A Reckless Message

Because of DNA and social media, the true gamechangers in our 21st century society, it is reckless and irresponsible for anyone, or any state for that matter, to even imply that someone could remain anonymous. Sending the message that lifelong anonymity is a reality for anyone in today's world is akin to a cruel joke, at this juncture. By continuing the practice of barring adoptees from their information in the guise of birth parent protection, the state wrongly sends the message that it has the ability to keep someone's identity anonymous. This could not be further from the truth. The state has never really had this ability or authority, and certainly cannot with the advent of these prolific game changers.

With 20 million DNA kits sold, all domestically born adoptees have to do is test with one of several DNA companies to be connected to biological family. If the test is financially out of reach, joining a fb high school reunion group from their year and town of birth is often all that is needed to find biological family. The need for these public searches is reduced in states that pass access legislation, replacing it with a much more private phone call or email, which avoids the need to contact high school friends and cousins, as is happening now. So, counter to what the few remaining dissenters argue, in the real world we live in, sealed records jeopardizes privacy, whereas access provides a more private path for those searching. Good government is about passing laws for the actual society we currently live in, not pandering to fictuous myths of a bygone era. We live in a new century requiring new laws.

Senator Campbell's testimony on SB 713

Can You Imagine...?

Can you imagine a contract that:

-two parties enter into that is used to justify barring a third person (party) from knowing anything about their history, ethnicity or genealogy without that third party's consent or foreknowledge, though, in fact, legally it does not?

-This contract is signed by the first two parties without the consent of the third party - the actual person losing access to their own personal, most basic information.

-The third party, the one resulting in being barred, is unaware of said contract, or its signing at the time of its execution.

-The contract is interpreted as barring them, the third party from their own personal information for life, although this is not actually what's in the contract.

-The third person (party) has committed no crimes. And that same third person is not allowed to even view the specific contract that they are being bound by for life.

When the third party questions the validity of the contract they are bound by, but never agreed to, they are sometimes shunned and humiliated by those close to them, misinformed strangers, and also by privileged persons in positions of power. The barred individual's motives are questioned. They are told to be grateful that the contract exists.  

The terms of the contract, as mistakenly interpreted by others, extend until death.

*often one or both of the two signing parties do not fully understand the scope, full intent, or implications of the contract at the time of its signing. The third party, when later notified of the existing signed contract and its implied and actual terms, is keenly aware of all its implications through lifelong exposure to discrimination and all that that experience includes.

You can't make this stuff up.
#ThisIsUs #adopteevoices #HumanRightsViolations