January 9th, 2017: Opening Day in New Jersey

This is the cover of a book I gave to my mom's sisters -- the ones she finally found when she was 63 years old -- two years ago. My mom had passed away the year before, having only known her sisters for eight months, but their bond was deep, and our bond continues. The book was simply photocopies of my mom's journal from when she was 13 years old, allowing her sisters a glimpse into her life, into the years they missed together.

My mom's life was a happy one, as maybe you can tell from these few photos (and isn't she cute? I love her sweet face in the photo on the right), but like many adoptees, she also had a bone-deep need to know her roots, and a persistent hope, one she couldn't even admit to herself until actually reunited with her sisters, for a connection to these roots. She spoke out about this for the last 15 years of her life, and even in those last months, when all other things by necessity had to fall away, she continued to fight for adoptees' rights to know their identities (or at least try to know without government interference).

That is why my heart is so full tonight, and why it will be so difficult for me not to be in Trenton, New Jersey tomorrow for the celebration of "Opening Day" along with the many other advocates who fought so hard for this right over the years. Pam Hasagawa, the leader of NJCARE, the organization with which my mom was involved, has tirelessly persevered for more than three decades in order to see this day. (Click HERE to read more about Pam). My mom often spoke about Pam's incredible integrity, and I have seen her faith and strength myself. I am so happy for her. My mom's brother (with her in three of the pictures above) and my dad will also be in Trenton tomorrow to celebrate, and to mark this occasion for my mom. It is so important.

If you are an adopted person from New Jersey, you can go to NJCARE's site for the paperwork to order your birth certificate (Click HERE).

In July of 2013, less than a week after she was diagnosed with stage 4 malignant melanoma, my mom wrote about adoption and what it had meant in her life. As she pondered adoptees' rights to know their full identities, she wondered if this day, Opening Day, would ever come. Reading her words again now, I am so heartened that it finally has.

Throughout my life, I have learned that the road to peace is never through falsehood, and I think that is the reason I have always felt so devoted to truth, fairness and social justice.

It is truly misguided and so very wrong for the state to attempt to block two grown adults from knowing the truth about each other's identity -- especially when those adults share such a deep, primal connection.  We cannot and should not ever block a human being's path to truth, peace, forgiveness and love.

I was told through the agency that placed me that my original mother did not want any contact with me.    With help from several enlightened souls, I found her on my own and sent her a sensitive and compassionate certified letter, asking her also for medical history.  As a human being facing a medical crisis 16 years ago, I felt that I was worthy enough to at least ask for information.  I received it, and eventually my original mother told me over the telephone that she had always loved me "in her heart."  Not every adopted person will seek out her original parents or get even that far in the journey.  Some will get further.

But how dare the state block the possibility for that love to be expressed?  How dare they?  Let people -- adults with minds and souls of their own -- find their own way.  Facing a critical illness at the moment, I can tell you with certainty that there is nothing that is more important than love.  Nothing.  Please, let's let the light, the truth and the love overcome the misguided fears and the ideology. 

Congratulations to all those who have fought so hard for this light, truth, and love. May it surround you tomorrow as you celebrate, and may it continue to grow for us all. 

Gun control, adoptee rights and government paralysis

Commenting on the recent failure of Congress to approve even tepid gun control measures, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne wrote:  "The story of reform in America is that it often takes defeats to inspire a movement to build up the strength required for victory."

As an adoptee rights activist, I couldn't help but relate to what Dionne is saying here.  The fight for gun control and the struggle for adoptee rights have each become so politicized that the facts are often ignored and progress seems all but impossible.

I can't even begin to imagine the disgust and betrayal that families who have lost loved ones to gun violence must feel at our government's paralysis and ineptitude.  Will they now redouble their efforts to press for legislative changes?  Or will they conclude that no matter what they do, it is simply impossible to compete with the well-funded, special-interest lobbies in Washington?

As a proponent for adoption reform in the state of New Jersey, I have felt both ways.  At times, I feel that no matter what we do, we just can't compete with the entities that have easy access to legislators: the NJ Conference of Catholic Bishops, NJ Right to Life, the NJ Bar Association, the National Council for Adoption, and ACLU-NJ.  Then later, often fueled by a dramatic setback, such as Gov. Christie's "conditional" veto of an adoptee rights bill that already contained a significant compromise, I feel compelled to keep pressing on.

