Andrea Zeimer’s reunion with her birth mother could not have gone better had it been scripted by Hollywood.
Not only was the woman who placed Zeimer for adoption 28 years ago thrilled to be found, but her adoptive mother welcomed the birth mother with open arms. Both sets of families were present at Zeimer’s wedding in December and have even vacationed together.
With no more secrets to unearth, Zeimer should be satisfied. Yet the DeKalb woman can’t help feeling angry about the three years and hundreds of dollars she devoted to search for her birth mother, who lives in Eau Claire, Wis. Even now, knowing all the circumstances surrounding her adoption, she cannot obtain a copy of her birth certificate, a right that others take for granted.
“It’s like this missing piece,” Zeimer said. “It would answer all my questions and make me feel complete.”
A proposal in the Illinois legislature that has already generated controversy would provide that piece of Zeimer’s past and in so doing transform the way American society has viewed adoption throughout much of the 20th Century: as a private act by the mother who gives birth.
The bill, sponsored by a legislator who is herself adopted, would give adoptees access to all their adoption records and court documents at age 18, regardless of whether the birth parents want to be found.
If the legislation passes, Illinois would become the first state to mandate the opening of records, no strings attached. Since 1985, it has been possible only by mutual consent.
The bill, which was sent back for revisions this week by a House committee and has yet to be heard in a Senate committee, faces strenuous opposition by critics who say it threatens to undermine a new nationwide push for adoption, including tax credits for adoptive families. Such a law might scare away mothers who want their decision to remain private and also lead to more children being abandoned at birth, they say.
Yet the fact that the bill was introduced illustrates the growing activism on the part of adoption rights groups and the cracks emerging in the long-held idea that the rights of a birth mother supersede any rights of the adopted child.
The movement to give adoptees legal rights to the details of their births has accelerated since the 1980s, as more and more adoptees have begun to search out their birth parents.
Sponsored in the house by Sara Feigenholtz, an adoptee, and by John Cullerton in the senate, the bill brought Zeimer, her birth mother and dozens of other citizens to Springfield last week to testify before the House Judicial committee.
But adoption agencies–as well as the Chicago Bar Association and the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services–are just as vigorous in their opposition.
“When birth mothers entered into an adoption plan, they did so with the belief that this information would be totally private,” said Julie Tye, president of The Cradle in Evanston, which has placed more than 13,000 infants since it was founded in 1923.
An estimated 5,000 to 6,000 adoptions are completed every year in Illinois, but the issue ripples out, touching birth parents, adoptive parents, siblings and relatives on both sides.
Since the early 1980s–spurred by the adoption-rights movement and a flurry of reunions on TV talk shows–similar bills have been a legislative perennial across the country, almost all accompanied by some stipulations.
But as adoption groups gained strength and political savvy and the taboo against out-of-wedlock pregnancy has lifted, the call for total access has picked up momentum.
In the U.S., adoption records have been sealed since the 1930s. Until then, birth and adoptive families frequently met one another, according to Jane Nast of the American Adoption Congress, a national reform group. When an out-of-wedlock birth occurred, birth certificates were routinely stamped with the word “illegitimate.”
Social workers fought to remove the stigma. State by state, records were sealed and the name of the adoptive parents replaced the unwed mother on the birth certificate. “The motives were pure,” said Nast, “for that time.”
House supporters hope to hammer out language that may be more palatable to the bill’s opponents so the measure can be reintroduced before the legislative session ends in May, Feigenholtz said. Possible changes range from giving birth parents a “no-contact” clause to raising the age from 18 to 21.
Opponents say the Mutual Consent Registry, instituted by law in 1985, already provides opportunities for birth parents and children to contact each other. The Department of Public Health maintains a registry for all adoptions, public or private. So do agencies like The Cradle.
Another avenue is for an adoptee to gain access to their adoption files by appealing to the court for information. A court-appointed intermediary will then facilitate the opening of files and determine if contact is desired.
“The state’s registry is a joke,” said Barbara Ganyo, head of Truth Seekers in Adoption, an Illinois group that provides low-cost assistance for adoption searches. “If you’re in one registry and your child is another, you may never get together.”
Supporters and foes alike concede that only a small percent of birth parents do not want to be found. “Why should laws protect the minority instead of the majority?” said Ganyo. “We gave up parental rights . . . not the right to know what happened to our babies.”
In the social climate of the 1950s to late 1960s–when most of those providing testimony gave up their children for adoption–it was virtually unheard of for a young woman to keep a child out of wedlock. The stigma of being pregnant and unmarried usually meant months in a home for unwed mothers and almost no discussion of alternatives.
“Everyone is concerned with breaking the rules. Well, who made the rules? The agencies,” said Ganyo, who placed a son for adoption in 1952 and located him at age 26. “Do you think we had any say in this? We were told this is way it had to be.”
While attitudes toward adoption have changed, there are still ethnic and cultural groups in which an out-of-wedlock birth is cause for ostracism. “England is currently seeing a problem with Muslim girls who get pregnant,” Tye said.
And the problems don’t just end with the pregnancy, said Jura Scharf, of the Catholic Conference of Illinois, the public policy vehicle for the state’s six dioceses.
It’s about having access to highly confidential information, from drug use to incest to prostitution. “What would it be like to go through the birth mother’s file and come across the term `trick baby’? I’m not sure an 18-year-old is mature enough to get into all that without some counseling,” said Scharf.
Adoption rights activists say that as adults they ought to be permitted to manage their own affairs.
“There is no other group–other than criminals–where the state positions itself in our lives,” said Bonnie Spinazze, of the Illinois Coalition for Truth in Adoption, an advocacy group promoting social and legislative reform.
Said Zeimer: “I was adopted as an infant, I had nothing to do with the contract written about me. Now that I’m an adult, why should I be bound by agreements that I did not participate in?”
