Adoptee Access to Original Birth Certificates and the Politics of Birthmotherhood in Ohio, 1963-2014

Dissertation

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

Katherine Grace Livingston, M.A.

Graduate Program in Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies

The Ohio State University

2016

Dissertation Committee:

Dr. Cynthia Burack, Advisor

Dr. Wendy Smooth

Dr. Mary Thomas

Katherine Grace Livingston

2016

Abstract

The experiences of women who place children for adoption have been historically excluded from mainstream and feminist scholarship on reproductive politics. Similarly, scholars of adoption have insufficiently accounted for the impact of contemporary political movements for and against abortion on the discourses, institutions and relations of power that shape the experiences of these women, popularly known as birthmothers.

Bridging that gap in scholarship, this dissertation addresses the ways in which political struggles over abortion rights influence adoption law and shape the way birthmothers are represented in public policy discussions. This dissertation project investigates the legislative and political history of major policy debates in the State of Ohio from 1963 to

2014 concerning the rights of adult adoptees to access their original birth certificates.

Situating these debates in Ohio within a larger body of scholarship on U.S. adoption law and policy, I map a legislative and political history of pro-life interventions in this area of adoption policy. I examine this history with an eye toward how ideas about birthmothers’ sexual, reproductive and maternal lives are consolidated into political narratives about birthmothers. In particular, I am interested in the ways in which policy actors develop arguments against adoptee access that rely on political narratives about birthmothers’ identities, experiences and agency.

Dedication

For my son, Andy

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Acknowledgments

My greatest debt of gratitude for this project is owed to my advisor, Dr. Cynthia Burack, for her unfailing support throughout my six years at The Ohio State University. It is simply impossible to inventory the ways in which she has advocated for me as a graduate student and encouraged me toward the completion of this project. For her keen editorial sense, her humor and compassion, I am grateful.

Members of several academic communities made meaningful contributions to this research. For their guidance and support as members of my dissertation and candidacy exam committees, I thank Dr. Mary Thomas, Dr. Wendy Smooth and Professor Katherine

Hunt Federle. I thank the faculty and staff of the Department of Women’s, Gender &

Sexuality Studies at The Ohio State University, including Dr. Jill Bystdyzienski, Lynaya

Elliot, Lexie Beer, Andy Cavins and Tess Pugsley, for their pragmatic assistance throughout this project. I am especially grateful to Dr. Jill Bystdyzienski and Lynaya

Elliot, who went to great lengths in order to support my maternity leave in 2014 and subsequent return to the graduate program. Dr. Michelle Gibson, Dr. Amy Lind and Dr.

Deb Meem of the University of Cincinnati played important roles in the early development of this project. Their enthusiasm for the questions explored in my M.A. project inspired my resolve to continue this work. Sam Affholter and Kara Ford took on the unenviable task of assisting me in the formatting of my citations. I could not have

made it to the finish line without their labor and editorial assistance. Finally, I am indebted to Dr. Marianne Novy at University of Pittsburgh and Professor Elizabeth

Samuels at University of Baltimore School of Law for their support in my development as a scholar in the field of adoption studies.

I could not have completed this work without the encouragement and support that I received from my larger community of colleagues and allies. To my graduate school colleagues, Dr. Jackie Arcy, Dr. Wonda Baugh, Dr. Victoria Genetin and Krista Benson, thank you for being my cheerleaders and accountability partners. For her friendship and guidance, both academic and personal, I’m grateful to Dr. Mary Thomas. I met Alex

Kennedy-Grant when this experience was just beginning, and I’ve drawn strength from his encouragement for over a decade.

I received support for this project, both material and emotional, from many people in

Ohio’s adoption community. Betsie Norris, a mentor and friend, inspired me with her tenacity. She gave me an incredible opportunity to learn from her work as an activist and make a contribution of my own. To Marley Greiner, I owe an enormous debt for her willingness to share her understanding of Ohio history and keep me informed of developments in Ohio adoption politics. Thank you to Dawn Friedman for being a sounding board and sharing your insights. Finally, I am grateful for the friendship,

compassion and resolve of the birth parents that joined me in creating and sustaining

Ohio Birthparent Group. Margaret Sabec, Sara Blubaugh, Margaret Wilmeth, Stephanie

Olsen, Jaime Robinson, Carmel Glassmeyer, and Joy Deken have enriched this project and my life in too many ways to count. I am particularly grateful to Margaret Sabec for her unfailing support of my family and our birthparent community.

To Nancy Taylor, Mary Chellis, Shawn and Ariana, you four inspired this project from the beginning. It is my hope that this work contributes to the broadening of your future possibilities. To my grandma, Barbara Chellis, thank you for inspiring my passion for politics and my commitment to social justice. To my parents Susan and Rob Livingston and my siblings, Stephanie, David and Mae, you’ve instilled in me a great respect for the importance of connection and family. This project emerges from the understanding that some relationships, like ours, just cannot be replaced. It should go without saying that this project would not be completed without your support (and free babysitting).

To David Brock, I am profoundly grateful to share this experience with you. Thank you for steadying me, making me laugh, and being a true partner in our shared commitment to our son, Andy.

To Sam Affholter, I am in constant awe of how fortunate I am to experience the everydayness of partnership and parenthood with you. Thank you for your generosity, patience, love, brilliant ideas, wit, wits’ end, and doing all the dishes. Throughout this process, you have cared for me like no other.

To my son Sycamore Maple Affholter Livingston, our life together is the great gift I’ve waited for. You are far beyond my most ambitious and hopeful imaginations.

And finally, to my son Andy Hoben, thank you for awakening me to motherhood, feminist politics, and purpose. No one has shaped this project more than you. Your bright light guides me, and I hope someday that I have the opportunity to share with you all that you have been to me.

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Vita

8 September 1981 Born, Columbus, Ohio, USA

2007 B.A. Government, Smith College

2010 M.A. Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies, University of Cincinnati

Publications

Livingston, Kate. “Birthmotherhood and Reproductive Justice.” Journal of the Alliance for the Study of Adoption of Culture 4.1. (2014) 159-169.

Livingston, Kate. “International Adoption as Humanitarian Aid: The Discursive and Material Production of the ‘Social Orphan’ in Haitian Disaster Relief.” Situating Intersectionality: Politics, Policy and Power. Edited by Angelia R. Wilson, 89-106. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillian, 2013.

Livingston, Kate. “The Birthmother Dilemma: Resisting Feminist Exclusions in the Study of Adoption.” Adoption and Mothering. Edited by Frances Latchford, 58-72. Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2012.

Fields of Study

Major Field: Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies

Critical Adoption Studies Adoption Policy & Practice in the U.S. Reproductive & Sexual Politics

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Table of Contents

Abstract………………………………………………………………………..ii

Dedication…………………………………………………………………….iii

Acknowledgments…………………………………………………………….iv

Vita…………………………………………………………………………... viii

Table of Contents………………………………………………………….… ix

List of Abbreviations ………………………………………..…………….....xii

Chapter 1: Introduction…………………………………………………….... 1

Project Overview and Scholarly Significance………………….….…5

Why Ohio?...... 9

Project Design……………………………………………..…………13

Defining Birthmother……………………………………………...…16

Literatures Informing this Project……………………………………18

Chapter Organization………………………………………….…..…23

Chapter 2: Placing Ohio in Context:

Adoption Law, Policy and Activism in the United States……………...... … 26

Race, Sexuality and ‘Illegitimate’ Motherhoods……………….……35

The Shift Toward Sealed Records……………………..…………….37

Open Records and Adoptee Rights Activism………………………. 39

Adoptee and Birthparent Activism: 1970-1990……………………..41

Adoptee and Birthparent Activism: 1990-2000……………………50

Chapter 3: Early Pro-Life Interventions:

The Political History of Adoptee Access, 1963-2007…...... ……54

H.B. 202: Brad Norris and the Sealing of OBCs in Ohio…………56

Cultivating Influence: Dr. Jack Willke…………………..…..……58

Ohio Adoptees Mobilize for Access…………………..………..…61

Birthmother Privacy Narratives……………………….……..……64

Conclusion…………………………………………………...……69

Chapter 4: Gender, Sexuality and Race in Dr. Jack Willke’s

Sex Education and Anti-Abortion Curriculum…………………….…..…72

Representing Birthmothers…………………...……………..……76

The Wonder of Sex…………………………………………….…77

Heternormativity and The Adoption Imperative…………...…….84

Generous Women, Murderous Mothers…………………….……86

Protecting the Heteropatriarchal Family…………………………90

Conclusion……………………………………………..…………93

Chapter 5: Current Pro-Life Interventions:

Adoption Equity Ohio’s Campaign for Adoptee Access, 2008-2014....…95

Re-Calibrating the Effort ………………………………..………100

Examining Precedent, Developing a New Vehicle for Access….104

Adoption Equity Ohio……………………………………………111

Things Fall Apart: Elections, Indictments and

the Trouble With Sponsors……………………...……..…………117

The Logic of Adoptee Access……………………………………124

Leveraging Connections…………………………….……………131

A New Opportunity: The (Momentary) Rise of

Ohio Pro-Life Action……………………………………...…..…135

Re-Engaging ORTL..…………………………...………..………138

Selective Sponsorship and the Important of Political Climate…..140

ROAR 2013 Campaign for S.B. 23 and H.B. 61………………...147

Conclusion…………………………………………..……………154

Chapter 6: Conclusion…………………………………………..………..156

Notes…………………………………………..…………………………162

References……………………………………………..…...…………….183

List of Abbreviations

AAC ……………………………………………………...American Adoption Congress

AEO………………………………………………………..………Adoption Equity Ohio

ALMA………………………………………….Adoptees’ Liberty Movement Association

ANC…………………………………………………………Adoption Network Cleveland

BN……………………………………………..………………..………….Bastard Nation

CUB……………………………………………..…………Concerned United Birthparents

CPF…………………………………….…………………..……Contact Preference Form

CWLA……………………………………………..……Child Welfare League of America

H.B………………….……………………………………………………..……House Bill

NCFA………………..………………………………..……National Council for Adoption

OBC…………………………….…………………………..……Original Birth Certificate

ORTL……………………………..………………………………..……Ohio Right to Life

S.B…………………………………………..……………………………..……Senate Bill

SUB………………...………………………………..……Substitute (as in Substitute Bill)

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Chapter 1:

Introduction

In 1994, I sat in the front seat of an old Lincoln Towncar and listened to my Aunt

Carolyn tell me a secret. The youngest of my grandmother’s ten children, Carolyn was just nine years older than I. She had a habit of transgressing the generational divide that separated me, the oldest grandchild on my mother’s side, from the adults in my maternal family. On this day in the Ohio summer before I started 8th grade, she told me about two missing children. I sat in silence as she talked about a boy born to my Aunt Nancy in

1986 and a girl born to my Aunt Mary in 1988 who were each placed for adoption at birth. Their absence was concealed by tacit code of silence among the adults in my family. Carolyn explained that the adoptions were closed, meaning that Nancy and Mary had no knowledge of where their children were or who had adopted them. My mind raced as I mapped the birth order of my generation of family. Knowledge of their absence wrenched apart the memories I had of growing up alongside my younger cousins. I imagined pictures of us at family holidays with dark voids where, in another life, these cousins might have stood. In the years that followed, I rarely spoke about these cousins but they were often on my mind. I took note of their birthdays and privately

acknowledged them each year, wondering if my Aunt Mary and Aunt Nancy were doing the same. What was it like for them, the mothers who gave their children away?

Like my aunts before me, I was a young single woman working my way through college when I became pregnant. Pulled out of sex education classes by my parents in high school, I didn’t recognize the signs of my pregnancy until my friends suggested it as an explanation for my many physical symptoms. At the time, I shared in my Roman

Catholic family’s belief that contraception was immoral and refused to use birth control out of respect for Church teaching. I hadn’t quite figured out how to mute my sexual desires in similar accordance. It had been six years since I learned of my aunts’ decisions to place their children for adoption and while I didn’t know much about their pregnancies, I knew enough to understand what must have been expected of them. Our family’s brand of religious and political conservatism frowned upon single parenthood and abortion. Single pregnancy was discussed as a tragic moral failing that must be responsibly mitigated. Growing up embracing those same beliefs, I had a strong sense throughout my own pregnancy that I was obligated to join my aunts in our secret family legacy. At the time, I thought that I was making a choice- my choice- to provide a life for my son that was compatible with my religious and political values.

The social, cultural and political landscape of adoption in United States had changed dramatically since my aunts first navigated its terrain in the 1980s. Nationally, academics and adoption professionals started to explore the benefits of information disclosure and post-adoption contact between sending and receiving families. Unlike my aunts, I was 2

permitted to elect an open arrangement that allowed me to have contact with my son after his adoption. By the time I placed my son for adoption in 2001, adoption law and practice had adjusted significantly in many States to make open adoptions not only possible, but increasingly popular.1

While legal options expanded for women considering adoption, those who already placed children for adoption remained largely subject to the state laws in place at the time of pregnancy and birth. This disparity frequently extends to the rights of the children placed for adoption, even when those children reach legal adulthood. One of the biggest disparities resulting from the shift toward information disclosure in adoption pertains to state regulation of birth certificates. Regulated and issued at the state level, birth certificates function as the official public record of a person's age, birth date, place of birth, legal and/or biological parentage and other demographic markers used by vital statisticians. Since the 1940s, most children born and adopted in the United States are issued two different birth certificates: an original certificate that is issued at birth and an amended version that is issued after adoption finalization.2 Today, these amended birth certificates are generally similar in all respects to the original birth certificate (OBC) with one notable exception. The names of a child’s adoptive parents are listed in place of the names of their biological parents.3 Adopted persons historically had legal access to both birth certificates and other records pertaining to their adoption, but shifting trends in adoption during the mid 20th century led 48 states, including Ohio, to pass laws that restricted access to the originals.4

For most people, the state regulation of adoptees’ birth certificates might be a rather mundane subject of inquiry. But for my aunts and I, this area of vital records law represents a critical difference in our experiences as Ohio women who placed children for adoption. As a part of the legal process of surrendering my parental rights in 2001, I was required to fill out a disclosure statement to authorize or deny my son the ability to access identifying information about me contained in his adoption record held by Ohio

Department of Health, Office of Vital Statistics in Columbus, OH.5 This disclosure statement, often referred to as a disclosure veto for its ability to deny access, was effective in Ohio starting in 1996. Because I answered in the affirmative, my son can request and receive a copy of his full record from Vital Statistics when he reaches the age of 21 (or 18 with signed permission of his adoptive parents).6 His full record will contain both his original and amended birth certificates.

In 2007, I learned that my cousins had markedly different levels of access to their Vital

Statistics records. Born and adopted in Ohio in 1986, my Aunt Nancy’s son was barred from accessing his original birth certificate by an Ohio law enacted in 1964. Although my

Aunt Mary’s daughter was adopted in Ohio in 1986, I learned that she was born in West

Virginia. West Virginia’s state laws similarly prevented her from accessing the original birth certificate held by that state. Both of my aunts were under the impression that their children were legally permitted to access information on the OBCs about their biological

family, should they be inclined to request it. They were alarmed that these institutional barriers existed for their children, who by then had reached the age of majority.

At the time I discovered these differences, I knew nothing of the history and politics that produced them. This project began as a simple attempt to understand the way my aunts and I were situated differently relative to Ohio adoption law. For my aunts, I hoped to uncover a viable route to information about what happened to their children. For myself, I wanted to understand the social, historical, and political contexts that gave birth, so to speak, to our three adoption decisions. Although this project begins with the story of my family, its significance for the study of adoption exceeds the personal questions that first motivated my inquiries.

Project Overview & Scholarly Significance

In nearly every state, debates over access to birth certificates are historic battlegrounds within adoption law and policy that have growing intersections with the politics of abortion in the United States. Beginning in the 1970s, grassroots activists have pressed state legislatures to allow adult adoptees direct access to their OBCs in states where sealed records laws have been instituted. As I will discuss in Chapter 2, proponents of adoptee access commonly argue that sealed records laws are a violation of adoptees’ civil rights. That is, adopted persons are unjustly barred from obtaining the public record of their birth (containing critical information germane to their identity and medical history) based on their adopted status. Adoptees and women who placed children for adoption,

popularly known as birthmothers, generally lead these proponents groups. These groups argue that sealed records laws are vestiges of oppressive social policies that mandated secrecy in adoption and stigmatized unwed mothers and adopted children as illegitimate.

Opponents, on the other hand, consist primarily of interest groups that frame the issue not as one of adoptee rights, but as a threat to birthmothers’ privacy rights. Historically, some of the most powerful and vocal opponents taking up this position are pro-life organizations not otherwise known for their defense of privacy rights.7 In many states, opponent coalitions have included national state and local chapters of Right to Life,

Christian Coalition, American Life League, American Center for Law and Justice,

Catholic Conferences of Bishops, and the Eagle Forum. Pro-life groups have advanced privacy rights arguments in several ways. First, these groups argue that sealed records laws were originally instituted for the purpose of protecting birthmothers’ privacy interests. Second, they contend that birthmothers were promised and/or guaranteed perpetual anonymity by virtue of placing a child for adoption under a sealed records regime. Allowing adopted adults retrospective access to their birth or adoption record is therefore construed as a violation of birthmothers’ legal right to privacy. Third, pro-life groups argue that if states were to unseal these records, abortion rates would increase because pregnant women would turn to abortion without the anonymity allegedly secured by sealed records. The implication is that if women have the ability to obtain an undisclosed abortion, they should also have a legal right to an undisclosed and anonymous adoption. Finally, opponents argue that sealed records laws also protect the institution of adoption from policy changes that might undermine prospective

birthparents’ or prospective adoptive parents’ faith in the system. In these opponent arguments, adoption is framed as a third reproductive option (along with parenting and abortion) and sealed records laws protect birthmothers’ rights to choose within the institution of adoption. As such, privacy rights arguments and political narratives of birthmothers as choice-makers are two of the most powerful organizing frameworks in this highly contested terrain of adoption politics:

“Right to Life advocates see such invasions of privacy as a clear violation of a

woman’s right to privacy and a gross miscarriage of justice.”

- Right to Life of Greater Cincinnati Newsletter, March 1992.

“A birthparent should have the choice and control over the situation. To invade

their privacy is to deny them that choice and control.”

- Testimony of Columbus adoption facilitator Nancy Burley in opposition

to H.B. 256, August 22, 1990.8

Through powerful lobbying efforts in many states, pro-life opponents have been incredibly successful in shaping legislative opinion such that birthmother privacy is considered the primary stake in these debates. However, the legislative and political history of sealed records laws does not indicate that birthparents privacy rights were ever a primary consideration in states’ decisions to implement these restrictions.9 Legal scholars have refuted the claim that that sealed records laws protect or guarantee anonymity in the adoption process.10 Scholars have also argued that domestic adoption

policies and practices in the United States throughout the 20th century were decidedly disempowering for birthparents.11 How then, did the politics of privacy and abortion ever become implicated in these debates?

My central argument in this project is that state legislative debates in Ohio over adoptee access to original birth certificates have played an important role in shaping this particular intersection of adoption and abortion politics. This dissertation investigates the legislative and political history of major policy debates in the State of Ohio from 1963 to

2014 concerning the rights of adult adoptees to access their OBCs. Situating the debates in Ohio within a larger body of scholarship on U.S. adoption law and policy, I map a political history of interventions in this area of adoption policy by pro-life organizations in Ohio. I examine this history with an eye toward theorizing how ideas about birthmothers’ sexual, reproductive and maternal lives are consolidated into political narratives about birthmothers. In particular, I am interested in the ways in which policy actors develop arguments for and against adoptee access that rely on political narratives about birthmothers’ identities, experiences and agency.

By tracing the legislative and political histories of these two issues in Ohio, this project will help illustrate the institutional and discursive processes through which opponents of abortion exert influence on adoption policy in Ohio. It will also illustrate the role that political narratives about birthmothers play in these processes. Additionally, it will suggest that such influence is gained at the expense of birthmothers’ participation in

adoption policy-making, while framing birthmothers as the beneficiaries of policy interventions.

In this project, I make the following scholarly contributions that are unique to this study:

First, I map the legislative and political history of the laws in Ohio that regulate adoptees’ access to their original birth certificates. Second, I demonstrate that anti-abortion leaders in Ohio have played an important role in forging an intersection between adoption and abortion politics through the debates over adoptee access. Third, I demonstrate that the intersection of adoption and abortion politics relies heavily on political narratives that cast women who place children for adoption as birthmothers. I theorize birthmother as a regulatory construct shaped by intersecting ideologies of race, class, gender and sexuality.

Why Ohio?

My focus on Ohio emerges from my observation that the open records debate in my home State has larger representative significance in the macro-level context of adoption politics in the United States. The sealing of adoptees’ OBCs in Ohio in 1963 followed a mid- 20th century trend in national adoption politics that saw 48 of 50 states ultimately pass sealed records laws. Most of these states adopted sealed records legislation in the

1940’s and 1950’s.12 Thus, Ohio’s law is grounded in a larger historical context, both in the chronology of its legislative history and in the terms of OBC access that this legislation institutionalized.

Further, in most states where sealed records laws have been challenged, pro-life organizations frequently emerge as the most vocal and powerful opposition to adoptee access initiatives.13 Ohio has been an important site in the development of key organizations and leaders in the national movements against abortion rights. Cincinnati natives Dr. Jack and Mrs. Barbara Willke played formative roles in the development of the national Right to Life movement, a network of anti-abortion organizations that has exerted significant influence on abortion politics in the United State since its founding in

1968. As Catholic medical professionals and sex education advocates, Dr. & Mrs. Willke are credited with developing the educational methodologies of the early pro-life movement through their prolific publishing and distribution efforts.14 Dr. Willke’s direct involvement in Ohio adoption legislation while working as a prominent leader of

Cincinnati Right to Life, Ohio Right to Life, National Right to Life Committee and the

International Right to Life Federation is critically important to consider for tracing the origins of pro-life interventions in adoption politics. While I don’t claim to position Dr.

Willke as the genesis of all opposition narratives in this debate, I do argue that his personal and political ideologies are replicated nationally throughout Right to Life political platforms on adoptee access to OBCs. As such, attention to the Dr. Willke’s role in the Ohio access debate may be fruitful in mapping a genealogy of pro-life opposition to adoptee access in a national context.

Second, I am a native of Columbus and am directly involved in grassroots organizing and state-level policy making around issues of adoption and abortion in Ohio. As a former youth activist for non-profit anti-abortion organizations including Ohio Right to Life, I was able to build on personal relationships and community connections to leaders in these organizations in the discovery phase of my research for this project. My family has a long history of pro-life political involvement in Central Ohio and, as a consequence, I volunteered at Ohio Right to Life from the time I was in early middle school through the year after my son’s adoption in 2001. In doing so, I joined many members of my family who have worked for Ohio Right to Life and its affiliates as both employees and volunteers. In fact, my decision to place my son for adoption was, in many ways, inspired by my commitment from an early age to pro-life political ethics. As one who has lived out a popular pro-life ethic by “giving life” to my son, I hold a partial insider status within the organization that I now research. My fluency in the language and culture of pro-life activism has also provided me unusual levels of access to leaders within the pro- life movement. However, as a birthmother who now identifies as feminist and who actively works on adoptee access legislation, I also occupy a marginal location in this community and navigate these spaces as a partial outsider.

Third, I am directly involved in community organizing with Ohio birthmothers as the founder and director of Ohio Birthparent Group, the only independent birthparent-led post adoption support organization in Ohio. Through my work at Ohio Birthparent

Group, I have significant knowledge of Ohio adoption law and direct access to private

sector professionals and government employees in the fields of child welfare and adoption. As a leader of Ohio Birthparent Group, I am involved in a wide range of policy discussions, including but not limited to a statewide advisory taskforce on postadoption contact agreements (legally enforceable open adoptions) and Ohio Adoption Planning

Group, an influential working group of state, county and non-profit adoption service providers and advocacy organizations.

Fourth, my investigation into the legislative and political history of this issue took place within the context of a renewed commitment by adoptee access activists in Ohio to initiate access reform legislation. While writing and researching this project, I concurrently worked with adoption activists organized by Adoption Network Cleveland

(ANC) to develop adoptee access legislation for consideration in the 2010 state legislative session. 15 From 2009-2015, I served on ANC’s public policy committee and as the legislative strategist and volunteer coordinator of Adoption Equity Ohio (AEO), an informal political interest group that developed Ohio’s first successful campaign to reinstate adoptee access to original birth certificates. These experiences have given breadth and depth to my analysis, as I have gained 1) first-hand experience negotiating

State legislative processes 2) insider access to and perspectives on the contemporary political debates and 3) an opportunity to see how political, legal and discursive histories of sealed records are manifested through contemporary debates on adoptee access.

Finally, I am one of three women in my family to place a child for adoption in the State of Ohio. My own experience as a birthmother is shaped by the laws and political history of this state, uniquely positioning me to conduct this research. Paula Moya writes that,

“the key to claiming epistemic authority for people who have been oppressed in a particular way stems from the acknowledgement that they have experiences- experiences that people who have not been oppressed in the same way usually lack- that can provide them with information we all need to understand how hierarchies of race, class, gender and sexuality operate to uphold existing regimes of power in our society.” 16 While I do not claim a universalized experience among the many women over many generations who have experienced birthmotherhood in Ohio, like Moya and others, I argue that exploring this history from a birthmother standpoint contains a unique opportunity for producing a more sophisticated understanding of the dynamics of power and influence in these debates. These dimensions of my social location uniquely position me to conduct this research and ground the epistemic value of this work.

Project Design

The methodological approach I use in this project brings together participant observation, in-depth interviewing, content analysis, and textual analysis of a range of diverse primary and secondary sources. Throughout the course of this project, I identified key policy actors in Ohio’s adoptee access debate through initial archival research into the legislative and political history of Ohio’s sealed records laws. This initial archival research was conducted at the Ohio Historical Society, Adoption Network Cleveland

archives, The Supreme Court of Ohio Law Library, and online legislative and news databases including Hannah News Report, Ohio Capital Connection and Ohio Legislative

Services Commission. From 2009 to 2013, I conducted semi-structured interviews with policy actors including Dr. Jack Willke, Betsie Norris and Marley Greiner. These interviews were designed to help flesh out a chronology of legislative events. They also provided insight into the interviewees’ perceptions of the theoretical issues and political dynamics of adoptee access in Ohio.

From 2007-2013, I worked alongside Adoption Network Cleveland Executive Director

Betsie Norris, lobbyist Aaron Ockerman, and core team members of Adoption Equity

Ohio (AEO) to research and develop new adoptee access legislation. As legislative strategist for AEO, I worked with members of the Ohio General Assembly to develop bill language for what would ultimately be introduced in 2012 as House Bill 61 and Senate

Bill 23. Along with the other members of AEO, I developed and implemented our successful public relations campaign. Thus, data from my analysis is also drawn from various forms of participant observation, including government lobbying and political organizing. My work with AEO put me in constant conversation with key policy actors such as Mike Gonadakis, (Executive Director of Ohio Right to Life), Peggy Hartshorne

(president of Heartbeat International), Jaime Miracle (Legislative Director for NARAL

Ohio), employees of state agencies, lawyers, lobbyists, adoption & child welfare advocates, and members of the adoption community around the state who were involved in the contemporary adoptee access debates. Primary source materials including

committee minutes, drafts of policy recommendations, campaign materials and email communications are sourced from my own archives.

I utilize content and textual analysis of interview transcripts, primary source and secondary sources including: Ohio Revised Code, legislative committee meeting minutes, public testimonies, General Assembly voting records, transcripts of legislative hearings, bill analyses, non-profit newsletters, newspaper articles from print and online sources, in addition to Dr. Willke’s sex education and anti-abortion publications. Through content and textual analysis of such sources, I evaluate 1) how adoption is articulated in relation to abortion within open records policy-making in Ohio and 2) how birthmothers’ identities, choices, rights and best interests are constructed in relation to ideologies of gender, race, class and sexuality. My evaluations of these relationships draw from critical standpoint methodologies, which in this project by this author, takes as a starting point for analysis the impact of these policy debates for our understanding of birthmothers. My analysis also 1) traces the influence of Ohio’s debates in informing and structuring similar debates in other states, 2) makes connections between Ohio initiatives and shifts in political culture at the national level (particularly regarding reproductive rights and social welfare policy) and 3) suggest that what happens in Ohio has great future import for birthmothers in the United States.

