‘Picking a target’ in 2023 to achieve lasting reform for Michigan-born adoptees

It’s now 2023. A new year has begun, and for thousands of Michigan-born adoptees like me, none are any closer to having their legal rights restored to their original birth certificates.

So this year, I am going to put the spotlight on this state’s leaders, especially Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who are failing to right a massive wrong that denies basic human rights to people only because of the status at birth.

First, it’s important to highlight my story navigating Michigan’s Byzantine system and how it embodies what’s broken with state adoption systems, where rights are denied to adult adoptees by law. Then I will outline why responsibility ultimately resides with Gov. Whitmer.

Decades of discrimination by the State of Michigan:

I have written a book about my experience battling the state for myself and on behalf of others like me, who have faced willful harm for decades because of systemic bias and prejudice by the state and because of ongoing failures of leadership at every level of government in Michigan: executive, legislative, judicial.

I encountered bias from each group throughout my three-decades long effort to secure the release of my original birth certificate in June 2016, 27 years after I had met my birth kin on both sides of my family. For the record, I consider the failure to reform outdated laws an act of willful neglect by all sitting lawmakers. This cannot be waived away by any saying, “I was not aware of that.” Today virtually everyone who reads any media source is aware of laws denying rights to adoptees in Michigan and in most other states.

This bias also remains baked into all levels of government when adoptees advocate for themselves to restore rights taken from them by the state and still denied to this day.

Part of my ongoing efforts to change this historic and ongoing injustice to countless thousands of persons is to maintain public awareness of my book on the U.S. adoption system, and how it unfolded in my birth state, Michigan. One of the country’s largest adoption hubs, Crittenton General Hospital, operated for decades in Detroit until it closed in 1974 and was torn down in 1975. We still have no publicly released data on the number of persons born and adopted out from there. The state of Michigan also has refused to release any data on the number of persons likely born at the hospital or how many persons have been born and then adopted in Michigan.

Michigan’s broken adoption bureaucracy:

As of today, adult adoptees, particularly those born during the boom adoption years (1945 and 1980) are, for all purposes, denied any legal right to access their original birth records. Without any changes, the majority of persons born in these years and who are now entering their elder years will die with their pasts hidden, by the force of law.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS), now led by Director Elizabeth Hertel, dedicates no resources to helping adoptees born in Michigan receive even basic customer service. There is one person managing issues relating to adoption records, Connie Stevens.

Stevens is an entirely inaccessible bureaucrat according to accounts I have learned over many years. According to reports shared with me, she has provided hostile relations and subpar government service over many years to anyone who has requested assistance, which is required even by Michigan’s overtly discriminatory adoption laws. This is well-documented in public records that can be accessed by anyone, including the media, with a simple information records request.

This ghost-like adoption bureaucrat wields immense power over adopted persons because of the MDHHS’s broken bureaucracy that relegates adoption matters to lower-level staff like her—a symptom of a failed system. In this case, the state has literally “handed the file” to her and tried to wipe its hands clean of responsibility to serve all residents, as mandated by the state constitution.

Despite her power over people’s critical vital records, Stevens maintains no public profile. She has, to my knowledge, never published her photograph, despite being a powerful public official that serves a large body of state residents entrusted to manage vital records.

What’s more, MDHHS does all it can to hide her presence, except by email (this is the last one I am aware of StevensC2@michigan.gov). All of these bureaucratic shortcomings reflect failure of leadership that leads to Director Hertel, and ultimately to the Governor’s Office.

A new year and a new advocacy focus:

With the new year upon us, I have decided the most effective way I can move the needle on reform that addresses historic wrongs is directing my advocacy in one clear direction.

This year, I am going to ensure that newly re-elected Democratic Gov. Whitmer is made repeatedly aware that thousands of Michigan adoptees, like me, are denied equal treatment by law and are dying out, never knowing their kin, their past, and their truth.

Compared to other issues being discussed in Michigan, adoptee rights are not on any agenda based on any media coverage I have read over the past year or more. What’s more, adoption remains uniquely bipartisan, with the MDHSS partnering with Michigan-based adoption promoter Bethany Christian Services as an official partner in promoting adoption statewide. The courts, including Michigan’s Supreme Court, also have promoted adoption.

Clearly, getting Gov. Whitmer to care about something she can conveniently ignore faces obvious obstacles.

As an advocate, I’m a sober realist. I’m not a celebrity with thousands of followers. I know my views on adoptee rights do not at times fit within the agendas of some groups advocating nationally for adoptee rights and for reforming this utterly broken system of separating families.

What’s more, I do not belong to any organized group, though I vigorously support the work of groups working for change at the state and congressional level.

I have no access to anyone with power, such as paid lobbyists in Lansing, who have speed-dial and person-to-person contact with Gov. Whitmer’s policy staff and state of legislative leadership, which controls all legislative bills that move through committees.

What’s more, the Michigan media mostly does not care about adoptee rights or even know that there are such issues. When I attempted repeatedly to reach out to members of the media in the past, I was either ignored or told to my face that the issues I was sharing didn’t matter to what they covered. (In 2018, and I was able to get two helpful interviews, including with the Michigan public radio station, which still mostly ignored issues of denied legal rights to adoptees born in Michigan.)

