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  1. Minnesota law thwarts adoptees' quest to know their roots
  2.  
  3. Despite a nationwide movement to open up access to adoption records, Minnesota's laws place the privacy of birth parents ahead of the desire of adoptees to know their origins.
  4.  
  5.  
  6. By James Eli Shiffer Star Tribune
  7.  
  8. August 19, 2017 — 7:54pm
  9.  
  10. MANKATO – Adopted as an infant, Sara Heller-Zimprich devotes her nights and weekends to a single-minded hunt for her birth family.
  11.  
  12. After work, she sometimes doesn’t change out of her nurse’s scrubs before logging on to two laptop computers to click through nine genealogy websites and family trees in search of a match that could lead to her birth family
  13.  
  14.  
  15. Her all-consuming quest is shared by thousands of adoptees in Minnesota and across the nation, but one that is frustrated by a patchwork of state laws that deny them access to their own birth and adoption records. In recent years, many states have relaxed their laws and cracked open long-sealed adoption records, but Minnesota’s Legislature has stood firm and kept those records closed.
  16.  
  17. An adoption agency knows the first name of Heller-Zimprich’s father, but says it can’t provide it. The Minnesota Department of Health has the name of Heller-Zimprich’s birth mother, but it will not hand it over.
  18.  
  19. “I just want to know where I’m from,” said Heller-Zimprich, 53. “It’s definitely a right. You need to know where your roots are.”
  20.  
  21.  
  22. A national movement led by adoptees has improved access to adoption records in 19 states since 1997. This year, thousands of people in New Jersey and Pennsylvania will see their original birth certificates for the first time. Adoptees in Missouri and Arkansas will get that chance starting next year.
  23.  
  24. Largely unchanged since 1982, Minnesota’s laws place the privacy of birth parents ahead of the desire of adoptees to know their origins. Access to records by Minnesota’s estimated 135,000 adoptees depends on when you were adopted. A proposal to open all of Minnesota’s records never got traction in the most recent legislative session.
  25.  
  26. Opponents, including anti-abortion activists, say the law protects women who placed their children for adoption with the strict belief that their names would never be revealed.
  27.  
  28. “It scares me to set a precedent of opening people’s documents without their consent,” said state Rep. Tama Theis, R-St. Cloud, who opposes proposals that would unseal more records.
  29.  
  30. Theis has confronted the issue herself.
  31.  
  32.  
  33. She placed her oldest son for adoption in 1977. The father was her high school boyfriend, and they have since married and had two other sons.
  34.  
  35. Theis said she struggles with the balance between privacy and disclosure, given that she always wanted her firstborn to be able to know his birth parents. They now have a close relationship.
  36.  
  37. With the records officially out of reach, adoptees often go to extraordinary lengths to track down their birth parents. They hire private detectives, undergo DNA tests and seek help from volunteer “search angels” who can piece together a family tree.
  38.  
  39. Gregory Luce, a Minneapolis lawyer, is pulling together a national network of attorneys to help adoptees know their rights. For Luce, it’s personal. Born in Washington, D.C., in 1965 and adopted at a week old, he and his birth mother found each other years ago through an online voluntary registry, and he knows the identity of his birth father, who wants nothing to do with him.
  40.  
  41. Nevertheless, Luce has gone to court in D.C. to try to get his original birth certificate and adoption records.
  42.  
  43.  
  44. “I want that as a final resolution of who I am,” Luce said.
  45.  
  46. Doesn’t seem fair’
  47.  
  48. For adoptees yearning to learn about their origins, they describe the mystery of their births as a hole in their hearts and an obstacle to moving forward. They often feel humiliated when they call the state to get a copy of their birth certificate, only to find they need the permission from the same people whose names they are blocked from knowing.
  49.  
  50. They’re reminded of their status every time a doctor asks whether heart disease or cancer or depression runs in the family.
  51.  
  52. “Isn’t it saying the birth mother’s rights are more important than the child’s?” asked Sharon Stein McNamara, a Shoreview psychologist whose clients are often adoptees, like herself. “That just doesn’t seem fair.”
  53.  
  54.  
  55. When children are adopted in Minnesota, the state creates a new birth certificate with the child’s adopted name. Adoptees who have requested original birth certificates from the state Department of Health are often surprised to get a call back from the private agency that handled their adoption.
  56.  
  57. That’s because Minnesota law requires that agencies try to find the birth parents before honoring an adoptee’s request for original birth certificates. About 5 percent of birth parents have notified the state ahead of time about their preferences. Ninety percent of them said they welcome their names being known.
  58.  
  59. Without those affidavits, however, adoptees must wait for months as the agencies seek approval or disapproval from the birth parents. Adoptees must pay for the search, which can cost hundreds of dollars. If the search is not successful, what happens next depends on the date someone was adopted. Those adopted after Aug. 1, 1977, are entitled to their original birth certificates. Those adopted before that date must persuade a judge to release the record.
  60.  
  61. Different rules apply to the more extensive records held by adoption agencies. In this case, the presumption of openness applies to people adopted on or after Aug. 1, 1982. For those adopted before that date, they must petition a juvenile court judge for access to the agency file.
  62.  
  63. Adoption agencies will often provide only vague information, such as the physical appearance and health history of birth parents, with some details about the circumstances of their birth. But adoptees who have gone to agency offices describe the heartbreak of seeing a clerk leafing through their files in front of them.
  64.  
  65.  
  66. Joe Duea, 49, of Farmington recalls his frustration of visiting the Catholic Charities office in St. Cloud in 1991 and being told he needed to pay $500 for them to search for his birth parents.
  67.  