Defining Birthmother

The terms birthmother, birth mother, natural mother, first mother, original mother, and biological mother are just some of the many the terms within popular and professional adoption discourses that gesture, presumably, toward a single referent: the woman who places her child for adoption. The term birthmother is arguably one of the most contested categories in adoption, both for its inability to mark a discrete category of experience and for the ways it is produced through competing norms of race, class, gender and sexuality.

In this project, I will refer to women who have voluntarily elected, been coerced or forced to legally terminate their parental rights through adoption as birthmothers. My use of this term is decidedly narrow. While most adoptions in the United States are stepparent and second parent adoptions, my use of birthmother references a narrow experience in the larger landscape of adoption in the United States.17 Birthmothers living outside of the

United States who place children for adoption via intra or inter-country adoptions may meet this definition but are not the subjects of this study. I recognize that there is little consensus regarding appropriate and accurate terminology in reference to these women.

My use of the term is intend to assign no privileged value to this particular iteration. I choose to use it only because it is arguably the most culturally recognizable term used in law, adoption practice and popular media. For context, I briefly outline the origins and contemporary uses of this term and explore how racialized, gendered and classed representations of motherhood help shape the popular construction of birthmother in the

United States.

In contemporary adoption discourse, the term birthmother is used to describe a woman who has been separated from a child that she gave birth to through so-called voluntary adoption or through the court-ordered termination of her parental rights. Generally, birthparent is considered synonymous with biological parent, but is distinguished from other parents (biological or otherwise) by the fact of adoption separation. Although a full genealogy of the term has yet to be developed, some observers have traced its earliest use to the work of Pearl S. Buck, an American novelist, adoptive mother and high profile figure in the promotion of adoption throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Buck published several articles that deployed “birth mother” to describe unmarried mothers as well as the biological mother of the foster child she was unable to adopt.18 The term was popularized throughout the 1970s through a series of clinical studies on adoption, the development of

“Positive Adoption Language” practices in social work, and the formation of the first national birthmother activist organization, Concerned United Birthparents.19

Thoroughly incorporated into adoption policy narratives and popular media representations, the term is now the most culturally recognizable signifier in the U.S. for women who have surrendered children for adoption. Increasingly, birthmother is also used to describe pregnant women who are merely investigating or considering adoption, although many adoption professionals and activists insist that birthmother should exclusively be reserved for women who have fully surrendered their parental rights.20

Birth as an adjective is also used by some child welfare agencies to distinguish parents with open child protection cases from foster, respite and adoptive families.

Literatures Informing This Project

The experiences of women who choose the adoption option have been historically excluded from mainstream and feminist scholarship on reproductive politics. Similarly, scholars of adoption have insufficiently accounted for the impact of contemporary political movements for and against abortion on the discourses, institutions and relations of power that shape the experiences of birthmotherhood. Bridging that gap in scholarship, this project brings together feminist literatures on motherhood, reproductive rights, adoption and public policy to consider what I call the politics of birthmotherhood in Ohio in relation to larger political struggles over women’s reproductive rights in the

U.S. I define the politics of birthmotherhood as struggles over definition and interpretation of birthmother identity, agency and experience. This framework considers politics of birthmotherhood as mediated through larger political debates over motherhood, family, sexuality and reproduction.

Feminist Scholarship of Motherhood and Reproduction

Feminist scholarship on motherhood and reproduction has not historically taken up birthmotherhood as matter of feminist concern. However, they provide important theoretical interventions that can serve as a basis for theorizing birthmotherhood in relation to reproductive politics in the U.S. This body of literature will be used to theorize birthmotherhood as a cultural construct that is informed by intersecting and often paradoxical ideologies of race, class, sexuality and the gendered body.

Feminist scholars of motherhood have theorized motherhood as a social institution shaped by cultural representations, regulatory discourses, political ideologies and economies of value.21 Motherhood and family are theorized by feminist scholars as gendered and heterosexualized constructs in which ‘good’ motherhood and ‘real’ families are linked to norms of hegemonic white femininity and the interests of capitalist patriarchy.22 Scholars in this field have argued that while all women are subject to forms of sexual and reproductive regulation under patriarchy, racism, heterosexism and classism subject different groups of women to different norms of motherhood and family.23

Feminist scholarship on motherhood and reproductive politics explore the regulation of women’s sexuality and reproductive capacity, suggesting that control of pregnancy and its outcomes are central to the maintenance of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.

These scholars argue that law and social policy are particularly important sites of institutional regulation.24 For example, disparate public policy approaches to the social

‘problem’ of illegitimacy, female sexuality and unwed parenthood are linked to the sexual, gendered and racialized regulation of women.25 While this literature primarily focuses on laws and policies related to abortion, contraception, sterilization and social welfare, I draw from these works to situate adoption as an additional mechanism through which birthmothers’ sexual, reproductive and maternal lives are regulated.

In light of this institutional regulation, early feminist scholarship and activism in the field of reproductive politics emphasized, as an organizing principle, the ability of a woman to control when and if she had children.26 Scholars argue that feminist legal interventions grounded in the right to choose enjoy considerable traction in American jurisprudence and form the constitutional foundation of reproductive privacy law. However, contemporary scholars of reproductive rights now argue that grounding women’s claims to reproductive autonomy in a right to choose has overlooked the material conditions, institutions and social norms that shape women’s choices.27 Women of color scholarship, in particular, emphasizes that the right to abortion and contraception reflects white, middle-class priorities and ignores the ways reproductive regulation is racialized.28

Further, choice-based frameworks are vulnerable to normative co-optation and skirt important questions about the conditions of choosing and the outcomes of choices.29

Scholars have explored how broader theories of reproductive justice, driven by women of color critique, may provide a better conceptual foundation for women’s claims to bodily integrity and reproductive autonomy. These approaches insist that “social, economic and political power and resources” are necessary conditions for women to be able to make decisions about their lives, not in isolation, but as a part of broader communities.30 I will draw from these shifts in reproductive rights scholarship to theorize the ways in which adoption policy arguments grounded in choice may similarly obscure the social, political and economic conditions of birthmother in Ohio.

U.S. Adoption History and Critical Adoption Studies

Critical feminist scholarship on adoption makes an important contribution to the understanding of adoption law and practice as intimately connected to the racialized and classed regulation of women’s sexuality. This scholarship considers the evolution of

American adoption policy throughout the 20th century as a form of social engineering linked to evangelical reform movements, the professionalization of medicine, psychology and social work, eugenic discourses, and the politics of race, among other factors.31

Scholars have historicized the development of adoption law in the United States and theorized adoption as a normalizing and regulatory social institution that legitimates some motherhoods, intimacies and families through the exclusion of others.32

While these works focus on the sexual and maternal regulation of women through adoption, few works explore adoption explicitly as reproductive regulation. Notable exceptions are the works of Rickie Solinger and Annette Appell. Both have written explicitly on the intersections of birthmotherhood and reproductive rights, although neither have addressed the research addressed in this dissertation. Solinger has documented the marginalization of early birthparent activists within mainstream feminist movements for reproductive rights throughout the 1960 and 1970s.33 She includes birthmothers in a larger critique of reproductive choice frameworks and highlights parallels between the marginalization of women of color and birthmothers within mainstream feminist movements for reproductive rights. Legal scholar Annette Appell has explored the ways in which pregnant minors are situated differently in relation to

adoption law and abortion law.34 While minors are presumed incapable of consenting to abortion (or sex and contraception) without parental consent or judicial oversight, pregnant minors are permitted to consent to adoption. Solinger and Appell’s works are useful in theorizing the ways in which birthmothers are implicated in struggles over reproductive rights and situated across the legal frameworks of reproductive rights law and family law, but are insufficiently accounted for in all of these areas.

Historian E. Wayne Carp’s influential publications, Family Matters: Secrecy and

Disclosure in the History of Adoption (1998) and Adoption Politics: Bastard Nation &

Ballot Initiative 58 (2004), are among the only scholarly works to document pro-life legislative interventions in adoption politics. Carp’s research explores the history of sealed adoption laws in the United States and the rise of adoptee activism. In a case study on the state of Oregon, he uncovers several public and private mobilizations against an adoption reform ballot initiative by pro-life and conservative organizations, but does not analyze these policy debates for their gendered, racialized or sexualized implications.

Feminist Public Policy Studies

While Carp’s work provides a good model for researching diverse sources to explicate the political histories of state-level legislation, feminist and critical scholarship on public policy provides a framework for analyzing policy-making processes for their raced, classed and gendered effects. In particular, I draw on two important themes in this body of literature that explore 1) the ways in which policy-making processes are informed by

and reproduce intersecting norms of race and gender and 2) the complex, diffuse and often incoherent nature of how political institutions operate.35 First, scholars argue that ideologies of gender and race are central to political struggles over problem definition, agenda-setting the social construction of target populations and the social policy solutions.36 Examining the operations of ideology in policy requires that we look beyond traditional partisan divides to consider the ways in which racialized gender ideologies

“merge and do not merge with familiar liberal-conservative governing ideology.”37

Second, these literatures suggest the importance of analyzing policy broadly to account for legislative processes, the implementation of policy and the emotional and material impacts of implementation in people’s lives. These scholars generally don’t theorize policy-making processes as confined within political institutions, nor do they imagine political institutions as merely pluralistic or closed systems. Rather these scholars consider policy-making and agenda setting as complex and often diffuse engagements of law, discourse, activist consciousness, interest groups, elites and others.38 This body of literature helps me examine how the debates over access in Ohio transcend cohesive political ideology, intuitive political coalitions or predictable attitudes toward birth mothers, adoption or abortion. 39

Chapter Organization

In Chapter 2, I bring together scholarship on U.S. adoption history and critical adoption to explain detail how and why adoptee access to original birth certificates became such a controversial opposition. I discuss how shifting approaches to child welfare and single

pregnancy and influenced the development of adoption law in the U.S., including laws that limit access to birth and adoption information. I then provide a history of social activism by adoptees and birthparents in support of adoptee access. This chapter situates the adoption policy debates in a larger national context. In Chapter 3, I present original research on the early legislative and political history of adoptee access debates in Ohio.

This discussion outlines the development of sealed records laws in Ohio and provides an analysis of the policy narratives that informed legislative debates over adoptee access from 1963-2007. In particular, I narrate the influence of Dr. Jack Willke and Ohio Right to Life in opposing adoptee and birthparent efforts to overturn Ohio’s sealed records laws. In Chapter 4, I build from this legislative and political history and turn to an investigation of sex education and anti-abortion literature produced by Dr. Willke prior to his active involvement in Ohio’s adoptee access debates. Through an analysis of this literature, I identify how hegemonic ideologies of race, class, gender and sexuality inform

Willke’s later claims about birthmothers. This original research suggests that the development of Ohio Right to Life’s opposition to adoptee access can be traced through

Dr. Willke’s earlier work in conservative sex education and anti-abortion education. In

Chapter 5, I turn to Ohio’s most recent adoptee access effort, which can be understood as the latest development in the long history of adoptee access debates explored in the previous chapters. Through this original research, I outline the strategies of the activist campaign that produces the unsealing of Ohio adoption records in 2013. This chapter offers a detailed insider account of the complex and diffuse policy-making processes of state-level politics in Ohio. I argue that supporters of adoptee access developed a

campaign that that both challenged and relied upon the position of Ohio Right to Life as powerful agenda setters in Ohio politics. In this way, the campaign for adoptee access in

Ohio in 2013 accommodated, rather than displaced, the political power of Ohio Right to

Life. Chapter 6 offers concluding thoughts about the implications of the campaign for future studies on the intersections of adoption and abortion politics.

Chapter 2:

Placing Ohio in Context:

Adoption Law, Policy & Activism in the United States

Formal legal adoption as it exists today is a relatively recent phenomenon. Prior to the first state adoption law in Massachusetts in 1851,40 adoption existed in various informal and non-standardized incarnations. Though earlier state statutes authorized individual adoption petitions, supported charitable adoptions from orphanages and recognized informal adoptions between family members, general adoption law did not exist in the

United States until the mid-19th century.41 Historian E. Wayne Carp argues that at mid- century, increased immigration and industrialization resulted in social and economic changes that brought new national attention to the issue of child welfare. Increased poverty across the country contributed to a change in national sentiment that saw children’s health and development as matters of public welfare and national stability, ushering in new era of legal and social welfare reform42. Prior to 1850, typical approaches to child welfare involved the placement of needy children into alms houses that served to isolate a wide range of so-called public scourges from society. Needy children, the elderly, mentally ill adults and handicapped persons were housed together in neglected public institutions, a practice later condemned by mid-century social reformers as barbaric and contributing to the degeneracy of minors.43

The first alternatives that emerged were institutions that exclusively served orphans. The period between 1800 and 1850 saw an increase of 164 orphanages in the U.S. followed by an additional 75 between 1850 and 1870.44 During the mid-1800’s, a rapid influx of children into such institutions threatened the financial and logistical capacities of many urban centers. Historian Linda Gordon argues that many children served by orphan asylums were actually children of single mothers who turned to institutions as a foster care option in the face of poverty. While many mothers initially saw asylums as temporary relief, often they were unable to pull themselves out of poverty and left their children as permanent institutional wards.45 Additionally, though many children were orphaned or abandoned, new public child-saving discourses greatly contributed to the influx of children into the burgeoning child welfare system.

The philosophy of mid-century social reformers like Charles Loring Brace often conflated the tragic effects of urban poverty with those of parental neglect. Founder of

New York’s Children’s Aid Society (est.1853), Brace advanced a construction of child welfare steeped in the Protestant work ethic. 46 He argued that street children were victims of not only poverty, but of an unstructured and unstable lifestyle caused primarily by a lack of proper parenting. Such children could be reformed by bringing them into a child welfare system that would give them education, religious training and a chance for a ‘normal’ family life. Children’s Aid Society agents routinely canvassed New York slums, seizing poor children under the auspices of “child-saving”, regardless of whether or not the children were actually orphans. Brace championed a new child welfare model

that sought to both transform poor children into productive, moral citizens and alleviate the financial and logistical strain caused by the increased number of children being brought into institutional care.47 The Children’s Aid Society instituted a national orphan

‘train’ that shipped thousands of urban children from the East to Protestant foster homes in the West. By 1910, Brace’s orphan train had ‘placed out’ over 110,000 children since it began in 1854.48

Linda Gordon notes that the policies and practices of the Children’s Aid Society were racist and classist in their assumptions of what constituted proper upbringing. An Ivy-

League educated Protestant minister, Brace represented the interests of New York’s

Protestant elite while the children he sought to ‘save’ were largely from the city’s growing Catholic immigrant population. New York’s Catholic communities saw Brace’s efforts as rooted in religious and ethnic bias, a genocidal attempt to indoctrinate working- class Catholic youth with the values of the Protestant elite. In response, Catholic religious and charitable institutions rapidly developed their own child welfare programs, including orphan train operations.49 By 1910, Catholic communities had incorporated 322 orphanages throughout the U.S., marking the beginning of Catholic social welfare system that would become exceeding involved in adoption policy and practice in the U.S.50

Brace’s efforts throughout the latter half of the 19th century popularized placing ‘out’ as a cost-effective alternative to institutional care and ushered in national reforms that marked the beginning of the institutionalization of adoption as a legal and social practice. Lax

placement practices and a lack of state and national laws legitimizing adoptive relationships meant there were few, if any, legal safeguards for children sent to uncertain destinies in western foster homes. While some were welcomed as full members of their foster families, others were abused, sexually exploited or treated as free labor.51

Throughout the Progressive Era, a new generation of reformers criticized the practices of this child-saving movement and sought to establish standards for placement practices that would mitigate the uncertainty faced by children in the early child welfare system. In response to Brace’s method of separating children from poor families in order to reform them, Catholic child welfare institutions interested in the preservation of Catholic tradition began to stress family preservation rather than separation. A second generation of Protestant reformers also advanced new standards for parental consent and developed

‘casework’ procedures that investigated the necessity of ‘placement’ before a child was separated from the family.52 Women reformers of the Progressive Era retained the evangelical spirit of mid-century reformers, establishing charity organizations to rescue women from the corruptive effects of urbanization by transforming them through “the redemptive potential of white, middle class models of domesticity.”53 Alternately characterized as sexual delinquents or innocent victims of male sexual aggression, single mothers and unwed pregnant women were regarded as sinners and Christian sisters in need of charitable outreach. However, unlike mid-century reformers, Progressive Era evangelical reformers saw the cultivation of the ‘maternal instinct’ as a promising route toward women’s spiritual and moral recovery. Rather than separate children from poor,

single mothers, these reformers advanced the ethic of maternal responsibility and believed that conventional motherhood and feminine domesticity would help anchor wayward women.54 Consequently, many charitable organizations that initially served prostitutes, substance abusers and the homeless shifted focus toward unwed mothers.

Established in 1882, New York’s Florence Crittenden Night Mission, a rescue home for prostitutes, would eventually expand to become The National Florence Crittenden

Mission, the largest network of maternity homes in the U.S. By the end of the Progressive

Era, both the National Florence Crittenden Mission and The Salvation Army, sponsor of the second largest network of rescue homes, had fully shifted focus to unmarried mothers.55

At the turn of the 20th century, the practice of placing ‘out’ had all but been replaced with a new social welfare model that almost categorically insisted upon family preservation.

By the 1930’s, both Florence Crittenden and Salvation Army maternity homes had policies requiring pregnant girls to sign contracts attesting to their intention to parent their babies.56 Both organizations enforced strict “length-of-stay” policies intended to encourage mother-child attachment after birth.57 Further, breastfeeding was highly encouraged in maternity homes and, in some states, even legally mandated for the first six months.58 While maternity homes trained their wards in domestic skills to ready them for employment in domestic service, 40 states passed mother’s pensions programs for widows and married women in the 1910’s, reflecting a growing public interest in advancing family preservation through economic supports for women.59 If parents were

absolutely unable to care for their children, adoption to natal kin was the desired alternative.

Amidst this push for family preservation, families interested in adopting children turned to various and unregulated means of acquiring children from private sources. Working- class single mothers were sometimes forced to board their newborns in paid childcare arrangements, often for long periods of time. Many of these boarding homes came to be regarded as baby farms, as corrupt proprietors began to sell their wards to prospective adoptive parents. Commercial maternity homes, doctors and midwives also engaged in commercial private-placement adoptions, frequently marketing their ‘wares’ in newspaper advertisements across the U.S.60 Journalist Barbara Bisantz Raymond argues that Georgia Tann, operator of The Tennessee Children’s Home Society in Memphis, exemplified the corruption bred by commercialized, unregulated adoption practices. In

1950, a state investigation revealed that beginning in the 1920’s, Tann had routinely kidnapped children from poor families under the auspices of her role as a leading child welfare authority in the state. Targeting ‘marketable’ children, she frequently misled parents into relinquishing children into temporary custody, only to place the children in adoptive homes without parental consent. Tann’s black market adoption business was sustained for almost 30 years as elites from across the country flocked to her organization to obtain children quickly in exchange for exorbitant fees. Under Tennessee law, almost all of Tann’s adoptions were extra-legal. However, she successfully lobbied the

Tennessee legislature (many of whom had also adopted through Tann) to retroactively

legalize her criminal adoptions and seal the original birth certificates of adopted children, thereby obscuring her criminal activities.61

Non-commercial private agencies also emerged at this time, rounding out a chaotic landscape of unregulated adoptive placements. New York’s Alice Chapin Adoption

Nursery, established in 1911, was one of the first private adoption agencies to be incorporated in the U.S. E. Wayne Carp notes that no more than a third of adoptive placements done in Massachusetts and New Jersey were facilitated by state run agencies, indicating that private placements- both commercial and charitable- represented the bulk of the market by the 1920’s.62

Historian Ellen Herman argues that increased concern over the commercialization and uncertainty of private-placement adoptions ushered in a new movement for government oversight and regulation of adoption standards and practices. Established in 1912, the

U.S. Children’s Bureau was the first national government agency charged with articulating national standards for adoptive placements. The USCB worked closely with the Child Welfare League of America (est. 1915), a federation of “professional service- providing organizations” to develop and disseminate best-practice standards pertaining to such matters as pre-placement investigation of prospective adoptive homes, record keeping, privacy, and post-placement supervision.63 The push for adoption regulation resulted in legal reforms that gradually brought adoption into the purview of the legal system. In 1917, Minnesota passed the first state law that articulated standardized

expectations for all adoptions performed in the state. Among them, adoption records previously available to the public were restricted only to those actually involved in the adoption process. Setting a precedent for other states, Minnesota’s statute also mandated a pre-placement home study as well as a probationary period between placement and the legal finalization of the adoption.64

In the years leading up to World War II, social work professionals rapidly asserted their own indispensability in matters of adoption, arguing that professional casework offset the risks for families and children presented by the religious sentimentality of charitable organizations and the unscrupulous practices of for-profit adoption facilitators.65 When the War catalyzed unprecedented social and demographic changes in the U.S., the social work profession was well-positioned as a public institution to determine the solutions to social welfare issues. Historian Rickie Solinger writes that the rate of illegitimate births tripled between 1940 and 1957, with the white illegitimacy rate rising most rapidly.66

This unprecedented rise in illegitimate births preceded a strong post-war emphasis on social and economic stability. Good citizenship was achieved through consumption, modernization, and the literal reproduction of the citizenry in normative family frameworks. E. Wayne Carp argues that this era saw a rapid rise in interest in adoption, as childless and/or infertile couples looked for their entrée into the Baby Boom. The

Children’s Bureau estimates that beginning in 1937 the number of adoptions had grown nearly ninefold to 142,000 in 1965.67

The growth of the social work profession and the growing demand for adoptable infants created a perfect storm of pressures to reconsider the social policy emphasis on family preservation that characterized adoption policy and practice in the U.S. prior to World

War II. Social workers purported to bring a new, objective scientific lens to the issues of unwed pregnancy and illegitimacy. This lens relied on popular psychology that recast the problem of the unwed mother as one of treatable mental neurosis rather than one of moral failure or social deviance. The cure for unwed pregnancy was no longer redemption via maternity as it was in the Progressive Era. Rather, it was repentance and a return to normative womanhood (one that did not include illegitimate pregnancy) made possible by either marriage or adoption. Consistent with these theories was the expectation that if women put their illegitimate pregnancy behind them they would get a second chance at creating a normative family in the future.

Consequently, adoption agencies and maternity homes such as the Florence Crittenden

National Mission began to almost exclusively facilitate closed adoptions. Public assistance for maternity expenses for white, unwed, pregnant women was often limited only to those who planned to relinquish.68 Breastfeeding and other activities that could foster mother-child attachment (seeing the baby after birth, for example) were discouraged and/or forbidden. Whereas voluntary adoption was rare in earlier decades, upwards to 90% of maternity home residents placed their babies for adoption by 1960.69

Race, Sexuality and ‘Illegitimate’ Motherhoods

This new solution for unwed pregnancy was decidedly racialized. Historian Rickie

Solinger writes that the politics of race in the U.S. in the 20th century created paradoxical expectations for unwed pregnant women that resulted in their disparate treatment in the social welfare system. Prior to World War II, the family preservation mandate extended to women of all races, but due to racism and segregation, the preservation of black families fell on the shoulders of the black community. Evangelical reformers were willing to cross class boundaries to deliver redemption to “fallen women”, but maternity homes held fast to racial segregation and racialized conceptions of sexual purity and family life.70 With most maternity homes serving only white women, single black pregnancy remained off the radar of white policy makers until the 1940’s when expansions in public funding options for single women cast black maternity as a national economic crisis.71 The development of taxpayer-supported welfare programs that emerged from the New Deal (Aid to Dependent Children, for example) catalyzed an increasingly racialized public discourse about the meanings of single pregnancy. Whereas post-war psychoanalytic explanations of illegitimacy had reconstructed white unwed pregnancy as treatable illness and white single mothers as blameless, explanations for black single pregnancy remained rooted in biological determinism.72 A result of unrestrained sexuality, black single pregnancy was cast as black women’s exploitative and purposeful use of their reproductive capacity in order to leech off of the social welfare system.73

In contrast to psychological explanations for white pregnancy, explanations of black pregnancy as purely sexual and biological formed the social justifications for different treatment by the social welfare system. These biological theories surrounding black illegitimacy implied different outcomes of black vs. white illegitimate pregnancies.

Public policy approaches toward black single mothers were largely punitive and steeped in the expectation that black women, not society, bore the responsibility for dealing with the outcomes of their “hypersexuality”.74 State legislation often limited public welfare assistance to one dependent child, limited eligibility for public housing, criminalized

‘second offense’ illegitimacy, mandated the identification of putative fathers, withdrew support from single mothers who lived with men in the home, and advocated forced and coerced sterilization to discourage black childbearing.75 Scholars also note that in the

1950’s and 1960’s, black women in many communities faced absolute barriers to adoption, as some state and local laws characterized black adoption as abandonment.76

Solinger argues that whether black communities were better able to accommodate single mothers or whether public policies allowed for no alternative, family preservation remained a strong social mandate for blacks throughout the 20th century.

Black single pregnancy was seen as an unwelcome economic burden and social scourge in a post-war climate that emphasized modernization, social and economic stability and good citizenship. White single pregnancy presented a similar crisis. However, the shifting demands of the post-war adoption market implied a unique solution for white illegitimacy. While black babies were cast as a drain on social welfare systems, the rise in

white illegitimacy that began during World War II provided a complementary supply to the increased demand for white babies. Childless white couples, eager to live out their reproductive duties as patriotic citizens, turned to the social welfare system to adopt children. E. Wayne Carp notes that in the 1950’s, it was estimated that approximately 1 million of the America’s 4.5 million childless couple were vying for 75,000 available children in the child welfare system.77 Coupled with the influence of psychoanalytic discourses that saw separation via adoption as appropriate treatment for white women’s neuroses, the commodifcation of white infants lead to the firm entrenchment of closed adoption as the social expectation for single, white, pregnant women after the World War

II.

The Shift Toward Sealed Records

In keeping with this racialized shift toward closed adoption, states enacted regulations to limit public access to adoption records held by courts, child welfare agencies and state offices of vital statistics and public health. Beginning 1939, states began to adopt legislation sealing adoption court records from the general public, although by World

War II twenty-three states had yet to address the issue at all.78 By 1948, a majority of states enacted legislation to provide adopted children with amended birth certificates that replaced the names of birth parents with those of adoptive parents.79 Initially, child welfare organizations such as the Children’s Bureau advocated that court, agency and birth records should be available to parties of interest and/or parties of record, but that they should be sealed from public viewing to protect children from the stigma of

illegitimacy.80 Some states limited access to involved parties by requiring them to petition a court based on ‘good cause’, but with no definition of ‘good cause’ provided in statute.81 Eventually, all but two states (Alaska and Kansas) sealed off access to adoptees’ vital records, with most states passing sealed records legislation in the 1940’s and

1950’s.82

Legislative histories from many states indicate that records law originally supported confidentiality in adoption record-keeping and were intended to protect parties to the adoption from public scrutiny.83 Prior to World War II, agencies and courts routinely provided adult adoptees access to birth and adoption information. After World War II, courts, adoption agencies and offices of state vital record-keeping began to interpret these laws in ways that prevented even parties to the adoption from accessing records.

Historians argue that popular adaptations of psychoanalytic theory during this period influenced social workers to promote secrecy in adoption rather than confidentiality.84 By the mid-1950s, influential national child welfare organizations developed policy recommendations that drew connections between unwed pregnancy and the psychopathology of mothers.85 Unlike the immutable constructions of deviance and heredity that emerged from eugenics discourses, the emotional and psychological disturbances attributed to unwed mothers was treatable. Rickie Solinger argues that by definition, all white unwed mothers suffered from treatable neurosis according to the popular psychology discourses that permeated social welfare policy following World War

II.86 Life experiences, relationships and subconscious motivations all contributed to the

neurotic compulsion to ‘get’ pregnant. A product of their environment, the neurosis of the unwed pregnant woman was used as a justification for a shift in adoption policy and practice following WWII, one that overwhelmingly saw secrecy in adoption as a cure for this newly defined epidemic in women’s psychological maladjustment. The pressure to relinquish was reinforced by psychological discourses that saw an unmarried woman’s desire to raise her child as a neurosis unto itself.87 As the baby was “simply an object of the mother’s psychological disturbance”, separation and detachment from the child through adoption was believed to offer women a fresh chance at creating a ‘normal’ life in the future.88

Open Records and Adoptee Rights Activism

While the promotion of secrecy was widespread, it was not necessarily cohesive. An individual’s experience trying to access birth and adoption information often depended on interpretations of policy by agency and court employees. New forms of activism by adopted adults began to articulate the issue of access to adoption information as a matter of civil rights that should be categorically respected in all jurisdictions. Historian E.

