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BY BOB HOLT
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
Some critics of New Jersey’s bill that would allow adoptees to learn the names of their biological parents feel that the bill’s passage could make some pregnant women lean toward abortion.
The New Jersey State Assembly approved a law this week that will allow adults who were adopted as infants to obtain a copy of their birth certificate that shows the names of their biological parents.
A spokesman for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark, Jim Goodness, told CBS New York that Catholic charities promise anonymity when they arrange adoptions.
But the bill’s advocates have been fighting for 31 years to give adoptees the right to learn their biological parents.
Now it has to go in front of Governor Chris Christie, who has not indicated his intentions for the bill. Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for Christie said, "Like all bills, this one will receive careful review by the governor’s counsel’s office."
Marie Tasy, executive director for New Jersey Right to Life, said to NJ.com, "This bill is poorly drafted, and contains multiple flaws the consequence of which could be devastating and ultimately harm the institution of adoption."
The governor has an adopted sister, something the bill’s advocates are hoping will make him more sympathetic to their position. But Christie is a practicing Catholic, and the New Jersey Catholic Conference has been vocally opposed to the bill.
Most social conservatives are opposing the bill saying it violates the privacy of women and a very personal decision. According to the Statehouse Bureau, New Jersey Right to Life — with the American Civil Liberties Union and New Jersey Bar Association — proposed an alternative measure that creates a “confidential intermediary” as a way for adoptees to reach their birth parents.
According to thedefendersonline.com, there are loopholes in the bill. One allows birth parents who gave a child up for adoption before the bill was passed to maintain their anonymity. Birth parents have one year after the bill’s enactment to send a notarized letter requesting that the state registrar remove their names and addresses from the original birth certificate. Parents who place a child up for adoption after the law takes effect would have an opportunity to submit a document stating their wish not to be contacted.
http://www.catholicleader.com.au/news.php/features/surrogacy-leads-to-confusion_54691
In response to a bill that would decriminalize surrogacy.
"The bill redefines the meaning of parenthood, creating a legal construct completely divorced from biological realities."
"All surrogacy is disrespectful of the dignity of the child in his or her origins and has the potential to be the source of confusion of personal identity for the child in the future."
"Parenthood is completely divorced from biological reality and made into a purely legal construct determined by the desires of adults."
"The importance of our biological origins, embodied in our genetic connections to earlier generations, is so well attested today that it is difficult to imagine why a government would produce legislation which is so dismissive of this reality."
Why indeed.
RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
Given at Rome, from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, February 22, 1987, the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter, the Apostle.
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger Prefect (now Pope Benedict XVI)
Alberto Bovone Titular Archbishop of Caesarea in Numidia Secretary
My daughter's adoptive parents always knew my name, because Catholic Charities gave it to them. Many adoptive parents know their child's birth parent's name because it was left on the adoption decree or given to them at the time of the adoption. So how could they say they promised us confidentiality?
The Catholic Conference by opposing this legislation is perpetuating the guilt and shame that they laid on us. We no longer have to be afraid to acknowledge our children. Society will not stone us. Even the Church will grant us pardon. The Adoptees’ Birthright Bill frees us all…birth parents and adoptees…from the stigma of “illegitimate birth” and state intervention in such a private matter.
Governor Christie, please sign the Adoptees' Birthright Bill and restore the right of adult adoptees to have a copy of their original birth certificate. The world will not end.
But beyond that, as an adopted person, I have a basic civil right to the true information of my birth. As a human being, I have a basic right to know who I am. State governments no longer need to legislate either.
My wife also has a bevy of health concerns including a painful condition called Fibromyalgia.. When doctors ask her about disease and family history, she draws a blank. There is no way to compare her medical problems to anyone else, as there is no genetic roadmap. We are in limbo in preventative medicine and what the future may hold, another perk most of us take for granted..
Mr. Christie, I know you are under extreme pressure from adoption groups and the Catholic Church to not sign this bill. My wife and I are both Catholic. The Church is were I first learned the values of love and FAMILY so it baffles me that the Church is fighting to keep families apart.. This law will allows biological mothers the option to remain anonymous. It is the fair and right thing to do for everyone. I am asking and hoping you to do the right thing here.
Thank you for your time and consideration...
Your article says, "Some critics of New Jersey’s bill that would allow adoptees to learn the names of their biological parents feel that the bill’s passage could make some pregnant women lean toward abortion."
Feelings are not facts. The national abortion rate declined 9% between 2000 and 2005, while in Alabama and Oregon, both of which implemented access laws in 2000, the rates declined 16% and 25%, respectively. How do those statistics indicate that abortions will increase if this legislation passes?
In addition to learning the names of their original parents, the Adoptees' Birthright Bill will also allow adoptees to know their own names at birth. What a concept!