  68. It took him 11 years to decide to pay the money. Days after he did, in 2002, Catholic Charities arranged a meeting between Duea and his birth mother. He remembers a “tiny little lady” walking in and listening to her son talk about his life and his two children. “I wanted to make sure she understood that I’m not mad,” he said. But he wasn’t allowed to know her name.
  69.  
  70. Then, after an awkward hug, he watched his birth mother drive away in a red Ford Escort. Duea went back into the office, and demanded copies of his adoption records.
  71.  
  72. “You’ve got these puppet strings you’re using on me,” Duea remembers thinking. “That’s my life right there in one document.”
  73.  
  74. They mailed him records, but struck the names.
  75.  
  76.  
  77. Thirteen years passed.
  78.  
  79. In May 2015, Duea sent a saliva sample to Ancestry.com to test his DNA. Once his results were posted on the website, he devoted two to three hours each day to filling out family trees and examining what others had posted.
  80.  
  81. A year later, he came across a photo on one of the genealogy sites that showed a young man with a strong resemblance to Duea’s son. His birth mother was in the picture. Within days, he was able to confirm her name. Duea mailed her a letter in December, but she has not responded. He has introduced himself to an aunt, and on July 22, traveled to a bar in Plato, Minn., for a family reunion with cousins on his birth father’s side.
  82.  
  83. They welcomed him as part of the family.
  84.  
  85. Opposition stalls reform
  86.  
  87.  
  88. In February, the Minnesota Coalition for Adoption Reform sent a letter to the state’s main lobbying group opposing abortion, Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, asking for its support in a law that would open more records. It pointed out that Ohio Right to Life reversed its position and supported similar legislation in that state in 2013.
  89.  
  90. MCCL did not reply. Sen. Matt Little, DFL-Lakeville, said he thinks the group’s opposition helped sink his proposal.
  91.  
  92. Scott Fischbach, MCCL’s director, said the issue is not a simple one for the group because it supports adoption as an alternative to abortion. He said he also recognizes how few closed adoptions take place these days.
  93.  
  94. Nevertheless, “there are women today who simply want to end a chapter in their life,” he said. “The idea of opening up adoptions for women who gave up babies 40 or 50 years ago is unimaginable, just like it’s unimaginable to get the names of women who had abortions.”
  95.  
  96. Sentiments like that prompted Gretchen Traylor, an adoptee who opposes abortion, to quit volunteering at a crisis pregnancy center. Traylor had to get a court order to see her adoption file, which she wanted in part to know more about her health history.
  97.  
  98.  
  99. “Nobody received a promise in writing of perpetual and eternal secrecy,” said Traylor, 71, who recently moved from Brooklyn Park to New Mexico. “You can’t find a document that says that.”
  100.  
  101. Adoptees and birth parents have channeled their frustration to persuade states all over the political map to change their laws to provide more access to records. The latest wave began with Oregon and Alabama in the late 1990s. Twenty-nine states now offer at least some access to birth and adoption records to adoptees. Two states, Alaska and Kansas, have never restricted those records.
  102.  
  103. Bastard Nation, a group that advocates for opening records to “end a hidden legacy of shame, fear and venality,” reported that adoptee rights proposals were introduced in 13 states this year.
  104.  
  105. In 2008, a bill that would have standardized Minnesota’s access to records was vetoed by then-Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican, who cited an estimate from Lutheran Social Service that 23 percent of birth mothers wanted confidentiality.
  106.  
  107. In states that have recently opened their records, a much smaller fraction of birth parents have blocked the release of their names. In New Jersey, a state where an estimated 170,000 people were adopted since 1940, about 500 birth parents asked to block to the release of original birth certificates before the Dec. 31 deadline.
  108.  
  109. A measure passed by the New York Legislature this year was presented as opening up records. But adoptee rights groups are pressuring Gov. Andrew Cuomo to veto the bill, saying it will impose an expensive, bureaucratic system that closely resembles the law in Minnesota.
  110.  
  111. Search goes on
  112.  
  113. After nearly 30 years of searching, Heller-Zimprich had made little progress. At the start of 2016, she had only fragments of information from the adoption agency. Her mother was 17 at the time, and in high school. She gave birth in a Minneapolis hospital and placed the baby girl with Lutheran Social Service.
  114.  
  115.  
  116. Still, she was no closer to her mother’s name until she took a DNA test early last year. Once her results went up on online genealogy sites, she connected with a fourth cousin. Seventeen days later, she knew her birth mother’s identity.
  117.  
  118. Soon afterward, a 69-year-old woman picked up the phone to hear an unfamiliar voice.
  119.  
  120. Heller-Zimprich learned that her birth mother still had her baby picture, but wasn’t ready to make a closer connection. Heller-Zimprich followed up with a letter and a photo of herself. Her birth mother sent the letter back, via the adoption agency, and followed up with her own letter requesting no more contact.
  121.  
  122. “I’m sorry since this brings up painful wounds for both of us,” her birth mother wrote. “If there is any more communication, please let me be the one to initiate it.”
  123.  
  124. Other family members were more receptive.
  125.  
  126.  
  127. In March, Heller-Zimprich flew to Virginia to spend a week with people she met online who turned out to be blood relatives. Her host was distant cousin Chelsea Tovar, a Richmond, Va., police detective and genealogy buff. “We are her people,” Tovar said.
  128. Now Heller-Zimprich has focused her energy on finding her birth father. In July, she posted a comment on the Crookston Daily Times’ Facebook page, on an announcement of the Ox Cart Days celebration in August.
  129.  