Wayne Carp traces the origins of the adoption rights movement to the work of Jean

Paton, an adoptee and social worker credited with articulating the movement’s original platform.89 As a social worker in the 1940s and 1950s, Paton was critical of the shift toward secrecy in adoption policy and practice and believed that adoptees had a civil right to accurate information about their origins. Finding little support in the social work community for her critiques of the system, she left the profession and founded the Life

History Study Center and Orphan Voyage (1953), a search organization for adoptees.

Within these organizations, Paton cultivated a small, but visible community of adult adoptees that networked with each other through newsletters, phone calls and mail. These groups also drew participation from birthmothers, as no birthparent groups were known to exist at that time.90

Central to Paton’s efforts was the development of a civil-rights based platform for adoption reform, the establishment of a “social identity” for adoptees, and the public articulation of adoptees’ experiences.91 Paton took a radical approach in that she did not believe that agencies or the State had a right to mediate or regulate adoptees’ relationships with their birth families. She argues that adoptees were not perpetual children in need of protection.92 As early as 1949, she publicly advocated for the development of a national mutual consent registry wherein participating adoptees and birthparents could locate each other without having to navigate State institutions.93 She is perhaps best known for collecting life histories of adoptees, a project rooted in the belief that adult adoptee subjectivity should be recognized by society. Her book The Adopted

Break Silence (1954), is widely-regarded as the first collection of adult adoptee accounts of their own adoption experiences.94

Although Paton is credited with building the initial informal network of activists that would later catalyze a mass movement for adoption reform, Carp argues that Paton’s groups did not make an immediate or widespread social impact. Paton’s radical,

disestablishment approach had little salience in the “conservative conformist 1950s” and her insistence on creating separate institutions for the adoption community divorced her organization’s activities from larger political processes that could have engendered mass participation.95

Adoptee & Birthparent Activism: 1970-1990

A wave of adoption rights activism in the 1970s helped to solidify the diffuse activities of adult adoptees and birthmothers into a larger social movement for adoption reform. This period can be considered the first major mobilization of the movement, although it builds on Paton’s earlier ideological and organizational work. This period of activism was made possible through several shifts in the social and political climate, including 1) the development of a “critical mass” of adopted adults, 2) changes in the socio-political landscape of the U.S., 3) the increased politicization of birthmothers throughout the

1960’s and 1970’s and 4) an increased body of scholarly research on adoption.96

Whereas adults adopted in the 1930s and 1940s faced few formal restrictions on access to their original birth certificates and adoption records, many people adopted in the 1950s and 1960s were subject to strict state regulations that were implemented in the post-war period. As adoptees of this era began to reach the age of majority in the 1970s, many began to search for information about their adoptions and were hindered by the sealed records policies of agencies and courts that limited their access to their adoption records.

This “critical mass” of disenfranchised adult adoptees developed within a larger national

context of increased cultural tensions over U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and the institutional legacy of race, gender and sexual inequality. Countercultural mobilizations of the 1960’s and 1970’s challenged traditional institutional authority and pushed for the radical re-imagining of sexual, racial and gender norms. Youth countercultural movements ushered in a new era of protest activism for democratic participation, sexual liberation and civil rights.97 As grassroots mobilizations such as the Civil Rights, Black

Power and Women’s movements pushed for and won political and social space on the grounds of identity, adoptees were frequently confronted with the reality that their identities at birth were guarded by the States.

Emerging from this context, adoptee Florence Fisher founded the Adoptee’s Liberty

Movement Association (ALMA) in 1971. Mired in a difficult search for her birth parents,

Fisher placed an advertisement in The New York Times in the hope of identifying other adopted adults interested in open records activism. Fisher received an incredible response from other adoptees frustrated with the institutional legacy of secrecy in adoption.98 Out of this initial network, ALMA was born. Fisher drew on Jean Paton’s work to articulate an organizational platform centered on adoptee civil rights to their original birth certificates and adoption records. Unlike Paton, Fisher actively sought to transform the policy-making process and engaged in political lobbying for adoptee access.99 ALMA quickly expanded with affiliate chapters in Illinois, Florida and California, and by 1974 had become the first nationally-recognized adoptee rights organization.100 Carp argues that this period saw a proliferation of adoptee rights and search organizations that

ultimately led to the formation of the American Adoption Congress (AAC), a national membership organization dedicated to progressive adoption reform established in

1978.101

At the same time, the feminist activists put women’s reproductive rights at the top of the mainstream feminist activist agenda. In a political context saturated with discourses of rights and reproductive choice, white birth mothers faced the reality that their adoptions were frequently forced and coerced. Inspired by feminist activism, some birthmothers became increasingly politicized throughout the 1960’s, while others considered their stigma to be too pervasive to risk visibility through public activism.102 Although politicized birthmothers began to articulate their experiences in terms of gender oppression, they were met with a general unwillingness of the part of mainstream feminist organizations such as National Organization for Women to include as a matter of feminist concern not only the right to abortion, but also the right to be a mother.103

Further, exponentially fewer women chose adoption after the legalization of abortion in

1973, making birthmothers a numerically marginal population easier that was easier for feminist politics to ignore amidst the persistent legislative and legal threats to Roe vs.

Wade.104

Inspired by the legacy of Orphan Voyage and the fast-paced growth of ALMA, birthmother Lee Campbell employed a similar strategy- a newspaper advertisement- to initiate activist networking among birthmothers. In 1976, Campbell placed an

advertisement in The Boston Globe for birthmothers interested in connecting. Like Fisher before her, she received an overwhelming response and organized her group under the name Concerned United Birthmothers (CUB) in 1976.105 The first national birthmother organization, CUB’s political platform included not only open records and the rights of birthparents and adoptees to search for each other, but also an emphasis on family preservation in matters of social welfare. CUB argued that working-class and single women were over-represented in the ranks of birthmothers, while women with relative economic privilege were adoptive mothers.106 CUB chapters soon sprouted across the country; by 1982, the organization served 35,000 people across forty branches nationwide.107 Among their activities CUB groups ran adoption support groups, drafted model open records legislation, assisted adoptees and birthparents in searches and effectively ran a birthmother speakers’ bureau. As a part of their family preservation platform, CUB instituted social service programs that provided financial assistance and job skills to young single mothers.108 CUB’s search and support groups ultimately functioned as consciousness-raising groups that folded more adoptees and birthparents into participation in the budding adoption rights movement.

Solinger argues that many birthmothers were drawn to participation in CUB due to not only an increasingly feminist and activist consciousness, but also to rapid social changes that exposed the constructed nature of the pre-Roe vs. Wade white adoption imperative.

She describes that birthmothers were increasingly confronted with the reality that single parenthood was becoming more common in the 1970s, due in part to the “quick-

spreading divorce phenomenon” of that decade.109 Additionally, whereas adoption had been presented as the only option for birthmothers presumed unable to financially provide for children as single mothers, the 1970s saw an increase of married and single mothers in the formal workforce.110 Lesbian and welfare rights organizations also mobilized during this time to advocate for both the legitimacy of non-normative families and the right of parents to received social and economic supports.111 For example, The

Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 prioritized family preservation as a permanency strategy and obligated the government to provide supports to encourage permanency and stability within families of origin.112

As ALMA, CUB and other adoption rights groups grew their membership, a new body of social science research emerged in the 1970s to challenge the popular psychology frameworks that had been used to justify closed adoption as a social welfare practice.

Carp argues that the public legitimacy of these types of organizations was bolstered by the work of Arthur Sorosky, Annette Baran and Reuben Pannor of UCLA, adoption researchers who theorized adoption not as a singular event, but as a lifelong experience.

Sorosky, Baran and Pannor were among the first to articulate a psychological relationship between adoptees, adoptive parents and birthparents. They were also among the first to research the motivations of those who search for relatives lost to adoption.113 Conducted and published from 1972-1978 as the Adoption Research Project, their studies indicated that information about their birth and adoption could benefit adoptees, particularly in terms of identity formation.114 They also identified the fears of adoptive parents and the

undue paternalism of social workers as primary barriers to adoptee access legislation.115

Utilizing both peer reviewed journals and popular media to publicize their findings,

Sorosky, Baran and Pannor publicly advocated for openness and transparency in the adoption process. While their studies have since been criticized on methodological and theoretical grounds, they were influential in adding institutional credence to the demands of the grassroots adoption rights movement and providing a research base that supported the reform of adoption policy and practice.

Due in great part to the widespread publicity of these types of studies, the writings and grassroots activities of adoptee and birthparent activists gained national media attention throughout the 1970s.116 Despite the media coverage of the adoptee activism, the institutional status quo remained firmly in opposition to demands for adoptee access.

Social work professionals, in particular, were initially unsympathetic to adoptee and birthparent requests for openness and transparency in adoption. Prior to 1975, social work publications like Child Welfare practiced a virtual blackout on scholarly articles on open records and most adoption agencies held fast to 1960s era recommendations that sealed records constituted best practice in adoption.117 Organizations like the Child Welfare

League of America (CWLA) and the National Committee for Adoption (NCFA), an umbrella organization of adoption agencies, maintained that sealed records and closed adoption were needed to protect the identities of birthparents who had been allegedly promised anonymity by adoption facilitators.118

However, as adoptee and birthmother groups continued to proliferate and receive national attention, CWLA finally conceded that the such activism constituted a significant social mobilization. The organization commissioned an internal report in 1976 to gauge U.S. adoption agencies perspectives on sealed records.119 The results of the report indicated that agencies overwhelmingly opposed the release of identifying information to adopted adults. When the CWLA released their revised Standards for Adoption Services manual in 1978, they reiterated their traditional opposition to the release of birthparents identifying information but advised that adoptees should be now permitted to see non- identifying information from their records. Although this change represented a marginal gain for adoptee access, the CWLA was not convinced by the claim that adoptees had a civil right to identifying information about their birth.

The search and reunion activities of groups like CUB and ALMA provided momentum for a shift toward their legislative and legal activism. In 1979, adoptee access bills were introduced by adoption rights advocates in approximately 28 states.120 That same year,

ALMA filed a federal class action lawsuit alleging the unconstitutional violation of adoptees rights through sealed records laws.121 While the lawsuit and the plethora of access bills were ultimately defeated, the efforts that year set the stage for increased legislative and legal activism by the movement throughout the 1980s.

Fiercely debated, access legislation proliferated in state legislatures throughout the 1980s.

The 1981 New Jersey legislature, for example, heard 44 individual testimonies by

adoptees and birthmothers in favor of access. The measure was vehemently opposed by local adoptive parent groups who argued that their confidentiality was at stake and the bill ultimately failed to pass. Across the country, however, the most vocal opponents of open records purported to defend the privacy rights of birthmothers. Joining the National

Council for Adoption and various Catholic dioceses, national and state pro-life groups became some of the most vocal ‘defenders’ of birthparent privacy rights. Throughout the

1980s and 1990s, the powerful Right to Life lobby shaped legislative opinions on adoptee access by connecting sealed records laws to the pro-life cause. They argued that without confidential records, the only confidential alternative for women would be abortion.122

NCFA and Right to Life’s opposition to open records was a defining factor in the repeated failure of access legislation throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. Amidst the public pressure, many legislatures opted to enact compromise legislation in an attempt to quiet the outcry for adoption rights. By 1985, 16 states rejected adoptee access and instead implemented voluntary reunion mechanisms known as mutual consent registries.

For example, the Ohio General Assembly implemented a mutual consent registry bill in

1985. It provided that some adoptees could access their original birth certificate if the registry was able to match them to a birthparent that had proactively filed a release of information with the Ohio Department of Health, Division of Vital Statistics.123 Although mutual consent registries were initially conceived by adoptee activist Jean Paton, in practice, these registries were crippled by systemic irregularities in adoption record- keeping. Records were not always preserved and identifiers such as birth dates and birth

cities were routinely changed by social workers to facilitate secrecy, making it difficult for birthparent information to be matched with adoptee information. In Ohio, although

900 birthmothers signed up for the Mutual Consent Registry between 1985-1987, only two matches were made resulting in the release of identifying information to an adoptee.124 As such, activists continued to press state legislatures into the 1990s to overturn sealed records laws and provide open, uniform systems of access.

Although the movement was largely unsuccessful in enacting open records legislation during this period, their continued efforts produced significant reforms in adoption practice. Although many agencies held fast to their opposition to retrospectively opening access to records, they became more amenable to prospective contact between new adoptees and birthparents through the practice of open adoption. The idea that secrecy was damaging to all parties gained greater traction in social work circles as adoptees and birthparents bombarded agencies for identifying information throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. The increased visibility of birthparents had served to humanize a population of women historically relegated to the margins of the family. As a result, the practice of open adoption was gradually popularized beginning in the 1980s into the 1990s. In 1986, the CWLA publicly advocated for open adoption and ultimately included the practice in its best practice standards manual in 1988.125

Adoptee & Birthparent Activism: 1990-2000

Although the movement experienced a significant decline in momentum amidst the continued legislative defeats of the 1980s and early 1990s, a new group of activists re- energized the cause in the late 1990s. In 1996, four members of an adoptee email listserv joined forces to create Bastard Nation (BN), a non-profit adoptee rights group that networked together as an online community.126 Founders Marley Greiner, Shea Grimm,

‘Damsel Plum’ and Laine Peterson utilized black humor and satire to levy scathing critiques of the adoption industry on their website and offended many observers by their purposeful and political use of the term bastard in reference to adopted persons. Their platform was “No Bastard Left Behind’, meaning that they would support nothing less than a full restoration of rights for all adopted people. They also actively rejected popoular justifications for adoptee access reform, arguing that primal wound theories pathologized adoptees as psychologically incomplete without access to their birth and adoption information. As such, they publicly indicted not only opponents of access, but also other adoption activists who were willing to support compromise legislation. BN objected to their use of search and reunion stories instead of civil rights arguments. In

1997, BN gained widespread publicity for their creative picketing of film screening of the adoption movie Secrets and Lies. In seven U.S. cities, BN members passed out educational literature to movie-goers about the adoptee access debate.127 Because of this action, BN members were frequently tapped by local and national media outlets to comment on the issue of adoptee access. 128

In 1997, members of Bastard Nation embarked on a daunting activist project in Oregon, one unprecedented for the movement. Instead of introducing an access measure in

Oregon through typical legislative channels, their strategy was to place an open records proposal on a statewide ballot initiative for the November 1998 election. While most ballot initiatives in the state were richly funded by and organized by professional lobbyists, Bastard Nation organized their project with volunteer power in the basement of member Helen Hill, an Oregon resident.129 BN faced opposition to their attempt to qualify the issue on the ballot almost immediately. The measure was contested by attorneys (who were also adoptive parents) during the review process by the Attorney

General who ultimately approved the language requested by BN. Between September

1997 and July 1998, BN needed to collect over 70,000 signatures in order to qualify the measure for the November ballot.130 Few opponents thought BN capable of collecting that many signatures and largely wrote the effort off in its early months. With 100 volunteers, mostly adoptees and birthmothers, BN canvassed the state and by February had collected 13,000 signatures.131 The July deadline looming, BN member Helen Hill used personal funds to hire paid canvassers and took out ads in the local paper and on cable TV.132 With the increased mobilization of paid canvassers, BN collected the required number of signatures and Measure 58 was qualified for the ballot, an outcome that few in the Oregon political community expected. Amidst opposition by such organizations as the Oregon ACLU and the Boys and Girls Aid Society of Oregon,

Measure 58 was ultimately passed by voters in the November 1998 election.133 In April

1999, the Oregon state legislature passed a compromise bill with the support of BN that

instituted access for adult adoptees and what is now known as a contact preference form

(CPF) for birthparents. Birthparents who did not wish to be contacted by the adoptee could indicate their wishes on the CFP, but the original birth certificate would still be released to the adoptee.134 Measure 58 and the compromise bill were immediately challenged in court, but ultimately survived several appeals and went into effect in July

2000.135

Through Bastard Nation’s unprecedented grassroots activism, Oregon became the first state to successfully overturn sealed records laws and institute a fully uniform system

(retrospective and prospective access with a CPF). That same year, Alabama followed suit leading many observers to believe that tide was turning toward access. While activists later succeeded in opening records in New Hampshire (2007) and Maine (2009), the vast majority of campaigns throughout the 2000s have been largely unsuccessful.136

In the years after BN’s victory in Oregon, activists in many states introduced open records bills that contained compromise measures designed to balance arguments for adoptee rights against arguments for birthparent privacy. Tennessee, for example, enacted an access provision with a binding contact veto for birthparents, as opposed to the non- binding contact preference form implemented in Oregon. If a birthparent requests a contact veto, the adoptee is permitted to obtain his/her original birth certificate but is legally barred from contacting the birthmother. They can face prosecution if they violate the contact veto. The contact veto functions as a restraining order that extends not only to the adoptee, but also his/her relatives and agents.137 Some movement activists considered

this a victory; few birthmothers were anticipated to file the veto, giving the majority of adoptees in Tennessee open access to their records. Other activists, namely Bastard

Nation, argued that such concessions failed to respect the civil rights of all adopted persons and made “adoptees a suspect class” by preemptively levying a restraining order against them.138 Thus, differences in ideology and strategy have proven to be significant barriers to cooperation between activist groups since the Oregon victory. BN has actively campaigned against many bills sponsored by CUB, AAC and other groups, leading to obvious tensions.

In the next chapter, I explore how the specific laws that regulate adoptee access in the

State of Ohio developed in relation to the legislative and political histories explored above. I introduce the idea that the debates over adoptee access in the State of Ohio have played an important role in shaping the way adoptee access is considered nationally.

Specifically, I point to the influence of pro-life policy actors Dr. Jack Willke and Ohio

Right to Life in helping to drive pro-life opposition to adoptee access by popularizing the use of birthmother privacy arguments.

Chapter 3

Early Pro-Life Interventions:

The Political History of Adoptee Access in Ohio, 1963-2007

Throughout 2013, highly publicized state legislative debates in Ohio illustrated the growing intersections of abortion and adoption politics in the U.S. In the summer of that year, Governor John Kasich signed into law sweeping anti-abortion legislation that drastically limited women’s access to comprehensive reproductive health services.

Developed by the anti-abortion organization Ohio Right to Life in conjunction with

Republican legislators, the anti-abortion provisions in Ohio’s budget bill (H.B. 59), required women seeking abortions to receive an ultrasound and information about fetal heartbeat prior to abortion, required surgical facilities to have transfer agreements with local hospitals but banned such contracts with public hospitals, and redirected federal funding away from Planned Parenthood.139

Comparatively little media attention was paid to the companion provisions related to adoption that were developed and introduced by pro-life organizations and the state legislators that sponsored H.B. 59. Ohio Right to Life also helped establish within H.B.

59 a new pipeline in the state budget that would prioritize federal family planning funds 54

for programs that promote “alternatives to abortion”.140 This organization has aggressively pursued a controlling interest in Ohio adoption politics by gaining an appointment to the Ohio Attorney General’s Foster Care task force, lobbying for a wide range of adoption bills in the Ohio House and Senate and ultimately introducing their own legislation that limited birth fathers’ rights to notice of and consent to adoption.

Where adoption has been considered relevant to abortion debates, it has typically been implicated as an abortion alternative. In reality, pro-life organizations play an important role in the law and policy-making processes that shape the way individuals experience adoption. Perhaps nowhere in adoption policy have pro-life organizations had greater direct influence than in legislation concerning adoptee access to original birth certificates.

To illustrate, in this chapter I trace the influence of the pro-life organization Ohio Right to Life (ORTL) in what is colloquially referred to as open records or adoptee access debates in Ohio.141 In 1963, the Ohio General Assembly sealed adoption court records and original birth certificates (OBCs) of adoptees, effectively removing these documents from public record. In Ohio, these laws were interpreted to also restrict adopted persons’ own access to these records. Entirely uncontroversial when passed, Ohio’s sealed records law gave rise to a decades-long legislative battle in which ORTL won a controlling stake.

From the 1970s through 2012, adult adoptees and others impacted by adoption in Ohio lobbied the Ohio General Assembly to reinstate access for adult adoptees who were disenfranchised by Ohio’s sealed records laws. Historically, ORTL vigorously opposed

such initiatives. Grassroots campaigns for adoptee access, led primarily by adult adoptees and birthparents, were defeated by ORTL’s powerful lobbying efforts in the Ohio

General Assembly for a period exceeding thirty years.142 Through a legislative and political history of this contemporary adoption policy issue, I trace how the defense of sealed records laws was established as a part of ORTL’s pro-life political platform.

HB 202: Brad Norris & the Sealing of OBCs in Ohio

In the late 1950’s, a young Cleveland attorney named William Bradley Norris walked into the Cleveland Bureau of Vital Statistics to obtain a copy of his son Todd’s birth certificate. Known as Brad to his family and friends, Norris served on the Board of

Trustees of Cleveland’s Children’s Services and would eventually adopt three infants through the private agency; Todd in 1957, daughter Betsie in 1960, and son Bob in 1963.

Although he was told by the staff of Children’s Services that Ohio was one of many states that began to restrict access to, or seal, adoptees' birth records following World

War II, the curious attorney preferred to verify that claim for himself. As a well-known and respected member of Cleveland’s political elite, Norris had been approached to run for mayor and while he did not seriously consider the proposition, as a new adoptive father, he became quite interested in the kinds of information about his family that might be available through public records. Thus, following Todd’s adoption, he filed a request with Vital Statistics for his son’s birth certificates as a member of the general public.

Although he had not identified himself as his children’s adoptive father, Brad Norris was handed both his son’s amended birth certificate AND the original birth certificate (OBC)

that identified Todd’s biological parents. They were neatly paper-clipped together by the helpful staff of Cleveland’s Vital Statistics.143

Alarmed that the general public could access adoptees’ original birth certificates, Norris and several young attorneys who were also adoptive fathers drafted the legislation that would close adoption records in Ohio. The sealing of records would impact not only the general public’s access, but that of adoptive parents, birthparents and adoptees themselves. With the support of the Division of Vital Statistics of the Ohio Department of

Health and the Association of Ohio Health Commissioners, the bill was introduced in

1963 to Ohio House of Representatives as H.B. 202. The bill passed unanimously out of the House’s Public Welfare committee in February 1963 and swiftly moved into the

Senate in March of that same year.144 After marginal changes requested by the Senate were adopted into the legislation, Norris’ closed records legislation passed the House by a vote of 117-0 and was signed into law in June of 1963.145

Considered entirely uncontroversial at the time, H.B. 202 prospectively sealed the original birth certificates of persons adopted on or after January 1, 1964. While H.B. 202 did provide that an adoptee could petition a probate court for access to their OBC based on a ‘good cause’ exception to the law, the bill did not outline standards for the determination of ‘good cause’ and in practice facilitated the nearly categorical disenfranchisement of post-1964 adoptees with regard to their OBCs.146 As described by

Cincinnati Representative Edward Schumacher, one of H.B. 202’s sponsors in the House, the bill was intended to create tabula rasas out of adoptive children:

My bill closes the book on background, which is the way it should be handled.

My law gives the child a clear [sic] slate. Parents start right away providing the

child with necessary guidance and direction. They don’t have to waste time on

heredity. People lay too much stress on heredity. It’s advisable for children not to

know they’re adopted. If they knew, they’d be seeking to find out why they do

certain things. If a kid knows he’s adopted, he has a crutch. ‘Oh, that’s not my

fault,’ he’ll say, ‘that’s my family’s fault.’ I closed the book because knowing

isn’t going to change a thing. This law gives the child an opportunity to start some

place as if that were the day he was born. It’s better for society and for the child if

he doesn’t know he’s adopted. If told, it forever creates a yearning. They just start

asking a lot of questions.147

Cultivating Influence: Dr. Jack Willke

In the same year that Cleveland’s Brad Norris celebrated the passage of H.B. 202 by the

105th General Assembly, Cincinnati natives Jack and Barbara Willke were toasting a victory of a different kind. After several years organizing a marriage preparation course for the Catholic Diocese of Cincinnati, Dr. Jack Willke, a respected Cincinnati obstetrician, and his wife Barbara, a registered nurse, completed their collaborative book project on sex education titled, The Wonder of Sex: How to Teach Children.148 An instant success, this how-to sex education guide for parents of primary school-aged children

catapulted Dr. and Mrs. Willke onto the professional lecturing circuit.149 Throughout the

1960’s, Dr. and Mrs. Willke would expand their repertoire from sex-ed curriculum for parents of school children to the direct education of teens and young adults. In 1969, they recorded their second LP, Sex- Should We Wait?, during an invited lecture to 500 undergraduate students at the University of Cincinnati.150 That same year, the Willkes published a sex-education guide for teachers called Sex Education: The How-To for

Teachers. While advocating for open discourse about sex as a natural biological process, the Willkes advanced a strict, moralizing construction of heteronormative gender and sexuality throughout their many publications:

Each time husband and wife display toward each other the unselfishness of a

giving love, whether it be the wife preparing a good meal, or the husband’s

thoughtful phone call when he finds he’ll be late for dinner, or whether it be the

complete giving of each other in bed, Christ’s love and life in them is increased.

Christian teaching certainly makes the marriage bed a holy place.151

The Willkes argued that sexual intercourse should be reserved for heterosexual marriage because children deserved the moral, economic and social stability presumed to be available in those unions. Women who became pregnant outside of marriage should be strongly encouraged to place their children for adoption.152 Although their curriculum was firmly grounded in the belief that sex should be limited to the realm of heterosexual marriage, their work throughout the 1960’s proved controversial among some moral conservatives in Ohio who opposed the Willkes’ aggressive campaign for sex education

in public and parochial school curricula.153 Despite such opposition, the coming decades would see Dr. & Mrs. Willke firmly established as influential, high-profile figures in the politics of family life and reproduction in Ohio and beyond.

While seemingly unrelated, the two political trajectories that emerged in Cincinnati and

Cleveland in 1963 would converge to form the crux of the contemporary debate over sealed original birth certificates in Ohio. Throughout the 1970’s, Dr. and Mrs. Willke became central figures in not only the politics of sex education, but also the politics of abortion in Ohio. As Catholic medical professionals, sex education ‘experts’ and the parents of six children by birth and adoption, the Willkes took a leading role in the development of the budding pro-life movement during the years leading up to Roe v.

