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Child Item

Adoptions and the right to an original birth cert

MrMusician18

As you may or may not know, there is some landmark legislation due next year that will give adoptees the right to a copy of their original birth cert. At the moment, this can only be given out with the consent of the birth mother, of which four objected to last year. The new system will allow access to the cert even when the mother objects and where the mother objects they will be just essentially be asked nicely to not make contact. The media and public discourse generally seems to be lauding this proposal, but I have to admit I have some concerns about the precedent this sets and how we can expect the State to hold private information.

When these adoptions occured, rightly or wrongly, the State promised these women to keep the birth cert confidential. This promise, old as it is, appears to count for nothing and the State is planning to give adoptees rights over the privacy of others. Little meaningful effort is going into balancing the mother's right to privacy with the adoptees right to know. With this precedent set, it appears that the State could choose to make any confidential information available even where it has said in the past that it wouldn't.

This is obviously a controversial and sensitive topic (some posters I'm sure will be affected), but I would be interested in what others think of this. Media debate has been very one sided (the birth mother's obviously don't have the NGO's advocating for then) but there is another legitimate point of view.

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Immortal Starlight

I would agree with people being able to get their original birth certificate.

Hotblack Desiato

There can only be one winner here in this conflict of rights and that is to allow full access for adopted adults to their original birth records.

Assuming the nuns didn't falsify them for "a few dollars more" of course... 😠

[Deleted User]

It’s a question of whose rights are the greatest. The mothers who gave their babies up on the understanding that there would never be any contact, or the now adult babies?

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117676917#Comment_117676917

I don't think it is a question about the greatest right here. For me at least it's about the State backtracking on a guarantee of privacy - adoptions were done with the understanding that the cert would remain confidential.

Rights can be conflicting, before the 8th was repealed there was the right to life of the unborn and the mother's right to health and there was a careful attempt to balance these rights within the confines of what's permissible. Here, no such balancing is even attempted. If the mother objects, there's a sham conciliation attempted but as the outcome is predetermined, the cert will be released in all cases. That isn't right or fair and to be honest I can't see how it's constitutional either.

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117677332#Comment_117677332

I agree with you. A mother who conceived as the result of ignorance, innocence, rape, incest etc and gave up the resulting baby in the belief that she would never be identified, will have no say.

I can understand an adopted child wanting to know it’s history and any information of possible hereditary illnesses, too.

Peregrinus

This is very much a conflict between the rights or interests of the adopted person in knowing their own history and connections, and the rights and interests of the mother in her own privacy. I accept, obviously, that it involves the state backtracking on a policy and so disrupting a legitimate expectation of privacy that was created by that policy, and that's not a trivial thing. But it make no sense to consider this dilemma divorced from the reason why changing the policy is even considered; the rights and interests of the adopted person.

So, yeah, this is very much a conflict of rights. And it's a difficult one; anybody who looks at this and doesn't feel considerable empathy for the people on both sides of this conflict is, well, not seeing the whole picture.

And this is not a conflict in which a compromise solution is possible; the certificate is either released to the adopted person or it isn't; you can't release the certificate just a little bit.

So, given that, it's obvious that someone on one side of this conflict of rights is going to have their rights "trumped" by the rights of the other. It does seem to me that the State has, at a minimum, a duty to support the loser in this conflict, to minimise the disadvantage they suffer. That might mean, for instance, that if the decision is to release the certificate, the state should offer the birth mother practical and counselling support during what follows.

Hotblack Desiato

Jeez you'd think birth certs had the mother's current address, Eircode, PPSN and bank account number the way some are going on. Most will have since married and taken another surname. Many emigrated. Many have since died.

We are so frequently told that baptism registers are a record of a historical event and cannot be changed... yet a record of a historical real, not supernatural, event - a birth - can be suppressed forever as the law currently stands, to the great detriment of the child involved who had no say in being adopted.

Also what about the half-siblings and other relatives of the adopted person? Don't their rights to know and possibly meet their family member not enter into it also?

[Deleted User]

OP you say 4 birth mothers objected last year. What proportion of the total birth certs is that?

Is it all or only a small proportion?

I'd be fairly wary of overriding the wishes of these women.

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117678167#Comment_117678167

If birth certs had no data of value contained within them then why do the adoptees want them? Of course you know the answer, with a name and even an old address, it is possible to find someone (usually fairly easy too) these days.

No one is proposing to change the registers here. What I'm saying is that the State promised these women to protect their identities but now it has decided that it no longer wants to do that. First it put them in the position where their babies had to be given up, now wants to take their privacy too? It's simply not fair, or right.

