Tag Archives: Michigan Vital Records

Update to FAQs for Michigan adoptees seeking court orders for original birth records

I have updated my frequently visited “FAQS for court order requests in Michigan for original birth certificates” webpage.* I created this in 2018 for all Michigan-born adoptees and adoptee rights advocates, lawmakers, policymakers, and the media, explaining the process for securing an original birth certificate for adoptees, especially those born between 1945 and 1980. I hope these resources are helpful and provide information that the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) will not share with tens of thousands of adoptees, as part of their concerted efforts to discriminate against this class of thousands of persons who were separated from their birth mothers and kin by this inequitable system.

In addition to updating links to MDHHS’s intentionally unhelpful web resources for adoptees, I  added this:

Will MDHHS ignore court orders to release an adoptee’s original birth certificate? [UPDATED NOV. 15, 2024]: Yes, MDHHS will ignore state law and will ignore court orders, based on my experiences requesting two additional copies of my original birth certificate in mid-August 2024. In my case, MDHHS took 80 days to release two copies of my original birth certificate after getting my order for rush service on Aug. 16, 2024. The process, as it occurred with denials and delays, violated not one but two court orders requiring MDHHS to release my vital record, as required by state law. I had to get a state court to intervene after I received a denial letter. The two birth certificates arrived on Nov. 4, 2024. (Note, I already had a standing court order from 2016 when I first won my legal fight for my vital record.) See my essay, video, and links to four other stories and videos documenting MDHHS’s actions that did not comply with state law and defied a Michigan state court and judge.

*Note, I have never made a penny from providing this resource to the public, outside of the incredibly modest sales I have of my book documenting the history of the U.S. adoption with a public health lens and how my story being separated from my biological family helps explain that system and the legal discrimination rooted in law harming millions of adoptees to this day.

My sister will die never knowing her past

On Jan. 3, 2020, The Detroit Free Press published my guest column on Michigan’s discriminatory and restrictive adoption records law that denies Michigan’s adoptees legal access to their original birth records, except by overcoming restrictive barriers.

In my adoptive sister’s case, she falls in the 35-year period, between 1945 and 1980, for which the state statutes have almost impossible barriers for an adoptee to overcome to get what is theirs as a legal and human right. My sister, who is seriously ill and bedridden in a skilled nursing home, will likely die in the near future without knowing her biological kin, her biological parents, and her ancestral past.

This unfortunate outcome is intentional. In fact, this scenario was the design of those who created Michigan’s biased law that is zealously enforced by Michigan’s vital records guardians at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

My sister and I both were born in these post-World War II boom years of adoption, that saw nearly 3 million adoptees separated from their biological kin through the U.S. adoption system.

It is no coincidence that Michigan’s lawmakers adopted the most restrictive rules for adoptees in this cohort, because records secrecy continues to hide from the public how widespread and systemic that system was in the United States, impacting literally millions of Americans.

My book on my own experience challenging this discriminatory records-keeping system details how adoption history has been hidden, preventing adoptees from knowing themselves and their past and the public from knowing the truth about the many players who promoted this system for decades.

Author note: The guest column published by The Detroit Free Press has slight changes from the original I submitted, without changing the substance of the submitted column.