Update on new legislation to end discrimination against Michigan-born adoptees

A coalition of adoptee rights groups in Michigan called the Michigan Adoptee Rights Coalition is working with a bipartisan group of Michigan state lawmakers to advance two adoptee rights reform bills in Michigan. The measures have cleared the state House of Representatives and were moved over to the state Senate just before the Michigan Legislature adjourned in mid-November 2023.

These legislative efforts, now being pushed by the coalition’s three partners (the Minneapolis-based Adoptee Rights Law Center and Michigan-based Adoptee Advocates of Michigan and Michigan Adoptee Collaborative), follow years of advocacy by countless Michigan-born adoptees, on behalf of probably tens of thousands of persons born and relinquished to adoption there in the years before and since World War II.

Committee hearing testimony on November 8, 2023, on HB 5148 and HB 5149 (snip of public video coverage)

The bills, House Bill 5148, sponsored by Rep. Kristian Grant (D-Grand Rapids), and House Bill 5149, sponsored by Rep. Pat Outman (R-Six Lakes), were introduced in the Legislature in late October 2023. The coalition working with the two lawmakers explains that the introduced legislation would, if not amended further, restore long-denied legal rights for adult adoptees to access their original birth records like all non-adopted Michiganders. 

I encourage people to read the bills themselves (HB 5148 and HB 5149) to see how legislation would change current laws. Currently, it is nearly impossible for any adoptee in Michigan to secure a copy (in redacted form) of their original birth certificate (see my FAQs on that topic).

Most importantly, the legislation, if approved and then signed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer–a Democrat who has not spoken publicly in any statement I can find in favor of adoptee rights–would end outdated laws in Michigan that deny tens of thousands of Michigan born adoptees equal treatment by law. I would be a beneficiary of this legislation, as would my sister, along with uncounted thousands of others separated from their families and kin by the state’s harmful, cruel adoption secrecy laws.

Committee hearing highlights human rights and new and worrisome anti-adoptee messaging

The House Families, Children, and Seniors Committee held its hearing on the bills on Nov. 8, 2023. The hearing is videotaped, and it can be seen by anyone with access to the internet. Testimony and discussion begin at minute 21:00. (Note: the video takes a long time to download; you will need to be patient.)

I was particularly impressed by one supporter of the bill, Ned Andree, a Michigan resident and a bi-racial and transracial adoptee. 

Adoptee Ned Andree speaking in support of the two bills to restore adoptee rights on Nov. 8, 2023

Andree spoke eloquently to the committee in support of the bills. He testified about being adopted and being raised by white parents and seeking his truth for years. He told the committee he was born and relinquished in 1968, from a white mother and an African-born father, originally from Nigeria. Andre spoke of his costly effort find his birth parents, including spending $20,000 to fly to Nigeria to find his birth father, “only to have no success.” Andre also spoke of being denied his truth by the almost impossible barriers created by Michigan’s discriminatory laws denying him his truth. “The current law denies adult adoptees … a fundamental human right granted to non-adoptees.”

Filmmaker and Michigan-born adoptee spoke in support, and a birth mother who also testified in favor of the legislation and told her story of the harm of relinquishment.

Opponents also received prominent time before lawmakers.

Committee hearing testimony of Michigan Catholic Conference (MCC) lobbyist Rebecca Mastee who opposed the two bills on Nov. 8, 2023

Michigan Catholic Conference (MCC) lobbyist Rebecca Mastee came out against the bills with talking points heard in past legislative settings in other states, where opponents seek to enforce legal inequality to millions of persons by supporting outdated adoption secrecy laws. Mastee repeated unprovable talking points and outright lies regarding promised secrecy to birth mothers, when no such legal promises were ever made. Mastee concluded that such non-existing secrecy claims, that have never been documented by written documentation in legislative settings, require that the state continue to deny adult adopted persons equal treatment by law in accessing their birth records, as is the case in Michigan today. These talking points have been used repeatedly in most state legislative hearings I have seen by adoption industry promoters—and Catholic Charities in Michigan and other states were among the biggest adoption “businesses” that separated kin for decades.

