Adoptions and the right to an original birth cert

How do you tell if someone's birth cert has been falsified?

You're the one claiming the sky will fall in, if we're (meaning adopted people and natural parents) "allowed" to have our information. I've told you we've been accessing our information for years; and many of us have been tracing and making contact. I think that rather puts the onus on you to show that reunions are causing problems?

Are they all perfect? No, of course not. Nobody is claiming they are. However, even where a reunion doesn't work out, it's still rarely, if ever, the shitshow you seem to think will result from adults being allowed to access their own information. If that were the case - would we not have some evidence, given we've been doing this for literally a couple of decades now, and a tabloid never refused ink?

If a man and a woman have a child, planned, unplanned or through whatever circumstances ... they should facilitate the responsibility that entails... they should not be of the ability to preclude the person who is recorded on it from having their birth certificate. But they are, as seemingly their right of privacy trumps the right of the child to obtain a record of THEIR birth.

pure backwards madness BS..so fûcking Irish it’s untrue.

they should be only given a courtesy perhaps as in a letter... “ x person whom you gave birth to on 18/04/1976 has requested and been issued with a copy of ‘their’ birth certificate... wouldn’t even have to name the child.

A birth certificate is a record of a persons birth... their birth, it relates to and is fo the child.

Why are you going on and on about reunions? It's the right to one's one birth cert which is being talked about, one does not necessarily lead to the other. And you have continued to ignore other posters pointing out that this information can be tracked down anyway given enough effort.

What reunion would this be, exactly? I go to the Adoption Authority, get my birth cert and whatever other relevant information of mine that they have, such as medical history. I presume as a matter of routine they'll tell me if there's an entry already on the contact register from parents and/or siblings and/or extended natural family; and presumably they'll ask if I'm interested in contact myself. I'm not going to turn up on anyone's doorstep just because I've been given my birth cert. If a natural mother has said she doesn't want contact, especially, there won't be a reunion, so there won't be a shitshow.

Again, adopted people have been getting their birth certs - just by walking up and asking for them, no need to spend a day or two in a research room - since the 1930s in Scotland and the 1970s in England and Wales, and since the late 80s/early 90s in Ireland (with the requirement to research) - without the sky falling in.

Apparently this also bears repeating. A) Women were not generally promised anonymity. We know this because y'know what? There are thousands of natural mothers who placed or were forced to place children for adoption, who are still alive, and they tell us this. B) Even if some sought anonymity (and some did), it was not in the gift of the then Adoption Board or any adoption agency to give that anonymity or to promise it, because our births were legally recorded, and all birth records are public records.

Not only bad practices by state & religious agencies but it could expose the rich & powerful in society...there must have been some truth in that remark made by Charlie haughey about TD's & children born in st ritas..why pass laws to reveal their secrets?

What utter bollocks!

Everyone's birth record is already a public record, and the Natural Parents Network of Ireland were one of the organisations who have campaigned for adopted people to be able to access their own birth certs for literally decades.

"Passed with barely a whimper"?! What are you like?! Literally decades of campaigning by natural parents and adopted people got us as far as this flawed and inadequate bill, which doesn't go nearly far enough. Legislation was first proposed by Mary Hanafin in 2000/2001, after years of campaigning. Brian Lenihan Jnr had public consultations with adopted people, natural parents, adoptive parents, adoption agencies and those in the fostercare system, lasting over two years. Katherine Zappone also proposed legislation. That eventually led us to where we are now - "the Birth, Information and Tracing Bill that passed this evening underwent six sessions in the Dáil, eight sessions in the Seanad and more than 30 hours of debate this year." (per RTÉ)

Passage was delayed specifically because the campaign groups (and they're not NGOs!) were so opposed.

What we've got is a law that gives adopted people their birth cert (again - already a public document), a mandatory information session if a natural parent has objected to them getting it (pre-supposing we're the criminals, or something, rather than the adoption agencies that falsified our birth certs and arranged illegal adoptions!), and might get us whatever out-of-date medical information is on our files.

It brings us into line with what people in England and Wales have had since the 1970s and people in Scotland have had since the 1920s. Did the sky fall in over there? No.

(Edited to clarify what NPNI campaigned for.)

I'm aware of some reunions that haven't worked out, but I'm also aware of many more that either were just "grand", or where things went very well indeed.

And of course there are many more adopted people who don't necessarily want their information in order to trace, they just... want their information. Because it's theirs. Everyone needs to know where they've come from. We're finally getting that recognised by the state, to some extent at least, even though many of us have been able to do our own research (and trace, if that's what we wanted) without their help, for years now.

This thread is about adoption ffs.

IVF is creating exactly the same issue which is blighting the lives of people who were adopted. And if its unregulated, there is no solution possible.

Surrogacy is breaking the bond between a child and the woman who housed and nourished them pre-birth. So not the same, but can have a similar emotional impact for some.

A surrogate mother is, by default in Ireland, legally the mother of the child. Regardless of who contributed the genetic material.

There is a difficulty in trying to advocate for a principle which will solve a particular issue that you want solved now, if you don't recognise that that principle must also apply to other scenarios which could have adverse consequences. Which is fine for you if you don't care about those other people. But others might want to look at the bigger picture and advise to go back to the drawing board and try to come up with something which will work for you without having those adverse consequences for others.