Adoptees' Voices: PA HB162

This is another post by Jenn, Susan's daughter. Susan passed away on April 7th, 2014 after an 8-month battle with melanoma.

"I was fifteen years old when I understood how it is that things break down: people can't imagine someone else's point of view." - Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her autobiography My Beloved World

When Pennsylvania's Senate Committee on Aging and Youth reconvenes this month, they will consider HB162, a law that would allow adult adoptees access to their birth certificates. The measure passed the Assembly unanimously in the spring, but it is unknown whether or not it will have the votes to make it out of this 11-member committee. If it doesn't, more adoptees like my mom will have no access to information about their heritage, including crucial medical information that may save their lives. This, as well as the fact that the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference continues to lobby hard against it, is heartbreaking to me. I cannot fathom how they (leaders of the Catholic Conference, senators considering a "no" vote) don't yet "get it" and can perpetuate such an injustice. I am writing tonight as one more voice pleading for them to "imagine someone else's point of view," that all important bedrock of justice in our country. And, to be fair, I must let them, and all of you, know that I, for years "didn't get it" in the way that I should have. My mom, an adoptee herself, didn't get it until she was 50 years old and had to sit across the desk from someone, an employee of the agency that facilitated her adoption, and hear that she could not be handed the file of her most personal information, a file only mere feet away, because in the one, impersonal phone call the agency made to the birth mother, that mother had been scared and said no.

My mom with my girls in Disney, 2010. 

A few weeks ago, my dad, my sister, my aunt Jo (my mom's sister, reunited with her last September, before my mom's death in April), and my Uncle Doug (my mom's brother, also adopted, raised with my mom) gathered at my dad's shore house in Long Beach Island. There, we read together letters that my mom had exchanged in 2003 with the agency that facilitated her adoption. We all shook our heads together when we read the agency's response to one of her first letters. The agency's letter began, "It is with great compassion that I write this letter,"  and ended "I hope you are able to understand our position." After that, we read my mom's response. Here it is:

In response to your recent letter, I would have to answer no, I do not understand your position in this contemporary age, especially in light of the fact that you still facilitate closed adoptions. From my perspective as a 52-year-old adoptee, closed adoptions make no sense, not in this age when genetic research is transforming medicine and the way we view behavior, practically by the day. 

Your voluntary search program was a good start, but it is not sufficient. In fact, the process makes me feel like a paralyzed infant, because once again, your agency holds all the power, and my interests have been sublimated to these secrecy pacts you have endorsed and apparently continue to endorse. There is no way that I can feel my birth mother was forthcoming with medical information, as your letter strongly suggests, when ______'s exact words to me were: "Even in that area, I felt like she was holding something back."

Why should I, as the adoptee, be asked to honor an agreement that was flawed and didn't consider my best interest in the first place? It is well and good to protect birth mothers from their friends and neighbors, but not from the human beings they bring into the world, and for life. Every person should have the opportunity to explore where he or she has come from. Babies are not commodities -- they grow into adolescents and adults, many who want to know the truth and are unwilling to accept the legal fiction this closed system has forced upon them. 

I would ask you once again to consider how little I am asking for. I never said I desired a reunion, although I wouldn't have turned one down. I want to deliver a letter to my birth mother in my own voice in the hope that it may touch her and allow her to provide a little information. I have promised not to approach her again, and I'm fully prepared to accept the fact that her need for denial is so strong that she may be unable to do this. But shouldn't I have the right to try? In not attempting to facilitate this healing, you have once again made the decision to completely ignore the adoptees' feelings. Can you even begin to imagine how this makes me feel? ...

And then, in her next letter (after she was told there would be no attempt to compromise):

Your unyielding position makes me feel totally violated as a thinking, feeling adult.... Why can't you take the mildest of risks and meet me somewhere in the middle on this issue? I remain totally disgusted by your self-serving, hypocritical stance. And while you may be able to block my ability to heal and thwart my search, fortunately for me, you cannot control my voice. At least that is one power I still possess -- the power of the pen.       Sincerely, Susan T. Perry

I beg of you, any of you who have made your way to this site today, but especially those who live in Pennsylvania, to use the power of your voice to speak up so that no one else has to go through what my mom did. If you have questions and still don't "get it," please ask! I am happy to answer your questions, and I won't yell at you. I will, however, tell you the truth. Once you do get it, write! Below is the contact information for all of the Senators on the Pennsylvania Committee on Aging and Youth. I think they especially need to hear from members of the adoption triad (adoptees, original parents, and adoptive parents). Please pass this on to anyone in Pennsylvania you know.

