CANADIAN ADOPTEES for TRUTH and OPENNESS (CATO)

The Adoption Show

2006-06-10T21:22:00.000-07:00

THE ADOPTION SHOW
Voices Ending the Myth . . .

with
your hosts
adoptees,
Michelle Edmunds & David Bishop

Sunday June 11, 2006 @ 8:30 PM EST
on
www.natradio.com
log on to www.natradio and click "Listen"

__________________________

Topic for this show...
Mothers . . . The Myth of "Choice"

Join us this Sunday with our guest speakers...

Karen Wilson Buterbaugh
In 1966, at the age of 17, Karen Wilson Buterbaugh was sent to the Florence Crittenton maternity home in Washington D.C. where her daughter, Michelle Renee, was born on July 22nd. Her daughter was removed from her by social caseworkers ten days later. Karen found her daughter, now named “Maria,” thirty years later in November 1996 and made contact with her in January 1997.

Karen is founder and President of OriginsUSA and co-founder of Mothers For Open Records Everywhere (MORE). She co-authored the book "Adoption Healing, for mothers (2003) and In the Best Interests Of Whom? \n\n",0] ); D(["ce"]); //-->( 2005) with Joe Soll. She also authored magazine articles "Setting the Record Straight" (2001, Moxie) and "Not By Choice" (2002, Eclectica).
(8:40pm)

Ann Fessler
Ann Fessler is and adoptee and the author of a new book — it has only been out for about a month -- and critics are calling it “Wrenching”, “Riveting” and “Groundbreaking”

The book --
“The Girls Who Went Away,
The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Babies for Adoption in the Decades before Roe v. Wade.”
The book is based on Fessler’s extensive research and oral history interviews she conducted with over 100 women from around the US who surrendered babies between 1945-1973.
Ann is also an installation artist and filmmaker.
(9:15pm)

Contact David & Michelle at: theadoptionshow@gmail.com

call in to Natradio
416 204-9723 (for long distance calls put a 1 in front of 416)

***This June 11 show may not
have enough time for call ins...

Welcome to The Adoption Show!
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Adopters Sue Over Defective Children

2006-05-21T10:41:00.000-07:00

Jury awards adoptive parents $409,000
By Jane Musgrave

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 20, 2006

WEST PALM BEACH — After a10-year legal battle, a Boston-area couple on Friday was awarded less than a third of the $1.5 million they sought in a lawsuit claiming they were duped into adopting severely disabled twins.

A Palm Beach County jury of five women and one man ordered a Massachusetts-based adoption agency to pay Robert and Renee Albert of Brookline, Mass., $409,000 for the cost of caring for the twins, now 14. One of the boys has cerebral palsy and the other has Tourette's syndrome, obsessive compulsive disorder and a host of neurological ills.

While the award was far less than they sought, the Alberts said they were pleased by the jury's decision.
"It's a very big victory for adoptive parents," Renee Albert said. "It's about making an informed choice."
Her attorney, Kevin Richardson, agreed, saying the lawsuit wasn't solely about money.
"I'm glad that the jury saw the adoption process is built on trust and built on truth," he said.

The couple claimed that Elizabeth Quackenbush, the late founder of Adoptions With Love, lied about the circumstances of their sons' birth at St. Mary's Medical Center in 1991. They were told the birth mother, while heavyset, was from a "Fortune 400" family and had an uneventful pregnancy and delivery.

Actually, the woman, who now is a real estate agent and lives in North Palm Beach, weighed 260 pounds, was on Medicaid and suffered from hepatitis and various other ills. After giving birth, she spent two weeks in the hospital, including the intensive care unit.

Abnormal newborn test results were dismissed as insignificant, the couple testified.
Michael Smith, who represented the adoption agency, maintained the Alberts were aware of the risks they faced. For instance, he said, they knew the boys were born nearly two months prematurely. They first saw one of the babies while he was in the neonatal intensive care unit tethered to a feeding tube.

In fact, the jury, which deliberated for nine hours over two days, found that 15 percent of the blame for the adoption gone awry fell on the Alberts.

The Alberts will receive only about $104,000. The couple got a $200,000 settlement from St. Mary's, a nurse practitioner and a pediatrician who were named in the original lawsuit. That amount, and $105,000 an insurance company has already paid for the boys' medical care, will be deducted from the jury award, Smith said.
However, Richardson said, the agency will also have to pay $125,000 in interest because the suit was filed in 1996.
Chosen Children, a now-defunct Palm Springs-based agencythat was sued for its role in the adoption, was cleared of any wrongdoing by the jury.

Despite the verdict that end a nearly monthlong trial, the lawsuit may not be over.

While no decision has been made, Robert Albert said he wants to appeal Palm Beach County Circuit Judge John Hoy's decision that prevented them from seeking money for pain and suffering. Those damages are in the millions of dollars, Richardson said.
Albert said he doubts his sons will ever be able to work. He said he wants to put enough money aside so they won't ever have to.
"If something happens to me, what happens to them? I don't want them on Medicaid," he said.

Amy Cohen, director of the agency, insisted Quackenbush, who died in 2003, did nothing wrong.
Having handled more than 1,300 adoptions, she said she worries about how the boys are dealing with their parents' much-publicized claims that they wouldn't have adopted the twins had they known of their medical problems.

The Alberts said they have carefully explained their statements to their sons, who testified during the trial as did the birth mother. "I tell them that... before I put them in my arms I didn't know them," said Renee Albert. "Once I got to know them, they were my boys."
She said she never once thought about giving them back.

Robert Albert said once he flew home with the boys, there was no turning back. That's why Quackenbush's misrepresentations, which came before they left West Palm Beach, were so critical

Nova Scotia & Opening Adoption Records

2005-11-05T16:28:00.000-08:00

Adoption reform overdue in N.S.
By CAROL TOOTON November 18, 2004 The Halifax Herald

November being National Adoption Month gives us cause to reflect once again onthe progress being made with regard to open adoption records.Ontario?s community services minister, Sandra Pupatello, got it right when shewrote in an opinion column for the Toronto Star recently: "When Ontario begansealing its adoption records 80 years ago, it was introducing a social policythat it felt was right for the times. But to be relevant, social policies mustchange as society changes. To be defensible, social policy must be based onexperience and evidence, not fear."It?s time to move Ontario?s social policy forward. Ontario?s adoptees andbirth parents don?t live in the 1920s. It?s time our adoption informationlaws didn?t either."We at Canadian Mental Health Association, Nova Scotia Division, applaud therecent legislation passed by the province of Ontario, which will truly openadoption records in that province. There is no right to veto disclosure ofinformation, and the law is made retroactive to 1927 when adoption records weresealed. At one stroke, Ontario has given all adoptees in that province equalrights with non-adopted Canadians: the right to know the names of their naturalparents plus the right to current family medical history.Privacy concerns are adequately addressed by providing the right to place ano-contact veto. Anyone who does not wish to meet a natural parent orbiological son or daughter may legally register that wish. There is a fine of$50,000 should that legally binding request not be honoured. This has beenproven to work in other countries. There is no reason why it should not work inCanada.We agree with Ontario?s view that it is time governments in Canada stoppedperpetuating the shame, the blame, the secrecy and the lies that for far toolong have been a part of the adoption situation. This is certainly true foradoptions which took place in the 1940s, ?50s and ?60s. While governmentsgenerally have provided a better scenario for more recent adoptions, it is morethan time that the overall physical and mental health of older adoptees andtheir natural parents be given due consideration.We also agree with the written recommendation to Canada (October 2003) by the UNCommission on the Rights of the Child, that release of personal information tothe immediate parties concerned (such information is never released to thepublic at large) is a "fundamental right necessary for the mental health" ofthe individual and "not inconsistent with the right to a private life."As Ms. Pupatello so eloquently stated: "Ontario?s adoptees and birth parentsdon?t live in the 1920s. It?s time our adoption information laws didn?teither."We at Canadian Mental Health, Nova Scotia Division, feel that adoption reform islong overdue in Nova Scotia. We urge the government to stop perpetuating thefear, secrecy and shame which, in former years, was attached to adoption. Onceand for all, it is time to put to rest the myths and the tired, untruearguments against opening adoption records.Carol Tooton is executive director, Canadian Mental Health Association, NovaScotia Division.
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THE CHRONICLE HERALD

Nova Scotia should open adoption records

November 04, 2005
By MIKE SLAYTER

The idea of open adoption records may, for some, conjure up an image of a free-for-all shareware stampede to view long-held government secret files pertaining to adoption in this province. But rest assured, this is not what open-records legislation represents or would allow, contrary to the beliefs of at least some who steadfastly oppose the notion of allowing the adoption community entitlement to their own personal information and histories. The move to open-records legislation, as has been the worldwide trend for the past few decades, serves several purposes. Not only does it put to rest the mythology and innuendo surrounding adoption secrecy, it acknowledges the absolute need to revamp the discriminatory practice of concealing truth from the adoption community.The hundreds of studies undertaken worldwide respecting the rights of individuals impacted by adoption legislation that prevents individuals from accessing their own personal histories have all drawn the same conclusion: that, for adoptees, the continued practice of concealment of birth identity and unabridged family history only serves to further the psychological trauma and degradation felt by the vast majority who are caught in the veil of adoption secrecy.Similarly for birth parents, many of whom silently agonize over the *without choice* relinquishment of their children, the archaic policies of secrecy only exacerbate their ability to ever find peace and relief from what used to be a seemingly overzealous, judgmental and condemning society.Adding to their frustrations with the absolute control of information by Big Brother, the adoption community¢s protest of government¢s patronizing attitude and continued misleading of the public as to *who was promised what* respecting confidentiality is continually being dismissed and/or ignored. Thankfully, not every province is like Nova Scotia. With resolve and fortitude, the Ontario government recently passed its much-maligned Adoption Disclosure Bill 183, finally putting an end to years of rhetoric and mythology that have shrouded the truths of adoption secrecy¢s disastrous impact on adoptees and birth parents. Bill 183, touted to be the most progressive disclosure legislation in North America, is in line with what has already been in place for years in other jurisdictions around the world. The carefully crafted bill will attempt to eliminate 80 years of secrecy and denial of rights felt by so many within the adoption community.The move to openness by Ontario¢s government can only be seen as an acknowledgement that its outdated disclosure policies have been discriminatory and a contravention of the UN Charter. It is also a clear indication that the Ontario government has listened to the adoption community and has done its homework regarding its study of open-records legislation in other jurisdictions, both in and outside of Canada. There will be some opposition to the legislation. Undoubtedly, those opposed to openness will cry foul, launching into their usual misleading tirades about the *promise of confidentiality,* which they say was demanded and expected by birth mothers. The fact is that if such a promise had been given to any party to an adoption, it was unauthorized and was never penned in any legal contract or government act.The pleas and demands for openness have come from adoptees, birth parents and family members, as well as a very small contingent of adoptive parents.However, with their insistence that adoption records remain inaccessible or sealed, many adoptive parents have alienated themselves not only from the other two sides of the adoption triangle but, in many a case, from their own children.One might think that the successful passage of Ontario¢s Bill 183 would serve as an appropriate springboard for provinces which obviously are in need of an assisted launch into the 21st century. Unfortunately, it is evident that the Nova Scotia government refuses to overcome its mindless, draconian status quo. It is bittersweet for many of us in this province to witness the recent victory in Ontario, and what can only be described as a release from bondage for so many in that province. Their change has been made for all the right reasons. The Nova Scotia government¢s refusal to change, on the other hand, continues for all the wrong reasons. November is National Adoption Awareness Month. How fitting that the province of Ontario saw the light and passed its Adoption Disclosure Bill 183 on the first day of this month.Mike Slayter is an adoption rights advocate who lives in Dartmouth.
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Families kept apart Despite a promise years ago to open adoption records, government has done nothing

By David Rodenhiser, The Halifax Daily News

Imagine waking up one morning, not knowing anything about your mother or father. Not their names, or even what they look like. Nothing.
For most of us, the very thought is frightening, and almost inconceivable. But thousands of Nova Scotians face every morning knowing nothing of their parents. They are adoptees, and the government refuses to allow them open access to information the rest of us take for granted.
It’s a fundamental unfairness that the Ontario government corrected for its citizens Tuesday, but which Premier John Hamm and his crew have allowed to persist in Nova Scotia, despite promising six years ago to open up adoption records.
“I’m so glad that at least one provincial government had the fortitude to do the right thing,” said Mike Slayter, who’s been fighting for more than a decade to make Nova Scotia’s system more open.
Effective 2007, Ontario adoptees who’ve reached the age of 18 will be able to access their birth certificates and adoption orders, which will provide them with their birth names and the names of their parents. Birth parents will be allowed to access the same information, once the child they gave up for adoption turns 19.
Birth parents and adult adoptees will be able to file a notice prohibiting direct or indirect contact, and the party requesting the birth certificate and adoption order will have to sign a form consenting to the no-contact provision. Violating that agreement will be punishable by fines of up to $50,000.
As well, disclosure prohibitions will be provided to birth parents and adoptees who can prove that disclosure would cause significant harm.
This is a sensible system that will give people information they have a fundamental right to know, while protecting others against contact from parents, children or siblings they don’t want to meet. In fact, it’s similar to the system the Hamm government proposed in legislation it tabled in 1999, but withdrew after some parents and adoptees complained about loss of privacy and the potential for unwanted contact.
No system is foolproof, but the 1999 bill offered far fewer risks than rewards.
Instead of being progressive, Nova Scotia bears the shame of being among the provinces a United Nations committee on children’s rights criticized two years ago for failing to “recognize the right of an adopted child to know, as far as possible, her/his biological parents.” British Columbia, Alberta and Newfoundland have open adoption records.
Slayter, 50, said finding his birth mother gave him a “full sense of self.”
“I never realized how big that piece was until I found it,” he said yesterday. “It made me feel real. It made me feel like an entire person — a whole person. I actually had some history that I could call my own.”
Slayter started searching for his mother in 1987, a few years after his adoptive parents died. He and his twin sister Wendy were adopted together as infants and had a happy, loving upbringing in Halifax and England. But he always wondered.
“A lot of my younger years were fraught with so much self-doubt,” Slayter said. “I would fantasize as a little boy, ‘What does my birth mom look like?’ And I envisioned this picture of her. For some reason, I thought that she would be a very plump woman, a great cook, living in Cape Breton. She was none of that.”
It took Slayter five years of detective work to track down his mother, a slight woman from Springh ill.They spoke on the phone for seven months before reuniting in 1993.

Even though it took me five years, I am so glad, and my daughters are glad and my birth mom is very, very happy. It’s just been tremendous.”
Sadly, Slayter’s joy is one that is still being denied to many Nova Scotians.

drodenhiser@hfxnews.ca
David Rodenhiser has no personal connection to adoption issues, other than profound empathy for people barred from knowing their own heritage. He lives in Dartmouth.
PROMISES, PROMISES
Promise No. 182 of John Hamm’s 253-pledge 1999 Blue Book campaign platform: “Introduce legislation that recognizes the right to identifying information for adult adoptees and birth parents.”
Result: It was introduced, but never passed

Ontario's Bill 183 Passes Through The Legislature

2005-10-22T05:35:00.000-07:00

On November 1, 2005 Bill 183, an Act to unseal adoption records in Ontario passed through the Legislature. The vote was 68-19.

It will take another 18 months for the government to implement regulations, such as citizens requesting their names not be released and how adoptees will obtain non-identifying information about their parents and background.

This is a time for celebration - as we have finally begun the process of blowing out the candle of secrecy and turning on the light of truth and openness.

Many thanks to everyone who supported Bill 183!

Best,
CATO

World Support for Truth and Openness in Adoption

2005-08-27T06:06:00.000-07:00

2005-08-14

Support from England - Ontario's Bill 183

Child Rights Information Network in England posted CATO member Ron Murdock's (adoptee) article on Bill-183.

Bill-183: this article can be found at http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=5969.
Isabelle GuitardInformation Assistant Child Rights Information Network (CRIN)c/o Save the Children,1 St. John's LaneLondon EC1M 4AR,United KingdomTel: + 44 (0)20 7012 6865/6867Fax: + 44 (0)20 7012 6952Email:

Bill 183 to open adoption records in Ontario, Canada (29 July 2005)

Earlier this year, the province of Ontario, in Canada, introduced a bill (183) which, if passed, would open adoption records to adopted people over the age of 18 without any disclosure veto

Earlier this year, the province of Ontario, in Canada, introduced a bill (183) which, if passed, would open adoption records to adopted people over the age of 18 without any disclosure veto attached.A disclosure veto gives the person being sought the right to veto the release of information. Only adoptees or natural parents are allowed to seek such information.

The bill was brought in by the present Minister of Community Services,Sandra Pupatello after careful planning and consultation with theCanadian Council of Natural Mothers, The Coalition for Open Adoption Records and with the backing of the Ontario Children's Aid Services (one of the largest adoption brokers in the province) and the Adoption Council of Canada.