  130. “Looking for my birth father,” she wrote. She gave what little information she had, that he was four years older than her mother, and a track star at a local high school, and probably didn’t know he had gotten someone pregnant in May 1963. She hoped by the time she headed to Crookston, someone would emerge to help her. Until that happens, she logs on to Ancestry.com, holding her breath for a name that could finally bring her 30-year quest to an end.
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  172.  
  173.  
  174.  
  175. By James Eli Shiffer Star Tribune
  176.  
  177. August 19, 2017 — 7:54pm
  178.  
  179. MANKATO – Adopted as an infant, Sara Heller-Zimprich devotes her nights and weekends to a single-minded hunt for her birth family.
  180.  
  181. After work, she sometimes doesn’t change out of her nurse’s scrubs before logging on to two laptop computers to click through nine genealogy websites and family trees in search of a match that could lead to her birth family.
  182.  
  183.  
  184.  
  185.  
  186.  
  187.  
  188.  
  189.  
  190.  
  191. Governing goes off the record in Minnesota
  192.  
  193. Growing arsenal of police tech watches criminals and citizens
  194.  
  195. Inside one woman's fight to expose Minn. health care investigations
  196.  
  197. Minnesota veterans of CIA's 'secret war' seek an honorable burial
  198.  
  199.  
  200. More from this series
  201.  
  202.  
  203.  
  204.  
  205. Her all-consuming quest is shared by thousands of adoptees in Minnesota and across the nation, but one that is frustrated by a patchwork of state laws that deny them access to their own birth and adoption records. In recent years, many states have relaxed their laws and cracked open long-sealed adoption records, but Minnesota’s Legislature has stood firm and kept those records closed.
  206.  
  207. An adoption agency knows the first name of Heller-Zimprich’s father, but says it can’t provide it. The Minnesota Department of Health has the name of Heller-Zimprich’s birth mother, but it will not hand it over.
  208.  
  209. “I just want to know where I’m from,” said Heller-Zimprich, 53. “It’s definitely a right. You need to know where your roots are.”
  210.  
  211.  
  212. A national movement led by adoptees has improved access to adoption records in 19 states since 1997. This year, thousands of people in New Jersey and Pennsylvania will see their original birth certificates for the first time. Adoptees in Missouri and Arkansas will get that chance starting next year.
  213.  
  214. Largely unchanged since 1982, Minnesota’s laws place the privacy of birth parents ahead of the desire of adoptees to know their origins. Access to records by Minnesota’s estimated 135,000 adoptees depends on when you were adopted. A proposal to open all of Minnesota’s records never got traction in the most recent legislative session.
  215.  
  216. Opponents, including anti-abortion activists, say the law protects women who placed their children for adoption with the strict belief that their names would never be revealed.
  217.  
  218. “It scares me to set a precedent of opening people’s documents without their consent,” said state Rep. Tama Theis, R-St. Cloud, who opposes proposals that would unseal more records.
  219.  
  220. Theis has confronted the issue herself.
  221.  
  222.  
  223. She placed her oldest son for adoption in 1977. The father was her high school boyfriend, and they have since married and had two other sons.
  224.  
  225. Theis said she struggles with the balance between privacy and disclosure, given that she always wanted her firstborn to be able to know his birth parents. They now have a close relationship.
  226.  
  227. With the records officially out of reach, adoptees often go to extraordinary lengths to track down their birth parents. They hire private detectives, undergo DNA tests and seek help from volunteer “search angels” who can piece together a family tree.
  228.  
  229. Gregory Luce, a Minneapolis lawyer, is pulling together a national network of attorneys to help adoptees know their rights. For Luce, it’s personal. Born in Washington, D.C., in 1965 and adopted at a week old, he and his birth mother found each other years ago through an online voluntary registry, and he knows the identity of his birth father, who wants nothing to do with him.
  230.  
  231. Nevertheless, Luce has gone to court in D.C. to try to get his original birth certificate and adoption records.
  232.  
  233.  
  234. “I want that as a final resolution of who I am,” Luce said.
  235.  
  236. ‘Doesn’t seem fair’
  237.  
  238. For adoptees yearning to learn about their origins, they describe the mystery of their births as a hole in their hearts and an obstacle to moving forward. They often feel humiliated when they call the state to get a copy of their birth certificate, only to find they need the permission from the same people whose names they are blocked from knowing.
  239.  
  240. They’re reminded of their status every time a doctor asks whether heart disease or cancer or depression runs in the family.
  241.  
  242. “Isn’t it saying the birth mother’s rights are more important than the child’s?” asked Sharon Stein McNamara, a Shoreview psychologist whose clients are often adoptees, like herself. “That just doesn’t seem fair.”
  243.  
  244.  
  245. When children are adopted in Minnesota, the state creates a new birth certificate with the child’s adopted name. Adoptees who have requested original birth certificates from the state Department of Health are often surprised to get a call back from the private agency that handled their adoption.
  246.  
  247. That’s because Minnesota law requires that agencies try to find the birth parents before honoring an adoptee’s request for original birth certificates. About 5 percent of birth parents have notified the state ahead of time about their preferences. Ninety percent of them said they welcome their names being known.
  248.  
  249. Without those affidavits, however, adoptees must wait for months as the agencies seek approval or disapproval from the birth parents. Adoptees must pay for the search, which can cost hundreds of dollars. If the search is not successful, what happens next depends on the date someone was adopted. Those adopted after Aug. 1, 1977, are entitled to their original birth certificates. Those adopted before that date must persuade a judge to release the record.
  250.  
  251. Different rules apply to the more extensive records held by adoption agencies. In this case, the presumption of openness applies to people adopted on or after Aug. 1, 1982. For those adopted before that date, they must petition a juvenile court judge for access to the agency file.
  252.  