In addition, I would ask any Catholics to write to the Catholic Conference to let them know you oppose them lobbying against this bill. For me, this is personal. Catholics, if true to their faith, should be worried about protecting the powerless, and supporting this bill would at least allow the adult adoptee some semblance of power over his/her own life.

LINK TO SENATE AGING AND YOUTH COMMITTEE (click for full information on each Senator and snail-mail mailing addresses, if you are so motivated. Just click on the Senator's name on the list to the left -- options for Twitter and Facebook as well!):
http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/cteeInfo/index.cfm?Code=1&CteeBody=S

SENATORS ON THE COMMITTEE AND THEIR E-MAIL ADDRESSES:

Chair, Senator Randy Vulakovich (District 40): (must click on link above and e-mail via form)
Minority Chair, Senator Sean Wiley (District 49): senatorwiley@pasenate.com
Vice Chair, Senator Scott Wagner (District 28): swagner@pasen.gov
Senator Joseph Scarnati III (District 25): jscarnati@pasen.gov
Senator David Argall (District 29): dargall@pasen.gov
Senator Lisa Baker (District 20): lbaker@pasen.gov
Senator Bob Mensch (District 24): (must click on link above and e-mail via form)
Senator Elder Vogel Jr. (District 47): (must click on link above and e-mail via form)
Senator Judith Schwank (District 11): SenatorSchwank@pasenate.com
Senator Michael J. Stack (District 5): stack@pasenate.com
Senator John Yudichak (District 14): yudichak@pasenate.com

Pennsylvania Catholic Conference (click on "Contact" - top right):
http://www.pacatholic.org/
I especially ask all Catholics of good faith to contact them and ask them to stop opposing HB 162. In other states (Ohio specifically), Catholic leaders have REVERSED THEIR POSITION on this bill and supported it as "the right thing to do." Catholics in Pennsylvania could also do the right thing.

Thank you, everyone, for honoring my mom by using your own voice. Thank you for pleading for the rights of others simply because you care about doing what is right.
With a full and hopeful heart, Jenn

A Simple Piece of Paper: Adult Adoptees Access to Original Birth Certificates

Tomorrow, May 7th, marks one month since my mom, Susan Perry, passed away from melanoma. She was diagnosed in July.  This weekend, for Mother's Day, my dad, my sister, and I are going to the beach together for the first time without her.  We know it will be hard.  Our families our joining us Saturday evening, and we'll have breakfast together, at the house, on Sunday.  Sunday is also the day that filmmaker Jean Strauss' documentary "A Simple Piece of Paper" debuts around the country on PBS.  As New Jersey looks forward to secrecy-free adoptions starting in 2017 and Pennsylvania awaits (hopefully) the passage of HB162, an unrestricted access bill, and as we mourn the loss of my mom, an adoptee, I am pleased to share the words of Jean Strauss about the movie and my mom.

My mom roller-blading with my oldest daughter last spring. It is hard to believe she is no longer here. I will continue to honor her memory by speaking out for adoptees' rights, and I am touched that others are doing so in her name as well. #HonorSusanPerry

By Jean Strauss, director of the documentary A Simple Piece of Paper:

Last June, as I was filming testimony of NJ-CARE members during an Assembly hearing, my primary camera failed. I was filming Susan Perry at the time, and I remember thinking – well, New Jersey isn’t going to pass access legislation while Governor Christie is in office, and Susan Perry is one of the most important voices out there so there will be lots more opportunities.

Susan taught us many things. One of them is, we can never foresee the future.

Shortly after her testimony, she was diagnosed with fourth stage melanoma.  She passed away less than a month ago.  If she had access to her own birth information, it’s quite possible she would still be alive.

