The New York Assembly Health Committee recommended passage today of a bill that would end 83 years of iron-clad secrecy over the birth certificates of adopted persons. The bill, sponsored by Senator Velmanette Montgomery and Assemblyman David Weprin, would restore a right that New York adoptees once had: the right as adults to request and receive their own pre-adoption birth records.
It is a right that advocates have been working to restore for decades, going back at least to the beginning of the adoptee rights movement in New York in the 1970s.
Governor Cuomo vetoed discriminatory legislation in 2017 that would have continued to restrict the rights of New York adoptees. In his message as part of that veto, Governor Cuomo requested a better bill from the legislature and ordered a state agency workgroup to study the issue and to make recommendations. The Montgomery/Weprin bill, S3419/A5494, came directly out of that process, and a large bipartisan group of legislators now stand behind it.
Almost half of all legislators in the Senate and Assembly, including sixty percent of all New York Assembly members, have signed on to the bill. Pressure is now mounting to do what adoptees have been requesting for decades: pass a bill that restores a right that existed in New York until 1936.
“This legislation is 83 years overdue. New York’s experiment in enforcing eternal secrecy over a person’s own vital record has proven unworkable, discriminatory, and punitive,” said Annette O’Connell, a spokesperson for the New York Adoptee Rights Coalition, a group of state and national adoptee rights organizations working to enact the bill.
The bill, if enacted, would also likely influence how other states approach the issue. While nine states already recognize or have restored the right of adoptees to obtain a copy of their own birth certificates, numerous states continue to consider similar legislation, most recently Connecticut, Massachusetts, Florida, Iowa, and Texas. For the millions of adoptees in the United States, enacting the Montgomery/Weprin bill may prompt those and other states to follow.
“Hundreds of thousands of people were born and adopted in New York and tens of millions of families are linked to adoption,” said Gregory D. Luce, a national expert and the founder of the Adoptee Rights Law Center. “We are asking for leadership from the governor’s office and from the New York legislature on this issue, which is about basic equality—a basic right to know your own heritage and who you are.”
Now let’s get it across the goal line!
Let it pass yesterday so we have a more transparent future. In order to know where you are going in life, you must know where you are from!
As a sister of three adopted brothers (one out of the family before I was born and he found us via DNA and two into the family who also found their families) and also a birth-mother who has found her son after many long years of wondering how he was but we have not been reunited. I believe if the adoption record was open from birth it would end many years of heartache and unanswered questions. A much healthier environment for everyone. This bill is long overdue for many many people.
This is 83 years of covering up the truth of our births. Adopted people will not be equal to non-adopted people until the lying stops. Pass this bill into law!
Ending the Lehman-Tann era is long overdue.
Please pass this bill, as an adoptee, i have spent over 20 years looking for any information, it’s tough. Let’s make it easier for all of us. Thank you
Time to do what is right! Pass this bill! Give us our truth!
Equal rights for ALL New York born American citizens!!! It’s about time! EQUAL means EQUAL!
Please let this pass did the bill pass tell whether a rally n Washington is going to happen as an adoptee in 1970 I hope that this goes through
I am 75 still looking for info for 50 years, let me have peace and approve this!!
God Bless all of the wonderful people who have advocated on all adoptees behalf! Please NYS government have a heart and realize we are people who have been denied our basic right to know where we came from….our family history…our health concerns … our need to be free from secracy! We vote and pay taxes too! This is not to diminish our families that gave us special love and care but to be able to know our beginning from the sperm and egg donor… it is only FAIR ! Please pass this bill and be a leader amoungst followers. Thank-you.