What You Need To Know About Adoption’s Identity Theft, Restoring Adoptees’ Birthrights, and Critical Adoption Studies
© 2021-10-31
For those who asked, here is THE ADOPTION PRIMER. You can copy and paste these two pages onto your own Word document and print on double-sided paper. Fold into a tri-fold pamphlet.
This is an educational tool to instruct people who are not aware of adoption’s Identity Theft about Original Birth Certificates (OBC) and Amended Birth Certificates (ABC).
I’ve used my own OBC and ABC in this printable pamphlet.
I’ve also included a text-based format below for people who want to see the print flow.
Now, let’s educate people on Adoption’s Identity Theft!
The Adoption Primer
What You Need To Know About Adoption’s Identity Theft, Restoring Adoptees’ Birthrights, and Critical Adoption Studies
© 2021-10-31
Adoptees are victims of identity theft.
Many Westernized countries have similar laws to the United States. When an adoption is finalized in court, the adoptee’s Original Birth Certificate (OBC) is revoked, sealed, and replaced with an Amended Birth Certificate (ABC). The court mails the Final Court Order of Adoption to the State’s Office of Vital Records where a new birth certificate is created mixing new information of adoption with the facts of birth. The names of the adopters replace the names of natural parents, erasing them. If the child was named at birth, the birth name is replaced with the new name given by the adopters.
Rewriting the facts of birth — outright lying — on official birth records became law after 1930. Through the passage of time, this has become socially normalized: expected, even demanded, by adopters, then celebrated, “This is my child.”
The stigma of illegitimacy drove legislators (men) to target single mothers and their legally fatherless babies. These children were legally reborn, legitimized, by adoption to a married man who became the legal father.
Before 1930, adoptees had civil rights to keep their birth certificate, even when adoption changed their name. But adopters wanted the adopted name on the birth record to match the family name, making it easier to prove the adoptee was legally adopted. Proof was needed for educational enrollment, medical care, insurance coverage.
See:
1930: Birth Records of Illegitimates and of Adopted Children
Creating new identities for adoptees had the added bonus for adopters of preventing the natural parents from knowing the child’s new name and address; they couldn’t interfere because the child was unknown to them. Many adopters didn’t tell the adoptee they were adopted. The records were sealed; no one needs to know.
All domestic, Native American, and transnational adoptees in the USA are affected. The US Department of State requires the foreign-born child’s birth record replaced with an ABC before that child is allowed to leave their homeland. Sometimes, naturalization wasn’t completed, resulting in in deportation of many foreign-born adoptees as adults.
See: Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2021:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1593/text
If adopters no longer want the child they adopted, they rehome the child to someone else. The ABC is revoked, sealed, and replaced with a new ABC issued when the 2nd adoption is finalized.
Today’s Open Adoption is only a social arrangement, adoptees’ OBCs are still revoked, sealed, and replaced. Socially Open Adoption doesn’t equate to Open Records with adoptees’ unrestricted access to the sealed OBC.
When adoptees in closed and sealed adoptions find out their name at birth, many reclaim their names, as I did. Many also want to annul their adoptions due to abuse, adoptive parent pedophilia, or simply want to be un-adopted. But only adopters can annul an adoption. Some adoptees are adopted-back by their natural parents. Many Asian adoptees leave their country of adoption to move back to their homeland, rejecting their removal.
We know there is no need to change the child’s name upon adoption, or to erase the names of the natural parents, or for adopters to pretend to be parents of birth. The Court Order of Adoption is sufficient proof of the legal rights and responsibilities adopters have in their parental roles for the child in their care.
Birth is birth, verifiable through medical records for maternity care, labor, birth, and by DNA. Adoption is a legal transaction handled by a court. These events should be documented separately. But they aren’t.
When women change their surname upon marriage, they don’t lose their birthright. Married women’s birth certificates remain un-revoked, unsealed, and unchanged. When proof of marriage is needed, a marriage license is presented.
We can do this in adoption, too.
In this modern age, it is the ethical right action to respect adoptees for who we were born as and who we were born to. Our births, our origins, are just as important to us as yours are to you. We came from our parents before we came into adoption. Unconditional love from adoptive parents requires acceptance of what is. Lying, covering up, and denying the truth is wrong.
Since I first saw my OBC and ABC in 1974 at my age of 18, I’ve advocated for changing all current State and Federal laws (adopting a child born in another country) mandating revoking, sealing, and amending adoptees’ birth records. These laws must be repealed and replaced.
Every free American citizen should have one, and only one, factual birth certificate, otherwise, we are not free.
Reality-based birth certificates for all adoptees and donor-conceived is my recommendation.
– Doris Michol Sippel, BSW
https://buffalonews.com/2018/11/15/being-adopted-allowed-state-to-steal-my-identity/
You might also find this article educational about Original Birth Certificates (OBC) and Amended Birth Certifcates (ABC). I present all of my documents here in this post:
My Revoked and Sealed Birth Certificate and its Replacement Issued After Adoption – Proof that New York State Vital Statistics Department Uses False Facts on Official Birth Records
Information on USA State-by-state legislation for adoptees’ access to OBCs:
American Adoption Congress:
https://www.americanadoptioncongress.org
Adoptees United – A National Adoptee Rights Organization:
Adoption Truth and Transparency Worldwide Network:
New York State Adoptees now have Unrestricted Access to obtain a copy of their PRE-ADOPTION BIRTH CERTIFICATE (OBC) effective JANUARY 15, 2020
General Information:
New York Adoptee Rights Coalition:
https://nyadopteerights.org/bills/
Where to Apply:
New York State Dept. of Health:
https://www.health.ny.gov/vital_records/preadoption.htm
THE INTERNATIONAL ADOPTEES RIGHTS MOVEMENT BEGAN IN 1953
ADVOCATING FOR LEGAL ACCESS TO OUR OWN SEALED BIRTH CERTIFICATES
10 USA States passed Unrestrictive Access Laws: Alaska, Kansas, Alabama, Colorado, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, Oregon, New York (2020), and Connecticut (2021).
21 USA States passed Compromised-Limited-Access Laws: Massachusetts, Vermont, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Minnesota, Arkansas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Nebraska, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Hawaii.
19 USA States Total Restrictions-No Access: Complete Sealed Records, at least no access yet: Washington DC, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, North Dakota, Idaho, Nevada, California.
…
Our goal is to achieve adoptee equality to non-adopted people.
How would you feel if you were legally forbidden your own birth certificate?
FORBIDDEN FAMILY 
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