Mastee, on behalf of the MCC, also used another false taking point of the alleged “stalking” of birth parents by adoptees as a rationale to deny tens of thousands of adoptees unobstructed access their birth certificate. She offered no facts or any credible evidence such harm can be proven by documented facts. In even more frightening language that is a foreshadowing of pro-adoption rhetoric to come likely for years, Mastee claimed that the bills would harm the flow of newborn infants to the now-expanding baby box supply chain in post-Roe America. (We learned during the hearing that the two bills do not prevent the erasure of new adoptees’ identities who are surrendered in metal dumpsters in Michigan, as allowed by current law, and without any regard to their basic human rights.)

Though grotesque as a basic statement of denied equal rights to current and future adoptees, adoptee rights advocates must confront the new harmful normal that this is now an active talking point. We will likely hear again that adoptees can’t get their birth certificates because it would disrupt the medically harmful practice of newborn infant separation from vulnerable moms through these dangerous baby dumpsters. Luckily this malarky did not convince the state lawmakers the day of the hearing.

Another anti-adoptee rights opponent, lawyer Heath Lowry, of the Michigan Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual violence, testified to oppose the bills. He used the canard of “sexual violence and rape” that has been shared repeatedly in adoptee rights discussions before lawmakers to claim victims of sexual violence would be traumatized to have contact with their child. The scare tactics were given without any evidence. He provided not one fact, no data, not even an anecdote. He claimed that the “consent of birth parents” had to be protected by the continued denial of vital records to thousands of adoptees born in Michigan. His testimony was forcefully tossed aside as baseless by a supporter of the bills who testified in support of the two measures (you can watch the testimonies here).

Fortunately, the committee strongly approved both bills (substitutes) before sending the bills to the full House for a vote.

The new substitute bills are here:

The House of Representatives on Nov. 9, 2023 voted on the substitute bills as follows:

  • HB 5148: Yeas 99, Nays 8, Excused 0, Not Voting 3
  • HB 5149: Yeas 99, Nays 8, Excused 0 Not Voting 3

All of the submitted testimony from adoptees, adoptee rights groups, birth mother groups, and other champions of equality urged lawmakers to support the legislation. All told, supporters provided 45 pages worth of materials in support. That was very impressive to read. You can find a downloadable copy of the testimony for the legislation on the Michigan Legislature’s website. A short hearing summary for Nov. 8, 2023 is here.

Final comments as a Michigan-born adoptee rights advocate

For the record, I have no affiliation with the groups in the coalition who are working with lawmakers, as I explained in this blog post from June 2023.

I have been advocating for adoptee rights in Michigan, my birth state, since the mid-1980s. I published a book on adoptee rights and the public health impacts of the U.S. adoption system in 2018, You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are. It highlights the history of U.S. adoption and a major adoption mill in Michigan that was likely the country’s second biggest adoption promotion center in terms of babies separated from their mothers. It also highlights my experience being denied my vital records, for decades, and the harmful practices of the state’s health system managing vital records, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services

Meeting my kin in Finland and the truth of biological family

“This is the coolest thing that’s happened in a really long time. Welcome to family.”

 Comments shared with Rudy Owens by his distant cousin shortly after meeting his Finnish family in Finland in September 2023

By Rudy Owens, MA, MPH

A sign commemorating fallen Finnish military who died in the wars with the USSR between 1939 and 1944, at the Museo Militaria, in Hämeenlinna, Finland

For years I have repeated a phrase that speaks an eternal truth known to many cultures, globally.

In the English language that wisdom is: “Blood is thicker than water.” In Finnish, they say, “Veri on vettä sakeampaa.” Other languages also explore this idea about the primacy of kinship, such as Mandarin. The Chinese expression translates to: “Family relationships are stronger than any others.”

It is an expression many of us know, almost by instinct.

Its meaning is universal. It reflects how we have evolved, through evolution and our common, shared history, grounded in our closest relations. It also defines how humans have and continue to relate to those closest to them, especially their biological family and blood kin.

