Tag Archives: Adoptee Rights Advocacy

Adoptee rights reform in Michigan, a new development

Home page of the Michigan Adoptee Rights Coalition

This week I learned that a new adoptee rights group had launched in my birth state of Michigan. The group is called Michigan Adoptee Rights Coalition.

You can learn more about that group here.

The group describes itself this way:

Who We Are: We are adoptee rights organizations working together to secure equality for all Michigan-born adopted people.

What We’re Doing: We work with advocates, legislators, and allies to build and sustain a strong coalition focused on Michigan and adoptee rights legislation.

I had done a presentation earlier this spring to some adoptees based in Michigan, and I am not currently affiliated with this group as a member.

As a Michigan-born adoptee, and like likely tens of thousands of other adoptees born there, I warmly and enthusiastically welcome anyone and any group who will support restoring basic legal rights, secured in legislation, to all adoptees born in my home state to access their original vital records without any obstruction.

I have advocated for this larger goal in my book and on my website for years.

As someone who lives nearly 2,000 miles away from my birth state, I have found myself hamstrung to lobby lawmakers directly. So having people in Michigan doing the heavy lifting means a great deal to me.

Many adoptees like me are no longer living in our home states. It poses a frustrating and costly barrier to so many who would like to advocate in person for reform. I continue to applaud the hard work everyone is doing collectively, in every state, even if they cannot do that in person in state capitols.

I set up a table outside of the Michigan Capitol in June 2018 as part of my advocacy for legislative reform for adoptee rights.

For my part, I did one-on-one advocacy in Lansing in 2018, but I have not had the time and resources to commit myself to doing face-to-face advocacy, which is critical for all legislative reform work. The pandemic and life and all of its many twists and turns has forced me to prioritize other things. Today, I know I cannot do what I would like to do as a citizen for in-person work with elected lawmakers in Michigan.

Michigan and adoptee rights:

Today, Michigan is a state with a Democratic super majority. The Democrats control the state house, state senate, and governor’s office.

Yet as of today, I have seen no signal from emerging national Democratic darling, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, that she will do anything to address the historic injustice of denying basic legal rights to thousands of Michigan natives.

I have encouraged people to get involved, to work with their lawmakers, and to step up the pressure. Without heat, there will be harmful indifference, and right now Whitmer’s silence has signaled that all adoptees born in Michigan are a non-issue for her, even as older adoptees and their biological kin die out with their truth hidden by harmful laws.

That needs to change.

As we look ahead, I am anxious to read about developments of the new coalition in Michigan, including what legislative proposals may come forward.

I am especially interested to learn about developments on a terribly written and conceived bill, HB 4529, introduced May 9, 2023, by Rep. Patrick Outman (R-Six Lakes) that could expand discriminatory practices to even more adoptees born in Michigan.

To keep current on legislation in Michigan, one can sign up for committee legislative email updates from the Michigan Legislature here. You may wish to sign up for multiple committees that may address adoption-related legislation. You may wish to consider following these committees:

House:

  • Health Policy
  • Families, Children, and Seniors

Senate:

  • Health Policy

Warning: expect a nasty fight with state bureaucrats:

For what it is worth, I would like to warn all adoptee rights advocates that they will likely face tremendous resistance to any legislative reform in Michigan by the state’s large health agency called the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS).

In its coverage of the Flint drinking water crisis, The Intercept featured this image of protesters holding a container of the city’s lead-tainted drinking water that caused harm to infants and children who consumed the drinking water in Flint. See The Intercept’s story here: https://theintercept.com/2021/07/21/flint-water-crisis-rick-snyder/.

The agency has a culture of withholding information and denying even basic service to likely thousands of Michigan-born adoptees. More worrisome is MDHHS’s willingness to withhold information that led to lasting and permanent medical harm to children in Flint during the lead and drinking water crisis starting in 2014.

As the Intercept reported in 2021 regarding the systemic failures at MDHHS: “Patricia McKane, an epidemiologist with MDHHS who testified that she was pressured to lie by [Dr. Eden] Wells about elevated blood-lead levels in Flint’s children, was found to have only had four text messages on her phone from 2015 and seven total messages. (Wells denied pressuring her to lie.) Fellow MDHHS epidemiologist Sarah Lyon-Callo, director of the state Bureau of Epidemiology and Population Health, who Wells copied in an email responding to accusations by a Wayne State University professor that she was trying to conceal the link between the Flint River switch and the Legionella outbreak, had no messages prior to June 2016.”

MDHHS’s bureaucratic actions speaks volumes to its internal culture leading to horrific and intentional harm, and how it would take steps that would prioritize taking actions to protect its narrow interests.

