It's high time adoptees had a voice, Old Greenwich woman says

Editor's note: This is one in an ongoing series of posts spotlighting support for our continued effort to provide adult adoptees born in Connecticut access to their original birth certificates. The testimony featured in this series was submitted to the state Legislature earlier this year in support of proposed legislation that would have restored the right of adult adoptees adopted before Oct. 1, 1983, to access their original birth certificate. (Post-1983 adoptees had this right restored in 2014.) The letters are published with the authors' permission. Sign up for our newsletter at www.accessconnecticut.org if you want to help us end discrimination against adoptees.

Hello:

I'm writing to urge passage of Senate Bill 977 restoring the right of all Connecticut-born adoptees to
access their true, original birth certificates.

I am an Old Greenwich resident and New York-born adoptee, but my story matches those of adoptees
born here in Connecticut.

When I tell people I’m a twice-reunited adoptee writing a book based on interviews about what it means to
be adopted, they often ask questions about my journey and what I’ve learned from talking with other
adoptees.

A new acquaintance went in a different direction recently launching into a passionate story about her
friend, an adoptee and adoptive mother who firmly believes closed adoptions are best, and that it is better
for an adoptee to have no information about her origins.

Have I come across other adoptees who feel this way? she wanted to know.

I assured her that I haven’t, that of the 89 adoptees I’ve interviewed to date, none of them has expressed
that opinion.

She had more to say about her friend’s point of view, but I confess I didn’t hear it. I had by then painted a
smile on my face and waited impatiently for her to finish her diatribe. Her tone was a self-righteous, and
she was oblivious to how dismissive and uninformed she sounded.

It’s not the first time I’ve encountered someone like this. After all, this point of view is legislated due to
archaic closed records laws like the ones in place in Connecticut. Had I not been at a friend’s home for a
social gathering, I would have taken time to explain that for millions of us, closed adoption has equaled an
inescapable lifetime of confusion, dissonance and angst. Living as secrets marginalizes us and affects
our self-esteem and how we interact with others. As a result of closed records we are second-class
citizens cut off from basic details about our identities, including potentially live-saving medical information.

Despite the increased interest in genealogy, the proliferation of shows like "Find My Family" and
countless social media posts by adoptees and birth parents looking to find each other, we adoptees just
can’t seem to shake the common notion that adoption is rainbows and unicorns. No one ever bothers to
ask us what we think.Instead, somehow society thinks “adoptee” equals “child” and that we continue to
need adults to speak for us.

But those of us adopted in the era of closed records are not children any more. It’s high time we had a
voice. The so-called "privacy" afforded me and my fellow adopted citizens by denying me access to my
original birth certificate is, in fact, a life sentence of pain. Current law treats me -- and my daughter, by
extension -- as a second-class citizen. In the eye of the law I am always less than, always "other."

And throughout my lifetime, the lack of truth has affected me in countless ways

•  in my relationships with others
•  in my view of myself
•  in my ability to obtain thorough medical care
•  in my efforts to obtain proper medical care for my 21-year-old daughter -- and years from now for

her children and grandchildren

Every single time I visit a new doctor, I have had to leave half the forms blank. While much of the rest of
the world takes precautions against heart disease or cancer, I can only wait and see.

The same is true when my daughter seeks medical care.

Imagine what it's like to be a blank slate, no idea of your true ethnicity or other basic details about
yourself.

Trying to learn my medical history, ethnicity, family history and other key things about myself has required
me to become an amateur sleuth. And even now that after years of searching I've found both birth
parents, closed records laws prevent me from full validation -- I still can't see my original birth certificate.

And for all this, society says I am to be grateful, glad to be chosen. Ridiculous isn't it?

It's time the old law is stricken and we adoptees achieve equality. It's time for ALL adult adoptees to have
access to their original birth certificates, and the bill should be both retroactive and prospective.

Thank you for your consideration.

Terri S. Vanech