And somehow, Governor Christie is finding his way to ‘yes.’  So in May of 2014, New Jersey will see the light at the end of its very long tunnel of adoption reform.  Secrecy in adoption will end – and Susan Perry will have played a significant role in that.  While I don’t think she’d be happy that adult adopted citizens will have to wait until 2017 to access their birth certificates, or that redactions were a necessary compromise for the passage, I have to believe she would be thrilled about eliminating the secrecy for future generations.  Her advocacy alongside the NJ-CARE team will save lives and provide both equality and dignity for adopted citizens going forward.

Susan and I both had cancer scares mid summer 2013.  Mine ended up just being a lot of tests and good news.  Susan’s experience was far different.  I just reread the last emails between us.  As she cheered the good news I’d received, I kept prodding her to consider doing a film. She would have been a natural filmmaker with her storytelling gifts, with her laugh, and with her wisdom.  But Susan was very clear about what she intended to do with her time: spend it with her husband, her daughters, her grandchildren – and her two newly found sisters, who arrived bearing love and kindness last fall.

Mid winter, I sent Susan and Ty the very first copy of my new film, A Simple Piece of Paper, about adoptee access in Illinois.  I don’t know if Susan felt well enough to even watch a few frames – but it made me feel good to know she was its first audience, in spirit.

The film now goes out into the ‘ether’, as it premieres in twenty states on PBS this week, and will hopefully air in every state in the Union through the summer and fall (see www.asimplepieceofpaper.com/find-pbs-screenings.php for the schedule).  I wish she were here so we could talk a bit more about about writing with pictures, and the impact films can have.  She had the most important gift of any storyteller: an intense passion coupled with a compassionate mind. I am imaging the films she would have made, stamped with her own special wisdom and wit.  I will always regret that I didn’t capture her testimony last June.  Her words were so powerful.  They will always be powerful…

Justice for My Mom and All Adoptees

Another post by Susan’s daughter, Jenn. Susan passed away on April 7^th, 2014, after an 8-month battle with melanoma. She was an ardent supporter of S873/A1259, aka the Adoptees Birthright Bill, now awaiting Governor Christie’s signature in New Jersey.

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My family in San Francisco in 2001, visiting Kate, who was in her last year of medical school at UCSF at the time. As a doctor, my sister has always advocated for my mom having full access to her medical records. In 1997, because my mom didn't, she was blocked from a clinical trial after being diagnosed with Stage II melanoma. Intermediaries (proposed as a "compromise" by those who oppose the Adoptees Birthright Bill) do not work, and are insulting to adoptees. 

Earlier this week during a morning class, one of my students, Saaya, proclaimed suddenly, “It’s snowing!” We all looked to the windows. Indeed, gentle white flakes fell softly just outside. Snowing in Philadelphia in April? With surprise, I went to the window and looked up, then down. It took a moment – after all, it had been a very snowy winter -- but my mind finally saw what was really happening: white and light pink flowers, from the trees around the corner, were blowing in the wind. We had all been so sure, even in our surprise, that it was snow. But it was not. 

The image stuck with me. Sometimes in life we need to look closely, and not accept our first impressions, in order to see the truth. 

I wish mightily that the opponents of the Adoptees Birthright Bill in New Jersey would look closely at their own arguments and realize that they are gravely mistaken, to the peril of their own causes, and certainly to the great peril of those in the adoption triad. In New Jersey, a coalition of adoptees, original (biological) parents, and adoptive parents have fought for years for the end of sealed records, an archaic practice that does great damage to thousands of people in New Jersey, and millions of people throughout the United States. Governor Chris Christie has the chance to ameliorate this injustice by signing the Adoptees Birthright Bill now on his desk.  He and those who oppose this bill can best serve those who live adoption by recognizing what the Philadelphia Inquirer editorialized today saying: “The measure strikes the right balance: It enables adoptees to explore their pasts but preserves birth parents’ right to privacy despite evidence that most won’t insist on remaining anonymous.”

 

My mom and dad after their wedding in 1971. I look so much like my mom in this picture that when my daughter saw it she said, "Who's that man with you, mom?" When my mom reunited with her sisters this September, they came to her house with boxes of pictures, and we marveled at the resemblances.

