Reader comments
Adoption 'finder' proclaims her innocence
34 comments | Read story
If adopted people weren't denied this civil and human right, situations like this wouldn't arise.
Sure.
Why shouldn't women be able to just dump their kids if those kids happen to be inconvenient? It's only depriving them of their pre-birth history.
After all, it's none of their business where they came from, right?
WRONG!
Very, very wrong.
Birthright and Adoption don't go hand in hand. children aren't BORN from their adoptive parents. You couldn't be more confused yourself. Marley is the PRESIDENT of Bastard Nation the nations LARGEST adoptee rights organization in the COUNTRY.
She knows PLENTY about adoptee rights. Its YOU who needs a clue.
Adopted citizens are the only citizens in 44 states who cannot gain unfettered access to their OWN birth certificates. Even people given up for adoption, but don't happen to be adopted, have this right. But, adopted citizens do not. This is discrimination. Whether you thinks it's just a piece of paper or not doesn't matter. It doesn't stop it from being discrimination.
What you're really after is a copy of a legally- worthless, sealed, government record identifying your birth parents (also known as an "original birth certificate"). Obtaining that document will not provide you with any rights under law, nor are you denied any legal rights without it. There is no civil right to know the identity of your biological parents. There is, however, a constitutional right to privacy which ought to protect a woman's ability to place a child for adoption anonymously.
Believe me, there are a lot worse things than being deprived of ones "pre-birth history." Like for instance being aborted, left to die in a trash can, or flushed down the toilet. Safe-haven laws are not wrong, they are an absolute necessity and have saved many lives!
It IS about birth records. I, along with almost every adoptee rights advocate I know, already knows his/her birth parents. The inability to receive one's OWN factual record of birth simply because one is adopted is discrimination. I am denied THAT right.
The 14th amendment of the Constitution guarantees freedom from government intrusion in personal matters. Therefore, adoptees in sealed records states are the ones having their 14th amendment rights trampled. The state of California is holding my actual record of the events of MY BIRTH from ME.
Women DON'T have the right to place a child anonymously in ANY state. The birth certificate does NOT seal when a child is places for adoption. An adoption must be finalized by the court, which usually takes at least 6 months, in order for the record to seal. If the adoption never finalizes, or fails, the record REOPENS. There is no anonymity.
Two Supreme Courts, Oregon (Doe v Oregon Decision et. al.) and Tennessee (Doe v Sundquist,) have upheld that there is no Constitutional right to anonymity for parents who relinquish for adoption.
If a woman can't take care of her child she should be encouraged to surrender through conventional means.
There is no way of quantifying the effectiveness of safe-haven laws in saving lives. Unsafe abandonment continues in states where safe-haven laws have been enacted.
Safe-haven laws encourage the anonymous abandonment of children who might otherwise have been kept or who would have been relinquished through legitimate (ethical) channels.
Little My
You can tweak the definition any way you want, the bottom line is that adoptees are not being denied any legal right. And if we are going to recognize such ephemeral "rights" then we ought to first recognize the right of a woman to place a child for adoption anonymously.
I'll just repeat what I stated about what two Supreme Courts have found and about what the 14th amended guarantees. I'll add that because every other citizen except adopted citizens has the right to access his/her factual record of birth, then it is discrimination to deny a person that simply because the person is adopted.
The 14th amendment of the Constitution guarantees freedom from government intrusion in personal matters. Therefore, adoptees in sealed records states are the ones having their 14th amendment rights trampled. The state of California is holding my actual record of the events of MY BIRTH from ME.
Women DON'T have the right to place a child anonymously in ANY state. The birth certificate does NOT seal when a child is places for adoption. An adoption must be finalized by the court, which usually takes at least 6 months, in order for the record to seal. If the adoption never finalizes, or fails, the record REOPENS. There is no anonymity.
Two Supreme Courts, Oregon (Doe v Oregon Decision et. al.) and Tennessee (Doe v Sundquist,) have upheld that there is no Constitutional right to anonymity for parents who relinquish for adoption.
O'Connor rejects last appeal to block Oregon adoption law
Tuesday, May 30, 2000
By Janie Har and Bill Graves of The Oregonian staff
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor cleared the way for an adoption rights law to go into effect at 5:01 p.m. today.
O'Connor, whose jurisdiction includes Oregon, refused to continue a hold on Measure 58, which gives adult adoptees the right to see their birth certificates. The law, approved by voters Nov. 3, 1998, has been tied up in court since.
Sealed records violate the rights of adoptees as per Roe vs. Wade, the right to privacy which means to the right to be free from governmental interference and fourth amendment rights (they hold our records in seizure on the presumption of harm) I think agencies and attorneys are more afraid of the harm to them. One day soon an adoptee, natural parent, or adoptive parent will sue these agencies for the harm that they have done to all of us. Set Jill Free.
It's only sealed in some states, Actually what I want is equal treatment. Every other citizen in the US can get a copy of their records of birth. Adoptees should as well.
"Obtaining that document will not provide you with any rights under law, nor are you denied any legal rights without it. There is no civil right to know the identity of your biological parents."
There is no law against knowing the identity of your biological parents either, and in some cases this knowledge can be mandated. Biological parents do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy from their offspring.
"There is, however, a constitutional right to privacy which ought to protect a woman's ability to place a child for adoption anonymously."
Well, that's your opinion. The constitution is silent on the alleged right of women to give birth anonymously. What little the constitution does say about privacy protects citizens against unwarranted intrusion by the government into the personal affairs of its citizens. There is nothing in there about preserving family secrets...
