Why can't people be more supportive?

crtate29

people say that adopted children are denied a lot in their lives, which is completely untrue. these people are just not educated and have a very dim view of how adoption really works. i myself was adopted (at birth so i do have a certificate) but like you i wouldn't care to see it or not. my parents are my parents and they raised me to be who i am and i would never want any other parents besides them. if my birthmother would have not wanted to go through with the adoption who knows what kind of life i would have had or where i would be, knowing what i know about her. i have never met her or my biological father and i don't care to. i have a great life and that is bc of my parents.

Laurel J

You're welcome to your feelings, LC. And a law that gave you access to your birth certificate would in no way oblige you to obtain that birth certificate or look for your first parents. It would simply give you the choice, and put you on a par with every other citizen of the US.

Some of us want equal rights. What's wrong with that? In what way does my wanting my own records negate anything that is good about adoption?

LaurieDB

It doesn't have anything to do with reunion or one's relationship with his or her adoptive family. It has nothing to do with whether or not you support everything else about adoption. Some people are quite content with adoption in most every aspect EXCEPT the discrimination by the state. So, when you try to lump equal access rights together with these other issues, it just doesn't add up.

The fact is, most ADOPTED persons are the only citizens in 44 states who are cannot access their own records of birth without meeting various conditions. This is something all non-adopted persons can do. This is something relinquished persons can do. It is only if a person's adoption is finalized (and stays intact) that the records are sealed away from them. Failed adoptions automatically reopen the records, even if the child does not go back to the birthparents.

This is discrimination. A right that others take for granted is denied them solely on their adoptive status -- something over which they have no control.

Whether or not all adopted persons are interested in having this right re-established in all states doesn't matter. Plenty of women were against the right for women to vote. But, just because they weren't interested in voting doesn't mean that the equal right for women shouldn't exist. So you don't care if your equal access right is re-established -- why deny everyone who care does simply because some don't?

Those of us who want equal access to be re-established are asking only for the same right that all non-adopted citizens have. Nothing more and nothing less.

eta:
Alisa/Adoption-is-A-OK still doesn't get that it's about an equal right, not about adoptive parents, natural parents, what could have been, "just a piece of paper" or any of that other stuff. Hmmm.

beegirlny

"I don't know if my parents are my birth parents or if they adopted me. And, you know what, it doesn't matter. I am who I am because my parents raised me to be this way. If I had lived with a different set of parents, I would probably be a different person."

Just the fact that you can say that shows that you don't understand a thing about being adopted. The fact is if I was raised by my birth parents I would be a different person, I would be me! My whole life I have struggled with identity issues, I have tried to be the "special" girl my parents adopted. I put a great deal of pressure on my self to succeed and be perfect. It got to the point where I didn't even try anything new because I would be afraid that I would fail and let them down. I don't know who I am! I am 34 years old and I don't know who I am! I don't know who I take after, whose talents I inherited or didn't, I don't know who I look like, I don't know what medical conditions I may have inherited or that I may pass on! I HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW WHO I AM!

It doesn't mean I don't love my adopted family, I love them very much. I would not have been aborted. I would not have been raised in poverty.

Don't try to deny me my rights just because you don't choose to use yours.

whatever!

I see you have come back here to harass us adoptees. Just let it go. If someone who is adopted wants their OBC then that is their choice. Why get so worked up about it?

Heather B

I guess you can say that because your civil rights have not be abrogated and you are treated equally under the law

Do you really think so little of your adopted kids that you would see them treated differently under US law to any other citizen, it's discrimination.

And yes, all kids deserve a chance, I don't see anyone denying that.

p.s I adore my adoptive family and I was never a candidate for abortion

ETA. Shouldn't a BIRTH certificate contain the true and accurate details of one's BIRTH - I totally disagree that the people who raised you should be represented as having given BIRTH on an official Certificate of BIRTH

ETA: Just wondering if you read 'The Adoption Mystique' You said you were going to last we heard from you, I'd be interested to know what you thought of it

Lillie

Yes well I'm sure many southern plantation owners felt much the same as you do when Lincoln came up with that pesky Emancipation Proclamation, but fortunately the selfish desires of a few don't necessarily have to dictate what is ethical and just for the rest of us.

Possum

I have known that I was adopted since a very early age.
I always wanted to know about where I came from - who my bio family was.
My adoptive parents chose not to tell me (I was even told it 'upset' my adoptive mother too much to talk about it - and I was a very young child). This is what many adoptive parents during the 60's were told to do - thankfully many know better now.
I spent a very very large amount of time during my childhood - and well into my adulthood - wanting to know where I came from - where I got my blue eyes - where I got my blonde hair - where I got my talents - wanting to know things about me that my adoptive parents couldn't and wouldn't tell me.
In fact - I spend vast amounts of my days - daydreaming about possible scenarios about my relinquishment - because so much secrecy surrounded my adoption.
My original birth certificate and adoption records became the only key in finding out that information.
If my adoptive parents had been more open - and had even helped me find my bio family - perhaps there would have not been such a deep deep desire in me to search for them.
It had NOTHING to do with loving or not loving my adoptive family.
It had NOTHING to do with wanting to run away back to my bio family. (for the record - I loved my adoptive fam very much - and still do to this day)
It had EVERYTHING to do with finding out who I was - and what was my truth.

