Birth Certificates

Welcome Fellow Intellectuals in the United States & Around the World!


Q U I C K   O B S E R V A T I O N :   #11


Because adoption is THE MOST MISUNDERSTOOD SUBJECT IN THE WHOLE, WIDE, WORLD, we are devoting the first half of this page to explaining what is coming on the second half of this page.

On the second half of this page, you will find a clever, and entertaining, article written by Rich Uhrlaub. In his article, he makes an analogy, a comparison, between 2 civil and human rights of the greatest, and freest, country in the world. One civil right - human right has been valued since 1920. The other civil right - human right still has no value whatsoever and is not respected and honored and protected in a free America:
  • The right of women to vote [ honored & protected ]
                          &
  • The right of adopted people to get their original birth certificates [ not the changed-version birth certificates that are made up to make adoptive parents feel good ] [ not yet! ]

*    *    *

===>   Did you know that in the United States of America, the freest and greatest country in the world, women only got their right to vote in political elections on August 18, 1920?

===>   Did you know that in the United States of America, the freest and greatest country in the world, adopted people are NOT ALLOWED to know who they are? THE STATE hides their private information [ their original birth certificates ] from them. This is the same information that every other U.S. citizen is ALLOWED to have.

===>   Did you know that emotionally-healthy adopted people want to know who they are? Wow! Really?

For those of you who are not aware
[ which is just about everybody ]
about the desire of adopted people
to obtain their original birth certificates,
 [ those birth certificates that were printed before adopted people were adopted by strangers ],
we have listed the following facts to help you understand Rich Uhrlaub's article below.
 
You know, those birth certificates that every other U. S. citizen takes for granted!
Yes, adopted people had families before they were adopted! Really? Gee whillikers!
Yeeahhhh, adopted people were once born! Wow? Really? Golly! How about that!?
Geeeee whiz!

T H E    F A C T S :
  • YES, ADOPTED PEOPLE WERE BORN, ONCE UPON A TIME! Woooow! Is that right? Naaawwww!
  • Human beings get birth certificates when they are born! Wow! Really? After children are adopted by strangers, these birth certificates are hidden by THE STATE and they get new birth certificates! Yaaaay!
  • Except for 6 or 7 of the 50 states in the United States of America, all the other states hide the original birth certificates of adopted people. Aaaawww!
  • Even if adopted people are 80 years old and sick, these adopted adults are not allowed to see their birth information which is on their original birth certificates! They go to their graves not knowing who they really are! No way!? Disgusting!
  • Adopted people get new birth certificates when they are adopted called AMENDED birth certificates. Yaaaay! Amended means changed. [ WTF!? ]
  • The amended birth certificate says that the adoptive mother literally gave birth to the adopted person. [ WTF!? Really? ]
  • Is the name of the real hospital in which the adoptee was born listed on the "new and improved" birth certificate? [ If it is, that doesn't jibe! The adoptive mother wasn't admitted to that hospital yet it says that she gave birth to the adopted person. ] Or, is the name of the adoptive mother's hospital on the birth certificate, when she had a kidney operation, for example? The adoptive mother wasn't in any hospital for a pregnancy! Which hospital name is on the new, amended, birth certificate? Ah! Ooooh! Yeah, the web gets pretty complicated! The plot thickens!
  • Basic God-given facts about adopted people that every other citizen takes for granted are hidden from adopted people by THE STATE. Is that as in totalitarian state? That's scary!
  • 6 or 7 STATES will put adopted people through various silly, INSULTING, and oppressive CALISTHENICS, or compromises, or contortions, before giving adopted people their rightful information. If you do these couple tricks, like stand on your head, or stand on your hind legs and get the cookie like a dog, WE will then give you your birth certificates. If you prove yourself, then, well, just perhaps, we'll let ya' have YOUR original birth certificate! Yaaaay!
  • The adopted person is expected to forever be "an adopted child." Aaaaaw! Shucks? Swear to God? We actually call adults that nomenclature! No way! Wow? That's pretty insulting!
  • The adopted person is expected to be consummately and overly grateful for having been separated from his God-given family and then adopted by strangers! Adopted adults must show great gratitude, and great reverence, for being taken in! Yes! Absolutely! In point of fact, adopted people must show undying gratitude for even being alive!!! Yaaaay! Naaawww!?
  • What puzzles us the most? [ It doesn't really puzzle us at all - we really understand perfectly! ] The lack of support and encouragement that many adopters give to the children they have adopted, and purport to love, makes any reasonable and empathic person cringe! What kind of people adopt children? What kind of people would deny their children knowledge about who they are? If any of us at "Watching The Watchers" had adopted children, we would be the first ones to take our adopted sons and daughters to see where the heck they came from and who they are! We would shower them with this vital information and throw a humungous party to celebrate their origins. We would highly encourage our adopted sons and daughters to build relationships with their lost relatives! We would insist on it! We would help them build relationships with the families of our adopted sons and daughters. We would want to be friends, too. We wouldn't make our kids feel guilty for reveling in their private info! But, then, that's us. We're honorable. To make your adopted children feel disloyal and guilty for wanting to know vital information about themselves is UNCONSCIONABLE!!! To make the child you purport to love an amputee is, well, there-simply-are-no-adjectives in the English language! We hesitate to even say it's juvenile, for fear of offending our sharp and savvy young people!