Conversely, it's a myth that sealed records protect someone from being found. Everyday people find one another via the Internet etc.
And adoption records that are verboten to the adoptee and his mothers are often very accessible and in the hands of adoptive parents.
I don't agree with this woman selling adoptees information back to us, and making a "career" off of discrimination, BUT if she would have given the information for free, I would have jumped up and down in celebration for her giving us our RECORDS BACK.
The STATE is who treats us like 2nd class citizens. The STATE is who is treating us like people not worthy of their own information, criminals that our own parents need protection from.
I am not a board member of Bastard Nation, however I feel confident in saying that their name wouldn't be Bastard Nation if the states weren't treating us like Bastards because we are born illegitimate.
Records were sealed to protect adoptees from the stigma of being "bastards" therefore "bastard nation" seems a bit more appropriate than obviously YOU think.
are just looking for someone to take the blame. Typical bureaucracy....
I would say that the right to knowledge of your origins is a natural right that predates the constitution and need not be explicitly enumerated to be said to exist. It's certainly a right that can be positively (and legally) asserted. There are no laws *against* knowing who your biological parents are, even in states that have sealed adoption records.
So although there is a common law right to know or discover one's biological kin, there is no corollary right to anonymous birth. To quote a federal appellate judge on the matter, birth is both a private and a public act. The government has a fundamental interest in when and where its citizens are born. It does not have an interest in keeping that information secret from the citizen to whom it pertains.
My birth certificate, on the other hand, is a completely falsified document, listing my adopted parents (who didn't meet me until 2-1/2 months after my birth) as if they were my birth parents.
It is not an "amended" birth certificate, which is how any other legal document is treated, but appears to BE the ORIGINAL and is the ONLY birth certificate which I have access to.
The problem here is antiquated laws and misplaced morals which treated unexpected pregnancy as something that needed to be covered up regardless of the cost to the child involved.
I just want the truth.
No other citizens go around with falsified birth certificates. If my birth parents don't want me to know who they are, then let them choose to be listed as "anonymous" right on the birth certificate. Case closed. Just don't pretend my adopted parents were my birth parents by listing them as such.
An alternative would be to provided birth certificates to all citizens which don't list parents at all. After all, if it's just proof of citizenship, all we need to know is WHERE and WHEN we were born.
NYS needs to change with the times!
Adoptee
Albany NY
8/1967
Unless they change the law, I don't think I'll ever get the opportunity to thank my bmom or meet a sister that i have out there. Every red haired lady about 60 yrs old I wonder if she's my bmom.
If my bmom doesn't want to have a relationship with me, that's fine, but I'd like some medical history at least. Remember, I was relinquished for my well being and it's my well being that desires to know my heritage, what hospital I was born in.
I really think adoption was to "save" the reputation of the child that "sinned" and her parents from having to deal with it. Those are the dark ages now. Grow up and move on!
Open Records are LONG over due.
Better solve this issue before the egg/sperm donor kids create a whole other problem!
Add your comment
Comments are monitored. Any comments found to be abusive, offensive, off-topic, misrepresentative, more than 200 words or containing URLs will not be posted.
E-mail address: For internal use only. We may want to contact you to publish your comment (not your e-mail address) in the newspaper or for a separate story idea.
- Tiger opens with a 66 in Australia 1:18 a.m.
- Crash kills Utah County man 1:12 a.m.
- UCAT cheaper education option 1:12 a.m.
- Post office to be named for Rex Lee 1:11 a.m.
- Police probe synagogue vandalism 1:09 a.m.
- New charges added in fraud case 1:09 a.m.
- Mom takes plea deal in girl's beating 1:08 a.m.
- Drug trafficking operation busted 1:07 a.m.
- News yule writing contest starting up 12:59 a.m.
- Alpine District school honored 12:59 a.m.
- SLC council OKs gay rights policies
- Utah Jazz have a problem at point
- 'Love story' of crash victim ends
- BYU football recruit turning heads
- Alta's Ohai is Ms. Soccer 2009
- Prep football: Felt's Facts Week
- 12 Utes return to Texas
- Cougars' defensive hoops clinic
- Wyoming writer amazed by BYU
- Long days for BYU interns
- House passes health care bill
287 - SLC council OKs gay rights policies
246 - TCU showdown has big implications
193 - Senators want food tax restored
157 - Cougars crush hapless Cowboys
155 - Utah Jazz fall apart against Kings
131 - TCU 4th in AP poll; U. 16th, Y. 22nd
119 - S.L. vote pending on gay protections
109 - Pratt pleads not guilty to sex charges
101 - Letters: Strange breed in Utah
92
This week, I'm compiling my annual list of restaurants serving...
Beck, Hannity, and Limbaugh get the audience they deserve and vice versa. ...
I find the rule,very discriminitory. I am not gay, I don't understand what...
I understand we were outmanned last night. However, this effort was awful....
My advice to Jonathan is shoot it when they pass it to you as soon as you...
Maybe they should try drafting a shooting guard who can shoot from outside ....
The sad thing about it is that there are actually people out there that are...
Thank you TCU and BYU. Your wanting to beat Utah so bad has to drive you...
Play fes and koufos. Look to the future. It looks like we will have two...
Oh come on. Obama's a horrible president, but I couldn't care less which...
"We had the best soccer of any place in the state. There's no disputing...