While the majority of members in the Ontario House of Legislature -both government and opposition - back the bill there are two oppositionmembers who were successful in stalling a vote on the bill by filibustering tactics during the clause by clause reading of the bill.

There is also the extraordinary involvement of the Ontario Privacy Commissioner, Dr. Ann Cavoukian.The Privacy Commissioner's role is to advise the government and toeducate the public.The government did indeed consult Dr Cavoukian prior to bringing the bill before parliament, and she conceded at that point that the bill would be, ultimately, a matter of "social policy."Once the bill was brought before the House, however, Dr. Cavoukian appointed herself chief lobbyist against the bill, claiming torepresent "thousands" of anonymous people who had contacted her office to state that their lives "would be ruined" if the bill were passed.She claims that some people threatened suicide if the bill were passed.Dr Cavoukian's office has no jurisdiction over release of adoption information.

Despite being given hard core facts regarding benchmark legislation which has been in place in England and Australia for many years now, the Privacy Commissioner has chosen to use very selected excerpts from those documents to try and prove that open adoption records do NOT work in other countries.

The right wing press in Ontario has taken up her wild statements andpublished them as fact while, at the same time, dimming down anyrebuttals sent to them which prove the opposite.With each province in Canada free to legislate on adoption records asthey see fit, a pattern of unequal rights for children is developing inCanada. There is no unifying policy from the federal government.

The United Nations Committee for the Rights of the Child made specificrecommendation to Canada in October 2003 stating: "The Committee recommends that the State party consider amending its legislation to ensure that information about the date and place of birth of adopted children and their biological parents are preservedand made available to these children.

”In posing the question to the Canadian delegation, Commissioner Maria Ortiz from Paraguay “. . .regretted that only three Canadian provinces guaranteed the right for adopted children to know the identity of their biological parents, a right which is vital for their mental health and is notincompatible with the right to a private life.” (Extract from the minutes of the morning session.)

However, adoption law in Canada comes under provincial jurisdiction and until the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is incorporated into Canadian federal law nothing much can be done to persuade the federal government to bother heeding this recommendation.
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2005-08-14

Australia Supports Open Records
Evelyn Robinson advocates for Open Records in Ontario

Published in the National Post:Thursday, June 23, 2005 Evelyn Robinson

Re: Ontario adoption lessons from Australia Re: Bill 183 Will Infringe On Privacy Rights (letter to the editor).

I am a social worker who has worked in post-adoption services in Australia for the last 16 years. In all states and territories of Australia, adults who were adopted as children have access to their original birth certificates and adoption records with their parents' names, as well as other details, when they reach 18 years of age.

Mothers who have been separated from their children by adoption have access to the new birth certificate issued to their children after the adoption, with the child's adoptive name, when that child turns 18.

Fifty years ago in many countries, anyone who set up a business was assured that they could only hire staff who fit in with their personal prejudices and that they could pay female staff less than male staff. However, no government now feels obliged to honour those assurances, just because they were once given.

Today, we have antidiscrimination laws to ensure an equitable work environment.If mothers who lost children to adoption were indeed promised lifelongconfidentiality 50 years ago, when social workers were unaware of the long-term impact of adoption separation on mother and child, then there is no obligation on any government to honour those assurances today.

Our society has progressed in knowledge and social awareness in the last 50 years and policies and practices which were acceptable then are now seen as outdated.

Evelyn Robinson, Christies Beach
South Australia

Geneticists and Doctors Want Open Reocrds

2005-08-22T08:28:00.000-07:00

Toronto Geneticst Support Open Records
Dr. David Chitayat
Genetiscis, Mt Sinai Hospital (Toronto, Ontario) Hospital for Sick Children (Toronto)
personal conversation with CATO co-founder Michelle Edmunds (Aug.21/05)

"Once I had a patient who had been diagnosed with Dominant Polysystic Kindey desease, which is heraditry, and [he] was extremely concerned that the rest of birth family know he had this illness. Because of adoption laws, this man was not able to relay life-saving information to his family.

It is very important for all people including adoptees to know their medical information and identity. I do not support a disclosure veto in Bill-183."
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Cheryl Shuman, Director, Genetic Counselling, Hospital for Sick Children (Toronto, Ontario)

Personal conversation with CATO co-founder Michelle Edmunds (Aug. 22, 2005)

“In my years at the hospital working with genetic disorders, there have been many situations where the an adoptee needed access to a family medical history an could not access it. In one case the adoptee wanted to tell other family members about her genetic disorder, and couldn’t. My understanding is that medical information belongs to you, and it is unethical for anyone to withhold this information.

I get calls from adoptees regarding inherited medical disorders, and if the adopted person is not presenting symptoms of a medical disorder, and they want to have genetic testing done, we need to see the biological family medical history, or at least have knowledge of a history of a genetic disorder. The more information a person has – the better.

I see all sides of the adoption situation; we also have adopting parents call us asking about genetic disorders. I wonder if this could be viewed as discriminatory against the child. The adopting parents may have a bit of medical background on the child’s mother, and want to know if this child will develop the disorder. This may prevent the adoption of a child who has a genetic history of perhaps a mental illness, and it may discourage someone from adopting this child, as most people look for a child who is “flawless.”

CATO Members in the Media/Adoption Community Support Open Adoption Records

2005-08-17T23:31:00.000-07:00

National Post
Adoption disclosure bill set to go to vote
Ontarians debate privacy measures Heather Sokoloff

National PostWednesday, October 26, 2005[]CREDIT: Peter J. Thompson, National Post

Wendy Rowney, an adult adoptee who supports Ontario's proposed adoption disclosure legislation, says the bill's no-contact order actually provides more protection for birth parents who do not want to be found by their offspring than the status quo.

When Ernie Parsons, a Liberal MPP, adopted a child in 1975, he and his wife had to sign papers that made it appear as if they were their child's birth parents.At the time, Mr. Parsons felt like a fraud, but he signed anyways, feeling he had no choice.

Fully 30 years later, Mr. Parsons wants his adopted children to have unfettered access to their birth records, which would happen if his government passes legislation that would set a new North American standard in adoption openness.

The bill, which has been proposed six times over the last 15 years, was debated in the house last night and is expected to be put to a vote in the coming days or weeks."Try to imagine what it would be like if we were banned from contact with our siblings, our uncles, our aunts, our roots," said Mr. Parsons. "It wouldn't be right."

Supporters of the bill -- a community of adult adoptees and birth mothers -- argue openness will reverse the negative stigma attached to their adoptions, the product of a previous era when attitudes about unwed motherhood and infertility made secrecy the norm.

But Ontario's privacy commissioner, Ann Cavoukian, has taken a passionate stance against the legislation, arguing that that rape and incest victims should not be forced to release their names to the offspring they handed over to the state decades ago.She says she has received hundreds of calls, e-mails and letters from outraged birth mothers and adult adoptees terrified their families will be torn apart if their secrets are revealed.

"You are going to be accused of violating the Charter of Rights and Freedoms," said Joe Tascona, a Tory MPP, to Sandra Pupatello, the Liberal Minister of Community and Social Services, whose ministry is responsible for the legislation.Ontario would become the fourth province in Canada to open adoption records retroactively, but unlike Alberta, British Columbia and Newfoundland and Labrador, the only protection offered to the birth parents and adult adoptees who do not want to be found would come in the form of a "no contact order."

Names and other identifying information would be released from files containing a no-contact order, but those who attempt contact will be slapped with a $50,000 fine.

Dr. Cavoukian and the Tory opposition say they support retroactive disclosure but want a disclosure veto."We believe that Alberta, B.C. and Newfoundland have the right solution," said Norm Stirling, Tory MP.

But Ms. Pupatello says the government cannot live in fear of being sued -- adding that letters and e-mails sent to her have overwhelmingly been in favour of the legislation."We can't be threatened by litigation," she said. "Otherwise governments would be frozen forever."

Ms. Pupatello says she has studied jurisdictions outside North America, including New South Wales in Australia, that have opened adoption records without implementing a disclosure veto, and found that the no-contact order was strong enough.

"We know of no case in the world where someone has violated a no-contact order," she said.She said Ontarians who do not want their names to be released can appeal their case to a board of experts, who will make a decision.

She said such an appeal would entail a "simple process," but did not give any details."We understand that there are those out there who want to keep their past in the past."

Wendy Rowney, an adult adoptee who supports the legislation and who sat in the public gallery watching the proceeding, said birth parents and their offspring, terrified of rejection, always proceed with caution.

She also says the bill's no-contact order actually provides more protection for birth parents who do not want to be found by their offspring than the status quo, considering many have been performing searches on their own for years.

"Any adult can do a search and find their birth family," Ms. Rowney said."If a birth mother is contacted who doesn't want to be found, she has no legal redress. The legislation would give her protection with the no-contact order, which includes a $50,000 fine."

Mr. Parsons said he does not fear the day his adult adopted children tell him they want to search for their birth parents."I changed the diapers. I sat up with them when they were sick. I'm the father," he said."There's a birth mother and a birth father out there somewhere, but we are a family. And if our children chose to find them, we will help them."
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Adoption Changes Would Open Door to the Past
But unwanted revelations could destroy lives, say privacy advocates
By KAREN HOWLETT Monday, September 12, 2005 Page A3

Michelle Edmunds was 1½years old when she was taken from her home in Toronto and placed in foster care. But she never stopped thinking about her mother -- what she was like, the colour of her eyes, and why she had given her baby up for adoption. They finally reunited when Ms. Edmunds was 34.

Ms. Edmunds, now 42, said the happiest day of her life was when she received family photographs in the mail from her mother in 1996. Her younger brother, John James, had the same red hair and freckles and looked like her twin. The photo of her grandmother as a young woman bore an uncanny resemblance to Ms. Edmunds -- they had the same eyes and mouth.

"I could actually look at those pictures and see myself," she said.

The photos helped Ms. Edmunds fill in some of the missing pieces about her past. She began searching for her birth mother in 1975. But she does not understand why it took 21 years before she had enough information to track down her mother, who had moved to Edmonton.
She also met four of her brothers and sisters and is still searching for her father.

t's my identity. How could anybody have the right to withhold that from me? "

Ms. Edmunds decided to share her story with The Globe and Mail after the proposal of legislation in Ontario that would lift the veil of secrecy on adoption records. Hearings resume Wednesday.Ms. Edmunds, who is single and works as a counsellor helping immigrants find jobs, is on one side of a battle, sparked by the government's efforts to bring greater openness to a process that has long been confidential.

On the other side are privacy advocates who say the government has gone too far by proposing to retroactively expose the identities of birth parents who expected decisions they made to remain private.Ontario Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian is leading the campaign defending the rights the birth mothers who now fear exposure because they have never told even their families about having a child they gave up for adoption.

"I feel like I have no other choice," Ms. Cavoukian said. "I feel that it's my job, because there's no one else to express this view."

Under the current law, in place since 1927, adoption records are sealed. The only way for birth parents and adopted children to reunite is for both to register with the government to have identifying details revealed. Even then, a match can take as long as three years.

The proposed legislation, known as Bill 183, would allow individuals at age 18 access to their birth records, which contain their original name and information about their birth mother. Parents would have access to birth records and adoption orders once the child turns 19.

Ms. Cavoukian is urging the government to amend the bill to give birth parents and adoptees who want their identities protected an automatic disclosure veto for adoptions that occurred before the proposed rules take effect.She's received hundreds of letters, many from elderly birth mothers who fear revelations about their past would destroy their families. "I made the hardest decision of my life 20 years ago alone with no family knowledge of my pregnancy or adoption," says one letter. "These proposed changes could completely upset my life as it stands today."

Ms. Cavoukian said the goal of greater openness of adoption records can be achieved without trampling on the rights of these individuals and potentially destroying their lives. She has the support of every one of Canada's federal and provincial privacy commissioners and the provincial Progressive Conservatives.

Tory MPP Norm Sterling called on the government last week to withdraw Bill 183 and draft a new piece of legislation to improve access to adoption records without revoking the privacy rights of birth mothers and adoptees.Sandra Pupatello, Minister of Community and Social Services, said there would be little point in changing the legislation if it is not retroactive.

The government has amended the bill to allow adopted persons who had been victims of abuse by their birth parents to maintain their privacy and to allow others who want privacy to appear before a tribunal where they would argue that disclosure would cause significant harm.

Ms. Edmunds said her thirst for information never went away. "It wasn't a choice. It was a physical need, a craving."At 10, she was adopted into the family that included three older children, where she had been in foster care since the age of 2.

But that did not end her craving for information about her birth mother. "Telling an adopted child that you love them does not override that physical need to know your roots," she said. "What adopted kids want to hear is who they look like, what's your mother's name, when's her birthday."

She remembers going through the telephone directory when she was 10, looking for a listing for her mother. She didn't find it.

When she was 13, her adopted family took her to the Children's Aid Society in Toronto, and asked them to give her some information about her background.She got a document titled Non-identifying information on child prior to adoption. It had basic information about her background: she was born in Chicago on Sept. 28, 1962, began walking at nine months and had her tonsils removed at 3. It also noted a doctor observed in 1964 that she never smiled.

She spent the next 20 years feeling confused and thinking she could be related to everybody. On one occasion, she approached a haggard-looking woman in a bar -- she knew her birth mother was an alcoholic -- and asked if she had a daughter named Michelle.In 1995, Ms. Edmunds returned to the Children's Aid Society and found out more about her family.

Her mother was raised in an orphanage in Nova Scotia and she had eight brothers and sisters. One brother died in infancy and five other siblings were adopted or became wards of the Crown.She also found out that one of her older sisters, Colette, had been searching for her for 17 years.

She met her and another sister, Mimi -- in New York where they live -- and the three have become close. "We became the sisters we should have been all along," Ms. Edmunds said.The following year, Ms. Edmunds tracked down her mother at an address in Edmonton with the help of a friend who overheard her phoning across the country.

She spoke to her mom for the first time on the telephone on Mother's Day in 1996 and went to visit in September. She said her mom was only 62 at the time, but looked like 92.

Her mother told her she had tried to find her many times but that no one would give her any information.Ms. Edmunds was struck by one overwhelming emotion. "l lost her for 34 years and then had her for eight months. I never really cried because I didn't know her well enough.

"The reunion was bittersweet. Her mother died two months later of pneumonia.
___________________________________
How Do Adoptees Pass On Their Ancestral History?
CATO member and adoptee Glenn Gardiner writes...

Honorable Sandra Pupatello, Minister of Community and Social Services Ministry of Community and Social Services (Ontario)
Saturday, April 23, 2005

Hon. Sandra Pupatello,

I thank you for your efforts to reform the Adoption Laws of Ontario. Reform that is long overdue. I read your response, Toronto Star April 18, 2005, to the recent debate concerning the bill you have proposed and could not agree with you more.

Knowing where I came from has been something I have wondered about most of my life. Even with assurances from my mother that she would be supportive of my searching, I was afraid of how she might react if I actually searched for my birth parents.I loved my mother dearly and could not bring myself to commence a search until 5 years after her death.

What finally made me realize I had to find out about my ancestry, was my daughters’ wedding. It made me realize I was not the only one affected by adoption. Every descendant of mine would be affected. I could not fathom my grandchildren not knowing their ancestry. And it would be unconscionable for me not to do everything in my power to determine what hereditary diseases I might have passed on to my children and grandchildren.

The changes you propose to the adoption laws of Ontario do nothing more than give us the same rights as all Ontario and Canadian citizens. I have always wondered why it is not obvious that adoptees who had no say in the adoption process, as minors, have fewer rights than criminals, as adults. Why shouldn’t my children and grandchildren have the same rights as everyone else in Ontario. It is not their fault they had an adoptee for a father or grandfather.

It is not right to trample the rights of citizens just because an ancestor was adopted.Lastly, you are right that the law must be retroactive. Why would anyone think that because of my date of birth, I should not be entitled to the same rights as someone born today.

Why is it that everyone who touts a reference to the “promise of confidentiality” cannot produce a copy of it.I am sorry for the length of my letter, but I feel it is extremely important that people realize the laws affecting adoption do not stop with the adoptee. I am very proud of my family and want them to have the opportunity to know their ancestry, know their medical history, know their relatives and for them to know my family.

Respectfully yours,
Glenn Gardiner
________________________________________

In 4 Generations, Half of Americans' Ancestry Will be Bogus -
By [Attorney] Brice M. ClaggettIn "Adoption Laws Threaten Death of Genealogy," an article by Attorney Brice M. Claggett in the National Genealogical Society (NGS) Newsletter,

Claggett describes how genealogical research, whether for medical purposes, sociological studies, or hobby purposes, is becoming increasingly impaired with each passing generation by secrecy laws.In most states, secrecy laws have been adopted in this century which cause the original birth record of an adopted child to be replaced by a bogus record. The bogus record names, as the parents, the newly adoptive parents, and does not reveal in any way that they are not the birth parents. Thus, the researcher has no way of knowing that the apparent ancestry of the child as shown in public records is bogus.The effect is similar to compound interest in reverese. Attorney Claggett estimates that IN ANOTHER 4 GENERATIONS OR SO, ABOUT HALF THE ANCESTRY OF THE AMERICAN POPULATION WILL BE BOGUS.

