ARCHAIC STATE LAW KEEPS SECRETS FROM ADOPTEES

by Anita Walker Field

There are just three states in the United States where adult adoptees have unconditional access to their original birth certificates as a matter of civil right, and I'm sorry to say that Illinois is not one of them. Only Kansas, Alaska, and now Oregon have recognized adoptees' unrestricted right to their original birth records.

A few years ago when I was down in Springfield lobbying for open records for adult adoptees, a seasoned Illinois State Senator said to me:

"Civil rights! What civil rights?! We already gave you your rights when we found you a home because your mother didn't want you. Those are your rights."

Despite what this unfeeling legislator said, I'm a 62 year old adopted woman from Skokie who does have civil rights. I can vote, serve on a jury, pay taxes, serve in the military, run for office - all in the same way as the other citizens of Illinois. However, I do not have the civil right to obtain my original birth certificate in the same way as everyone else in the state. This particular right was taken away from me and almost all other adoptees throughout the United States back in the 1940's.

In 1945, Illinois passed a law that retroactively and permanently sealed all adoption records. It was done in order to protect me, THE CHILD OF ADOPTION, from the stigma of illegitimacy that was rampant during this era. If all of my birth records were impounded, then no one would know that I might be tainted; a child "born in sin."

Adoptees' original birth certificates were permanently sealed and replaced with amended birth certificates, substituting the names of our adoptive parents for those of our biological parents. These certificates are replete with misinformation. They are a hodge podge of falsifications because the facts have been mixed together willy nilly, all in an effort to hide the truth of our births.

As we approach the new millennium, the stigma of illegitimacy is certainly gone, but the practice of secrecy in the adoption process is alive and well and moving right into the next century. I am saddened to think that another generation of adoptees will have to live their lives shrouded by secrets and lies because the states continue to enforce a 1940's social experiment that has no relevance to modern times.

Oh, the states will tell you that they're making changes; they say they are bringing their adoption laws up to date. What they're doing is offering up a variety of "compromise solutions." They'll brag about their adoption registries and their confidential intermediary services. They'll boast about how they're passing laws to allow adoptees access to their original birth certificates so long as their birthparents and/or their adoptive parents give permission.

Don't be fooled. What all of these so-called "solutions" really do is legally sanction the state and some adults to place restrictions upon another adult's civil rights.

A civil right, by its very nature, cannot be compromised! A civil right belongs equally to all people in a society.

When Susan B. Anthony was fighting for the women's' right to vote, her battle was for all women! How expedient it would have been for her to compromise; to say just married women may vote, or only white women. Or what about letting only professional women vote, or only those women who have obtained their husbands' permission?

Suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton said, "Reformers who are always compromising, have not yet grasped the idea that truth is the only safe ground to stand upon."

The United States has been like Rip Van Winkle. They've been asleep for half a century and they're very slow to awaken. But as they reluctantly open their eyes, they need to see the changes that have taken place in the rest of the world.

While America slept, open records became the norm in most of the Western world. All European countries ( excepting Luxembourg) have open records. So too does Israel, Korea, Mexico, Argentina, the Honduras, parts of Australia, and Vietnam. All these countries recognize the right of adult adoptees to unrestricted access to their own birth records.

We don't have to look across the oceans, though, to see how open records works. Alaska opened their records years ago and our neighboring state of Kansas has never sealed adoption records.

If something catastrophic is supposed to happen when adult adoptees get their original birth certificates, don't you think Kansas would have noticed by now?!

All adult adoptees should be able to exercise their civil right to obtain the original government documents of their births. So long as the state continues to abrogate these rights, they perpetuate the stigmatization of illegitimacy and adoption. The state relegates an entire class of citizens to second-class status; citizens whose only "crime" was to have been adopted.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote, "...Our Constitution...neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal under the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful."