The Path Towards Healing.
Michigan adopted people are regularly being denied their basic human right of obtaining thier own vital record of birth. We have heard too many stories from adoptees about how they lived their whole life believing their birthday was on a certain day, only to find out many years later it was actually on another. We have heard other stories where adoptive parents were told things about the birth family that were relayed to the adoptee, and maybe held on to dearly, to later discover that these things were simply not true. All people have a right to know the truth about how they got here, who they came from, and who their ancestors were. This is a privilege many adopted people lack. Some have grown to tell themselves they don’t even care to know, but many of us desire to have this understanding about our own lives.
The best writing I ever heard on this topic was from Judge Wade S. Weatherford, Jr. of the South Carolina Seventh Judicial Circuit Court. He said “The lawe must be consonant with life. It cannot and should not ignore borad historical currents in history. Mankind is possessed of no greature urge than to try and understand the age-old questions: Who am I, WHY am I. Even now the sands and the ashes of the contenents are being sifted to find where we made our first step as man. Religions of mankind often include ancestor worship in one way or another. for many the future is blind without a sight of the past. those emotions and anxieties that generate our ghirst to know the past are not superficial and whimsical. They are realand they are “good cause” under the law of man and God.”
Allowing unrestricted access to obtaining an original birth certificate promotes healing in the adoptee community. An ever-increasing number of adopted people, birth parents, adoptive families, and professional organizations from all over the state and country agree that truth and transparency is vital and promotes healing. Openness is now considered a “best practice” in adoption. To read personal adoptee testimonies on this matter please click here..