Detroit’s Crittenton General Hospital,shortly after it opened in 1933
Because my website highlights the history of Detroit’s now demolished Crittenton General Hospital, I am contacted by those who surrendered their infants for adoption there and those severed from their families by the adoption system. It was one of the largest adoption mills in the history of U.S. adoption, and I was among the thousands who was cast into the U.S. adoption system by being born and then relinquished in this maternity hospital in the city of Detroit. It was closed in 1974 and demolished a year later.
It is a story that needs greater attention, especially now in Michigan. The more people who engage the media about this, the more they can’t continue to ignore it, which they have done for decades. Facts about that facility can be found in my book and in my article about my birthplace.
On occasion, I will hear from adoptees born at Crittenton hospital, because of my website that many have found. Just before Thanksgiving, a person also born at Crittenton hospital in the 1960s, who was then adopted, contacted me by email. They are apparently following legislative issues in Michigan.
That person wrote to me to tell they opposed the reform. I think they mistakenly thought I was involved in legislative efforts now. As I have noted, my efforts advocating to restore legal rights to Michigan born adoptees have been ongoing for years (if not decades), and I am not affiliated with a new group that emerged this year.
I don’t know why this adoptee wanted me to know they opposed equal rights for adoptees in Michigan, my birth state. Reform could happen in my birth state if the state Legislature passes two bills without further legislative amendments and have both signed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat who has never shared any public statement in support of adoptee rights that I am aware of.
Many adoptees in many legislative debates in different states have opposed state legislative reform and many have also been involved in advancing legislation that created a range of conditions short of legal equality that even permanently prevent some adoptees from ever having access to their original vital records.
One of the most cringeworthy spectacles I recently saw, in April 2023 during a committee hearing before California state lawmakers, was a self-identified adoptee and full-time contract lobbyist who shilled misinformation in support of a dangerously harmful bill still currently under review by the California State Assembly. He fits the classic definition of a “Quisling,” who turns against his own group, who are harmed and are denied legal rights, for his own personal interests.
So, instead of replying to the fellow Crittenton hospital adoptee from my birth era who wrote to me, I decided to publish an open letter to those adoptees who have opposed or who currently oppose adoptee rights and who work against other adoptees who champion reform—in Michigan and other states.
Here it is:
Your story is your story. You have a right to feel what you do and share your story. Go for it, and you are welcome to do that where you want and when you want. That is actually a basic legal right in this country. I’m sure you appreciate that right too, because such rights matter.
If you need to understand what human rights are, however, I would first suggest starting with the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights. As for what anyone thinks and feels about them, those things are actually separate from actual human rights, intrinsic to all. Among those rights are equal treatment by law, for all persons. This is a human right. Period.
My book is available if you need information on the core principles of human rights. My book is fully footnoted to support individual research too. Based on what you said, you are in disagreement with millions of people to be treated equally by law. Therefore, it is not going to be a good use of my time to engage in a further dialogue with you. Finally, I also support your legal right to be treated equally by law too. And I’ve been fighting for decades to ensure you, as an adoptee, have your legal right to your original birth records restored in Michigan. Even for people who don’t want that right for me, I’ll fight for them. That’s because human rights are worth it.
Sincerely,
Rudy Owens, MA, MPH