Recently there has been discussion about a new form of birth certificate: the “integrated birth certificate.” The document would include the identifying information of biological and adoptive parents, and possibly surrogacy and other high tech repro-donor or carrier information. Proponents argue that their proposal is an “adoptee rights” initiative to guarantee that adoptees know they are adopted, but also say that such a document would be a mandatory document for all births. This makes no sense since the Not Adopted would have no use for the document. The initiative is not adoptee-driven but is pushed by first and adoptive parents, each wanting a piece of adoptee identity on a comprehensive record. Anecdotal evidence, most through social media discussions, indicates that adopted people overwhelming oppose this idea. When an integrated bill was heard in Maine, in 2019 it was killed in committee by adoptee right activists, LBGTQ advocates, and adoption professionals.
Under no circumstance is the “integrated birth certificate” a real birth certificate—a document clearly defined by law as a state-created document that lists the name, date, and location of birth as well as the names of parents.
The “integrated birth certificate” is the antithesis of non-restricted/non-conditional access to Original Birth Certificates. We believe that every adoptee has a right to know they are adopted, but that right is not achieved by taking a simple OBC access model and turning it into a bureaucratic paper trail mess that assails adoptee privacy and autonomy, and would not withstand federal document requirements.
Bureaucratic Mess
Birth certificates are the “breeder documents” of all other public and private documents of identity. They are used to secure Social Security numbers, passports, enrollment of children in school and any number of extra-curricular activities, qualification for government benefits such as SNAP, TANF, and public housing, and proof of legal parental relationship between child and parent. Later in life, birth certificates are needed to obtain (among other services and benefits) driver licenses, voter registrations, marriage licenses, child support orders, employment and job training, gun permits, utility subsidies, security clearances, bank accounts, military enrollment, and public and private disability and retirement benefits.
Adoptees currently have two birth certificates: the Original Birth Certificate (OBC), the official record of the historical event of birth—issued before the adoption was finalized—and the Amended (ABC), issued after the adoption is finalized. A child made available for adoption but never adopted, or whose adoption is overturned or disrupted, retains the OBC as permanent legal identifier, just as the Not Adopted.
The OBC issued to an adoptee is not certified, and is not valid for the purpose of legal identification. The ABC is an altered birth certificate that changes the legal name and parentage of adoptees and in some states in the past the date and location of birth. It has always been available to adoptees and is the standard “breeder” form of legal identification in the United States for them. An integrated birth certificate would abolish the OBC and ABC.
Privacy and Segregation
Adopted children and adults have little control over what has been done to their identities, histories, and personal narratives via adoption. They certainly have no control over those institutions and agencies that maintain and manipulate that information. Unrestricted OBC access laws give adoptees personal ownership of their historical pre-adoptive lives, that they can control and are free to share or not share with anyone. Acquisition is a private transaction between the adoptee and the state and is closed to the public.
An “integrated birth certificate” is an invasive document open to public scrutiny Over the years virtually dozens of “uninterested” strangers—school administrators, teachers, secretaries, data processors, coaches, bureaucrats, and their underlings–would have access to personal adoption information that is none of their business. Copies would be tucked away permanently in the file cabinets of numerous offices around the state and country. Children especially would be open to gossip, invasive questions, pathologizing, teasing, and bullying.
Undermines the Adoptee Rights Movement
(1) “The integrated birth certificate” would be a “special” document, even if it were mandatory for everyone. Where once the OBC and its information was hidden from us by the state, now our “vital information” would be available, courtesy of the state, to dozens of pencil-pushing strangers and whomever they decided to tell. Adoptees have the right to control their birth and adoptive information and who gets it. “Integrated birth certificate” proposals are not about abolishing secrets and shame in adoption. but about the state strong-arming adoptee information into the public sphere. Adoptees have a right to their own state documents, but the state has no right to spread information from those documents around. Such actions destroy adoptee autonomy and agency.
(2) For decades the Adoptee Rights Movement has been adamant that the OBC and other documents are released only to the adoptee, interested parties designated by law, or the adoptee’s legally designated representative. What the adoptee who obtains the document does with it is their business. The “integrated birth certificate“ argument turns this principle on its head by making adoptee and birthparent identities public that will be read by strangers demanding to read or file. This is not acceptable and does not further adoptee rights, equality, dignity, and adoption normalization, Instead, it returns adoptees to documentary second class citizenship.
Adoptees want the government-held historic records of our births. We want an us-centric birth certificate, not one that features other players. We do not want add-ons We do not want a certificate that singles us out and might not meet federal identification standards.
If there is a desire or need by adoptees for an “integrated birth certificate,” we suggest that it could be an option for adoptees 18 and over by request only. Neither the OBC nor the ABC should be abolished. Children should absolutely not be subjugated to the “integrated” document.
©2020 Bastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organization
www.bastards.org