If one does not read this writing on the wall here regarding bureaucratic harm and indifference to marginalized persons, one will never be able to plan a legislative strategy on adoption reform in Michigan.

In short, one cannot expect MDHHS to sit quietly on an issue it has signaled at every instance for decades to uncounted number of adoptees that it will fight to the bitter end to win.

In my view, this will be a bruising fight because it remains the imperative of any large system to prove that it has power over weak groups of historically marginalized people by being able to deny and control basic legal rights. Power matters, especially to bureaucracies. Adoptees will forever be one of the easiest groups to use for these ends.

My great worry is that MDHHS will work behind the scenes against Michiganders who were adopted, and no one will ever see their actions unless they are revealed with a public records request. And don’t expect any records to be released either—the agency has a record of flagrantly preventing public records requests from being completed too.

‘Picking a target’ in 2023 for adoptee rights advocacy

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.

Go here to read my full article, analyzing failures in Michigan’s agency responsible for overseeing vital records and leadership by all branches of state government.

My article also analyzes the sometimes complex and even messy world associated with issue advocacy, including the mostly ignored world of adoptee rights. 

Here’s my list of tips (also found in my longer article) for adoptee rights advocates in Michigan, or their allies (all allies are welcome, too):

  • 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!

The ups and downs of ‘adoptee Twitter’

Rudy Owens Memoir Twitter Account Banner

The Twitter account banner for Rudy Owens’ memoir on the U.S. adoption system.

I created my adoptee memoir Twitter account in 2017 as a way to help promote my memoir and book, which provides a critical look at the U.S. adoption system after World War II and my place in that larger story. Since I launched the account, I have used it to stay engaged on adoptee rights issues and issues related to domestic and inter-country adoption.

Twitter has many downsides. I find it can be a swirling pool of misinformation and emotion, which has been weaponized by autocrats like former president Donald Trump and state actors like Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and many other nations that have exploited its glaring vulnerabilities. It also has been a major source of misinformation during the pandemic, and that likely will remain.  

On the positive side, Twitter still remains a place that gives space to alternative points of view that is empowering. It has own subcultures, like “Black twitter,” “feminist twitter,” “Asian-American Twitter,” “adoptee Twitter,” and many, many more.

In these leaderless but visible groups, participants express views that challenge coverage in legacy and mainstream media on issues relevant to their affected groups. This has long been documented.

One study dating from 2016 by the Knight Foundation on this form of expression quoted a self-defined participant of feminist Twitter, who said, “The reason I often don’t trust mainstream pieces or outlets is because they very rarely go talk to the people affected by the issue. They don’t consider people in a community experts in their lives, like we living it aren’t experts in our own experiences.”

This is an idea very common among those who reference the term “adoptee twitter” and who use Twitter to address issues relevant to their lives, policy discussions, media bias, racism, hate speech, legislative debates, harm to those adopted, and more.

Like any group without a corporate or government moderator controlling opinion, views will vary. Twitter, by its nature, rewards emotion, anger, rage, and also views that elicit strong responses. This is not a place for thoughtful contemplation. That said, insights and wisdom can be found here.

I continue to use this space to share facts and media coverage relevant to policy issues, media bias that incorrectly describes adoption, legislative issues relevant to impacted adopted persons, and insights that I have from disciplines and ideas that matter to those who work to educate the public and reshape outdated views.

This weekend I shared a Tweet for those who use Twitter in this world of adoptees who communicate in this space. I said this was my perspective using Twitter as an adoptee:

  • Your experience is your expertise. Your story matters!
  • You don’t need to quote “experts.” In time others notice your value.
  • Align with folks who are positive and who lead by example.
  • #Facts still always matter!

I also see my Twitter communications as a responsibility to help millions of others. Mostly because of my Twitter communications, I have reached an audience for my book on this system. Some possible readers and even my followers may never like this approach to this system, but that’s OK. Telling one’s story requires having faith in one’s truth. And for me, my story remains firmly grounded in historic, scientific, and public health research, not my “feelings.”

For now, I am planning to continue using my Twitter account to promote my book, because I think my work has great relevancy for understanding adoption as an overlooked and important public health issue requiring immediate legislative action now to address injustices and documented harm to millions.  

I also want to keep using Twitter as a place to engage the public and share facts being overlooked. I did this most recently to support ongoing efforts underway now in Vermont, led by adult adoptees born there, to restore rights to adoptees to access their birth records without discrimination and as a right protected by law.

I can also see the day when one day I will say, that’s enough. I am done.

I am not quite there, but ultimately, the way Twitter is constructed does not align with how I prefer to approach the world, because Twitter is driven by impulse, immediacy, and emotional responses. We have seen the downsides of this, and stepping back may be the best solution for me later.

