Today it’s my
privilege to introduce my friend, julie j. We met at Lost Daughters where we are both
sisters/bloggers. I’m relentlessly drawn
to kind people. Collecting them as friends is sort of an addiction. So that totally explains why I quickly felt an affinity
with julie j. Yes, the small ‘j’s’ are on purpose. No need to correct my
grammar.
Not only is julie j one of the kindest, most helpful people I know --- she's also an absolute treasure trove of information on all things OBC’s,
ABC’s and so much more. And... she agreed to do an interview here today on that
subject. Read more about the amazingness that is julie j in her bio at the end
of this post.
Here we go:
Deanna: Most people have no idea that the majority of
adoptees do not have their actual birth certificate. Could you please explain
to those reading today, what most adoptees have versus the rest of the
population?
julie j: Yes, it would be my pleasure to share information
on this subject, Deanna. Everyone born in the United States has a birth
certificate filled out and placed on file with the state of their birth. This
is a historical document that accurately records the details of their birth as
it actually happened – the who, what, where, when, etc. Everyone is only born
once, so those facts will never, ever change, no matter how many times legal
custody of that child may later change. In that respect, everyone in the
population is all the same so far.

When someone is adopted at any point in their lives, even in
all step-parent adoptions, the court will issue a final adoption decree. This
specifies who the adults are who will now be legally responsible for the child.
The states don’t stop there though, even though they can and should. They
will (unnecessarily) “seal” that individual’s original birth certificate away,
in most cases forever, from everybody, including from the individuals themselves.
That means in most states, the truth is locked away somewhere and nobody is
generally allowed to access it. The state will then create a fake, or “amended”
certificate that the individual will be forced to use for all purposes for the
rest of their life.
How is this document different from their real one? Apart
from the filing dates, these are designed to resemble real birth certificates.
The fake, or “amended” birth certificates, filed months to years after the
original ones, claim that the adopting parents gave birth, and they are listed
as the mother and father on the amended birth certificate. All of their
names, ages, and location details are entered in the places where the natural
parents were. The adopting parents have the option of changing any or all parts
of the child’s name too, and most (again, unnecessarily) do that. In some
cases, places and dates are changed as well. Then the state registrar signs
his/her signature at the bottom, “verifying” that the fake one is the exact and
true record of the birth and affixes the official state seal to the document.
(If anyone else committed that type of felony forgery, they would be facing
jail time). Because there can only be one “official” record of birth on file
for anyone at any given time, this is what all adopted adults still have today.
To sum it up, the original identity and roots are wiped out, and what
adoptees have left is a lie, or commonly referred to as “legal fiction.”
Deanna: Why is it so significant that adoptees have their
original birth certificate?