For me, that truth became even more clear following my incredible 11-day trip in September 2023 to Finland, one of my ancestral home countries. In this Nordic nation, six years a row voted the world’s happiest country, I had this truth reaffirmed in unforgettable ways. I shared these life-affirming moments with the people I met and with whom we collectively share relatives dating back more than two centuries.

They are and always will be my “family.” They are and always will be my kin.

Ultimately, biological family connects all of us, no matter our age, race, country, or culture.

Family is universal. We all have family—biological family. It’s the common glue that binds us to others.

The acclaimed writer Alex Haley, author of Roots: The Saga of an American Family, succinctly described our collective humanity after the publication of his globally beloved family history of formally enslaved west Africans brought to America. “We are first many millions of families sharing this earth,” said Haley. “After the miracle of life itself, the greatest human common denominator is families.”

Rudy Owens in Helsinki, Finland, one of his ancestral countries of his biological relatives

Adoption secrecy hides my Finnish family story

As an adventure of discovery and learning, my trip to Finland in September 2023 exceeded my wildest expectations. In less than two weeks I drove more than 2,000 kilometers and met and befriended my distant Finnish relatives.  I had not known they existed for certain less than a month earlier.

We created bonds, and they felt sturdy. I instantly felt I was standing on a solid foundation that had been missing for decades, to an ancestral land and a wider kin network. This footing was as solid as the granite rocks that cover the Finnish landscape.

More than six weeks after my wonderful meetings with my kin relatives in Finland, I am still struggling for words to describe the undeniable reality that the trip proved to me about blood kinship and life.

Among the most certain and provable facts before me are photos, showing my resemblance to my relatives, removed now by three generations.

The evidence that I am related to my Finnish kin is visible to anyone looking at our photos. The strongest similarity is my uncanny facial and even body similarities to a younger male distant cousin, who I did not meet. One of my other distant cousins, who is his sister, tells me, “The resemblance is uncanny.” In fact all the family members who have met me agree on this visual reality they can confirm with their eyes.

The other fact I can grasp with a firm grip is the shared joy we all felt by simply connecting. It felt organic and without effort.

But how should one describe soul-felt joy meeting one’s blood kin one has never met in more than a half-century? How should a person explain how he is greeted warmly as family, with a new nickname “Uncle Rudy” (“Rudy-setä” in Finnish) among the youngest newfound relatives?

More importantly, how do you tell people like disinterested media, public health officials, and lawmakers about this feeling, particularly when such kin ties have been denied to you by state law and the power of a state and its public health bureaucracy for decades?

Despite all of the positive experiences I can share about connecting with my kin, they don’t change that I am still denied the legal right to have these blood and family relations and knowledge of my identity and—in my case—Finnish ancestry by the full force of Michigan state law.

… GO HERE TO READ THE FULL STORY PUBLISHED ON MY WEBSITE.

Coming home to my Finnish ancestral villages, in defiance of Michigan’s adoption secrecy laws

During my trip to Finland in September 2023, I visited two ancestral villages of my Finnish kin, Kortesjärvi and Alahärmä, in a rural farming area of South Ostrobothnia.

The region is located inland from the Baltic Sea, east of Vaasa. I went there with my Finnish relative and her husband on September 7, 2023.

On that life-changing trip, I felt a visceral connection to my ancestral home, where a quarter of my biological family traces its historical roots. These are very peasant farming roots. It’s hard to describe the joy I felt. I tried to capture some of that on this video. It only does those feelings partial justice. The feeling was one of utter and total joy. (I will be publishing a story soon about this amazing trip.)

By sharing this video here that is filled with elation, I am not gloating.

I am pointing out a brutal reality of contemporary politics that marginalizes tens of thousands of adoptees born in Michigan, like me. I’ve been raising this issue consistently since 2015, and published my adoption history/memoir documenting these wrongs in detail.

By law in the state of Michigan, I am also denied the information about my ancestral and living kin, like tens of thousands of other born and then relinquished there.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), supposedly a progressive, and the Democrats who control the Michigan Legislature, have done nothing to fix decades of this injustice denying people the right to know their kin/past.

It remains deeply painful to me to know that this joy I had, finding my past, my kin, my ancestral villages in Finland, is denied to tens of thousands of Michigan adoptees, still, by law.

