Times have changed. Laws around adoption should, too

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.

My name is Barbara Ruhe. I am an attorney in private practice with offices in Wethersfield. I have been practicing law for 40 years primarily in the Family and Juvenile courts. I have extensive trial experience in child abuse/neglect cases and in termination of parental rights cases representing children, parents, grandparents and foster parents.

I am however not submitting this testimony because I am an attorney. I have cited my professional background to provide you with a sense of my prospective on the issue of adult adoptees having access to their original birth certificates as outlined in Senate Bill 977.

I am submitting this testimony as a parent by adoption of my two children. Our son came home to us at 42 hours, our daughter came home to us at 5 weeks. They are currently 34 and 30 and they have each blessed us with a grandson. Given what my professional background is I have always known how important it was and would be for my children to know and have access to knowledge of their heritage and medical background. I had the ability, perhaps more than most folks, to see that that information has been available for them.

I have sometimes been asked what would I do if my children's birth parents arrived at my door. My answer has always been simple--I would hug them. I respect and honor the mothers who entrusted my husband and myself with their children. There has not been a day or time or family occasion that I have not remembered and given thanks for the gift of my children. I know from my personal and professional experience that birth mothers also carry daily remembrances of their children in their hearts.

The face and practices of adoption have changed. We have learned how important it is to children to know who they are. We have also learned that birth families but especially birth mothers have a need to know how the children they made an adoption plan for have fared. There has been a myth perpetuated that birth families were "promised" anonymity. That has never been the case and we have found that even where birth mother's expressed a hope that they would never be sought out those over time change their minds. My son's birth mother expressed to the placing social worker that she hoped she would never be sought out. Within a few years she changed her mind and left the door open for future contact.

Another significant change in our world has been the advent of readily accessible DNA testing. All one needs to do is go to Ancestry.com where for a modest sum one can have their DNA tested and compared to their large pool of data. My parents, who are retired, and were curious had their DNA testing done and not long after they got the results were "found" by some distant and interesting relatives in New York. The connection provided an interesting link to a piece of my family's history.

Adult adoptees who have been unable to access their original birth certificates have been using DNA testing to help them find their birth families. In light of this development the unreasonable legal restriction on access to original birth certificates is not logical or reasonable.

A number of states have already opened the birth records to adult adoptees. Their experience has been very positive and the families on all sides of the adoption triad have been grateful. As a mom and a lawyer I urge you to pass Senate Bill 977 to RESTORE THE RIGHT OF PRE-1983 ADULT ADOPTEES TO OBTAIN THEIR ORIGINAL BIRTH CERTIFICATE. It is the right thing to do.

Barbara J. Ruhe, Esq., Wethersfield