If you have never lived this life - and/or you have never lived with people that look and act like you - you will never truly understand what it feels like to grow up as an adoptee.

Sad that you always have to come back here and invalidate the need of those that wish to know their truth.

You can speculate all you like - you didn't live it - so please stop invalidating the lives of adoptees that did.

ETA: I wrote this to try to help explain the need to know - and for me - my OBC was the only way to find my truth.
Regardless - even though you've never seen your OBC - being a non adoptee - you'd be able to request and obtain your OBC quite simply if you chose to.
Adoptees can't.
That's discrimination in my books.

amyburt40

Ziggy I thumbed up for you. I spewed coffee all over my puter screen with that one.

Hey dude, I am a combo of two sets of parents. I believe in that as the day is long.

goodquestion

Your question - "Why can't people be more supportive?" - has no connection to your follow up statements.

What does abortion or being raised in poverty have to do with access to one's own legal records?

Your first sentence shows basic ignorance: "Why do so many people say that adopted children are being denied something because they don't have the ability to see their original birth certificate?"

If you "don't have the ability" to do something because you are prevented from doing it, you are being "denied" the ability to do it.

I have no interest in going down to City Hall and viewing the documentation on file there regarding my real estate property. But I'm glad I live in a country where I can access that proof of ownership if necessary.

Justice

It seems you've gotten a lot of support here in the form of well thought out explanations of why ALL ADULTS should have access to the record of their own BIRTH. Accessing one's Birth Certificate is personal information that is the right of the individual regardless of whether they were adopted or not. Birth certificates do not establish who a child was raised by or where they were raised or how they were raised. Birth Certificates are about birth, a biological event.

dory

I'd guess that the 160,000+ people registered on the search sight at adoption.com would say that they are being denied something.

I received my obc when I was 36 - thank you Delware! And you know what - I cried when I saw it. I finally knew what time I was born, what name was given to me, and what my mother's name was. Some people like to know those things - why anyone would not support the need for this knowledge *for those who want it* is beyond me.

tragic teacup

Adopshun rulz man.

Hey Beavis, pull my finger

huh huh huh huh huh huh

Kym M

I have never seen my original either and I feel the same way. How will it benefit me one way or the other. And yes it is a gr8 thing. :)

littleJaina

The thing I want to know is what mysterious information people think will be on their birth certificates - espescially the ones who say they've already been reunited. My son's birth certificate that I just got for him (I had his hospital one, but this is the "legal one" on file with the state) had my name, his fathers name, his date of birth, and the fact that he was male (huh, go figure!). It has no contact information for me or his father, only the "county" of his own birth is listed - not the hospital, city, or delivering doctor. It doesn't include anything about me or his father - not our ages, race, or birthdates. It's basically a piece of paper that tells nothing except how old my son is and who his parents are. I can only imagine what a struggling adoptee might make of the name "Jennifer Jones" on a birth certificate, since there are TONS of those... and can only imagine the annoyance all the Jennifer Jones's in the area might go through with someone calling them up asking if they'd given away a baby.

Mutual search sites are fine... but what is a Birth Certificate really supposed to accomplish? My parents still argue about what time I was born. Guess what, that information is LOST to me. The state doesn't care! They didn't keep it. I can't go get a birth certificate made that says that information. My birth certificate will say my name and birthdate and parents names, and the fact that I'm femal (again - go figure). It doesn't even have a spot on it to tell me if I may have a secret twin running around somewhere! I mean, how BORING!

AdoreHim

Thanks!! Finally someone gets it- I don't have my birth parents name on my birth certificate, and I don't feel slighted at all- I love my birth mom from choosing life for me.

Interesting how I got so many thumbs down because I did not feel slighted- why was that?

Adoption is A-OK!

some don't want to hear the happy adoption story; some want to perpetuate the myth that we, as adoptees, are all damaged and less than whole; anything less than that is unacceptable.

I agree iwth you wholeheratedly that names on a piece of paper don't matter to me. I know who my parents are and i love 'em to death. My birthmom gave me life while my parents gave me a real life worth living. They molded me into the person i am (i'm a believer of environment more than genetics). some will never accept the idea that adoption serves any great purpose .. . that's why people need to hear us -- to know that it does serve a purpose and that we are happy and healthy as a result; that we don't spend our lives yearning and remissing about what coulda, shoulda, woulda been, etc.

Ilovemyhusband

I agree

Tyler

yea

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