Genealogical researchers, as well as medical and other researchers, need to take action to correct this Orwellian practice. Surely all people, whether adopted or not, have a right to be able to trace their ancestry in public records.[NOTE: The above article and complete newsletters are available from The National Genealogical Society Newsletter is at 4527 - 17th Street North, Arlington, VA 22207-2399.]_________________________________________

CATO member Noreen Talbot tells her story...
Following adoption’s trail
By Stephanie MacLellan - The Chronicle-Journal August 21, 2005

Growing up in Toronto, Noreen Talbot always thought she was different from the rest of her family.She had auburn hair and green eyes. Her younger brother and sister were blue-eyed blonds. She loved to sing in the choir and play piano. Her siblings were never musically inclined.

It was decades later, when she was 48 and living in Lappe, that Talbot discovered something that could explain the differences. She had been adopted by the people she thought were her parents when she was a baby.Her stepbrother let the secret slip in December 2003 when she travelled to her father’s funeral in British Columbia. After she badgered her stepmother for answers, she finally confirmed it.“My adoptive mom had sworn everybody to secrecy. Everybody,” Talbot said. “For whatever reason, they all decided not to tell me. And my adoptive mother’s been dead for 27 years.”

First Talbot was shocked, and then she was angry at her family for keeping her in the dark.

When her anger subsided, she started a search for her origins. She had no idea how much work it would be. Under Ontario law, adoption records that include the birth parents’ names are sealed, unless both adoptees and birth parents give their consent.

First, Talbot contacted the Ontario government’s Adoption Disclosure Register to get a copy of her adoption order. She had to fill out what seemed like an endless string of forms to get it. The order gave Talbot her birth name — Dorothy Louise Hunter — and her date of adoption, six months after her birth, but nothing else to indicate who her parents were.She contacted the Children’s Aid Society in Toronto, which handled the adoption, to request more information.Normally, the waiting list for non-identifying information is at least two years long, but staff put a rush on her request due to her age, Talbot said.

From that information, she learned that her mother also had auburn hair, with blue eyes. Her mother was of English and Irish heritage, and just 15 years old when she gave birth.“They said she fell in with the wrong crowd,” Talbot said.The five-page document from Children’s Aid also revealed Talbot lived in foster care until she was six months old, was born prematurely, and was diagnosed with a heart murmur and an intolerance for milk.“These are things I did not know that, in my opinion, I should have known,” she said.But even that picture of her background has too many holes for Talbot.

She wants to know her family medical history, and she wants to know where she came from.“It’s really hard for people that aren’t adopted to understand,” she said. “It’s basic human nature to want to know who you are, where you came from, who do I look like.“All of a sudden, I find out I’m adopted and I’m not entitled to any personal information.”

She’s signed up for the government’s active search registry, which helps parents and adoptees find each other’s identities, but she was told it takes two to seven years for most people to get the information they want.According to government figures, 57,000 adoptees and birth relatives are on the list, and only 887 were reunited last year.

Talbot also joined the Coalition to Open Adoption Records, a group that is fighting for Ontario’s adoption disclosure bill.If passed, Bill 183 would let adoptees get copies of their original birth records, which could include their parents’ names, once they turn 18. It would also let birth parents access their child’s records and current name once the adoptee turns 19.

Parents and adoptees can put a “no contact” notice on their file to stop the other party from getting in touch with them. Anyone who violates that notice may be fined up to $50,000.The coalition thinks adoptees need access to their birth information.“Adopted people are the only people who do not have access to information about themselves that everyone else has,” said Karen Lynn, who sits on the coalition’s co-ordinating committee. “We feel it’s a violation of human rights.”

Cathy Farrell licenses private adoptions through North of Superior Adoption Services. Most birth parents and adoptive parents she works with now favour open adoptions, where they meet before the child is born and decide whether to stay in touch as the child grows up.“I think it’s healthier for the child to know as much as they can about their biological heritage,” Farrell said. “There needs to be more openness in general. “(Adoption is) a loving plan people make for their child when they’re not able to raise the child.”

But she knows things were more secretive in the past, and she thinks people who gave up their children thinking they’d have total anonymity should still have that option.That’s why Ontario’s privacy commissioner has been lobbying against the bill. Ann Cavoukian has said making the proposed new rules retroactive would violate the rights of birth parents who may have been promised anonymity when they gave their children up for adoption.

“Going from this day forward, with everyone aware of the rules, I am in favour of openness in adoptions,” she declared in a written statement. “But retroactively changing the rules and exposing the identities of birth parents who entered into the adoption process in an era when secrecy was the norm can have major repercussions.

”But confidentiality was never legally guaranteed, Lynn said. And since adoption orders include an adoptee’s surname at birth, it can be simple for them to track down their birth mother.Her last name was Couse when she gave her son up for adoption.“At the time, there were only 10 listings for Couse in the Toronto phone book,” she said. “You can just start phoning.”

Talbot points out that the social stigma of having a child out of wedlock prompted many mothers to give up their children in secret, and that stigma is virtually gone now.Some birth parents Farrell works with still don’t want their children to know their identity once they’re adopted, but they’re few and far between, she said.Often, they change their mind after the child is born, she said.And even when adoptees know their parents’ identities, that doesn’t mean the parents have to be part of their lives.“Even when they are involved in the child’s life, it’s not as surrogate parents,” Farrell said.

“They’re involved as someone in their life who gave birth to them and cares about them.”Bill 183 passed its second reading in May. Now it’s before the legislature’s standing committee on social policy. The final vote is expected once the legislative assembly resumes sitting in the fall.Talbot is still frustrated with the delays that have stopped her from finding out who she is. She fights it by writing letters to newspapers and MPPs to lobby for the bill’s passage.

She doesn’t know what she’ll find if she learns her mother’s name, but she ardently believes nothing she could learn about her parents would be worse than not knowing.“I’m one of those people, I want to know the facts,” she said. “I don’t want to disrupt anybody’s life, but I’d like to have answers.” ________________________________
Looking for the Past
Kingsville woman supports access to adoption records
submitted by CATO member Judith Lalonde

BY ROBERTA PENNINGTON
STAR STAFF REPPORTER
KINGSVILLE

When Judith Lalonde was placed for adoption a few weeks after her birth in Windsor in 1971, she gained a loving family but lost her ancestral history.
“Whenever I went to a new doctor or to a hospital and they started asking me questions about medical history, like, ‘Does cancer run in your family.’” Said Lalonde, 34, who now lives in Kingsville, “My answer was always, ‘ I don’t know.’

And they looked at me really dumb-founded, like, ‘How could you not know?’”
The reason that Lalonde could not know is because she was born shortly after adoption laws were changed in the mid 60’s to exclude the adoptee’s birth surname from the adoption order, which is the paperwork given to adoptive parents. Birth parents’ surnames were also abbreviated to the first initial, to protect their identity.

When Lalonde worked up the courage to seek out her birth mother – in part to get her medical history for the sake of her children and in part to simply “ have a conversation with the woman who gave me life” – she had few clues to go on.

“All I had was the letter ‘G’ and there’s a lot of G’s in the phone books and city directories,” Lalonde said. “It was very hard, but I was very determined that I wanted to know more about myself.”
It took Lalonde nine years of sifting through phone books and city directories to narrow down probable names, but her sleuthing paid off. She found her birth mother who, coincidently, lived only minutes away in Cottam.

Had Bill 183, also know as the Adoption Information Disclosure Act, been law, however, Lalonde said, “ I would have probably found her within a week.”
That’s why Lalonde addressed the Standing Committee in Social Policy’s public hearing on Bill 183 at Queen’s Park recently in favour of the bill.

The bill, introduced by Community and Social Services Minister Sandra Pupatello (L—Windsor West), seeks to give adoptees over the age of 18 access to their original birth certificate and adoption order. It would also allow birth parents to access the adoptees birth records and adoption orders, with the new adopted name, after the adoptee turns 19. as a safeguard, the bill also gives each party an opportunity to place a “no contact” order: Violating the order would lead to a $50,000 fine.
We’re trying to balance the appropriate thing to do for adoptees who believe their rights have been trampled, they are second-class citizens, ‘Why does everyone else get to know and we don’t get to know?’” Pupatello said.

Making an argument on the secrecy side is Dr. Ann Cavoukian, information and privacy commissioner, who opposes disclosing without their permission the names of natural parents who placed children for adoption after the laws changed in the mid-60’s.

“ The problem is it’s going to be retroactive, meaning those individuals who gave up their children for adoption in the past 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago even, who were promised to have their records sealed permanently, their records are going to be opened without their consent.”

The commissioner has proposed the bill be amended to allow natural mothers or adoptees to file a disclosure veto, which would prevent their records from becoming available to the other party. The disclosure veto would only apply retroactively, Cavoukian said.

_______________________________________________________
Published on Hansard, May 19, 2005

COALITION FOR OPEN ADOPTION RECORDS

My name is Dr. Michael Grand. I'm a member of the coordinating committee of the Coalition for Open Adoption Records. COAR is an umbrella organization for every major adoption group in the province interested in open adoption records. You will have heard from many of these groups over the past two days.

I am also a professor of psychology at the University of Guelph and the co-director of the National Adoption Study of Canada. I have conducted the most comprehensive study in the country to describe and assess adoption policy and practice. The results of the study are published in my book Adoption in Canada. In the course of the study, I have met with the directors of adoption and their respective staff in every province and territory in the country. This work has been recognized by the Adoption Council of Ontario, the Adoption Council of Canada and the North American Council on Adoptable Children.

Good policy should not be based upon opinions or casual observation, nor should policy be determined by single-case examples. It is impossible to write law that will cover every instance. If this were the standard we used, then we would not allow anyone to drive a car for fear of a single accident. We would not engage in business for fear of a fraudulent transaction. I'm sure you see the ludicrousness of taking the extreme position. Law must be written to do the most good, while at the same time attempting to limit the possibilities of harm.

This is the approach that's been taken in Bill 183. It balances the right of everyone to a history with the right of adult adoptees and birth families to control direct access to each other. The provisions in Bill 183 are based upon the best research findings we have concerning the process of adoption. They are not an emotional wish list; they are premised upon well-gathered data. In this light, I would like to consider some of the issues pertaining to the bill.

First, let me address the question of whether a contact veto will be a strong enough disincentive to protect the privacy rights of those being sought, or will Bill 183 destroy the lives of birth parents who wish to keep their past a secret? Let us look at the data presented by the privacy commissioner yesterday. She read out a series of emotionally charged letters of birth parents who fear that their lives will be ruined if Bill 183 were to pass in its present form. It's not hard to be moved by the force of these concerns, but let us not be confused by the privacy commissioner's presentation. She spoke of birth parent anticipation of harm but, I would emphasize, not actual harm itself. Not a single letter she offered described the lived experience of someone who had been found and had not wanted contact.

Contact vetoes are available in many jurisdictions. They serve their purpose. No jurisdiction has ever taken steps to remove a contact veto from legislation for the reason that it didn't work. They've always kept them.

We've also been told in press releases and during debate in the Legislature that the experience of New South Wales points us toward the necessity of a disclosure veto, so let's look at the full evidence. In 1992, the New South Wales Law Reform Commission reported that a significant minority of birth parents felt the law violated their privacy, that a significant minority of adoptees disapproved of the law and that a majority of adoptive parents were opposed to the law. This has been cited by some to indicate that the adoption community does not want legislation without a disclosure veto. But what is the rest of the story? What you were not told was that the 1992 report also discussed the unexpectedly high compliance with the contact veto. In 1997, a subsequent law reform commission report never mentioned the need for a disclosure veto, and in 2000, the new adoption act again did not include a disclosure veto.

What is the conclusion to be drawn? Bill 183 is neither new nor is it radical. It has been tested in the field. It has been found to provide the necessary protections.

Are adoptees at risk in heading into a reunion with an abusing birth parent -- a scenario that's been put in front of us? In the national adoption study I authored, we asked all children's aid societies in Ontario, as well as over 300 other practitioners and agencies across the country, about search and reunion. Not a single respondent raised the issue of re-abuse as a concern if records were to be opened. I travelled to every province and territory in this country as part of the feedback process. I met with the provincial adoption coordinators, as well as a wide cross-section of professionals in adoption, adoptees, birth parents and adoptive parents. There was not a single instance in which any of these groups voiced concern for this matter.

Yesterday, this committee was asked to add a disclosure veto to Bill 183 for adoptions prior to the passage of the bill. What is the price of doing this? The research indicates that issues of identity and disenfranchised grief are at the heart of many of the difficulties that adoptees and birth kin experience. By restricting access to identifying information through the use of a disclosure veto, you are asking those affected to continue to pay a high personal price, both psychological and medical. We don't need two classes of adoptees and birth parents: those who will be allowed to come to terms with their history and those who will be restricted from doing so. This is simply cruel. The contact veto has been proven to protect a person's privacy while maintaining access to a history. Please do not include an unnecessary disclosure veto, and ensure the retroactive nature of this bill.

The Coalition for Open Adoption Records is recommending a number of amendments to the bill. We have sent you a copy via e-mail through the clerk of the committee. I hope that you have it. If you don't, we can easily make other copies available for you. In the interests of time, I will limit myself to mentioning only the most important amendments that we think must come forward. I must also say that I've been very impressed with the list of amendments that other speakers have presented today.

The first one that is vital for the act -- because you can't take away what you've given and leave adoptees now with just a name but no history -- is that we must have access to non-identifying information. Under the current law, adopted adults, birth parents, birth siblings and birth grandparents have the right to obtain descriptive information about relatives lost to adoption. That's under the current law, not this one. This information is taken from the files kept by the adoption disclosure registry. Unfortunately, Bill 183, through subsections 166(4) and (5) of the CFSA, would take away this right. There's no controversy about this. Everybody wants access to non-identifying information, and so that right must be returned. There has been no discussion to say that it shouldn't be so.

Secondly, we need a searching mechanism. You can't simply give a name and then just drop people. Law put people into this position and now the law has to take them out. If the government chooses not to have the ADR, you need to put another mechanism in place to assist people in searching. We go into details of that in our document to you.

We're very concerned by the fact that many birth mothers were told not to put the name of the birth father on the long-form birth registration; they were advised to do that. But adoptees are looking to find that information, and that information oftentimes appears in the file. So if trustworthy information is available in the file about the name of the birth father, it should be made available to them.

Many adoptees are born in this province and then adopted in another province, or born in another province and then adopted in Ontario. As long as you're a citizen of this province, you should have access to documents that this province possesses, either the long-form birth registration or access to the adoption order. One way or another, you should have access to your own documents.

We're very concerned that adult children of adoptees -- and it's funny to use this term, adult children of adult adoptees, but that's who I'm talking about -- should have the right to also know who their grandparents, their uncles and their aunts are for medical reasons, for psychological reasons, to fulfill a full sense of identity. The law at this moment is not structured to give that right, and I ask you to ensure that that's put into the law.

We also offer 11 other amendments to you in our document, and I ask you to consider them carefully.

In conclusion, I would once again stress that the decision to open the records is one that finds strong support in the research on adoption. To reject it on emotional grounds is not the way to go about developing strong social policy. The research speaks for itself. Please join with the overwhelming majority of the adoption community and support Bill 183.
________________________________________________________

2005-08-17

Bill 183: Adult adoptees to get access to their original identities

Letter to the Editor,Published in the Kingston Whig-StandardRE: Ontario to rewrite adoption laws, Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Three Cheers for the government and in particular Social Services Minister Sandra Pupatello in finally acting to bring Ontario’s adoption disclosure laws into the 21st century!All 70,000 people on the Adoption Disclosure Registry (ADR) who are looking for their relatives will be finally counted as equals among other Ontario residents.

Adult adoptees will be able to access birth certificates, and medical information while birth parents will have access to their child’s adoptive name.

Can you imagine needing a kidney transplant and not being able to find a matching donor because your personal background has been locked behind closed doors? Can you even begin to imagine searching for - even when on the registry - seven years to know anything of your parent or child?

Although some of us affected by adoption were concerned about the effects of a veto (no-contact provision) we are pleased with the how the bill has been constructed. As April Lindgren has described the new legislation, it is fair to all. Privacy has been fairly balanced with the compelling need for information, both medical and familial.Birth (natural) mothers will be respected for their need and right to know about their children while adult adoptees can finally piece together their whole identity!

