Not illegitimate
Dear Editor,
There are obvious limitations of the current debate on adoptees’ access to their birth certificates, but people rarely think of adoptees as legitimately born.
Adoption is not only about single mothers of loss and adoptees who were illegitimate bastards. Half and full orphans are victimized by sealed and falsified birth certificates, too. The law sealing adoptees’ birth certificates was written to hide illegitimacy. Adoptees are “legitimized” by the new, amended birth certificate showing two married parents.
But I am not illegitimate! I had two legitimate parents before being relinquished and adopted! The original intent of the sealed record law does NOT apply to me or my natural mother, or my known natural father.
I’m not the only half orphan victimized by sealed and falsified birth records. Millions of other half and full orphans (domestic and foreign born) are also held captive by laws made exclusively to cover up illegitimacy. Because I am made to be a bastard by the law that confines me, I stand up for other bastards and half and full orphans who are adopted.
Though I live in New York State, orphanhood is universal. Adoptees’ rights to our sealed birth certificates are also universal. Unseal adoptees original birth certificates NOW and put a stop to falsifying new birth records that replace adoptees true record of birth. Instead, issue certified Certificates of Adoption. Leave all birth certificates intact, free from governmental confiscation and falsification.
Joan Wheeler born Doris Sippel
Reunited adoptee found by full blood siblings in 1974 at age 18
Buffalo, New York
Editor’s note: this in response to a Letter that appeared in last week’s Humboldt Beacon by Mara Rigge of Trinidad, Calif.
~ ~ ~ Joan M Wheeler, BA, BSW, born Doris M Sippel, author of Forbidden Family: A Half Orphan’s Account of Her Adoption, Reunion and Social Activism, Trafford Publishing, Nov 2009.
FORBIDDEN FAMILY 