[ As you read the following commentary by Rich Uhrlaub,
please substitute in your mind the phrase
"women can vote"
with
"adoptees can get their REAL birth certificates." ]

~ the above sarcasm was written by the crew of "Watching The Watchers" ~

 ~ below: the very insightful and entertaining author, Rich Uhrlaub,
has generously given us permission to publish his thoughts about
how adopted people have to beg for their REAL birth certificates - their identities!
And this begging is only allowed in 6 or 7 states in America!
The other states of the United States of America give no birth info whatsoever to adoptees!
Below readers will see the insulting hoops that adopted people must jump through
to get their original birth certificates ~
~  ~  ~

Adult Adoptee Access to Birth Identity
is like
The Right to Vote

by Rich Uhrlaub

What if the debate over access to original birth certificates was examined in the context of another great civil rights movement - specifically the early 20th century battle to give women the right to vote? Picture yourself as a fierce advocate for women's suffrage who was offered any of the following compromises.
  1. Women will be given the right to vote, but only if they are born after the effective date of the new law.
  2. Women can vote, but only after demonstrating "good cause" to a court as to why they are worthy to do so.
  3. Women can vote, but first must undergo professional evaluations and counseling to determine if they are ready to handle the responsibilities and outcomes of voting, which can be a very emotional experience.
  4. Women can vote, but only if they hire a third party to obtain written permission from their husbands to do so. Since husbands married their wives under laws that denied women the right to vote, millions of men have lived for decades with that expectation. That implicit "promise" made to husbands trumps women's selfish desires to vote. Women should just be grateful to have good homes and husbands who didn't kill them.
     Do these ideas sound like equal human and civil rights to you?

     As with the right to vote, not every adoptee chooses to exercise the human and civil right to find their identity, and the outcome may or may not be what an adoptee hoped for.

     BUT - no one should be denied the right to [ equal ] access to their ancestry and original birth identity!
* Rich Uhrlaub, M.Ed. :
  • is a member of the American Adoption Congress' [ AAC ] Legislative Commitee
  • is a member of the 2012 AAC Conference Committee.
  • serves as Coordinator for Adoptees in Search, Colorado's Triad Connection
  • is a contributing author of Finding Our Place: 100 Memorable Adoptees, Fostered Persons, and Orphanage Alumni [  Greenwood Press, 2010 ]
  • is a contributing author of Adoption and Mothering [ Demeter Press, Fall 2011 ]
  • Feel free to click on "Connect/Contact Us" and email Rich directly through the website www.aisctc.org where many resources are provided.

