Tag Archives: Adoptee Advocacy

Will legacy media ever dare invite adoptee authors and researchers as guests to discuss adoption?

Promotion for an episode on U.S. adoption by the show “It’s Been a Minute,” aired on Nov. 26, 2024; image provided for purposes of editorial comment and criticism only.

Once again we have a show in the public radio universe, “It’s Been a Minute,” on Nov. 26, 2024, centering the voice of someone who, while being a worthy academic author, is not an adoptee and will never fully have the critical perspective of lived experience.

For the record there are dozens and dozens of adoptee authors who have contributed significant research to policy debates on the harm of this system to millions of separated families. They continue to be boxed out, denied any access, and ignored by legacy media who could care less about their expertise to actual policy proposals for restoring legal rights and assisting those harmed, including intercountry adoptees now in legal limbo with the incoming Trump administration promising unprecedented mass deportations of people.

And I personally object to this framing—”coming out of the fog” (a term other adoptees use, and that is always their right to describe their experience any way they want).

The promotion notes: “But adoptees and birth parents are opening up online about ‘coming out of the fog’—a term for becoming more openly critical of adoption, or facing the grief within their adoption stories.” I don’t use or even acknowledge that term as relevant to having an honest discussion of the history of mass family separation of millions of families, in the United States and abroad. For millions of us, this is a critical issue of denied legal and human rights, and such terms that don’t center the root legal inequality, promoted by the foundation of lies and deception to this system, prevent us from talking about solutions. I’ve never had fog. What I’ve had are denied basic human rights—that exist on the books to this day.

Finally, where the hell were Brittany Luse or NPR when, for instance, there were real policy debates going on in Michigan between November 2023 and February 2024, on bills that could have restored legal rights to tens of thousands of people denied their vital records only because they are adopted.

Do better public radio, NPR, and your many hosts. Talk to the experts and talk about real solutions.

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.

‘Stateside’ interviews focus on Finland, adoptee rights, and our right to know our origins

Rudy Owens and his newly found Finnish relatives from September 2023

I want to thank Michigan Radio, “Stateside” host April Baer, producer Mercedes Mejia, and all of the Michigan Radio crew who help inform Michiganders about important issues.

I am especially appreciative of their news reporting and also generous consideration to host two interviews this past week on: adoptee rights legislative proposals in the Michigan Legislature, and another with me, as an author and advocate for adoptee rights as a Michigan-born adoptee.

As always, patience and professional persistence opened these doors (I started in November 2023), along with the timing of the legislative debates on this important policy issue for thousands of Michigan-born adoptees.

My March 20, 2024 interview with “Stateside” host April Baer broadly explored my recent two visits to Finland in September 2023 and in February 2024, to meet my biological family I only recently connected with last summer. I shared why such a visit to an ancestral home country, to meet long-lost biological kin, matters for adoptees, who are denied rights to their original birth certificates and family information like ethnicity by state law. (If you want to quickly find my interview segment, jump to the last 20 minutes of the podcast–you can get there quickly by dragging the mouse on the podcast recording player.)

“Stateside’s” March 19, 2024 interview on adoptee rights legislation before lawmakers included three members of the Michigan coalition that has been working to pass legislative reform in Michigan to restore rights to tens of thousands of Michigan-born adoptees. That interview featured Michigan Adoptee Rights Coalition members Valerie Lemieux, Erica Curry Van Ee, and Greg Luce. All are adoptees. The interview can heard found here.

Not every radio news magazine would provide more than 15 minutes of valuable airtime for each interview to discuss issues of adoption secrecy in Michigan, legislative reform efforts that were launched last fall, and the importance to all of us to know who we are and where we come from, all secured for all persons by law. But “Stateside” decided this issue merited time for a meaningful dialogue that examined many aspects of this human rights issue, including discussing arguments used by adoptee rights opponents.

Thank you, “Stateside”/Kiitos, “Stateside”!

See my stories about my visits to Finland to meet with my biological kin and what these stories mean to those denied our ancestry and birth records by law:

Restoring rights to adoptees in Michigan ultimately is about power, so let’s use it

I am continuing to create short videos focusing on the injustice experienced by thousands of adoptees born in Michigan who are denied equal treatment by law to access their vital records only because of their status at birth.

For 2023, I will continue to focus on Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Ultimately she will drive any agenda if there is true legislative reform. Her team can and should be coordinating legislative proposals based on measures now recently passed in other legislatures in the past two years.

