Operation "Miracle on 34th Street"
a/k/a/ Adoptees' Rights

Do you think adoptees have a "right" to their original birth certificates?
  If you stumbled on this page by mistake, FYI, it is illegal in most states for adoptees to obtain their original birth certificates.  Oftentimes their amended certificates have been altered by as many as 3,000 miles and over a year from the original place and date. 

They can't even obtain their own medical records from the hospital they were born in, because in many cases, they don't know:  1) where it is; 2) the name of the hospital; 3) the name on the birth certificate of either the child or the parent.

What happens when they find out that the person they married is their sibling!
Wonder how many lives would have been saved if a woman knew she had a history of breast cancer.
How many men needlessly died in Vietnam because their draft number was earlier than their actual birth date on their birth certificate?
Think of all the people who could have received social security benefits earlier if they had their true birth date!

The Seeker is interested in your views on this subject. Even from those not involved in the "adoption triad".  We pretty much know adoptees' opinions.   Animals have more papers than they do!  To us, it is an outrage.  The birth child owns the birth certificate.   Not the parents, not the government.

The child - alone - needs that paper, at a minimum to:
1) get a driver's license; 2) join the service; 3) get a passport. 

There is not another person on this planet who needs that birth certificate for any reason whatsoever. 

If I wanted to go to the hospital I was born in and obtain my original medical records,  I could do it.   But adoptees can't.  Nor can their adoptive parents.

Legislators need to know how you feel, maybe we can help these adoptees (after all, your opinions are as good as a vote if they listen).  This issue is a well kept secret from those of us not touched by adoption.  WE didn't even know it until we started The Seeker!  

We hear from groups that want to protect the birth parents.   They feel that birth parents don't want to be "found", thus original birth certificates should remain sealed.  Not having the original birth certificate does not guarantee the birth parents that they won't be found, and having it doesn't guarantee that they will be found!  The fact is, it belongs to the human being whose name is on it!

We hear from tens of thousands of birth parents saying "I didn't give you up, you were taken from me",  and "I was only 15 when I had you and my parent made me give you up", and "My parents didn't believe in bi-racial marriages and forced me to give you up", and "I was told one of my twin daughters was stillborn, and now that my mother is deceased, her sister confessed that she sold my twin daughter for $5,000...", and the stories of doctors who sold babies, i.e., Cole Babies and Hicks Babies, and the Adoption Train, etc. 

Having your original birth certificate isn't a privilege you earn,
it is your right!

I realize that there are extenuating circumstances, i.e., rape, but these adoptees have as much a right to their *original* birth certificates as they do their own fingerprints!  It is a part of them.    Whether it is because a politician dropped a seed somewhere he shouldn't have doesn't give him the right to be able to deny millions of people their original birth certificate.

The ones who are pushing to keep records sealed are adoption agencies!  Why wouldn't they, they have a $1.4 BILLION dollar industry!  They don't promise confidentiality, most birth parents don't want it.  They do, however, promise that the child will be placed with a loving COUPLE.  More and more single people are adopting children (not that there is a problem with single people adopting, we are saying that the birth parent was promised one thing, and another is what happens).  Adoption agencies don't want adoptive parents and birth parents comparing notes, Lord only knows the other lies adoption agencies don't want you to find out about!

  It is time to do something to help adoptees.

Remember "Miracle on 34th Street"?  And how they convinced the judge that Santa was real?  They dumped thousands of letters addressed to Santa in jail on the judge's desk.  It is time to do the same thing to your legislators.  I doubt each of you have access to as many people looking as I do, so I am going to make it easy for you to help them.  I am going to place each and every opinion you tell me right here.  Not the ones looking for missing people (please go to the Place Your Own Message section to say who you are looking for) , but your opinion on the fact that adoptees cannot obtain their original birth certificates. 

Before I began The Seeker, I thought long and hard about this issue.  I wondered what I would do if I had a child and gave it up.  Would I want my new family to know?  Would my new husband leave me because of it?  Would my kids hate me for giving it up?  What if I gave my child to my sister, and my child thinks I am her aunt?  What if I was raped, would I even want to face that reality now?

Frankly, I really don't know.  I hope in my heart of hearts that I would be receptive to answering my child's questions.  That I would be willing to at least answer those questions. That I would give at least a few minutes of my time to put closure for a child whom I carried for nine months.  That I could put an end for myself to what I think would be wondering what ever happened to my child.

But I would never condone forbidding my child the right to his or her original birth certificate any more than I would condone putting acid on his or her fingerprints, or changing the child's DNA!  That is not my right.

I'm 47 years old now, so that issue will never come to pass for me.  But I will help them.  But I am asking for your help too.  Your opinion.   Yes, I know the story of the woman who found her family against her will (although she placed the call, and isn't she getting money from someone for that story?)  Well, I'm not.  No one is paying me one red cent for this.  I am not adopted (that I know of anyway), I am not involved in any way in the triad.  I have no children.  But I have a heart.  And it goes out to each and every person involved in the Triad.  And both sides of the issue for that matter.

So I have opened up a page for comments, and I will print both sides.  I won't leave anything out.  Anyone is free to copy these messages for distribution to your legislators.  If you care to give me your comments, but don't want your e-mail address written, tell me and I will only post your comments.  But if you really want to help, it is best if you put your name, city, county, and state.  At any time, you are free to distribute the messages posted in The Seeker from people looking for people.  (If you use it in a publication for profit, please ask permission first.)

To see what the Florida ACLU group proposed, click here.  It is right on target for adoptees' rights!

If I offend anyone in this, I apologize.  But that is not my intention.  Read through the Seeking Birthparents in the Relatively Seeking section of The Seeker, and you will know how many people want their original birth certificates.  Don't think the birthparents want to be contacted?  Read the Seeking Adopted Child section of Relatively Seeking.  And not just the mothers either!

Please write and let us know your opinions.  Look for them in Adoptees' Rights - Your Opinions.  Go to the Comments section and see how to write us.

One last comment from me.  If you are a birth parent who doesn't want her child to have their original birth certificate or medical records because you don't want to be found, well, I'm sorry, I WILL help them, and so will the thousands of sites I link to in my Site Seeking section under Adoption Sites, so please don't use that as an excuse to prevent them from obtaining vital information that belongs to only them!

Thank you for your comments.

Linda S. Hammer
Carrborro, NC