I’m sharing this important, persuasive opinion piece in the March 26, 2021 edition of The New York Times by Steve Inskeep, adoptee and adoptive father and NPR co-host, about his birth records in the State of Indiana finally being unsealed–after 50 years. Inskeep talks candidly about his lack of interest in his birth story until two things happened: in 2012, he became an adoptive father himself to a daughter from China; and in 2018, the State of Indiana’s adoption law changed, allowing sealed records to be opened. In 2019, Inskeep received details of his birth, including the name of his first mother, where she grew up, and the situation surrounding her pregnancy and his birth.
Now, Inskeep wants every adoptee to have full, legal access to their birth information–information that belongs rightfully to every human being but is still denied to adoptees in many states. Writes Inskeep: “Equality would end an information blackout that robs people of identity. Throughout life, I have met people who spent years searching for birth parents, complicating their struggles to come to terms with their past…. It’s one of those little things that never bother you until it does.”
This is a primary reason why the falsification of documents can be so shattering to families searching for birth mothers in Guatemala. How can you find a person when every piece of paper contains misinformation and lies? As anyone who has hit a brick wall knows, it can be impossible. Which is devastating.
An excerpt from Inskeep’s article:
“It’s been nearly two years since I first read those documents, and I’m still not over it. Knowing that story has altered how I think about myself, and the seemingly simple question of where I’m from. It’s brought on a feeling of revelation, and also of anger. I’m not upset with my biological mother; it was moving to learn how she managed her predicament alone. Her decisions left me with the family that I needed — that I love…. I am angry that for 50 years, my state denied me the story of how I came to live on this earth. Strangers hid part of me from myself.”