  253. Adoption agencies will often provide only vague information, such as the physical appearance and health history of birth parents, with some details about the circumstances of their birth. But adoptees who have gone to agency offices describe the heartbreak of seeing a clerk leafing through their files in front of them.
  254.  
  255.  
  256. Joe Duea, 49, of Farmington recalls his frustration of visiting the Catholic Charities office in St. Cloud in 1991 and being told he needed to pay $500 for them to search for his birth parents.
  257.  
  258. It took him 11 years to decide to pay the money. Days after he did, in 2002, Catholic Charities arranged a meeting between Duea and his birth mother. He remembers a “tiny little lady” walking in and listening to her son talk about his life and his two children. “I wanted to make sure she understood that I’m not mad,” he said. But he wasn’t allowed to know her name.
  259.  
  260. Then, after an awkward hug, he watched his birth mother drive away in a red Ford Escort. Duea went back into the office, and demanded copies of his adoption records.
  261.  
  262. “You’ve got these puppet strings you’re using on me,” Duea remembers thinking. “That’s my life right there in one document.”
  263.  
  264. They mailed him records, but struck the names.
  265.  
  266.  
  267. Thirteen years passed.
  268.  
  269. In May 2015, Duea sent a saliva sample to Ancestry.com to test his DNA. Once his results were posted on the website, he devoted two to three hours each day to filling out family trees and examining what others had posted.
  270.  
  271. A year later, he came across a photo on one of the genealogy sites that showed a young man with a strong resemblance to Duea’s son. His birth mother was in the picture. Within days, he was able to confirm her name. Duea mailed her a letter in December, but she has not responded. He has introduced himself to an aunt, and on July 22, traveled to a bar in Plato, Minn., for a family reunion with cousins on his birth father’s side.
  272.  
  273. They welcomed him as part of the family.
  274.  
  275. Opposition stalls reform
  276.  
  277.  
  278. In February, the Minnesota Coalition for Adoption Reform sent a letter to the state’s main lobbying group opposing abortion, Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, asking for its support in a law that would open more records. It pointed out that Ohio Right to Life reversed its position and supported similar legislation in that state in 2013.
  279.  
  280. MCCL did not reply. Sen. Matt Little, DFL-Lakeville, said he thinks the group’s opposition helped sink his proposal.
  281.  
  282. Scott Fischbach, MCCL’s director, said the issue is not a simple one for the group because it supports adoption as an alternative to abortion. He said he also recognizes how few closed adoptions take place these days.
  283.  
  284. Nevertheless, “there are women today who simply want to end a chapter in their life,” he said. “The idea of opening up adoptions for women who gave up babies 40 or 50 years ago is unimaginable, just like it’s unimaginable to get the names of women who had abortions.”
  285.  
  286. Sentiments like that prompted Gretchen Traylor, an adoptee who opposes abortion, to quit volunteering at a crisis pregnancy center. Traylor had to get a court order to see her adoption file, which she wanted in part to know more about her health history.
  287.  
  288.  
  289. “Nobody received a promise in writing of perpetual and eternal secrecy,” said Traylor, 71, who recently moved from Brooklyn Park to New Mexico. “You can’t find a document that says that.”
  290.  
  291. Adoptees and birth parents have channeled their frustration to persuade states all over the political map to change their laws to provide more access to records. The latest wave began with Oregon and Alabama in the late 1990s. Twenty-nine states now offer at least some access to birth and adoption records to adoptees. Two states, Alaska and Kansas, have never restricted those records.
  292.  
  293. Bastard Nation, a group that advocates for opening records to “end a hidden legacy of shame, fear and venality,” reported that adoptee rights proposals were introduced in 13 states this year.
  294.  
  295. In 2008, a bill that would have standardized Minnesota’s access to records was vetoed by then-Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican, who cited an estimate from Lutheran Social Service that 23 percent of birth mothers wanted confidentiality.
  296.  
  297.  
  298.  
  299.  
  300.  
  301.  
  302.  
  303.  
  304. In states that have recently opened their records, a much smaller fraction of birth parents have blocked the release of their names. In New Jersey, a state where an estimated 170,000 people were adopted since 1940, about 500 birth parents asked to block to the release of original birth certificates before the Dec. 31 deadline.
  305.  
  306. A measure passed by the New York Legislature this year was presented as opening up records. But adoptee rights groups are pressuring Gov. Andrew Cuomo to veto the bill, saying it will impose an expensive, bureaucratic system that closely resembles the law in Minnesota.
  307.  
  308. Search goes on
  309.  
  310. After nearly 30 years of searching, Heller-Zimprich had made little progress. At the start of 2016, she had only fragments of information from the adoption agency. Her mother was 17 at the time, and in high school. She gave birth in a Minneapolis hospital and placed the baby girl with Lutheran Social Service.
  311.  
  312.  
  313. Still, she was no closer to her mother’s name until she took a DNA test early last year. Once her results went up on online genealogy sites, she connected with a fourth cousin. Seventeen days later, she knew her birth mother’s identity.
  314.  
  315. Soon afterward, a 69-year-old woman picked up the phone to hear an unfamiliar voice.
  316.  
  317. Heller-Zimprich learned that her birth mother still had her baby picture, but wasn’t ready to make a closer connection. Heller-Zimprich followed up with a letter and a photo of herself. Her birth mother sent the letter back, via the adoption agency, and followed up with her own letter requesting no more contact.
  318.  
  319. “I’m sorry since this brings up painful wounds for both of us,” her birth mother wrote. “If there is any more communication, please let me be the one to initiate it.”
  320.  
  321. Other family members were more receptive.
  322.  
  323.  