Wade (1973). In response to nationwide efforts to liberalize abortion laws throughout the

1960’s, the Willkes co-founded and co-chaired Right to Life of Greater Cincinnati in

1970. Subsequently, they successfully lobbied the state legislature in 1971 to defeat the legalization of abortion in Ohio under a proposed state law.154 In 1971, the charismatic couple published Handbook on Abortion, a widely disseminated pro-life apologetics manual that systematically countered the popular arguments for abortion and outlined resources and strategies for grassroots pro-life activism. With 11 editions printed in the first two years, the Handbook sold over a million copies by 1985155 and would ultimately be translated into over 20 languages.156 Building off the success of the Handbook and their work in sex education, the Willkes soon became nationally-recognized lecturers on pro-life reproductive and sexual politics. They appeared on television and radio stations

across the U.S. to champion the pro-life cause under the developing Right to Life organizational network. In 1975, Dr. Willke was elected by state activists to serve as the first president of the Ohio Right to Life Society and in 1980, moved from Cincinnati to

Washington, D.C. to serve as the president of the National Right to Life Society. In that capacity, Dr. Willke asserted that he helped increased National Right to Life’s budget from $400,000 to over 15 million during his 11-year tenure, numbers that certainly attest to his popularity and effectiveness as a national pro-life leader and the growth of the

Right to Life movement in the decades after Roe v. Wade.157

Echoing the sentiments expressed in his sex education literature, Dr. Willke consistently advanced adoption as a viable, desired alternative to abortion through his pro-life work at

Right to Life of Greater Cincinnati, Ohio Right to Life and National Right to Life. While his original abortion-related publication, Handbook on Abortion (1971), only briefly discussed adoption as a viable abortion alternative, the Willkes subsequently wrote a follow-up manual titled Abortion: Question and Answers (1985), which fully integrated the promotion of adoption as an integral part of the Right to Life political platform.158 In fact, by his own admission, Dr. Willke had personally arranged hundreds of closed, private adoptions as a well-known pro-life obstetrician in Cincinnati.159

Ohio Adoptees Mobilize for Access

Dr. Willke’s increased focus on the promotion of adoption as an abortion alternative during his tenure at National Right to Life coincided with the active political mobilization

of adoptees and birthmothers in his home state of Ohio throughout the 1980’s. Betsie

Norris, the adopted daughter of Brad Norris (the Cleveland attorney who championed

Ohio’s sealed records legislation in 1963), searched for and reunited with her birth family in 1986. During her reunion, The Cleveland Plain Dealer published an article on Betsie’s reunion experience and her father’s role in creating the adoption laws that govern adoptees’ access to OBCs. Inspired by several phone calls she received from adoptees and birthmothers looking for advice on adoption searches, Betsie and Kate Oatis, a local birthmother, organized a regional conference of the American Adoption Congress in

Cleveland in 1988. 160 Drawing over 200 participants, the conference was prominently featured in another Cleveland Plain Dealer article. As a result, Betsie received over 275 phone calls in three days from adoptees, birthparents and adoptive parents looking to talk with someone about their own adoption experiences. Motivated by the outpouring of responses from people around Ohio, Betsie founded Adoption Network Cleveland in late

1988 and would soon become established as one of the state’s most respected adoption and child welfare activists- and the driving force behind Ohio’s open records/adoptee access movement. 161

As Betsie Norris was getting the newly formed Adoption Network Cleveland off the ground, Joanne Gall, an adult adoptee from Dayton, Ohio, convinced Rep. Robert Doyle to introduce an adoptee access bill in the 118th Ohio General Assembly in 1989-1990.162

In the early 1980’s, adoptees, birthmothers and their allies in the social work profession successfully lobbied Rep. Jerry Luebbers to introduce H.B. 84, a bill that would create a

voluntary reunion mechanism known as the mutual consent registry. H.B. 84 provided that post-1963 adoptees could access their OBCs if the Registry was able to match them to a birthparent that had proactively filed a release of information with the Ohio Division of Vital Statistics. The bill was passed by the Ohio General Assembly and subsequently implemented in April 1985. However, according to Brenda Yeazel, the supervisor of the

Special Registrations Unit of the Ohio Division of Vital Statistics in 1987, although 900 birthmothers signed up for the Mutual Consent Registry between 1985-1987, only two matches were made resulting in the release of OBCs to an adoptee.163

As such, activists like Joanne Gall continued to press the state legislature to overturn

H.B. 202 and provide a uniformly open system of access for all Ohio adoptees. Building off the momentum of 1985’s H.B. 84, the adoptee access bill that Gall helped initiate in the 1989-90 legislative session (known as H.B. 256) passed the House by a margin of 93-

2 and was thought to stand a great chance at making it through Senate deliberations and into Ohio law.164 However, during the third hearing on the bill in the Senate Health and

Human Services Committee, H.B. 256 faced a battery of opposition testimony spearheaded by none other than Cincinnati’s Dr. Jack Willke, then president of National

Right to Life and the International Right to Life Federation.165 Dr. Willke was joined in opposition by Ohio probate judges R.R. Denny Clunk and Robert Metcalf, adoption facilitators James Albers and Nancy Burley,166 Bill Pierce, the president of the National

Committee for Adoption,167 and one birthmother (brought by James Albers) testifying under a pseudonym.168

Birthmother Privacy Narratives

In contrast to Brad Norris and Rep. Edward Shumacher’s accounts of the original legislative intent of H.B. 202, opponents argued that Ohio’s sealed records laws were intended to protect the privacy interests of birthmothers. Dr. Willke argued that H.B. 256 violated privacy of Ohio birthmothers, the vast majority of whom presumably placed their child for adoption contingent on absolute and perpetual anonymity. He asserted that opening access to records would not only constitute an intrusion into birthmothers lives, but would result in the disruption of birthmothers’ subsequent marriages and family lives.

He theorized that it would also increase the incidence of abortion in Ohio if anonymity could no longer be maintained:

“We, the Right to Life movement, will vigorously oppose this bill and will

consider a vote for it in the Senate as a pro-abortion vote.”

-Dr. Jack Willke, testifying in opposition to H.B.256, August 22, 1990.169

The other opponents echoed Willke’s claims to birthmother right to privacy and also expressed concern that adoptee access threatened to undermine the trust in and authority of probate courts and adoption facilitators. They theorized that these professionals might face legal claims from angry birthmothers if original birth certificates were made available to adoptees.170 HB 256 was subsequently killed in the Senate Committee.

Since 1990, political debates surrounding access to OBCs in Ohio have been dominated by the arguments about birthmothers’ privacy rights and the preservation of the choice to

remain anonymous through adoption.171 In 1992 and 1994, Betsie Norris worked with

Representative Kate Walsh to introduce two more open access bills (H.B. 628 and

H.B.487) both of which were bolstered in the committee review process by the grassroots campaigning and organizational support of Adoption Network Cleveland.172 Brad Norris himself submitted powerful testimony in support of both bills, calling his own 1963 sealed records legislation a “grave mistake.” 173 Suanne Gettings, a pro-life birthmother who ran a large support group for birthmothers out of Columbus, conducted a survey of pregnancy help centers in an attempt to counter popular claims that most birthmothers voluntarily choose adoption based on the existence of sealed adoption records. Gettings, a part-time employee of Ohio Right to Life, brought her concerns to Dr. Willke and insisted that her experience working with birthmothers in post-adoption support did not reflect his claims. Gettings ultimately faced censure for speaking out against ORTL’s platform. The organization’s Board of Directors held a vote as to whether Gettings should be terminated as an employee for working in support of HB 628, but ultimately opted to let her remain employed.174

Despite the increased mobilization of proponents of access throughout the early 1990’s, their campaigns were ultimately ineffective against the strength of the birthmother privacy arguments that dominated legislative deliberations.175 Dr. Willke, along with many of the opponents of ill-fated H.B. 256, testified publicly against H.B. 628. Right to

Life of Greater Cincinnati, then directed by Mrs. Willke, undertook a grassroots campaign to mobilize the pro-life community against HB 628. The campaign featured the

issue prominently in their monthly newsletters and set up audio recordings on their legislative hotline directing constituents to “enlist every pro-lifer to call their State

Representatives” to defeat HB 628:176

The confidentiality promised to generous women who placed their babies in past

years with the assurance that their identity would not be revealed are now

threatened with the total betrayal of their trust placed in the legal system of

Ohio…We must maintain the option of a confidential adoption for the mother

with an untimely pregnancy.177

-Mrs. Barbara Willke, Greater Cincinnati Right to Life legislative hotline audio

recording, March 1992.

Both bills were systematically killed in the House Human Resources Committee, due in great part to the mobilization of adoption professionals, adoption attorneys and the pro- life community in opposition to open access.178

In the mid-1990’s, proponent campaigns took a different approach. In 1991, Ohio

Governor George Voinovich created the Ohio Adoption Taskforce, a committee of adoption professionals tasked with making recommendations for the overhaul of Ohio’s adoption system. While the Taskforce was stacked with adoption facilitators and opponents of adoptee access, open records activist Suanne Gettings was appointed by the

Governor’s office as the sole birthmother on the Taskforce. Well-respected for her work in post adoption support, Gettings was given the position of Chair of the subcommittee

on adoptee access and open adoption.179 While she could not get the Taskforce to form a consensus around OBC access, she was instrumental in getting the Taskforce to recommend the release of non-identifying information to adult adoptees. The recommendations of the Taskforce were ultimately written into H.B. 419, a comprehensive adoption reform bill that was introduced into the Ohio House of

Representatives in 1996.

As originally written, H.B. 419 proposed the retrospective release of birthparents’ non- identifying information to all adult adoptees upon request. It also provided that adult adoptees age 21 or older could access their OBC if their birthparent had NOT submitted the proposed disclosure veto to block adoptee access.180 This access provision changed the access standard from closed unless open to open unless closed. It was prospective in scope and only changed the system of access for adoptions finalized after the passage of the bill. Retired from National Right to Life, Dr. Willke testified in opposition to the adoptee access provisions of H.B. 419 as a board member of Ohio Right to Life. Dr.

Willke, along with Bill Pierce of the National Council for Adoption, lobbied against the retrospective release of birthmother’s non-identifying information and argued that the

OBC access standard should remain ‘closed’ unless a birthmother takes a positive action to open her records to the adoptee. At the close of the public hearings on H.B. 419 in the

House Family Services Committee, the original access provisions remained in the bill that would have gone to the House for a vote. Janet Folger (now Folger Porter) ORTL’s aggressive legislative director, successfully lobbied the committee to limit the release of

non-identifying information to prospective adoptions only.181 In a closed-door session,

H.B. 419 was stripped of any language that would give post-1964 adoptees access to identifying or non-identifying information about their birthparents.182

Thus, H.B. 419 created a three-tiered system of access in Ohio adoption law: adoptees born prior to 1964 have unlimited access to their OBCs; adoptees from 1964- September

18, 1996 have no access (except by rare, extraordinary court order); and adoptees born after September 18, 1996 have access at the age of majority in the absence of a birthparent disclosure veto.

This marked the fourth consecutive loss in 16 years for proponents of a uniform system of access for adopted adults to OBCs in Ohio. Undoubtedly, the political influence of Dr.

Willke and the mobilization of the Right to Life community against open access played a defining role in these losses. Birthmother privacy arguments effectively drowned out a variety of counter-arguments utilized by proponents of access. These included arguments based on adoptee civil rights, birthmother empowerment, and the importance of accurate medical information. In the face of such a formidable opposition, open records activists were silenced for over a decade until 2007-2008, when Betsie Norris again lobbied for the inclusion of an adoptee access provision in an adoption reform bill (H.B. 7) that was moving through the 127th General Assembly.

Although few employees at ORTL remained from the previous decades of debates, a new generation of administrators at Ohio Right to Life spoke out in opposition to H.B. 7’s adoptee access provision.183 Behind the scenes, Mrs. Willke mobilized the executive director of Right to Life of Greater Cincinnati to press primary bill sponsor Tom

Brinkman of Cincinnati to remove the access provision.184 Still a board member of Ohio

Right to Life, Dr. Willke wrote a strongly worded letter in January 2008 to Tom

Brinkman demanding that he drop the access provisions from the bill. At that point,

Brinkman enjoyed a 100% pro-life voting record and was endorsed by Right to Life of

Greater Cincinnati and Ohio Right to Life.185 The access provisions in HB7 remained as a part of the bill through the second public hearing in the Ohio House Health Committee held on January 16th, 2008, but by April had been entirely stripped from the bill.186 This turn was exceptionally notable, given that dozens of adoptees, birthparents and adoptive parents came to the hearings to testify in support of access. No public testimony was given in opposition to the access provisions.187

Conclusion

Through their lobbying and activism, Ohio Right to Life has played a powerful role in the politics of adoption in Ohio across the last three decades. In many ways, the organization and its leaders have dictated the terms upon which the issue of adoptee access is considered. While other state and national agencies have joined ORTL in opposition to access, Dr. Willke’s particular political influence in Ohio has helped map the politics of abortion onto the politics of adoption and advanced the use of birthmother privacy

arguments as a primary organizing framework. I take pains to outline Ohio’s debate not only because this issue is a good case study for examining the interplay between adoption and abortion politics, but because what has transpired in Ohio may actually foreground the involvement of pro-life groups in adoptee access debates within a national context.

Ohio has played an important role in the trajectory of modern adoption politics, due in great part to the influence of Dr. Willke in the development of the national Right to Life movement in the years following Roe v. Wade. Dr. Willke’s direct involvement in the politics of open records while a prominent leader of Cincinnati Right to Life, Ohio Right to Life, National Right to Life Society and the International Right to Life Federation impacted the ways in which this issue was considered in Ohio and undoubtedly, in many other states. While I don’t claim to position Dr. Willke as the genesis of all claims that adoptee access violates birthmother privacy and promotes abortion, I do argue that he has done much to proliferate these arguments. He has certainly been influential in articulating this issue within Right to Life’s political platforms on a national scale.188

In Chapter 4, I take a more focused look at the social and political thought of Dr. Willke in an attempt to understand the ideas about gender, race, class and sexuality that inform his opposition to adoptee access. As a point of departure, I examine Dr. and Mrs.

Willke’s influential sex education and anti-abortion literature. I trace the ideological basis of Dr. Willke’s opposition from these early publications through his public testimonies in subsequent legislative debates over adoptee access. I discuss how his opposition is

dependent on controlling narratives of birthmother identity, agency, choice and experience.

Chapter 4:

Gender, Race and Sexuality in Dr. Jack Willke’s

Sex Education and Anti-Abortion Curriculum

Dominant representations of motherhood are rooted in ideologies of gender essentialism, compulsory heterosexuality and what Michael Warner describes as reprosexuality- “the interweaving of heterosexuality, biological reproduction, cultural reproduction, and personal identity.”189 From this emerges a gendered and heterosexualized construct that links ‘good’ mothering to norms of hegemonic white femininity- including pronatalism, sexual purity until marriage and the expectation that mothers should parent the children they bear.190 Maternal self-sacrifice and maternal primacy play an important role in these constructions, positing that good mothers are ‘naturally’ motivated to make good choices that prioritize their childrens’ needs over their own.191 However, scholars have explored the ways in which ideologies of race and class fundamentally shape this construction of ideal motherhood.192 For example Patricia Hill Collins argues that controlling images of the black mammy, jezebel, matriarch and welfare queen work in the service of valorizing some white women’s motherhoods while negating black motherhood on the whole.193

The mammy and welfare queen figures normalize the separation of black women from

their children by devaluing their reproductive and care work, except when in the service of white capitalist patriarchy.194 The hypersexual jezebel and domineering matriarch figures help provide a bio-cultural basis for carving out distinctly racialized social expectations for black mothers by representing black women as incapable of or unwilling to provide their children with proper care. Feminist scholarship on working women, immigrant mothers and nannies similarly expose, as a racialized construct, the notion that to mother is to be the exclusive caretaker for one’s own children in the private realm of the home.195 Representations of birthmothers draw from these racialized constructions of motherhood and shape adoption policy and practice according to racialized expectations of motherhood.196

As women who have in some way separated their reproductive capacity from the essential ‘mothering’ imperative, birthmothers are ‘unnatural’ women. Competing narratives about birthmothers emerge to mediate the fact of (or threat of) their separation with the racialized demands of motherhood. One such representation is the generous birthmother, for whom adoption is the ultimate expression of maternal love and self- sacrifice. The generous birthmother is completely altruistic and selfless. She recognizes her own limitations as a mother (typically implied by her poverty, sexual ‘impurity’, or singleness), and makes the ‘unselfish’ decision to ‘free’ her child for adoption. The generous birthmother representation can be found in pro-life political narratives (e.g. 73

“Adoption is the Loving Option”) and adoption industry discourses that promote adoption as courageous parenting decision. This construction is also fairly prolific within adoptive family narratives in which adoptive parents thank the generous birthmother that gave them the most precious gift. Representations of birthmothers as choice-makers reflect racialized and classed notions of ‘good’ mothers as being good consumers and rational choice-makers.197 Examples of birthmothers as good choice makers can be found in critical and popular responses to the film Juno and to Caitlyn and Tyler, the birthparents featured on MTV series 16 & Pregnant. Popular responses insist that Caitlyn and Tyler made a mature adult decision in placing their daughter for adoption and ultimately preserved for themselves a chance to improve their socio-economic standing.

Juno was lauded for choosing future college plans over teen motherhood.198 Birthmothers as good choice makers re-privatize the care of their child and give themselves (and their child) a chance to ‘start over’. Ideologies of hegemonic white femininity permeate representations of generous birthmothers and good choice-makers. These representations hold out the possibility that some women can become good mothers, paradoxically, by becoming non-mothers through adoption.

However, competing representations of birthmothers emerge to account for the fact that, no matter how rational or loving, the rejection of or inability to enact normative motherhood is deemed unnatural. These competing representations cast birthmothers as unfit, self-interested, selfish, and potentially murderous. The most glaring example of this representation is the murderous birthmother found in many pro-life political

narratives. Representations of generous birthmothers in pro-life narratives are coupled with the ever-present claim that these women are forever on the verge of killing their babies through abortion without pro-life intervention. Recent pro-life ad campaigns in

Ohio (claiming that the most dangerous place for a black child is within his mother’s womb) demonstrate the ways that the same women who may make the ‘ultimate’ loving self-sacrifice are always simultaneously represented as unloving and detached, harboring within them a murderous potential. Representations of birthmothers as self-interested can be seen in high profile and often sensationalized news media stories of custody battles and unwelcome adoption reunions. These birthmothers prioritize their own sense of

‘ownership’ over their child, their cultural/racial histories or their own fear of loss over their child’s ‘best interest’. That separation was even considered a possibility by the birthmother (or the state) is often considered prima facie evidence that a child’s best interest lies with the prospective adoptive parents. Any attempts on the part of the birthmother to resist disconnection represent a failure to be a generous, good-choice maker. Representations of unfit birthmothers, often shown as neglectful parents or addicts, highlight the failure of some women to embrace the values of maternal primacy and self-sacrifice. In contrast to the generous birthmother, these birthmothers do not prioritize the needs of their children, reject their essential feminine capacity for care and

‘choose’ deviance over selfless motherhood. These birthmothers don’t care enough or don’t work hard enough to get their lives together for their children’s sake. These representations draw from larger racist and classist ideologies to cast poor mothers, single mothers and mothers of color as fundamentally incapable of enacting ‘proper’ norms of

femininity, family and motherhood.

While representations of birthmothers represent gendered, sexualized and raced constructions of identity and experience, they have real traction in shaping adoption policy and practice. In discussing the public identity of the welfare queen, Ange-Marie

Hancock argues that public identities are shaped by stereotypical and selective representations of target populations by political elites in support of specific political goals.199 Extending Hancock’s discussion, narratives and images of birthmothers are similarly deployed by powerful agenda-setters in adoption politics as disciplinary and regulatory forces.

In this chapter, I argue that Dr. Jack Willke’s interventions in the politics of adoptee access in Ohio utilize political narratives that rely on racialized and heteronormative representations of birthmothers. I examine the sex education literature written and published by Dr. Jack Willke and his wife, Barbara Willke, in order to evaluate the ideologies of gender, sexuality and race that inform their opposition to adoptee access.

Through a focused analysis of the individual work of Dr. Willke, I hope to shed light on the representational processes at work in Ohio’s open records debate that help to create birthmothers’ public identity.

Representing Birthmothers

These women [birthmothers], a significant percentage of the total who wish to

place their children for adoption, also want to totally sever the tie and be assured

of absolute confidentiality in this placement, and for a lifetime. This bill, de facto

in I would suggest 90% of the cases, will result in a gross violation of the privacy

of such women…If she hears… of how this bill retroactively and unwillingly

opened those records, leading to such disruptive intrusion into the life of that

woman; she may then very well choose to kill her baby in an abortion rather than

to take the chance of such an intrusion into her life. [We] stand here to plead for

the maintenance of privacy for these generous women who entered into adoption

because they were assured by the State of Ohio that their identity would never be

revealed.200

- Dr. Jack Willke, Testimony in opposition to H.B. 256, August 22, 1990.201

Dr. Willke’s public testimony in Ohio during the Senate hearings on H.B. 256 (1990) aptly condenses the various claims that would constitute Right to Life’s platform on adoptee access over the next several decades. First, Dr. Willke justifies ORTL’s involvement in the debates by drawing a direct causal relationship between adoptee access to OBCs and increased abortion rates. He further positions ORTL as the voice and protector of birthmothers- not just some, but a commanding majority of which are in need of his advocacy. Perhaps counterintuitively, Dr. Willke frames ORTL’s activism in the service of birthmother privacy interests. He argued that the role of ORTL is to protect

birthmothers’ rights to choose an anonymous adoption. However, to foreground that claim, I first focus on an important discourse narrative within Willke’s testimonies. Cast as both generous and self-interested, potentially murderous yet in need of protection, the representation of the birthmother in Willke’s work gives us a clue as to how heteropatriarchal ideas about gender and sexuality are expressed through these debates.

While on the surface, all of ORTL’s opposition to open records is framed in terms of abortion and birthmother privacy, a genealogy of Willke’s work reveals that this opposition is explicitly informed by very specific ideologies about gender, race and sexuality that pre-date not only the debate on adoptee access to OBCs, but even pre-date

Willke’s own involvement in pro-life politics.

In this chapter, I use the term heteropatriarchy to describe interrelated gender and sexual hierarchies that produce and reinforce the privilege of men/masculine over women/feminine and heterosexual intimacy over homosexual intimacy. My use of the term incorporates an understanding of the racialized hierarchies of value inherent to the concept. So while I use the term heteropatriarchy to describe Willke’s ideas about gender and sexuality, it’s clear that these ideas are also simultaneously informed by hegemonic whiteness.

The Wonder of Sex

The 1964 publication of the Willkes’ first sex education manual, The Wonder of Sex:

How to Teach Children marked the beginning of their high-profile involvement in the

politics of reproduction and the family in Ohio and on a national level. In this manual, and in many others to follow, the self-described “practical, everyday parents” outline a vision of family life characterized exclusively by heteropatriarchal relations, a dynamic that feminist theorist M. Jacqui Alexander cites as the “twin processes of heterosexualization and patriarchy.” 202203 Rooted in what they describe as traditional

Judeo-Christian values, this vision of family takes as its central principle the essentialist notion that men’s and women’s roles in sexual and family life are distinct and strictly determined by their gender. Further, men and women realize the full development of their gendered subjectivity only through heterosexual marriage. As such, the Willkes advise that parents should consciously socialize their children toward the full acceptance of distinct gender roles, to “(prepare) them to become good, mature persons ready to marry happily someday-” that is, for the explicit purpose of reproducing heteropatriachal family structures: 204

Each parent should carry great pride in his manhood, in her womanhood. A man

should be proud of his masculinity and act like it---be proud of being the

protector, breadwinner and head of the house. A woman should be proud of her

feminity [sic] and act like it, and as a full-time mother and wife, be truly the heart

of the home. Then, almost coming out of the very pores of your skin, your

children would absorb this attitude of joy and pride of being a man or a woman.

This is the attitude to give your children.205

7 9

For girls, the fulfillment of their gendered destiny involves both heterosexual marriage and motherhood. As a suggested explanation for menstruation, the Willkes urge mothers to tell their daughters that “God has built…within every woman’s body the tremendous potentials of marrying and having babies,”206 thus fully naturalizing reproductive heterosexuality and patriarchal marriage. Of great concern for parents is the possibility that girls might be socialized away from this feminine imperative and the Willkes take pains to suggest ways in which this can be avoided:207

“Remember, you can also implant an unhealthy attitude toward pregnancy in your

child’s mind if you constantly complain about your ‘condition’, feel sorry for

yourself, and are too tired and irritable to show love for anyone…This early

‘training’ might contribute toward forming the child into a selfish, frigid woman

who fears pregnancy and who in general rejects her true feminine role in life, as

so many women are doing today.”208

Here, the rejection of pregnancy is constructed as both self-interested and ‘frigid’, implying that the compulsory nature of heterosexuality demands not only sexual availability to men, but a willingness to bear children. To further model the ‘naturalness’ of motherhood, they encourage women to embrace the emerging popularity of breastfeeding throughout the 1960’s as both “their birthright” and a “normal function of being a complete mother.”209 Interestingly, breastfeeding is also posited as an important part of paternal masculinity, attesting to the idea that both men and women, as gendered beings, are defined through heteronormative relationships of intimacy:

You are never more a man and rightfully proud of it than when you see this very

dependent beautifully feminine wife and nursing babe [sic], and realize that they

are yours to care for, support and protect- that they need you.”210

-Dr. Willke, On the benefits of breastfeeding to fathers

While women are defined through heterosexual reproduction, their relationship to sex and sexuality is constructed as ancillary to their primary role as mothers. Whereas masculine sexuality is characterize as primal, compulsive and aggressive, women’s sexuality within the normative confines of patriarchal marriage is constructed as submissive, persuaded, and emotional:

This young man has a great need for and use for continuing sexual involvement,

and through the use of sex he slowly matures into a love that has depth…She

however, giving herself because she loves, (enjoys) at the beginning mostly the

fact that he enjoys himself and she loves the gift she gives him. She then, through

the repetitiveness of the sexual encounter, learns to want this sexual encounter

also.211

Despite married women’s inherent sexual vulnerability, the Willkes’ curriculum constructs unmarried women as both in control of their sexuality and inherently seductive. They assert that “it is the girl that sets the limits. [Girls] must be told that with few exceptions even ‘good’ boys will take liberties if sufficiently tempted and permitted to do so.”212 As such, the Willkes posit women as being responsible for both the

maintenance of their own sexual integrity and for mitigating men’s sexual desires. In the

Willke’s later publications, this construction extends to women’s responsibility for not only consensual sexual activity, but also implies that she may share responsibility for sexual coercion and violence:

As everyone knows, there are many degrees of resistance or consent on the part of

a woman to the act of intercourse. It is easy for a woman rejected by a lover to

then accuse him of raping her.213

Additionally, they propose that an active sexuality outside of marriage may be related to a higher incidence of psychological ‘neurosis’ in women, advancing the idea that “ pre- marital intercourse for college women could in and of itself be traumatic enough to cause her to seek psychiatric help.” 214 Further, they advance the notion that women who were virgins before marriage were happiest, more stable and had higher incidences of sexual enjoyment in marriage.215

Through their 1960’s sex education curriculum, the Willkes advanced strict, binary constructions of sexuality and gender that were fully committed to the production of white heteronormative family structures. This is most clearly evidenced in the adoption imperative that emerges in these early texts as a desired solution to unwed pregnancy. As explored by Solinger, Shanley and other feminist theorists of adoption, solutions to unwed pregnancy during this period sought to re-establish the heteronormative structures that had been disrupted as a result of white womens’ active sexuality outside of marriage.

No exception, the Willkes urged parents to encourage their unwed, pregnant daughters to place their children for adoption in order to preserve the illusion of heteronormative integrity for themselves and their children. While they propose that the “cross of being illegitimate” is an immutable condition, it could be performatively obscured through adoption:216

If she is pregnant, advise her to go away and have the child and let it be placed in

a good adoptive home. She may then come back and do a better job of creating a

good home at some later date.”217

While Solinger and Shanley note that many white women during this period were also urged to create the normative family through ‘shotgun’ marriages, the Willkes argue that those who enter into early marriage (sans education and an appropriate moral commitment to the sanctity of the union) “often breed new poverty, ignorance, immorality and delinquency.”218 Thus, the Willkes understanding is reflective both racialized and classed understandings of proper female sexuality. Adoption emerges in their early work as a strong imperative for unwed white women invested in securing an acceptable class status. As reflected in Solinger’s work, Dr. Willke also notes that this imperative was inherently racialized in that non-white women, even within the same socio-economic status, were not pushed toward this outcome.219

Heteronormativity and the Adoption Imperative

The Willkes’ original vision of what kinds of intimate and familial arrangements facilitate ‘normal’ moral and social development would be rearticulated within a new context as Dr. Willke became more involved in national reproductive politics in the years after Roe vs. Wade. With the publication of Handbook on Abortion in 1971, Dr. Willke was credited with energizing the rapid development and mobilization of the early pro-life movement through his leadership roles in several Right to Life organizations. As a seminal figure in Right to Life’s development, Dr. Willke helped establish the

“educational methodology” and political strategies that would frame the way abortion was considered through public discourse.220 As Dr. Willke’s work shifted away from sex education toward reproductive politics, his earlier ideological investment in adoption as a viable alternative to illicit pregnancy was replicated in his pro-life activism. Beginning with Handbook on Abortion, the role of adoption as an abortion alternative became a progressively more prominent aspect of Dr. Willke’s (and thus Right to Life’s) anti- abortion platform.

