Adoption Reform – Texas Style
An Open Letter to Adoption Reform Advocates
February 20, 2005

For years we at TxCARE have represented the most experienced collection of adoption reform advocates in Texas. The result now in 2005 is House bill HB770, and the companion Senate bill, SB364.  These bills were born out of a decade of hard fought advocacy on behalf of adoption triad members and their right to equal treatment under Texas law.

We encourage everyone to study the unique Texas strategy, outlined below, that we are following with HB770/SB364. Please bring any concerns directly to us if you see potential problems. This is a tedious process. The more vigilance the better, but we must continue the progress! HB770/SB364 represent the best chance in 32 years to restore the rights of Texas adult adoptees to their own original birth certificate.

Our major opposition for the past decade in Texas has repeatedly, and apparently credibly, stated that they, as an adoption agency, legally promised lifelong confidentiality to birth parents. With HB770/SB364 Texas will allow signed, notarized documentation of this claimed promise to birth parents to be filed to protect the desire by a birth parent for privacy from their birth child. In effect, with that documentation, and the filing of a contact preference form, and a current medical history, a veto to the process of releasing the original birth certificate will be allowed.

However, it is doubtful that a “signed affidavit of relinquishment of parental rights relating to the adopted child that promises anonymity,” as described in HB770, exists. If anyone knows of the existence of such a document please advise TxCARE immediately. Please send us a copy, no matter what state it was issued in!

Absent this documentation, every adult adoptee with a Texas adoption will have their absolute right to a copy of their original birth certificate restored.

There are two goals, and one major problem, in placing this veto-type boiler plate language in HB770/SB364.

The first goal is that it will give comfort to those who may have thought that such legally documented and enforceable promises of life-long secrecy from the birth child were wanted and consequently legally made to birth parents during adoption history in Texas. This legislation leaves that door open.

The second and most crucial goal is that this legislation gives the opportunity during the legislative process to emphasize the true reality of these phantom promises.  Promises of privacy from a birth child were then, and remain now, not only unwanted by birth parents but most often the exact opposite is the truth. The large majority of birth parents anxiously want contact from their birth child so that they may know all is well for their birth child.  They want to know that the exceptionally painful decisions they made years ago were in fact the right decisions for their birth child. Consequently, promises of anonymity from a birth child were rarely, if ever, made. If they were made they were never considered important enough to be documented in the signed legal agreements filed in the adoption process. Such promises will simply not be found in the agreements signed. Thus HB770 and SB364 present a wonderful educational opportunity while still leaving the door open for those who believe such promises can be found documented in the signed agreements filed in an adoption process.  In the case that such documentation is found then all that is required to stop the release of the original birth certificate to their birth child without a court order is for a birth parent to document this request in the contact preference form and provide a current medical history, the requirements outlined in HB770/SB364.

The major problem with this legislation is the reality of the possibility, however remote, that an adult adoptee in Texas could be denied their own original birth certificate by such a de-facto veto. That is the tradeoff that it appears we must endure due to the power of the anti-adoptee-rights factions in Texas.  They have successfully, for over a decade, succeeded in denying ANY advance in adult adoptee rights to their own Texas birth records. These anti-adoptee-rights agencies in Texas have successfully fought implementation of these basic Child Welfare League of America Adoption Standards into Texas law. HB770 and SB364 are a compromise offered to break that stalemate.

Even without this veto language, with the remaining changes represented by HB770 and SB364, birth parents will have more protection than they have ever had in Texas against an unwanted surprise contact from their birth child. The large majority of adult adoptees who decide to search have always been able to locate their birth parents. Those birth parents had no reliable place to record their desires relating to contact. Many searching adoptees in the past did not first contact the Texas Central Adoption Registry.  Now, with HB770/SB364, the public will know more than ever before that the central gathering place is the Central Adoption Registry if a search is being planned. Adult adoptees will know to contact the Central Adoption Registry first. Birth parents will also know this. Therefore they will know they can file a contact preference form at the Central Adoption Registry that they can be relatively certain their birth child will receive if he or she decides to search. HB770 and SB364 represent progress and increased security against unwanted contact for that very small minority of birth parents (less than 5%) who do not want such contact.  This is true even if they do not have the required forms to stop the release of their birth child's original birth certificate to him or her.

A personal letter from a birth mother to her birth child after 20+ years will be much more powerful than any veto.

You may go to the Texas Legislature Online at http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/ to see the text and follow the progress of both HB770 and SB364. Please write letters to both your Representative and your Senator if you live in Texas. Encourage your Texas relatives to write. Please send TxCARE copies of your letters, especially if you would like them to be part of the adoption reform support archive being built online at www.txcare.org/2005.

We certainly welcome time, money and support from adoption reform advocates nationwide! We thank you for your guidance and support, especially during these crucial 4 months that follow!

Bill Betzen, LMSW (Emeritus)
bbetzen@openadoption.org
TxCARE Board Member
www.txcare.org