Margaret Taylor, Natural MotherKingston, ON and

Meghan Elizabeth Charters,

Adult AdopteeInverary, ON

_______________________________________________

What Its Like To be Adopted: David Bishop

Published on Hansard, May 19, 2005 - Submission made by David Bishop (adoptee)

Chairman and committee members, thank you for this opportunity to address you this afternoon. In my brief time, I will attempt a few things; namely, to explain to you what it's like to be adopted and to share with you what it's like to be reunited under the current system.

I was adopted at 13 days of age by my parents and I was reunited five years ago with my birth mother. Finally, I would like to say, as a member of the adoption community, that I am anxious for this bill to become law in the next couple of weeks.

One of the main frustrations we feel being adopted is trying to make others understand what it's like to be adopted. I don't imagine any of you on the committee are adoptees, so let me tell you a little story about what it's like. I'm sure some of you have been to Europe and have been speaking English somewhere, and someone has come up to you and said, "What part of the United States are you from?" Just before you answer -- just before that feeling of indignation, that feeling of anger, that feeling of, "How can he confuse me with an American? I'm a Canadian" -- that feeling before you speak is what it's like to be adopted; that's just a tiny element.

We look like you, we sound like you, we act like you; however, we're just a little bit different. We've grown up not knowing anything about who we are.Now, the truth is what is, not what should be; what should be is a lie. If you were adopted in Ontario in the last 80 years, your whole life is what should be: You should be lucky you were adopted; you should get on with your life; everything's fine. Oh, really? Then why am I always scared? I thought everybody was always scared, but of course, not any more. I'm reunited now.

When I was 26 years old, I decided to search for my birth mother. I contacted the proper children's aid and then got on the waiting list of the adoption disclosure registry. This is not a decision I took lightly. I really wasn't that curious up until then. I had no idea that this would actually change my life to the extent that it did. I emphasize the fact that I was 26 years old when I decided to do this. I contacted children's aid and then contacted the adoption disclosure registry.

On May 31, 2000, I was reunited with my birth mother and two sisters. This is the most courageous, the best thing I have ever done. I did very well in university. I went very far; I've had my own business; I've done lots of things. Everything pales in comparison to this. Remember that charming feminist part about, "The personal is political"? Remember when people used to say that? This is exactly what this is like.If you've been listening closely -- I don't know if I've mentioned this yet -- I started this process when I was 26. I was reunited on May 31, 2000. First I was 26; then I'm 35.

I am from Toronto. I was adopted from the east end of Toronto to the west end of Toronto. The difference between 26 and 35 is nine years. Did everybody get that? It took nine years. I followed all the rules; I did exactly what you're supposed to do. I waited and I waited and I waited, and then I called the ADR and they said, "No, no. You're on the waiting list. Don't worry." Then I waited a little bit more. After one year of this, I got non-identifying information, the first thing I ever learned about myself, sitting there in my room with my wife holding this stuff about me -- unbelievable. I learned that my birth mother kept an older sister. I have an older sister? It was shocking. This was not like what it usually is in the adoption world.Let's flash forward a little bit. That's all I had for eight years, and I got that after a year. I really wish the members of the panel could experience what Marilyn and I have experienced later in your life. This happened to me when I was 35, and it's just too big to describe; however, I'm going to try.

When I got really close to reuniting, what I had to do was write a letter to my birth mother. In this letter, I couldn't reveal my name. I had to send this letter to the ADR. They read it. I was 35 years old, I had to write a letter and they read it. Then they passed it on to my birth mother. My birth mother wrote a letter and sent it to them. They opened the letter, read it and then passed it on to me. My birth mother agreed to meet me right away, but that's just the way the process goes.I mentioned that I was 35, and I still resent that something that is intrinsic to who I am was mediated through a government agency. I had to bend like a pretzel to make this happen. I had to keep my mouth shut and be as nice as pie to the ADR worker because that was the only game in town. My mother was a widow at a very young age, so the name on my birth order is not her maiden name. There's no way I could have found her without the information supplied by the ADR. If I had had her maiden name, which was always hidden from me in my own best interests, I could've opened the Toronto phone directory. There are five names like that. Those five people are my uncles. I could have called one of them and I wouldn't have had to wait nine years.When one is reunited, the language no longer reflects your reality. On Christmas Day, I must explain to family and friends that this is my sister, and this is my sister, and they've just met once or twice before. When my nieces ask me, "Uncle David, are we related?" I say, "Of course you are. You're cousins, through me."

It was Mother's Day a few weeks ago, and you've all heard of the language that says you can only have one mother. Well, on Mother's Day you might buy a card for your wife, who's also a mother, but you only buy one card. Well, for the last five years, I buy two cards: one for my mother and one for my mother.The same way that I can reunite two families and make them one at Christmas is the way I can reunite this Legislature right now.

In the late 1980s, it was the Conservatives, oddly absent, who started the ADR --It was the Conservatives, when they used to emphasize the word "progressive" instead of "conservative" in their name, who had a hand in starting the ADR, who opened it up. Throughout the 1990s, it was the NDP and Marilyn Churley who gave us private member's bill after private member's bill, and we all know the fate of private members' bills, or most of them. We got close once, only to be shut down, again by someone from your party. Alas.Here we are now: It's the Liberals. I've been here before and I've seen people change their stripes. Suddenly, you're with me. This is nice, being on the side of the government. There have been certain people who weren't too big when it was her bill. Oddly enough, we're all on the same side here.

So now you're trying to really open the door. For that, we're grateful.I want this bill to be retroactive, with no disclosure veto; an amendment that would include the non-identifying information. During the privacy commissioner's screed yesterday, she said that in the provinces where they already have this type of legislation, only 3% lodge disclosure vetoes. You are legislators; when do you ever hear the words "97% of anything"? Why is the tail wagging the dog only on this law? She said something interesting: "The silent minority." Yeah. The words that you're supposed to use are "silent majority." A minority is silent because it's a minority. There's 97% and there's 3%. That's why it's silent. We've been quiet long enough. This hasn't worked for us. The tail doesn't wag the dog; the dog wags the tail.

Maybe you can tell me how a province like Ralph Klein's Alberta is more socially progressive than Ontario. How does that work? They are. They have this law and we don't.In conclusion, I urge you to get this law passed as soon as possible. Please don't make me come here four years from now just to argue the same thing again.

United Nations and Adoptees

2005-08-15T14:22:00.000-07:00

United Nations Addresses Adoption in Canada
Submitted by Ron Murdock (adoptee)

In October 2003 the United Nations Commission for the Rights of the Child issued a very clearly worded recommendation to Canada which stated:

"The Committee is also concerned by the fact that certain provinces do not recognize the right of an adopted child to know, as far as possible, her/his biological parents.

The Committee recommends that the State party consider amending its legislation to ensure that information about the date and place of birth of adopted children and their biological parents are preserved and made available to these children.”

See

http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/ 995a15056ca61d16c1256df000310995?Opendocument

see paragraph 30

In posing the question to the Canadian delegation, Commissioner Maria Ortiz from Paraguay

“. . .regretted that only three Canadian provinces guaranteed the right for adopted children to know the identity of their biological parents, a right which, in her opinion, is vital for their mental health and is not incompatible with the right to a private life.”

(Extract from the minutes of the morning session.See

http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/300b223ec3b5c37dc1256e00004cfc19?Opendocument

see page 10, bottom of page, paragraph 61

The Committee also stated, in October 2003 in theirGeneral Comment No. 5 (2003) General measures of implementation for the Convention on the Rights of the Child (Articles 4, 42 and 44(6))

"The Committee reiterates that in all circumstances, the State which ratified or acceded to the Convention remains responsible for ensuring the full implementation of the Convention throughout the jurisdiction.

In any process of devolution, States parties have to make sure that the devolved authorities do have the necessary financial, human and other resources effectively to discharge responsibilities for the implementation of the Convention. The governments of States Parties must retain powers to require full compliance with the Convention by devolved administrations or local authorities and must establish permanent monitoring mechanisms to ensure that the Convention is respected and applied for all children throughout its jurisdiction without discrimination. Further, there must be safeguards to ensure that decentralisation or devolution does not lead to discrimination in the enjoyment of rights by children in different regions."

See

http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(symbol)/CRC.GC.2003.5.En?OpenDocument

see

page 12, paragraph 41

Although Senator Landon Pearson lead the Canadian delegation to Geneva and therefore would have been personally aware of the recommendations made to Canada by the UN Commissioners, she failed to ensure the rights of Canadian adopted children to know their biological histories in her National Plan of Action - A Canada fit for Children which she presented to UNICEFF in April 2004. The Senator pays great lip service to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child on her website, yet refuses to even dialogue with those who question her over her lack of address of this important right of children.

Ottawa continues to state that they cannot implement the UN Commissioner's recommendations because adoption law is a provincial matter, not federal.

The issue is not which government is responsible for adoption law but, rather, the fact that the federal government of Canada as signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and therefore a part of the Convention, has a commitment to promote and assure the right of the child to have access to information about his/her origins.

To date, no federal government official has shown any interest in complying with the UN Commissioners recommendation.

Professionals and Experts Support Open Adoption Records

2005-08-14T07:14:00.000-07:00

Lawyer Supports Bill 183 - No Disclosure Veto

August 31, 2005

The Standing Committee on Social Policy
Room 1405, Whitney Block
Queen's Park
Toronto, ON M7A 1A2

Dear Sir/Madam:

Re: Canadian Adoptees for Truth and Openness - Bill 183

As a lawyer practicing in the area of human rights law I fully support any and all legislation that pertains to citizens of Ontario having access to all identifying personal information and medical information, including ancestral information that is rightfully theirs. As such I fully support Bill 183 without a disclosure veto.

Yours very truly,

Barry J. Goldman
Papazian Heisey Meyers
Barristers & Solisitors
121 King St. West, P.O. Box 105
Toronto, ON M5H 3T9
416 601-1800
goldman@phmlaw.com
____________________________

World Expert Lifts Lid on Adoption Fallacies
Wednesday, 24 August 2005, 10:45 am Press Release: Word of Mouth Media Media release –
World expert lifts lid on adoption fallacies

World renowned expert Nancy Verrier today lifted the lid on adoption fallacies and perceptions on the eve of the national adoption conference in Christchurch.

There were many misconceptions in society about adoption, Verrier said today.

``One is that adopted people should feel grateful for having been adopted. A little baby would never choose to be separated from his own mother.
An incorrect perception is adopted children will grow up to be like their adoptive parents. Their talents, aptitudes and interests are more genetic than environmental, although many adoptees choose careers that they think their adoptive parents will approve of.

"Another wrong idea is that the younger you adopt, the easier it is for the child. No one needs their mother more than at the beginning of life when they are still psychologically connected to her.’’

Verrier will be the key speaker at the national adoption conference in Christchurch August 27 to 29. Verrier, an adoptive mother, has counselled and lectured around the world about adoption.

She will talk to adopted people, birth parents, adoptive parents, midwives, social workers, counsellors, obstetricians and GPs. Verrier said from Lafayette in California today that birth mothers who had given their babies did not just “get on with their lives” as they were promised. Most thought about their lost child often and with great yearning.

In closed adoptions, these mothers don’t even know if their child is alive. There is a great deal of guilt-induced secondary infertility among birth mothers.

``Most people who have been adopted feel abandoned. They have a hair trigger for rejection because of this. There is also the need to be in control, difficulties with trust and intimacy, as well as identity.

``Also separation trauma has the same consequences and manifestations as other traumas: terror, disconnection, and captivity; and hyper-vigilance, intrusion, repetition compulsion, dissociation, and a constant sense of fight or flight.’’

When these things happen early, it sets up a pattern in the neurological system, which get triggered. These early experiences create a series of negative beliefs about themselves and others, and the safety of the world.

She said it was very difficult for those not adopted to understand all the complexities of relinquishment and adoption.

``Separating babies and their mothers is an unnatural process that leaves a void in both mother and child, and should be done only when absolutely necessary. People need to understand that adoption is a complex process and has lifelong ramifications.

``Birth mothers feel excitement, happiness, fear, and relief in seeking a reunion. The most traumatic moments might be fearing that s/he won’t be able to find his or her child, or that the child will be so angry that they won’t want to meet.’’

The conference is being run by the Canterbury Adoption Awareness and Education Trust. Its chairwoman Julia Cantrell said today that New Zealand had led the way in opening adoption records since 1985.

She said two million New Zealanders were affected by adoption. More than 103,000 NZ babies were adopted between 1940 and 1990.

``Each adoption initially involves five people: the adopted person, birth mother and father, adoptive mother and father. However, when we add siblings, grandparents, partners and children, more than two million New Zealanders have a direct link to adoption.’’ _______________________________
Adoptees Have the Right to Know All Their Families'
Submitted by Ken W. Watson, MSW, LSW (Aug. 22, 2005)

Perhaps the most important change in adoption in the more than half-century in which I have been involved as a social worker, is the awareness that legal adoption can never end the connection of adopted children and their birth families.

All who are adopted will always be connected to their families of birth by genes, by ancestry, by their own unique birth experience, and, in many instances, by early life experiences within that family. While adoption legally transfers ongoing parental rights and responsibilities for a child from birth parents to adoptive parents, but in so doing it creates a new kinship network that forever links those two families together through a child who is shared by both.

Any attempt by society to legally restrict access to information about, or contact among, adults who at some time have been participants in the same legal adoption, represents undue interference in the lives of people who are trying to more fully understand and better integrate the ways in which adoption has played, and continues to play, a significant part in who they are.

For too long adoption laws and procedures were focused on the immediate needs and wishes of adults, and reflected both the cultural values of the time and the fantasies of the adults participating in the adoption. The expectation was that adoption would help resolve the infertility issues of adopting parents and reduce the pain and guilt of the parents who viewed themselves (or were viewed by their families and community) as unable to rear children born to them.

Adoption agencies and governments colluded in this perception. Many agencies promised secrecy, and most states/provinces sanctioned the blatant dishonesty of issuing false birth certificates. Completely lost in this process was the impact of adoption on the adopted person – in most instances a child too young to know what was happening and having no voice on the proceedings.

While we rue in the past, we ease our guilt by recognizing we were acting in ignorance. Now, however, when we no longer ignore the complexities of adoption and accept the reality that adoption always creates a new extended family system, there can be no excuse for perpetuating past errors rather than seeking to correct them.

Why, for instance, should we let the government intervene once again in adoption issues that should be explored directly among those who are involved? It is time to give the adopted (who often seem to be viewed as perpetual “children”) open access to information about all the other participants in their adoption. All the participants of any adoption should be equally free to search for and contact each other, and free to respond to “being found”, in ways that they think are in their best interests.

In summary: No legal restriction should impede any adult adopted person, any parents whose child has been placed in adoption, or any adoptive parent from making his or her own decision about contacting any other member of that extended family system, or responding to such a contact from one of the other members – as he or she sees fit.

Kenneth W. Watson, MSW, LCSW
_________________________________________
Hansard from Standing Committee on Social Policy May 19, 2005

Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies Support Open Records - No Disclosure Veto

I'd like to start off by indicating that the association unequivocally supports the underlying philosophy behind Bill 183 and takes the position that it is timely to bring about greater openness in the adoption disclosure process. It would indeed be unfortunate for this bill not to go forward after all of the adoption disclosure bills that have come before the Legislature in recent years. That would be six private members' bills and one previous government bill in the past 11 years. We'd also like to acknowledge the efforts and support that Ms. Churley has spearheaded in terms of some of the previous private members' bills, and we thank you for that.
We're concerned about disclosure vetoes, retrogressive compromises being suggested, built-upon notions of retroactivity. These are not solutions that are proportionate to the scope and reality of any presenting risks and are entirely incompatible with the fundamental human rights of all adopted persons that are entrenched in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. There isn't enough time, but in the written submission there are a number of bullet points explaining why a disclosure veto is completely unnecessary.
The OACAS is of the view that Bill 183 contains many positive features but that it could be substantially strengthened by the further amendments being proposed by the association. It is absolutely critical that these proposed amendments be incorporated into the bill in order to address the concerns that we've set out in our submission and to prevent the more progressive elements of the bill from being compromised. What we don't want to see, through a number of proposed repeal provisions in the bill, is infrastructure that's working well in terms of the support and services being provided by children's aid societies, the supports and functions of the current adoption disclosure register, being eliminated.
I just want to take you through the recommendations and a number of the other proposed amendments that are being advanced today by the association to strengthen this bill, whose time has arrived.
(1) First of all, subject to the further proposed amendments that I'm going to be speaking about very shortly, Bill 183 should be supported and enacted, as it reflects a positive shift toward openness and will bring Ontario into line with, if not surpass, similar adoption disclosure reforms in other jurisdictions. Again, there isn't enough time to go through all of the components -- and you're hearing from a number of other groups and individuals making representations that are reinforcing the value of these absolutely necessary provisions -- but I would ask the committee, what's wrong with going past what other jurisdictions are doing in Canada? What's wrong with taking a leadership role and moving the yardstick to do the right thing?
(2) The second recommendation is that Bill 183 be amended so as to clarify what information will be available to adopted persons and birth relatives and ensure that they will still have access to their non-identifying social histories, with no fees attached. We've heard that the provision of original birth registrations is only the beginning of a process. It's an event. It doesn't provide the individual with the contextual information that's really necessary.
(3) That Bill 183 be further amended so as to retain the operation and functions of the adoption disclosure register. For example, British Columbia and Newfoundland have kept their registers in place at the same time as they've enacted more progressive adoption disclosure legislation.
(4) That Bill 183 be further amended so as to ensure that adopted persons, birth relatives and adoptive parents on behalf of minor adoptees will still have access to priority searches on the basis of health, safety or welfare concerns, and that the adoption disclosure register will be the vehicle to continue to provide this service. Under the repeal provisions, that power would no longer be in existence. There would not be an adoption disclosure register. That provides a very valuable service.
(5) That Bill 183 be further amended so as to require the birth parent to provide all relevant medical and genetic information as outlined in the bill, except that it need not be briefly stated before being entitled to file a no-contact notice. We are concerned with the permissive approach being taken in the bill to the provision of this information and view such information as being part of the adopted person's birthright and critical to the adopted person's physical and emotional well-being, as well as to the holistic health of succeeding generations.
1650
(6) That Bill 183 be further amended so as to authorize, in addition to the existing list of applicants, a new category of applicants who can seek a nondisclosure order from the Child and Family Services Review Board, namely, adoptive parents on behalf of a minor adoptee, with such orders continuing in effect until such time as varied by the Child and Family Services Review Board, upon application by the adopted person, after attaining his or her 18th birthday.

