Adoptee rights advocacy, one communication at a time

During the last several years, when I began to research and write my memoir and critical examination of U.S. adoption, I have taken time from my larger goal of publishing my work and advocated on behalf of adoptees.

Some of this involves contacting researchers directly who have published papers that present misinformation on the U.S. adoption experience or who have lobbied to seal adoptee records for decades. I see this as part of my larger mission, tied to my vision and goals in publishing my story on adoptee rights and adoption.

Often adoptees are invisible, like Claude Rains in the 1933 horror/sci-fi classic, The Invisible Man, when the self-named adoption experts decide what information is relevant and who gets to speak on the issue of adoption.

Last night while preparing for an upcoming talk, I found a list of adoption resources published by the National Center for State Courts. It lacked any sources concerning how the majority of states deny millions of adoptees basic equal and human rights. It also failed to list some of the most credible research and data from adoptee rights groups, who lobby daily on this area of legal bias in our state legal systems.

When I write letters to groups or persons who omit adoptees’ stories, data, and daily legal issues, I always try to do a couple of things:

• First, I let them know how their material is either inaccurate or biased.
• Second, I provide resources that they can use to self-educate or even correct published misinformation.

I know many people and groups I have contacted have no intention of changing their perspectives, particularly on the emotional issue of adoptee rights. But it’s important to call out influencers and policy-makers and hold them to account for misinformation that, in the end, can harm adoptees, often knowingly and unintentionally.

Here is the letter I sent today to the lawyer who manages the website that lists adoption law resources for U.S. court experts who work on adoption issues. I challenged Deborah Smith (JD), the lawyer who manages this list, to explain why adoptee rights groups are not listed and to list three resources that provide real-time information that is useful for millions of adoptees and the legal and other professionals who manage the ongoing adoption system.

National Center for State Courts
Attention: Deborah Smith

Ms. Smith. My name is Rudy Owens. I’m both an adoptee and public health professional. I found your page last night on the National Center for State Courts while researching adoption-related topics.

I noticed that your website does not list any resources published by groups who represent the policy perspectives of adult adoptees—the group most impacted by the U.S. adoption system.

This seems to be a major oversight, given that adoptees number well over 5 million Americans, and yet your online list can’t find space for their perspective and data on critical public policy issues, such as the denial of basic equal rights in the release of a person’s critical identity documents.

Can you let me know why well-researched adoptee rights sites aren’t listed? (FYI, the now-defunct Donaldson Adoption Institute that is listed was never an adoptee rights organization, though it did publish some research on topics in that field.)

This seems more than an oversight, given some groups, like Bastard Nation, have advocated in the policy arena for more than two decades and have lobbied for and won substantive legislative change that created legal equality for the group most impacted by adoption: the adoptee. For instance, they helped to pass Measure 58 in Oregon that granted adoptees equal rights to Oregon-born adoptees in accessing their birth records in 1998.

If you are willing to list and validate overtly religious and pro-life groups like the NCFA, which has been one of the staunchest advocates for sealing birth records in nearly every state in the USA, it seems only balanced and fair you would include legitimate sources of data on the lives of the Americans who are affected daily by restrictive and discriminatory adoption records laws in most U.S. states.

Here are three excellent and data-driven sources you can add:

• Bastard Nation: It is one of the nation’s most effective civil-rights and adoptee-rights groups that is committed to ensuring all adoptees are treated equally by law. They have real-time legislative updates and detailed policy analyses of adoption issues representing the interests of millions of adoptees who are denied equal treatment by law in most U.S. states.
• Adoptee Right Law Center: It provides a comprehensive analysis of every state’s adoption and birth records access laws, policy analysis of adoptee-rights issues, and updates in real time of current legislative debates in state legislatures.
• American Adoption Congress: It is the nation’s old adoptee rights/issues organization. It publishes data on state legislative issues, statistics, and other policy news concerning the many issues impacting adoptees.

If you are not yet familiar with the issue of adoptee rights, I have provided some resources on my website to help. My book is being published this month on the American adoption system as a public health  and legal rights issue. Visit my book website and many resources on it at: www.howluckyuare.com.

Thanks. I look forward to your reply. You are also welcome to call.