help pass NY Adoption Legislation for Adoptee Access to Birth Records

/ V.L. Brunskill / 1 Comment

NEWS10 ABC reported yesterday on Legislation that would give adoptees access to birth records. What a wonderful way to head into Mother’s Day weekend!

However, we can’t sit back and celebrate just yet. The New York Statewide Adoption Reform Unsealed Initiative needs your help to make sure this life-altering Adoption legislation passes the Senate.  Call your friends, share and please do whatever you can to make equal access the law in New York.

Below are details from the New York Statewide Adoption Reform Unsealed Initiative  site explaining what you can do right now.New York unsealed initiative

“Contact your legislators in their District Offices. To learn who your state assembly member and senator are, call the Albany switchboard at: 518 455-4218. The phone number in New York City for the League of Women Voters is (212) 725-3541. There are 150 assembly members and the link to the assembly website is http://assembly.state.ny.us
There are 62 state senators. One way to find out who your senator is is by logging on to the senate site, www.senate.state.ny.us
We now have 75 assembly sponsors. Although we have 16 in the senate, we are very hopeful for the future. With more interest and more of us committed to lobby in Albany next session, we are determined to win.
 
A written letter (snail mail) is of more importance with many legislators. However, some value emails. If your email does not get through, go to SEARCH and type in the name of the legislator for access to their website, as many have their own sites. Then send an email from the site. Be sure to include your address and phone number in your mail.A new law recently signed by Governor Cuomo extends participation in the adoption registry to include adult adoptees born in other states but adopted in New York. At last they can obtain non-identifying information from the registry the same as adult adoptees born in the state.”

Let’s go New York adoption triad members!
Let’s get this long overdue legislation passed!

Blessings for making the dream of equal access a reality,

Vicki-lynn

Closed Adoption System: 50+ Years of Stolen Biological Rights and Broken Identities

/ V.L. Brunskill / 7 Comments

The closed adoption system in America is broken, and has been for more than fifty years.  Just look to Facebook for proof of the lifelong wounds inflicted by the closed adoption system. Everyday, hundreds of desperate adoptees post photos embellished with birth dates and non-identifying information in hopes of finding family.

The closed adoption system steals identities and often results in lifelong personality issues.  Even after reunion, many adoptees report a sense of not feeling bonded or belonging 100% to their biological or adoptive families.  We adoptees live in a limbo that tests the concepts of nature vs. nurture and like a science experiment gone horribly wrong, many of us can only guess at the biological tendencies that define us.

Having experienced the all-encompassing sense of loss that adoption brings, and knowing that my birth mother suffered the same emotional trauma, I have been thinking about the origins of closed adoption.  Who first decided that it was ok to take a child from one woman, charge a fee, and hand it over to another family to raise? Who decided that stealing and sealing away the medical and birth records of adoptees was a just legal procedure?

Adoption in America started informally in the mid 1800’s, as a way to place orphaned children. According to InfoPlease.com, “In 1851, Massachusetts passed the nation’s first adoption statute. It required that judges determine if adoptive parents had consent from the adoptee’s guardian or parent, “sufficient ability to bring up the child,” and that it was “fit and proper that such adoption should take effect.”

Two years later, Charles Loring Brace founded the Children’s Aid Society of New York in 1853. The Children’s Aid Society was meant to serve orphans, and created the Orphan train phenomenon. InfoPlease writes, “Between 1859 and 1929 some 200,000 orphaned children were transported from coastal cities to rural areas in the Midwest.”orphan train

After World War I, modern day adoption methods started to take shape. The choice to close off the records of adopted children was not a result of too many unwanted babies. It was a decision born of married couples wanting babies with no strings attached.  Adoption and social agencies supplied well-off couples with children and promised that biological families would not contact them.  Agencies claimed that closed adoptions would protect children against the social stigma of being illegitimate, and help them to bond.

Those of us who have searched or are currently searching know that the real stigma of closed adoption is being citizen with less inalienable rights than American’s who were raised by their biological families.  The idea that sealing away records would help a child to bond is the most laughable aspect of the closed adoption model.  Books like ‘Primal Wound‘ and ‘Being Adopted‘ chronicle the lifelong search for self, and the biological need to imprint that is inherent in all animals.