Several members of the New Jersey Coalition for Adoption Reform and Education (NJCARE), adoptee Pam Hasegawa and original mother Judy Foster, have been lobbying for over 30 years now for the right of adopted adults to access their own factual certificates of birth (OBCs).  Having worked with the group for 10 years now, I am awed and inspired by their hard work, perseverance and integrity.

It is truly discouraging that NJCARE's position that adopted adults should be treated equally by law and have the same access to their original birth certificates that any other American citizen has is still considered controversial by some lawmakers.  Once, as Foster was explaining to a legislator that she was never promised anonymity from the child she relinquished, the legislator responded, "Well, you should have been!"

And that, unfortunately, is the response of many power brokers to the adoptee rights issue -- don't confuse me with the facts!  Instead of listening to the people who have actually lived the adoption experience, they listen to those who facilitate adoptions and who profit from adoption transactions.

Another huge hurdle for the adoptee rights movement is that the issue has become intertwined with the ongoing political battles over abortion.  The immediate reaction in some circles is to see adoption as the win-win solution to the abortion dilemma, and the fear is that abortions will increase should we make adoption a more transparent process.

The reality, however, is that there is no link at all between abortion rates and adult adoptee access -- today, we have plenty of data compiled from open access states to substantiate the fact that there is no correlation.

We have actually been told by some NJ legislators that the facts don't matter when it comes to this issue -- it is all about politics.  I, for one, don't know exactly how to proceed in the legislative arena when facts don't matter.  I am a logical, straightforward type of thinker, and if all the data supports the right of adopted adults to be treated equally under the law, then laws guaranteeing that right should be enacted.

Instead, what I have witnessed over the past 10 years is an Assembly Speaker who refused to meet with us and who would not release to the Assembly floor an adoptee rights bill that had widespread support; an Assembly member who added such expensive and unrealistic amendments to an adoptee rights bill that it had no chance to move forward; another legislator who introduced an "alternative" bill at the very last minute when the success of a balanced adoptee rights bill seemed imminent; and a governor who "conditionally" vetoed a bill that had been discussed and debated for several years, and basically replaced it with the "alternative" bill that had received no public input at all.

To say that my faith in the democratic process has been undermined would be an understatement.  Yet when NJCARE recently held an organizational meeting in anticipation of a new adoptee rights bill, to be introduced shortly, I attended.  In spite of all the setbacks, there are a few glimmers of hope.  We have some new, sharp and energetic members.  And in Ohio, in a dramatic turnaround, Ohio Right to Life and the Ohio Catholic Conference recently testified in favor of an adoptee rights bill.

Change may be unlikely, especially with Gov. Christie at the helm, but I have to believe that it is possible, even here in the state of New Jersey.


You might also like:

Ohio Right to Life Embraces Adoptee Rights

Adoption and Abortion: It's Not as Simple as Many Pro-lifers Think

Why is honesty in adoption still a controversial subject?

Why I Oppose Confidential Intermediaries

Will Adult Adoptees Ever be Treated like Grown-ups?

Is anyone else as disgusted as I am at the slow pace of the adoption reform movement -- specifically the state-by-state efforts to allow adult citizens who happen to be adopted access to their own birth certificates?

The New Jersey Coalition for Adoption Reform and Education (NJCARE) tries valiantly year after year to get an adult adoptee access bill passed, and year after year it is thwarted by last-minute back room deals driven by the opposition -- Catholic Bishops, NJ Right to Life, the National Council for Adoption (NCFA) and the NJ Bar Association.

These groups continue to oppose adult adoptee access even though we now have years of experience from the open-access states and from other countries that shows their fears are completely unfounded.  Meanwhile, everyday people who have an ounce of common sense just shake their heads in disbelief when I explain to them that most fully-grown adoptees have no access to the document that records their true and actual birth.

Apparently, by law, adoptees in this country are still expected for life to be somebody other than who they really are.  When a child's adoption in the US is finalized, an amended birth certificate is issued that lists the adoptive parents as the child's mother and father.  The original birth certificate is "sealed" by the state, and adoptees must petition the court and show "good cause," a condition that has never been legally defined, should they desire to know the truth about their own genetic roots.

