No Right to have....Rights? Donor Conception and Adoption and Why Human Rights Outweigh Legal-Nonsense Any Day of the Week

This next blog post is a culmination of a lot of reading and thinking I have been doing on various topics.  It may seem scattered but when I was thinking the post out before-hand, it all made sense to me to be put together.  I anticipate for a few, it may be sensitive subject matter, so if you're sensitive to adoption and issues involving infertility and IVF, I will not be offended at all if you choose to skip this post.

My pondering on this subject all started when I emailed a law professor in my home state because I was confused by some statements she had made about identity rights.  Among several points that she responded with, she stated that adoptees really cannot use the argument that they have a right to know their heritage by accessing an Original Birth Certificate because individuals conceived through sperm or egg donorship do not have their genetic heritage listed on their birth certificate, only the parents who gave birth.  In other words, because of sperm/egg donorship, heritage is no longer synonymous with birth.  For us to claim that we have a right to heritage via an OBC would be to demand a special right over that of someone conceived through donorship.

Good grief.

Of course, many people have said to me in the past before I knew my heritage "just get a blood test."  That's besides the point.  A blood test might be able to pinpoint racial markers but it cannot tell me the names of the line of people whose blood courses through my veins.  It cannot tell me their adventures and it cannot read to me the journals, thoughts, and legacies they may have left behind.  It does not tell me what specific people I've come from or or what role my line people have played in world history.  So many individuals beam with pride over such things.  Yet no one can understand how an adopted person (or any other person in the league of perpetual children) would want to as well.  Being able to get a blood test also does not excuse the United States government from treating its adopted citizens as a second-class.  I brace myself in anticipation of hearing next a lawyer saying that I have no right to test my own DNA.....

The Legal Right of "Self"
 So how else does a person obtain knowledge of heritage?  By knowing their Original mother's name?  Well, adoption sets the precedence that there is no right for a person to know the name of the mother who gave birth to them.

Is there no legal right for anyone to know who they are or where they come from any more?

No right to heritage, no right to history, and there's no right for your ancestors, the people who would be proud of you if they had the opportunity to know you, to not have you expunged from their lineage?  That to me, just seems sad.  It seems as though creating an opportunity for people to become parents should not require that the children involved lose the right to retain an important part of who they are in order to do so.

(before you get mad at me...)
Now, that's not a blanket statement about all parents whose children were conceived through sperm or egg donorship or who have adopted.  We do know that in adoption, there was Adoptive Parent influence over why records became so tightly sealed but this was not all parents.  Many Adoptive Parents are passionate allies in the Adoptee Rights movement.  I cannot tell you how practices in egg/sperm conception were formed because I don't know.  We do know that practices in industries like these are formed by what the industry feels is most marketable to those paying the fees for services.  And honestly, I find that to be an insult to parents and I wish more people would see it that way (and yes, we could have a deeper discussion on issues in donor conception and adoption but that's a huge, long post for another day).

Legitimate Motherhood
Initially when I started on my quest to help adoptees obtain unrestricted access to their OBCs, my [Adoptive] mother was offended, thinking that wanting my real birth certificate was because I did not want her as my mom.

"Are you only a legitimate mother if you've given birth?"  I asked her.  " and is my [First] Mother no longer my mother because I'm adopted?"

"No."  She said.

"Then you shouldn't feel your motherhood is threatened.  Am I incapable of loving two mothers because of what one document says or doesn't say?  Amending a birth certificate to show the name of the Adoptive Mother as if she had given birth is a lot like the government saying 'you can't be a legitimate parent unless you've given birth, so we'll fix that for you and make it look like you did,' isn't it?  Don't you see how it's not only wrong to my [First] mom and I, but to you too?"

I think she finally understood how sealed and amended OBCs are not only an insult to my [First] mom and I, but to her as well.  She actually agreed to have her name carried by Jeff Hancock at the Adoptee Rights Demonstration as a supporter of access which completely blew my mind to be honest with you.  My [First] Mom will have her name carried as well.

The Confidentiality Blame-Game on First Mothers
The NCFA, one of the leading opponents to an adopted person's access to birth documentation and truth, is publicly a very selective historian of Adoptee Rights and First Mother rights.  According to a study that was presented to the NCFA (then called the "National Committee For Adoption") in 1982 and published professionally in 1985, some of the real reasons why the "confidentiality" in adoption should persist is downright alarming and offensive to all parties involved.  In the four-part series titled Some Theoretical Considerations on Confidential Adoptions..., part one focused on First Mothers.  Those involved in adoption were warned to proceed with open adoptions with caution for the welfare of all involved.

