This week, I have been posting about topics raised by an adoptee named IzzyMom on her blog in the post entitled What About MY Rights?. In this post, I will address the heart of her message.

IzzyMom makes some valid points about the unfairness of denying adult adoptees basic information about their pasts. She did her own research to track down her birth family after being told that no records were available from the adoption agency because it had closed.

IzzyMom asks some valid questions on her post about the rights of adoptees to know their own history:

But what about the adopted children who grow up, both knowing or not knowing of their adoptive status? What about them? What about their rights? What about MY rights?

Doesn’t everyone deserve to know with whom they are forever linked by blood, by shared genes, by shared heredity? Don’t we have a right to know where we come from? To know if we have siblings? Or an important medical history? – IzzyMom at What About MY Rights?

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I have to answer her questions by agreeing that she does, in fact, deserve access to the same basic information that every other American has. As IzzyMom points out on her blog, adoptees are the only class of Americans who are not allowed to obtain their original birth certificates. While I can understand the reason for this when the adoptee is a minor, I can see no justification after an adopted child becomes an adult.

IzzyMom makes a very strong argument here:

I strongly disagree that one person’s wish to not know their child or remain anonymous can trump another person’s right to their identity. – IzzyMom at What About MY Rights?

I have no rebuttal for this. Even if an adult adoptee has access to her history, the birthparents can still choose whether or not to have a relationship with her. Also, as IzzyMom points out on her blog, most birthmothers that I have met want access to information about their birth children. Considering both adoptees and birthparents want access to these records, why do these records continue to stay closed once the adoptee becomes an adult?

Now, here comes the part that directly applies to adoptive parents:

As noted, I understand that when closed adoptions were the norm and required by law, it was, out of ignorance, thought to be the best decision for all parties concerned but times have changed. Frankly, I don’t think that it was EVER the best decision for the adoptees. We were just babies. We had nobody to speak for us. – IzzyMom at What About MY Rights?

Yes, adoptees do have somebody to speak for them: They have us – their adoptive parents. We are the adults who chose to adopt them, and we have a voice when our children do not. We can use our voices to advocate for changes in the laws that affect our children.

We adoptive parents need to listen to what our children are telling us. For those of us with young children, we need to listen to what adult adoptees are telling us because they have been where our children are going. I do not want my son posting a similar message on his blog when he is an adult. I don't want him to be frustrated at being denied the basic right of access to his history. At age six, he has no power, but as an adult, I do.

Some of the adoptive parents reading this post might have adopted their children out of bad situations, such as abusive homes. I believe that even those children have a right to access information about their histories after they become adults. As adults, they can make the decision about whether meeting an abusive birthparent is a good idea: This decision should not be made for them.

As you can see in the related topics section below, there is definitely a movement toward opening adoption records. We adoptive parents need to throw our support wherever we can to make this a reality for our children.

Related Topics:

• Newspaper fights to Open Records



• Birth Mother Privacy - A Myth or Reality?



• Birth Mothers Push for Change



• Let's Talk Solutions! - Part 1 - Open Records

Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt