ADOPTEE RIGHTS BILL PASSES IN NY!!!!!

Lorraine 

UPDATED 11 P.M. JUNE 21, 2019
Adoptee right bill passed!!!!!!!!
The vote in the Assembly was 140-6.
(Final vote; 4 abstentions.)
Senate voted last week, 56-6.

Many of the people we expected to vote against it folded, and two who had been our staunch opposition in the past spoke about changing their minds. Joe Lentol, for one, who had held up the bill in the past, as he is chair of Codes. Yesterday, however, when Codes passed it, he voted for it then, and spoke today on the floor passionately and eloquently about having his mind changed.

Assemblywoman Debra Glick did the same. In the past, she always spoke of birth mother privacy, but her tune was different today, about how times had changed. I couldn't believe it. Even Danny O'Donnell, who we have excoriated in the past for his attitude when we lobbied him, in the end voted Aye for the bill. Totally surprising!

Daughter Jane and Lorraine

It began with Democrat David Weprin, who got up an explained the bill. He has sponsored a bill for unsealing records since 2011, taking over the cause, he noted, from others before him. Following Weprin was a Republican, Andy Goodell, speaker of the minority, who spoke at length against the bill. Birth mother privacy, promises made to birth mothers, the incredibly ineffective registry, yadda yadda yadda.... When Weprin was asked if there was a veto exception for birth mothers, I loved that he just said: No, it does not. No explanation. Just, No, it does not. Brilliant. Let the antis go on about why they are in favor of one.

I was wondering if we were going to hear from Helene Weinstein, who had just spoken about one of her own bills so I knew she was there...but NO!

Then began a number of speakers for the bill, including those above and three adoptees: Pamela Hunter, incredibly passionate and emotional, who is still waiting for her information from the state, after sending in her money to the state registry; Monica Wallace, whose desire to find her biological parents became critical when she began thinking about having children herself and wanted to know her medical history; and Carmen de la Rosa, who was born and adopted in the Dominican Republic and was able to find her siblings because she had a piece of paper with her natural mother's name on it. "Sometimes you can be in a roomful of people and still feel like no one is with you when you don't know where you come from," she said. That sums up a whole lot.

Chief sponsors of Adoptee Right bill, Sen. Velmanette Montgomery,
Assemblyman David Weprin, Carol Schaefer in rear, and Lorraine
Dusky at press conference for bill on steps of City Hall a few years ago.

Adoptive more Didi Barrett spoke how sad it was that her child, adopted from Russia in 1992, would never be able to find her family. Republicans commended David Weprin for shepherding this bill with tenacity, and I salute him. Joe Lentol, mentioned above, an unexpected supporter, spoke with conviction about his change of heart. Richard Gottfried, who chaired the first hearing I spoke at in 1976 in Albany, spoke, as did my own assemblyman, Fred Thiele. Fred said he was not personally involved and then gave me a huge shout out to me for bringing him along on this issue, and noting that I was a birth mother--the other side of the coin. Fred has been a stalwart champion of the issue for years, and always kept me apprised of what was going on, and through this we became friends. And was I imagining it, or were both he and Lentol teary-eyed when they spoke? There were others, most with personal stories--a friend was adopted, I inherited the seat of someone who supported this for years, et cetera--and you can watch it all below on the video.

I was sitting in the kitchen, watching it on television, messaging The Good Adoptee playwright Suzanne Bachner in the middle of it, posting on Facebook that it was on, crying, holding my husband's hand, who was also teary--I was really crying at times, not just teary, and then the immediate vote. At first it appeared to be 126-2, then 127-2, but the next day when the final votes were in, it was 140-6. There are 150 assembly persons, so four did not register a vote.

Florence Fisher and her father

I have been praying for this day since I signed the relinquishment papers, April something, 1966. I remember reading a piece by Enid Nemy in the New York Times on July 25. 1972 about Florence Fisher, who had started ALMA (Adoptees Liberty Movement Association). The piece was headlined: "Adopted Children Who Wonder, What Was Mother Like?" Reading the piece, learning that adoptees did want to know where they came from, I felt less alone from that day on, and I took what ability I have and put it to use in this cause. The 1936 law that this new law overturns is archaic, outdated, cruel, unjust, prima facie absurd, immoral--there is so much wrong with the sealed-records law in any state where it still stands--that I could list all the noxious synonyms in Roget's International Thesaurus and they would all suit.

New York was the closest to my heart, of course--it's where I lost my daughter and where I still live today--but the issue is larger than one state. There are others to go, but with a huge state like New York finally doing the right thing, can the others be too far behind?

Out to dinner with friends tonight, my eyes still slightly burning from the tears, but tears of joy. Peace and love and gratitude in my heart for every vote, every person who has lifted a phone to make a call in support, every person who wrote a letter, an email, a fax. Kudos to Joyce Bahr, who has worked tirelessly for this day to come, and Adam Pertman who has always been a staunch supporter, and Annette Marie O'Connell and Megan Mary DePerro and Claudia Corrigan D'Arcy, and Tim Monti-Wohlpart, and everybody in Unsealed Initiative and New York Adoptee Rights Coalition and the rest!

The bill, A5494/S3419, now goes to Gov. Andrew Cuomo for his signature. We have good reason to believe he also wants to be on the right side of history, and will sign the bill in law. As of January 15, 2020, adopted people in New York will have the right to a copy of their unamended birth certificate for the first time in 83 years.

We did it! The rest of the closed or "semi-open" states look out. The tyranny of closed birth records of adoptees is falling. Freedom for adoptees is coming.--lorraine
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Want to watch the hearing? Grab a tissue, for here it is:

http://nystateassembly.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=7&clip_id=5185&meta_id=94776&fbclid=IwAR0yTXk4GIP986AD4o5rA5uS0uBwS8h9QJEn8FCRp8Y_e16w-8a0DBStmUc

From the New York Times:
Adopted Children Who Wonder, ‘What Was Mother Like?’