Posted on 03/16/2015 8:00:25 PM PDT by Citizen Zed
DAYTON -- Imagine never knowing who your biological parents are, or where you came from. That is the reality for 400K people born in Ohio from the mid 1960's until 1996. Their birth records have been sealed, until this Friday.
The law originally passed in 1963 was designed to give birth parents some protection, and it was heavily supported by the adoptive parents. But fast forward 50 years, and attitudes have changed.
"I've always known that I was adopted... and I've always known that I wanted to find my birth parents," said Beth Miller who described her childhood as ordinary and happy.
"There is a misconception that you're only looking to find your birth parents if you had a horrible adoption situation, but that's not the case."
At 47, Beth says it is time to learn who she really is.
"Having the actual paperwork and being able to find those roots and to track my background, is just a piece of me that's always been missing."
For 50 years, original birth certificates and court decrees have been sealed for Ohioans adopted between January 1964 and September 1996. Those records become unsealed on Friday, March 20, 2015.
"I can't even put into words the feeling that I had when I received the envelope that had a copy of my original birth certificate," said Betsie Norris with the Adoption Network of Cleveland. "It was so validating, like my alter ego. It was just this whole other part of me I was discovering at age 25."
She has been at the forefront, fighting for this change for years. The compromise came in birth parents having a whole year to redact one's name, giving that parent the anonymity the 1963 law promised. Through Thursday, March 19, 2015, birth parents also have the option of requesting not to be contacted, or to be reached only through a third party. They were also asked to fill out medical history forms so at least their children can have access to what could be life saving information.
So far only 74 birth parents have decided to disappear altogether. That leaves nearly 400K adult adoptees, like Beth, a chance to get some answers finally.
"Everyone was trying to do what was best, they thought, for everyone," Beth said. "But I think they missed the mark on this one and they've finally gotten it right."
There will be a big event in Columbus on Thursday night at the Crown Plaza Hotel, where adoptees will meet and sign the necessary paperwork to file on Friday morning. That is happening from 6:30-9:30.
On Friday, hundreds are expected to walk into the Office of Vital Statistics when it opens at 7:30 AM to file the birth certificate application.
Exactly, and in addition, there are those who need medical information from birth families.
The parents gave up their children anonymously for some reason. They should be afforded the right to privacy (a right so exhalted by the abortion loving left) from having their personal information revealed after having been assured it would remain private. That being said, it would be beneficial for adoptive children to receive medical information if that could be done anonymously.
The birth parents have the option of asking to remain totally anonymous. They are being asked for medical information.
I know a adoptee who was told that her birth mother left a letter for her. The state has refused to hand it over because she can not produce her original birth certificate with the birth mother's name on it.
Now she can get her letter.
There is right to privacy. And then there are very stupid regulations that keep people who would like to be reunited apart.
This will make abortion more attractive to many.
Open or semi-open adoptions are the norm now days.
The Ohio laws went far beyond reason to the point of even preventing adoptive parents from being able to contact the birth parent in case of medical necessity and preventing of age adoptees and birth parents from any voluntary communication.
Adoptees cut off from this knowledge have had their lives shunted onto an entirely different track.
My two adult children are adopted . We assisted both in finding their birth parents and it was so freeing for both of them to finally have the answers to where they came from and what happened to cause them to be given up. We are still mom and dad plus grandma and grandpa to the next generation but the kids have developed healthy relationships with the birth families as well. While I must say it is a little different it is all good and I am happy for my children that they were able to open that door.
If you read the article, birth parents can still remain anonymous.
The only real difference with this law is that the default is for the information to be released, whereas previously it was to keep it quiet.
That’s a pretty big difference, but nobody’s being outed without their consent.
Require the medical report of the abortion be disclosed to the siblings. Equality and social justice and all that rot.
My four adopted from birth kids have their parent’s birth info. Three are in contact. All of the Birth moms were receptive.
The kids have varying relationships with their birthmothers. From email weekly to ‘Yes, I met you, but no thank you.’ to a birthmother who expected the child to pack up and move in with her under the statement : they had you for 19 years and it is now my turn!
I have always kept in touch with the mothers with an annual update.
An adopted friend got a small inheritance a few years after finding her birth mother. The adopting parents soon had two children after her adoption.
Two of my cousins are adopted and knew they were adopted from a fairly early age, were told by their adoptive parents, my aunt and uncle, as soon as they were old enough to understand what that meant.