We've heard from some of the other persons making submissions that there seems to be a gap. This is our recommendation in terms of how to address the particular mischief that's being presented. The answer is not to stigmatize a whole group of birth parents whose children have been found to be crown wards; the answer is not to put adoptive parents into the shoes of their adult adoptees. The answer is to provide more flexibility and, while the adoptee is a minor, to provide that information. It will stay as part of the order unless it's vacated or varied upon application by the adopted person.
(7) That Bill 183 be further amended so as to authorize CASs to disclose relevant information related to risk of "significant harm," which is the language of the bill, to an adult adopted person or the adoptive parent of a minor adoptee or minor sibling, in order to assist them both in respect of making a decision about whether to apply to the Child and Family Services Review Board for a non-disclosure order and also in respect of providing all relevant information in support proceeding with such an application.

There is nothing in the bill that explains how information gets transmitted that may be in a file that a children's aid society holds. How does that get transmitted to an adult adoptee? How does it get transmitted to adoptive parents of a minor adoptee? We need some language that's going to authorize that kind of disclosure.

(8) That Bill 183 be further amended so as to ensure that adopted persons and birth relatives will still have the option of free voluntary counselling and will still be able to access free assistance in respect of contacting the other party.

We're not suggesting that the counselling be mandatory but that it be provided on a voluntary basis. The existing language of the bill makes no reference to that even being contemplated.
(9) That Bill 183 be further amended so as to ensure that other birth relatives, such as birth fathers, birth siblings and birth grandparents, will still be able to register for contact with the adopted person and that the adoption disclosure register continue to provide this service.
We've got a very limited definition of "birth parent."
(10) That Bill 183 be further amended to provide for equal treatment of Ontario-born adopted persons legally adopted outside the province of Ontario.

One of the limitations of the bill is that these excellent rights, these enhanced rights, only accrue to those adoptees who have had their adoptions finalized in Ontario. What about other adopted children who were born in this province who have had their adoptions finalized elsewhere? They should be in the same position. We shouldn't have category A of one group of adoptees and category B of another.

I'll leave the other two recommendations with you.
________________________________________

George Hull Centre for Children Supports of Open Records in Ontario
quote from interview with CATO's Michelle Edmunds (July 2005)

Ruth Stirtzinger, Psychiatrist in Chief with The George Hull Centre for Children and Families in Toronto, has been working with adoptees and adoptive families for over 20 years. Many of the older-adopted children she has worked with suffered from post-issues of trauma and loss.

She says, “It was very difficult for the adopted children to bond with adoptive parents, because it was very ‘alive’ for them that they had another life, and this wasn’t being attended to, and they weren’t being helped through the stages of loss.” Stirtzinger supports Bill-183 without a disclosure veto.

__________________________________________________________
The Whitby Mental Health Centre (Ontario)
quote from an interview with CATO's Michelle Edmunds (July 2005)

The Whitby Mental Health Centre treats adopted children and youth for various mental health problems. Sandy Brown, clinical coordinator for the adolescence department at the Centre, says that in her more than 15-year career in the crisis unit of the Centre, younger adoptees represent a higher number of patients than that of the general population. Brown says, “It’s frustrating, because adoptees more times than not, cannot present information stating a genetic medical history – and we have to work with just what we have.
__________________________________________________________
Argument for Open Records in Ontario
submitted by
Sandi JowettParent Finders Kawartha
Canadopt

Existing adoption legislation is outdated. It needs to be reformed on a basis of honesty, openness, integrity and truth. Adoption law must be based on fact and not on opinion.

Public dissatisfaction concerning the severe restrictions on accessing adoption information led, in 1985, to a study on adoption disclosure commissioned by the Ontario government and headed by Professor Ralph Garber. His report, Disclosure of Adoption Information, determined two principles concerning disclosure:

1. facts surrounding an individual's adoption belong to that person, no matter where the information is stored and2. revealing those facts has not been shown to cause harm.

The Retrospective Argument
The usual argument raised against this proposed amendment is that the law guaranteed birth parents that their identity would never be revealed to the adoptee or adoptive parent and that to do so now would amount to a retrospective altering of their rights.

This is not the case.

Until the 1978 revision of the Child Welfare Act S.O. 1978 c.85, Ontario adoption legislation contained only two requirements respecting confidentiality, i.e., that the adoption application be heard in chambers and that the court file be sealed up and opened only on the direction of a judge or provincial official. These two restrictions in an otherwise open judicial system were aimed at preventing the public at large from hearing the application and perusing supporting documents concerning the private lives of the birth and adoptive parents. In an era where unmarried pregnancy was considered a disgrace and infertility a humiliation, these restrictions were considered justifiable. But these restrictions in no way required the identity of the birth parent to be kept secret from the adoptive parent or adoptee.

In fact, until the 1960's, adoption orders invariably carried the birth surname of the adopted child and since there were no legal restrictions on revealing the given names of the birth parent, many adoptive parents and, through them, adoptees had this key piece of identifying information. Note also that s. 65 of the Rules of the Ontario Court (Provincial Division) still allows the adoption order to show the child's full birth name although in practice only a first initial of the surname has been used.
Prior to 1970 the adoptive parents had the right to have their child's full birth name on the Adoption Order. Unfortunately, this right of choice was not presented to many of them.

The belief that such information should not be revealed was based on the social theory that birth parents would not want contact with adoptees and adoptive parents because the birth mother would "put the episode behind her" and "get on with her life" as though the birth had never taken place. Further, it was thought that adoptees and adoptive parents would have no need for contact with birth parents or relatives. If, as claimed in a 1993 consultation paper of the Ministry on adoption disclosure, birth parents and adoptive parents were "promised confidentiality forever", this promise was based on social theory, not on fact.

A major Canadian adoption sociologist and adoptive parent, Professor H. David Kirk, suggests that confidentiality promises made to birth mothers were not based on law, but on professional control of adoption on the part of social workers.

With respect to the release of identifying information on adoptions occurring after 1978, we understand from Ministry officials that birth parents have been told that their identity may indeed be disclosed without their consent because of the health, safety and welfare amendments (s. 168) and the amendments concerning disclosure after an unsuccessful search (s. 167(10), 169(4)).

The "Balance" Argument
Another argument that has been raised against releasing identifying information on birth relatives as of right, is that the adoptee's right to this information must be "balanced" against the birth mother's right to privacy. On this issue, we have no hesitation in stating that the adoptee's right to his/her identity is rooted in a far more basic human need than a right to privacy. Where these two rights come into conflict, the adoptee's right must prevail. If the "best interests of the adoptee" is the paramount objective of the adoption legislation and if they consider it to be in their best interests to contact birth relatives, they must be given the information to do so.

Some adoptees feel that because they had no say in the adoption that so deeply altered their lives, their paramountcy remains forever. We believe that once the adoptee becomes an adult, his/her rights should be balanced equally with the rights of the adult birth family. Many birth parents say that, although they signed relinquishment documents under pressure, there was no alternative available. They did not give up their children voluntarily and many of them suffer lifelong effects from this relinquishment. They too need equal rights to access information, to know the names of their lost children and to find peace of mind.

Current legislation in the Child and Family Services Act, Part VII and related Acts, alters the adopted person's original birth registration to insert amended adoptive names. This is called legal fiction. An amended birth certificate for an adopted person incorrectly states that the adoptee was born to the adopting parents.

Figures show the ADR is a very costly service. Government agencies should not be in the search and detective business, a service better handled by the private sector or the client him/herself.
England restored the unqualified right to the original birth registration to adult adoptees in 1975. Victoria (Australia) did likewise in 1984.

New Zealand and New South Wales (Australia) followed and expanded these changes. This led to broad social reforms in adoption and post-adoption services. The results are extremely positive. Many jurisdictions in Canada and the USA are using the successful Down Under changes as a basis for their reforms.

Two different veto systems were developed. An Information Veto initiated by New Zealand in 1985 allowed a birth parent or adoptee to veto the release of identifying information to the other party for a period of 10 years. Five years later, in 1990, New South Wales developed a time-limited, signed, explanatory No-Contact Notice. The N.S.W. no-contact notice recipient could not be refused his or her birth registration data, but must not contact the other party while the veto remained in effect.

In New Zealand, only 6% of birth parents placed information vetoes. Some veto recipients sidestepped the veto successfully, searched for and found the birth mother. In all such cases, the birth mother was glad to be found and professed to be 'protecting' someone else. There were no complaints. Ten years later, when information vetoes had expired, virtually none were renewed.

New South Wales' more client-sensitive no contact notice system produced almost total public compliance. When an explanation was provided by the person requesting no contact, the recipient was willing to comply.
A birth mother's presumed "right" to privacy should not nullify the adopted person's right to important and fundamental birth information when that information is common to both. The "best interests of a child," (CFSA, Sec. 136) are greater than those of a birth parent for anonymity.

The matter is often said to be complex. The complexity arises not per se from adoption but from the difficulties created by secrecy. The conflict of rights in adoption arises to a large degree from imposed secrecy, the denial of equal human rights and the attempt to reconcile the effects of secrecy with the truth. This conflict can sometimes be more imaginary than real.

There is courage and dignity in the decision to undertake a search.It is never simply a matter of idle curiosity as others may think,Nor is it an act of disloyalty to adoptive parents.It is the right to know the truth about yourself and your roots.
______________________________________________________
YOUR ADOPTEE TURNS EIGHTEEN
posted on CATO with the approval of the author Dorothea McArthur, Ph.D.

We all know that adolescence is a difficult stage of life for teenagers living with biological parents. It is a developmental stage of becoming self-centered for the purpose of consolidating a sense of self, and developing a direction towards independence. It is normal, during this time for parents to appear, through the eyes of a teen, “different” “outdated” and “difficult ” so that teenagers can define themselves and manage to leave home. It is also a time to take risks and to be adventuresome, to feel intensely and to change direction unpredictably. It is a time to date and to break up, learning about intimacy outside of the home.

Adolescence may be more difficult for adoptees and their adoptive parents because there are important additional adoption issues to contemplate. Sometimes these issues are so complex that psychotherapeutic help or a brief period of hospitalization is required.

It is difficult for adoptive parents to remember that adoptees, at some level, fear separation because of their past relinquishment. They reason, if birth parents, which were supposed to love and take care of them, let them go; then they could be relinquished again anyone anytime. There are basically two ways to handle this fear. Acting out adoptees will test limits or do something wrong and wait to see if they get relinquished. If they are understood instead of rejected, they feel reassured. Over adaptive adoptees will be very good, hoping to control and avoid further relinquishment by being no trouble to anyone. An over adaptive adoptee may repress or hide feelings or questions, especially about birth family, that might be disruptive to their adoptive family.

The following questions often emerge or reemerge consciously or unconsciously during late adolescence:

Adoptee: How do I consolidate a sense of self with little or no information about my biological family?
Adoptee: Was I relinquished because I was insufficient in some way?
Adoptee: Will my adoptive parents still be my parents after the age of 18?
Adoptee and Adoptive parents: Will birth family suddenly arrive on the doorstep to reclaim their relinquished child after the age of 18?
Adoptive parents: What can I do to help my adolescent adoptee when he or she may be acting in a restless, rude, spoiled, defiant, or overly polite distanced way?
Adoptive family: Do we still love each other or will this love become dissipated by advent of birth family?
Adoptee: Why is it hard to leave home? These questions may feel embarrassing to admit directly.

Issue 1: The issue of birth family often emerges directly or indirectly as an important topic. Some adoptees find it difficult to consolidate a sense of self if there is no knowledge available, or adoptive parents are withholding knowledge about birth family. Some want to know full names of extended birth family so that they can begin a search on the Internet. An adoptee needs to be able to put together a “family orchard” rather than a “family tree.” Each adoptee has had to adapt to a family with different genes. Understanding birth family’s inherited genes is an important part of discovering the self. For instance, a talented dancer adoptee raised in a short, compact, left brained, scientific, engineering adoptive family might be labeled “skinny” “emotional” and “not very academic.” If she is able to meet her right-brained artistic birth family, she might well be redefined as “slender, “ ”artistic” and “kinesthetic.” Some adoptees become restless because they are reluctant to express any interest for fear of upsetting their adoptive parents.

Issue 2: An adoptee must first be relinquished or “unchosen” before they can be “chosen.” The adoptee brain does not reach maturity until the age of 18. The evolving brain of a younger adoptee can only regard adults as perfect and children to blame for relinquishment. Therefore adoptees may ponder what they did to become “unchosen” while striving to prove to themselves that they are chosen or “special.” Adoptees can be manipulative and draining in their need to ask for “special favors.” Therefore it is easy for adoptive parents to fall into the position of giving in too much or spoiling them. The normal self-centeredness of teenagers can be further exacerbated by this adoption issues.

Issue 3: Childhood and parenting, in the formal sense, are coming to a close by the age of 18. Despite reassurance, some adoptees may be silently afraid that they will no longer be taken care of after the age of 18. They know that foster children are dumped out on the street regardless of their circumstances on their 18th birthday. It is not uncommon for an acting-out adoptee to do something bad to see if their adoptive parents will relinquish them. For instance, one adoptee dropped out of school, another let his grades drop from 4.0 to a 2.7. A third adoptee was given $10,000 by grandparents and spent it on superficial items instead of buying a car. Some adoptees will hide out with friends, waiting to see if their adoptive families miss them. Other adoptees may test their adoptive parents by becoming increasingly rude and demeaning. Adoptive parents can feel really confused by this change in behavior if they do not understand the underlying concerns.

While acting out adoptees test limits and ask to be special, over adaptive adoptees can easily lose track of who they are becoming because they do not dare to do the normal adolescent rejection of parents, or the impulsive risk taking and experimentation. Genuine questions and concerns from adoptive parents may be too politely evaded by an over adaptive adoptee with superficial right answers. As one adoptee describes it, “I became a neatly wrapped package. No one saw what was inside, not even me.”

Issue 4: Some adoptive parents are afraid that the birth family will suddenly appear at the doorstep after birthday 18. Indeed, I have experienced birth mothers that believe the 18th birthday spells the end of adoptive parenting. They feel they have stayed away long enough and would like some knowledge about the adoptee or their relinquished child returned. They feel the maternal instinct strongly while forgetting that birth mother and adoptee do not know each other. Some adoptees actively request a reunion with birth family, but only if they feel that their adoptive parents can handle it.

Issue 5: How can adoptive parents help? It is important to remember that an interest in birth family does not mean that an adoptee is not happy with their adoptive parenting. I encourage adoptive parents to share whatever information they have acquired about birth family if their adoptee asks for it. Withholding information at this stage in life may be perceived by the adoptee as lying by omission. Lying hurts the trust within the adoptive family relationships.