The opponents are the NJ ACLU, the New Jersey Bar Association, New Jersey Right to Life, the National Council for Adoption, and the NJ Catholic Conference. Are you affiliated with any of these organizations? If so, please, please keep reading. And please work to help the leaders in those organizations to see the truth. Right now, they are seeing snow  -- and, in fact, spreading alarm about a giant, crippling “snowstorm” -- for flowers. 

One night in early March, when I had just returned home after spending the evening lying next to my mom in her bed, my heart heavy with the impending loss, and with how my mom was suffering, I decided to search for information on Marie Tasy, the director of NJ Right to Life, who had testified against this bill. Somehow I thought that if I wrote her a letter explaining what blocking the Adoptees Birthright Bill was truly doing to adoptees, and trying, once again, to get her to see that blocking this law did NOTHING, nothing at all, to convince women in crisis pregnancies to carry their pregnancies to term, as she erroneously believed, then maybe she would change her mind. As I said in the letter, I was praying for a miracle, and I continue to pray for that miracle. Of course, I also prayed for a miracle for my mom, and I know sometimes we must live with cancer that cannot be cured, or people who will not reconsider their deeply held (yet false) beliefs. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to cure cancer (or pray for a miracle), or try to help those who are wrong see the errors in their thinking. Right now, each time they show up at a hearing or post something online about opposing this bill, each time they refuse to listen to the compassionate reasoning of those who live adoption, it feels akin to each devastating CT Scan we got back over the last 8 months, showing us that my mom’s cancer was not responding to treatment.   

But it doesn’t have to be that way. We’re talking about people here, and people who, if they listen, could respond. They could change.  And the time for change is now....not next year or beyond.   Justice delayed is justice denied.   

My mom and me skiing, early 1980s. Later, she would teach my girls to ski as well. She was an incredible mom, and an incredible person. She never should have had to go through what she did to find her original family. No adoptee should.

That night in March, as I searched for how to send Marie Tasy of NJ Right to Life a letter, I came across a blog post written by Deborah Jacobs, Executive Director of the ACLU-NJ (Blue Jersey: Strange Bedfellows (and Pillowtalk) in Trenton) where she described testifying alongside Tasy against the Adoptees Rights Bill that Governor Christie conditionally vetoed in 2011 (it was similar to the current bill). She described this bill as a “hot, messy sausage,” claiming that by allowing adult adoptees to receive their original birth certificates “the privacy rights of birth mothers who do not wish to have their names revealed [would be compromised].”  Of course this is also what NJ Right to Life argues. The letter they urge their followers to send Governor Christie reads, in part, “S873/A1259 does not contain adequate protections for birth parents who placed children for adoption in the past and want continued anonymity. It also takes away the option of anonymity in future adoptions for women in crisis pregnancies who may only consider adoption if they can be guaranteed confidentiality.”

Privacy, confidentiality … there is no one who understands the desire for this better than adoptees, who, if they care to know the most private and confidential aspect of their lives (their own births! their own family history!) are forced to appeal to a complete stranger (the adoption agency, the intermediary, the state) to gain access. Adoptees are no danger to the “confidentiality” of an original (birth) parent. As my mom often said, why is an “intermediary” contacting an original birth parent any less intrusive then an adult adoptee doing so? Adoptees aren’t looking to take out full-page newspaper ads announcing the identity of their original parents to the world. They simply want, and need, the truth for themselves. 

My mom sledding with Genevieve and Eddie several years ago. She loved having fun with them, and they adored her.

Aside from that, I am highly skeptical of any agency today that says it cares about a woman in a crisis pregnancy that simultaneously assures her that she could, or should, remain completely anonymous for life from the child she brings into this world (or that this would be good for her). In today’s day and age, especially, with social media, any lifetime guarantee of anonymity is simply not true. And any agency that tells a woman this is possible, or that tells her she can “have a baby and forget about it” is not presenting her with the full truth. Adoptees who want to know who their original parents are must jump through hoops and spend large amounts of money to do so, but they often find their parents. And they do so in ways (Facebook campaigns, for example) that are much less “private” and “confidential” than a simple, direct inquiry from the adoptee herself would be. 