~  ~  ~

Since adoption is THE MOST MISUNDERSTOOD SUBJECT IN THE WORLD, the "Watching The Watchers" crew would like to volunteer the following Additional Explanations! It's a tough subject for the fledgling newcomer and we just don't think people get it! We don't believe people understand the injustice of the whole "hiding of birth certificates" conspiracy:


* Explanation of #1: In one state, i.e., an adopted person born before February 1, 1964, can get his [ her ] original birth certificate; but, an adoptee born after February 1, 1964, in the same state cannot get his [ her ] original birth certificate. Oops, too bad, you were born one day late. Sorry, no birth certificate for you? You shouldda' been born a day earlier! [ Just how moronic are we in the United States of America? The world is laughing at us! The scenario reminds us of those cute commercials about Ally Bank in which children keep getting the runaround; you can find them by Googling "Ally Bank Commercials." Enjoy! ]

* Explanation of #2: In another state, i.e., an adult adoptee has to go to court and tell the judge why he [ she ] wants his [ her ] real birth certificate. The greatest and freest country in the world treats its adults like children, "Let me go ask my mommy and daddy if I can see who I am."

* Explanation of #3: In yet another state, i.e., an adopted person must go to a shrink to see if it's ok to give the adopted person his [ her ] own personal and private original birth certificate. How insulting is that!? As if wanting to know who you are is a mental illness? You can't handle the truth! [ Jack Nicholson's famous line in that movie. A Few Good Men? ]

* Explanation of #4: In yet another state, i.e., an adopted person must have a go-between - a person who will contact the natural mother, the first mother, of the adopted person to see if it's ok to give her lost 40 or 55 year-old son [ daughter ] the first mother's name. The people in power say that they can't give adopted people their original birth certificates because decades ago, at the time of said adoptions, their first mothers were promised that the mothers' names would be kept a secret. This is absolutely not true! This is just an excuse to protect the powerful people! These hiders of "information that doesn't belong to them" aren't nice people; they're afraid that the adoption business, the adoption industry, would dwindle if people knew how crooked and coercive it is. Mothers were never promised CONFIDENTIALITY at the time the child was given away! We have yet to find ONE mother that was promised confidentiality when her child was lost to adoption! Confidentiality means that the names of the mothers [ who lose their children via adoption ] would be kept confidential - a secret. After awhile, all these calisthenics, besides being insulting to the hilt, would be comical if they weren't so sad and disgusting!!! [ When we say the natural mother, we mean, you know, the mother that Nature intended the adopted person to be with. Remember her? ]

You
better
stop
messin'
with
Mother Nature!


* A D D E N D U M 

Via this blogcast, the crew at "Watching The Watchers," attempts to paint a complete picture for our readers about issues of the day.

After publication of this post, we received a generous update from Rich Uhrlaub to further help our readers see the big picture of closed birth records of adopted people:
  • Virtually every state with sealed birth records (that Rich is aware of) has a provision for access to records upon demonstration of 'good cause.' 
  • A court's willingness to find good cause may be another matter.
  • A number of states (perhaps 8 or 9) have *confidential intermediary [ ci ] laws on their books now.
  • Some states report up to a *90% consent rate from natural mothers who are found. [This means that 90% of mothers say it's ok to give their lost children the names of the mothers; they want to be found by their lost kids. ]
  • Colorado's consent rate from natural mothers is around 75-85% depending on the year. 
  • Of course, consent to contact is a separate issue from equal rights.
*  A confidential intermediary is a person who, today, in 2011, finds and contacts the natural mother who lost her child to adoption decades earlier, and asks her, "Do we have your 'consent to contact'? Do we have your permission?" In other words, "Is it ok to give your identity, your name, and address, to your lost child who was adopted by strangers decades earlier. Your child wants to contact you. Do we have your consent? Do we have your permission?"

