In support of adoptees' right to know who they are

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.

I am writing you as an adoptive parent of a now 47 year old son, whom we adopted when he was an infant under Costa Rican law. We lived in that country at the time. He became a naturalized US citizen in Hartford after he had lived here with us for the commensurate 2 years. He was 3 years old.

Costa Rica had a very open adoption system based on the belief that the more open laws were, the less the chance for corruption.

Therefore, when my son was ready, as an adult of 30, to find out about his adoptive family, all he had to do was ask. We had in our possession at all times his original birth and baptismal certificates and enough information about his birth family that it was not difficult to search and to find them, with some Costa Rican investigative assistance. That family had a right to say yes or no to contact with my son; mercifully for all concerned they said yes. It was a vital affirmation that has meant a great deal to his mental health. It has also created close relationships with a birth sister, his birth mother, half siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles, most of whom knew of his existence but thought they had lost him forever. Thanks to the internet, he is in contact with myriad family members and has visited them several times.

We always believed that it was his right to know his birth identity and his story, as best we knew it. It was also his right to know his original name and to have access to birth and medical records. It was with amazement and gratitude for the Costa Rican system that I listened to stories of closed adoption records in this country and in Connecticut. Over the years, there there has been vast improvement. This one more step of assuring that all Connecticut adult adoptees have access to their original birth certificates is a vital step toward creating a system that is good for all concerned.

Thank you for your support of Senate Bill 977 and for all you do on behalf of Connecticut’s birth parents, adoptive parents and their adoptive adult children.

Sincerely yours,
Virginia Fulton