Which Texas Adoption Agencies Fund the Organization That
Opposes Giving Adult Adoptees Their Original Birth Certificates?
by Alicia Lanier

Ask any adoption reform activist in the United States why their state does not yet give adult adoptees access to their adoption records and the answer is swift: Because a man named Bill Pierce fronts a group called the National Council for Adoption (NCFA), and he has been successful at convincing lawmakers that keeping adoption records sealed is a good thing. What he doesn't add is that keeping adoption records sealed may be a good thing for the NCFA funding agencies who pay an annual fee based on how many infants they place and who make Pierce's roadshow possible so he can appear before any state's legislative body threatening to open adoption records. He was most visible recently in Tennessee where the NCFA is on the plantiff's side in a court case to shut down that state's new law giving adoptees access to once-sealed records.

Hopefully, he's fighting a losing battle since far fewer agencies are supporting the NCFA's closed records agenda than in the past (see list of Texas agencies still on the NCFA member rolls) and far more activist groups are approaching lawmakers. In 1997 alone, Pierce must be racking up a ton of Frequent Flyer miles. Adoption reform legislation is being considered in state capitols on the East Coast (New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York) as well as the heartland (Illinois, Ohio, Tennessee) and out west (Texas, Colorado and Montana). It's enough to make one's heart sing Let Freedom Ring!

We in Texas must be giving Pierce anxiety attacks because he's written about us twice now in his little newsletter that goes to agencies and adoptive parents around the country. Sadly, both times he has peppered his report on Texas with half-truths and innuendo. For example, he is still labeling TxCARE as "anti-adoption" yet TxCARE is on record as supporting Governor Bush's 1997 legislation to expedite adoptions for kids in the Texas foster care system. Unfortunately, the article from the NCFA National Adoption Reports, May, 1997, tells us the NCFA (founded by The Gladney Center, Fort Worth, and Smithlawn, Lubbock) is reorganizing the Texas Committee for Adoption in order to perpetuate secrecy in Texas adoptions and keep records closed. For this reason, I want to rebut several NCFA assertions.

Privacy Issue. The NCFA article implied that TxCARE is anti-privacy as well as anti-adoption because we support giving adoptees access to their original birth certificates, but a federal court of law has ruled on the subject of birthmother privacy in this issue. The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals said this about the claim that Tennessee's new law violates privacy against disclosure of confidential information: "...birth is both an intimate occasion and a public event, and the long history of government-kept records of babies' birth further the interest of children in knowing the circumstances of their birth."

Confidential Intermediary Issue. The NCFA article said that TxCARE wanted Confidential Intermediary language written into law this past Legislative session. Nothing is further from the truth. A Tarrant County judge (not TxCARE as the article stated) approached Rep. Toby Goodman about putting qualifications for Confidential Intermediaries into H.B. 1091. TxCARE opposed any Confidential Intermediary language and asked Rep. Goodman to delete this section. He agreed to do this after several TxCARE representatives and key lawmakers approached him. TxCARE considered this deletion of the C.I. clause a success, not a defeat as implied by the NCFA. Pierce definitely needs more accurate sources because NCFA also implied TxCARE legislative efforts were focused on opening all sealed adoption records. But, H.B. 1835 and its twin bill in the Texas Senate dealt specifically with giving adult adoptees legal access to the original birth certificate at age 21. Neither bill mentioned giving access to adoption records held by agency or courts. Although H.B. 1835 was defeated by the Texas House of Representatives, (See March-April 1997 Adoption Triad Forum) it was an historic occasion. Never before had a Texas adoptee rights bill progressed to this level.

Judicial Authority. The NCFA article implied that Texas judges who open sealed records violate the state's mutual consent adoption registry. But, state law allows a Texas judge to open an adoptee's records "for good cause shown." Why shouldn't a judge use this authority? Judicial power is separate from the mutual consent registry law. Some judges prefer that the adult adoptee use a Confidential Intermediary so "volunteer"intermediaries are already being used even though the NCFA article expressed concern about this happening in the future. (NCFA agencies evidently would prefer to control the Confidential Intermediary themselves.)

Texas' mutual consent Adoption Registry, which the NCFA supports as the best way to give adoptees their rights, has been in place for years but has facilitated few reunions. Despite this, TxCARE will help promote this registry statewide for the third year on Oct. 4, 1997, in the Inter-national Adoption Reunion Registry Day. But no registry replaces the need for adoptees to have legal access to their original birth certificates.

Adult adopted persons must enjoy the same birth-right as every other Texas citizen - the right to legal access his/her original birth certificate. The right of U.S. citizens to obtain copies of vital statistics and court files about themselves is already set in precedent in law and adoptees are citizens.

Please join TxCARE in this effort.