Of course legions of adoptees search for their origins in spite of the legal obstacles.  Search angels and some private investigators specialize in the field.  But isn't it ridiculous and unjust that an entire class of people must jump through all kinds of hoops in order to find out the most basic information about themselves?

The adoption industry has been quite successful in convincing people that the practice of adoption is just fine exactly like it is.  Their propaganda, aimed at selling the concept that adoption is a win-win situation for all the parties involved, has been effective.  Most people seem to assume that adoption is always a wonderful and positive option that leads to happily-ever-after endings for all.

The lifelong loss that so many original mothers feel?  We don't hear so much about that.  The identity struggles that many adoptees face as they come to terms with their relinquishment?  A secondary concern.  How much easier it is to just assume, as I did as a child, that love will conquer all.

My guess is that most people aren't even aware that the original birth certificates of adoptees are sealed for life in most states.  And if they are aware, they probably assume, incorrectly, that adoption has always been conducted this way, and that the secrecy is necessary for the "protection" of birth parents.  Those who oppose adult adoptee access talk a great deal about the need for birth parent protection, although hordes of original mothers have come forward to tell us that they were not promised, nor did they ask for "confidentiality."

As I have written in other posts, allowing adopted adults access to their original birth certificates is not a novel and untested concept.  In England and Australia, adult adoptees have had access to their own birth documents for over 30 years!  Here, a few states have opened up access, but progress across the country remains slow, and the quest for adoptee rights is always a frustrating, uphill battle.

What is really galling is that the press for the most part does not challenge the propaganda of the power brokers in adoption.  These groups insist that original mothers were promised anonymity, when an examination of the history and of the surrender documents themselves shows clearly that records were sealed to hide the identity of the adoptee, not the identity of the original family.

And why are birth records sealed for one of the most common types of adoption, that initiated by step-parents?  In these cases, and in adoptions out of foster care, the children for the most part already have their original information, and yet still, their original birth certificates are sealed.  Domestic infant adoptions actually comprise just a tiny portion of all adoptions finalized each year, yet the power brokers in adoption ask us to accept that original birth certificates are sealed across the board to preserve the "anonymity" or privacy of original parents.

The most telling statistic, of course, is that fewer than 1 percent of original parents have a preference for anonymity, according to combined statistics from those open-access states that maintain records (American Adoption Congress, Statistics for States Implementing Access to Original Birth Certificates).  Just who is it that adoption facilitators are so intent on protecting, even as they continue to violate the rights of the person that adoption is supposed to serve -- the adoptee?

It is apparent to me that they are either trying to protect themselves by keeping their files under lock and key, or they are responding to the desire of some adoptive parents to begin with a clean slate, adoptive parents who want nothing whatsoever to do with the original families.  Whatever the motivation, it is clear that it does not center around the best interest of the child.

Sometimes, I wonder whether I am wasting my time writing these posts, when we see so little progress in the legislative arena.  I am a rational, logical person, and it drives me crazy that the opposition to Adoptee Rights Bills is not based on any established fact.  As far as I can see, the opposition is based on a misguided ideology, power and money.

Will adult adoptees ever be treated like grown-ups by law?  Sadly, I am beginning to doubt it.


You might also like:

Sealed Records -- A Secret the Industry Would Like to Keep

Money and Power Stymie Adoptee Rights Bills

Why do State Bar Associations Oppose Adoptee Rights?

Pro-life Ideology and Adoptee Rights

Gov. Chris Christie, Adoptee Rights, and Political Games

This summer, NJ Governor Chris Christie has been visiting coastal towns as part of his "Endless Summer of Tax Relief: A Conversation at the Jersey Shore" tour. Ah, if only I could convince the governor that signing an adoptee rights bill would lower tax rates in New Jersey -- then maybe he would be willing to talk with me! Gov. Christie appeared in Brant Beach on Long Beach Island in July, and I briefly thought about attending his event since I was vacationing just a few miles away, but then I remembered how other members of the adoption reform movement have been treated during his public meetings.

 When NJCARE member Zara Phillips last winter said she didn't understand why an adoptee rights bill couldn't work in New Jersey, when adult adoptees in England have had access to their original birth certificates since 1975, the governor replied, "Oh, I see you're from England -- you don't understand how things are done here in New Jersey."