My mom only told my sister and me the details about her conversation with her original mother during these last months of her life, and we are her daughters, who have always talked with her about everything.  That part of her life was so personal, so deeply embedded in her heart, that she was hesitant to share it with even those closest to her. Here is what we learned: she took the call in her bedroom, with the door locked, and her hands trembling, because she knew this was most likely the only time in her life she would ever get to talk with her. Though my mom’s mother was not capable of having a relationship with her (a great loss for her, for sure), she was not harmed in any way by this contact. And please remember that she (an original mother who does not want contact with the child she has given up) is in the minority (less than 1%). Great harm is being done to thousands of adoptees in New Jersey, and for what? To protect myths about adoption that simply don’t hold up upon closer inspection.

My mom’s battle with melanoma happened to coincide with one of the longest, coldest winters in recent memory, but she did live to see the first spring flowers emerge.  In this season of flowers, of renewal, let’s honor my mom, and all those who have brought us closer to the window to see the truth of adoption, by passing the Adoptees Birthright Bill in New Jersey. How about it, Governor Christie?

My o-mother passes on, and my sisters lift me up

My original mother passed away earlier this week at the age of 90.  Several weeks ago, she suffered what appeared to be a minor stroke, but all of her organs seemed to break down rapidly, and my sisters tell me that she passed peacefully and rather quickly in the hospital, saying, "I just want to go to sleep."

I was not with my sisters because my o-mother never became comfortable with the idea of publicly acknowledging my existence.  As I said to my sisters Janet* and Eileen,* she always remained kind of a ghost for me, someone I could never really get to know.  The sisters tell me that she was emotionally closed her entire life through and kept many details of her life private, even from them.  For example, my older sister Janet has no idea who her father is -- her mother told her that it was none of her business, and that she didn't need to know.

I don't know who my father is either -- my o-mother told me in a phone conversation ten years ago, "I can't tell you anything about your father.  He was a married man."  Whether she still thought she was protecting people (my o-father has long been deceased), or just protecting herself, I have no idea.  As Janet told me in our first phone conversation, "Our mother was always looking for love in all the wrong places."

My sisters had a long and rocky relationship with their mother, but she was their mother, and they remained loyal and loving caregivers for her until the end.  Following her stroke, Janet came to stay with her Mondays through Fridays, and Eileen took her to her home during the week-ends.  Both sisters and other extended family were with my o-mother when she passed.  And rather than send me an e-mail, Janet picked up the phone and called me when she died.

I admire my sisters so much for caring for their mother, even though she could be difficult and often fell short in caring for them.  They saw her limitations clearly, but they are loving souls who also see that life is what it is, not always what we would like it to be.   They recognized that their mother had some mental difficulties, and still kept sharing their love and caring, even when it was not reciprocated.  Sometimes in life, the strong must step up to help care for the weak.

                          My two granddaughters -- the sister bond can be so very strong!

I am so blessed to call these two women my sisters.  They express so much concern for me even amidst all the emotional turmoil they are now experiencing.  For example, following my o-mother's passing, Janet sent me this message late at night:

"Dear Susan,
I am lying here in bed hoping Mom has finally found peace and happiness she never found in life.  There is so much about Mom that she would never share and now we will never know.  The thing Eileen and I are most upset about is that she didn't let us make the decision to contact you ten years ago.  There was just so much that we could have shared with each other and our families.  I can't begin to thank Jenn (my daughter) enough for sending that letter (introducing herself, her children and me, and asking if Janet would be open to contact).  It was the beginning of something so special I still can't find the words.  You have a place in our hearts forever.  Please take good care of yourself and I will keep in touch.
Love,
Janet"

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?  This is an intensely private subject that should interest only those people who are directly involved.  Adults must be trusted to handle their own affairs competently, just as they are in every other area of life.

If the naysayers had had their way, and had I not taken active steps to circumvent the archaic and completely discriminatory adoption laws now in place, I never would have experienced Janet's or Eileen's love.  In a short and poignant message, Eileen sent me this note after her mother's death:

"Thank you so much for your love and kindness.  Not knowing you was definitely our mother's greatest loss.  Praying for great results on Friday (I had a CAT scan this morning) -- love you.
Eileen"

Could anyone ask for more supportive and loving sisters?  What a gift they are to me, especially now, as I am facing a challenging medical situation.  They truly lift me up, and I am blessed.


*I am using pseudonyms in this post, as it contains some private communications and information that I prefer not to air publicly.