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Both a state agency and a judge have repeatedly turned down her
requests, however, because Oregon - like almost every state - bars
adoptees from obtaining these documents. The stated reason is that
birth parents were promised anonymity, and that they should be spared
an uncomfortable encounter they may want no part of: having the
children they relinquished show up at the door.
Inselman finds that logic irrelevant. She is 77 years old.
''There's probably nobody else even living in my family,'' she said
last week. ''It just seems so stupid that this is happening.''
Which is why Inselman, a soft-spoken woman who shies away from
political activity, vocally supports a revolutionary initiative on
Oregon's ballot next month. It would give all adult adoptees
unrestricted access to their birth certificates, a right no state has
granted in at least a quarter-century; and it would do so only if
voters approve in a referendum, marking the first time in US history
that any question regarding adoption has been put to a public
vote.
''It's not penetrating people's consciousness because neither side
has a significant amount of money, and because the Bill and Monica
show and the Sosa-McGwire show [have been] dominating the media,''
said Warren Deras, a lawyer who works with a statewide coalition of
adoption professionals who are opposing the unprecedented open-records
initiative. ''But people should pay attention, because it's a very
important issue ... with some very important implications in Oregon
and for the whole country.''
That it surely is, at least for the tens of millions of Americans
whose families include adoptees, adoptive parents, or biological
parents of children given up for adoption. The ''search'' - shorthand
for adoptees' efforts to find biological parents (and sometimes of
parents seeking them) - is perhaps the most difficult and emotionally
charged subject that the adopted and their families face, subtly or
directly, or try to avoid.
The consensus among adoption professionals, and the trend in the
past decade or so, has been in favor of increased openness. As a
result, a growing majority of children adopted today are or will be
provided with wide access to records and other information about their
backgrounds, usually from their own adoptive parents. Moreover, as
adoption has emerged from the shadows of shame and secrecy in American
life, the number of birth mothers requesting anonymity has been
rapidly shrinking.
Some states have tried to catch up to these recent realities,
partly by creating little-publicized registries in which birth parents
and adoptees can formally declare their desire to meet and provide
details of how they can be contacted. A handful of states, including
Oregon, have developed systems that let adoptees ask intermediaries to
conduct a search and arrange a reunion with birth parents, if they are
amenable.
Alaska and Kansas have always kept their birth certificates open to
adoptees. But adoption-reform advocates, agencies, and adoptee
organizations have not succeeded in changing the laws anywhere else -
not even when release would be subject to severe restrictions to
protect birth parents' privacy.
A novel approach
So the sponsors of Oregon's initiative decided to circumvent the
traditional route, through the state Legislature and the courts, and
are taking their case directly to the people. If they succeed, they
plan to expand their referendum strategy to other states.
''This is a matter of grave concern to us on the national level,''
said Bill Pierce, president of the National Council for Adoption in
Washington, a conservative organization that has led many successful
fights against measures designed to make adoption more open. ''We've
beaten them in the courts, we've beaten them in the legislatures
... but we've never had experience with an initiative before, and we
would have to fight it in every state. In some ways, this battle is a
dress rehearsal.''
Helen Hill, an elementary school art teacher and adoptee who is
leading the charge here, seemed thrilled at the possibility that the
ballot measure in Oregon could have such dramatic consequences. She
appeared equally pleased at the use of a strategy that puts the
decision about birth certificates into the hands of a new group of
decision-makers.
''It automatically changes the dynamic and, I think, puts the odds
on our side for the first time,'' said Hill, who is the Oregon
director of Bastard Nation, the largest and most vocal adoptee
activist organization in the country. Noting that adoptees are the
only Americans not allowed to view their birth certificates, she added
that ''voters will see that this is a clear, simple civil rights
issue... that no group should be denied a basic right granted to all
other citizens.''
Lauren Greenbaum, an adoption specialist with the 113-year-old Boys
and Girls Society of Oregon, believes that Hill's argument is so
straight-forward and appealing that it will prevail in November. ''I
think they'll win,'' she replied flatly when asked about the
referendum's chances.
But she also said that Hill's approach is misleading, because the
proponents' objective is not simply to give adoptees access to their
birth certificates, but to facilitate the pursuit of biological
parents. ''It's all about `search,''' Greenbaum said.
She said that the biological parents' rights therefore need to be
addressed as well, but she worries they won't be, what with the
difficulty in getting the electorate to focus on the complexities or
subtleties of the issue.
Although they have principled concerns about the ballot measure,
Greenbaum and other initiative detractors aren't expecting much harm
to result if it is approved. Indeed, most experts agree that the vast
majority of birth mothers - and fathers in the minority of cases when
they've been involved in the process - either are accepting or glad to
be found, regardless of what they felt when they relinquished their
children.
Looking at motives
Both sides also agreed that the biggest source of fear about
''search'' is unfounded: that adoptees are moved to seek out their
biological parents because they are unhappy with their adoptive
parents. ''The research clearly shows that search doesn't indicate
dissatisfaction; people simply have a desire to know where they come
from,'' said Peter Gibbs, a longtime adoption specialist and director
of the Center for Adoption Research and Policy at the University of
Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester.
At least as significant, the adoption professionals who oppose
Oregon's initiative said they would support a statutory change to open
birth certificates to all new adoptees once they reach the age of
21. That provision would protect birth parents who were assured of
anonymity in the past. Opponents of the current initiative also want
to allow for a ''contact veto,'' by which birth parents or adoptees
could sign a register declaring that they don't want to hear from
their biological relatives.
''It's not that Bastard Nation or other people in support of this
don't have good arguments, because they do, but we have to balance the
rights of the birth mothers, too,'' said Greenbaum.
Most mainstream adoption-reform groups, as well as specialists in
the field, are watching this battle without participating in it. Some
share the concern about birth parents' privacy; others worry that if
the initiative comes to be viewed as a national testing ground, and
fails, the consequences could be significant.
Ballot-box repercussions
''With all the information on the Internet, and given the open way
adoptions are done today, issues of access to information about
adoptees' biological parents are becoming moot,'' said Joan Hollinger,
a professor at the University of California at Berkeley Law School and
one of the nation's foremost experts on adoption practices. ''What I'm
concerned about is that this initiative's loss could send a message
that people don't want openness, don't want open records... so the
down side could be substantial.''
Madelyn Freundlich, who heads a research organization in New York
called the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, echoed that
concern. ''Pierce and people like him will say they were right all
along and will point to a defeat as vindication when other states try
to change their laws,'' she said.
All of which could set the stage for a compromise in 2000 if the
measure does lose, one that would push the birth-certificate issue
ahead with limitations designed to satisfy both sides in the current
controversy.
Hill, however, isn't ready to talk compromise yet. She insists this
is an all-or-nothing fight for adoptees. She sees a parallel in the
civil rights struggle of the 1960s, when activists rejected
half-measures because they wanted full equality. Hill said she
understood some birth parents might not want to be sought out and
found, but argued that all those involved are adults who can express
their sentiments to each other without any intermediaries.
''You can't make one group's rights supersede those of another,''
said Hill. ''And you can't talk about compromise and civil rights in
the same sentence and be honest at all.''
This story ran on page A01 of the Boston Globe on
10/02/98.
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ALEM,
Ore. - Mary Inselman found out five years ago that she was
adopted. Ever since, she has been trying to get her birth certificate,
so she can learn her biological parents' names and seek out any blood
relatives she might have.