Category Archives: Rudy Owens

Michigan Vital Records likely violates state adoption laws forcing extra court orders

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) has received my request I filed on August 13, 2023, for two additional copies of my original birth record.

To date the Vital Records office that handles these requests has not replied to me after more than three weeks after having cashed my check for the records on August 22, 0224.

However, it appears MDHHS and the Third Circuit Court of Detroit are coordinating my request, even though the court has no need to involved, as it issued me a court order already in June 2016 to force MDHHS to release copies of my original birth record. That court order has no time limit or other conditions for an adoptee to get additional future copies of their original birth certificate, as that statute is written.

Because this is an important policy issue impacting many adoptees in Michigan and other states, I am documenting this publicly.

I published my second video on this topic on August 27, 2024.

By doing this I am showing how Michigan’s public health office, MDHHS, manages vital records requests by adult adoptees, specifically those who have already secured a legal court order forcing the state to release a copy of an adoptee’s original birth certificate without any barrier such as requests for additional court orders for duplicate copies.

The Third Circuit Court in Detroit also has a unique role with adoptee birth record cases in Michigan because it handles adoptees’ request for court orders for the many thousands of adoptees born in Detroit, especially at Crittenton General Hospital.

This was one of the largest maternity hospitals and adoption mills in U.S. history that handled thousands of adoptions between 1933 and 1974, when it closed.

This court played a key role in my effort to get my birth record held improperly for decades, even after I had met my birth kin and my mother had sent in a signed consent form to release my birth certificate in 1989. The court sided with me in late June 2016 to compel MDHSS to unseal my original birth certificate 27 years after I found my birth parents.

I contacted the clerk at the court, after I had mailed in my request for two more copies of my original birth records, as a courtesy matter in case I might encounter delays “bureaucratic snafus” at MDHHS—an agency with a reputation for denying Michigan adoptees any assistance in managing record requests, intentionally. I knew MDHH might not issue additional copies of my birth record.

A clerk at the court told me by phone and through email correspondence that I would have to get another court order to get additional copies of my original vital record, even though this is not required by law. (See my video I published on this on August 15, 2024.)  

Yet, no provision exists in law requiring that.

MDHHS’s decision to not reply to my request for rush order service, I believe, is intentional to prevent legal accountability.

The law is clear, however.

The actions that MDHHS is taking now, through the court, is beyond the scope of state law, and they are denying basic legal rights to Michigan-born adoptees illegally by actions to me and others for what I have heard is now years.

The clerk I am working with is thoughtful, and I think their staff just want me to get my original birth record copies without grief. MDHHS, by forcing me to get another court order, is continuing to establish legal precedent for treatment of all Michigan born adoptees not defined in statute or even public communications. They seek additional power that is not written into law, and it  is a harmful legal precedent for this agency to enforce.

Also, MDHHS knows who I am. They have a file on me, and I know this because I’ve read emails where I have been discussed by their officials.

I published those public records in my book, You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are, and online. They also know I have now been covered multiple times by Michigan Radio discussing the injustice of current adoption laws in Michigan denying thousands of adoptees basic human rights.

Once I get news on my latest court order request I will publish more videos documenting what to date is continued denial of basic legal rights and a violation of state law by the state agency that holds vital records for Michigan adoptees.

Will Michigan comply with state law and release additional copies of an adoptee’s original birth certificate?

On August 13, 2024, I submitted a request to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS), with a $62 check, to obtain duplicate copies of my original birth record.

I had to wait 27 years for the vital record to be provided to me in July 2016, after I had provided a signed consent form by my birth mother to release my vital records in 1989. The state and MDHHS only released it after a protracted legal battle that ended with a circuit court in Detroit ordering the state to release my original record of birth.

I am very aware of how this historically anti-adoptee state public health and health agency will likely respond to me as an adoptee. I am simply requesting records provided to all persons but adoptees as a matter of courteous government service with minimal state fees. But I expect this will not be courteous or in compliance with statute. MDHHS has a record of hostile behavior to Michigan-born adoptees, which I have documented now for years.

So I am documenting the process by video and other means to provide a public record of my activity. My goal is to highlight issues of denied legal rights to all adoptees and the discriminatory treatment millions of them face through basic civil processes that should be fulfilled as a basic government service: providing a vital record.

MDHHS provides no public information stating only one copy of a record can be released.
• www.michigan.gov/mdhhs/faq/adoption/can-the-adult-adoptee-obtain-a-copy-of-the-original-birth-certificate
• www.michigan.gov/mdhhs/adult-child-serv/adoption/adoption-faqs

There are several relevant Michigan statutes that set out adoption laws relevant to issues facing adoptees of my generation: 710, 333, 368. None establishes any conditions to deny the release of more than one original birth certificate to someone such as myself who provided a court order already. In fact, the statute states here, § 333.2882 does simply state, the original birth certificate is accessible “upon a court order.” I met this condition with the order already sent to MDHHS in June 2016, forcing it to send me a copy of my original birth certificate. I re-sent MDHHS on August 13, 2024, what I sent earlier in June 2016 and a copy of my vital record it sent me in July 2016 to prove it has already released the record before.