We all know the phrase, “blood is thicker than water.” I have helped many adoptive and birth families with the reunion process. When they finally locate each other, it becomes evident that both families often spent some portion of the last 18 years living really close to each other without knowing it consciously. One adoptee kept moving his horse to ranches closer and closer to a ranch owned by his birthmother. When his adoptive parents figured this out, they returned the horses to a ranch closer to home and accomplished the search and reunion with birthmother. Another artist adoptee unknowingly moved within four blocks of her artist birthmother for four years before they reunited with each other. During this time, they apparently attended the same art shows

Issue 6: It is my experience that adoptive parents do not need to fear the loss of their adoptive child back to birth family as long as they have done a reasonable job of parenting. If they help their adoptee obtain information and/or contact with birth family, the relationships within the adoptive family become stronger, deeper and more intimate. On the other hand, if the adoptive couples withholds or tries to prevent, or refuses to participate in gathering the necessary information to consolidate a adoptee’s sense of self, the adoptee may distance him or herself from the adoptive family.

The love adoptive parents give to their adoptive children cannot be taken away by birth family. Every adoptee has two mothers and two fathers. Many adoptees feel entitled to know something about all four parents. If a birth family member is incompetent or dangerous in some way, the necessary supervision and protective measures can generally easily be taken.
I have helped adoptive and birth families set up reunions that are touching, poignant and joyful for all parties concerned. However, there are sometimes moments of fear, awkwardness, sadness and pain. Understanding each birth family story through acquiring information or making direct contact usually helps the adoptee ultimately to reach the following three important conclusions.

The adoptee was relinquished because the birth parents felt unable to accomplish the 20 year job of parenting.

Relinquishment did not happen because the adoptee was insufficient in any way.
Birth family keeps on loving, thinking and caring about their relinquished children. Issue 7: Finally, it is important to remember that the process of separation from the adoptive parent home may be harder for an adoptee because a move in the present activates the pain of their initial relinquishment. Therefore, some adoptees may take longer to leave home as they work through these issues. Some will prefer to live at home while they go to college or return home after college.

As the poet Robert Frost said, “Home is a place where, when you have to go there, there is someone to let you in.” Adoptive parents are the everyday “Mom” and “Dad.” “Home” is where the adoptive family lives. Most often, an adoptee has a unique appreciation for the home they have been given. However, it is my belief that even the best adoptive parenting may not replace the need for a truthful birth family story. These honest facts can be indispensable in consolidating an adoptee’s sense of self and in erasing the disturbing misconception that adoptees are rejected because they are insufficient in some way.

A journey through these complex issues sometimes feels lonely because the outside world lacks the knowledge and experience to understand. However, a psychotherapist trained in adoption issues can be a valuable support for the entire adoptive family when the adoptee is approaching their 18th birthday. Do not hesitate to reach out for this support if any of the above issues are occurring and feel overwhelming. Adoptive families who take on the task of understanding, and resolving these issues through interacting with birth family should be congratulated for helping an adoptee in this special way.

Dr. McArthur is a psychotherapist in practice in Los Angeles. She is the president of the Independent Psychotherapy Network.
_______________________________________________

Falsified Birth Certificates
by Bruce M. Claggett, Attorney

From "NEXUS," the New England Historic Genealogical Society newsletter, Volume VII, No. 1, February 1990, Boston, Massachusetts:[NOTE: Claggett uses the term "adopted children" when referring to "adopted adults"]

At the October 1989 Board meeting, the NEHGS Trustees voted to become involved in seeling reconsideration of several governmental practices that seriously impair genealogical knowledge, in addition to depriving people of medical information that can be vitally important to their health.

The first of these is a problem that has been around for several decades: the stale-mated concealment of adoption records and denial of the right of adopted children to know their biological parentage. This practice has been frequently challenged in recent years, with varying degreees of success, and the efforts of many adopted children to learn the truth have received widespread publicity. But like the Uniform Adoption Act -- a product of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, whose model statutes have great influence on state legislatures -- still provides that adoption records are to be kept sealed "and are subject to inspection only upon consent of the Court and all interested persons; or in exceptional cases, only upon an order of the Court for good cause shown.

"This policy puts a heavy burden on the adopted child seeking to learn his or her biological background. Surely the burden should be reveresed: an adopted child, (*) at least one of adult age, should be presumed to have good cause to learn who he or she is, or, if s/he wants to, and only in "exceptional cases" should that information be denied. Certainly there can be no reasonable basis for denying access to the facts if the biological parents are dead.

From a genealogical pont of view, the current practice -- which typically involves the issuance of a birth certificate representing the adopted parents as the biological parents -- is clearly insiduous. Even though an adopted child is usually told privately, at some point, that he or she is adopted, the biologically false certificate remains in the public records.

It is estimated today that about 2% of the U.S. population are adopted children. A century from now, descendants of these people who are tracing their genealogy will encounter false certificates and may well have no reason to disbeleive them. [**NOTE: Since this article was published, it is now assumed that a much larger percentage of Americans are adopted.]

They will thus be deceived into tracing their lineage back to hosts of people to whom they are wholly unrelated.It would perhaps be overreaching to argue that government has an obligation to facilitate genealogical research. But is seems a modest, entirely tenable proposition that GOVERNMENT HAS AN OBLIGATION TO REFRAIN FROM AFFIRMATIVELY AND DELIBERATELY DECEIVING PEOPLE ABOUT THEIR ANCESTRY.

The current practice of falsification is relatively recent. Damage has already been done, but it can be contained if the needed changes are made soon. AT THE VERY LEAST, THE LAW SHOULD REQUIRE THAT EVERY FALSIFIED BIRTH CERTIFICATE BEAR A SYMBOL OR NOTATION INDICATING THAT IT IS SUCH, so that future generations can gain access to the facts, or at least will know that the altered certificate cannot be relied upon for genealogical purposes.

For a number of reasons, the time seems ripe for a major assault on the current practice. Such an assault is already well under way by adopted children and groups they have formed, but genealogical organizations like NEHGS have not until now become involved. Genealogical research has never been so popular as it is today, and its practitioners should be ripe for mobilization once they realize the long-term implications of birth certificate falsification.

Do we really want our great-great-great grandchildren to be uncertain that they are descended from us because there is no way to know whether their grandparents or great-grandparents were really the children of the people theofficial records say they were?

The practice of concealment is based on attitudes of the 1930s, 40s and 50s that, mercifully, are diminished if not dying. One is the hangover Victorian notion that it is an ineffable disgrace to be an "illegtiimate" child or the parent of one. Another is the "brave new world" assumption of the early 20th century that nurture (environment) is everything that makes a person what he or she is, and that biology is insignificant (and probably snobbish as well). THIS INSIDIOUS LIAISON OF PRUDERY AND MARXISM HAS DOMINATED ADOPTION POLICY LONG ENOUGH.Bureaucratic habits, once established, die hard.

The precedent of birth certificate falsification has recently been extended to the novel realms of artificial inemination and in vitro fertilization. Again, government may have no obligation to facilitate our researches, but surely it has an obligation to not willfully and deliberately deceive us.

[NOTE: Brice McAdoo Claggett, a member of the Board of Trustees, is a native of Washington, DC, and a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School. He is a partner of Covington and Burling, 1201 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, PO Box 7566, Washington, DC 29044, and has written on legal, historical and genealogical topics. He assisted AmFOR with regard to deaf adoptee, Melanie Sandoval, in opening her adoption record; with AmFOR's help, she located her birth family and met her sister.]

Adoptees - Ontario Human Rights Complaint 2005

2005-08-14T03:49:00.000-07:00

Adoptees file complaints against

privacy czar
Gillian Livingston The Canadian Press
June 23, 2005 TORONTO --

A group of Ontario adoptees has filed human rights complaints against Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian after she lobbied the province to amend its proposed adoption disclosure law with a clause allowing people to keep their records sealed.

The 15 complaints, filed in recent weeks with the Ontario Human Rights Commission, allege that Cavoukian's public pleas for a so-called disclosure veto "intended to incite the infringement'' of an adoptee's human rights to equal treatment regardless of family or marital status.

By calling for a veto, Cavoukian "is trying to say that we do not have an automatic right to our birth registration information,'' said Wendy Rowney of the Coalition for Open Adoption Records, an adoption support group that's helping adoptees file the complaints.

A disclosure veto would allow parents who gave up a child for adoption to block the release of the child's original birth certificate, which bears the child's name and possibly that of the parents. Adoptees would also be able to prevent the certificate's release.That would create two classes of adoptees, said Rowney: those with access to their birth certificates and those without it."She is advocating for the government to discriminate against adoptees.''

Cavoukian began calling aggressively for the veto after she received anguished anonymous letters from birth mothers who said they had been promised confidentiality in perpetuity and would consider suicide if they knew their secret might be revealed.

The government amended the legislation to allow birth parents or adoptees to ask a review board to veto the release of any identifying information, provided they could prove the risk of emotional or physical harm.

Cavoukian has said the change doesn't offer enough privacy protection.The legislation already includes a contact veto, backed by a $50,000 fine. It would allow information to be disclosed but would give birth parents or adoptees the option of refusing all contact.The Ontario Human Rights Commission "will neither confirm nor deny'' it has received any complaints, which is a general policy, said communications manager Jeff Poirier.

Cavoukian, who hasn't received any official notification of the complaints, said it's her responsibility to comment on the privacy implications of any legislation and to ensure it strikes the proper balance."This is my job; it's not that I'm discriminating against anyone, it is a requirement that I must do this,'' she said."I see this complaint as an effort to silence my voice and perhaps frustrate me in the performance of my duties to both the public and the legislature.

''In British Columbia, Alberta and Newfoundland, where adoption records are available, only about three to five per cent of adoptees and birth parents use the disclosure veto, while the rest have access, a balance Cavoukian called "respectful'' and true to the Charter of Rights.Access to birth records "is not an unqualified right,'' she said, adding she believes she has a responsibility to protect the privacy rights of those with no voice, such as the birth mothers who wrote the anonymous letters."How can you just say to one group, 'It must be so, the records must be opened?'''

Noreen Talbot, 50, one of the 15 adoptees who filed complaints, said Cavoukian's warnings about the legislation suggested ``all these horrific things would happen,'' while nothing has occurred in provinces where records have already been unsealed."To me she has implied that I am not entitled to my own personal information, I'm not entitled to know my ethnic background, I'm not entitled to know my history,'' Talbot said from Thunder Bay, Ont."It's a complete violation of everything that I can find under the Human Rights Code that says I'm entitled to, plus, even the United Nations says I'm entitled to it.''Adoptees fear Cavoukian's position has helped to stall the proposed bill, which has been put over until the fall.

The legislation marks the eighth attempt in just over a decade to unseal adoption records, and proponents want it passed.

Michelle Edmunds, a 42-year old complainant, accused Cavoukian of using "fear-mongering tactics'' to push for a veto."We just went, `enough is enough,' '' Edmunds said. "We're human beings, we have rights, we don't deserve to be treated this way.''

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Parent Finders, Ottawa Supports Human Rights Complaint
Parent Finders, National Capital Region: Letter to Ottawa Citizen June 24, 2005 (unpublished)

The fact that 15 adoptees have felt strongly enough about their right’s violation to launch a Human Rights complaint against the Ontario Privacy Commissioner, speaks volumes about the frustration and anger they feel towards the adoption disclosure system in this province. This is usually a quiet, non-vocal group of citizens.

But now they are angry not about not receiving someone else’s information, they are angry about not receiving their own.

Everyone else born in Ontario knows the truth about his or her origins. Sometimes it’s about the “good, the bad and the ugly”, but they know it as a human right. Since when are adopted people second class citizens whose rights are given or held back at the pleasure of someone else? Whatever the circumstances, the privacy Commissioner has overstepped herself and her office with her relentless opposition to the rights of adopted people and their birth families.

Parent Finders, National Capital Region,

Ottawa ON

Pat McCarron

President Monica Byrne, Registrar

Adoptees and Mental Health/Suicide

2005-08-14T01:48:00.000-07:00

Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology
Publisher: Steinkopff
ISSN: 0933-7954 (Paper) 1433-9285 (Online)
DOI: 10.1007/s00127-005-0974-2
Issue: Volume 41, Number 2
Date: February 2006
Pages: 95 - 102

Original Paper

Suicidal behaviour in national and international adult adoptees
A Swedish cohort study
Annika von Borczyskowski1, 2, 3 , Anders Hjern4, 5, Frank Lindblad1, 3 and Bo Vinnerljung4, 6, 7
(1)
Dept. of Public Health Sciences, Division of Psychosocial Factors and Health, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
(2)
Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Hamburg, Germany
(3)
National Institute for Psychosocial Medicine, Box 230, 171 77 Stockholm, Sweden
(4)
Centre for Epidemiology, National Board of Health and Welfare, Stockholm, Sweden
(5)
Dept. of Clinical Sciences, Huddinge University Hospital, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
(6)
Institute for Evidence-Based Social Work Practice, National Board of Health and Welfare, Stockholm, Sweden
(7)
Dept. of Social Work, University of Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden
Accepted: 1 July 2005 Published online: 1 January 2006

Abstract

Background Previous studies have shown an elevated risk for suicidal behaviour in adolescent and young adult international adoptees. Comparisons between national and international adoptees in this respect have been inconclusive.
Methods A total of 6,065 international adoptees were compared to 7,340 national adoptees and 1,274,312 non-adopted study subjects, all born between 1963 and 1973 and followed up until 2002 using the National Swedish Registers. Cox regression of person years was used in multivariate analyses to compare risks for suicide death and suicide attempt.
Results International adoptees had clearly increased risks for suicide attempt (risk ratio 4.5 [95% confidence interval 3.7–5.5]) and suicide death (3.6 [2.6–5.2]) after adjustments for sex, age and socio-economic factors. National adoptees had lower risks than international adoptees, but had increased risks compared to non-adoptees (suicide attempt, 2.8 [2.2–3.5]; suicide death, 2.5 [1.8–3.3]). Biological parents' morbidity explained approximately one third of the increased risk for national adoptees. Female international adoptees' risk for suicide attempt was elevated to an even greater extent than in male international adoptees, when compared to the general population.
Conclusions Clinicians should be aware that an increased risk for suicide and suicide attempts in international adoptees is a topic that is equally relevant to child and adult psychiatry.

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Adoptee Surviving Schizophrenia

Submitted by CATO member, Sharon Doerr (BC) (August 2005)

I am the mother of a 34 year old son, who joined our family through adoption, in
Ontario in 1971.

His life has been one of anguish and pain, a lot of it resulting from being adopted, feeling different
not like part of the family (these things I learned from him when he was 30). It is still difficult for him to talk about his issues surrounding adoption and he has been in denial about his mental health issues until recently.

As a young child I realized that Ken suffered from ADHD coupled with learning disabilities.
Having been a teacher myself, I was thoroughly frustrated by an education system in Ontario
in the 70s ,that did not understand either problem. When he would "act out" or play the "class
clown", all it was construed to be, was a discipline problem.

Fast forward many years and we now live in B.C. and Ken, as a talented artist, was accepted
at the Emily Carr College of Art and completed one successful year after finishing High School.

Enter schizophrenia and all that dealing with those "voices" entails. Ken was in denial about
these issues and turned to "street drugs" to make him feel normal and to take away the pain.He became addicted to crack cocaine and entered rehab twice.

He gained a criminal record for acting in appropriately, disturbing others when in a psychotic state, when he became delusional, and received "electrical impulses" from the air.

What is the link to this and adoption ? Had he been able to have reunion or EVEN medical information about his biological background at a much earlier age than 30 years, some of his life issues may have been understood by the educational community and down the road by the justice system. His background, which he found out about from his Aunt (on his mother's side), was filled with ADHD problems and Learning Disabilities which continue into adulthood. On the father's side his Aunt had Schizophrenia and died at an early age.

As I write this, Ken is in jail serving out a Conditional Sentence for a curfew violation, as at night
is when he sells his art work on the streets of Vancouver. Finally, he has been seen by a forensic
psychiatrist and they have realized that he qualifies for a disability pension and he has the support
of some caring outreach workers, as well as myself. It has been a struggle to get this help and
the time when it finally arrived, in relation to Ken's life span, has been a tragedy. Too little too
late. I am happy to report that Ken has put himself on anti-psychotic meds and takes them daily
at present. He and I have a very close relationship, but the affect of sealed Adoption records
in Ontario, is an injustice to him and all adoptees who have a basic right to know about their
own personal backgrounds.

Why can't such strong political power as the Ontario legislature, see the need that antiquated adoption laws have to be replaced in order that adoptees can try to live a "normal life," by contact with their family of origin, or at the very least by having a chance to know of their hereditary backgrounds?

I would like to share with you one of Ken's journal writings from the first time he was in rehab for drug usage...........entering rehab was a voluntary decision on his part both times..