When you listen to advocates, a large part of the motivation for this change is to satisfy an identity curiosity for the adoptee. Is that really a good enough reason to strip someone of their privacy when they object to it?

Hermy

The State made no such promise.

The civil records of all births registered in Ireland are open to public scrutiny.

Admittedly, not every adoptee will have sufficient information to locate the civil record of their birth, but where sufficient information is available an individual can access the record of their birth or anyone else's whose birth was officially recorded.

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117679112#Comment_117679112

The State did. If no such promise existed, this legislation obviously wouldn't be needed.

While birth records are available, it's the link to the adoption record that is key. Without that link (which is what we are talking about here, if you want to be pedantic), looking for your record in the public register is like trying to find a specific unremarkable needle in a haystack of unremarkable needles.

[Deleted User]

Op, this is worth a read. And from a quick search, it appears there were approx 45k adoptions in Ireland since 1952. I must admit, I thought the number would be higher.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/commentanalysis/arid-20278941.html

kerash

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117679099#Comment_117679099

Why don’t you ask an adoptee? Because you sound quite ignorant at the moment. I’d go as far as to wonder if you are flaming here?

Every person in Ireland is legally entitled to privacy i.e not being harassed by unwanted contact. Getting a birth cert does not remove that right.

You are either ignorantly or deliberately confused that legal issue with allowing ease of access to an adopted persons original birth certificate.

B.A._Baracus

Never knew about this. Interesting to read but bit of a slippery topic isn't it?

On one hand if someone who was adopted wanted to know where they were born, to whom etc you would think they would have that right. Sure it's about themselves. But on the other hand if someone put a child up for adoption I guess they have a right to remain nameless. We sadly do not live in a world where everyone is level-headed. A person could gain that information and harass their biological mother or something.

You could also throw in a right to know if someone's family tree is susceptible to certain illnesses or something like legal right? Ahh, I dunno, it all seems a slippy mess.

BattleCorp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117679215#Comment_117679215

It is higher. I personally know of some illegal adoptions that won't show up on any register.

BattleCorp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117679112#Comment_117679112

Yeah, that's not correct.

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117680128#Comment_117680128

I'm adopted. If I sling you my details can you tell me if I was illegal or not:-)

MojoMaker

If an adopted person would like to access their original birth record (note: not the cert, but the actual ledger entry) drop into the church that holds your baptism and in the relevant year's dusty old ledger you'll find a complete record of the event, often with both parents names.

Pretty scary.

You have to jump through serious hoops in the civilian world to get the same information, if you can at all (prior to this pending legislation), but maddeningly it's sitting there, hidden in plain sight.

nullzero

The state made promises to birth mothers and handed responsibility for the entire adoption process over to the Catholic church.

The system was a joke and the rights of all involved weren't considered by anyone.

The notion that adopted people are plotting to ambush their birth parents is comical. A lot of the birth parents of Irish adopted people are at this stage old or dead. The notion that you shouldn't have the right to know where you came from or if you are at risk of developing an illness that has a history of affecting people in your birth family is disgusting in the extreme.

The entire process of adoption was based in shame, the shame of an "illegitimate" pregnancy the shame of what people would think, mothers being hidden away for the final months of their pregnancies. It's all in the past now, those who want to keep their babies do, those who don't get a termination. Adopted Irish people are a dying breed who have been given no support by the system that dealt with the "shame" of their birth and for once their voices are being listened to we have people whinging on the internet about promises made by a government who abdicated responsibility for all of what adoption was because it was too much of a headache for them to deal with themselves. The OP's opinion is a joke and they should be ashamed of themselves.

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117680357#Comment_117680357

To claim this just whinging is just your way of dismissing the argument without engaging with it.

While the previous adoption system was wrong, it was the system that was in place and those that were in it knew the rules. And the rule was that mother's identities would remain confidential in all circumstances.

Why exactly should I be ashamed of myself for having an opinion that the wishes of these women to have their identities protected, as they were promised, kept? If there's anything disgusting here, is your opinion that these women should be outed against their will.

[Deleted User]

Well, like I mentioned earlier, I'm one of those few adopted Irish people, so if anyone wants to ask any questions - fire away. Tell me why I shouldn't be allowed to find out where I'm from.

(I'm hoping it's not Longford.)

The ball is in your court, Op.

nullzero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117680541#Comment_117680541

"Outed" is a word that says a lot about you and your opinion on this topic.

The system that was in place was bad for all involved and the notion that people having the right to access their birth certificates being a bad thing is mind boggling.

