Bill to allow adoptees full access to birth records expires
HARTFORD — After a half-hour, sometimes emotional debate on the House floor, a bill that would have allowed adoptive children full access to their birth records was pulled from what amounted to a ceremonial discussion by Democratic leadership.
It was the latest chapter in a longrunning controversy in the General Assembly, pitting those who want full disclosure against the privacy that some older birth parents still desire in an age when more people are using DNA and ancestor services to track their families.
The debate on the last day of the General Assembly session was in itself a compromise, as lawmakers led by Rep. Cristin McCarthy Vehey, D-Fairfield, conceded there was not enough support to concur with the earlier Senate passage of the legislation.
“I would like to recognize the complexity of this issue for all parties involved,” McCarthy Vehey said, stressing that the Connecticut State Medical Society and the state chapter of the National Association of Social Workers also backed the bill. “Adult adoptees, birth parents, family members all have their own unique experiences. There were hundreds of people who submitted testimony on this bill.”
Prior to 1975, all adoptees had access to birth records, and in recent years the General Assembly has allowed those born after 1983 the full access. Currently only adoptees in Alabama, Alaska, Maine and Oregon have full access to birth records.
“Adult adoptees who testified seek equality under the law, access to their health information, and as some have put it, the right to know their human story and original identity,” McCarthy Vehey said.
Rep. Noreen Kokoruda, R-Madison, said that she has harassed by people who want full disclosure, but she feels empathy for the plight of many women who gave up their children under the promise of anonymity.
“We are being attacked on social media, phone calls... there are several of us who have been accused of putting up children for adoption,” Kokoruda said. “I get it’s personal, but the way legislators have been treated in this building on this issue I have never seen in my nine years, ever.”
She gave an example of a woman who contacted her: “’I was raped. Nobody in my family knows it. I don’t want to divulge that to anybody,” Kokoruda said the woman told her.
“This is attacking women, especially older women. Times have not changed for these women. What they’re talking about with this bill is outing 80-year-old women,” she said. “We have to work better to get these reunifications. We should reunite them, but in a way that’s humane to everyone.”
House Majority Leader Matt Ritter eventually called a halt to the discussion.
“I certainly appreciate the emotional testimony that this bill has elicited today and throughout the session, and it was understood by all parties that it would not have been possible to have this bill called before we adjourned at midnight,” Ritter said when the agreed-upon 30-minute period was reached. He then made a parliamentary move to pass the bill temporarily, and expire at midnight without action.