  324. In March, Heller-Zimprich flew to Virginia to spend a week with people she met online who turned out to be blood relatives. Her host was distant cousin Chelsea Tovar, a Richmond, Va., police detective and genealogy buff. “We are her people,” Tovar said.
  325.  
  326.  
  327.  
  328.  
  329.  
  330. Mark Vancleave
  331.  
  332. VideoVideo (03:11): DNA tests and genealogy websites are giving Minnesota adoptees a chance to uncover secrets that the state would keep sealed.
  333.  
  334.  
  335.  
  336.  
  337. Video
  338.  
  339.  
  340. Now Heller-Zimprich has focused her energy on finding her birth father. In July, she posted a comment on the Crookston Daily Times’ Facebook page, on an announcement of the Ox Cart Days celebration in August.
  341.  
  342. “Looking for my birth father,” she wrote. She gave what little information she had, that he was four years older than her mother, and a track star at a local high school, and probably didn’t know he had gotten someone pregnant in May 1963. She hoped by the time she headed to Crookston, someone would emerge to help her. Until that happens, she logs on to Ancestry.com, holding her breath for a name that could finally bring her 30-year quest to an end.
  343.  
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  345. [email protected] 612-673-4116 JamesEliShiffer
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  454. Sep. 13, 17
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  462. If you yourself are not adopted, then you don't get it. Seriously. There is so much more to this issue than merely obtaining original birth certificates.
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  467. I, too, was adopted into the best, most loving family. I had a good life. But I was different than everyone else - I looked different, have a different personality, etc. I was fortunate to learn the identity of my birth parents as an adult. Just SEEING what they looked like filled a void for me. Then meeting them (they got married) and their family filled another void. It also solidified my thankfulness that I was raised by my adoptive family.
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  472. If my birth parent(s) had chosen not to have a relationship with me, it would have been hard. Being able to learn the names of birth parents and perhaps what they look like, as a minimum, is something I feel all adoptees should have the right to know.
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  477. 1SL2015 Like Reply
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  492. Aug. 22, 17
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  500. As an adoptee who successfully located my birth parents outside of the system, was rejected by my birth mother and embraced by my birth father, I recommend all to read "The Girls Who Went Away" by Ann Fessler. This books contains interviews of many young women who placed their babies for adoption during the 1950's and 1960's. It helped me understand why, in the rare case, respect is necessary for a woman who for whatever reason does not want to revisit the past. There truly is two sides of the story.
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  505. "Meeting me would not give her her baby back." I am not saying this would be my choice or the healthiest way forward, but is not for me to judge either.
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  510. 2natksouladysheshe Like Reply
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  525. Aug. 21, 17
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  532. Can't think of a more basic human right than knowing who gave birth to you. May be the Christians should get out of the human trafficking business.
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  536. 3SL2015danojdramstad9 Like Reply
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  551. Aug. 21, 17
  552. 10:45 AM
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  558. I see a lot of projection here, people "projecting" what they think and might feel if they had relinquished a child to adoption. As the article says, only a sliver of birth parents have filed affidavits of non-disclosure through the years. Meaning, they want to retain their anonymity. The current law is antiquated and made in a time when it was perceived as shameful to become pregnant out of wedlock. That shame was thrust upon birth moms by their parents, community and the adoption agencies. It's time for that shame to be officially lifted and allow adoptees access to their original birth certificates...just like those born and raised by their natural parents have. A birth certificate is part of an adoptee's identity and what's shameful is that it is kept from them.
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  562. 2natksoudramstad9 Like Reply
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  574. GinnyW
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  577. Aug. 20, 17
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  584. Before the Supreme Court decision in 1973 that legalized abortion, there were not as many options for women and girls who had unintended pregnancies. I hope the powers that be consider this when making decisions about opening up information, anytime, but particularly that time. Considering the case of Ms. Heller-Zimprich, we know little about the relationship of these two parents; other than the mother was a teenager and the father four years older. He was a track star. An age disparity could have been a factor. Many parents would not allow their teenage daughter to date someone that much older, and in addition,a few might be somewhat wary of the popularity of an athletic star. Was he exploiting that situation? We don't know. Also before the pill and the IUD, condoms and withdrawal before ejaculation were about the only options to the unmarried.. All kinds of things could have happened, even sperm leaking in without full penetration. In many pregnancy situations during those days, the couple married, very young and many with little support. If they didn't marry, then the young mother was often disgraced within the community. This is very sad, and maybe why the mother is uncomfortable. I support letting her have her privacy. . .
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  588. 3natksoukingsxmanjulie55 Like Reply
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  603. Aug. 21, 17
  604. 9:37 AM
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  610. @GinnyW The mother can have all of the privacy she wants. Sara's birth father deserves to make the choice HIMSELF if he wants privacy or a relationship with Sara.
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  614. 1natksou Like Reply
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  629. Aug. 20, 17
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  637. Many people have talked about the 'right' to see your birth certificate. I assume that there are means for adoptees to get passports and driver's licenses, so beyond that, what need is there to see the birth certificate? If the state were to issue certificates with the parents' name redacted would people be happy? Beyond the identification purposes it serves, I can't say that I see the ability to view your original birth certificate as a 'right.'
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  642. The real issue is the desire of adoptees to know who their birth parents were vs the right of the birth parents to remain anonymous and honoring promises that were made to them at the time of adoption. The only legitimate reason I can see is to obtain medical history, but as others have pointed out that is often of limited benefit anyway.
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  647. The only middle ground I can think of would be some sort of registry where adoptees and parents could register their wishes and contact allowed only if both sides wish it. Otherwise, I think the parents' right to privacy trumps the adoptees' desire to know who they were.