In the 1970’s, Roe vs. Wade and a change of social attitudes allowed for some open adoptions, but by then an entire generation of adoptees had been damaged. Many states are now considering laws that will allow adoptees to obtain their original birth certificates (OBCs), but for some the awakening of America will come to late.  How many biological mother’s went to their graves without ever once looking at their child? How many adoptees have searched in vain for information sealed away in their best interest?

It is sickening that in a country that prides itself on freedom of religion, protection of civil rights and freedom of speech, adoptees are still denied the right to know. Slavery was a broken system based on inequality, oppression and denial of basic human rights. It was abolished and slaves were freed.

When will adoptees be freed?
Blessings for equal access,
Vicki-lynn

Hartford Courant Letter: Connecticut Adoptees Rights Bill SB 59 Not Revolutionary

/ V.L. Brunskill / 4 Comments

In a February 25, 2013 letter published in the Hartford Courant, Paul Schibbelhute, a legislative adviser to Access Connecticut, an advocacy group for adult adoptees, questions proposed Connecticut Senate Bill SB 59.

Schibbelhute writes that the bill, “presently in Public Health Committee is an opportunity for Connecticut to join New Hampshire, Maine and Rhode Island as states that have restored the “human right” for all adult adoptees born in these states to obtain their original birth certificates (OBC).”

According to Schibbelhute’s letter, the bill would “deny all adoptees born before June 1, 2014, (the proposed effective date of the bill) the right to obtain their OBCs.” There is nothing equal or human about the bill as written. It will do nothing for the thousands of adult adoptees now seeking their OBC’s.

Tiff_ku1/Flickr.com

Tiff_ku1/Flickr.com

As I see it, it is a band-aid, meant to shut up the whining masses of adoptees who have the gall to request a document that every non-adopted American has access to. Bill SB 59 is a lame attempt by Connecticut officials to address the issue of equal access without rocking the moral boat of the scaredy cats who believe more in the privacy rights of birth mothers, than in the human rights of adoptees.

Senate Bill SB 59 as presented, blows a lot of smoke, but fails to flame any real change in the Connecticut movement for equal access to OBCs.  

If you believe that Connecticut adoptees deserve equal access to their Original Birth Certificates (OBCs) – get involved today. Contact information for the grass roots group Access Connecticut is available on its contact page.

You can read about the Bill and track its progress here.

Blessings for equal access laws that make a  real difference!

Vicki-lynn

Use Search Passion to Fight for Adoption Rights & Equal Access- Here’s How

/ V.L. Brunskill / 3 Comments

During my decade long search for common ground, my heart pulsed with anger and outrage over the indelicate, unfair and closeted treatment of hundreds of thousands of adult adoptees.  “In the best interest of the child,” was the mantra of adoption agency representatives. My reply, “Well that child no longer exists. I am an adult, and all  I want is what you have, a familiarity of face, place, nationality and genetics.”

I often felt alone, singled out and hopeless. However, searching is not odd, uncommon or unique. Just look at the Facebook page- You Know You’re An Adoptee When, and you will be amazed, and saddened by the number of people who are desperately looking for biological siblings, parents, and children. We are nation of missing people. In fact, stats posted at adoption.com indicate that:

  • 2-4% of all adoptees searched in 1990. (American Adoption Congress, 1996)
  • 500,000 adult adoptees were seeking or had found birth families in the late 80’s. (Groza and Rosenberg, 1998)

During my search, one of the things that helped me to persevere was the channeling of my passion to find, into a passion to change the world. Well, not the world, but at least NY state law.

BurgTender/Flickr.com

BurgTender/Flickr.com

If you are suffering the personal plaque of not knowing, it is time to reach beyond your search. As more of us express outrage over antiquated laws, and the lack of access to original birth certificates we grow more influential. The power of social media, and easy access to government officials via email, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, has allowed adoption rights groups to make some headway to change adoption law.

A recent post on the Lost Daughter blog, explains how to channel your passion to know who you are, into action for change.  ‘How to Write to Your Legislator about Adoptee Rights’ explains how to find a Representative in your state, how to contact them, and what to include in yourcorrespondence. There is also a link to Bastard Nation‘s Influencing Legislation page, which includes sample letters.

Blessings for change, and fair treatment for all,
Vicki-lynn

New Jersey Adoption Reform: A Circus of Assumptions

/ V.L. Brunskill / 12 Comments
Marissa Babin/Flickr.com

Governor Chris Christie

Keeping up with all the news on state adoption legislation can be difficult, as things change faster than you can say, “found.”  The latest state with on again/off again legislation debate is New Jersey.