" Today, I feel hollow and lonely. I don't know what it is I have to do to make amends or find peace.
A sense of longingness and confusion............I wish the answers would come . I get the feeling that I have wasted my life and will never be content. I try to find peace but to no avail. I get the feeling people know something they aren't telling me and I know how that sounds. Could God find me and help me get and be all that I can be. I feel that my life is going downhill fast and everybody knows it. I hope tomorrow God finds me a place in this incredably intricate world of his and enable me to live and incredably vivacious and prosperous life.........both physically challenging as well as mentally satisfying. Pray for the brightness of hope and the clarity of thought." April 2, 2002

I think that says it all. Why do adoptees have to suffer so in this world? They had no control when they were placed for adoption .

Sharon Doerr , Langley, B.C.

________________________________________

2005-08-22

Adopted Youth and Sucicide

taken from http://www.angelfire.com/or/originsnsw/suicide.html

Comparison Between Youth Suicide And Adoption Youth Suicide

The suicide rate of males aged 18 to 24 has trebled in the past 20 years. The suicide rate of teenage adolescent 14-19 year olds has risen by 600% over the last 25 years. Parental loss in childhood, particularly when it occurs in the first four years of life and involves the loss of both parents, leads to an increase in suicide behaviour. This increase appears to be independent of the subsequent childhood environment.

Some of the factors leading young people to commit suicide are:Feelings of:

Not belongingAbandonmentHelplessnessHopelessnessFear of:FailureRejection by their familyAbuse in the family (such abuse being more common for children living with non-blood related parents).From the 1950's to the mid 1970's, tens of thousands of young single mothers were coerced into relinquishing their newborn babies for adoption by strangers. The first of this bumper crop of adoptees turned 15 just over 20 years ago; The last of them are still in the 15-24 year age group. Adopted children lose both parents early in life, even though this loss is not acknowledged by their adoptive parents and their community. Being adopted by substitute parents, no matter how good they are as parents, does not negate this loss.

Many adoptees feel that they don't belong in their adoptive families, or even that they don't belong in this world, since they didn't know anyone who looks like them. Separation from one's biological mother causes a "primal wound" and results in feelings of abandonment, loss, rejection and powerlessness.

Many adoptive parents have high expectations of the 'perfect' children they adopted (and of themselves as parents), and along with "absence of kinship" this may lead to abuse in the adoptive family. When there are both biological and adoptive children in the same family, the adopted children are more likely to suffer abuse.A Jesuit Priest, who works with homeless young people in St Kilda, said that of the 147 suicides of young people in the area over the past decade, 142 came from adoption related backgrounds. (Melbourne Age,30.6.93).We live in a society where children are treated like commodities, where people insist on their "right" to have children but give very little consideration to the rights, and/or welfare of those children. Adopted children have suffered more than most from being treated as possessions. For too long adoption has been used, not as a means of finding homes for children who have lost their parents, but as a means of procuring babies for childless couples who want to "have children".

We cannot afford to keep sweeping the problem under the carpet, pretending adoption, and the secrecy with which it has been surrounded, has not damaged countless children (and their mothers). Our children need help, otherwise more and more will end up deciding that life is not worth living.

References:The Australian 26/2/1994 (suicide trebled).Steven Greer, "Parental Loss and Attempted Suicide: A Further Report", British Journal of Psychiatry (1966), 112, pages 465-470.The Melbourne Age 30 June 1993, (142 of 147 suicides adoption related)Corinne Chilstrom, "Andrew, You Died Too Soon". (causes of suicidal behaviour, cites eminent suicidologist Edwin Shreidman's book, "Definition of Suicide").Nancy Verrier, The Primal Wound: Legacy of the Adopted Child".Marsh Riben, "Shedding Light on the Dark Side of Adoption" ('absence of kinship' may lead to more abuse in adoptive families)._________________________________________________________

PEDIATRICS Vol. 108 No. 2 August 2001, p. e30

Adoption as a Risk Factor for Attempted Suicide During Adolescence

Received Dec 27, 2000; accepted Apr 9, 2001. Gail Slap, Elizabeth Goodman, and Bin Huang
. the Division of Adolescent Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital Medical Center, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Objective. Depression, impulsivity, and aggression during adolescence have been associated with both adoption and suicidal behavior. Studies of adopted adults suggest that impulsivity, even more than depression, may be an inherited factor that mediates suicidal behavior. However, the association between adoption and adolescent suicide attempts and the mechanisms that might explain it remain unknown. The objective of this study was to determine the following: 1) whether suicide attempts are more common among adolescents who live with adoptive parents rather than biological parents; 2) whether the association is mediated by impulsivity, and 3) whether family connectedness decreases the risk of suicide attempt regardless of adoptive or biological status.
Methods. A secondary analysis of Wave I data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health was conducted, which used a school-based, clustered sampling design to identify a nationally representative sample of 7th- to 12th-grade students, with oversampling of underrepresented groups. Of the 90 118 adolescents who completed the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health in-school survey, 17 125 completed the in-home interview and had parents of identified gender who completed separate in-home questionnaire. The subset of adolescents for this study was drawn from the in-home sampling according to the following criteria: 1) adolescent living with adoptive or biological mother at the time of the interview, 2) adolescent had never been separated from mother for more than 6 months, 3) mother was in first marriage at the time of the interview, and 4) the adoptive mother had never been married to the adolescent's biological father. Of the 6577 adolescents in the final study sample, 214 (3.3%) were living with adoptive mothers and 6363 (96.7%) were living with biological mothers.

Conclusions. Attempted suicide is more common among adolescents who live with adoptive parents than among adolescents who live with biological parents. The association persists after adjusting for depression and aggression and is not explained by impulsivity as measured by a self-reported tendency to make decisions quickly. Although the mechanism underlying the association remains unclear, recognizing the adoptive status may help health care providers to identify youths who are at risk and to intervene before a suicide attempt occurs. It is important to note, however, that the great majority of adopted youths do not attempt suicide and that adopted and nonadopted youths in this study did not differ in other aspects of emotional and behavioral health. Furthermore, high family connectedness decreases the likelihood of suicide attempts regardless of adoptive status and represents a protective factor for all adolescents. Key words: adoption, suicide attempt, adolescence, depression, aggression, impulsivity.
_________________________________

The British Journal of Psychiatry 158: 829-833 (1991)© 1991 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
Adoption and eating disorders: a high-risk group?
NL Holden Department of Psychiatry, University of Nottingham Medical School, Mapperley Hospital. Between 1975 and 1985, 3.8% of patients referred to the Maudsley Hospital with anorexia and bulimia were adoptees. This exceeds the rate of adoption (1.5%) in the general population matched for year of birth. The 18 adoptees with eating disorders had significantly more associated behavioural disturbance and lower academic achievement than the 18 matched controls, and different precipitating factors.
_________________________________

Psychiatric disorders in young adult intercountry adoptees: an epidemiological study.

(Author Abstract) Wendy Tieman; Jan van der Ende; Frank C. Verhulst. The American Journal of Psychiatry (Tieman, van der Ende, and Verhulst) March 2005

Author's Abstract: COPYRIGHT 2005 American Psychiatric Association

Objective: The prevalences of psychiatric disorders in young adult intercountry adoptees and nonadopted young adults from the general population were compared.
Results: The adopted young adults were 1.52 times as likely to meet the criteria for an anxiety disorder as the nonadopted young adults; the 95% confidence interval (CI) was 1.15-2.00. The adoptees were 2.05 (95% CI=1.32-3.17) times as likely to meet the criteria for substance abuse or dependence.

____________________________________________________________________

Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 2004;58:412-417© 2004 BMJ Publishing Group Ltd
taken from: http://jech.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/58/5/412
RESEARCH REPORT
Avoidable mortality among child welfare recipients and intercountry adoptees: a national cohort study
A Hjern1,2, B Vinnerljung1,3 and F Lindblad4,5,6
1 Centre for Epidemiology, National Board of Health and Welfare, Stockholm, Sweden2 Department of Women and Children’s Health, Uppsala University, Sweden3 Centre for Evaluation of Social Services, National Board of Health and Welfare, Stockholm, Sweden4 Department of Public Health Sciences, Division of Psychosocial Factors and Health Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden5 The Swedish National Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention of Mental Ill-Health, Stockholm, Sweden6 National Institute for Psychosocial Medicine, Sweden
Correspondence to: Associate Professor A Hjern Centre for Epidemiology, Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare, 106 30 Stockholm, Sweden; anders.hjern@sos.se
'//-->

Objective: To compare rates of avoidable mortality in adolescence in child welfare recipients and intercountry adoptees with the general population.
Design: A register study of the entire national cohort of 989 871 Swedish residents born 1973–82 in the national census of 1990. Multivariate Cox analyses of proportional hazards were used to analyse avoidable deaths between 13 to 27 years of age during 1991–2000.

Participants: 12 240 intercountry adoptees, 6437 foster children, 15 868 subjected to other forms of child welfare interventions, and the remaining 955 326 children in the cohort.

Results: Intercountry adoptees had a high sex and age adjusted relative risk (RR) for suicide death only (RR 3.5; 95% CI 2.3 to 5.0) in comparison with the general population, while foster children and adolescents who had received other kinds of child welfare interventions had high sex and age adjusted RRs for suicide death; 4.3 (2.8 to 6.6) and 2.7 (1.9 to 3.9) respectively, as well as for other avoidable deaths; RRs 2.5 (1.6 to 3.7) and 2.8 (2.1 to 3.6). The RRs of avoidable deaths for foster children and other child welfare recipients decreased considerably when compared with youth brought up in homes with similar psychosocial characteristics as their original home.

Conclusion: Children in substitute care in early childhood were at particular risk for suicide death in adolescence and young adulthood. Child welfare interventions were insufficient to prevent excess deaths in children at risk.

______________________________________________________________

Psychological adjustment of adoptees in adulthood: Family environment and adoption-related correlates
Author: Levy-Shiff R. 1
Source: International Journal of Behavioral Development, Volume 25, Number 2, 1 March 2001, pp. 97-104(8)
Publisher: Psychology Press, part of the Taylor & Francis Group
next article > View Table of Contents

Abstract:This longitudinal study explored psychological adjustment, evaluated in terms of self-concept and pathological symptomatology, in a nonclinical, community-based sample of adult adoptees and a matched control group of nonadoptees. Also explored was the role of adoption-related variables - age of placement of adoption, openness to adoption, and reunion with biological parents as well as family environment in predicting adjustment. Adoptees, as compared with nonadoptees, scored lower on self-concept but higher on pathological symptomatology. Likewise, they scored their families lower on all three dimensions of family environment - relationships, personal growth, and system maintenance. However, family environment variables were more predictive of adjustment in adoptees than in nonadoptees. Age of placement and openness to adoption were also associated with adoptees' adjustment.

_____________________________________________

Adoptees and Psychological Issues
Advice columnist responds to question on why Adoptee, Dana Plato killed herself...
taken from queendom.com
Kasey Hamner answers:The following is my opinion only!

Thank you so much for your thought-provoking question. I too, was sorry to hear about Dana Plato's death. The fact that she was also adopted of course sparked my curiosity as well. I will not dare to say that being adopted caused her to abuse drugs and alcohol, only Dana herself would be able to tell us that.

I will tell that you that many adoptees feel a nagging and ongoing 'disquieting loneliness', devastating feelings of rejection, fear of abandonment, and often lead troubled lives. It has been proven that many adoptees attempt to find comfort outside themselves, wherever possible. For instance, they often turn to food at an early age, then turn to alcohol and/or drugs.

Other common traits of adoptees are depression, shoplifting, relationship difficulties, and identity problems. Depression is pretty self-explanatory. The adoptee may feel hopeless. They may feel sad for no apparent reason. Their life may be going great, but for some reason, they can't be happy about it. Many adoptees that I have spoken to say something like, "I don't know why I am so depressed all the time. I have a great job, my husband loves me, my children are well-adjusted, and I just can't let it in". Many adoptees, including Dana Plato, have problems with stealing and shoplifting.
I believe that many adoptees are reaching out for help and sometimes the only way for them to get attention is to break the law. Relationships are commonly a source of fear and pain for many adoptees. They often cannot handle the intimacy from as early as birth. For instance, they frequently have trouble bonding to their adoptive parents, and later have difficulty maintaining adult relationships with lovers. The identity problems that I am referring to are simple. Adoptees who have not yet reunited yet do not know who they look like or take after. When they see the resemblances that their adoptive family members have to each other, they feel different.

All of the above mentioned traits may lead adoptees to seek comfort in people, places, and things outside themselves. The bottom line is that they don't want to feel the pain that they may or may not even know they have. Denial is a big part of being adopted. Many adoptees will tell me that they don't mind being adopted and that they never wonder about their 'real' parents. I believe that this is humanly impossible. At one time or another in an adoptees life, I believe that they will eventually have the desire to find those that resemble them and, most importantly, to find out the circumstances of their relinquishment.Remember that everybody has a different personality and emotional life.

I have heard from many adoptees who do no agree with my position. They claim that they will never be curious about their heritage and do not feel that being adopted has affected their life in any way. My response to this is if an adoptee is not curious about the people that gave them life, then something is wrong. It does not matter whether they were raised in a happy or unhappy home, being given up by the, "people who are supposed to love you the most" has to have an effect on you.

The most important thing to remember is that the pain of being adopted never really goes away entirely. Also, trying to find comfort in outside things is futile. Healing is an inside job. No person, place or thing can take the pain away. I recommend that adoptees who are in pain seek counseling and the fellowship of a support group. Nobody understands what it is like being adopted unless you are adopted yourself. I also encourage adoptees to search for their relatives. It is a way of taking their power back. They were powerless as infants, but as adults they have the power to choose.

They can choose to search and then once reunited they can choose to have a relationship. We all have a choice. We must never forget that.Thank you for your question, I hope my response has satisfied your curiosity.

Kasey Hamner
This question was answered by by Kasey Hamner. Kasey Hamner has a Bachelor of Art degree in Psychology, a Masters of Science degree in Counseling, a Pupil Personnel Services Credential authorizing her services as a School Psychologist, and is a Licensed Educational Psychologist. She specializes in adoption related issues including search and reunion, abandonment, self-esteem, substance abuse, depression, and relationship difficulties. Also amongst her specialties are children's issues including adoption, abandonment, ADD, special education and so on. Her approach is eclectic and is adapted to suit the individual's needs. For more information, you can visit her compact information page on Queendom.com
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Statistics on the Effects of Adoption(copied from http://www.adoptioncrossroads.org/ginni.html)Appendix AResearch and Studies on Adoptees

The results are in; the great human experiment failed! The effects are hardly noticeable with some, but extremely so with others. Moreover, for those whom the system was supposedly designed to benefit, the children, were failed the most. Many adoptees do not realize that their difficulties, at least in part, stem from simply having been adopted.

All adoptees have effects from their adoption experience. The degree of the effects and symptomatic behaviors vary a great deal.There are vulnerabilities shared by all adoptees. In those most vulnerable, a distinct pattern of behaviors can be seen. Some have labeled this the "Adopted Child Syndrome." (Kirschner)Adopted 'children' are disproportionately represented with learning disabilities and organic brain syndrome. (Schecter and Genetic Behaviors)Mental health professionals are surprised at the alarmingly high number of their patients who are adopted.

Studies show an average of 25 to 35% of the young people in residential treatment centers are adoptees. This is 17 times the norm. (Lifton, BIRCO--Pannor and Lawrence)Adoptees are more likely to have difficulties with drug and alcohol abuse, as well as, eating disorders, attention deficit disorder, infertility, suicide and untimely pregnancies. (Young, Bohman, Mitchell, Ostroff, Ansfield, Lifton and Schecter)Adoptees are more likely to choose alternate lifestyles. (Ansfield and Lifton)Alarmingly high numbers of adoptees are sent to disciplinary/correctional schools or are locked out of their homes [adoptive]. (Anderson and Carlson)60 to 85% of the teens at Coldwater Canyon's Center For Personal Development, are adopted.

That is 30 to 40 times the norm. The center is a private acute-care psychiatric hospital/school in Southern California. (Ostroff)50 to 70% of the teens at The Haven in New Trier Township, Illinois, are adopted. That is 25 to 35 times the norm.

The Haven is a resource center for street kids. (Henderson)The secrecy in an adoptive family, and the denial that the adoptive family is different builds dysfunction into it. "... while social workers and insecure adoptive parents have structured a family relationship that is based on dishonesty, evasions and exploitation. To believe that good relationships will develop on such a foundation is psychologically unsound" (Lawrence). As John Bradshaw, the well-renowned therapist, says, "A family is only as sick as its secrets."Secrecy erects barriers to forming a healthy identity. Sealed records implicitly asks for an extreme form of denial. There is no school of psychotherapy which regards denial as a positive strategy in forming a sense of self and dealing with day-to-day realities. (Howard)Adoption is a psychological burden to the adoptee. The effect of this burden is known, but the origin is confused.

