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AB 502 Original Birth Certificate Access for Adopted Persons
Assembly Committee on Children and Families
January 26, 2022
Submitted Testimony in Support
by
Marley E. Greiner. Executive Chair
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.
For years Bastard Nation and its members in Wisconsin have worked to restore the right of all Wisconsin-born adoptees to obtain their own OBCs without restriction—a right lost 83 years ago.
We are happy, therefore, to support passage of AB 502–an inclusive bill that restores that right with no restrictions or conditions to all Wisconsin-born adoptees at age 18.
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Unrestricted OBC access is not a “privacy” or “birthparent confidentiality” issue. In fact, “privacy” “confidentiality,” and” anonymity” are not synonymous either legally or linguistically.
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. On the contrary, records were sealed to protect the reputations of “bastard children” and to protect adoptive families from birthparent interference.
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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. In the over 60 years of the adoptee equality battle, not one document has been submitted anywhere that promises or guarantees sealed records and an anonymity “right” to birthparents.
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 influential American Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorneys in 2018 passed a monumental resolution in support of adoptees’ right to full access to our OBC, court, and agency records.
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Legislation needs to catch up with technological reality. We are well into the 21st century. The information superhighway grows wider and longer each day, and adoptees and their birth and adoptive families are riding it, utilizing the internet, social media, inexpensive and accessible DNA testing services, and a large network of volunteer “search angels” to locate their government-hidden information and histories. Thousands of successful adoption searches happen each year—many in Wisconsin alone—making adoption secrecy virtually impossible. The minuscule number of birthparents or professionals who believe that restricted OBC/records access or no access equals adoption anonymity are greatly mistaken. The fact is, nearly all successful searches are done without the OBC and other court documents.
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Current Wisconsin law permits a small number of adopted adults to obtain their OBCs upon request—subject to a restrictive process that forces them to navigate a cumbersome, difficult, infantalizing, and insulting gauntlet of conditions, arbitrary procedures, and naysayers, The state, thus, permits favor and privilege for the few, while it continues its Draconian discriminatory policy against the remaining vast majority.
OBC access is not about search and reunion. 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. Those who claim a statutory right to parental anonymity through sealed records promote statutory privilege and state favoritism. AB502 creates equal birth certificate rights for all Wisconsin-born adoptees. It treats the state’s adoptees as equal with the not-adopted, It reflects the simple inclusive, unrestricted right process that ten states have on the books (Kansas, Alaska, Oregon, Alabama, Colorado, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, New York, and Connecticut.
Please support Wisconsin in being a leader in adoptee equality and adoption reform. Return unrestricted and unconditional OBC rights to all Wisconsin-born adoptees. When AB502 comes up for a vote, with no restrictive amendments added, please vote DO PASS . It’s the right thing to do!
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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 adoptee’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.
New York Adoptee Rights Coalition