However, Gov. Whitmer really will not care unless there is a cost. I outline that calculus in my video here.

For adoptees born in Michigan who are still denied legal access to their vital records, I would encourage you to learn how other states got it right, like New York, and propose that Michigan’s legislature adopt similar reform, without delay.

Focus on the law and its denied rights to thousands.

Tell your story, but focus on injustice and equity, and hold lawmakers to account who claim to champion both.

Remember, one cannot champion the status quo and claim to be an advocate for equity and equality at the same time. By logic alone, that is impossible.

As I have noted before, adoption is a uniquely adored American institution by both parties, Democrat and Republican.

Therefore, in getting a leader like Gov. Whitmer to take action, the logical path is to create a real political cost for inaction and for failure to fix a massive wrong. This matters because she is making moves nationally for her next political chapter. Politics is an often bruising gladiatorial arena and a choreographed stage at the same time. Those on that stage carefully measure the costs.

As long as Gov. Whitmer sees no cost to her continued inaction, we will not see any progress on reform.

You can read a longer essay I wrote about this approach at the start of 2023.

Thanks for your work to advocate for reform. It’s decades overdue.

Dear Governor Whitmer, signed Michigan-born adoptee

The year is 2023. Each passing day means another day that uncounted and likely tens of thousands of adoptees separated from their families by the adoption system and current state laws are denied equal treatment by law and knowledge of their vital records.

Many in my era are now old enough to have died already from chronic disease and other health issues as we age into our older years.

That means the birth mothers of this large cohort or post-World War II era adoptees are more likely to have died or may be close to the end. This is an issue that impacts my own family personally, and I am still amazed at the lifelong, permanent harm created by secrecy and family separation.

This year, I continue to focus my advocacy for decades-overdue legislative reform on the only person who counts for ultimately moving a piece of legislation through a Democrat-controlled state legislature. That person is Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat.

My “Dear Governor” video may not ever be seen by Gov. Whitmer, or even her staff. But that is the work of other adoptees and maybe even a journalist or two to share it. On April 29, 2023, I posted this video and this message:

“The time is now, Gov. Whitmer. Thousands and thousands of Michigan-born adoptees, including me, are denied access to the original vital records by law—only because we were relinquished from our kin by adoption. Let’s change that and start the new chapter now. You can contact me any time, and I’d be happy to give you a copy of my book why legal reform is long overdue and why it’s time to right historic wrongs to people born in my birth state. For more information about Michigan’s outdated adoption secrecy laws and the need for reform, please visit the website for my book on the U.S. adoption experience and my experience seeking reform and justice in accessing records that are mine as a legal and human right. Go to: www.howluckyuare.com.”

Some of my fellow Michigan-born adoptees have shared this already, and I appreciate that. Thank you for what you are doing!

Focus on equality and nothing but equality:

The only reform that I will champion is reform that restores permanent, legal access to an adoptee’s original birth record without any obstruction and interference upon an adopted person reaching adulthood. I hope all adoptees in Michigan working toward a shared vision of legal reform will not partner with any person or organization who is not able to commit to this goal in writing and publicly. Remember, if folks don’t commit to clear communications, it’s best to take a pass and work with those who do. Serious people are clear. Hucksters spin yarns and evade. (Click on this link focusing on adoptee rights to hear a 15-minute version of a yarn promoting bad reform, rebutted by 15 minutes correcting the misinformation with facts).

In the world of adoptee rights advocacy, there are those who champion true reform and those who promote bad policy, similar to the incredibly regressive and harmful bill in California this spring—AB 1302, opposed nationally by nearly all leading adoptee rights groups.

So, unless someone who is an advocate can step forward clearly and publicly, with a published statement that can be read by everyone regarding their position statements, they are not being serious and can be discounted as not being true adoptee rights advocates.

Mark Twain, philosopher of the art of lying

Mark Twain got this part right about the hucksters and lying, long ago. “Among other common lies, we have the silent lie—the deception which one conveys by simply keeping still and concealing the truth. Many obstinate truth-mongers indulge in this dissipation, imagining that if they speak no lie, they lie not at all.”

I urge anyone in Michigan who shares a goal for lasting reform not work any group or persons claimed to be adoptee rights advocates who are not honest, clear, and public where they stand. In the spirit of full disclosure, my views on this topic are clear, and you can find them on my website and in my book, You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are.