Blogger Susan P. of the Family Rights blog, brought to my attention Governor Chris Christie’s fumble on what could have been truly monumental legislation. The proposed open records law in NJ (as originally drafted) would have free adoptees from years of forced secrecy and gut-wrenching searches.

Adoption Reform is on the  move in NJ, and it seems that Christie and other legislators are twisting what should be a straight-forward, open records law, into a political nightmare. Fears of increased abortion rates, and the overzealous assumption that all birth mothers want secrecy,  has turned  NJ Adoption Reform  into a three-ring circus of church, state, and stupidity!

According to a blog titled, ‘Christie’s ‘compromise’ on Adoptees’ birthright bill unfair’ at NJ.com, Christie “conditionally vetoed the Adoptees’ Birthright Bill (A1406) in June 2011,  suggesting that legislators write in  a loophole for birthmothers to opt-out of the release of original birth certificates to adult adoptees.  From what I understand, this would come in the form of a one-year grace period before adoptees can act on the open records law. This would allow birth mothers a year to deny access.

Susan of the Family Rights Blog recently wrote, “Other states have successfully passed “clean” bills (Oregon, Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island), and it sickens me that some adoptees will be hurt by a concession to the fears of some legislators.”

I wholeheartedly agree! Adoptees deserve the same rights as every American. The availability of our original birth certificates should not open for debate.  Chris Christie has his original, unaltered birth certificate, and every person born in NJ deserves the same.

Adoptees did not sign away any rights. Therefore, access to records should be allowed without clauses of birth parent protection, or interference from the same “Christian” organizations that  forced many of the adoptions to begin with.  In response to criticism of his actions, Christie said, “Adoptees want it all.”

You got that right Christie!  We want all the same rights that you take for granted.

Keep the Faith NJ adoptees. Your truth is coming!

Vicki-lynn

UPDATE: Please note the comments section for a better understanding of Christie’s actions.  Turns out that while the circus continues, I had a few performance details askew!

Printable Poster: Original Birth Certificate (OBC) Laws for Adoptees by State

/ V.L. Brunskill / Leave a comment

I just discovered a handy printable guide to the rules in every U.S. state regarding access to original birth certificates.  Available at adopteerightscoalition.com, the chart/poster presents details on every U.S. state You can either download it, and view as a pdf file or print it.

Adoptee Rights Coalition Poster

The Adoptee Rights Coalition is a group that “supports legislation that will give all adopted adults unconditional restored access to their own birth certificates.” The Coalition holds rallies across the county, and its site is chock full of information on  adoptee rights, and legislation.

If you’re interested in the cause of equal access for adoptees, there are several ways to get involved.  First,  consider attending the Adoptee Rights Demonstration scheduled for August 2013 in Atlanta, Georgia.  More details on this event will be posted at adopteerightscoalition.com as they become available.

Can’t make it to Atlanta? No problem, there are other ways to get involved. The Adoptee Rights Coalition also hosts writing campaigns “to inform all state legislatures of the urgency of unsealing our records to restore the equality of adoptees in the United States. ”

As with most non-profits, the group could also use financial donations to keep the cause alive.   There is a Paypal button on the website! For more ways to help, visit http://www.adopteerightscoalition.com/p/help-arc.html .
Civil rights should extend to all humans, and I am happy to focus on a group that is working  to assure that adoptees are finally recognized and reunited with their truth!

Blessings  for access and reunion,

Vicki-lynn Brunskill

Adoptees Beware: Religious Agencies Changed Birth Dates & Data

/ V.L. Brunskill / 6 Comments

Last week, I was mulling over the relinquishment of the main character in my novel ‘Waving Backwards.’ The feelings and difficulties of being an adoptee in search are easy for me to explore, since I found my birth family after a 12 year search. However, the  birth mother’s experience is somewhat of a mystery  to me.

As I considered the relinquishment scenes for my book, I was blessed to turn on the TV to find Dan Rather reporting about forced adoption in the 60’s & 70’s. His report titled “Adopted or Abducted” opened my eyes to the questionable practices employed by many adoption agencies during the adoption boom.

During the 60’s & 70’s, waves of families moved to suburban neighborhoods, becoming what we now know as the middle class. At that time, social standing and reputations were extremely important.