Keeping track of laws impacting adoptees and the advocacy players

A recent tweet on the status of adoptee records legislation in 2017 in state legislatures was sent out by the Adoptee Rights Law Center, which is tracking laws with an online mapping tool.

Most adoptees do not have time to track the status of legislation at the state level that may impact adult adoptees’ access to their original birth records. Bill tracking is the work of insiders and advocacy groups who dedicate themselves professionally and personally to single or related issues. 

For any adoptee who wishes to know what laws impact their legal and human right to receive copies of their original birth certificate and birth records, they can follow two websites: Adoptee Rights Law and Bastard Nation.

Both are maintained by adoptee rights advocates who share a simple and unswerving commitment that all adoptees have basic human rights and the legal right to their original identity documents, without any barrier or prejudice. Other good resources are available, and please use those too. However, these two sources work hard to keep their information current and in the larger perspective and framework of  full legal and human rights for all U.S. adoptees.

I will also list two other sources (American Adoption Congress (AAC), Donaldson Adoption Institute). The AAC has just made internal reforms that put it back on the map for promoting equal rights for adoptees, as of May 2018. The institute has shuttered its doors, but still has information online that may be useful.

Adoptee Rights Law Center:

Gregory D. Luce, a Minnesota-based attorney and adoptee rights legal activist, is now publishing a resource he calls the “United States of OBC” (OBC being an acronym for original birth certificates). Luce categorizes each state and the District of Columbia by the degree of access: unrestricted, restricted, conditional, extreme fees, adoption registry requirement, date-based restrictions, redaction provisions, disclosure veto/birth parent consent, zombie veto (a veto that extends beyond a birth parent’s death), and pending or not in effect. 

Luce’s OBC access maps provide an excellent way to understand the geographic breakdown of legalized discrimination against adoptees and illegitimately born people in the United States. As you can see when you click on his map page, the Jim Crow-style laws, as I like to call them, are pervasive and, sadly, mostly accepted without much widespread moral outrage. Tools such as the ones Luce and his law center are bringing to public attention help to highlight the national disgrace that is the status of equal rights for millions of adopted Americans. 

Bastard Nation:

Bastard Nation is an adoptee rights advocacy group that has been instrumental in the last two decades in helping to pass legislation in Oregon, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire that restored adult adoptees’ full legal access to their original birth certificates and birth records. The group provides an unequivocal mission statement concerning adoptees’ human and civil rights for access to their original birth records, and it is committed to working with partners nationally who share its mission. The group correctly notes, “The right to know one’s identity is primarily a political issue directly affected by the practice of sealed records adoptions.”

For those interested in “inside ball,” Bastard Nation tracks all state-level legislation on its website. This page may be most useful for adoptees, reporters, researchers, and policy-makers who want to understand the current debates in real-time.

American Adoption Congress (AAC):

The AAC is an advocacy group started during the heyday of the Adoption Rights Movement (ARM) in the 1970s.  In May 2018, the AAC made public its firm commitment to adoptee rights. Its new policy statement, published on its home page states: “Let it be known: It is the formal policy of the American Adoption Congress to support state-by-state legislative efforts to restore unrestricted access to original birth certificates (OBC) for all adult adoptees. This is also known as ‘clean’ adoption reform, which is in accordance with widely accepted practices in adoption.” This marks a change from previous statements from a year earlier that it would support so-called “compromise legislation” in collaboration with state adoptee advocates. This is a great development for adoptee rights advocates and adoptees in the United States.

The AAC continues to publish a summary of state laws on its legislation page that can be useful. Links to state laws are included in legislative summaries.  The AAC uses these categories to laws governing birth records for adoptees: unrestricted access, access with restrictions, partial access, partial with restrictions, and sealed. There are some useful summaries of the likelihood of legislation in some states based on the national organization’s assessment of the advocacy climate in each state. I have used this site and page for my research.

Donaldson Adoption Institute (DAI):

The DAI, formerly called the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, features a map highlighting the status of adoption laws state by state. The group used fives categories to describe state adoption laws: access, access with restrictions, partial access with restrictions, partial access, and no access. The DAI announced it was ending operations in January 2018. It noted published information would be kept live online, but it is not clear how long. Its closure also ends its extremely short-lived campaign for adoptee rights launched in May 2017. 

Contact Me, Please:

If anyone thinks I should provide some additional resources, please let me know and send me an email. I welcome all feedback from researchers, advocates, members of the press, and those who care about issues surrounding illegitimacy, bastardy, legal rights, human rights, and adoptee rights. Thanks. 

[Author Note: This page was updated on June 10, 2018, to reflect changes during the year since it was first published. During the time the DAI closed its doors and the AAC updated its position on promoting access to OBCs for all adult adoptees as a policy plank.]