It is in these writings that we begin to see a construction of the birthmother emerge in

Right to Life’s discourses. The most extensive discussion of adoption in the Handbook occurs in the context of a larger rhetorical discussion of ‘unwanted’ children and women’s right to privacy. In it, Willke argues that women should place children that result from ‘unwanted’ pregnancies for adoption, citing an Ohio court case that asserted that through adoption “the [adopted] child is legally and practically as dead to its natural

parents as if it had been aborted, stillborn or had died in infancy.”221 He argues that rather than legitimate abortion rights, public policy should strengthen legal adoption mechanisms and “take unwanted children from parents who are unworthy to raise them.”222 In this initial construction, the prospective birthmother is cast as inherently

‘unworthy’ due to her presumed rejection of pregnancy.223 This discussion considers the adoption decision as facilitating the “legal death” of a birthmother’s child- as if it had been aborted.224 This determination is underwritten by the idea that, within dominant heteronormative constructions of the family, women who have divorced their reproductive capacity from a feminine ‘mothering’ imperative are perceived as being inherently ‘unnatural’. By necessity, heteronormative constructions posit birthmothers as apathetic and psychologically-detached non-mothers; if they were ‘natural’ women, they would be compelled by their ‘essential’ gendered destinies to embrace motherhood.

Whereas later public pro-life discourses would also begin to characterize birthmothers as

‘generous’ (in comparison to women who obtain abortions), the unstable, murderous potentiality of birthmothers is ever-present, as illustrated in Dr. Willke’s later testimony from H.B. 256 in 1990.225

Dr. Willke’s later pro-life publications would more directly engage with adoption policy and practice as a critical dimension of the Right to Life political strategy. His follow-up to Handbook on Abortion, Abortion: Question and Answers (1985), outlined a more detailed political directive for pro-life intervention in adoption politics. In it, he reinforces the value of reconstituted heteronormativity via the adoption imperative by arguing that

children of single mothers suffer from more “educational failure and psychiatric disorders” than do adopted children.226 He then advances specific interventions ranging from the promotion of transracial adoption to best-practice standards that facilitate the direct transfer of children into adoptive homes. For example, he argues that “whenever possible, the baby must go directly from the hospital into [the] new parents arms” to facilitate bonding between the adoptee and the adoptive parents.227 He takes, as a desired model, his own involvement as an intermediary in hundreds of private adoptions, arguing that private adoptions can cut costs for women and encourage them to place their children for adoption.228 Most notably, Abortion: Question and Answers begins to explicitly articulate an anti-open records agenda as a matter of pro-life concern. Although he concedes that some birthmothers may not want confidentiality, he argues that most

‘generous’ birthmothers are invested in perpetual anonymity and that without sealed records, many women will choose abortion.229 In the context of this increased emphasis on the preservation of anonymity for birthmothers, Willke notes that Right to Life groups

“worked to defeat open records laws” in almost one-third of the 48 states that had restricted access to OBCs by 1985.230

Generous Women, Murderous Mothers

Dr. Willke’s political investment in the promotion of adoption as an abortion alternative would have particular consequences for birthmothers in the adoptee access debate in

Ohio. While Dr. Willke filled his testimonies with imagined narratives of the prospective birthmother, one ‘choosing’ between adoption and abortion, he presented the true

beneficiary of his activism as those birthmothers who had already made their choice. Dr.

Willke’s writings and public testimonies on adoptee access illustrate the ways in which his raced and classed vision of heteropatriarchy influences the terms of Ohio’s adoptee access debates.

In his early work in sex education, Willke advances a strict construction of female sexuality that is at once amenable and dangerous to the project of the heteronormative family. Emerging from this ideological context, birthmothers are similarly constructed in

Willke’s pro-life discourses as both in need of protection and in dire need of restraint.

Many of Willke’s writings explicitly posit the woman who places her child for adoption as a generous woman who has made a “very charitable, very unselfish, very laudable decision considering her circumstances.”231 It is for this generous birthmother that Willke claims to advocate for- both out of respect for her and in support of her privacy interests.

However, the ways in which he and other opponents narrate the circumstances of birthmothers constructs a secondary discourse that creates a clear double bind for the women Willke venerates. In this secondary discourse, birthmothers are cast as self- interested and irresponsible:

[T]his adopted woman just had to find her birthmother. I did not stand in her way,

but gently advised that the nirvana she was seeking might not turn out to be

exactly that. In fact, the day came when she did locate her mother. It was in a

rooming house in inner-city Cincinnati. She knocked on the door to find a

disheveled woman, clearly a prostitute, with a male customer, both of whom had

had too much to drink…[h]er mother cursed her out the door and told her never to

come back.232

Promiscuous and unrestrained, the prostitute birthmother closely resembles the callous, self-interested birthmother who procures the ‘legal death’ of her child through adoption.233 In contrast to the ‘generous’ birthmother, the prostitute birthmother does not prioritize the needs of her daughter, and, like Willke’s earlier construction, rejects her essential feminine capacity for care. In a very literal sense, the prostitute birthmother is narrated as choosing deviant sexuality over selfless motherhood. Coupled with the ever- present claim that birthmothers are forever on the verge of killing their babies through abortion without pro-life intervention, these secondary narratives firmly position birthmothers as un-natural, deviant women outside of the project of the family.

This construction of the birthmother is replicated in other opposition testimonies throughout the open records debates of the 1990’s. In the Ohio Senate hearings on H.B.

256 in 1990, Ohio probate court judge Robert Metcalf joined Dr. Willke in opposition and publicly testified to the following:

One of the things we used to see on a regular basis some years back was pleas

from natural parents wanting to know their child. Almost always these would

come from a jail; for the purposes of trying to have somebody on the outside

make contact, to send them cookies, or help them get out of jail, or whatever. That

kind of natural parent contact you see. But very, very few inquiries from natural

parents wanting to find their children. And they have put this behind them in

life.”234

Here, the criminal birthmother is portrayed as deviant, self-interested and pathetic, only wanting contact with her child in the hopes that they might send, of all things, cookies.

This construction reinforces Willke’s claim that ‘normal’ birthmothers desire total separation from their children through adoption. Other opposition testimonies from 1992 also parallel Willke’s earlier discourses. In an opposition handout circulated during the hearings on H.B. 628, three anonymous birthmothers confirmed that (as predicted by

Willke’s constructions of the murderous birthmother) they would have chosen abortion had the sealed records system not been in place.235 In a passage that seems completely unrelated to the remainder of her testimony, one anonymous birthmother states that she purposely and falsely claimed that the wrong man was the father of her child because she was angry at this man. She laments that, “this innocent boy is now a married man with children.”236 A second anonymous birthmother discloses that she became pregnant while working as director of a faith-based teen pregnancy prevention program.237 Through this representation, birthmothers confess their own moral failures. They are vindictive manipulators and hypocritical frauds. They embrace privacy and sealed records for their own sake and for the sake of others.

Those who do not acquiesce to the presumption of their insufficiency are further marked in Willke’s narratives as deviant. Though he admits he has “no basis” for his claim, from

1990 forward he has argued that a “significant percentage” of birthmothers (he estimates

90%) want to sever all ties to adoptees through sealed records.238 He mirrors this claim in the adoptee population, arguing that only 2-3% of adoptees decide to search for their birth families.239 In this way, Willke’s arguments work to quantitatively normalize the choice to totally sever legal and social ties through closed adoption. He consistently characterizes birthmothers and adoptees who desire contact as ‘neurotic’, ‘unstable’, and suffering from a failure to move on. He commonly attributes adoptees’ “compulsion” to search for their birth families to a failure to be sufficiently re-constituted as heteronormative subjects within the adoptive family.240 He implies that adoptees may not have accepted their adoptive parents as their ‘real’ parents,241 or that perhaps the adoptive parents may have failed to produce the heteronormative family due to divorce.242 It should also be noted that throughout his discourse, adoptees that search are consistently referred to as being female. Thus, with no mention of the birthfather or male adoptees in most of his writings and testimonies, Willke consistently rearticulates his earlier constructions of a vulnerable and unstable white femininity through his considerations of both birthmothers and (female) adoptees.

Protecting the Heteropatriachal Family

Having illustrated the severe material and psychological consequences for white women who fall outside of normative constructions of sexuality and gender, Willke’s opposition to adoptee access works to discipline these women back into the project of the heteropatriachal family.243 While he vociferously proclaims the centrality of birthmothers

to these debates, what is often overlooked is the emergence of another central figure in his narrative- the birthmother’s future husband. An overwhelming number of Willke’s publications, testimonies, correspondences and public service announcements directly tie birthmother’s privacy interests to the interests of her future husband, a man who is presumed not be her child’s birthfather.244 Central to Willke’s construction of the open records debate is that birthmothers need privacy to protect the integrity of their heterosexual alliances with their future husband:

These women want this chapter in their lives hidden- closed. They are not going

to tell their future husband or their children later. He may even think he married a

virgin. And later revelation of this pregnancy could have shattering social, marital

or psychological consequences on her life later on. So, for such women, the seal

of confidentiality is crucial. And without its guarantee, many women will get

abortions which are permanently confidential.245

In this way, the implicit heteronormative trajectory of Willke’s narratives are fully realized. First, Willke implies the literal inevitability of birthmothers’ participation in heterosexual marriage. The compulsory nature of heterosexuality evidenced in his testimonies parallels his commitment to heteronormative gender and sexual development in his sex education curriculum. Second, Willke foregrounds patriarchal masculinity in his construction of birthmother privacy by privileging a husband’s naturalized desire to have an exclusive sexual entitlement to his wife. Birthmothers are consistently reminded, as are the female subjects of his sex education curriculum, that the preservation of their

reproductive and sexual integrity is paramount. It is ultimately their responsibility to maintain this integrity for themselves -and on behalf of (white) men’s normative masculinity. Willke argues that sealed records are essential to avoid birthmothers’ exposure to their “unsuspecting” husbands, recalling his consistent characterization of birthmothers as unreliable and manipulative. 246 Willke also asserts that as birthmothers go on to have more children within heterosexual marriage, they are emotionally stabilized by their renewed commitment to heteronormative reproduction:

Here’s a young lady that places her child for adoption, and then never has another

child. Here’s a kid who did the same thing and then ended up with 8 or 10 kids.

The second woman is not as…is not quite as…oh, sure she thinks about her first

pregnancy sometimes…wonders….but it’s not as major a factor in her life.247

Thus, Willke’s vision of birthmother privacy works in the service of heteropatriarchal reproduction. Through sealed records, deserving birthmothers can obscure their sexual and reproductive illegitimacy and get a second chance at fulfilling their gendered destiny within the heteropatriarchal family.248 As he reminds us, without sealed records- that is, without a means to be re-constituted within the heteronormative family- birthmothers may be tempted by their unstable (read: murderous) passions or have their moral failures exposed. Birthmothers must embrace the performance of heteronormativity and accept responsibility for enabling the performances of others through their silences and invisibilities. Ohio Probate Court Judge Robert Metcalf aptly describes the high stakes for birthmothers if they don’t:

If somebody called my house and said they were hunting for their natural mother,

my wife who has never told me about that…I can assure you there would be some

discussion on the matter. I would guess in some homes you would end up with a

black eye, I would guess in many homes you would end up with a divorce, and I

would guess too, that you might have some suicides.249

Conclusion

As I have explored in this chapter, Dr. Willke’s narrative representations of birthmothers as simultaneously naturalize both choice and gender/ sexual normativities. While claiming to privilege birthmother choices, these representations work to privilege a particular outcome for birthmothers: their recuperation within heteropatriarchal family structures. Birthmothers have choices in adoption, but those choices are clearly marked and constrained by strict constructions of heteronormative gender and sexuality that establish for them certain normative expectations. In this way, discourses of birthmother privacy and choice in Ohio’s open records debate function as a self-disciplining and regulatory mechanisms that works to mask the continued, uninterrupted operation of whiteness and heteronormative power in adoption. These frameworks effectively discipline birthmothers by presenting them with a double bind that constrains their possibilities within the institution; they can choose visibility and face the severe consequences of being designated outside of the project of the normative family or they can choose to participate in heteronormativizing processes that render them invisible.

In Chapter 5, I turn to Ohio’s most recent adoptee access effort, which can be understood as the latest development in the long history of adoptee access debates explored in the previous chapters. Through this original research, I outline the strategies of the activist campaign that produces the unsealing of Ohio adoption records in 2013. This chapter offers a detailed insider account of the complex and diffuse policy-making processes of state-level politics in Ohio. I argue that supporters of adoptee access developed a campaign that that both challenged and relied upon the position of Ohio Right to Life as powerful agenda setters in Ohio politics. In this way, the campaign for adoptee access in

Ohio in 2013 accommodated, rather than displaced, the political power of Ohio Right to

Life.

Chapter 5:

Current Pro-Life Interventions:

Adoption Equity Ohio’s Campaign for Adoptee Access, 2008-2014

Introduced in February of 2007 by Representative Tom Brinkman (Cincinnati-R), HB 7 was a sweeping adoption reform bill containing two notable provisions that addressed issues of post adoption contact. These two provisions were brought to Brinkman’s attention by Betsie Norris with the aid of then Ohio House Speaker Jon Husted (Dayton-

R), as an effort to redress the failure of 1996’s HB 419 to produce a single system of adoptee access to original birth certificates. Husted, a Michigan adoptee who did not have access to his birth records, had previously met Betsie Norris and agreed to lend his support to her efforts; he encouraged Brinkman to take on the project.250 The provisions in HB 7 sought to repeal the birthparent disclosure veto put in place through the passage of HB 419 in 1996. Effectively, the proposal sought a single system of adoptee access based on the access provisions in place for pre-1964 adoptions. As introduced, HB 7 was considered a ‘clean’ bill by key supporters of open records, one that contained no exceptions or veto provisions that would disenfranchise any adoptee born in Ohio in any year, both retrospectively and prospectively.251 HB 7 also sought to repeal the

prohibition, first articulated in HB 419, on legally enforceable open adoption agreements, also known as post-adoption contact agreements.252

At the time HB 7 was introduced, I had no knowledge of or interest in the history of open records debates in Ohio. My involvement in this issue began in late 2007 when, by coincidence, I started researching Ohio adoption law to find out what it would take to locate my two cousins who were placed for adoption in 1986 and 1998. I learned about the three-tiered system of access and immediately recognized that it presented a barrier to a possible reunion between my aunts and their children.253 I also discovered that Marley

Greiner, co-founder of Bastard Nation, lived in my hometown of Columbus where she published the popular adoptee rights website The Daily Bastardette.254 Much of my early understanding of this issue came from reading Greiner’s blog posts about HB 7, and it was from Greiner that I first learned of Ohio Right to Life’s intensive involvement in blocking open records legislation in Ohio. Having volunteered for Ohio Right to Life throughout my youth, I did not understand the logic of their opposition relative to their anti-abortion platform. Further, I doubted the veracity of ORTL’s claim that they were representing the interests of all Ohio birthmothers, when I knew at least three (myself and my two aunts) who did not agree with their opposition. When Greiner published a call for testimony in support of HB 7, I wrote letters of support to the members of the House

Health committee in advance of the January 16th, 2008 proponent hearing. This was my first actual engagement in open records activism.

As discussed in Chapter 3, by the time I wrote my letters, the bill sponsors and members of the House Health committee were already receiving correspondence from Dr. and Mrs.

Willke demanding that the adoptee access provisions be removed from HB 7.

Additionally, reports from Brinkman’s office indicated that Health committee member

Representative Matt Huffman (Lima-R), vehemently opposed adoptee access.255 On April

16, 2008, a substitute bill was introduced in the committee that removed all post-adoption contact and adoptee access provisions. Via email to followers of The Daily Bastardette,

Greiner implored people to testify at the next hearing on Sub HB 7 on April 23rd, 2008 and to demand reinstatement of the access provisions. 256 I decided to attend the hearing and drafted a testimony that I hoped would appeal to pro-life representatives swayed by

Ohio Right to Life’s opposition.

I went alone to the hearing. After giving my testimony, I happened to sit in front of

Betsie Norris, who introduced herself and complimented my testimony. On my way out of committee, I spotted Mark Lally, the legislative director of Ohio Right to Life who I had known as a young ORTL volunteer and who also had previous worked with several members of my family. I introduced myself as a birthmother and identified my family affiliation, explaining that I thought his organization was on the wrong side of the adoptee access issue. I recall being angrily dismissed by Lally, who pounded his briefcase at me and yelled that “babies’ lives were on the line!”257 He asserted that his organization was protecting and acting in the interests of birthmothers. When I asked him if he had spoken with any birthmothers on this matter, Lally said he hadn't, but he

had heard of birthmothers who wanted perpetual anonymity. It was this confusing and hostile interaction with Lally that solidified my resolve to learn more about Ohio Right to

Life’s involvement in the open records debate in Ohio.

Following that interaction, I invited my two birthmother aunts to deliver testimony at the next HB 7 hearing, with the hope that Lally would be in attendance. Although she had been ‘closeted’ as birthparents for two decades, my Aunt Nancy agreed to come testify. I recall her trembling in front of the committee at the April 30th hearing, speaking in public for the first time that she had placed a son for adoption. Throughout her testimony, and those of the 11 other proponents who came to testify, committee members checked their phones and frequently left the room.258 I would soon discover how typical that was in committee and was angry that no one could recognize how painful and courageous it was for my aunt to speak publicly about the loss of her son. Lally was indeed at that hearing and briefly chatted with my aunt, but by that point the committee had made their decision to push forward the Sub HB 7 without the access provisions. At the end of those House committee hearings, I left the Statehouse feeling a deep sense of urgency that I should personally press Ohio Right to Life to re-examine its platform against adoptee access. I began corresponding with Betsie Norris later and was invited to join her in planning the next legislative attempt.

I have until this point argued that Dr. Jack Willke and Ohio Right to Life have played a large role in proliferating a political narrative within Ohio’s open records debate that

relies on a heteropatriachal construction of ‘birthmother’ and the co-optation of feminist discourses of choice and privacy. It would be tempting, as a supporter of open records, to argue that proponents of adoptee access in Ohio offered a radical counter discourse. We did not.

In this chapter, I turn to Ohio’s most recent open records effort, which can be understood as the latest development in the long history of open records debates explored in the previous chapters. Introduced in the Ohio General Assembly in 2013, HB 61 and SB 23 were companion bills developed by a small group of open records activists under the executive direction of adoptee Betsie Norris. Unlike the five previous bills attempted in

Ohio, the open records provisions in HB 61 and SB 23 were signed into law in 2014.

By focusing on the efforts of open records activists to challenge the political hegemony of the narratives used by opponents of access, this chapter provides two important contributions to the study of adoption and the politics of birthmotherhood. First, it offers a detailed insider account of the complex and diffuse policy-making processes of state- level politics in Ohio. Drawing from my first-hand experience as the sole birthparent member of the small group that developed and promoted HB 61 and SB 23, I outline the political climate, organizing strategies and alliances that produced the passage of these bills. Second, I demonstrate that the success of HB 61 and SB 23 did not hinge on a new popular acceptance of counter-hegemonic narratives about birthmother experience and rights. Rather, I argue that supporters of adoptee access developed a campaign that that

both challenged and relied upon the position of Ohio Right to Life as powerful agenda setters in Ohio politics. In this way, the campaign for adoptee access in Ohio in 2013 accommodated, rather than displaced, the political power of Ohio Right to Life. For the supporters of access, a temporary alliance with Ohio Right to Life developed out of necessity and in response to an opportune political climate for forging such an alliance.

For Ohio Right to Life, this alliance allowed them to strengthen their status as an interested party in adoption politics. Although they changed their position on open records, they did so without ceding any agenda-setting power.

Re-Calibrating the Effort

By the time that Sub HB 7 was signed by the governor in early January 2009, Norris was already re-grouping in anticipation of another legislative campaign. On January 21st, at the behest of Norris, a group of activists met at the Mansfield, Ohio public library to discuss the unsuccessful HB 7 campaign and plan a future legislative strategy. In attendance were Norris, Marley Greiner, myself and two additional advocates. John

Adams, a retired engineer, did not have a personal connection to adoption. His good friend was impacted by Ohio’s sealed records laws and he had taken on the issue in his retirement as a personal project. Fred Greenman, a Cleveland birthfather, was the chief legal counsel for American Adoption Congress, a national organization that advocated for adoptee access. He represented an amicus curiae group of Tennesee adoptees, birthparents and adoptive parents in support of an adoptee access statute litigated as Doe v. Sundquist in 1997 and 1999. Ultimately upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th

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Circuit (1997) and the Tennessee Supreme Court (1999), Doe vs. Sundquist litigated some of the legal objections to adoptee access that might be expected in Ohio.259

Discussion at this meeting centered on two themes. First, recognizing that birthmother privacy arguments dominated the debates over HB 7, the group discussed the need for a more strategic use of available data on the outcomes of adoptee access legislation in other states. Proponent data needed to address the widespread concern that adoptee access would increase abortion rates and the concern that birthmothers would experience adoptee access as a violation of privacy. Greenman led a discussion of how data on adoption and abortion trends were being misrepresented by opponents of access to theorize a causal link between adoptee access and an increase in abortions. He also presented data from the state of Oregon, which had opened adoptee access in 1999, suggesting that few birthparents utilized their new system to refuse contact with adoptees.

Greenman asserted that this data contrasted with opponent claims that most birthparents want to be protected from contact or the disclosure of their identity.260 In addition to challenging the concern that adoptee access would produce an experiential trauma for birthmothers, data was also needed to address the concern that adoptee access constitutes a legal violation of birthmother privacy. In effect, data needed to de-bunk the idea that a legal right to nondisclosure of birthparent information ever existed.

Second, and perhaps most critically, the group discussed a new strategy of direct engagement with Ohio Right to Life. Rather than continue to refute their opponent

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arguments within the formal legislative process, I argued that it could be more effective to utilize “the language and thinking” of Ohio Right to Life to pressure the organization to shift their position. As a birthmother familiar with the conservative culture of Ohio

Right to Life, I argued that my relative insider status could be used to open up a direct conversation with these opponents. The group discussed the risk that if we were too successful in changing the conversation at Ohio Right to Life, that support of adoptee access could be appropriated as a ‘pro-life’ issue. Concerned that Ohio Right to Life might continue to be the primary agenda setter in these debates, we agreed that the best strategy was to attempt to neutralize their opposition rather than convince them to take on support of access as a part of their anti-abortion platform. A ‘best case’ scenario would be for them to agree to register their support for adoptee access, but otherwise stay out of the conversation.261

Regarding organizational strategy, attendees agreed that Betsie should continue to serve as the ‘face’ of the effort, given her strong relationship with state and non-profit adoption and child welfare organizations. The group would coordinate activities but, for the immediate future, act as individuals until a larger organizational structure could be developed. The group committed to investigating their contacts, if any, with Ohio Right to Life Board members. The group also committed to begin to gather intelligence about the legislators to assess their relationship to adoption, potential for bill sponsorship and the possible direction of their vote on adoptee access.262 From this meeting, the beginnings of group that would spearhead the HB 61/SB 23 legislative effort was formed.

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Although this strategy meeting would provide the blueprint for future actions taken by some group members, there was little momentum and few resources to immediately initiate another campaign.

Little was done in the Spring and Summer of 2009, but an unexpected development in

October of that year presented new possibilities for a bill in Ohio. Paula Benoit, a former

Maine State Senator (19th District-R), had presented at the American Adoption Congress conference in March 2009, co-hosted by Betsie Norris’ organization Adoption Network

Cleveland. At that conference she outlined details of the campaign in Maine for the passage of LD1084, adoptee access legislation that Benoit sponsored. An adult adoptee herself, Benoit gained access to her birth records through LD1084 and discovered that two of her biological nephews served alongside her in the Maine legislature.263 After meeting with adoptee access advocates in Ohio that March, Paula Benoit had subsequently attended the Philadelphia Legislative Summit of the National Conference of

State Legislators in July of 2009. There, she made contact with Representative W.

Carlton Weddington (Columbus-D), an Ohio state legislator that seemed interested in the issue of adoptee access. By October 2009, Benoit had been in conversation with

Weddington about the possibility of introducing access legislation in Ohio. She contacted

Betsie Norris to suggest that Norris start working with Weddington’s office directly.264

On October 22, 2009, an initial meeting was held with Representative Weddington. In attendance were Norris, myself, and Aaron Ockerman, the paid government lobbyist

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contracted by Norris’ organization Adoption Network Cleveland. Also present were Lisa

Dickson, an Columbus-based advocate for foster care youth, and a Columbus teenager living in foster care within Weddington’s district.265 The conversation revealed that

Weddington had no personal adoption connection or previous knowledge of adoptee access as a contested issue in Ohio. Norris brought Weddington up to speed on past legislative attempts and advised that the issue would likely draw heated opposition. At the time, Weddington seemed skeptical that the issue would engender the kind of controversy that Norris described.

Privately, the advocates agreed among themselves that we would help Weddington get up to speed on the issues, and that his willingness to sponsor was an opportunity that shouldn’t be squandered. Following that initial meeting, Norris sent Weddington supplementary information about the issue, including testimony and exhibits from the

Sub HB 7 hearings.266 By November, Weddington informed Ockerman that he intended to introduce an adoptee access bill.267

Examining Precedent, Developing A New Vehicle for Access

The question of exactly what type of bill should be introduced by Weddington was informed by precedent from other states that had instituted adoptee access and from insights gleaned from previous legislative defeats. During the initial planning meeting in

January 2009, Fred Greenman provided an invaluable analysis of relevant legal cases that he surmised would be important to Ohio’s future efforts. Given that Ohio was a part of

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the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, federal claims originating out of Ohio would draw precedent from the decision in Doe vs. Sundquist (1997), which rejected the claim that adoptee access violated a fundamental reproductive privacy right or a familial privacy right. Further, Doe vs. Sundquist (1999), which litigated state constitutional claims in Tennessee trial court, rejected the argument that disclosure of birthparent identity “impaired the obligation of contracts”. 268 Plaintiffs argued that the legal statutes governing adoption and sealed adoption records constituted a contract between the state and birthparents that guaranteed nondisclosure. Importantly, this Court reasoned that no such contractual guarantee existed, based on the legislative history of adoption statute in

Tennessee. 269 The Oregon Court of Appeals similarly rejected an impairment of contract claim following the passage of an adoptee access ballot initiative in 1998. Both courts looked to adoption law history in their respective states to determine that no guarantee of confidentiality existed since, in both states, adoptees’ birth records could be opened by court order. 270

While opponents of access in Ohio argued that verbal promises made by adoption attorneys and social workers should constitute an enforceable barrier to adoptee access to birth records held by the State, these cases provided legal precedent to the contrary.271 As

Greenman later synthesized about the Oregon ruling,

“The Court rejected arguments based on statements to the birth mothers by

employees and staff of private entities such as adoption agencies and hospitals

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because they were not agents of the state and, even if they had been, could not

bind the state to any commitment that contradicted the statutes.”272

Norris’ group was confident that adoptee access was similarly permissible under Ohio statute, as Ohio also provided that adoptees’ birth records could be opened for ‘good cause’ by a probate judge. Because this provision was included in HB 202, the original law that sealed Ohio records in 1964, there always existed a judicial mechanism for adoptees to access their sealed records. While anecdotal evidence suggested that judges rarely, if ever, used this provision to grant adoptee access, Norris surmised that the existence of the statute undermined opponents’ claims that a legal guarantee of nondisclosure was granted to birthparents under 1963’s HB 202. However, with the passage of HB 419 in 1996, Ohio had in fact instituted a new right to nondisclosure for birthparents that did not exist in HB 202. Popularly referred to as a Birthparent

Disclosure Veto, the relevant provision in HB 419 gave birthparents the option of releasing the original birth certificate to the adoptee. During or after the legal adoption process, a birthparent could use a newly created ODHS/JFS Form 1963 to release or to deny the release of the original birth certificate. This provision applied prospectively to

Ohio adoptions occurring on or after September 19th, 1996. This meant that for Ohio adoptions taking place on or after September 19, 1996, it could be argued that Ohio had extended a legally enforceable guarantee of nondisclosure to birthparents who choose to deny the release of the original birth certificate using ODHS/JFS 1963.

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Norris believed that the adoptee access proposal in HB 7 failed in part because the proposed language of that bill didn’t take into account the legal right of nondisclosure extended to Ohio birthparents in 1996.273 The failed HB 7 provision sought a single system of access based on the terms of access enjoyed by pre-1964 adoptees. Those adoptees were grandfathered out of HB 202’s sealed records law and could obtain their birth certificates upon request. Consequently in conversations with Weddington, Norris decided to change tack and recommended that a future bill ought to focus solely on changing the system of access for adoptees between 1964 and 1996. Believing that the

HB 419 provisions complicated the important arguments against legal guarantee of nondisclosure in Ohio, Norris pushed for narrowly tailored bill language.274 A bill that addressed only 1964-1996 adoptions would side-step the contract issue presented by HB

419.