I have already learned from one of my trusted public contacts familiar with state adoption processes that I can expect MDHHS to reject my request, even though there is no law that would allow that.

I will provide additional videos later to document the outcome of what could be another useless fight that only signals that adoptees remain second-class humans subjected to decades-long legal discrimination entirely because of their adoptee status.

See my website for more details about Michigan’s nearly impossible barriers for adoptees to access their original vital records.

How the memories all come back with the cards and letters

Greenland postcard I bought in Qaqortoq in July 1999 and sent to my bio-mom. The postcard shows a work from B. Christensen, “Kajakman foran isfjeld.”

My bio-cousin, from my birth mother’s family, just sent me a large batch of letters I had sent to my now-departed bio-mom many, many years ago.

She passed away earlier this year, and he was still cleaning up the remaining items not thrown away. In this batch of past correspondence, all written by my hand, I saw lots of postcards. This postcard is from 25 years ago. She must have tossed what I had sent later, but I have no way to know this.

The stack of long-ago written cards and letters provides a fascinating look into my thoughts and my relationship with this person who was both a stranger and my closest biological relative I was able to get to know after I found my biological families and kin in 1989.

I still send postcards to people I care about. That part of my life and personality has not changed. A postcard provides just enough space to share a deeply personal note about your life and what you are observing and experiencing.

I particularly liked this postcard I had purchased in the Greenlandic city of Qaqortoq in 1999, on one of three trips I took to Greenland between 1998 and 2000.

It brings back a lot of memories.

Those are thoughts of a complex relationship with my late and closest biological kin I only found later in life as a 24-year old-man and what that means to me. They are also recollections of this time in my life when I had very little money. What I had was a lot more derring-do to live life to the fullest and learn first-hand from faraway places that had something to teach me.

Death finally takes my birth mother, did you come to gawk at the photo?

Rudy Owens took this photograph of his birth mother in 2009; what do you see and why are you looking at it now?

The entire time I have communicated about my history as an adoptee and the widespread denial of basic human and legal rights to all adoptees, I held a line.

That demarcation point, for me, represented a conscious act of power and an act of defiance.

Until today, April 27, 2024, I have never publicly published a photograph of my closest biological family relative that showed their face.

Here it is. Are you amused? Do you care?

On a few occasions I published very old pictures of my biological grandparents, on my maternal and paternal family sides. These are so buried in my archive, they are likely impossible to find. These photos are also old, and they are more like museum artifacts than documentation of blood lineage.

But now I have arrived at a new destination, because the Angel of Death arrived late this week.

In fact, I started writing this essay when my birth mother* was among the living, a day before her passing. Now she is among the dead, having died in a Michigan hospital this week after a long declining trajectory to death’s final clutches.

SEE COMPLETE ESSAY ON THIS WEBPAGE.

When the sirens call, you must respond

This week, I thought more deeply about mythology and finding magic. I realized both will be topics in a book I have decided I need to publish about an amazing year of exploration, discovery, and finding “my home” in one of my ancestral countries, Finland. All told, I’ve published nearly 20 essays since early 2023 on my connections to this Nordic country, as well as hundreds of photographs.

In my essay I wrote this past week about what I learned during this time, I reflected on the role of myth in my life and this latest, happy chapter. I described how knowing the power of myth gave me a power to overcome the nation’s discriminatory legal system that denied me my legal rights to know my identity and kin.

“In fact, understanding myth and my adoption story gave me what I consider to be a tactical advantage compared to other adoptees who start their journeys for self-awareness far later in life. I was in a totally different place because I already had deep knowledge of myth’s meaning to the human experience because I read countless books on myths as a young person and learned the stories of the Bible in church every Sunday.”

I had a lot of great conversations with some friends, and I came up with a working title for now of this new book: “When the Sirens Call: Finding ‘my Home’ in Finland.” I wanted to make a public statement, by video, to keep the fire under my feet to honor this promise. I also quote the great thinker and author of a book exploring myth, Joseph Campbell, who also talks about “finding one’s bliss.” It’s has nothing to do with cheap, New Age gimmicks from guru hucksters. It’s akin to wisdom shared by other wise thinkers, like Viktor Frankl.  

Campbell noted: “If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life you ought to be living is the one you’re living somehow. And when you can see it, you begin to deal with people who are in your field of your bliss, and they open doors to you.”

This was perfectly true for me on my journey “home” to Finland. More will be coming later. Remember, when you hear the sirens, you must listen and you must respond. That is life calling you!