Adopted people in this country essentially have no rights whatsoever when it comes to being able to understand where they came from. You are of the opinion that the privacy of the birth parents being more important than the rights of their adopted children is ludicrous. The adopted children had no say in their situation at all, birth parents had difficult decisions to make and were railroaded in a lot of circumstances but they at least knew what was going on.

Does an adopted person not have the right to understand their background? To know if they are at risk from a hereditary disease?

You speak as if adopted people are wringing their hands at the prospect of being able to doorstep their birth parents. Most just want to know who their parents were and respect their privacy.

You are making a mountain out of a molehill and attempting to claim the moral high ground out of some reverence for a promise made by a negligent government who wanted to wash their hands of all responsibility in relation to adoption.

Your opinion is based on assumptions (people will be "outed") and is hysterical whinging nonsense that shows empathy for one affected group and absolutely none for the other. You think me saying that is dismissing the argument without engaging in it (all I've done is engage in it so far).

I stand by my previous comment, you should be ashamed of your opinion on this topic as it has no basis in fact and supposes that all adopted people are hell bent on invading the lives of their birth parents.

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117680636#Comment_117680636

Well what other word would you use to describe the release of personal information about you that you did not want released? 4 women last year didn't want it, why should their rights be steamrolled?

And this isn't about adopted people invading the lives of birth parents. It's about respecting the rights of the small number of women that want the their privacy respected, as they were promised. Where two parties have a stake in a situation do you think only one side can give consent? Even when one side expressly states that they don't?

And how can you know how much empathy I have for the adoptees? I have acknowledged that this is difficult stuff and as one poster above correctly states this is one that doesn't naturally have a compromise position - you either share the document or you don't. What I argue is that there was absolutely no nuance in the proposed legislation and that it is completely one sided, no common consent required.

[Deleted User]

Dude, write what you know is the thing I live by. Did you read the article I posted? Most women in Ireland were "steamrolled" into giving up their outside of marriage children since 1952. Get back to me when you've talked to one adopted person:-)

nullzero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117680693#Comment_117680693

The legislation isn't perfect, but a reasonable system has never been in place and the time it would take to establish one now and it's lack of an ongoing use beyond, say the middle of this century means it will never be established.

You are assuming there are only the birth parents and the adoptees involved. In the case of getting an understanding of medical histories for example, some hereditary diseases can skip a generation and can have serious impacts on the lives of the grandchildren of the people whose right to privacy you value above everything else in this situation.

It's not an ideal situation but there are greater things at stake here than the privacy of birth parents and if making birth certificates available to adopted people is the only solution it's how it has to be. Four women last year didn't want to have their adopted children's birth certificates handed over, not four hundred or four thousand. The numbers involved are extremely low, and while it's sad these people's privacy isn't being respected it isn't the most important issue in this situation.

You are talking about this as if adopted people shouldn't have the right to demand to know where they came from, as if they are some sort of illegitimate group who have some unfair advantage in this situation when in reality they are a small group of people who have been treated terribly. If we look at the rights of adoptees versus the rights of birth parents, over the years the number of birth parents whose rights have been respected versus the small number of remaining adopted persons who will benefit from this change (many won't even care about it) the advantage is stacked vastly in the favor of the former.

This legislation is in effect too little too late and you choose to appropriate it as some sort of scandalous slap in the face to the rights of birth parents, that's why your opinion is invalid.

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117680751#Comment_117680751

I'm well aware they were steamrolled in most cases into giving their children up.

That doesn't change the fact that in 2022, regardless if birth mothers consent or not that their information will be shared.

I'd argue that common consent should be a necessity, not an irrelevance. And that works both ways.

[Deleted User]

It seems a little like....

1952: "Ladies, we know what's best, give up the child"

2021: "Ladies, we know what's best, we're giving out your information no matter what you want"

nullzero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117680776#Comment_117680776

The adopted children don't even enter that equation. A large number of whom are women also.

[Deleted User]

Yeah, you're arguing from a point of no experience though. That's the annoying thing. You've just latched onto something you've read and belched it out there on a thread without thinking too much about anyone that might actually have something to do with it.

Hermy

Ten years ago I searched for and found the civil record of my birth.

This eventually led me to my birth mother (since deceased), and more recently, my birth father.

Neither of them wished to be party to any promise of secrecy imposed upon them by Church and State and were as much victims of those draconian times as I was.

Sadly, the unwillingness of successive governments (till now) to deal with the past mishandling of adoption in Ireland has perpetuated the notion that a child born out of wedlock should be a cause of shame to be kept hidden leading so many birth mothers to fear 'being outed'.

While still allowing everyone their privacy, this proposed legislation if delivered as promised, will finally bring an end to the secrecy and many affected parties will discover their fears are groundless.