To Doug Klunder, Privacy Director;
I have been informed that the Washington State Chapter has written in opposition to SB 6496 and HB 2810 which would allow adult adoptees to obtain their original birth certificates. I also understand that that this opposition is based on "moral", rather than legal grounds, since recent case law has rendered the birthparent privacy arguments untenable.
I am an adult adoptee in the state of California, where my right to access to the most fundamental information regarding my identity is held hostage by a Closed Records law. These laws have infantilized me, and millions of other adult adoptees, under a myriad of rationalizations, one of which is the alleged promise of confidentiality to my birthmother.
I am extrememly curious if your stance on this issue is consistent with ACLU positions on access to medical records, Social Security information, and a myriad of other sources of information governments gather on individuals? In many cases these records were gathered under an erroneous understanding that they could be held from the individuals to which the information pertained. But we have determined that the information so gathered must be accessible to the individual to which it pertains. Does not the right to privacy contain the right of an individual to access documents pertaining to them, as well as protecting the confidentiality of those documents from others? A moral stance on the right to privacy must contain both of these provisions, or it is an empty stance.
The argument that Closed Records laws were designed to protect birthmothers is tenuous and tortured one, although one with great sentimental appeal (note that birthfathers do not receive the specific attention of the presumed protectors). If this proposition were true, then why aren't records sealed upon relinquishment instead of the finalization of adoption? Records were sealed for a variety of reasons, the most compelling of which is to protect the integrity of adoptive families and adoptees from unwonted intrusion. Neither of these parties is affected adversely by the proposed bills.
As an adult adoptee, I am outraged that the ACLU has decided to take a stance on this bill based only on a tenuous argument that would appear to contradict it's truly moral stance on other issues regarding the rights of privacy.
Yours,
Ron Morgan
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