An additional insight gleaned from past campaigns was that adoptee access provisions fared poorly when included as one of many issues addressed through a larger bill. The controversies surrounding adoptee access made it an easy target for the chopping block when legislators negotiated compromises and concessions. As this was the case in the latest two campaigns (HB 419 and HB 7), Norris strongly advocated for a ‘stand alone’ bill in which adoptee access was the only issue addressed.

Subsequent debates among advocates over the actual content of the proposal proved to be a much more difficult organizational challenge. In an email to a larger group of interested

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parties, Norris announced the developing discussions with Weddington and suggested that,

“to increase our probability of success, we should initiate legislation that would

seek to bring the provisions of the 1996 law back to 1964, instead of bringing the

pre-1964 access provisions forward to 1996. This means in effect that we would

propose a birthparent disclosure veto (also called a denial system) to cover the

period of 1964-1996 which currently has closed records. As an adoptee rights

advocate, this is not what I personally would hope for, but I do see the wisdom in

it…”275

However, interested parties began to push back on the idea that the new legislation should propose a birthparent disclosure veto. Marley Greiner of Bastard Nation and The

Daily Bastardette informed Betsie that her affiliates would oppose any bill that contained a denial system.276 Mike Martindale, an Ohio adoptee born in 1970, suggested that draft legislation should start with a more liberal orientation toward access than a Birthparent

Disclosure Veto. This preference was echoed by most of the interested party group.

The viability of a more liberal access provision had been demonstrated through the success of Maine’s adoptee access bill, LD 1084. Passed in 2007 and effective in 2009,

LD1084 repealed Maine’s sealed records laws, which were nearly identical in procedure and scope with Ohio. Maine statute sealed birth records for adoptions after August 8,

1953.277 Like Ohio, Maine statute “provide(d) that the original birth certificate can be

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unsealed at any time by a judge” and allowed “adoptive parents, at the time of adoption, to NOT alter the original birth certificate if they so choose, and without obtaining birth parent consent.”278 In addition to enabling adoptee access, LD1084 instituted a Contact

Preference Form for birthparents. The Contact Preference Form was non-binding form on which a birthparent could declare their level of interest in contact with the adoptee. Three options were provided for the birth parent to indicate 1) a willingness to receive direct contact from the adoptee 2) a willingness to receive contact from the adoptee through a third party intermediary and 3) no interest in post-adoption contact.279 If a birthparent submitted a Contact Preference Form, they also had to submit a medical history form in which they could provide updated medical information for the adoptee. Submission of a

Contact Preference form did not block the adoptee from accessing their birth record, even if ‘no contact’ was elected by the birthparent. Maine’s Contact Preference system mirrored the system of adoptee access that was inaugurated in Oregon in 1998. Notably, however, Oregon only required submission of a medical history form if the birth parent elected ‘no contact’ on their Contact Preference Form.280

In effect, the Contact Preference system was an attempt to balance the interest of access with the interest of privacy. While the Birthparent Disclosure Veto equated privacy with the ability to block disclosure of birth records, the Contact Preference model relied on a different interpretation of privacy. This model prioritized rights of adoptee access to identifying information contained in birth records, but recognized that birthparents had a privacy interest in the way identifying information could be used by adoptees. Instead of

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a blanketed default that assumed all birthparents had an interest in nondisclosure, the contact preference system relied on the transparent, active declaration of preferences by individual birth parents. In this way, the contact preference system made a distinction between access to records and post-adoption contact, whereas the closed records system conflated access to records with post-adoption contact between adoptees and birthparents.

Maine’s contact preference system was non-binding, meaning that it was up to the individual adoptee to respect the privacy preference articulated by their birthparent regarding post-adoption contact.

Given that the non-binding Contact Preference system was the group’s clear preference, the question shifted to how to apply the Contract Preference model to Ohio’s three-tiered system of access, which was unique relative to Maine and Oregon. In a November 3,

2009 correspondence with Representative Weddington, Norris proposed the following three options for bill language.281 The first option, which represented the preference of the advocate/interested party group, suggested that the Contact Preference system be implemented for 1964-1996 adoptions and prospectively for all adoptions occurring after the passage of a new bill. This option would leave in place the birthparent disclosure veto initiated in 1996, but eliminate the disclosure option for future adoptions if the bill was passed. The second option also suggested that a Contact Preference system be enacted for

1964-1996 adoptions. However, it proposed leaving the birthparent disclosure veto intact for future adoptions, but modifying the veto system prospectively by limiting the time span in which birthparents could submit a veto. The third option proposed that the

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existing birthparent disclosure veto model be extended to all adoptions from 1964-1996.

This option would extend disclosure veto rights to birthparents beyond the original scope of HB 419 by making the HB 419 veto provisions retroactive.282 By late November 2009,

Weddington verbally agreed to sponsor a bill, but did not make an immediate decision about bill language.

Adoption Equity Ohio

While they anxiously awaited follow-up from Weddington, the interested party group began to discuss campaign strategy and divide responsibilities. Of the interested parties included in Norris’ larger email updates, five individuals ultimately formed the central organizing committee for the campaign. This whittling down of interested parties was largely informal and based almost entirely on who was most active in responding to the questions Norris posed to the larger group. One of Norris’ strengths as an Executive

Director of Adoption Network Cleveland (ANC) was the ability to identify and network with individuals who had expressed even the most remote interest in the policy issues addressed by ANC. Norris made it a practice to recruit individuals into conversation, with the hope that they would commit to a role in supporting ANC’s efforts. The informal reduction of an interested party group into an organizing committee was a typical outcome of Norris’ methods. However, some exclusions from the committee were deliberate. Marley Greiner opted not to be formally involved in bill planning, given

Bastard Nation’s firm commitment against such compromise provisions as birthparent

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disclosure vetos. This decision appeared to be mutual between Norris and Greiner, who supported each other’s efforts but decided to remain strategically unaffiliated.

With Norris in the de facto leadership role, Aaron Ockerman, John Adams, Mike

Martindale and myself constituted the core organizing team that would direct all subsequent campaign activities. Professional lobbyist Aaron Ockerman was retained by

Adoption Network Cleveland in 2007 and worked with Norris on the ill-fated campaign for HB 7.283 Ockerman’s expertise in government relations and his inside knowledge of political relationships at the Ohio Statehouse made him a critical addition to the organizing committee. Although his primary role was to enable the implementation of strategies developed by Norris, his insight into the political climate at the Ohio

Statehouse contributed greatly to the development of those strategies. His report with legislators (and their staff) in addition to his command of lobbying etiquette was invaluable insider knowledge that the committee relied heavily on. John Adams, a retired engineering executive at Honda of America Manufacturing Inc., had written a letter to the editor in the Columbus Dispatch in support of HB 7 and was subsequently recruited by

Norris into the interested party group.284 Although he had no personal connection to adoption, Adams became interested in HB 7 due to his friendship with a Honda coworker who was a 1967 adoptee subject to Ohio’s sealed records law. He credited this coworker with saving his life for her insistence that he get a colonoscopy due to his family medical history of colon cancer. At her urging, Adams had done the procedure and ultimately had a cancerous polyp removed. Subsequently, his coworker developed

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cancer. As a 1967 adoptee, she was without a route to access family medical history that might be relevant to her treatment.285 On behalf of his coworker, John Adams offered to spearhead the organization of data for campaign. Mike Martindale, an Ohio-born adoptee living in Charlotte, North Carolina, had unsuccessfully petitioned Ohio courts for access to his birth record.286 A software developer, Martindale offered to spearhead communications efforts and help develop a timeline for the completion of action items.

As the sole birthparent on the committee, I joined with the goal of intervening directly with pro-life opponents. My role gradually expanded to the organization and recruitment of grassroots volunteers, legislative lobbying and developing campaign strategy alongside

Norris.

By December 2009, strategic planning for the campaign was being conducted by this small core team via phone and email. While waiting on Weddington’s response to Norris’ recommendations, this core team soon began to re-visit the rough campaign plan sketched out during the Marion, Ohio meeting of January 2009. Of particular concern was the need to develop a communications campaign to build a base of support for the new bill. Mike Martindale advocated for an immediate publicity campaign to announce that an adoptee access bill was forthcoming. He wanted to drum up popular support by using social media and blogging to raise awareness about adoptee access an issue. He argued that because the general public was presumed to be largely ignorant of the issue, creating “noise” would help build a support base.287 Betsie Norris and I thought it would be counterproductive to initiate a publicity campaign before bill language was decided

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upon. I argued that any campaign for grassroots support would need to be narrowly tailored to encourage supporters to utilize branded campaign messaging. Given the opposition rhetoric surrounding adoptee access, I felt it was important to provide communications templates and strategic opportunities for direct action to any base of supporters.288 Further, I argued that it might be counterproductive, at this stage, to tip

Ohio Right to Life off about the development of another access bill. Consensus grew among the team that we needed to start first with developing a web-based structure for the dissemination of branded campaign communications.

What emerged from that conversation was Adoption Equity Ohio, a brand name to describe our informal political action group. Initiated by Martindale, the branding of our group as Adoption Equity Ohio was intended to provide an umbrella affiliation for supporters of access to mobilize within. The team also had an interest in creating a public presence that alluded to the existence of a large base of supporters that frankly, had yet to be organized. Martindale took on the task of developing and maintaining a

Facebook page under the name Adoption Equity Ohio. Adams began to construct a website under the url www.adoptionequityohio.com and did much of the conceptual work of designing the user experience. He envisioned a site that would enable potential supporters to easily access educational materials, participate in defined action items and publish important legislative deadlines. While Adams worked on developing the structure and usability of the site, Norris and I took the lead on developing site content. The work

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of developing the content and structure of the website constituted much of the core team’s activities from November 2009 until the site went live in February of 2010.

Adams’ website also provided a back-end experience, hidden from public view, that housed important campaign documents used by the core team. Among the most critical was the Legislative Tracking database that I developed, a comprehensive map of intelligence on all current legislators serving in the House and Senate.289 In addition to contact and legislative district information, the database was used to log any demographic information, personal conversations or voting histories that might indicate their level of support for an adoptee access bill. This intelligence was gleaned from Norris and

Ockerman’s past lobbying efforts, reports from constituent supporters, legislative histories of committee and general session votes and new lobbying efforts by Norris,

Ockerman and myself. Core team members continually updated and color-coded the database, which greatly informed decisions about who to lobby and how to approach the conversation. Additionally, the website provided a registration process for supporters of access to affiliate with Adoption Equity Ohio. The registration process collected information about an individual’s connection to adoption, their place of birth and current residence, and the year of adoption, if a connection to adoption existed. It also gave individuals the opportunity to volunteer a biographical narrative about their connection to adoption and interest in adoptee access. These narratives provided important information to the core team that would later be used in public relations projects and targeted lobbying.

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Through the Legislative Tracking database and the Adoption Equity Ohio supporter database, Norris and I were able to get a visual picture of the Ohio legislative districts in which registered supporters had a constituent interest. This constituent status could be based on district of residence, district of adoptee’s birth and/or district of adoption finalization. The multi-step nature of the legal adoption process expanded possibilities for constituent interest; supporters both could have connections to a number of legislative districts. Beginning in January 2010, Norris and I had developed a plan to organize incoming registrants into a region-based network of supporters, based on Ohio House district.290

Norris circulated a regional organizer job description to AEO registrants and through

Adoption Network Cleveland’s existing network of supporters and professional affiliates.291 Regional organizers were originally tasked with reaching out to members of the adoption community and civic leaders to grow the AEO support base. Norris and I originally planned that the regional organizers would play a large role in grassroots outreach so the Core team members could focus on assessing and recruiting allies from the legislature and from state and non-profit organizations. However, new developments in the teams’ relationship with Weddington almost immediately detracted from the efforts to build a regional volunteer network. While regional coordinators were recruited by

Norris and I throughout late 2009 and early 2010, ultimately, these volunteers would only help disseminate information from the core team to existing AEO registrants.

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Things Fall Apart: Elections, Indictments and the Trouble with Sponsors

As she pursued the lead identified by Paula Benoit, Norris approached the initial meeting with Weddington in October 2009 with the intention of vetting Weddington as one of several legislative co-sponsors for the next campaign. Another Democratic House

Representative, Linda Bolon of Columbiana, had been on Norris’ radar for some time as a potential co-sponsor. An adult adoptee who had reunited with her birth family, Bolon was also an adoptive parent whose adult child was subject to Ohio’s sealed records laws.292 Compared to Weddington, she had a personal connection to adoption, a passion for repealing Ohio’s access law, and experience discussing the politics of access in the legislature. In her follow-up correspondence with Weddington after their initial meeting,

Norris reinforced her intention of bringing Bolon into the conversation as a possible co- sponsor.293 After several meetings with with Bolon, Norris met again with Weddington in

January of 2010 to confirm his willingness to introduce adoptee access legislation as the primary sponsor with Bolon as a co-sponsor. He agreed and confirmed that he would introduce Norris’ most liberal recommendation, the contact preference model. 294

In anticipation of Weddington’s agreement, Aaron Ockerman circulated a potential timeline for the campaign, relative to the General Assembly Schedule:

• Week of January 18 Introduction of Bill in Ohio House

• Week of February 1 Sponsor Testimony

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• Weeks of February 8 - March 8 Public Testimony

• Week of March 15 Committee Vote

• Week of March 22 Floor Vote in Ohio House

• March 29-April 12 Spring Break Recess

• Week of April 12 Introduction in the Ohio Senate

• Week of April 19 Sponsor Testimony

• April 26-May 10 Break for Primary Election

• Weeks of May 10 - June 7 Public Testimony

• June 14-September Summer Break

• First week back in September Committee Vote

• Second week back in September Floor Vote in Ohio Senate

• Late September/Early October, Concurrence Vote & Bill Signing295

Ockerman’s timeline was ambitious, but it effectively mapped out a viable path to bill passage by the General Assembly during the current legislative session. By mid-February

2010, however, Weddington’s office had not produced draft language for the bill. Earlier in the month, Weddington’s office requested feedback from the core team on several issues of language being vetted by the Legislative Services Commission, the state office that drafts legislation at the behest of legislators. LSC asked for clarification from

Weddington on whether bill language should articulate a criminal penalty for communicating with a birthparent who chose ‘no contact’ on a Contact Preference

Form.296 The suggestion that adult adoptees might be criminalized through a new bill

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greatly alarmed the core team. Of equal concern was Weddington’s inability to recognize that such a provision was contrary to the goals of adoptee access as proposed by Norris.

Throughout February 2010, the team debated internally whether Weddington could be an effective spokesperson as a primary sponsor. Given that Linda Bolon had a long-standing commitment to access, Norris suggested trying to shift primary sponsorship to Bolon. She knew, of course, that this would require a delicate negotiation with Weddington to avoid damaging that political relationship.297 Although Weddington was not technically obliged to involve the core team in the process of introducing legislation, the core team felt strongly that any sponsor of access would need to rely on the expertise of access advocates in order for a bill to have a chance of passing. Beyond Weddington’s inexperience, they had doubts as to whether Weddington intended to follow their recommendations. Since Weddington’s office had infrequent contact with the core team,

Norris wondered if the representative would actually be relieved to transfer primary sponsorship to Bolon.298

I was asked by Norris and Ockerman to start a conversation with Weddington about the possibility of transferring the lead to Linda Bolon. Ockerman advised that I should approach the conversation casually and not tell Weddington that I was operating as the representative of the core team.299 This was to allow for the core team to be able to backtrack and try a new strategy, should Weddington be offended by my evaluation. In

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my report back to the core team on my conversations with Weddington, it was clear that

Weddington had no intention of giving authorship of the bill to Bolon:

“I told him that a lot was at stake, and that if the strategy and the sponsor were not in sync...bullet proof even...that we couldn't conceivably expect a different result on this bill than the last 5 attempts. I also told him that in order to be 'bullet proof' the sponsor needed to be well-versed in the legislative, political, legal and social history of the issue- and be able to navigate abortion politics on top of that. He sympathized with the notion that someone with a more personal connection could more readily speak to those things...He also said that he thought it was important to have a non-insider as a champion for the bill, and I agreed, saying that I thought a viable solution was to have Bolon as the sponsor and him co-sponsor. That would save him from having to learn the history and facts of an issue he isn't necessarily passionate about, but that he could continue to advocate for the bill and show that this bill speaks to 'the general public' as something that just makes sense from an ethical standpoint. He said he didn't care if we started talking to Bolon more extensively about getting her involved or if "she took the lead" once he introduced the bill.”300

Weddington did agree to finally discuss a timeline for bill introduction with Bolon. In a meeting on March 17, 2010, the two representatives met with Ockerman, Norris and me to discuss strategy and review a first draft of the bill language. Norris advocated two revisions to the draft. Per the request of the Ohio Department of Health, the agency responsible for birth record keeping, a one-year stay from bill passage to effective date

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was requested. This would enable the Ohio Department of Health to adjust their administrative processes in preparation for implementation of the new law. Given that the request did not substantively alter the bill, Norris was eager to accommodate this high profile agency. Next, Norris requested a simplified process for birthparents to submit updated medical information through the contact preference system. This change would fully align the proposed system change with Oregon’s contact preference model. Since

Oregon won adoptee access in 1998, data was available from that state to counter Ohio

Right to Life’s claim that access would result in an increase in abortion rates. Further, since Oregon’s system had been litigated and upheld, legal precedent existed to support its implementation in Ohio. Weddington and Bolon concurred with these changes and agreed to submit a request for revisions to Legislative Services Commission. However, both legislators concluded that introduction of a bill would not be possible until after the primary election in May 2010. 301 Bolon faced a formidable conservative challenger in the upcoming election and was seeking the endorsement of Ohio Right to Life to bolster her campaign. Bolon implied that she wanted to secure their endorsement before co- sponsoring an initiative that Ohio Right to Life had historically opposed. While Norris,

Ockerman and I were disappointed about the May bill introduction date, we were encouraged by Bolon’s insistence that she could make inroads with other pro-life legislators in support of the bill.302

With renewed hope that Bolon could compensate for what Weddington lacked in familiarity with the issue, the core team looked toward the May primary election as the

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final obstacle to bill introduction. However, one week before the primary The Columbus

Dispatch reported that Weddington was accused by a non-profit organization of soliciting money in exchange for the opportunity to present information to the Ohio Black

Legislative Caucus. Weddington publicly denied wrongdoing, arguing that the Caucus operated a non-profit foundation that was legally able to accept membership fees from corporations wishing to join their public policy forum. 303 Although Weddington ultimately went on to win the primary election a week later, he soon became non- responsive to our inquiries about the LSC revisions. Worried, Norris reached out to

Bolon in the hope that she might be able to reach Weddington and assess his level of commitment to the bill introduction.304 Bolon reported that she too was concerned that

Weddington was busy addressing the pay-to-play accusations and might drop the bill.305

The core team continued to work with Bolon into June with intermittent involvement from Weddington’s office, but with no official word that he wanted to drop out of the project. By the time the part-time legislature broke for Summer recess on June 14th, 2010, no action had been taken on the bill.

When the legislature returned in September 2010, Bolon and Weddington’s respective offices were focused on the November general election. Although Weddington won his reelection campaign, his office continued to delay the introduction of adoptee access legislation. By early 2011, communication from his office ceased almost entirely.

Unbeknownst to the core team- and Weddington himself- the representative was being investigated by the FBI on suspicions of bribery, stemming from the pay-to-play

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accusations earlier that year. In September 2010, the FBI initiated a sting operation in which federal agents posed as California wine company representatives seeking an Ohio state legislator to sponsor a bill that would benefit their business. Ultimately, Weddington accepted more than $10,000 in cash, travel and gifts that he did not report to the legislature.306 Later news reporting on Weddington’s case revealed that his non- communication with the core team in late 2010 and early 2011 corresponded with time period he was being courted by the FBI agents.307 The 18-month long investigation culminated in 2012 with Weddington’s resignation from the Ohio legislature and indictment on federal charges of bribery and election fraud.308 He accepted a plea deal and served 26 months years in federal prison.

Linda Bolon faced a different kind of challenge when her legislative district was identified as a target of opportunity for the Ohio Republican Party’s bid to re-gain control the General Assembly in the 2010 elections. 309 Amidst broader predictions that

Republicans would sweep the 2010 elections nationwide, Bolon lost her seat to her

Republican challenger that November.310 While she continued to be in conversation with the core team during the lame duck session following the election, the end of Bolon’s term in January 2011 marked the end of her sponsorship.

With Bolon out of the legislature and Weddington out of communication, the opportunity for a stand-alone bill had all but been eliminated. Describing the scope of the Republican victory in Ohio, The Toledo Blade reported:

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“It was a stellar night for Republicans, who swept all statewide offices — attorney

general, auditor, secretary of state, and treasurer; regained the majority of the

Ohio House lost in 2008; strengthened their hold on the Ohio Senate; pushed the

Ohio Supreme Court's sole Democrat off the bench, and got control of the

powerful panel that will redraw state legislative districts next year.311

Republicans victories dominated the 2010 elections in Ohio which did not bode well for proponents of adoptee access, given the historic alliances between Republicans and Ohio

Right to Life. The core team was back at square one.

The Logic of Adoptee Access

Throughout 2009 and 2010 while conversations with Weddington were pending, Betsie

Norris and I developed the promotional materials and talking points that we would use throughout the campaign. These materials included outlines of existing Ohio law, AEO’s policy recommendations, answers to frequently asked questions, qualitative and quantitative data, archival material and branded messages promoted by Adoption Equity

Ohio. They were provided to potential legislative sponsors, key policy actors and made available through the Adoption Equity Ohio website to the general public. In this section,

I describe how the core team narrated the logic of adoptee access in these promotional materials.

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A primary objective in the development of these materials was to demonstrate the legal viability of adoptee access legislation in Ohio. From Adoption Network Cleveland’s archives and private sources, I collected permanent surrender forms utilized by the State of Ohio between 1964-1996. These were the state forms that women signed in order to legally terminate their parental rights and ‘release’ their children for adoption. Consistent with national studies of permanent surrender forms, Ohio’s forms did not confer any rights to a birthmother, in contrast the forms enjoined birthmothers to “not communicate with said child, or induce him/her to leave the institution or family with whom he/she might be placed, and to sever all connections with said child unless other arrangements are made by the certified institution…because of exceptional circumstances.”312 This suggested that the legal forms were not designed to protect birthmothers or confer rights upon them. Rather, they were intended to protect other people from birthmothers.

We also used discursive explanations of relevant portions of Ohio Revised Code to undermine the claim that adoption statute guaranteed non-disclosure of original birth certificates. In order for a child to be available for adoption, a birth parent’s parental rights must first be legally terminated through a permanent legal surrender of parental rights. Original birth certificates are sealed by the State of Ohio only when a child is adopted, and when birthparents relinquish or lose their parental rights. There are many circumstances where original birth certificates remain on the public record, even when birth parents’ rights to the child have been relinquished. At the time, Ohio Revised Code reflected the following:

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• Original birth certificates are only sealed upon the issuance of a second, amended

birth certificate. Ohio statute has always allowed adoptive parents, at the time of

adoption, to NOT amend the original birth certificate if they so choose - without

obtaining birth parent consent.313 In this case, the birth parents names would

continue to be publicly available on the original birth certificate.

• If a child is relinquished by a birth parent but never ultimately adopted, the

original birth certificate is never sealed and the birth parent’s name would

continue to be publicly available on the birth certificate. There are many reasons

why a child might NOT be adopted after birth parents’ rights have been

terminated, among them: the child dies before the adoption is finalized; the

prospective adoptive parents die before the adoption is finalized; the child is

placed in foster care and never matched with an adoptive home; the adoption falls

through for other reasons.

• Per Ohio law, the finalization of adoption cannot take place until the person to be

adopted has lived in the adoptive home for six months. During this six month

waiting period, the original birth certificate is not sealed, nor does the adoptee

receive an amended birth certificate. The original birth certificate is open to the

public during this period, refuting the notion that confidentiality or anonymity is

guaranteed in the adoption process.314

• Finally, and perhaps most notably, for adoptions between 1964 and 1996, Ohio

statute provides that an original birth certificate can be unsealed at any time upon

order of a probate judge.315 This means that no birth parent could ever be

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guaranteed non-disclosure, as the State of Ohio could not ensure that someday in

the future their child would not be granted court-ordered access.

Additionally, we stressed that the development of internet technologies made information search through informal means a widespread reality in adoption. Adoptees and birthparents alike search for and successfully find lost relatives through their own internet research and by connecting with ‘search angels’ who research available information on a volunteer basis and for profit. Ohio’s laws were instituted before such informal information was readily accessible. On this basis, sealed records laws are not a mechanism that can secure birthparent privacy in a contemporary context.

I compiled archival documents from select adoption agencies to demonstrate that guarantees of non-disclosure were not extended to birthmothers in non-State agency paperwork. We focused on documents from Catholic Service Bureau of Lake County, a

Catholic adoption agency. We obtained records from 1992 indicating that the agency had reported to the Catholic Conference of Ohio that their paperwork did not extend any guarantees of protection against disclosure of records. In fact, some paperwork explicitly stated that non-disclosure could not be guaranteed because the legislature’s ability to change law according to shifting policy priorities.316 This was a purposeful selection because the Catholic Conference of Ohio had historically testified against adoptee access.

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We also obtained a letter written to an adoptee access activist from the Adoption Services

Manager for Oregon Department of Human Services, Children Adults and Families. This letter outlined statistics in Oregon from 2000-2004 regarding the function of the contact preference system enacted in that state in 1999. In Oregon’s experience, 7913 adoptees requested their original birth certificate during this period with 463 birthparents submitting a contact preference form. Of those birthparents 354 requested direct contact,

28 requested intermediary contact and 81 requested no contact.317 This was used to provide data to support a claim that most birthparents would be open to disclosure of information. Also collected were letters from vital statistics and child welfare offices in

Alaska and Kansas, the two states that never adopted sealed records laws. These letters attested to the low administrative cost of open records and the lack of reported adverse outcomes for adoptees and birthparents in these states resulting from adoptee access.318

Finally, we accessed abortion surveillance data available from the U.S. Center for

Disease Control and Prevention. This data compared surveillance from 2000-2005 regarding the number and rate of abortion by state of occurrence and state of residence.

This data demonstrated that Alabama and Oregon, states that enacted adoptee access legislation in 2000 and 1999 respectively, had experienced a drop in abortion rates during the comparison period.319

While we countered opposition claims with the materials above, our campaign otherwise relied on justifications for adoptee access that centered on adoptee equal rights claims

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and the importance of family medical history. One of our first strategic decisions was the branding of Adoption Equity Ohio itself. Adoption was selected strategically as the first word in the brand name to prioritize the name in alphabetical listings. The words adoption and Ohio defined a clear scope of interest for our potential audience. While the core team considered other words such as access and justice for the brand, equity was ultimately chosen as a deliberate counterpoint to opposition framing. Whereas opposition narratives asserted adoptee access was primarily an issue of birthparent privacy, we wanted to shift the narrative to emphasize adoptee access as a civil rights issue.

Appealing to broader conceptions of equity, we hoped to highlight the unequal treatment of adoptees in Ohio relative to the date of their birth. Examples of equality claims can be seen in the following AEO Frequently Asked Questions web listing addressing the question of why adoptee access is important:

“Persons adopted in Ohio between 1964 and 1996 are the only Ohio citizens who

are denied access to their birth certificate - a fundamental part of their own

history. This amounts to discrimination and disparate treatment of adopted

persons by the State of Ohio based on a life circumstance that was completely

beyond their control. In some cases, an adoptee’s birth date, place of birth and

other important information on the second, amended birth certificate may be

wrong or falsified.320

The next answer demonstrates how AEO utilized a combined narrative linking adoptee equality to medical history information. These listing contained weblinks to U.S.

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Department of Health and Human Services, National Human Genome Research Institute, and the U.S. Surgeon General’s public service campaign promoting the importance of family medical history:321

For many adoptees, the need to have information about their genealogical history,

to understand the circumstances of their adoption, or simply to have the record of

their birth can be great. Adoptees should be able to explore their ancestries and

identities in the same way that non-adopted citizens can - without prohibitions by

the State of Ohio. Adoptees are also denied the ability to access their family

medical history, which is critically important in the prevention and treatment of

illnesses.