Their definition of "welfare" is what I found a little alarming, however.

The researchers claimed that there was cause for concern that First Mothers wanting openness would prohibit her from moving on, grieving and finding closure.  They worried that she would interfere with the Adoptive Family and interfere with the Adoptive Parents bonding with the adopted child.  They also speculated that an adopted child having to deal with the concept of having two mothers in his or her life would be presented with challenges at each and every developmental phase.  The wanting of openness and connection to one's surrendered child was portrayed as narcissism and a young, surrendering mother being too immature not only to raise a child but to understand what she really wants or is best for her child.

This report was compiled shortly before my birth and published the year of my birth.  My agency is a member agency of the NCFA.  I can't help but feel that my First Mother and my Adoptive Parents were amongst the individuals they could have been referring to and as I read this report, I answered back in my mind:

Are these people serious?  Why are they talking about my moms and dad that way?

OBC access and open adoptions are quiet a different concept.  But the claim is that when an adoption was considered "confidential" (which at the time I suppose was synonymous with "closed"), it's that "promise" made to the First Mother that needs to govern the access to the OBC.  But this report glaringly shows why "confidential" adoptions were valued.  The basis had nothing to do with protecting mothers from their descendants but to impose confidentiality upon her because she was believed to be too incapable to know what was best for herself and her own child (but they readily accepted her signature upon those surrender papers despite this assumption about her capabilities?).  It is because they assumed adoptees were incapable of handling the notion of two families.  It is because they assumed that Adoptive Parents were incapable of having a relationship with a child who had access to their other family.  Such stigmas against women, mothers, adoptees, and families should not be permitted to persist in this modern age.  Every single individual involved in adoption should be outraged and should support 100% unhindered access today.

Making Things Better
There are many groups working towards an adopted person's right to access their Original Birth Certificate.  I plan to be marching with some this weekend!  As for donor conception, I was reading an interesting article in the International Journal of Children's Rights (2009) that was discussing how the United Kingdom is considering reforming the birth certificates of donor-conceived individuals.  This is an effort to further acknowledge the human rights of children and adults conceived this way by making it impossible for them not to be told of their conception so that they can access their genetic and biological heritage if they choose to as anonymous egg and sperm donation has already been done away with in the UK.  There are multiple models and considerations of what this will look like, whether to mention on the birth certificate that other information is on file, to issue two certificates--one of legal parentage and one of biological ancestry, or to indicate on one birth certificate both birth/legal and biological ancestral information.  New Zealand's model for birth certificate reform for egg/sperm donor-conceived individuals was also discussed.  If anyone knows more about the progress with this movement, please keep me informed (I am thinking/hoping Von might know?).  I am very interested in this.

Concluding...
The human rights concerns that the UK is bringing forth is a stark contrast against the legalism of "who doesn't have a right to what" in the United States.  In this instance, the UK is concerned with providing as many rights to donor conceived individuals as possible as well as Adult Adoptees whom they've already made OBCs available to.  The United States so far has been content to argue about all of the things that Adult Adoptees can't possibly be entitled to based on the rights it has managed to strip from other individuals.  The persistence of OBC denial currently being based on the false fascade of "confidentiality" some special-interest groups choose to represent while diving behind the skirts of mothers who have surrendered to adoption, no less.  This is despicable.

Children deserve more rights, not less and those who had their rights taken away when they were children deserve to have them restored.  Let's work to achieve these positive human rights goals that give a person every right to know who they are and where they come from.   I fully believe that truth is one of the most primal justices that can ever be awarded to a person.  This is something every parent should care about.

“I think that the state has a moral duty not to be party to a deliberate deception about a person’s genetic history." --Robert Key, Member of Parliament, UK

Photo Credit:  jscreationzs

References:
Blyth, E., Frith, L., Jones, C., & Speirs, J. (2009). The role of birth certificates in relation to access to biographical and genetic history in donor conception. International Journal of Children's Rights, 17(2), 207-233. doi:10.1163/157181808X389254.

Kraft, A. (1985). Some theoretical considerations on confidential adoptions: I. The birth mother. Child & Adolescent Social Work Journal, 2(1), 13-21. doi:10.1007/BF00757531.