Tag: Amended Birth Certificate

Real birther issue is still unresolved

On By legitimatebastardIn Adoptee Birth Certificates, Amended Birth Certificate, False Information on Birth Certificate, Original Birth Certificate

http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial-page/from-our-readers/my-view/article450236.ece

MY VIEW

Real birther issue is still unresolved

Joan Wheeler, born Doris Sippel, lives in Buffalo and thinks adoptees should have access to their birth records.

Published: June 10, 2011, 12:00 AM

President Obama recently released a copy of his long-form original birth certificate to prove that he was born in the United States. If he had been adopted, he would not be able to produce his original birth certificate for the public or even for his own viewing. By law, he would be able to obtain only an amended birth certificate.

Does this mean that adoptees are prohibited from becoming president?

I am an adoptee and I have two conflicting birth certificates.

As in all adoptions, the judge who presided over my adoption ordered my original birth certificate sealed and replaced with an amended one. The registrar of vital records switched most of my birth facts onto a new document, but the amended certificate does not contain the attending physician’s signature attesting that he

witnessed the birth. And it does not prove who my biological mother and father were.

In the aftermath of 9/11, to obtain a passport or an enhanced driver’s license, one must present documentation of birth filed within five days of birth. Many adoptees’ amended certificates were issued a year or more after birth; delayed birth certificates are not acceptable proof of birth. And amended certificates don’t prove who actually gave birth to the individual named. Adoptees cannot obtain documentation of birth and adoption because these records are sealed.

Birth records for adoptees have been sealed and altered since the 1930s to hide illegitimacy for mother and infant, and to protect adoptive parents. The adoptee rights movement began in the 1950s to change these laws. Two states never sealed records; six states have varying degrees of open records. New York has been a closed-record state since 1935.

I, like many adoptees, want unrestricted access to my original birth certificate. Adoptees are the only group of people denied access to their own birth record. This is a matter of civil rights, social inequality, personal dignity and genealogical knowledge. Non-adoptees can obtain their birth record, but adoptees cannot get theirs.

Opponents to open records claim mothers’ identities must be kept secret because they were promised confidentiality. Mothers who have lost children to adoption say that secrecy was imposed upon them. Additionally, the stigma of illegitimacy doesn’t hold true for full or half orphans (like myself) or step-parent adoptees. Adoptees say that stigma in adoption is unwarranted.

So, how did I get my short-and long-form original birth certificate if the records were sealed?

My widowed father, at the time he relinquished me, gave my birth certificates to my adoptive parents. When I turned 18, they, in turn, gave the documents to me.

Despite this, I am still legally prevented from obtaining my original birth certificate.

All amended birth certificates state the adoptee’s new name, replace the parents by birth with the names of the new parents and include most facts of the birth. A registrar of vital statistics certifies the facts are true. They are not, since no adoptee is born to the parents named on the amended certificate.

New York State adoptees are supporting passage of Senate Bill 1438 and Assembly Bill 2003, which would give adult adoptees access to their original birth certificates. This is half of the solution. For true adoptee equality, falsified amended birth certificates should be replaced with honest adoption certificates.

Vital Statistics of Adoptees are Government-Imposed Misrepresentation of Material Facts of Birth and Official Denial of Adoption

On By legitimatebastardIn Adoptee Birth Certificates, Adoptee False Legal Birth Certificate, Adoptee True Sealed Birth Certificate, Amended Birth Certificate, False Information on Birth Certificate, Uncategorized

I had to fill out yet another government form today:

“I am the individual to whom the information/record applies or that person’s parent (if a minor) or legal guardian. I know that if I make any misrepresentation which I know is false to obtain information from Social Security records, I could be punished by a fine, imprisonment or both.”

Each time an adoptee fills out a form that requires “name, date and place of birth” that adoptee is either knowingly or unknowingly lying. Adoptees are forced to lie by the very nature and status of our known and unknown identities. All adoptees have a legal identity that is different from their identity at birth. And, officially, our adoptions are not acknowledged as part of our identity.

I rush through the data, seething inside:

Name: Joan Mary Wheeler

Date of Birth: 1-7-1956

That is my legal identity. But I was not born with that name. In fact, Joan Wheeler did not legally exist until one year and one month AFTER my date of birth. Joan Wheeler was adopted not born. To be accurate and truthful: I was born to a mother who is not my legal mother and no paperwork exists — legally — to prove my birth. So I am forced to lie whenever I write my name and date of birth. To be accurate I should write the following on all forms:

Name: Doris M Sippel

Date of Birth: 1-7-1956

Date of Finalization of Adoption: 1-14-1957

Date of legal name change: 1-14-1957

Date of sealing and falsification of birth record: somewhere between 1-14-1957 and March 1957.

Date adoptive parents received new, amended and falsified birth record for Doris Sippel/Joan Wheeler: March 1957

So, when I see these words on government forms: “I know that if I make any misrepresentation which I know is false… I could be punished by a fine, imprisonment or both”, I take that as a threat to me by my government. Each and every time I am forced to write my name and date of birth, I know I have to write the accepted version of truth for simplicity’s sake. I am, however, forced to live lies perpetrated by my city, state and federal governments.

The ones guilty of fraud and perjury (misrepresentation of material facts; false statements of facts) are: the Surrogate Court Judge who signed my Final Order of Adoption; The Registrar of Vital Statistics of Buffalo, New York; New York State Department of Health; and the US Federal Government for lack of clarity and standardization of birth and adoption records.

The United States of America needs a federal mandate to correct these inconsistencies for all domestic and foreign-born adoptees.

Join in the fight to change our laws by clicking on these links: Equal Access for Adult Adoptees: http://www.change.org/petitions/view/equal_access_for_adult_adoptees (a Petition to the President of the United States and the US House of Representatives);  Letter to President Obama at Family Preservation: http://familypreservation.blogspot.com/2010/01/call-for-signatures.html; Adoptees: Fight for the right to your own identity in Illinois! http://www.change.org/petitions/view/adoptees_fight_for_the_right_to_your_own_identity_in_illinois; Restore Adult Adoptee Access to Original Birth Certificates http://www.change.org/petitions/view/restore_adult_adoptee_access_to_original_birth_certificates.

 

~ ~ ~ Joan M Wheeler, BA, BSW, author of Forbidden Family: A Half Orphan’s Account of Her Adoption, Reunion and Social Activism, Trafford Publishing, Nov 2009.