My most powerful weapon remains the moral truth that the status quo must change. It is also a potent weapon that exposes the weak flanks of elected officials like Gov. Whitmer.

This week, I plan to send Gov. Whitmer’s office a copy of my book documenting systemic failures of the MDHHS to serve Michigan-born adoptees. The office already has a copy of my book, which I sent to their adoption program manager in July 2020, without the courtesy of any reply.

Ultimately, Gov. Whitmer runs this ship:

• Gov. Whitmer directly manages MDHHS, which reports directly to her.
• Gov. Whitmer has full ownership over its operations.
• Gov. Whitmer is, ultimately, responsible for fixing its broken culture that fails thousands of state-born adoptees, and she could, if she wants, fire lower-level bureaucrats like MDHHS’s Stevens for failing to do their jobs.
• Gov. Whitmer also ultimately controls the legislative bill requests, including legislation that could attempt to reform the state’s outdated, discriminatory laws that deny adoptees equal treatment by law.

Getting on the agenda:

In the end, change in Michigan will require different forms of advocacy.

Advocacy has many shapes, at the individual, group, and state and national levels. Advocacy, however, is never rocket science.

In raw power dynamics in state settings, it means “getting on the agenda.” Right now, adoptee rights are not on the agenda of most states, including Michigan.

If there are legislative efforts underway in Lansing, I am not aware of them.

Regardless of adoptees’ priorities, adoptee rights in Michigan will become an issue only when Gov. Whitmer cares.

Until that time, adoptee rights will be sidelined and legal issues related to adoption laws will be controlled entirely by the power-brokers like Bethany Christian Services and likely other adoption promoters who profit from it in the public policy space in Michigan.

Only after Gov. Whitmer governor designates resources and publicly “names” this issue, nothing will move forward, including in the legislative bodies.

Yes, leadership always comes from the top.

Therefore, for adoptees like me who were harmed by the state’s ongoing system perpetuating legalized discrimination against what adoptee rights advocates call “class bastard,” we have one logical avenue to pursue reform. We can become the annoying, blood-sucking tsetse flies that swarm mercilessly around their hosts until they get the attention with stinging bites.

For my part, I will continue to name Gov. Whitmer when speaking about the need for legislative reform.

Gov. Whitmer needs to be named, and named again, until the long-ignored issues of adoptee rights are formally recognized in Michigan and then—finally—resolved with lasting and legal reform.

For those who are not a part of the small “in crowd”—yes this does exist in the small and sometimes peculiar adoptee rights world, which may even be crafting legislation now—here are things you can do. (For the record, there’s also an “out crowd” of adoptee rights “deformers” who work to set back the clock permanently and sign away rights in exchange for short term gain and narcissistic glory.)

• If you live in Michigan, make noise. Be that annoying tsetse fly for Gov. Whitmer and state lawmakers who cannot be ignored until your bites are so painful that you are acknowledged. To that end, here are friendly resource on tips for advocates with limited resources, from Saul Alinsky.
• You can develop relations with lawmakers and request personal meetings if you are going to Lansing. You can also share information with your local media, if they still exist, in the form of letters to the editor or on social media calling attention to denied legal rights. Social media may be helpful if you are good in that space. With Twitter turning into a large mess, I am not sure what platform may be the most effective now.
• If you are more of a “power broker” kind of person, who knows “the game” (meaning you have “connections to those in power), a more effective way to make change is to engage Gov. Whitmer.
• If you are not able to engage Gov. Whitmer, the most powerful power broker of all is a governor’s chief of staff. Gov. Whitmer’s Chief of Staff is, as of Jan. 2, 2022, JoAnne Huls. Because chiefs of staff try to be invisible to public and only to speak with deal-makers, the other best possible person for real access is a governor’s communications director, who manages a governor’s “brand.” Bobby Leddy is Gov. Whitmer’s communications director, and he is active on Twitter and can be “pinged” and equally “annoyed” with persistent, fact-based activity about adoptee rights concerns.
• In addition to copying Leddy on Twitter, consider using this account to get Gov. Whitmer’s staff’s attention: Press@Michigan.gov. They will care if you are a state voter, in the way they won’t care about someone like me, who is not a voter in the state.
• The best way to promote reform is by telling stories of the injustices you have encountered. Make it personal and say what happened and what it means to you. Name names and make it personal. It has to be personal. This was very helpful with stunning legal reform in Vermont being implemented in 2023.
• My personal preference is to advocate for lasting legal reform the way New York state adoptee rights advocates and Vermont adoptee rights advocates have won legislative reforms. Those are two great success stories. Use the links to learn more about their lasting victories.

Remember, lasting change, good or bad, is always won by a group of committed warriors, in the truest sense. True warriors are those go into any “conflict” with the outcomes already decided in their minds with a clear strategy for victory.

Each of us can make a difference. Choose your battles and always remain focused on the larger goal. For me that remains permanent and lasting legal reform to end the injustice of outdated, harmful adoption laws that hide a person’s truth and deny them their original records.

And for adoptees who are working for change, I appreciate everything you can do this year if you have the time, energy, and good will. Good luck and make 2023 a great one!