"Even with all the high-tech tests, medicines and procedures available in

today's modern health-care setting, family health history remains the cornerstone

of our efforts to prevent disease and promote personal health. It's clear that

knowing your family history can save your life.

- Dr. Richard Carmona, US Surgeon General, 2002-2006

“Most [DNA] tests are pretty much predicated on whether or not there is a family

history. Family history is critical for taking advantage of the new genomic

medicine which is bubbling up all around us”

- Dr. Francis Collins, former director, National Human Genome Research

Institute

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Leveraging Connections

Pursuant to Adoption Equity Ohio’s initial strategy meeting in January 2009, I offered to leverage my connections within Columbus’ pro-life community to open up conversations about access with pro-life leaders. While Weddington’s legislation was pending, I met with several key pro-life policy actors to share the campaign message outlined in the previous section. I first reached out to Dr. Peggy Hartshorn, founder and president of

Heartbeat International, the world’s largest Christian pro-life pregnancy help center network. Currently headquartered in Columbus, Heartbeat International provides training and support to over 1,800 affiliated centers and organizations in the U.S., Canada,

Western Europe, Latin America, Philippines, Australia, and South and Central Africa.322

Heartbeat International’s alliance with Ohio Right to Life was well known. While Ohio

Right to Life focused on statewide anti-abortion legislation and electoral campaigns,

Heartbeat International’s efforts promoted alternatives to abortion through outreach at the individual level.

One of my aunts worked as Dr. Hartshorn’s long-time executive assistant and was able to get me on Dr. Hartshorn’s schedule. In addition, Dr. Hartshorne’s husband was an adoption attorney and had facilitated birthmother Suanne Gettings’ adoption.323 Gettings’ support for adoptee access is discussed in Chapter 3 and served as an important bridge for opening up a conversation with Hartshorn. In my initial conversations with Hartshorn, my goal was to assess her perspective on adoptee access and gain insight into the history

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of Ohio Right to Life’s opposition to access in Ohio. Given that she was responsible for the largest network of pro-life pregnancy help centers, it was my sense that she could address Dr. Willke’s claim that adoptee access would directly encourage women to choose abortions. Our initial conversations revealed that she had never been asked by

Ohio Right to Life to weigh in on this policy issue from a service provider perspective.324

In fact, Dr. Hartshorn explained that from a pregnancy counseling perspective, their organizational data indicated that women most often made a two-tiered decision regarding pregnancy outcomes. First, women mediated between abortion and giving birth. Then, if they decided to give birth, they might mediate between parenting and other arrangements such as adoption.325

She expressed support for adoptee access but an unwillingness to contradict Dr. Willke or

Ohio Right to Life publicly by testifying in support of the pending legislation.326 What she did agree to do was set up a meeting between the two of us and Mike Gonidakis, the executive director of Ohio Right to Life. I suggested that Suanne Gettings attend the meeting, given her history advocating for adoptee access while she was employed by

Ohio Right to Life.327 Dr. Hartshorn was visibly excited to learn from me that Gettings had reunited with the child she placed for adoption and was happy to invite her to the meeting.

On August 19th, 2010, Suanne Gettings and I traveled to the Heartbeat International offices to meet with Dr. Hartshorn and Mike Gonidakis of Ohio Right to Life. Thirty

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minutes after our meeting was scheduled to begin, we learned that Gonidakis had canceled and was sending ORTL’s legislative director Mark Lally in his place. A former president of Ohio Right to Life, Lally’s tenure at the organization spanned more than 25 years. He had worked alongside Willke and Porter throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s, during the formative years of ORTL’s opposition to adoptee access. In fact, he was the sole remaining employee from what could be considered the founding era of ORTL.328

As recounted earlier in this Chapter, Lally and I had a previous exchange after the HB 7 hearings in 2007. He had, until that day, refused my direct request for a meeting.

When Lally finally arrived for the meeting, he was visibly irritated. Dr. Hartshorn diplomatically introduced her support for adoptee access and explained her perspective as a service provider that adoptee access would not promote abortion. She then asked me to share information from my research on the access debates in Ohio. I presented data on the dubious links between abortion and access and outlined relevant sections of Ohio Revised

Code that demonstrated no legal right to nondisclosure existed for 1964-1996 birthparents in Ohio. Throughout my presentation, Lally continually interrupted me. He refused to address any comments to me; he would look at and speak only to Dr.

Hartshorn. Lally said that the organization would only support necessary modifications to

Ohio’s existing mutual consent registry enacted in 1985. He stated that I was “foolish for not accepting the deal that (he) was offering.”329 The meeting ended with Lally asserting that there would be no change in ORTL’s opposition to access.

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Several days after that meeting, I received word from my aunt that Lally had sent Dr.

Hartshorn a follow up letter clarifying ORTL’s position.330 In that letter, Lally shifted the focus of ORTL’s opposition away from claims regarding the connection between adoptee access and abortion. He also moved away from the claim that the adoption process guaranteed a legal right of non-disclosure to women. Instead, he wrote:

The materials I distributed at the meeting, which were intended for a general

audience, focused on arguing that the adoption system should not break faith with

women who have been told that their identifying information would not be

released without their consent. However, I failed to indicate that it was not only

the adoption system, but Right to Life and many pro-lifers who in our efforts to

promote adoption led women to believe that their identifying information would

not be released. If we were asked about whether confidentiality was maintained,

we informed women (pre-1985) that Ohio did not release adoption records or

(post-1985) that Ohio did not release them without her consent. This was

important to some birthmothers. For Right to Life to now support the retroactive

opening of adoption records without consent would be a terrible breach of trust to

those women who relied on what we said. Pro-lifers are often accused of

misleading women and not caring about them once they are no longer pregnant. If

Right to Life supported retroactively opening adoption records, it would be the

first time we actually deserved that criticism.331

– Mark Lally on ORTL’s opposition (underline emphasis is Lally’s)

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This letter yielded several insights about Ohio Right to Life’s platform. First, it suggested that Lally recognized ORTL’s opposition did not have a basis in Ohio law and that available data didn’t support the alleged connection between adoptee access and the promotion of abortion. Second, it admitted that ORTL and Lally made extra-legal statements to birthmothers and the general public about Ohio’s records laws. This letter also suggested that ORTL was worried about organizational liability and the public reputation of “pro-lifers” more than the birthmothers they claimed to advocate for.

A New Opportunity: The (Momentary) Rise of Ohio Pro-Life Action

Proposed in February of 2011 amidst a firestorm of criticism from pro-choice and pro-life organizations alike, Ohio’s Heartbeat Bill (H.B. 125) drew significant national attention to reproductive politics in the State of Ohio. Widely considered to be among the strictest abortion regulations in the nation at the time, the Heartbeat Bill was understood by many observers to directly challenge the constitutionality of Roe v. Wade. If passed, the bill would prohibit abortions in all cases where a fetal heartbeat could be detected.332

H.B. 125 found its champion in Janet Folger Porter, a seasoned lobbyist and controversial

Christian conservative who once served at the legislative director of Ohio Right to Life

(ORTL), the state’s dominant pro-life agenda setter. A polarizing figure in state and national politics, Porter has been described as engendering frustration among legislators for her relentless and abrasive approach to lobbying. Well-known at the Ohio statehouse for her successful legislative campaigns with Ohio Right to Life, she helped win a series

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of pro-life legislative victories in the 1990’s, including the first “partial birth” late term abortion ban in the nation. 333 In 1997, Porter left her position at Ohio Right to Life to become the national director for Center for Reclaiming America for Christ, the now defunct political arm of Coral Ridge Ministries in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. As national director, she spearheaded highly publicized legislative and media campaigns promoting the priorities of Coral Ridge Ministries, most notably, the repeal of abortion rights and the promotion of ex-gay conversion ministries. After leaving The Center for Reclaiming

America in 2002, Porter developed Faith2Action, a network of “pro-family” organizations that has since functioned as her primary platform for mobilizing campaigns to advance Christian conservative agendas.334 In 2011, she returned to Ohio to begin work on the Heartbeat Bill, reportedly following the cancellation of her radio show following accusations that Porter promoted Christian dominionism.335

While pro-choice organizations decried the Heartbeat Bill as a brazen assault on women’s reproductive freedoms, pro-life activists were deeply divided on the bill’s potential impact.336 Ohio Right to Life, Porter’s former employer, declined to support the

Heartbeat Bill citing concern that legal challenges to HB 125 might ultimately reaffirm the constitutionality of Roe. 337 In response, supporters of the Heartbeat Bill formed an alternative pro-life organization dubbed Ohio Pro-Life Action and publicly chastised

Ohio Right to Life for its opposition to the bill. In a widely publicized split, Dr. Jack

Willke, the long-time national Right to Life leader and ORTL board member, defected

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from ORTL and joined Ohio ProLife Action in October of 2011. Several local affiliate chapters of Right to Life would soon follow suit. 338

In what might otherwise be disregarded as insignificant infighting among pro-life groups, the debates over the Heartbeat Bill have in fact garnered significant media attention as it seemed possible in early 2011 that HB 125 stood a fighting chance of passing through the

Ohio General Assembly without unified pro-life support. The results of the 2010 elections in Ohio resulted in a Republican sweep of both houses of the General Assembly and the Governor’s office. With strong partisan support, Republican sponsors swiftly ushered the Heartbeat Bill through the Ohio House in June 2011 by a vote of 54-43.339

This is in no small measure due to the political influence of Porter, who ultimately secured high-profile national endorsements for H.B. 125 from such notable conservatives as Lou Engle, Focus on the Family’s James Dobson and Republican presidential hopefuls

Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry.340

With seemingly high prospects for passage in the Ohio Senate, national media attention feverishly centered on the implication of H.B. 125 for abortion rights as well as Porter’s controversial political engagements with some of the nation's most powerful Christian conservatives. However, the controversial split among Ohio’s pro-life leaders over HB

125 ultimately stalled the bill’s progress through the General Assembly. Senate President

Tom Niehaus, backed by Ohio Right to Life, refused to bring the Heartbeat Bill to a vote in the Senate. A testament to the political influence of pro-life interest groups in Ohio,

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Niehaus issued a four-page open letter explaining his decision to block the bill.341 In it, he acknowledges respect and admiration for Dr. Jack Willke as a pro-life leader and goes to great lengths to explain why he will not follow Willke’s recommendation. Porter herself was not mentioned.

Re-Engaging ORTL

As an observer of pro-life politics and researcher of open records in Ohio, I knew that this split represented an extremely rare opportunity for proponents of adoptee access. Dr.

Jack Willke was now estranged from Ohio Right to Life over the organization’s opposition to the Heartbeat Bill. Remarkably, the organization had leveraged their influence against that of Dr. Willke to convince the Ohio Senate president to kill the bill.

This indicated that, at least in this particular political moment, Ohio Right to Life had greater influence over the General Assembly than did Dr. Willke’s esteemed pro-life legacy. Additionally, another very unexpected change occurred at Ohio Right to Life just before the introduction of the Heartbeat Bill. A mere three months after our meeting together, ORTL legislative director Mark Lally died of lung cancer at the age of 63.342

His illness had not been disclosed to the public prior to his death.

From the legislative record, it appeared to me that Dr. Willke, Mark Lally and Janet

Porter had done most of the public work of opposing access legislation. Lally’s death and

Willke’s departure opened up the possibility that there was no one still employed by

ORTL who was directly involved in opposing access. Thus, after Willke’s departure from

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ORTL was reported in the media, I reached out again to Mike Gonidakis with the hope of building on his willingness to challenge precedent:343

…I just read today's article in Dispatch about Dr. Willke's departure. I know that

things are likely very tumultuous right now, but I wanted to drop you a note of

support. I am so impressed and encouraged by your willingness to challenge the

'received wisdom' of the organization and insist that ORTL's political

interventions are in touch with the realities of the world we live in. I've been

following ORTL's trajectory since I was a child, and I don't know that I've

witnessed a more bold move from a Director. I'm hopeful that when this settles

down, you and I might have an opportunity to renew our discussion on the

'received wisdom' of past leadership regarding post-adoption support for adoptees

and birth parents. I'm so confident that you are the person bold enough to forge a

new direction for ORTL- someone committed to listening to adoptees and birth

parents and supporting them on their own terms.344

After several meeting cancellations, Gonidakis finally agreed to meet with me in late

February 2012. At our meeting, I provided him with a binder of AEO campaign materials and legislative history research and talked him through the political dynamics of the access debates in Ohio. After several email exchanges, Gonidakis agreed to re-visit

ORTL’s platform.

Selective Sponsorship & The Importance of Political Climate

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While I’d like to think that my presentation alone convinced Gonidakis to give access a second look, a lot had changed in the political climate surrounding adoptee access to give

Gonidakis reason to reflect on our proposal. After the fallout with Representative

Weddington and the departure of Representative Bolon from the Ohio House, Adoption

Equity Ohio initiated a search for new bill sponsors. This time, the core team had significantly more intelligence on the individual legislators serving in the General

Assembly. Building from the Legislative Tracking database developed during our failed campaign with Bolon and Weddington, the core team identified new potential sponsors through a decidedly more strategic process of selection.

Adoption Equity Ohio’s Betsie Norris and lobbyist Aaron Ockerman contacted Ohio

Representative Dave Burke (Marysville-R) who had been identified by Linda Bolon as a potential Republican co-sponsor.345 As the fallout with Weddington was unfolding,

Norris met with Burke and his aide to brief him on the issue and assess his interest in sponsoring a bill. An adult adoptee, Burke was born in 1967 and subject to Ohio’s sealed records laws.346 Ockerman strategized that if Burke would sponsor, he might be able to sway fellow Republican and House Speaker Bill Batchelder, who had a long history of opposition to adoptee access.347 While he sympathized with adoptee access, he was reluctant to take on something controversial and tabled the discussion. In July of 2011,

Representative Burke was tapped to replace an Ohio Senator who had been appointed to a state board and was soon out of the House. Ockerman surmised that starting a bill in the

Senate would not work because if legislation got out of the Senate, it would just result in

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the bill sitting in the House. He strongly suggested that we needed a Republican in the

House to take up sponsorship.348

However, during Adoption Network Cleveland’s annual lobby day at the Ohio General

Assembly, executive director Betsie Norris had the opportunity to speak with first term

Senator Bill Beagle, a Republican from Tipp City, Ohio. During their conversation,

Beagle disclosed that two of his adult siblings were adopted and he was interested in sponsoring legislation that pertained to adoption.349 Beagle’s sister was adopted in New

York and her attempts to access her own original birth certificate had been thwarted by that state’s sealed records laws. On behalf of Adoption Equity Ohio, I was dispatched to meet with Beagle and bring him up-to-date on our proposal and the political controversies of access.350 During those meetings, we suggested Burke as a viable co- sponsor in the Senate. These early conversations with Beagle coincided with my meetings with Gonidakis and I was able to report back to Beagle’s office that ORTL seemed somewhat open to conversation about the issue.351 Beagle ultimately met with

Gonidakis alone in April 2012, after which Gonidakis himself reached out to Adoption

Equity Ohio to request a follow-up meeting.352

Meanwhile, Norris and I had been continually looking for other ways to influence Mike

Gonidikis. One of the supporters who registered at www.adoptionequityohio.com proved to be particularly helpful in this effort. Registrant Judy Holle volunteered her time as what is called a ‘search angel’, someone who helps adoptees and birthparents access

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adoption and birth information through informal sources. Holle, herself an adult adoptee from Columbus, had been working with AEO core team member John Adams to find information for his colleague at Honda of America Manufacturing Corporation, Inc.

Adams learned that Judy Holle’s son-in-law was David Payne, an influential Republican campaign manager and then chief of staff at the Ohio Department of Administrative

Services.353 The core team coordinated with Holle to have her son-in-law mention the issue of access to records at a lunch that was already scheduled between Payne and

Gonidakis.354 Holle reported that Gonidiks indicated the time was right for ORTL to revisit this issue, given that Willke had disaffiliated.355

Gonidakis later met with Senator Beagle and AEO’s Ockerman and Norris in a historic and unprecedented discussion about the future of adoptee access in Ohio. In this meeting,

Gonidakis agreed to approach the Ohio Right to Life Board of Directors about supporting a contact preference system.356 By September of 2012, Gonidakis had formally committed to dropping ORTL’s opposition to adoptee access and by January 2013.357

With ORTL’s historic opposition eliminated, work on the bill moved incredibly fast.

Beagle immediately requested bill language and analysis from Legislative Services

Commission and disseminated an initial draft to Adoption Equity Ohio in early

November.358 With Gonidakis on board, Beagle was able to secure adult adoptee and

Senator Dave Burke as a co-primary sponsor for the bill. Remarkably, Burke’s replacement in the House was also interested in supporting an adoptee access initiative.

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An adoptive mother and adoption attorney, Dorothy Pelanda (Marysville-R) was the first term Representative who replaced Burke when he was appointed to the Senate in 2011.359

Pelanda served on the Ohio Attorney General’s Foster Care Advisory Group and through her interactions with both Burke and Norris became aware of the planned bill in the

Senate. Her interest in sponsorship introduced the possibility that companion legislation could be introduced in the Senate and the House simultaneously. Pelanda was subsequently able to recruit Democratic Representative Nickie Antonio (Lakewood-D), whose sister placed a child for adoption. Antonio had later experienced a warm reunion with her niece and was supportive of adoptee access to records.

By February 2013, these four primary sponsors agreed to propose identical contact preference legislation in the House and the Senate. To avoid any constitutional claims, they followed Norris’ recommendation to propose a contact preference system for 1964-

1996 adoptions, but to leave out any reference to adoptions occurring after 1996 under the existing birthparent disclosure veto system. Each sponsor had a direct personal connection to the issue as an adoptee, adoptive family member, birth family member and/or adoption professional. Three of the four primary sponsors were Republican, which was important for the legislations prospects in the Republican-controlled General

Assembly. The addition of Democrat Nickie Antonio positioned the legislation as a bipartisan effort.

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By that time, The Columbus Dispatch had publicly reported on this newest push for adoptee access. Gonidakis went on the public record saying that ORTL had changed its position in response to the availability of information on the internet:

“Historically, Ohio Right to Life has opposed efforts to disclose identities of birth

parents,” said Mike Gonidakis, the organization’s president. “That position has

thawed, for lack of a better term…You can find out information that you couldn’t

in the past.”360

With ORTL’s position change public knowledge, Adoption Equity Ohio and allies such as Linda Bolon went to work recruiting support from legislators for the bill introductions.

Bolon, Norris, Ockerman and myself directly lobbied legislators in both chambers for several weeks in support of the bills. On February 12, 2013, Senate Bill 23 and House

Bill 61 were formally introduced in the General Assembly with an unprecedented number of bipartisan of co-sponsors:

Senate Bill 23

Primary Sponsors: Senators Bill Beagle (R) and Dave Burke (R)

Cosponsors, Senators:

• Frank LaRose (R)

• Cliff Hite (R)

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• Troy Balderson (R)

• Michaeil J. Skindell (D)

• Tom Patton (R)

• Bill Seitz (R)

• Shannon Jones (R)

• Charleta B. Tavares (D)

• Randy Gardner (R)

• Keith Faber (R)

House Bill 61

Primary Sponsors: Representatives Dorothy Pelanda (R) and Nickie Antonio (D)

Cosponsors, Representatives:

• Terry Blair (R)

• Michael Stinziano (D)

• Ron Young (R)

• Mike Foley (D)

• Connie Pillich (D)

• Stephen Slesnick (D)

• Dale Mallory (D)

• Debbie Phillips (D)

• Gerald L. Stebelton (R)

• Robert F. Hagan (D)

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• Bob D. Hackett (R)

• Doug Green (R)

• John Becker (R)

• Louis Terhar (R)

• Ronald V. Gerberry (D)

• Denise Driehaus (D)

• Brian Hill (R)

• Stephanie Kunze (R)

• Ron Maag (R)

• Fred Strahorn (D)

• Robert Sprague (R)

• Lynn R. Watchmann (R)

• Mike Ashford (D)

• Matt Lundy (D)

• Margaret Ann Ruhl (R)

Supporters of Senate Bill (S.B.) 23 constituted a full third of the 33-member Senate body, including Ohio Senate President Keith Faber. House Bill (H.B.) 61 counted 27 of the 99- member House of Representatives as early sponsors and co-sponsors. HB 61 was supported by three members of the House Judiciary committee which was assigned to the bill. 361

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ROAR 2013 Campaign for S.B. 23 and H.B. 61

Under the technical direction of John Adams and Mike Martindale and strategic direction of Norris, Ockerman and I, Adoption Equity Ohio implemented a new branded publicity campaign called ROAR: Restore Ohio Adoptee Rights in 2013.362 Norris and I began to recruit endorsements for SB 23 and HB 61 from state and national adoption professionals, legal and medical professionals, adoption scholars and public child welfare officials. I also privately lobbied for the support of National Abortion Rights Action

League (NARAL-Ohio) in an attempt to de-center Ohio Right to Life’s very public support of the bill.

Additionally, Adoption Equity Ohio’s online network of supporters had grown to over

250 official registrants and 1,200 supporters on AEO’s Facebook page.363 Norris and I combed through messages of support and registration information in order to solicit strategic public testimony from supporters. We solicited testimony primarily from birthmothers and constituents residing in districts represented on the House and Senate committees that were holding the SB 23 and HB 61 hearings. I developed a Birthmother

Testimony Guide containing testimony templates and suggested talking points that were utilized by most volunteers.364 Through Facebook posts, email newsletters and direct contact with supporters, we solicited the public to write letters using our branded campaign language and to call their legislators on behalf of the bills.

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As soon as we learned of the SB 23 and HB 61 committee assignments, Norris and I initiated face-to-face lobbying with committee members.365 I recruited members of Ohio

Birthparent Group, my own post-adoption support community organization, to assist in direct lobbying and the organization of volunteers and testimonies for committee hearings. Coordinated by Norris and me, the following individuals and organizations contributed public testimony in support of HB 61 and SB 23:

House Bill 61 Hearings

Hearing 1 – Wednesday, February 20, 2013

• Representative Nickie Antonio, Sponsor

• Representative Dorothy Pelanda, Sponsor

Hearing 2 - Wednesday, March 6, 3013

• Adam Pertman, Executive Director, Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute

• Elizabeth Samuels, J.D., Professor of Law, University of Baltimore School of

Law

• Denise St. Clair, J.D., Executive Director, National Center for Adoption Law and

Policy at Capital University

• Patricia Rideout, J.D., Chief Administrator, Cuyahoga County Department of

Children and Family Services

• Fred Greenman, Jr. J.D., Legal Adviser, American Adoption Congress

• Judge David Matia, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court

• Nancy Burley, director of Adoption Circle Adoption Agency

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• Jeff Costello, an Ohio adoptee now residing in Atlanta, GA

• Erin Hopkins McHugh, an Ohio adoptee

• Jaime Miracle, Policy Director, NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio

• Stephanie Krider, Director of Legislative Affairs, Ohio Right to Life

• Julia Derry, an Ohio adoptee

Hearing 3 - Wednesday, March 13, 2013

• Betsie Norris, an Ohio adoptee, Executive Director, Adoption Network Cleveland

• Kate Livingston, birthmother, Director, Ohio Birthparent Group

• Jim Tobin, Catholic Conference of Ohio

• Susan Anthony, birthmother

• Sara Blubaugh, birthmother

• Stephanie Olson, birthmother

Senate Bill 23 Hearings

Hearing 1 - Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Senator Bill Beagle and Senator David Burke, Sponsors

Hearing 2 - Wednesday, April 17, 2013

• Wendy Barkett, an Ohio adoptee now residing in Texas

• Paula Benoit, A former Maine State Senator and adoptee

• Jeff Costello, on Ohio adoptee now residing in Atlanta, GA

• Julia Derry, an Ohio Adoptee

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• Charis Eng, M.D., Ph.D., founding Chair of the Cleveland Clinic Genomic

Medicine Institute

• Frederick Greenman Jr., J.D., Legal Adviser, American Adoption Congress

• Erin Hopkins McHugh, an Ohio Adoptee

• Steve Kelly, an Ohio adoptee

• Sonya Kimball, an Ohio adoptee

• Jaime Miracle, Policy Director, NARA Pro-Choice Ohio

• Betsie Norris, Executive Director and Founder, Adoption Network Cleveland

• Adam Pertman, Executive Director, Donaldson Adoption Institute

• Patricia Rideout, J.D., Chief Administrator, Cuyahoga Division of Children and

Family Services

• Elizabeth Samuels, J.D., Professor of Law, University of Baltimore School of

Law

• Paul Schibbelhute, Legislative Chairman, American Adoption Congress

• Betsy Smalley, Adoption Training Manager, Institute for Human Services

• Kayla Smith, Director of Legislative Affairs, Ohio Right to Life

• Jim Tobin, Associate Director, Catholic Conference of Ohio366

Beyond the public testimonies listed above, we arranged for large numbers of supporters to be present at all committee hearings. Supporters wore ROAR campaign stickers to designate their support for the bills. No individuals or organizations submitted public or written testimony to the House Judiciary or Senate Medicaid, Health and Human Services

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Committee. By the end of the hearing process, core team members had done a significant amount of behind the scenes lobbying in both chambers to answer legislator questions and clarify ORTL’s reversal of position. HB 61 enjoyed a unanimous vote out of the

House Judiciary Committee on March 13th, 2013. Senate Bill 23 also passed unanimously out of Senate Medicaid, Health and Human Services Committee on April

24, 2013.367 Both hearings were enormously successful from a campaign perspective, in that the bills passed through both committees with no substantive changes to the contact preference system recommended by AEO.

With strong momentum out of the House Judiciary Committee, House Bill 61 passed a floor vote in Ohio House of Representatives by 96-1 on April 10, 2013.368 However,

Aaron Ockerman received word that Senate President Keith Faber intended to hold the bill in Senate Rules and Reference Committee. As Chair of that Committee, Faber had the power to hold the bill or send it forward for a floor vote in the Senate. 369 The core team members were surprised at Faber’s decision, given that he signed on as an early sponsor of SB 23. What Ockerman learned, however, was that Faber still held reservations about SB 23 related to the disclosure of birthparents’ identifying information. Despite Ockerman’s efforts to make inroads with Faber’s trusted policy advisors, the Senate President stalled action on the bill throughout the Summer of 2013.

Losing campaign momentum, Adoption Equity Ohio explained the delay to supporters as being related to the Senate’s budget bill deliberations.370 This wasn’t entirely untrue, as the budget deliberations in the Senate were intensely focused on Republican Governor

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John Kasich’s proposal to approve Medicaid expansion in the State of Ohio.

Additionally, several anti-abortion initiatives sponsored by Ohio Right to Life were added to the budget bill, including the following provisions:

Abortion providers must give pregnant women an ultrasound and written notice of

any fetal heartbeat before the procedure, as well as share the statistical probability

of carrying the fetus to full term. Also blocks Planned Parenthood from federal

family planning money and prohibits abortion clinics from having transfer

agreements — needed for a clinic license — with public hospitals.371

Adoption Equity Ohio’s references to the budget bill obscured a more pressing concern for supporters of access. Faber demanded that a redaction provision be added to SB 23 that would enable birthparents from 1964-1996 to have their name removed from the copy of the original birth certificate released to the adoptee. This proposal was distinct from the birthparent disclosure veto in place for post-1996 adoptions. While the disclosure veto prevented the release of the content of adoption file held at Ohio

Department of Health Division of Vital Statistics, the redaction enabled the release of the file, but altered its contents.

Despite intervention from Mike Gonidakis of Ohio Right to Life throughout the Summer of 2013, Faber would not back down from his demand for a redaction provision. Senator

Beagle also intervened in the Fall of 2013, but received the same response from Faber.372

Ockerman received counsel from those close to Faber that any public criticism of Faber

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by Adoption Equity Ohio or supporters of access would ensure the demise of SB 23 in committee.373 Norris and I reached out to a friendly contact at The Columbus Dispatch to suggest a story that featured an Ohio adoptee with medically fragile children in order to tacitly publicize Faber’s refusal to move the bill forward.374

With the end of the legislative session looming and still no word from Faber, Norris called an interested party meeting on November 13, 2013 to discuss Faber’s demand.

