Dear Editor,
The editorial in this Sunday's Tacoma Tribune "Adoption privacy must be honored" does nothing to address the fact that archaic sealed records laws perpetuate shame in adoption and violate adult adoptee civil rights.
The government has no business upholding laws which allegedly "protect" birthparents from what may or may not have been an embarrassing incident in their past. Whether or not a non-criminal citizen chooses to associate with any other citizen is a matter of choice and must not be legislated. It's called freedom of association and it's explicitly protected in the U.S. Constitution.
A recent federal appellate court ruling in Tennessee upholds an adoptee's right to personal government documents and debunks the notion of sacred birthparent "privacy."
"State adoption procedures have never promised total confidentiality to birth parents. This fact is reflected by the absence of references to confidentiality in the forms that birth mothers signed under the former statutory scheme to surrender their parental rights."
(1997 FED App. 0051P (6th Cir))
and
"We note our skepticism that information concerning a birth might be protected from disclosure by the Constitution. A birth is simultaneously an intimate occasion and a public event--the government has long kept records of when, where, and by whom babies are born. Such records have myriad purposes, such as furthering the interest of children in knowing the circumstances of their birth."
(1997 FED App. 0051P (6th Cir))
It's time to grant adult adopted people the same rights to personal government documents as all other non-criminal citizens. Many people were inconvenienced and embarrassed when women, African-Americans and disabled people were finally granted equal rights under the law. Harping on the presumed shame of "illegitimate" birth is not a reason to deny civil rights.
Sincerely,
Damsel Plum
San Rafael
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