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  652. 1julie55 Like Reply
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  664. teguzco
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  667. Aug. 21, 17
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  675. @test0001 The right is to have access to the same government compiled information on yourself that all others have. The right is to be treated equally. The right is to know from whence one came and to choose whether to initiate contact with those who created you and your extended family, if you and they so choose. Yes, that includes the names of the birth parents. They are the link to all that came before the adoptee was born.
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  683. 2natksoudramstad9 Like Reply
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  707. Aug. 20, 17
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  714. It is interesting that the MCCL, an organization that champions for the rights of the unborn, would deny those who were born and adopted the right to access their own birth certificate.
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  718. 3SL2015cutthebulldramstad9 Like Reply
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  733. Aug. 20, 17
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  740. As a compromise, couldn't there be an age limit, some sort of statute of limitations on privacy? My grandmother had my mom out of wedlock in 1936. My grandmother was born in 1895. When my grandmother married, my "grandpa" that I grew up with adopted my mom, and so her original birth certificate was sealed. Seriously - 1895. My grandmother died in 1961. Whose privacy are they protecting? My long-dead mysterious biological grandfather? My mom died in 2011 without ever knowing who her biological father was, even though he was obviously long dead by then. What would have been the harm in letting an elderly lady know who her father was?
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  744. 1natksou Like Reply
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  759. Aug. 21, 17
  760. 10:11 AM
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  766. @cutthebull The current law makes original birth records, and all other birth records, public after 100 years.
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  770. 1natksou Like Reply
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  785. Aug. 20, 17
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  792. BTW, its sad that this article online is not in a more prominent place. While its on the front page of the paper...I had to search "adoption" on the website to find it on the Stribs webpage.
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  796. 1dramstad9 Like Reply
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  811. Aug. 20, 17
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  818. @kingsxman I found it on the front page of Startribune.com, but I've often found that the placing of articles varies dramatically between the online and print versions
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  837. Aug. 20, 17
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  845. As a 52 year old adoptee, I found this article both interesting and sad. I was adopted at 4 weeks into a loving home and was raised to know how special I was. I got 2 birthdays: my "real" birthday and an "adoption" birthday. Other kids were jealous. LoL. Granted not every adoptee was raised under the same circumstances as I was, but I have always been very grateful for my birth mother that she made the tough decision 52 years ago to give me the chance at a better life than she was able to provide. Does that mean that I dont wonder about things with her, have questions about medical history, etc? Of course not. I have the same questions as most adoptees do. But I also have respect for the laws that were in place at that time that helped my birth mother made the difficult decision to give me up. Had she known that she would lose her anonymity someday her decision may have been different. As someone else pointed out...sometimes its hard to hear "No"...but sometimes the answer is no.
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  847. What makes me sad to read is how some of these adoptees are forcing their way into their birth parents families even after the birth parents have said they dont want contact. How sad that they are putting there own needs ahead of others…and that’s just what they are doing. Yes blood is important but if I've learned anything in my 52 years as an adoptee its that its not blood that makes a family, Its the love thats given and received from others. My parents are the ones who raised me…not the ones who created me. My cousins, aunts, uncles are no less my cousins, aunts and uncles because they are not "blood". My mom has a saying on her wall that says “you grew not under my heart but in it”. I think that sums it up perfectly.
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  849. I do wish there was more that could be done for adoptees to get medical history, but in the end if it breaks that Implied promise that was made to mothers who willingly gave their children up for adoption oh so many years ago I don’t think its worth it.
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  854. 4julie55calmingmdachsstplooklistn Like Reply
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  876. @kingsxman Imagine if you were adopted by parents that did not treat you kindly, that abused you. You may feel differently.
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  880. 1natksou Like Reply
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  903. @nikkicarlson1 @kingsxman
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  908. I would agree with that. But I think by and large "most" (but of course not all) adoptee's go into loving homes. Think about all the rigor that goes into the screening of being selected to be adoptive parents. Thats one of the reasons I get so incensed when I see stories of abuse where they specifically call out if the victim was "adopted". They dont make that same designation when its a "birth" parent who does the abusing...
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  935. @kingsxman I agree with you 100% and also share a strikingly similar story. I am 53, was adopted at the age of six weeks and also had extreme luck with the parents who adopted me. I did try to contact my birth mother, not because I was looking for something but because I thought she wanted to know. She did so, very badly---she is now 84 and keeps on saying that the day I contacted her was one of the best days in her life; we talk to one another a couple of times each year. I am happy I was able to give her that, even though in my heart the mom who raised me will always be my real mom. Blood lines are overrated. Your mother saying that you grew in her heart, that is beautiful. Life is about relationships.
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  939. 2natksoubadgerjohn31 Like Reply
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  954. Aug. 21, 17
  955. 10:32 AM
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  962. @kingsxman I have to respond to the claim of an implied promise of any kind to birth parents. You will find many birth mothers who were told the contrary, that their children would be able to find them when they became adults. A sidebar to the print version of this story lays out the evolution of closed records in Minnesota. As you'll see, adoptees had unfettered access to their court files until 1945. For the next 32 years, they had access with a court order. It was not until 1977 that their access to this information was retroactively blocked and todays' barriers put in place.
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  967. Those adopted since August 1, 1982, have had access to their original birth record information through the agency which handled their adoptions, with no barrier whatsoever if their parent(s) did not file a request the information not be disclosed. Even then, the adoptee may ask a court to order its release and the objecting birth parent must persuade the court is should not be. There has been no outcry from birth parents in the last 35 years of which I am aware and I have followed this issue in the courts , the media, and online for the past 20 years.