According to Rather’s report on AXS TV, the increased focus on social standing, coincided with a change of attitudes among young people about sex, dating, and experimentation. Therefore, the rate of unwed pregnancies rose.

Families eager to protect their daughter’s reputations (and their own) often sent these unwed teens away to have their babies. Maternity homes were popular, and many were run by Catholic organizations.

Rather’s report focuses on the experiences of birth mothers sent to live in maternity homes, and how they were forced to give away their babies. Birth mothers were often tricked or forced into signing relinquishment papers. Some were even told that their babies had died.

The part of the report that is most important to those of you in search is the revelation that agencies (like Catholic Charities) often changed the identifying information in adoption records. They did this, so that the birth mother would never be able to locate her child. They also changed the nationalities of children, to better match the nationalities of their adoptive families.  Thereby creating a perfect fit by falsehood.

If  you are searching for your birth family, this could be a crucial fact. If the agency that placed you changed your birth date, your internet searches could be omitting crucial information.  When you search online or register for reunion registries, I suggest using the year and state of your birth, in addition to the city and date of birth that appears on your amended birth certificate. Someone could be looking for you with information that is different than the info you have.

Troy Dunn, AKA The Locator, who was interviewed for the report, has heard from thousands of birth mothers who were forced to give up babies. He has also found birth date changes to be  commonplace. (Sickening, I know.) Dunn cited Catholic Charities as one of the biggest culprits. Therefore, if you were placed by Catholic Charities, I would question every bit of information provided in a letter of non-identifying information.

I highly recommend that birth mothers and adoptees view the show. Birth mothers may find some solace in knowing that they are not the only ones who had their babies stolen, and adoptees may find a new perspective on the horrible process, and what it means to their searches.

Blessings,
Vickilynn

Adoptee Rights Demonstration Today in Chicago

/ V.L. Brunskill / 1 Comment

If you are in the Chicago area, this is the place to meet like minded adoptees interested in open records for all!

K.'s avatarKaren Pickell: Between

Adoptee Rights CoalitionThe Adoptee Rights Coalition has organized a demonstration to take place today during the National Conference of State Legislators in Chicago. Specifically, they will be trying to open the legislators’ eyes to the plight of adult adoptees in forty-four states who are not allowed to have a copy of their own original birth certificates.

What is an “original birth certificate?”

Many people who are not intimately affected by adoption do not realize that adopted people have two different birth certificates. Whenever a child is born, a birth certificate is issued to legally record that birth. We all know that, right? At minimum, the birth certificate lists the baby’s name and the name of the child’s mother.

If that baby is later adopted, a new birth certificate is issued which lists the child’s adoptive name, and his adoptive parents’ names as mother and father. The original birth certificate–the one that lists…

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Search Tip: Find an Adoption Reunion Search Angel

/ V.L. Brunskill / 1 Comment

Searching for your birthfamily is time-consuming and costly. However, there are volunteers out there that will assist you with the process. They are called Search Angels.  Usually, adoptees or birthparents themselves, these volunteers offer guidance that can shorten your search by years.

sun dazed/Flickr.com

This search tip offers links to find a Search Angel, and advice on how to proceed once you do.

1. Get organized. Have all of the information you’ve gathered about your adoption ready. I often get email requests that are vague. To help,   I need the adoptees gender, plus date and place of birth. Once I have this, I can recommend specific search actions.

2. Find an angel.  Often the best place to find a reliable, useful angel is in reunion forums.  Search for local adoption reunion forums for your state as well. Also see the links listed at the end of this post.

A few national forums include:

3. Ask the search angel for references, or search  forums like those at adoption.com. Sign up for a free account to post an inquiry.  There is a current post on the support forum about a scam angel named Alex Shan.  Search your angels name in these forums, and Google their name to see if there are complaints.

4. Never share your address, or social security number with a search angel.

5. Ask about expenses. Angels are supposed to be free, but some ask to be reimbursed for travel.

6. Do not expect that a search angel will spend all of their time working on your search. Most offer advice, and tips for moving forward. Some will plug away at your search for years. Remember that a search angel is not a professional, they are volunteering to help you.

The sites below will help you find a search angel.  Of course, you should Google by state as well, (example- ‘Florida Adoption Search Angels’) since many volunteers work only in the state where they reside, or where they have search experience.

If you know of other Search Angel directories, let me know and I will add them.