Why is adoption records access important?
It’s about identity! Only two categories of American citizens cannot obtain a copy of their original birth certificates: persons in the FBI’s witness protection program and adoptees. Adoptees grow up with questions about identity. Questions that affect their psycho-social development, sometimes in negative ways. Like all humans, adoptees seek to answer the questions “who am I?” and “why am I here?” Adoptees are legally prohibited from obtaining information that is critical to answering that question. But it is a necessary tool for most adoptees to answer those nagging questions about our origins. Knowing is better than not knowing. Knowing the truth is healing for most of us. But fear of discovery, not as you might imagine for parents who surrendered a child to adoption, but for adoption professionals who misrepresented the facts to vulnerable women or couples wishing to adopt, makes for a powerful motive to keep the truth hidden. When access to one’s original birth certificate (OBC) i