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  1019. Aug. 20, 17
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  1027. I want to begin by thanking Mr. Shiffer for a well constructed article, particularly in the space constraints of a newspaper. I know he worked many days investigating, researching, and interviewing not only those mentioned in this piece but many, many more. Perhaps some day their stories can be told as well.
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  1032. That said, I want to elaborate on some of the points made and add a few of my own. I am an attorney and adoptive parent. I have followed this issue in the U.S. for 20 years and have worked to change Minnesota law for more than 5 years. Others have worked far longer than I.
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  1037. This is not really a complicated issue when one considers two points: the rights of individuals in our society and the proper role of government in the personal lives of its citizens.
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  1042. Adult adoptees are precisely that: adults who were at some point in their lives adopted. The only legal difference between them and us is that we, non-adoptees, have access to our original birth records upon request and payment of a small fee. Adoptees do not. As Mr. Shifffer makes clear, most adult adoptees must ask their birth parents' permission to obtain that information. They can only ask for that permission after paying an adoption agency hundreds or even thousands of dollars to search for and, if found, ask for the birth parents' permission. In most cases, if the birth parent says, "No," the adoptee has no further options. If the parent of any other adult in Minnesota asked that the adult be denied his or her original birth records, that request would be ignored, as it should be. In the incredibly unlikely event that the state honored that request, the adult would be entitled to be heard on the matter, in court if necessary. Not so for the adult adoptee. Even at the age of 83, an adult adoptee must seek his or her birth parents' permission and is stuck when the answer is, "No.: As a lawyer, I would describe closed records as a denial of equal protection and the lack of recourse a violation of due process. As a human being, I can only call it fundamentally unfair.
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  1047. Does the government have any legitimate role in managing the potential relationships between birth parents and their adult offspring? It doesn't in my case, as a non-adopted adult, unless and until one of us obtains a court order for protection, a restraining order or no-contact order. It has not greater interest in managing potential relationships between birth parents and adults. In fact, as pointed out by Mr. Shiffer, the state does not interfere in the case of those adopted before August 1, 1982.
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  1052. Some will say, "But that's different! BIrth parents were promised anonymity!" Not so, as you'll see if you read the side bar to this article.
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  1057. Mr. Shiffer mentioned that only a small number of birth parents have asked that their identities not be released since it became possible to do so 40 years ago. A vanishingly small number, in fact. There have been roughly 135,000 adoption in Minnesota since 1930. Approximately 5% of the 270,000 birth parents of those adopted in Minnesota have filed papers indicating whether they wish their identities to be released. Of those 13,500 birth parents, 9 out of 10 have said, "Yes." 1,350 have said, "No." Yet the remaining 120,000 adoptees, and their descendants, are compelled to run the gauntlet of Minnesota's current law in order to obtain what is inherently theirs to know.
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  1059. Some background on Sen. Little's bill also is in order. That bill was the product of months of meetings, discussions, and negotiations among representatives of all interested parties: adoptees, birth parents, adoption agencies (including the largest agencies in the State and representatives of various Catholic agencies), state and local agencies charged with implementing these laws, and even MCCL. Lutheran Social Services, the agency that sponsored this effort, supports the bill, as do many other organizations locally and nationally. The only local organization to even semi-publicly oppose the bill has been MCCL. Based on a memo to legislators circulated in 2014, MCCL's opposition is based in its irrational fear that women will abort rather than bear and place a child for adoption if that child might some day learn its origins. This once-popular bit of speculative fear-mongering has been abandoned by many former opponents of open records. Some have even spoken in support of opening records. Rightly so.
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  1067. A few last words for those who have read this far. I am frequently asked why adult adoptees want their original birth records. I have two responses: "That's none of our business" and "Wouldn't you want yours?"
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  1110. There's further complications not being discussed here. I believe most birth parents want to be found but the agencies who got money and facilitated the adoptions don't usually want that and will change information. I considered adoption and the honorable Sisters felt no shame in saying we didn't mean that to any and all promises being made. My husband and I raised a beautiful child who knows who she is. She has a beautiful family, is a college graduate (and so am I). It is possible to beat the odds together. You can say this is about Minnesota's laws, but I don't believe it. Agencies take lots of money and I think it is the middlemen/women who are really in the way of the truth. I also think there's this euphoric idea if a child had been raised elsewhere, every hurt they ever had would not have existed. Just like bio parents, adoptive parents are real and fallible. My mom is adopted, grateful and never wanted to know others. If you want to know, you should be able to access the truth, but nobody will ever know if someone at the root of the adoption is shielding that for their own interests. I did meet a woman who didn't want to be found, her info was disclosed and she hadn't let anyone know about her son and was unhappy about it. I think that's unusual, most of us would long to connect and I do wish I could have known the "other side" of my mom's family. I've never felt her extended family as connected, though I feel she does.
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  1114. 4natksoudramstad9SL2015xbud99 Like Reply
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  1129. Aug. 20, 17
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  1136. Adoption info transfer may seem like it should always be a good thing. I know of one case where the adopted son and birth mother both agreed to release each others info. The adopted son then proceeded to make his birth mother feel obligated to him. He literally stole money and property from his birth mother even though the family who adopted him was normal and financially quite well off. He had no love at all for his birth mother and continued to "steal" from his birth mother until her recent death.. Be careful what you wish for.
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  1140. 7julie55mdachskingsxmannorthrnlites Like Reply
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  1164. Aug. 19, 17
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  1171. I'm so glad my teenage children have an open relationship with their birth family. My kids' birth mother lives in a different state but she just spent a week at our home. My kids loved spending time with her and she adored them as only a mother could. I'm so proud to say my kids have two mothers!
