Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization
PO Box 4607
New Windsor, New York 12553-7845
614-795-6819
bastards. org bastardnation3@gmail.com @BastardsUnite
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TO: Honorable Members of the Louisiana House
FROM: Marley Greiner, Executive Chair
RE: Vote DO PASS on HB 450 as written—no restrictions. (Adult adoptee access to Original Birth Certificates)
DATE: March 23, 2022
Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization is the largest adoptee civil rights organization in the United States. We support only full unrestricted access for all adopted persons to their original birth certificates (OBC) and related documents. We have worked with Louisiana adoptee rights advocates for over 20-years to secure that right—a right that all Louisiana-born adoptees lost 45 years ago when the document was sealed from them by law.
Current Louisiana law permits a few adopted adults to obtain their OBCs through court order for basically undefined “compelling reasons,” forcing them to navigate a cumbersome, difficult, infantilizing, and insulting gauntlet of conditions, arbitrary procedures, and naysayers.
Bastard Nation supports HB 450, which does away with those procedures and restores the right of all Louisiana-born adoptees to obtain their OBCs upon request with no restrictions or conditions.
Confidentiality, Privacy and Anonymity,
Unrestricted OBC access is not a “privacy” or “birthparent confidentiality” issue. “Privacy” “confidentiality,” and” anonymity” are not synonymous either legally or linguistically. “Anonymity “(and “secrecy”) is a myth perpetuated by special interests that for decades have profited off of economic distress and society-induced shame and family crisis.
There is no evidence in any state that records were sealed to “protect” the reputation or “privacy” of biological parents who relinquished children for adoption. In the decades-old adoptee rights struggle not one single document has ever been presented to any legislative body that promises sealed birth certificates or anonymity. A “right “to anonymity in adoption does not appear anywhere in Louisiana law.
Birthmothers, however, have come forward repeatedly in the legislature and in the media to debunk the “official story” with their own true stories. Some were never informed about sealed records. Some were told that when their child reached the age of majority they could be re-connected. Some were told that it was illegal for them to search for or make contact with their child—ever—and they could even be jailed if they tried. Sealed OBCs were thrust on them– part of the adoption deal and they had no say in the matter. At no time did birthparents—usually translated as birthmothers—have any right to demand that an OBC remain sealed or unsealed. (see “Privacy and the Balance of Rights below)
Why were OBCs sealed if not to protect the reputations of unwed and relinquishing mothers? Numerous historians, legal researchers ,and writers have shown that OBCs were never intended to be sealed in perpetuity from individual adoptees as adults. They were sealed, instead” to protect “the integrity of the adoptive family.” By the mid-20th century sealing served three main purposes (1) to protect the reputations of “bastard children” (not adults) (2) to protect the reputations of adoptive parents from the public “shame of infertility “ and (3) to protect adoptive families from birthparent and stranger interference. (including blackmailers who threatened to reveal adoptive family status). OBC sealing was a slow process. It started in Louisiana in 1948 and was ompleted in 1977. Generally, OBCs were first sealed from the public; then from the parties to the adoption; and eventually from adopted people themselves. What was once an outlier practice has now been normalized through a mix of myth and “tradition” and treated like ”the way it’s always been.”
Privacy, Interest, and the Balance of Rights
We often hear the term “balance of rights” in the OBC access debate, but OBC rights are about our rights only. No other right exists. Interests are simply “opinions” or “ or “wishes.” Rights and interests are unequal. A few birthparents—and in a broader sense, third parties with no standing might argue a “right” to birthparent anonymity, but courts have found there no such right exists. These third parties might have an “interest,” but “rights” trump “interests.” The Adopted and the Not Adopted have an absolute right to obtain the official state record of their own birth and no third party–parent or not–has the “right” to bar that access. Critically, parental rights were voluntarily relinquished years ago or were terminated by a court, so if there was even such a parental “right” it would not exist in the case of adoption.
Moreover, courts have ruled that adoption anonymity does not exist. (Doe v Sundquist, et. al., 943 F. Supp. 886, 893-94 (M.D. Tenn. 1996) and Does v. State of Oregon, 164 Or. App. 543, 993 P.2d 833, 834 (1999). Laws change constantly, and the state, lawyers, social workers, and others were never in a position to promise anonymity in adoption.
Identifying information about surrendering parents often appears in court documents given to adoptive parents who can at any point give that information to the adopted person. (In some states adoptive parents, at the time of the adoption order, can petition the court to keep the record open.) The names of surrendering parents are published in legal ads. Courts can open “sealed records” for “good cause” without birthparent consent or even knowledge. Critically, the OBC is sealed at the time of adoption finalization, not surrender. If a child is not adopted, the record is never sealed. If a child is adopted, but the adoption is overturned or disrupted, the OBC is unsealed. Please remember that the OBCs of persons with established relationships with biological parents as in stepparent and foster adoptions are also sealed.
The American Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorneys agrees with this assessment. In a major about face, in 2018 it passed a monumental resolution in support of adoptees’ right to full access to our OBCs, court, and agency records.
Privacy and Technology
Today, inexpensive and accessible DNA testing services, and a large network of volunteer “search angels” that locate adoptee government-hidden information, histories, and biological families, has made the traditional “privacy” argument obsolete. The minuscule number of birthparents or professionals who believe that restricted OBC/records access or no access equals adoption anonymity are greatly mistaken. Nearly all successful searches are done without the OBC and other court documents.
Conclusion
OBC access is not about search and reunion Many adopted people are not interested in pursuing a search. Instead, access is about obtaining our state-generated and held document of our birth, something the Not Adopted do without a thought. There is no state interest in keeping original birth certificates sealed from adult adoptees to which they pertain nor does the state have a right or duty to mediate and oversee the personal relationships of adults. The debate on the release of OBCs to its adopted citizens is small v large government issue. Small government has won the day in 10 states that recognize that adopted people have a right to their birth document. Louisiana can be a proud 11th.
Times change and laws change. Drop sealed OBC as an archaic remnant of the past. Please vote Do Pass on HB 450 as written, without restrictive amendments. It’s the right thing to do. Thank you.
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Bastard Nation is dedicated to the recognition of the full human and civil rights of adult adoptees. Toward that end, we advocate the opening to adoptees, upon request at age of majority, of those government documents which pertain to the adopter’s historical, genetic, and legal identity, including the unaltered original birth certificate and adoption decree. Bastard Nation asserts that it is the right of people everywhere to have their official original birth records unaltered and free from falsification and that the adoptive status of any person should not prohibit him or her from choosing to exercise that right. We have reclaimed the badge of bastardy placed on us by those who would attempt to shame us; we see nothing shameful in having been born out of wedlock or in being adopted. Bastard Nation does not support mandated mutual consent registries or intermediary systems in place of unconditional open records, nor any other system that is less than access on demand to the adult adoptee, without condition, and without qualification.
