Thursday, March 20, 1SS0
Weekender
Page 5
,& a Bill
this woman who gave so much to me. No one has the
right to take that away from me' she said.
Mildred Wilson is a social worker for the
Rockingham County Social Services Division and
several years ago arranged two separate reunions
between adoptees and their natural mothers.
"I was the go-between in arranging the meetings.
After the adoptees came to me with the information
about who the natural parents were, I first contacted
the individuals to be sure they were interested in a
reunion," Wilson said. "In the two situations I was
involved in, both adoptees appeared stable and
happily married," she said. "If they had seemed
unstable, I would have had second thoughts about
contacting their natural parents for them'
The adoptees' desire to obtain information about
their natural parents, Wilson said, is a normal, healthy
development, as is the birth parents' desire to be aware
of the development of the adoptee.
"From the adoptees' and their biological parents'
point of view, there is not intention of disrupting each
other's lives," said Robin Peacock. "The biological
parent does not want. to disrupt the placement of the
child, but has a right and a need to know how their
child has progressed, if they so desire."
Virginia Rader of CUB said she had never met a birth
parent who was not concerned about the child they
had given up for adoption. "They express a desire to
know how the child has grown and not necessarily to
meet the adult adoptee. They do not want to interfere
in any way' she said.
Those who have come before the Legislative
Research Commission are no longer children, but
instead have families of their own and their own lives
to live.
These individuals, who are seeking to remove the
secrecy surrounding adoption records, stress that the
adult adoptee is entitled to the same rights as other
citizens to know of their origin and birth. A need for
complete medical history also is important. Adoptees'
medical history usually is given by a teenage mother
who has very little knowledge of past illnesses in her
family.
"Adoptees from all different walks of life are aiming
towards the same cause. There is a dire need for
updated medical background that can only be
obtained from the natural parent," Klein said.
"Past medical history available from older adoption
records are not pertinent today in a preventative
sense," he said.
"One of the reasons for sealed records, I believe, has
to do with the 'Skinner baby box' belief," Rader said.
"When the adoption policies concerning sealed
records were started in the U.S., there was the idea that
genes and heritage were of no concern to the
development of a healthy child if the environment was
strong."
mrp imes have changed, however. The Forsyth
I County Department of Social Services and other
adoption agencies are currently informing the
birth parents who release a child for adoption and the
prospective parents that if the law were to be changed,
the adult adoptee could obtain information
concerning his or her origin and the identity of the
birth parents.
Yet most agencies similar to Adoptees Together have
reported that despite strict laws concerning obtaining
any information, usually any person in any state could
find their birth parents. "In every state there is a group
like ours," said Holly Hill, founder of Adoptees
Together. "We act as intermediaries, dealing with the
anxiety the adoptee or biological parent may feel.
"Adoptees Together was founded in August of 1976
and I have only encountered one mother who did not
desire to see her adult child' Hill said. "The great
majority of birth parents do wonder at least if they had
done, the right thing."
Although it appears as if many adoptees have a
relatively easy time finding their natural parents. Many
times the efforts are endless and unsuccessful in
finding the answers. "There are a few thousand of us in
North Carolina who just simply desire to know
information and not to go out and knock pn
someone's door, invading the privacy of their natural
parents' said Daniel, a UNC junior who has tried in
the past to unlock the bureaucratic seal on his
adoption records. y
"Last summer I got up the nerve and the means to
look into the situation," he said. "I went To the
adoption agency in Greensboro. The mos frustrating
thing was to have the director of the agency, who is a
total stranger and has no interest in my past, sit behind
her desk with my records in her hands. She could read
these records and I couldn't."
The process of sealed records establishes the type of
secrecy which produces an ominous picture of
something not to be acknowledged, Rader said.
"Confidentiality is better contained in an atmosphere
of openness than of secrecy," she said. "Secrecy is
negative to the adoption process."
'My natural mother carried me for
nine months. ..She went through that
kind of hell to give me up. I'm sure she
wonders if she did the right thing
Rose, an adoptee
These 'hidden parents' are the source of many
positive and negative fantasies. Some persons feel the
opening up of sealed records may be the opening of
Pandora's box.
In attempting to determine whose individual rights
are to be most protected, legislatures are dealing with a
bundle of heated emotions. As discussed during the
first public hearing held by the North Carolina
Legislative Research Commission, "There are no
absolute answers the solution to every problem
generates another to be addressed." 0
Ann Peters is a staff writer for the Daily Tar Heel.
Adoption groups
Many organizations and persons throughout the
United States provide help, advice and information
on adoption laws and the rights of adoptees and parents.
Some names and addresses of groups and people to
contact are:
Adoptees Together
Holly Hill
Route 1, Box 308 5
Climax, NC 27233
Legislative Research Commission Committee on the
Rights of Adopted Children
Susan Frost
Legislative Building Annex
10 E. Jones St.
Raleigh, NC 27611
Adoptees' Liberty Movement AssocUtion
P.O. Box 15
Washington Bridge Station
New York, NY 10022
Concerned United Birth Parents
Virginia Rader
P.O. Box 23641
L'Elant Plaza Station
Washington, D.C. 20024
The next meeting of the legislative Research
Commission is Thursday, April 3 at 10 a.m. in the
Legislative Building in Raleigh. The meeting open to
the public, and written comments or opinions m.iv be
mailed to commission members at the legislative
Commission address listed above.