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  1175. 10SL2015dramstad9sls711ahagler Like Reply
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  1187. mdachs
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  1190. Aug. 19, 17
  1191. 11:04 PM
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  1198. We now see so many commercials for companies that sell "DNA testing reports." You see a person in the commercial, for example, who thought he was mostly German and then, from the DNA test, learns that he has ancestors from mostly other countries.
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  1203. All of my maternal grandfather's family is lost to me, because my grandfather died when my mother was a year old in 1924. Just out of curiosity, 20 years ago, I tried to track down some relatives on my grandfather's side of the family (Germany and Austria). I did find one man who is probably a relative - and he didn't have much information about his ancestors (World War II happened, and many records were lost).
  1204.  
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  1208. At the end of the day, I decided to stop looking for relatives on my grandfather's side. Neither my mother or grandmother kept in contact with that side of the family. And, anyway, there were absolutely NO relationships that were maintained with that side of the family. My grandmother and mother moved several times from the 1920's to the 1940's, due to the war and the German depression. It's not as if I would realistically be able to open many new family relationships on that side of the family - we would be complete strangers, with no one left who knew my grandmother or mother.
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  1213. I know that genealogy is very important to the Mormons. But for us non-Mormons, it's not critical information to have, other than for pure curiosity.
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  1218. If I were given up for adoption, I would view my adoptive parents as my real parents - and my birth mother and father as simply sperm and egg donors, with the birth mother to be congratulated for giving me up to a good adoptive pair of parents. Other than medical history, I see no reason to identity birth parents.
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  1223. 9julie55northrnlitesstplooklistnBigdaddy16 Like Reply
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  1238. Aug. 20, 17
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  1245. Those of us adopted in the 60s were not given much medical history because it was not understood how it impacted a persons life. The extent of the medical history I received was there was a history of hay fever.
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  1249. 5natksouSL2015mdachskingsxman Like Reply
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  1264. Aug. 19, 17
  1265. 10:28 PM
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  1271. Life is not fair. When did an adult ever think it was. When bio mothers made the decision to give their unborn child a chance at life.it was not for the betterment of themselves but for the unborn. What a gift. Life. Instead of being grateful for life they want more, not unlike most children everywhere.. Hard to hear NO at any age. Give the bio mother her privacy unless she wants to be found.
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  1275. 18applejeffjulie55kingsxmannorthrnlites Like Reply
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  1287. mdachs
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  1290. Aug. 19, 17
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  1297. @Brama I agree with a BIG HOWEVER! And that is that the state should provide some way to access the parents' health history, so the child can provide that to the child's health care providers.
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  1301. 7natksoustealurfaceMichemj0lesen Like Reply
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  1316. Aug. 20, 17
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  1324. @mdachs @Brama Health history is something that is always brought up as a valid reason/excuse to pursue one's genetic background. Guess what? Doesn't always amount to much. One sibling may have diabetes, the others none. Parents may not wear glasses, children blind without them.
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  1326. Ever think what effect the Big Search has on the parents that raised you?
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  1328. Families are brought together in all different ways. Celebrate what you have, not what you don't
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  1334. 1mdachs Like Reply
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  1358. Aug. 19, 17
  1359. 7:56 PM
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  1365. Not too long ago, the only way to frame the debate was around whether adoptees had a right to know and whether original parents had a right to keep the records sealed. Given what I've been seeing with DNA testing, the "right" is no longer about knowledge but about a simple piece of paper.
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  1367. Adoptees have a fairly easy means to figure out who their original parents are. The debate must be about how an adoptee's rights to that piece of paper unfairly depend upon when and where they were born. There is no longer a means to keep an original parent's identity secret and states should stop acting like they can provide eternal anonymity on demand. It's an illusion at best.
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  1369. Do I have a right to my original birth certificate? Not in New York I don't. If I had been born in Massachusetts or New Jersey or Colorado, I would have that right. I know my truth. I found my mother in 2009 thanks to a very expensive private investigator. I identified my father last year thanks to a $99 DNA test.
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  1371. It's no longer about the "right to know" as we already KNOW. Now it's about the piece of paper.
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  1375. 4SL2015badgerjohn31dramstad9Scout130b Like Reply
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  1387. badgerjohn31
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  1390. Aug. 19, 17
  1391. 1:12 PM
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  1398. This is a really complicated issue. I work as a professional genealogists here in the Twin Cities, and I have helped a number of people identify their biological parents with the help of DNA. I support the general argument that children have a right to know their biological heritage--who created them and under what circumstances--and their family medical history. From the point of view of adoptees or the children of anonymous donors (like me), the existing system in which the truth is hidden from children appears shockingly unethical.
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  1403. And yet, one thing I always insist my clients understand before we begin searching is that identification and relationship are two very different things. In most cases (of adoption, sperm donation, etc.) biological parents have no legal responsibility to the child. Any potential relationship between the child and parents is thus no different from any other relationship between two adults. If one party doesn't want a relationship, then it is settled, there is no relationship. There is no obligation to form a relationship, or even to reciprocate the initial contact from the child. I have read of numerous cases in which the mother who gave a child up for adoption was the victim of rape. The adoption itself was part of her psychological recovery, a form of closure to a horrific event. Every time the child tries to contact the mother, she relives the trauma. Regardless of the situation, it quickly becomes harassment to continue to pressure a parent who does not want to respond.
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  1408. At the same time, I get frustrated by people who want to stick their heads in the sand. Our laws need to be reformed. Commercial DNA testing allows people to circumvent existing restrictions anyway. Family secrets are no more. If you had a role in producing a child, your role will someday be uncovered. We need a pragmatic solution. How can we set up a legal framework that respects both sides?
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