Several years ago my cousin Sally became interested in finding her birth parents and has reconnected with her birth mother and her extended birth family. I understand my aunt and uncle were a little hurt by this; not for her wanting to find her birth mother and meet her and her possible other siblings, cousins, etc. but in the way in which she went about it; basically cutting off her adoptive family from her life for a time after she reconnected with her biological family, from her adoptive parents who were so good, loving and kind to her and her adoptive brother. I understand it has gotten better recently.
Her brother, my cousin Steve on the other hand has absolutely no interest in finding his birth mother or his biological family and does not want to be found by them. It’s also sort of interesting that my cousin Steve relates so much with our family’s Scandinavian ancestry, Scandinavian culture and history, Viking history, belongs to a Scandinavian ancestry group, when it is pretty obvious, even to him that he most likely has no biological Scandinavian ancestry/DNA. If you were to look at a picture of him, as opposed to his blond haired blue eyed adoptive sister, you’d probably ask, “Who’s the Jewish (or even the Lebanese or Sicilian or Greek) guy in that picture”. He looks more like Jerry Seinfeld or Richard Lewis or now that he’s gotten older, Henny Youngman, than he does Leif Erikson. LOL!
FWIW, his DNA ancestry is of little interest to him as he sees his adoptive parents as being his only parents and his family as he knows them, his only family and their history and ancestry his.
Interestingly my cousin Sally and her husband adopted 3 kids of mixed race, two of them special needs kids (and I applaud her and her husband in this) and they have one biological child. My cousin Steve and his wife have two biological children but his wife was also adopted at birth.
On the other side of the coin, some years ago I knew a woman through a mutual friend who gave up a child for adoption when she was a teenager.
I remember her telling me how painful it was for her but how she knew it was the right thing to do at the time. She had in her early teens gone down the dark path of alcoholism and drug abuse, had gotten pregnant possibly as the result of a rape (she didn’t remember the details or even who the man was). Her family was highly dysfunctional, her father was abusive both physically and sexually to her and her sisters when they where children, her mother was also an alcoholic and verbally abusive and barely functional as a mother. After she gave her daughter up for adoption, she spiraled even further down the dark path of drug addiction, ended up living on the streets for a time. It’s a wonder she survived.
But years later she got clean and sober through AA and through finding a Christian church and got married to a wonderful man who was also in recovery and had IIRC, two children with her husband and together they ran a very successful business.
She was very conflicted about it, but ultimately decided that she didn’t want to be found by the child she gave up for adoption so many years earlier, wanted to keep her identity unknown and not wanting to meet her in person.
Not because she didn’t love and care about her; she told me she thought of her and prayed for her every day and knew something about the adoptive parents and knew she was greatly loved and well cared for, given a great life and strong moral upbringing and a “family” that she could have never given her had she not allowed her to be adopted, that she had even received some letters and pictures from them the first couple of years after the adoption.
But she also told me she didn’t want to re-live or try to explain that very dark part of her and her family’s past, not only to the child she gave up to adoption but also to her two other children who knew very little about her past and who also had no contact with her biological grandparents and other family members and why she wanted to keep it that way. Her husband knew about the child she gave up for adoption and all about her past and supported her decision not to be found.
She explained to me and our mutual friend that she felt that no good would come from the daughter she gave up for adoption knowing about her biological family and how messed up they were and that she actually feared her that her daughter, not so much in her daughter finding her per se, but in her eventually finding her biological grandparents and other relatives who were some, as she said, “very bad, very sick and immoral people, some of them active criminals and con-artists” – reasons why she actually wanted to protect her daughter and her other children from them and their poisonous influences.
I can understand why some people would disagree with her decision but I also understand why it was the right thing for her and why she thought it was best for her daughter.
Try reading the article. Birth parents can opt out and say they don’t want to be contacted.
I can’t imagine being a full-grown adult and not knowing anything of my background, who gave birth to me, under what circumstances, what siblings I might have, what genetic predisposition I might have inherited for various diseases. Yeah, damned right under those circumstances it would be about ME!
I still have no idea who my father is/was and my birth mother passed away not long after I met her.
wow at least you got to meet her.
That is hilarious. Look at that face, who does it look like? How about Chelsea Clinton when she was a little girl?
what if the adopting parents do not want this to go forward?
what if it turns out there was a “paternity fraud scenario” where an unwed mother just lied and the father was in fact known. That will open up a 50 mess.
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