Adopted adults will also be able to ascertain where they were born, as NJ law allows the judge, at the request of adopting parents, to have their place of residence listed as the child's birthplace on the amended certificate.
The purpose of a birth certificate is to record a birth. While the short-form certificate issued to everyone born in NJ comprises only the child's name, place (true or false) and date of birth, the long-form certificate includes the parent/s' names as well, unless an unmarried mother declined to note the name of the child's father.
When the constitutionality of the TN access law passed in the mid-1990s was challenged by opponents, the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals (6th Circuit) said, "First, we note our skepticism that information concerning a birth might be protected from disclosure by the Constitution. A birth is simultaneously an intimate occasion and a public event--the government has long kept records of when, where, and by whom babies are born. Such records have myriad purposes, such as furthering the interest of children in knowing the circumstances of their birth."
Primary documents, such as the statement to the 1940 bill sealing records, relinquishment documents and adoption decrees, indicate that opponents' arguments are based on the false premise that relinquishing parents were either promised or guaranteed confidentiality from their own children. When the facts are known, this premise is shattered.
Since 1940, surrender documents have required the relinquishing parent/s to promise not to try to locate the child or new family, as the aforementioned bill statement says the law was written to prevent the birth parent from reaching out to her child and to "protect" adoptive families from the parent who relinquished.
Ironically, the headline, "Sponsors of the NJ adoption rights bill hoping for Governor Christie's approval" has no follow-up whatsoever in the article. Not a single sponsor or advocate of S799/S1399/A1406 was contacted for comment. Was this piece a news article or an editorial?
Whose birth certificate is it anyway?
Take a close look at the opponents for this bill passed by the NJ
legislature. The Catholic Church and the opposing lawyers are the people who are making money on adoptions today. Using bogus scare tactics that include a rise in abortions is their last ditch effort to keep the profitable business that they are in. They do not care about protecting the privacy rights of the birth parents. Their stand is a self serving one and should be seen for exactly what it is. It is the denial of the rights of the child. Someone needs to stand up for the rights of the child.
Governor Christie, I am asking you to stand up for the rights of the
adopted children from the age of day one to 101. They are the ones that need you to support and sign this bill.
...then why are the records sealed in ALL adoptions including step-parent adoptions, open adoptions, relative adoptions, adoptions of older children, adoptions from foster care, and adoptions of true orphans?
...then why do surrender documents only include promises made BY the relinquishing parent not to search, contact, or interfere with the adoptee and the adoptive family?
...then why does NJ law allow the ADOPTIVE parents to change the place of birth on the amended birth certificate?
...then why do contemporaneous articles, policies and legislative notes only refer to protecting the ADOPTIVE family from public knowledge of the adoption? There's even an article quoting the assemblyman who introduced California's sealed records law. His major concern was that open records allowed people to blackmail the adoptive parents by threatening to tell the adopted child.
...then why does the adoptee get a new BIRTH certificate? Think about it. The original could be sealed without a new one being issued, but the purpose was to keep the public, and in some cases the adoptee, from knowing that an adoption had taken place.
It is unfair to lump all adoptions into one category: the frightened birthmother wanting to be protected from being found out.
My natural mother was a married mother of four other children when she was pregnant with me. There was no shame in her pregnancy. When she died three months after my birth and my father relinquished me, there was no shame attached to my birth or to my mother or to my father. Yet, by law, I am bound by social implication that there must be a terrible secret to keep hidden. I resent the imposed stigma on my life. As the law was written, I, a half orphan, must remain unable to obtain my original birth certificate because of the implied protection of the natural mother --- or the fear that my obtaining my birth certificate would somehow cause a woman to have an abortion.
Quite the contrary: my mother was stripped of her right to be my legal mother. Now, another woman is named as my mother of birth on my amended birth certificate. A man who did not sire me is named as my father. Why not focus on the real issues of sealed and falsified birth certificates?
I am sick of the injustices perpetrated by the closed record system. Sealing and amending adoptees birth certificates must end. We must replace this practice with one of openness, honesty and integrity by recognizing that adoptees are only born once, hence, we deserve the right to obtain our true birth certificates. Also, we must begin an investigation into why our birth certificates are routinely falsified upon adoption. This fraud must stop. Every adoption should be recognized officially by an adoption certificate, not a falsified document of a fictional birth. The Catholic Conference should be more concerned with the lies that are committed and stop preventing adoptees from accessing the trugh of their births.
I've been involved in adoptee rights efforts for over thirty years. During that time, I have noted with sadness the great numbers of women who have chosen to abort because of the closed, secret adoption laws like New Jersey's. A small sampling of the many I've found just on the Internet:
• "I conceived through that, and had an abortion, in 1973, rather than have to endure the pain of never knowing where a child of mine might be living, as I would have had to put it up for adoption."
