MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG
Mo. Digital News
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Mo. Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG
Mo. Digital News
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Mo. Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
JEFFERSON CITY - Adoptees would have stronger rights to get information about their natural parents under proposals before Missouri's legislature.
The proposals would allow adult adoptees to seek information about their natural parents without the prior consent of the adoptive parents - regardless when the adoption took place.
Current Missouri law imposes different standards between adoptions before and adoptions after 1986 as the result of a past legislative compromise to partially open adoption records.
Under the current law, when children who were adopted after 1986 become adults, they will be able to seek information from the state about their natural parents without permission from their adoptive parents.
But for adoptions prior to 1986, it is a much different story. For those prior to 1986, an adoptee must obtain permission from the adoptive parents to obtain information about the natural parents
"We are trying to change that," said the sponsor of one of the bills, Rep. Pat Dougherty, D-St. Louis. "We are trying that the release of identifying and non-identifying adoptive information apply to adoptions completed before and after August 13, 1986."
The law distinguishes between "identifying information" - information which includes the name, date of birth, place of birth and last known address of the biological parent - and "non-identifying information" - information concerning the physical description, nationality, religious background and medical history of the biological parent or sibling.
The process to seek information starts out writing the agency which placed the child for adoption which can provide non-identifying information.
The next step is write to the judge of the circuit court where the adoption took place and also ask for permission from the adoptive parents to get the identifying information.
It's at this state that problems often arise in obtaining information.
That happened to Cheri Morrow, ex-secretary of former representative Bill Montgomery who sponsored similar legislation last year. Seven years ago, she decided to search for natural parents.
But her adoptive parents refused to grant permission.
"My parents were crying and they told me that to do that would be devastation for them," Morrow said. "But I just want to look for my heritage, not for a family."
A change in the law is necessary soon because the older you get, the harder is going to be find information, Morrow said.
33 states allow adoptees to seek for biological parents information without the prior consent of adoptive parents.
"I would like Missouri to join to these 33 states," Morrow said.
Susan York, a part-time teacher in Journalism School of the University of Missouri, Columbia, succeed in finding information about her biological parents despite concerns from her adoptive parents.
"You fill a lot of empty holes and you feel good because you have all your questions answered," York said.
She said that it did not occur to her try to change the law before.
"We are very angry with the system because they are always more friendly to adoptive parents than to adoptees," York said.
York argues that the reason the adoptive parents are resistant to these kind of bills because they do not want to share their children with anybody else - that they want to be the only parents.
Janet Waer, a birth mother whom her son Mark found 25 later years after he was given up for adoption.
"At the beginning I was shocked, but now I'm happy he found me because now I can celebrate his birthday. And Mothers' Day is not a sad day anymore," Waer said. "And I get along pretty well with his adoptive parents."
However, this issue has been a center of controversy in Missouri's legislature.
"It's not that simple to say those are my rights as an adoptee child," said Rep. Gracia Backer, D-Fulton. "Because I think you affect the people that love you and raise you and you are affecting the people that biologically born you."
On the other hand, Representative Glenda Kelly, D-St. Joseph, is sponsoring a bill that would allow adoption facilitators to hold a meeting between the prospective and the biological parents before the adoption process begins.
"Right now, the cannot talk to each other, what is kind of ridiculous," Kelly said.
She thinks that the measure would increase the number of adoptions in Missouri because there is a chance to make an agreement between both sides and that would make things easier for birth parents to give their children.
Dr. Karen Hauser, Director of Catholic Charities in St. Charles, said that many Missouri birth parents go to surrounding states like Kansas, Illinois and Iowa, that allow the open adoption, to give their children there.
"That is one of the reasons why the law needs to be changed," said Neal D. Colby, Jr., Executive Director of Catholic Charities of the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese. "In a way, Missouri is now losing potential citizenships."