* A few natural mothers who have lost children to adoption decades earlier don't give permission to the confidential intermediary, "Do not tell my lost son who I am." Why would a mother not want to meet her lost son or daughter? At "Watching The Watchers," we believe the following are some reasons why a mother would not want to reconnect with her child:
  • UNRESOLVED, BURIED GRIEF: Mothers who lose children to adoption may have stuffed, or buried, the feelings of loss and grief so deep within their subconscious that they say, "No, I don't want to be found. Don't give my name to my child." The pain of loss is so huge that to feel it, again, would be too much for some mothers to bear.
  • FEAR OF ANOTHER OSTRACISM: Mothers who lost children to adoption in the 20th century could fear being rejected, ostracized, by their lost children, much the same way they were rejected, ostracized, by their society decades earlier for daring to give birth to a Gift while unmarried. Meeting and, then, being rejected by their lost children would just be too much to bear for some moms. They simply cannot entertain the idea of being ostracized a second time.
  • LOW SELF-ESTEEM: Perhaps the Lives of some natural mothers did not turn out well [having had to function as amputees - cut off from their children ]? The natural mothers of adopted people might fear being compared to the adoptive parents and, then, rejected a second time. The thought of a second rejection is simply too much to bear - the first time by their society, the second time by their children.
  • UNWORTHY OF THEIR CHILDREN: The damage of separation runs deep! Some mothers might still feel unworthy of their children - since the shame and unworthiness was so inbred into their psyche when they were coerced into giving their children for adoption. Making the mom feel like she's unworthy of her child is one of the tricks by which children are finagled from vulnerable moms - much the way Dr. Phil tries to talk vulnerable single moms [ and their families ] into considering adoption for their children. He even connects the vulnerable with adoption agencies. Why doesn't Dr. Phil connect these vulnerable moms to agencies that will help keep their families together?
These are not reasons to give up, though. With counseling and support, often these mothers might later say to the confidential intermediary, "Yes, ok, I'm ready now, you have my permission to give my info to my lost son."

* Just for the record:

At "Watching The Watchers," we believe that a go-between - a confidential intermediary - disempowers the adopted person and the complete natural family. It's not a respectful practice! We believe that people must be given the respect to find their own way in Life, in their own time! Don't take away their power! As if they are little children! They are adults! A little respect, please!

We are for the empowerment of families and individuals, at all costs! We view a go-between of any kind, including private investigators, as being emotionally incestuous - being in private family business where strangers don't belong!

Also, let's say the first meeting of said people doesn't go well, at least the participants will have seen, and talked to, each other ONCE!

NO ONE, not mother, nor father,... and certainly not the government, has the right to prevent any human being, adopted or not adopted, from personally knowing his, or her, ancestry! If you're uncomfortable, mom, too bad! Get help! It's out there. No more secrets!!! No more lies!

Additionally, we would like to make perfectly clear that no [ unmarried ] single mother whose infant was finagled from her by the adoption industry in the 20th century was ever promised confidentiality! It simply was not something that was ever discussed with any mother! That simply was not in the procedures manual of finagling infants for adoption. Adoption titans just assumed that because bearing a child out of wedlock was such a disgrace in the 20th century that mothers would naturally want to stay hidden!!! Or, risk OSTRACISM from society! And don't forget, adoption titans were very, very, much a part of that venomous, ostracizing, society! We wouldn't doubt that the adoption industry started the stigma against single motherhood! We challenge anyone, anywhere, all over the world, to find one document that guarantees the mother's name would be kept a secret - confidential!
Posted by Caleigh Brooks at 8/1/2011 10:31 AM
Categories: Quick Observations
 

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  • 8/2/2011 7:54 PM Von wrote:
    So very hard on the eyes!!!!!It seems in the world of adoption we are all 'fledgling newcomers' as there is much to know and many developments.
    Reply to this
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