Claiming Our Birthright
The Bioethics Bulletins
Jackie Schmidt, Search Consultant, Parent Finders
Edmonton, Alberta
1995

When compared to those held 40-50 years ago, societal values have shifted to support the rights of adoptees to access information about their biological backgrounds. This was clearly evidenced when the Alberta Government held Public Hearings on "Access to Adoption Information" in the Fall of 1993. The 21 hearings held throughout Alberta showed overwhelming support by approximately 88% of those in attendance to open the adoption records. The supporters felt that adult adoptees, adoptive parents, and birth parents should all have access to the identifying information held in "sealed" adoption files.

The arguments favouring access to adoption file information centre around the "contract," birthrights, and "validation of beingness." The "contract," better known as the "Adoption Order," has long been a thorny issue for adoptees who never agreed to this legally binding document which forever severed their biological connections. Who in their right mind would agree to wipe out their own past so completely? It is no wonder then, that adoptees feel it is their right to access information about themselves, given that they had no say in the decision to excise their pasts. Unlike the non-adopted, the adoptee can never go to a Vital Statistic office and obtain their long form birth certificate. The original document is in a sealed file and the only birth certificate they can obtain is a "legal forgery" - yet another reminder that their rights are being infringed upon.

Basic birthrights for every child are included in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Article 8 ensures: "... respect [for] the right of the child to preserve his or her identity, including nationality, name and family relations... without unlawful interference." Many adoptees are made to feel that "the child" excludes "adopted child."

This brings us to the next argument - validation of beingness. Every piece of Welfare Legislation states that upon adoption "the child ceases to be the child of its biological parents, and becomes the child of the adoptive parents." How can a child cease to be a child of its biological family? Biologically, it is impossible - but legally, it is possible. It is very difficult for adoptees to acknowledge beingness when all their biological history has been legally severed. Most adoptees, at some time in their lives, suffer feelings of alienation, abandonment, and emptiness, all because a part of themselves is missing - the biological connection. These feelings have been called the "Primal Wound" by adoption therapist and clinical psychologist Nancy Newton Verrier. A feeling of not being able to adapt to change, attachment and bonding difficulties, low self-esteem, emptiness, and being a perpetual "child" are all effects of this early separation from the birth mother. To resolve their feelings, those affected by the Primal Wound must know more about themselves - and that can only be accomplished by accessing their biological information and/or meeting their birth families. Reunion with the biological family is a bonus, but reunion relationships are not always possible. Even if an adoptee is rejected by the birth family, having the information is still better than not knowing anything at all.

There is a popular myth regarding adoption: A poor woman could not keep her child; this poor child would have no family; a poor family could not have children of their own; and adoption solved all three problems at once. Society has been "myth-led." Adoption was instituted to protect children, not adoptive parents, and not birth parents. The stigma of illegitimacy and bastardness was not to be conferred on any child, and adoption was supposed to remedy that by keeping the "best interest of the child" at the forefront. Protecting the child was such a concern, that no thought was given to that child becoming an adult someday, and wanting to know about his or her history, roots, and heritage. Society is at last recognizing that "best interest" consideration should have included allowing access to identifying biological information to adult adoptees.

Today more and more private adoptions are arranged as "open adoptions," where the adopting family and birth family know each other and maintain contact with each other as the child grows up. This makes the strain of surrendering a child easier to accept for the birth mother, eases the adoptive parents' concerns about their child's background, and leaves a door opened, rather than locked, for the adoptee to access information in the future.

We are seeing results from pressure being put on provincial governments across Canada. At last, slow changes are making access to identifying information possible on closed adoptions. The argument of verbal promises of anonymity made to birth mothers is being outweighed by moral obligations to allow adoptees access to the biological information as a birthright. The governments of the 90's are finally starting to consider their obligations to the "best interest of the adoptees" - that is to provide them with the key to their futures by unlocking their pasts.

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