Dismantling the Barriers to Identity Access | Adoption Institute Projects and Initiatives

1. Dismantling the Barriersto Identity AccessAmerican Adoption CongressApril 28, 2012Adam Pertman, Executive Directorwww.adoptioninstitute.orgwww.adampertman.cominfo@adoptioninstitute.org

2. Our Mission The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute’s mission is to provide leadership that improves laws, policies, and practices – through sound research, education and advocacy – in order to better the lives of everyone touched by adoption. • Every child needs and deserves a permanent family. • Adoption is a natural, beneficial way to form a family. • Everyone’s needs in the extended family of adoption must be respected. • Openness and honesty are critical; deception and coercion are undermining. • Practices must adhere to high ethical standards and be free from profiteering. Our Principles and Values

3. A Sampling of the Adoption Institute’s Projects, Programs and Recent Initiatives • Untangling the Web: Adoption on the Internet (November 2012) • Expanding Resources for Children I, II and III: Gay and Lesbian Adoption • Never Too Old: Achieving Permanency for Older Youth in Foster Care • Keeping the Promise: The Critical Need for Post-Adoption Services • For the Records I and II: Restoring a Legal Right to Adopted Adults • Beyond Culture Camp: Promoting Healthy Identity in Adoption • Safeguarding the Rights and Well-Being of Birthparents • Old Lessons for a New World (Adoption’s Lessons for ART) • Adoptive Parent Preparation (meeting children’s mental health needs) • Improving Law, Policy & Practice in Transracial Adoptions from Foster Care • Improving Knowledge, Law and Practice in Intercountry Adoption • Programs: Adoption in the Schools and Adoption in the Media • Intercountry Adoption in Emergencies (such as Asia tsunami, Haiti) • Conferences and Books relating to: Ethics, LGBT Families, Siblings, etc.

4. What We Know . . . About All of Us “In all of us there is a hunger, marrow deep, to know our heritage, to know who we are and where we have come from. Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning; no matter what our attainments in life, there is the most disquieting loneliness.” -- Alex Haley in Roots

5. What We’ve Learned . . . From Research and Experience • For the Records II: An Examination of the History and Impact of Adult Adoptee Access to Original Birth Certificates, 2010 • For the Records: Restoring a Legal Right for Adult Adoptees, 2007 • Safeguarding the Rights and Well-Being of Birthparents in the Adoption Process, 2006 • Beyond Culture Camp: Promoting Healthy Identity Formation in Adoption, 2009 • Also thanks to the American Adoption Congress, Paul Schibbelhute, Elizabeth Samuels, Robert Tuke, Fred Greenman, Pam Hasegawa, Green Ribbon, on and on.

6. For the Records: Principal Findings • Adopted persons are the only class in the U.S. not routinely permitted to access their own original birth certificates. • Denial of information relating to background has potentially serious consequences for physical and mental health. • There is no evidence of negative consequences in states where birth certificates have been unsealed. • Few contact vetoes or “do not contact” forms have been filed in states where those opportunities are provided. • Assertions that the number of abortions would rise and adoptions would fall have not been borne out. • There is scant evidence (if any) that pregnant women were legally promised lifelong anonymity – or wanted it.

7. Related/Relevant Findings (Safeguarding Birthparents and Beyond Culture Camp) • The primary factor helping bring peace of mind for first/birth mothers is knowledge about their children’s well-being. • The vast majority of first/birth mothers want information about or contact with the children they relinquished. • Information about adoptions, genealogy and medical history (including contact with birth families and/or cultures) can be critically important to shaping positive identity. • Information about origins not just about curiosity, but about gaining the raw materials needed to fill in the missing pieces of their lives and derive an integrated sense of self.

8. For the Records: Recommendations • Amend every state’s laws to restore unrestricted access for adult adopted persons to their original birth certificates. • Within three years’ of enactment, revisit state laws that permit access to some adopted persons but not others. • Conduct research to expand our understanding of the experiences of all parties affected by this issue. • Build on experiences of states that permit access to expand adoptee rights to learn more from agency and court records. • Develop education programs with accurate information, and focus more public/policy attention on state, national levels.

9. Random Thoughts and Conclusions • Adopted people are not stalkers, ingrates or children in search of new mommies and daddies. • Most states’ laws are predicated on the underlying concern (or belief) something bad will happen if OBCs are unsealed. • No one wants to live forever with decisions made at age 17. • Secrecy and privacy, in practice, are not interchangeable. • Sealing birth certificates is a negative signal from the start. • Bottom line: restoring access to OBCs is not just about curiosity, search, reunion or medical information; it’s a matter of human dignity, civil rights and social justice.