As I continue to share, Gov. Whitmer ultimately owns this failure. She can lead and fix it. To date, she has done nothing and has never communicated publicly she will do a thing to correct a historic injustice. Without a cost to her politically, nothing will change. That is up to those of us who seek reform to exact the leverage to move reform.

We all have a right to know our origins

Finding myself and my kin in beautiful Finland

This month, I had the good fortune to have one of the most memorable trips I have ever had.

I visited Finland, or Suomi, in Finnish.

It is the ancestral home of my maternal great grandmother and great grandfather. I am a proud Finnish-American by birthright.

Using information shared with me by my biological family, along with the help of strangers as well as just good luck, I found my biological relatives before I Ieft for the country of some of my ancestral kin. We share a common ancestry to small villages in South Ostrobothnia, about 75 kilometers from the city of Vaasa. We are bound and connected by blood.

Over several days, I met many of my kin in different cities. I will be sharing more on that later. Those encounters reaffirmed for me, again, the basic human truth of the critical importance of kin relationships and biological family to our place in the universe. Deprived of that knowledge, we will forever feel adrift. With that knowledge, we feel a connection.

Many thousands of Michigan-born adoptees, like me, are denied this soul-enriching information by discriminatory state laws.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, has done nothing to try and fix this grave injustice after nearly six years in office, though her and her staff are well aware of his legal inequality to thousands of people. There is also indifference visible by public silence to this systemic denial of basic rights by the Democratically controlled state legislature as well.

The only solution to this problem is the passage of lasting legislative reform.

I have been working on this for years, and I’ve reached out repeatedly to lawmakers, the state vital records keepers, and to Gov. Whitmer’s senior staff. They know about the issue, and they will do nothing unless they are forced to do something by residents in Michigan impacted by these laws.

Here are some suggestions I shared earlier this year for lobbying for reform to end this harm. I hope you will support these efforts, even if you are not a Michigan-born adoptee. As my Finnish relatives would say, “Kiitos!”

What the United States can learn from Finland’s famous ‘baby boxes’

Baby box display at the National Museum of Finland, in Helsinki

I am freshly back from a much-appreciated visit to Finland and Nordic countries (Denmark and Sweden briefly too). Did you know that Finland’s famous baby boxes, first created in 1939, are so well-loved by its people they honor it with a display in the National Museum of Finland, in Helsinki? I took this photo there during my visit to the city and its lovely museum. These boxes, with basic infant supplies, are given to new moms, to support them and their infants.

As someone who always looks to policies and upstream solutions to problems, I couldn’t help but compare the way Finland, as a successful nation with a robust public health system, supports new moms. We do not do this in my country.

In the United States we have created state and federal tax incentives to separate families, and even worse, so-called “baby dumpsters” are springing up with bipartisan support in states to coerce the surrendering of newborn infants from vulnerable mothers.

If we considered what Finland does, nationally, we could radically reduce the pressures on these vulnerable U.S. moms from “adoption promoters” to surrender children to strangers/non-biological family. I also recently read the Canadian territory of Nunavut has replicated the Finnish baby box too: “The baby box program started in Finland in 1939, and helped reduce the infant mortality rate to less than two in 1,000, from 90 in 1,000.” By the way, this is true public health in action. 

Additional Resources:

  • Visit the website for Kela, the social insurance institution of Finland, to see what is shared with mothers and families when they receive their baby box.
  • For more research on the Finnish baby box program, I highly recommend the book “Finntopia,” by Danny Dorling and Annika Koljonen, which provides a good historical summary of their history from just before the start of the Winter War and their ongoing use to promote the well-being of Finnish mothers, families, and children.
  • Scotland has also adopted the Finnish baby box model, and research has shown their wide acceptance and many benefits for mothers, families, and kids. See the 2021 publication “Baby Box: evaluation,” published in August 2021 by the Government of Scotland’s Learning Directorate. The National Health Service website also notes the government’s promotion of baby boxes nationally: “The Scottish Government has made a pledge that every baby born in Scotland will be given their own Baby Box. It will help families prepare for the arrival of their baby and contains essential items that you will need in the first 6 months.”