Secrecy plays a part in it, but Nancy Newton Verrier, Ph.D., sources the difficulties to the separation of the newborn from the mother. The Primal Wound is the most recent and revealing work done on the effects of adoption on the adopted. In the author's own words, "I believe that the connection established during the nine months in utero is a profound connection, and it is my hypothesis that the severing of that connection in the original separation of the adopted child from the birth mother causes a primal or narcissistic wound, which affects the adoptee's sense of Self and often manifests in a sense of loss, basic mistrust, anxiety and depression, emotional and/or behavioral problems, and difficulties in relationships with significant others (21)."

Verrier has been criticized for her work, but her response says it all, "The only people who can really judge this work, however, are those about whom it is written: the adoptees themselves. Only they, as they note their responses to what is written here, will really know in their deepest selves the validity of this work, the existence or nonexistence of the primal wound" (xvii).

Secrecy, denial, and the primal wound have all played a role in the effect adoption has on the adoptee, but there is still more. Having spent nearly eight years studying and working as a volunteer with over 1000 people affected by an adoption (nearly all adoptees and birthmothers); I have seen the effects of adoption.Humans have a basic need to feel they are individually whole, yet part of a whole. For the adopted this can be difficult.

Often adoptees feel they do not belong (Kirschner). It is very lonely and isolating to feel different from those you should feel the closest to, your family. Edin Lipinski, M.D., brings insight to these feelings:In an existential sense, the past is as important to adopted people as their future. It is the present that is most troublesome. Not knowing where they fit into the spectrum of happenings is a great problem for them.
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Adopted Canadians Face Many Hurdles
originally posted on Canadian Democratic Movment web site
www.canadiandemocraticmovement.ca

By Michelle Edmunds

Who are my real parents? What is my ethnicity? Most people can answer these questions with little effort. But, if you are adopted and seek to discover who you are and where you come from, then it’s likely that you are wrestling with Ontario’s closed-adoption system, a system that locks away a person’s original identity and genetic past.

What is the psychological aftermath of losing one’s natural family and identity? For many adoptees, it can lead to severe mental anguish and confusion.

Reunited (Ontario) adoptee, Kim Adlard, knows that adoption affected her emotional well-being. “When I was a child, I would ask my adoptive father for information about my natural identity and family, and sometimes he would say he had information and other times he would say, ‘I may have information, I will tell you when you’re older.’” “Everything was surreal, she says, and I always felt disconnected from everyone.” She learned to lie and suppress her ‘real’ feelings, which led to self-hatred, then drove her to self-destructive behaviour. In 2004, she reunited with her natural family, and it was then, she says, that the self-healing began.

The Whitby Mental Health Centre in Ontario treats adoptees for various mental health problems. Clinical co-ordinator, Sandy Brown, says that adoptees represent a higher number of patients at The Centre than that of the general population. Brown wonders why medical information is not available to the adopted person. She says its’ frustrating, when adoptees can’t provide a genetic psychological or medical history, as many are diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar or depression – and it’s difficult to work with what little information they have.

In the last half-century in North America, sequestering information became the ‘norm’ in adoption. The belief was that if a family could provide a stable home and an abundance of love, that the adopted child would simply assimilate into the adoptive family’s identity and heritage – and that these attributes alone could trump any feelings of identity confusion or loss.

Subsequently, adoptees were seldom permitted to view their adoption as having a negative impact on their lives. Many were left to believe that adoption rescued them from a presumed dismal life and that adoption offered a chance at happiness and stability. What requires careful examination though, is not how prolifically a person adjusts to a closed-adoption, or how grateful an adoptee appears; rather why there is a system and law that presents children with a potential identity conundrum in the first place.
Donna Reid, a Social Worker with Central Toronto Youth Services (CTYS) has worked with adoptees aged 13-18 for seven years. The adopted youth she counsels are terrified of being abandoned emotionally. She says that the adoptees have low self-esteem, and are engaged in self-harm -- and will sabotage relationships as it gives [them] a sense of control. Many of the youth Reid treats are self-medicating with substance-use - this aids with not knowing who they are and the heightened feelings of not fitting-in anywhere in the world.

Reid often hears adoptees (especially the male adoptees) remark that they do not want to meet their natural mothers. Some adoptees view their mothers as “sexually promiscuous whores“ and will make comments such as, “If my mother had just kept her legs closed I wouldn’t be going through all this pain.”Wendy Rowney, a 36-year-old reunited adoptee, coped with the loss of her identity by separating her adoptive-self from her biological-self. It came in handy when asked as a schoolgirl to create a family tree, “I really wanted to share my ‘authentic’ ancestry, but couldn’t, so I just buried my feelings and accepted my adoptive family’s heritage as my own.” “After I reunited with my mother, feelings of sadness overcame me, as I realized then, how desperately I had always needed to know what my original identity and ethnicity had been.” Rowney always had the support of her adoptive parents around searching for her natural family. She says that although her parents would back whatever decision she made, she felt a tremendous sense of guilt and disloyalty toward her adoptive parents for merely considering a search for her natural mother.

Adoption worker, Ashleigh Martinflat, who works with Native Family and Child Services in Toronto, says that Ontario needs to “catch-up” with its adoption practices.Martinflat worked for the Ministry of Child and Family Development in British Columbia for five years, and says she has seen her share of adoptees who suicide and are dealing with addiction issues. The need to embrace one’s roots is paramount, and when pre-adoptive families showed up at the [BC ministry] wanting a child, she says that they were sent elsewhere if they expected a closed-adoption. “We would tell people that this child has its own identity – it’s own heritage, and that can’t be changed.”

The Adoption Disclosure Register (ADR) in Toronto, the government agency that reunites adoptees and natural families, can choose not to perform a search for an adoptee - the Registrar of the ADR may allege the adopted person capable of causing mental, physical, or emotional harm toward a natural parent.

The ADR will not provide an answer on how this outcome is determined. But it can, in one letter stating the risk of potential harm, leave the adoptee clinging to the thin vine of identity obscurity, pondering still, who they are, why were they left behind – and how much longer it will be before the government stops penalizing them for simply being born.

CONTACT INFO & LINKS

2005-08-12T20:00:00.000-07:00

Have questions about adoption practices in Ontario?

Interested in what Bill-183 is all about

Searching for child/parent(s)/relative

Posting articles/research/statistics

(no attachments, send in body of email)

Joining CATO

Send a message to:
Sandra or Michelle
cato.org@gmail.com
We'll get right back to you!

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Links

Coalition for Open Adoption Records (Ontario)

www.geocities.com/coarontario

ORIGINS Canada
www.originscanada.org

CANAdopt
www.canadopt.ca

Canadian Council for Natural Mothers
nebula.on.ca/canbmothers

Genereation and Re-Connection
http://www.generations.on.ca

Canadian Adoptees Registry
www.canadianadopteesregistry.org/

Anne Patterson, Professional Searcher

If you are interested in hiring a professional searcher, with experience in adoption searches and reunions, then please consider Anne Patterson. Anne is a licensed private investigator, as is the law when performing searches for a fee. With 15 years of experience Anne is as specialist in this area. Searches can be peformed in several parts of Canada. An initial free assessment is required to see if she can be of assistance.

Working with clients, updating them to any and all information about their search, and providing support along the way are added bonuses of hiring Anne. A reunited adoptee herself, Anne has also spent years advocating for open records.

With a 95% success rate, and sensitive care for her clients, Anne remains dedicated to working with others adopted, and families in search. To contact Anne please feel free to email her at searches@sympatico.ca

Information and Privacy Commissioner, Ann Cavoukian Publicly Disreagrds Ontario Adoptees

2005-08-12T15:40:00.000-07:00

Ann Cavoukian Disregards Adoptees Health Issues

Where are the letters, Ms Cavoukian?

Since Ontario's Information and Privacy Commissioner accused adoptees of ruining lives and causing natural mothers to suicide - CATO has received letters from adoptees who are suicidal, have had suicidal ideologies and are living with serious mental and/or physical health issues. They do not have knowledge of or access to any genetic medical history or information. The letters were initially sent to Ann Cavoukian, but none ever received a response. The IPC office does not acknowledge these adoptees - apparently, the letters have been "lost."CATO will make sure your letters get the office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner.

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Cavoukian supports sealed medical records

By Ron Murdock (adoptee)

Ann Cavoukian, the Privacy Commissioner, dismisses the no contact veto in Bill 183 without any factual reference. Her rhetoric generates fear while, at the same time, implying that adoptees who would be given their information are criminals who have no regard for the law or rights and feelings of others.She also states that where a veto to release of information is invoked the person seeking may still obtain information about health.

This is not always the case. It depends entirely on how the person being sought responds. In my case, there was no actual veto to release of information yet my file is now sealed tighter than before, and the Department of Community Services can never again approach the person they are convinced is my natural mother.At age 64, reaching an age when health issues begin to surface, I am still unable to access vital family medical history which could well save my life. I fit into that other minority category which seeks information yet is denied it.

Why is Ms Cavoukian not speaking for my minority rights when she claims to represent the minority view?

I see no balance or responsibility in that whatsoever, despite her statement that she agrees balance is necessary.Other countries have dealt with openness in adoption records without a veto to release of information for the last 30 years and no one has died as a result of it.

But there are some of us who may well die because of not being able to access our information. Does Ms Cavoukian not feel that ignoring our minority rights is also unconscionable?Minister Pupatello most certainly does, and that is why she and the Ontario Government are to be commended for the humanity of their balanced approach to Bill 183.

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Deception in Adoption

Anne Patterson

Licensed Private Investigator

London, ON

"Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive" by William Shakespeare. I do not know if Shakespeare had the closed adoption system in mind as a possible future nightmare of our society, but I do feel that this is the antithesis "of the best interests of child" both historically as well as in practicum in the closed adoption system.

The IPC is not mandated to campaign against an adoption bill. Statements of fear should not be used to crucify a matter of social policy. Ann Couvakian has stated that “that lives will be shattered” as stated on her website in regards to Bill 183 which obscures the truth, and solid research. It should be alarming to people that a position of such unprecedented power would be used to orchestrate a campaign of fear when it comes to a matter of social policy.

Adoption laws were borrowed from a patriarchal mindset of laws that would be illegal under the current law system today as they breach the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. Are people hiding like fugitives and cowering under “alleged” secrecy provisions from hideous laws invented barely after women had a right to vote in this country. I don’t think so. Furthermore as an adopted adult the statements from the IPC have been out right insulting, as it presumes the position that those wanting to find their own personal information are somehow devious.

Bill 183 is a matter of human rights. The IPC is actually mandated to help one to exercise their right to their own personal information. Adoption laws are not under the same provisions as freedom of information and privacy laws in the first place. A double edged sword indeed.

The truth – lives have been shattered in a system that was based on fear and deception. If we valued laws from 100 years ago we would not have an IPC or a woman one at that! If we valued laws in practicum the truth is most of us would not have been adopted either, as mothers would have been supported instead of deceived.

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Information and Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian Takes on Adoptees

By Michelle Edmunds

(as posted on Canadian Democratic Movement web site www.canadiandemocraticmovement.ca)

Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian, has declared war on the province’s adoptees.

Cavoukian’s war is in the name of privacy; and as she ferociously gallops across the country, recruiting allies and spreading bogus adoption propaganda, she is creating a new defence force – the adoptees and natural mothers who will not buy into nor surrender to her dictator-style, fear-mongering tactics.

Bill-183, a proposed act of legislation is hoping for a smooth passage this fall when the Ontario legislature resumes. The bill, aimed at opening up the province’s 78-year-old sealed adoption records – will permit adoptees to see their original birth name, and the names of the people who gave them life.

Cavoukian purports that some women should have the right to privacy and not be disturbed by that ominous ghost of pregnancy past. She claims the privacy rights of the natural mother should annul the adopted person’s right to obtain personal and identifying information. One assumes that she has taken into consideration that on no adoption contract in Canada is there a proviso that denies an adopted person’s right to know their natural parents.

The bill already has a condition for privacy; it’s a “no-contact veto.” If an adopted person violates this veto, which is placed in an adoption file by the natural mother, the adoptee can face a hefty fine of $50,000 and potential criminal charge. Alas, this is not dehumanizing enough for the privacy commissioner. She wants a disclosure veto implemented into the bill – this will provide natural mothers permanent anonymity from their child.

She has diminutive patience for adoptees she says are determined to trace their family heritage, despite frantic pleas from natural moms. (Who of course are at home crouched inside the closet, gnawing on the last fragments of their fingernails waiting for that dreaded knock at the door.)

She has blasted the media in recent months with warnings from anonymous natural mothers, who are threatening to lock themselves in the SUV and gas themselves to death should their adopted-away child one day learn their original identity.

Apparently, some women forgot to mention to their post-adoption partners that they once had a baby and gave it up for adoption. Guess it’s not a self-describing attribute one puts on Yahoo Personals.

That is one weighty secret the adoptee is expected to keep tucked under their hat for their entire life. Not only is the adopted person perpetually silenced and hidden in shame -- they now have to live with the notion that their very existence will cause someone to suicide.

Adoptees search so they can move to the natural rhythm of life. Maybe just once they would like to compare themselves to another human being in appearance and personality traits. Perhaps they are curious about their inherent ethnicity and ancestry, could they be of Native, Chinese, Irish, or Persian decent? It might be helpful, too, if they could get hold of a genetic medical history – that just might save the life of an adoptee with a predisposed life-threatening disease.

Cavoukian’s plight for privacy goes far beyond that of the role of a privacy commissioner making simple recommendations on a legislative bill. She has solicited the opinions of all privacy commissioners across Canada (which falls out of her mandate as a provincial privacy commissioner) and has posted an adoption Fact Sheet on her web site (http://www.ipc.on.ca - which is ninety per cent inaccurate). It is bizarre, really, how she has gone so far as to accuse adoptees of being potential home-wreckers and murderers, just to protect a few agitated people who wish not to confront an unpleasant memory.

She is ignoring the fact that in the last half-century the majority of birth mothers were either forced to or coerced by adoption workers and families into relinquishing their children for adoption – and that most natural mothers live for the day when they can once again set eyes on their gone but not forgotten kin.

The Adoption Disclosure Register (ADR) holds the names of more than 70,000 Ontarian adoptees and natural mothers requesting a reunion. The ADR reunites on average 600 people per year.

Since January 2005, The Adoption Council of Canada has received over a thousand enquiries, mostly from adoptees asking how bill-183 will help them obtain an original birth certificate.

The privacy commissioner ought to realize that the adoptee is not nor will they be the perpetrator of any crime. The adoptee was simply born - and with that, came a unique identity and genetic history. If there is a crime being committed in adoption, it is not the fundamental need to discover and connect with one’s roots – it is the intentional withholding of personal and genetically identifying information.

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Privacy Commissioner's Position Untenable

Patricia McCarron, ParentFinders

April 1, 2005 - Patricia McCarron, PresidentParent Finders, National Capital Region, Ontario writes Dr. Ann Cavoukian Re: Bill 183, Adoption and Disclosure Information Act

We are writing in response to your highly negative reaction to Bill 183, the Adoption Disclosure and Information Act which was presented in the Ontario Parliament on March 29, 2005. We find your position to be untenable.

The statistics and facts that you quote are incorrect and feed the fears of the general public who are not fully informed of all the issues around adoption disclosure and reunion.Parent Finders, National Capital Region (PFNCR) is part of a national organization that has helped Canadians for the last 31 years.

Parent Finders, run by volunteers, serves adult adoptees and birth relatives through their search and reunion process. Our branch in Ottawa has been directly involved in over 1200 reunions since 1976 and we maintain a database of more than 12,000 birth names.

Over the years, we have assisted thousands of people. For this reason, we feel we are eminently qualified to comment on this matter.Over the last 25+ years, the Ontario adoption community has honed its expertise in researching adoption reform in other jurisdictions. Numerous studies and briefs on adoption disclosure reform from all over the world, not to mention the countless testimonials from members of the adoption community, attest to the need for major changes to our adoption law.Our three key points of contention with your position are as follows:

1. Retroactivity: sometimes it is necessary to right the wrongs of the past as has been done with the native schools issue for example. The opening of closed adoption records is righting a past wrong. Since most adoptions today have some form of ‘openness’, such a law change without retroactivity would be useless.

2. Birth mother confidentiality: No document, either legislative or bureaucratic, ever promised perpetual anonymity to anyone in adoption. In our experience, we have NEVER seen or heard of a document promising confidentiality. Indeed, what we have seen are numerous examples of official documents given to adoptive parents at the time of the adoption, which contain, not only the birth mother ’s name, but her date of birth and full address. Where was her confidentiality or privacy then?

3. Information vetoes: PFNCR does not support any form of information or disclosure veto. Knowledge of birth origins is a basic right for all adopted people. Our research shows, any concerns regarding privacy are covered by the contact veto. After much investigative research no contraventions to the contact veto have ever been recorded anywhere.

Logically, the opening of records does not mean hundreds of unwanted reunions. One step does not automatically lead to the other.

We urge you to support Bill 183 as it stands.