Connecticut birth mothers call on state House to pass SB 972

When Holly Harlow found herself unintentionally pregnant in 1975 and chose to give her newborn daughter up for adoption, she wanted to be shielded from a society that still believed that getting pregnant was just about the worst thing an unmarried woman could do. She never wanted to be shielded from her daughter.

Harlow, 62, of Newington, is one of dozens Connecticut birth mothers, 17 Connecticut women’s organizations and others who are calling on the General Assembly to pass SB 972, An Act Concerning Access to Original Birth Records by Adult Adopted Persons, before the current legislative session ends on Wednesday.

Earlier this week, the state Senate voted 25-11 to pass SB 972, which would restore the rights of adoptees before 1983 to have access to their original birth certificates. Senators opposed to the bill said they worried that opening these sealed records would break a supposed “contract of confidentiality” with birth mothers, although not a single such contract has ever been produced.

However, as Harlow and organizations like the Connecticut chapter of the National Association of Social Workers assert, confidentiality through closed birth records was something that society believed birth mothers needed, and not something that most birth mothers wanted themselves.

“The idea that women like me needed, or still need, protection because we became pregnant when we were unmarried is untrue,” Harlow said. “It’s hard to believe that as late as 1975, people were still stigmatizing unmarried women as being ‘ruined’ and their children as being ‘bastards.’ But that’s a bygone era. And there are women out there suffering PTSD, and other forms of great emotional pain, because they have spent the last 40, 50, 60, 70 years wondering and worrying about the children they relinquished, as well as carrying the shame they were told they brought upon themselves by getting pregnant.”

Also essential to realize is that up until the Connecticut Legislature’s 1975 vote to seal the birth records of all adoptees—even for those who already knew the names of their biological parents—the law guaranteed adult adoptees the right to obtain original birth certificates containing their birth parents’ names as well as their own birth name.
Karen Quesnel, who was 19, unmarried, and living in South Windsor when she gave birth in 1981, said it never occurred to her that giving up her son for adoption meant that her identity would be hidden from him.

“I remember that time so clearly,” said Quesni, now 57. “As soon as I started to show, I was forced to leave my bank job and go on short-term disability, because an unmarried pregnant woman couldn’t be seen in the workplace. It was my first job out of high school. After losing it, I was sent to live at the St. Agnes Home for Unwed Mothers in Wethersfield, and then Catholic Family Services coordinated my adoption. There was so much pressure and coercion for me to give up my son for adoption because I was unmarried. I did give up my son, but I was never promised nor wanted confidentiality. The last thing in the world I wanted was for my son to not be able to find out my identity and to know everything he would one day want to know about his history and birth families.”

Starting in the late 1940s and ending roughly in the mid-1980s, it was common for single women like Quesnel who became pregnant to be sent away, forced to live under assumed names, receive “rehabilitation services” to help ensure they wouldn’t “repeat their mistake,” and then told they had absolutely no choice but to give up their babies--even though this was not legally the truth.
Doctors, nurses and social workers would urge birth mothers during this period to forget the “unfortunate situation” ever occurred and move on with their lives, said Access Connecticut President Karen Caffrey.

But as birth mothers like Diane Hook of Middlebury assert, forgetting has never been possible.

“When I gave up my son in 1961, I was told to forget and never speak about him,” Hook said. “So for 40 years, I was a prisoner of silence. But a mother never forgets. The ‘sin’ of relinquishing a child to adoption is in the shame, fear and lies that have been perpetuated through closed birth records that seal both the adoptee’s and the birth parents’ truths. It’s caused so much pain.”
Citing the chronic physical and mental health issues that too many Connecticut birth mothers particularly have suffered, 27 Connecticut health and human service organizations have stated unwavering support for SB 972, including the Connecticut State Medical Society, the Connecticut Council on Adoption, the Connecticut Alliance of Foster and Adoptive Parents, and the Connecticut chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.

The majority of these women gave birth during a period known as the “Baby Scoop Era” that started shortly after the end if World War II, in which more than 4 million mothers across the U.S. gave up their babies, including approximately 40,000 from Connecticut.

To Connecticut chapter of the National Organization for Women, Connecticut Women’s Education and Legal Fund and the 15 other Connecticut women’s organizations that signed on to a letter supporting SB 972, these statistics are as astounding as the shame cast on these “ruined women.”
“Under the guise of ‘protecting’ women, Connecticut in 1975 created a law that actually is no more than a thinly veiled effort to silence and marginalize women,” said Connecticut NOW President Cindy Wolfe Boynton. “Written by men 55 years ago, this outdated law treats adult women as if they require special legal protections given only to children and the legally incompetent. Keeping this law in place perpetuates the demeaning stereotype that women who relinquished their children are weak and less-than-competent adults who need state protection to handle their most personal choices. It is disrespectful of their autonomy and capacity as adults. Women are capable of managing their personal business and should be treated as full, equal adults under the law.”

Hook makes a more personal plea: “Giving adoptees who desire the right to their original birth certificates and their truths will also give birth mothers like me the right to reclaim our truths as well. I was told to be ashamed that I brought a beautiful life into the world, and to keep it a secret. But secrets cause hurt and shame for all involved. It’s the natural right of every person to be able to say ‘this is me.’ We need the General Assembly to pass SB 972 to undo the anonymity that was forced on birth mothers like me, and to show that the shame put on us by society no longer exists.”