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Haunted by a Painful History
In Oregon, adoptees and birthmothers square off in a battle over secrecy
By Lynette Clemetson
When Curtis Endicott was 6, his parents told him he was adopted. But it wasn't until fifth grade that he understood what that meant. The homework assignment was to make a family tree. As his classmates in Redmond, Ore., talked about relatives who gave them their curly hair or pug noses, he was despondent. "The only heritage I had was borrowed," says Endicott, now 51. "It leaves a kind of hole inside you."
There is a hole inside Jane, too. Thirty years ago Jane (not her real name) found herself unmarried and pregnant. In desperation, she went to Seattle to seek an illegal abortion, but the doctor refused her because of a medical condition. When her parents finally found out she was pregnant, they urged her to give up the baby to spare the family from shame. Jane moved out of state to a dismal home for unwed mothers and hired a private lawyer back home in Oregon to arrange an adoption. "The deal was that I would know nothing about the adoptive family, and they would know nothing about me," says Jane, now in her late 50s. "It was the most searingly painful time of my life." So painful that when the child turned 16, Jane contacted the lawyer to send a message to the adoptive family: she wanted no contact with the child. Ever.
Although they have never met, the fates of Endicott and Jane are inexorably linked in a messy battle over adoptee rights in Oregon. In November, the state's voters approved Measure 58, an initiative that gives adoptees over 21 the right to their original birth certificates. The move would make Oregon only the third state in the country, after Alaska and Kansas, with open access to adoption records. But two days before the law was to take effect in December, a group of birthmothers filed suit against the state, claiming it violated their right to privacy. With adoptees and birthmothers pitted against each other, the court must now wrestle with the tough question of whose rights are more important. Endicott is aching to search for his past; Jane is struggling to forget hers. And each fears the other's agenda.
For Endicott, the reckoning is long overdue. Although he always wanted to know about his biological parents, he never tried to track them down because he did not want to hurt his adoptive family. Then last year, prompted by a worsening respiratory condition, he called the agency in Portland that had handled his adoption. A cordial woman proceeded to read him non-identifying information from his file. Mother: 19 years old, blue eyes, of German descent, well groomed. Father: 21, blue eyes, of Irish descent, high-school graduate. "All of a sudden it hit me," says Endicott. "This stranger was sitting there looking at the names of my parents, and I had no right to see them."
