Tuesday, May 23, 2006

DEFORMERS

The last couple days I have been busy with work and kids. School will be out this week. So I have to make arrangements for day care. My sisters are already making plans for my children to spend time with them along with friends wanting time for them as well. I finally also get time with them and my husband. I do love going horseback with my husband. I will also be getting to the business of working on afghans. I am entering two of them in the Wichita Falls Ranch Roundup held around August 18th and 19th. One of which I will donate to the North Texas Rehab Center and one that is mine and refuse to sell.

Something that was recently brought to my attention. I said that I would write about it. We have groups that help us in our cause but they sometimes do it to the detriment. I am for access to original birth certificates. There is no settling for less. In doing so it creates separate tiers of adoptees. Usually the have's and the have not's. It is not right nor fair. For example, the new Massachusetts bill is one of those that sets it up just that way.

1.) Adoptees born before 1974 can receive their original birth certificates.
2.)Adoptees born after 1974 and 2008 can not receive their original birth certificates
3.) Adoptees born after 2008 can receive their original birth certificates.

I realize that some of these people feel that we must compromise. There can be no compromise on this. It is not right to give some adoptees their original birth certificate and others not. Adoptees feel for the most part that they/we are dirty little secrets that must be forever kept. I don't think anyone realizes the negative effects this has on adoptees. It is a constant battle with negative feelings.

A blogging friend of mine puts it very eloquently in her three part series. For a birthparent to refuse contact, it means (in the mind's eye of us as children) that we are rejects, unloved, unacceptable, unworthy, and meaningless. Emotionally and rationally we don't feel that way. Another blogging friend said that it must hurt to be rejected again. Oh I am not denying it hurts. It hurts so bad that at times, the rage comes out full force. I want to prove to my birthmother that I am worthy, strong, intelligent, and important just as her sons, my brothers, are. Truth be known, I don't need to do that. I am those and more. Just like my blogging friends are. All of us in the triad that I know are strong, healthy, and extremely intelligent. One thing that I have noticed with adoptees across this country and many others. We are strong, vibrant, and extremely crafty and intelligent. We have had to fight to be.

Groups like the NARAL, Planned Parenthood, NOW, and ACLU feel the need to protect the "privacy" of the birthparents. In the Doe vs. Sunquist case in Tennessee, a supreme court judge ruled that the right to privacy was meant to protect people from governmental intrusion. Whose lives are suffering from government intrusion? Its not birthparents and not adoptive parents. Its the adoptees. We deserve our original birth certificates. Its our birth that it records. It doesn't belong to birthparents nor adoptive parents. I am quoting something from BASTARD NATION:

Identity Information is a civil right. It is a civil right of all citizens to be able to obtain the original government documents of their birth. A civil right by its very nature cannot be compromised. A civil right belongs equally to all members of a society.

Yet here we are. Adoptees are being kept from their original birth certificates because of secrets. Secrets perpetrated by our society. Shame instilled into the women of yesteryear. Adoptees are denied their rights based on what they "might" do if they were restored that right. It is unjust for the laws of this country to deprive one group of their rights in order to protect others from having to face the consequences of their past choices. I know that I have had to face the choices of the past. Why are birthparents allowed that freedom? A criminal is not even given that right. It is also wrong and unjust for a government to uphold a promise made between private citizens especially when a third party's rights are taken away by such a promise. Too me that sounds like slavery.

We as adoptees cannot accept less. We are the only group that have done nothing yet we have to pay for the consequences of those that created us. I know that I want to be acknowledged as someone's child. I deserve that right. If my brother-in-law's birthmother can step up and own up to her choices, then by God so can many others.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

hi amy
Joy here
I agree with you, I don't know where people get off having privacy from their children.
I think people who deny contact should be arrested, I will start as soon as we can figure out who they are!

Joy

Amyadoptee said...

LOL I really don't want anyone arrested but I do want to know more answers. With my own birthmother denying contact, I don't know the information on my birthfather's side. I know her information and I do have many her attributes and defects. For instance, I am strong in math and science just like my brothers and many other members of her family. I also need glasses and will have to go on cholesterol meds soon. I think the fact that I want to fight back against the system is something that comes from my nurtured side. My adoptive family taught me to fight back.