NJCC: Outreach to birth parents needed

As a bill allowing wider access to birth certificates of adoptees recently cleared its final hurdles and became state law, the New Jersey Catholic Conference is calling for immediate and broad outreach to birth parents to alert them to the law’s ramifications and their rights to protect their privacy.
The bill (S873/A1259), which has had several modifications over the past few years, was conditionally vetoed by Gov. Chris Christie April 28, clearing the way for passage with several key changes, explained Patrick Brannigan, executive director of the New Jersey Catholic Conference, the public policy arm of the state’s Catholic bishops. The conditional veto was accepted by the Senate May 12, and the Assembly on May 22.
Gov. Chris Christie signed the bill May 27, and shared that his own sister had been adopted. He said that the law achieves, “our intended goals of protecting and respecting the interests of all of the people involved in the adoption process, while at the same time making sure that the miracle of adoption — the miracle that was experienced by my own family and is still being experienced by us today, is available to as many people in New Jersey who have an open heart and a willingness to share their home and their lives with a new member of the family.”
In its final form, the bill struck the right balance “by preserving privacy options for birth parents by allowing them to select a preference for contact – either through direct contact, contact through a confidential intermediary, or access to medical records only with continued privacy.”
Brannigan clarified that the NJCC has long-supported a number of tenets of adoptee access. In a statement released May 14, he cites: “Over the years, NJCC’s message was consistent. We always supported reunions between adoptees and birth parents if the reunions would be by mutual consent. NJCC also supported adoptees having full access to their birth parents’ medical histories and cultural and social history information.”
Additionally, NJCC also “did not oppose releasing a birth certificate to adoptees who could provide evidence that they had had contact with one of their birth parents.”
Brannigan asserts, “The key principle upon which we operated was that a birth parent’s identity should remain confidential, and anonymity be preserved unless the birth parent agreed to have their identity revealed. “
In a statement made before a hearing of the adoptee access law in February, Brannigan stressed, “First, prospectively, a mother’s expressed request for privacy should be honored.”
The “right to privacy, a right to be let alone. . . has been recognized as a vital interest by the United States Supreme Court,” he said.
Marlene Lao Collins, executive director of Catholic Charities, Diocese of Trenton, said the thing that has always stayed with her regarding this issue is “the pain and suffering of adults who experienced the trauma of giving up someone for adoption, as well as the feeling on the side of adoptees of being unloved by birth parents or incomplete because they don’t know their full family story.”
The conditional veto of the law passed in February would allow for four vital changes:
– Starting in 2017, the requirement of obtaining a court order to access birth records will be eliminated, and adoptees will be able to obtain an original birth certificate without involvement of the courts.
– Also, a 31-month transition and implementation period would be established during which birth parents can file a request to have no contact with the adoptee.
– Thirdly, for adoptions finalized after Aug. 1, 2015, long-form birth certificates will be available to adoptees and certain others, but birth parents will be able to file a request for “no contact.”
– Lastly, birth parents who request redaction (having their name removed from the document) will be required to update medical history information every 10 years until the birth parent reaches the age of 40 and every five years thereafter.
In its current status, the bill’s 31-day transition and implementation period creates a deadline by which birth parents who wish to protect their privacy may inform the state and request that their names be withheld from the records that are released.
“All who facilitated adoptions have a moral obligation to alert birth parents of the changes about to occur,” Brannigan said. “For the Catholic Church, which provided adoption services for well over a century, the responsibility is great. Thousands of birth mothers placed their children for adoption, relying on the Church’s assurance of their privacy.
“People – mostly mothers – will be vulnerable because of this change in our long established law,’ he added.
That alert must go around the globe, Brannigan noted, as many children were adopted from Ireland, Italy, and other countries. He said, “Our educational effort must go far beyond the boundaries of New Jersey.”
Brannigan stressed the need to challenge the media in this education campaign, noting that their support for the passage of this bill was widespread. He states, “We need them to participate authentically in this education campaign. The media has a moral obligation to do more than a simple one-day coverage of a bill signing.”
He also sees the need for the Church and others to provide counseling and other services as needed for birth parents who will be impacted by this significant change in law.

See Patrick Brannigan’s full statement on the new adoption law: “NJCC statement on the new adoption law.”

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