On the Catholic Conference and New Jersey's Conditional Veto

Guest Entry by Susan Perry

Susan Perry is a 61 year old adult adoptee who has been an Adoptee Rights activist for the past 12 years.  Below is a piece that she has submitted to several news outlets, including the Philadelphia Inquirer about her views regarding New Jersey's recent adoptee birth certificate legislation.

November is National Adoption Awareness Month, but NJ adoptees unfortunately have little to celebrate, since last June Governor Christie vetoed the legislation that would have allowed NJ adoptees access to their own original birth certificates. That legislation had been fully debated and passed, by the NJ Senate in 2010, and by the NJ Assembly in 2011.

In his “conditional veto,” Christie deleted every word of Senate Bill 799 and Assembly Bill 1406, and in its place, inserted his own version of the law. That law, which never received a public hearing or vote, almost repeats, word for word, the proposal that the New Jersey Catholic Conference of Bishops had encouraged the governor to approve instead of the pending, fully-vetted legislation.

In this day and age, is there anyone who really thinks the Catholic Conference of Bishops opposes adoption reform because of concern for original mother privacy? Statistics show that 95 percent of original mothers actually welcome contact from their biological offspring. And those few who don’t were protected by opt-out provisions in the NJ law that Governor Christie rejected.

To put this scenario into context, note that in July, 2011, the Catholic Church in Australia issued a national apology over past adoption practices, described by many as a “national disgrace.” In Australia, thousands of unwed mothers were forced to give up their babies – it is not a stretch to surmise that many unethical adoption practices were facilitated by the Catholic Church here in America as well. Is there something the NJ Catholic Conference of Bishops is trying to hide?

For those who still don’t know, birth mothers were never promised anonymity under any state law, and the vast majority of birth mothers don’t want it. As Gerald R. Gioglio writes, “I was the NJ DYFS Adoption Registry Coordinator for six years. I can count on one hand the number of [original] mothers who did not want contact with the children they placed for adoption”

For years, the adoption community has been gathering data showing that secrecy and sealed records do not serve the best interest of the adopted child. And yet ideally, adoption exists to serve the child’s best interest. Although the facts are clear to anyone with an open mind, monied and powerful special interests continue to thwart common-sense adoption reform.

Fortunately, lawmakers in other states are beginning to see the light and stand up to special interest groups like the Catholic Conference of Bishops and the State Bar Associations, which apparently feel a change in the status quo might impact the hefty fees attorneys earn from facilitating domestic adoptions.

The state of Oregon has allowed adult adoptees access to their original birth certificates since the year 2000. Four years after the reform measure passed, Program Manager for Adoption Services Kathleen Ledesma wrote, “I am happy to report that, despite the fears of original parents and others, there has been nearly no negative fallout from the open birth records measure/legislation.” The state of Maine enacted adult adoptee access in 2009; the state of Rhode Island passed an adult adoptee access law in July, 2011. In New Hampshire, original birth certificates have been available to adoptees, 18 and older, since 2007.

Few people outside the adoption community – and those professionals who profit from the adoption industry – realize that antiquated laws sealing the relinquished child’s identity are still on the books in the majority of the United States.

And adoptees from other, more enlightened nations, are aghast. In April, 2010, Nicole Burton wrote, “As a British adopted person who received her original birth certificate when the UK opened up its adoption records 33 years ago, I consider America to be a barbarian, backward country in the way it treats its adopted citizens. Nothing less than full human rights are at stake.”

I hope the New Jersey powers-that-be, and legislators in other states, will soon recognize that human identity is a basic human right and that every adult adoptee deserves access to his or her original birth certificate, just as non-adopted people do. The government should never be in the business of sealing a person’s identity, under any circumstances.

As NJ adoption reformer Pam Hasegawa notes, “Adopted persons are the only humans in the 20th or 21st centuries over whom a contract is signed in which they will never have a voice.”

As a 61-year-old adopted person, I felt the sting of discrimination ten years ago when I attempted to access my own birth records. Eventually, after encountering many roadblocks and spending a great deal of money, I found what I was looking for. The search for one’s own DNA should not be so difficult or so expensive.

As Martin Luther King wrote back in 1963, “There are two types of laws. There are just laws and there are unjust laws.”

An unjust law, says King, is one that a majority of people inflicts on a minority, and one to which the majority is not expected to adhere. And a law is particularly unjust, explains King, when the minority had no part in designing or enacting that law.

NJ Adoption Law, rooted in shame and secrecy, has been on the books since 1940, and according to Martin Luther King’s definition, is clearly unjust. We all know that power and money have an undue influence on the political process. But eventually justice must come to light. And it is way past time to update adoption law so that it serves justice and reflects best adoption practice.