Here's the letter Tammy M. sent in response to the article published in the San Francisco Examiner titled: "Fight Over Adoption Secrecy!"
Tammy writes:
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am writing in regards to the editorial printed in the 2/22 edition of your
paper regarding adoptee rights. As a former Californian, I try to keep up
with the hometown paper and was appalled by the tone of this editorial.
I am a 36 year old woman who found out last year that my mother gave up
three children for adoption. Had my birth sister not painstakingly fought
her way through the miles of red tape thrown up to stop her, I would have
never known she existed and would have missed out on one of the joys of my
life, reuniting with her and my other siblings.
In the process, I have learned a great deal about adoption, adoptees and
what they all go through. I have learned that adoptees are exceedingly
sensitive to the moods and feelings of their birth families and would do
nothing to harm them. However, no one, especially your editorial writer,
seems to take their feelings into consideration at all.
Most of us in this world enjoy a simple luxury adoptees do not share--
knowing where we come from. We take for granted what they struggle years to
discover. We are privy to stories such as how our parents met, when our
forefathers came over to America, and the first time our grandparents
kissed. Adoptees want to know this as well. Why do they not have the
rights to the same pool of memories? Why are they denied the access to
their past, to be treated like freaks of nature or worse, criminals, just
because they share a curiosity of where they came from? They don't want
money or to wreck lives, they want to share in the rich tapestry of homelife
and find a sense of belonging in this world. I know from my birth sister,
that there is finally a sense of completeness in her life. A puzzle that is
solved.
Any legislation that allows adoptees access to their birthrecord should be
supported wholeheartedly. It is their right as adoptees to know. Not our
right to make them feel like second class citizens.
Tammy Monohan
More Than a Feeling.mid