• "I chose abortion, because I knew I could not have the baby and then give it up, never to see it again."
• "I had an abortion BECAUSE I am adopted. I have never regretted the choice, and never will. I have not recovered from my adoption pain – pain from being separated from my first Mother and the rest of my family.
• "A few years later, finding my parents would become so important to me that I would have an abortion rather than carry a child to term who would not know its true grandparents Only in hindsight do I see that I did not feel it was fair to bring a child into the world without knowing my own family."
• "I had an abortion when I was 17. Adoption was never an option for me. Simply because I was not about to carry a baby for 9 months and just give him or her away to strangers…. It gave me closure and piece (sic) of mind, rather than wondering everyday where my child was, and if him or her was safe."
• "What convinced me, at age 16, to have an abortion instead of continue my pregnancy and give the baby up for adoption? My mother's grief about being coerced (by her mother) into giving up her first baby for adoption, a grief she felt until her death at age 63. I believe it was her unexpressed and uncompleted grieving over the loss of that baby that prevented her from properly attaching to, and mothering, me."
* As far as abortion goes, when I was 18 years old I had an abortion. The reason for this: I was not ready to handle a child. I could not go through nine months of carrying a baby then give my baby up for adoption knowing that I would never see that baby again. I was not going to put a child through what I was already going through.
• I had an abortion in 1973, rather than go ahead and give birth to a baby and then not know where the baby was, how the baby was, where the baby was. I felt I couldn't bear that and I had an abortion.
•…How am I supposed to go on with my life not knowing what the hell is happening to my child? …I had closure with an abortion, but wouldn't have one with adoption…..I thought having an abortion was hard, I can't imagine adoption."
FROM OTHERS:
• "I volunteer with a women's crisis center; last year, of 184 unplanned pregnancies: 33 miscarried, two chose abortion, three chose temporary foster care, two chose OPEN adoptions, and the remainder were able to find resources to keep their child. Today's single mothers are more terrified of losing contact with their child from sealed adoption than abortion; there is a finality about death but decades of anguish over a relinquished child."
• CONCERN FOR CURRENT AND FUTURE CHILDREN A KEY REASON WOMEN HAVE ABORTIONS Guttmacher Institute, January 7, 2008
"Without being asked directly, several of the women indicated that adoption is not a realistic option for them. They reported that the thought of one's child being out in the world without knowing if it was being taken care of or by whom would induce more guilt than having an abortion."
• Father Thomas Brosnan, Ordained Catholic Priest and Adoptee:
"The act of relinquishment is so wrenching an event that young women have told me that they chose to abort their babies rather than relinquish them to adoption. Some of us may judge this to be the height of selfishness, but I wonder if there is not some instinctual response involved in making that drastic decision. No matter what the reasons for relinquishment might be, the emotional response to the act of relinquishment is analogous to abortion, an unbloody abortion if you will, but as one prominent psychiatrist has written, 'a psychological abortion' nonetheless."
Relinquishing moms are not focussed,at the time of relinquishment, on perpetual anonymity. This is a fictitious issue concocted by individuals and institutions that want to keep these records sealed for other unstated reasons. As anyone interested in adoptions knows, the trend in the past couple of decades has been for relinquishing mothers to search out, or at least be introduced to, prospective adoptive parents because the relinquishing moms want not only to know who is adopting their children but want also to be assured that the adopting patent or parents are ok with them.
Isn't it odd that that portion of the right to life community that adamantly defends the right to life of the unborn on the basis that these unborn are children and that society should be protective of the rights of these unborn children regardless of the desire of the mother to have an abortion, care little about the right of these children to know who their mothers are because the supposed right of the mothers to keep their
identities secret from their children who were adopted tramples any right of the children to know their biological origins and history?
Adoptions occur subsequent to the mother relinquishing her parental rights. it is only at the time the adoption is finalized that the original birth certificate with the mother's name is sealed. If the adoption doesn't get finalized for six months to a year - as is usual - the records are avail;able until then. if the child remains in foster or passes away and is never adopted, the records remain unsealed forever. And that is under current law which is, of course, subject to change.
Further, reunions between adoptees and their original parents are occurring all the time, even with the records sealed. There is no more guarantee of anyone's secrets not being revealed than John Edwards had of his secret love child remaining unrevealed.
But there's no cause for concern because as states have reinstated the rights of adopted persons to their own original birth certificates, there has been NO increase abortions, or decrease in adoptions, in factt the exact opposite has been the case! And most mothers today will not relinquish unless they are promised openness.
As an adopted person who found my birth family I can only pray that this bill is signed and all adoptees can get on with their lives. Not signing this bill keeps adoptees forever as children and keeps birth parents feeling guilty forever. Let's move forward with the truth.
Thank you so much to the NJ Legislature.