 The way things are done here in New Jersey, apparently, is that a bill that has been thoroughly debated and approved by a democratic vote in both the Senate and Assembly is completely rewritten by special interest groups behind closed doors and then reintroduced as a "conditional veto" by the governor.

 That scenario, in fact, is exactly what happened with the adoptee rights bill approved by the Senate 27-10, and by the Assembly 44-26 during the last legislative cycle. I can't tell you how much it irritates me that Gov. Christie has claimed in public forums that "some adoptees won't compromise," when it was he who renounced a compromise access bill that had been approved by lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, many of whom had listened to hundreds of hours of testimony.

 The term "conditional veto" in this case is grossly misleading, since what Gov. Christie really did was replace a simple civil rights bill with a completely new version prepared with major input from opponents to adoptee rights, a version to which the Legislature and the public never even had the opportunity to respond. So was Gov. Christie's action a fair or even democratic response? Hardly. It was an autocratic decision drafted to appease the concerns of the NJ Catholic Conference of Bishops, The NJ Bar Association, NJ--ACLU, and NJ Right to Life.

 One wonders when we look at Gov. Christie's objections to the original bill whether he even understood its intent -- to allow adopted adults access to their own legal documents of birth at the age of 18. The bill was not about reunions -- it was about treating adopted adults just like we treat every other American citizen.

Currently in New Jersey and most other states, adult adoptees are denied the same rights as other citizens to secure their own legal documents of birth.  Instead, adoptees are issued amended birth certificates when they are adopted as children, and their true document of birth is "sealed" by the state.  To remedy that inequity, Gov. Christie proposed that we create and maintain a state-run system of confidential intermediaries to act as a buffer between adult adoptees and their original parents -- thus perpetuating a system in which adoptees are viewed as forever children singled out for special and separate treatment.

Gov. Christie said that the bill passed by the Legislature, which allowed adult adoptees to apply for and secure their original birth certificates just like anyone else, could have had "a potential chilling effect on adoptions" -- here he uses the telling and misguided language of institutional opponents to adoptee rights.

In another revealing comment, he said, "Yet I also strongly empathize with the adopted child, and adopted parents who may long to know the identity of the birth parents."

Why is the adoptee referred to as a child here, when the Legislature had approved a bill addressing only the rights of the full-grown adopted adult?  And why, once again, was it assumed that the bill was all about reunions, when it was really about the right of adults to secure their own legal documents?

In conditionally vetoing the bill last year, Gov. Christie perpetuated all kinds of myths and stereotypes about adoption.  Despite his statement that an adoptee rights bill would have a "chilling effect" on adoption, adoption rates are not lower in states with access legislation, nor are abortion rates higher.

Gov. Christie and other opponents to adoptee rights bills maintain that the original mother's right to privacy is paramount, and that this right trumps the right of the adopted adult to know his or her own true identity.  Even if adoptee rights bills were about reunions, such a position makes no logical sense.  The data shows that 95 percent of original parents are open to contact, and in states like Oregon, which passed access legislation in 2000, fewer than one percent of original mothers have filed "no contact" preferences.  Higher courts in Oregon and Tennessee have also weighed in on this issue, ruling that there is no constitutional right to privacy for original parents that would be violated by releasing the birth certificates of adult adoptees.

I keep sending these facts and others to Gov. Christie's office, in the hope that someone, someday, will pay attention.  To date, I haven't received any replies or invitations for constructive dialogue.  And were I to speak out at one of Gov. Christie's public forums, I might ask, "Why, Governor, if you believe in less bureaucracy, would you suggest that we create an unwieldy and expensive state-run entity to control contact between adoptees who are adults and original parents who are adults, when simple, inexpensive civil rights bills have worked so well in other states?"

I suppose the governor would respond that I simply don't understand how New Jersey government works.  But sadly, after working for a fair adoptee rights bill for over ten years, I do.  The facts, which can easily be secured from the websites of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, the American Adoption Congress, and NJCARE, show that granting adult adoptees the right to secure their own legal documents of birth is the fair and ethical thing to do.  We are still waiting for those facts to outweigh the fears and myths promulgated by the opposition, and for simple justice to become more important than the games that some politicians play.


You might also like:

Catholic Bishops Thwart Adoptee Rights

Pro-Life Ideology and Adoptee Rights

Why do State Bar Associations Oppose Adoptee Rights?

ACLU-NJ Misses the Mark on Adoption