Just sent this off to the legislators in New York who support releasing sealed birth records:
Dear Men of Good Will and Understanding Hearts:
 |
| Lorraine |
Connecticut's Judiciary Committee yesterday (4/4) passed a bill that will give all adoptees in the state access to their original birth certificates. The vote was 24-16, one absent. CT has a crazy quilt of various laws that opened the records for some, kept older adoptees in the dark (supposedly protecting natural mothers like me). The purpose of this bill is to clean up the holes in the previous legislation which created a dual class of citizenship. The goal is of course to give all individuals the right to know their original heritage.
NY continues to lag in this regard, as you all well know. Now nine states (Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas [never sealed], Maine, New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island) have unrestricted access to original birth records for all citizens, and another 20 have some sort of legislation that gives some adoptees some right to know who they were at birth.
The sky has not fallen in any of these states, suicides have not gone up, abortions do not rise, life has gone on. New York is one of the backward states sitting on the wrong side of history, despite what I know are herculean efforts on your part to change that.
When can we convince legislators to empathize with the adopted individual and not the man or woman who is a parent in the closet? Because that is the real problem.
No one should be denied their ancestry because someone will be embarrassed.
Lorraine Dusky
Relinquished a daughter in NY in 1966; reunited in 1981, grandmother of two.
and 
Excellent letter, Lorraine.
ReplyDeleteMy sky is still in the sky!
Good to hear, Lori! Tell the legislators who voted against the bill.
DeleteIt's amazing really -- all the states are coming around to opening records except the largest four which together have a third of the country's population -- California, Texas, Florida, and New York. It may be that it is just easier to get things done in smaller states; perhaps legislators are less beholding to lobbyists. I think that while legislators in NY, etc yap about protecting first mother's privacy -- the real issue is the power of the adoption industry. Some oppose open records because they promised adoptive parents that the first mother would never be in the picture and because they don't want their many shenanigans and lies revealed.
ReplyDeleteThank you for writing Connecticut legislators. Illinois passed legislation about 5 years ago as well.
ReplyDelete