Connecticut should recognize rights of adult adoptees, state lawmaker says

Editor's note: This is one in an ongoing series of posts spotlighting support for our continued effort to provide adult adoptees born in Connecticut access to their original birth certificates. The testimony featured in this series was submitted to the state Legislature earlier this year in support of proposed legislation that would have restored the right of adult adoptees adopted before Oct. 1, 1983, to access their original birth certificate. (Post-1983 adoptees had this right restored in 2014.) The letters are published with the authors' permission. Sign up for our newsletter at www.accessconnecticut.org if you want to help us end discrimination against adoptees.

It’s an unfortunate fact that a promise can be made in one century that cannot be honored in another.
The concept of human rights has expanded. Treating people differently because of the circumstances of their birth is no longer tolerated. It is time for adoptees, like everyone else, to have access to their original birth certificates.

The fact that a date of birth can determine whether or not an adoptee can access his/her original birth certificate just adds to the arbitrariness of the current partial ban on adoptees accessing their original birth certificates.

Advances in understanding of the genetic component of diseases make it imperative for us know information about our birth families. Most physicians’ intake forms contain questions concerning family disease history, and causes of death and ages at death for family members for that reason.

Finally, some people cannot rest until they know their roots. The state should not maintain outmoded, unnecessary, and discriminatory roadblocks which thwart personal fulfillment and create anguish.
Please support the amendment to SB 977 concerning; “Access to original birth certificates
by adult adopted persons.”

Representative Michael Winkler, 56th House District
Vernon