Tag Archives: Adoptee Legal Rights

How many infants were relinquished to adoption?

I just published a short essay on the the limited and imprecise data available on the number of U.S. adoptees who were relinquished during the boom years of adoption between 1944 and 1975. The most frequently quoted data cited in most respected sources comes from a 1984 paper published by Penelope Maza for the United States Children Bureau. I have put her data into an easier to read chart.

Number of Adoptees in the United States Adoption Boom Years

Table 1: Penelope Maza published the most frequently cited population data study on the number of U.S. adoptees born in the United States from the 1940s through the 1970s in her paper called ““Adoption Trends: 1944-1975,” in 1984.

On my of goals for my forthcoming memoir, You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are, is to show policy-makers, the media, adoptees, the public, and researchers the size of the adoptee population in the country.

It is likely not a coincidence that the data collection on the number of adoptees has always been imprecise. I cannot rule out that the role of secrecy, shame, and stigma attached to this class of human beings mattered in the way they have been improperly counted. This lack of precision likely prevents the public and also public health and other experts from truly understanding the scope this modern social engineering experiment.

As most health and public health experts say, “If you aren’t counted, you don’t count.” This rule applies today because of the imprecise system for counting U.S. adoptees by the U.S. Census Bureau (only started in 2000).

There is also no standard practice for counting adoptees in each state by the states, many of which lack adequate auditing procedures to help lawmakers understand the scope of people impacted by their policy decisions and lawmaking that impact adoptees. Those decisions can continue to deny a class of people equal rights under the law simply because they were, almost certainly, born out of marriage and illegitimate, and placed for adoption.

State of Michigan public health officials I contacted for my book and during my quest for my original birth certificate could not share any data with me on the number of adoptees impacted by their laws. They claimed, “It would not be possible to determine this number.”

This again showed me the simple truth that if you aren’t counted, you don’t count.

 

 

Health professionals have professional responsibility to help adoptees change state laws

Yesterday, I visited a medical specialist for a routine visit. Like every office of doctors and dental professionals I have seen for well over three decades, this office asked for background about my medical history. Such information can be helpful as shown by nearly all peer-reviewed science to offer information to help patients receive appropriate and responsible health care. 

For the majority of American adoptees, however, this simple process can be insulting and demeaning. It is another reminder how laws in most states deny potentially life-saving information to them because they are adopted. No other group in the United States is denied this critical health information based on status of birth alone. I devote a chapter to practice and problem in my forthcoming book, You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are (Chapter 8: Who Am I?).

The National Institutes of Health highlights why every person needs to know their family history–it can be a matter of life and death with cancer.

Health professionals more than any other group are aware of the role genetics and family history play in determining a patient’s likelihood for disease, health problems, and risks from illness. I wrote at length about his in my post from March 20, 2016, when I was advocating to get my original birth certificate from the State of Michigan (I won that battle three months later). I noted, “Adoptees like all other Americans should by legal right be entitled to this potentially life-saving information. The National Institutes for Health reports there are more than 6,000 genetic and rare diseases. These afflict more than 25 million Americans, and about 30 percent of early deaths can be linked to genetic causes.”

Yet there is almost no support from anyone in all of the health professions or groups like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with the rare exception of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which has taken a public stand advocating for this at the national policy level as a matter of science and public health. (Note, this group also was among many health experts who advocated in 1960 for adoption as a social-engineering policy decision that relinquished hundreds of thousands of infants–a little-known and controversial position I explore at length in my forthcoming book [Chapter 2: The Most Suitable Plan]).

To my surprise, the office I visited did ask if I was adopted or if I did not have access to my family medical history. I was astounded. This was the first time I have ever seen any health facility acknowledge adoptees and that adoptees may not legally have access to their family health history as a matter of legal discrimination denying them their original birth records. 

When I completed my intake forms, I noted this fact and specifically wrote on the form saying it was the first time any health provider acknowledged the existence and reality of an American adoptee. When I completed my exam, I thanked my doctor for this evidence-based protocol and told her it acknowledged millions of Americans may not have their medical history at no fault of their own. She told me her practice absolutely needed to know a patient’s background because many of the health problems they address have genetic precursors. 

I also told her that my forthcoming book would be examining this topic at length. She was excited to hear about this and told me she would like to see the book. That conversation also told me many doctors may also like to know about the issue linking health, public health, and adoption and that my book can reach a large audience of readers who could become advocates for legal reform to change discriminatory state laws.

My immediate proposals to address this are two-fold. For anyone who is an adoptee, I encourage them to tell all of their health providers to change their intake forms to acknowledge health history is a legal issue that adoptees cannot change alone, and that medical professionals have moral and professional responsibilities to issue statements supporting birth record access for all adoptees, without exception. For medical professionals, I encourage you to become familiar with state laws that seal adoptees’ records and explain to the public how this undermines public and human health. This is within your range of practice to encourage healthy lives for everyone. Public health practitioners also need to be part of this, including the CDC.