Norris invited approximately twenty four campaign volunteers that were highly involved in the HB 61 and SB 23, however, only 5 accepted the invitation to weigh in on the issue:

Betsie Norris, adoption professional Betsie Smalley, birthmother Susan Anthony, AEO’s

John Adams and myself. Aaron Ockerman was also present. At the meeting, those present voted on whether or not to consider accepting a redaction provision in order to get SB 23 through the Senate. Through intense debate, the group came to the conclusion that the political climate that gave rise to the successful campaigns in the House and

Senate was extraordinary. With little dissent, the group agreed to support a bill with a redaction that limited the time period that birthparents could redact, required redacting birthparents to submit a medical history form, and limited the redactable information to the birthparents name only. 375 These recommendations were communicated to Senator

Beagle, who was ultimately responsible for negotiating with Faber. By November 27th,

Beagle drafted three versions of a redaction amendment containing, respectively, a one- year redaction period, two-year redaction period and a perpetual redaction.376 Faber agreed to the 1-year redaction period. Substitute Senate Bill 23 was drafted and

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subsequently passed the Senate floor unanimously on December 11, 2013. As is customary when there are companion pieces of legislation, House and Senate coordinated to choose one bill, Sub S.B. 23, to serve as the final legislative vehicle.

Conclusion

Signed by Governor Kasich on December 19th 2013, Senate Bill 23 instituted a new system of access for persons born and adopted in Ohio between 1964-1996 to access their original birth certificates. Adoptees of this era can request and receive their birth certificate upon request at age 18, starting one year from bill enactment date. The bill also enables Ohio birthparents to file a non-binding Contact Preference Form and to volunteer medical history information by completing a medical history form. The amended

Substitute version of the bill added a 1-year period in which a birthparent can request to have only their name redacted from the original birth certificate. After the 1-year period has expired, no birthparent may redact. Adoptees from '64-'96 can begin to request their adoption files after the redaction period has expired. Other provisions include: mandating that birthparents who redact submit a social and medical history form; permitting birthparents to un-redact at any time; adding a mechanism for adoptees to request updates on medical history from birthparents who redacted; and allowing adoptees born in Ohio but adopted out-of-state and adoptees born out-of-state but adopted in Ohio to request their adoption files.377

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The bill was enacted on March 20th, 2014 which marked the beginning of the year long birthparent redaction period. On March 20th, 2015, adult adoptees were permitted to request and receive their original birth certificates pursuant to the new law. As a result of

Substitute Bill SB 23, over 400,000 adoption files in Ohio were unsealed and available for release upon adoptee request.378 By March 2016, 7,824 adoption files had been released to Ohio adoptees.379 Adoptees were issued their complete Vital Statistics record unless their birthparent filed a timely redaction. By September 2015, 35 redacted files had been released to adoptees of the 259 total redactions that were filed by birthparents.380

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Chapter 6:

Conclusion

At the bill signing ceremony for Substitute Bill 23, volunteers and organizers with AEO’s

ROAR campaign converged at the Ohio Statehouse to witness Governor John Kasich approve this historic legislation. The ceremony represented a partial, but satisfying victory, especially for Betsie Norris who had spent nearly 30 years lobbying for adoptee access. While Norris’s commitment to access spanned decades, Mike Gonidakis of Ohio

Right to Life was a late, but important, convert to the cause. In photos of the event,

Gonidakis is featured prominently with Kasich, as if to assert that Sub SB 23 was as much a victory for Ohio Right to Life as it was for long-time advocates of access.381

The AEO team’s original goal was to neutralize Ohio Right to Life’s opposition and shift agenda setting power to adoption activists and adoption-centric organizations that supported access. However, due to the political climate, the campaign relied primarily on the ability of Gonidakis to exert influence over legislators in the name of Ohio Right to

Life. It is my impression that Gonidakis’ willingness to support Adoption Equity Ohio was not solely, or even mostly, due to a change of heart over the issue of adoptee access.

As evidenced by the following press release on the evening of the bill signing, ORTL

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immediately began recirculating narratives about privacy guarantees that they had relied on during their decades of opposition:

"Ohio Right to Life supports this new law as it provides vital personal records to

adults who have been adopted. However, we urge birth parents who wish to keep

their identities confidential to redact their names immediately from the official

documents," said Kayla Smith, Ohio Right to Life Director of Legislative

Affairs. "Promises regarding confidentiality were made to birth parents from

1964 to 1996 and we intend to see that those promises are kept." Historically,

Ohio Right to Life did not support such legislation because it posed a potential

risk to birth parents' confidentiality. However, due to a positive shift in society's

acceptance of open adoption, and with the advancements of today's technological

access, any potential risk of such legislation has become less an issue. For more

information on how to protect birth parents' privacy, please email our office.382

With no mention of the contact preference system, ORTL highlighted only the redaction option and, in the vein of Mark Lally and Dr. Willke, re-framed the passage of SB 23 as a matter of honoring extra-legal promises to protect birthparents. Why, in this political moment, did they choose to support adoptee access legislation?

In December of 2012, just after Gonadakis had committed to dropping Ohio Right to

Life’s opposition to Senator Beagle’s planned access legislation, the organization issued a solicitation of funds from constituents that gestured toward a strategic plan in

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development for 2013.383 When the plan was announced in March 2013, it listed adoption and foster care reform as a key focus of their legislative agenda for 2013-2014:

Adoption is a critical component to reducing abortions in Ohio. Ohio Right to

Life has crafted a forward thinking and pro-life legislative strategy to streamline

adoptions in Ohio. Several initiatives will be introduced which will lead to great

numbers of adoption placements within our state.

On November 6, 2013, Ohio Representative Jim Buchy (Greenville-R) introduced adoption legislation developed by Ohio Right to Life pursuant to this legislative agenda.

In 2012, Buchy gained national notoriety for his highly publicized interview with news outlet Al Jazeera in which he stated that he has “never thought about” the reasons why women have abortions, despite being heavily involved in anti-abortion legislation.384

ORTL also recruited a second legislator who was decidedly more well versed, at least in the politics of adoption: Representative Dorothy Pelanda, the House Republican sponsor of our adoptee access legislation.385 Sub HB 307 provisions included legalizing public advertising by prospective adoptive parents; decreasing the window that an adoption can be contested from 1 year to 60 days; reducing the putative father registration window from 30 days post-birth to 7 days; establishes a pre-birth notice that may be sent to putative fathers; and establishes the failure of a putative father to respond to a pre-birth notice within 30 days produces his irrevocable consent to adoption.386

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Ohio adoption organizations National Center for Adoption Law and Policy, Adoption

Network Cleveland and my own birthparent organization were staunchly opposed to HB

307 and discussed among each other the dangers of the legislation. However, Denise St.

Clair, Executive Director of National Center for Adoption Law and Policy was the only one of us to publicly testify.387 Because of Ohio Right to Life’s recent support of SB 23, neither Betsie Norris nor I was eager to publicly challenge HB 307. Norris reasoned that the writing was on the wall because Ohio Right to Life already had the votes to pass the legislation.388 As Norris anticipated, the Senate version of the legislation was signed into law by Governor Kasich on December 19, 2014.389

Regardless of our justifications for not testifying against HB 307, Ohio Right to Life demonstrated not only uninterrupted agenda-setting power in adoption policy, but also the ability to mute opposition from adoption organizations. Far from neutralizing Ohio

Right to Life in matters of adoption, our temporary coalition with the organization over

SB 23 resulted in our own subsequent neutralization in a critically important adoption policy debate.

Pro-life investments in the politics of adoption are neither inconsequential nor innocuous.

Through this investigation of the history and politics of adoptee access in Ohio, this project highlights the critical importance of accounting for pro-life interventions in reproductive, sexual and family politics beyond abortion. It seems particularly important to take a focused look at adoption, an option heavily promoted by pro-life organizations,

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to consider the ways in which parallel interventions in adoption and abortion policy might work together to circumscribe the sexual, reproductive and maternal prerogatives of women. In the case of Ohio, we find influential pro-life agenda-setters publicly advancing adoption as a preferred abortion alternative, while effectively structuring adoption policy behind the scenes in ways that define the social and legal possibilities available to participants. In many states, the political narratives proliferated by Right to

Life groups continue to have traction in legislative deliberations. This is despite the fact that since the year 2000, proponent groups have won critical legislative victories in several states that have had the effect of undermining the validity of the adoptee access- abortion connection originally espoused by Dr. Willke and other opponents.

Political observers must ask what effect pro-life involvement in adoption policy has on the broader landscape of reproductive politics in the U.S. While we should still weigh the merits of privacy claims in adoption policy, we must also examine whether groups such as Ohio Right to Life should define adoption law and policy priorities.390 What is the impact on policy that such groups hold a controlling stake in adoption issues, particularly when there is no shortage of adoption-centric organizations claiming agenda-setting authority? How do the legal arguments and political narratives proliferated by pro-life organizations and individuals in the context of adoption impact the way we understand women’s reproductive ‘options’ more generally? Most critically, political observers must account for the ways in which pro-life investments in adoption policy materially shape the ways that women experience adoption. By exploring the intersections between

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abortion politics and adoption politics, we can begin to situate pro-life interventions in adoption politics within a larger spectrum of women’s reproductive, sexual and maternal regulation.

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NOTES

1 Xiaojia Ge et al. “Bridging the Divide: Openness in Adoption and Post-Adoption 2 E. Wayne Carp. Family Matters: Secrecy and Disclosure in the History of Adoption (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998) 3 Due to the narrow focus of this project, I do not address the administrative, legal and political processes related to birth certificates for children born and/or adopted in surrogacy arrangements, step parent adoptions or second parent adoptions. 4 Elizabeth Samuels, “The Strange History of Adult Adoptee Access to Original Birth Records.” Adoption Quarterly 5.2 (2001): 63-73. 5 Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. “Form JFS-01693 Ohio Law and Adoption Materials” http://summitohioprobate.com/Forms/Adoption/JFS-01693.pdf 6 Under law, my son’s access is currently limited to the amended birth certificate until he reaches the age of majority, despite the fact that we have exchanged identifying information by virtue of our open adoption arrangement. 7 To a lesser degree, some pro-choice groups have also argued that giving adopted adults access to their OBCs would undermine birthmothers’ privacy rights. For example, state chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington and New Jersey have opposed ‘adoptee access’ legislation. 8 Excerpted from the 1990 Legislative Services Commission overview of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee Hearings on H.B. 256, dated August 22, 1990. 9 Samuels, “The Strange History,” 63-73. 10 Samuels, “The Strange History,” 63-73. 11 See Ann Fessler, The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe vs. Wade (New York: Penguin, 2006). 12 Bastard Nation. Basic Bastard: A History of Sealed Records in the United States, http://www.bastards.org/bb/2.SealedHistUS.html. See also Carp, E. Wayne, Family Matters pg. 36-70 for an extensive discussion of the history and variations of adoption records laws in the U.S. 13 In Ohio, open records legislation has been opposed in varying degrees by the National Council for Adoption (NCFA), the Ohio Judicial Conference and the Ohio Division of Vital Statistics, among other interested parties. According to adoptee activist Marley Greiner, ORTL and NCFA have worked closely together in opposition to adoptee access, an investigation that I leave for another project. See Marley Greiner, Personal Interview. 14 Karrer 2011. 15 Founded in 1988, Adoption Network Cleveland (ANC) is a non-profit advocacy organization that offers a wide range of educational and support programs for adoptees,

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birthparents, adoptive families, foster youth, foster families and adoption professionals. ANC has a long history of public policy advocacy in Ohio, using grassroots activism and legislative lobbying to advocate for open adoption, adoptee’s access to birth certificates, and permanent adoptive placement for foster care youth, among other worthy agendas. ANC Executive Director Betsie Norris is a leading lobbyist in the contemporary movement to restore adoptee access to their original birth certificates in Ohio. 16 Paula Moya. “Postmodernism, “Realism,” and the Politics of Identity: Cherrie Moraga and Chicana Feminism.” In Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures, edited by M. Jacqui Alexander and Chandra Talpade Mohanty. (New York: Routledge. 1997), 136. 17 P.L. Maza “Adoption Trends: 1944-1975” Child Welfare Research Notes. Vol 9 (1984) 18 For examples, see Pearl S. Buck, “Must We Have Orphanages?” Reader’s Digest, November 1955; Pearl S. Buck, “We Can Free the Children,” Women’s Home Companion, June 1956. 19 Studies by Sorosky, Baran and Pannor on adoption reunion and adoptee identity were among the first in peer-reviewed scholarship to use the term ‘birth’ as a qualifier. Introduced in the 1970s by an adoption social worker, ‘Positive Adoption Language’ is now a widely accepted social work practice that discourages the use of ‘real’ mother or ‘natural’ mother in favor of birthmother, so as not to imply the unnaturalness or unrealness of adoptive mothers. Rickie Solinger’s research on the origins of Concerned United Birthparents reveals that members preferred the word ‘natural mother’, but elected to use ‘birthparents’ in their promotional literature because 1) they didn’t want to “upset” adoptive parents and 2) because they felt ‘biological parent’ was reductive. See Arthur D. Sorosky, Annette Baran, and Reuben Pannor, “The Reunion of Adoptees and Birth Relatives,” Journal of Youth and Adolescence 3.3 (1974): 195-206.; Arthur D. Sorosky, Annette Baran, and Reuben Pannor. “Identity Conflicts in Adoptees.” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 45.1 (1975): 18-27.; Arthur D. Sorosky, Annette Baran, and Reuben Pannor. “Open Adoption.” Social Work 21.2 (1976): 97-100. 20 For example, most adoption agency websites list information for pregnant women under the menu heading ‘Birthparents’ and refer to pregnant women as birthparents throughout their promotional materials. 21 See Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution (New York: Norton, 1986); Patricia Hill Collins, “Shifting the Center: Race, Class and Feminist Theorizing about Motherhood,” in Mothering: Ideology, Experience, and Agency, ed. Evelyn Nakano, et. al. (New York: Routledge, 1994): 45-66; Gwendolyn Mink, The Wages of Motherhood, 1917-1942 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995); Gwendolyn Mink, Welfare’s End, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998); Cynthia Commachio, “Motherhood in Crisis: Women, Medicine and State in Canada, 1900- 1940,” in Materialist Feminism: A Reader in Class, Difference, and Women’s Lives, ed. Rosemary Hennesey and Chrys Ingraham (London: Routledge, 1997): 306-327; Susan Douglas and Meredith Michaels, The Mommy Myth (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004); Mary Thompson, “Juno or Just Another Girl?: Young Breeders and a New

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Century of Racial Politics of Motherhood,” in Twenty-First Century Motherhood: Experience, Identity, Policy, Agency, ed. Andrea O’Reilly (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010): 158-169. 22 See Regina Kunzel, Fallen Women, Problem Girls: Unmarried Mothers and the Professionalization of Social Work, 1890-1945 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993); Shelley Park, “Adoptive Maternal Bodies: A Queer Paradigm for Re-Thinking Mothering,” Hypatia 21.1 (2006): 201-226; Nicole Pietsch, “Good Mothers, Bad Mothers, Not Mothers: Privilege, Race and Gender and the Invention of the Birthmother,” in Adoption and Mothering, ed. Frances Latchford (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2012): 26-41; Susan Douglas and Meredith Michaels, The Mommy Myth (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004); Pamela Stone, “The Rhetoric and Reality of Opting Out,” Contexts 6.4 (2007): 14-19; Mary Thompson, “Juno or Just Another Girl?: Young Breeders and a New Century of Racial Politics of Motherhood,” in Twenty-First Century Motherhood: Experience, Identity, Policy, Agency, ed. Andrea O’Reilly (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010): 158-169. 23 Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body (New York: Pantheon, 1997); Patricia Hill Collins, “Shifting the Center: Race, Class and Feminist Theorizing about Motherhood,” in Mothering: Ideology, Experience, and Agency, ed. Evelyn Nakano, et. al. (New York: Routledge, 1994): 45-66; Rickie Solinger, Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race before Roe vs. Wade (New York: Routledge, 2000) 24 See Rosalind Pollack Petchesky, “Beyond A Woman’s Right to ‘Choose’: Feminist Ideas about Reproductive Rights,” in Reproductive Rights Reader, ed. Nancy Ehrenreich (New York: New York University Press, 2008): 106-110; Dorothy Roberts, “Racism and Patriarchy in the Meaning of Motherhood,” in Mothers in Law: Feminist Theory and the Legal Regulation of Motherhood, ed. Martha Fineman and Isabel Karpin (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995): 224-249; Kristin Luker, “Medicine and Morality in the 19th Century.” In Reproductive Rights Reader, 69-77, edited by Nancy Ehrenreich. (New York: New York University Press, 2008); Kristin Luker, Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984); Barbara Ehrenreich and Dierdre English. “The Sexual Politics of Sickness” in Nancy Ehrenreich, ed. Reproductive Rights Reader, 24-31, edited by Nancy Ehrenreich (New York: New York University Press, 2008); Leslie Reagan, “When Abortion Was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867-1973.” In Reproductive Rights Reader, 78- 85, edited by Nancy Ehrenreich (New York: New York University Press, 2008) 25 Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body (New York: Pantheon, 1997); Patricia Hill Collins, “Shifting the Center: Race, Class and Feminist Theorizing about Motherhood,” in Mothering: Ideology, Experience, and Agency, ed. Evelyn Nakano, et. al. (New York: Routledge, 1994): 45-66; Rickie Solinger, Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race before Roe vs. Wade (New York: Routledge, 2000); Gwendolyn Mink, Welfare’s End, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998) 26 See Rosalind Pollack Petchesky, “Beyond A Woman’s Right to ‘Choose’: Feminist Ideas about Reproductive Rights,” in Reproductive Rights Reader, ed. Nancy Ehrenreich (New York: New York University Press, 2008): 106-110.

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27 See Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice, “Reproductive Justice: Vision, Analysis, and Action for a Stronger Movement,” in Women’s Lives: Multicultural Perspectives, ed. Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey (New York: McGraw Hill, 2010): 242-246; Rosalind Pollack Petchesky, “Beyond A Woman’s Right to ‘Choose’: Feminist Ideas about Reproductive Rights,” in Reproductive Rights Reader, ed. Nancy Ehrenreich (New York: New York University Press, 2008): 106-110; Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body, (New York: Pantheon, 1997); Dorothy Roberts, “Racism and Patriarchy in the Meaning of Motherhood,” in Mothers in Law: Feminist Theory and the Legal Regulation of Motherhood, ed. Martha Fineman and Isabel Karpin (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995): 224-249; Katherine Sieger, “A Birthmother’s Identity: Mother Living on the Border of (Non)Motherhood,” in Adoption and Mothering, ed. Frances Latchford (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2012): 42-57. 28 See Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body, (New York: Pantheon, 1997); Patricia Hill Collins, “Shifting the Center: Race, Class and Feminist Theorizing about Motherhood,” in Mothering: Ideology, Experience, and Agency, ed. Evelyn Nakano, et. al. (New York: Routledge, 1994): 45-66; Rickie Solinger, Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race before Roe vs. Wade (New York: Routledge, 2000) 29 See Rosalind Pollack Petchesky, “Beyond A Woman’s Right to ‘Choose’: Feminist Ideas about Reproductive Rights,” in Reproductive Rights Reader, ed. Nancy Ehrenreich (New York: New York University Press, 2008): 106-110. 30 See Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice, “Reproductive Justice: Vision, Analysis, and Action for a Stronger Movement,” in Women’s Lives: Multicultural Perspectives, ed. Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey (New York: McGraw Hill, 2010): 242-246. 31 See Regina Kunzel, Fallen Women, Problem Girls: Unmarried Mothers and the Professionalization of Social Work, 1890-1945 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993); Ellen Herman, Kinship By Design: A History of Modern Adoption in the United States (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008); Mary Lyndon Shanley, Making Babies, Making Families: What Matters Most in an Age of Reproductive Technologies, Surrogacy, Adoption and Same-Sex and Unwed Parents (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001); 32 See Barbara Yngvesson, “Negotiating Motherhood: Identity and Difference in ‘Open’ Adoptions,” Law & Society Review 31.1 (1997): 31-80; Mary Lyndon Shanley, Making Babies, Making Families: What Matters Most in an Age of Reproductive Technologies, Surrogacy, Adoption and Same-Sex and Unwed Parents (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001); Janet Farrell Smith, “A Child of One’s Own: A Moral Assessment of Property Concepts in Adoption,” in Adoption Matters: Philosophical and Feminist Essays, ed. Sally Haslanger and Charlotte Witt (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005): 47-67; Kimberly Leighton, “Being Adopted and Being a Philosopher,” in Adoption Matters: Philosophical and Feminist Essays, ed. Sally Haslanger and Charlotte Witt (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005): 146-170; Marla Brettschneider, The Family Flamboyant: Race Politics, Queer Families, Jewish Lives (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2006).

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33 See Rickie Solinger, Beggars and Choosers: How the Politics of Choice Shapes Adoption, Abortion, and Welfare in the United States (New York: Hill and Wang, 2001). 34 Annette Ruth Appell and Jennifer Durcan. “Minor Birthmothers and Consent to Adoption: An Anomaly in Youth Law.” Adoption Quarterly 5(1) (2001): 69-78. 35 Cathy Johnson, Georgia Duerst-Kahti and Noelle H. Norton, Creating Gender: The Sexual Politics of Welfare Policy (Boulder: Lynne Reinner, 2006); Lind, Amy. Development, Sexual Rights and Global Governance (New York: Routledge, 2010); Sally Kenney. “Where is Gender in Agenda Setting?” Women & Politics. 25.1 (2003):179-207; Anne Schneider and Helen Ingram, “Social Construction of Target Populations: Implications for Politics and Policy” American Political Science Review 87.2 (1993):334- 347. 36 See Ange-Marie Hancock, The Politics of Disgust: The Public Identity of the Welfare Queen (New York: New York University Press, 2004); Gwendolyn Mink, The Wages of Motherhood, 1917-1942 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995); Gwendolyn Mink, Welfare’s End, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998); Anne Schneider and Helen Ingram, “Social Construction of Target Populations: Implications for Politics and Policy” American Political Science Review 87.2 (1993):334-347. 37 Cathy Johnson, Georgia Duerst-Kahti and Noelle H. Norton, Creating Gender: The Sexual Politics of Welfare Policy (Boulder: Lynne Reinner, 2006):11; Anne Schneider and Helen Ingram, “Social Construction of Target Populations: Implications for Politics and Policy” American Political Science Review 87.2 (1993):334-347. 38 Sally Kenney. “Where is Gender in Agenda Setting?” Women & Politics. 25.1 (2003):179-207.; Anne Schneider and Helen Ingram, “Social Construction of Target Populations: Implications for Politics and Policy” American Political Science Review 87.2 (1993):334-347. 39 Ange-Marie Hancock, The Politics of Disgust: The Public Identity of the Welfare Queen (New York: New York University Press, 2004): 17. 40 General Court of Massachusetts, "An Act to provide for the Adoption of Children (1851)," in Families by Law, eds. Naomi R. Cahn and Joan Heifetz Hollinger (New York: New York University Press, 2004). 41 Naomi R. Cahn, “Perfect Substitutes or the Real Thing?” in Families by Law (New York: New York University Press, 2004). 42 E. Wayne Carp, Family Matters: Secrecy and Disclosure in the History of Adoption (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1998), 7. 43 Linda Gordon, The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 8-9. 44 Carp, Family Matters, 7-8. 45 Gordon, The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction, 7-8. 46 Carp, Family Matters, 9. 47 Gordon, The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction, 8-11. 48 See Gordon, The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction, 10; Carp, Family Matters, 9. 49 Gordon, The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction, 10-15.

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50 Ellen Herman, Kinship By Design: A History of Adoption in the Modern United States (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 47. 51 Gordon, The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction, 10. 52 Carp, Family Matters, 14. 53 Regina Kunzel, Fallen Women, Problem Girls: Unmarried Mothers and the Professionalization of Social Work, 1890-1945 (New Haven: Yale, 1993), 11. 54 Ibid., 26-28. 55 Ibid.,16. 56 Ibid., 33. 57 Ibid., 127. 58 Solinger, Rickie. Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race before Roe vs. Wade (New York: Routledge, 2000), 21. 59 See Kunzel, Fallen Women, 33-34; Herman, Kinship By Design, 34. 60 Herman, Kinship By Design, 36-37. 61 Barbara Bisantz Raymond, The Baby Thief: The Untold Story of Georgia Tann, the Baby Seller Who Corrupted Adoption (New York: Carroll and Graf, 2007). 62 Carp, Family Matters, 19-20. 63 Herman, Kinship By Design, 56-59. 64 Carp, Family Matters, 21. 65 Herman, Kinship By Design, 36-37. 66 Solinger, Wake Up Little Susie, 13. 67 Carp, Family Matters, 29. 68 Solinger, Wake Up Little Susie, 27. 69 Solinger, Wake Up Little Susie, 165. 70 Kunzel, Fallen Women, Problem Girls, 13. 71 Solinger, Rickie. Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race before Roe vs. Wade (New York: Routledge, 2000), 17-18. 72 Ibid., 24. 73 Ibid., 43. 74 Ibid.,43-44. 75 Ibid., 45-57. 76 Ibid., 27. 77 E. Wayne Carp, Family Matters: Secrecy and Disclosure in the History of Adoption (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1998), 29. 78 Ibid., 42-43. 79 Ibid., 54-55. 80 Ibid., 54-55. 81 Ibid., 43. 82 Bastard Nation, "Basic Bastard: A History of Sealed Records in the United States," http://www.bastards.org/bb/2.SealedHistUS.html. 83 Carp, Family Matters, 40-41 84 See Solinger, Wake Up Little Susie, 87; and Carp, Family Matters, 40-41. 85 Carp, Family Matters, 115.

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86 Solinger, Wake Up Little Susie, 87. 87 Ibid., 98. 88 Ibid., 96. 89 Carp, Family Matters. 90 Mary Anne Cohen, "Jean Paton 1908-2002," Bastard Nation, http://www.bastards.org/bq/bq19/Jean_Paton.html. 91 Carp, Family Matters, 140. 92 University of Oregon Adoption History Project, “Jean Paton, Orphan Voyage 1968,” http://pages.uoregon.edu/adoption/archive/PatonOV.htm. 93 Carp, Family Matters, 139. 94 Ibid., 140. 95 Ibid., 142. 96 See Carp, Family Matters, 142; and Solinger, Wake Up Little Susie. 97 Carp, Family Matters, 143. 98 Ibid., 144. 99 Ibid., 144. 100 Ibid., 144. 101 Ibid., 145. 102 Solinger, Wake Up Little Susie. 103 Ibid., 116. 104 Ibid., 95. 105 University of Oregon Adoption History Project, “Concerned United Birthparents,” http://pages.uoregon.edu/adoption/people/CUB.htm. 106 University of Oregon Adoption History Project, “Concerned United Birthparents,” http://pages.uoregon.edu/adoption/people/CUB.htm. 107 Solinger, Wake Up Little Susie, 111. 108 Ibid., 110. 109 Ibid., 93. 110 Ibid., 93. 111 Ibid., 94. 112 Ruth McRoy and Howard Altstein, Does Family Preservation Serve A Child’s Best Interests? (Washington D.C.: Georgetown. 2000), 8. 113 Carp, Family Matters, 150. 114 Ibid., 149-151. 115 Ibid., 154. 116 Ibid., 158-166. 117 Ibid., 170-171. 118 Ibid., 170. 119 Ibid., 175. 120 Ibid., 185. 121 Ibid., 180. 122 See discussion in Chapter 4. 123 Joan Fox, “The Searchers,” Cincinnati Magazine, August, 1987, 139-147.

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124 Fox, "The Searchers." 125 Carp, Family Matters, 221. 126 E. Wayne Carp, Adoption Politics: Bastard Nation and Ballot Initiative 58 (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2004), 26. 127 Ibid., 28-29. 128 Ibid., 30. 129 Ibid., 49-51. 130 Ibid., 56. 131 Ibid., 59. 132 Ibid., 58. 133 Ibid., 112. 134 Ibid., 126. 135 Carp, Adoption Politics. 136 “State Legislation,” American Adoption Congress, http://www.americanadoptioncongress.org/state.php. 137 Shea Grimm, “Why Contact Vetoes are Not an Acceptable Compromise,” Bastard Nation, http://www.bastards.org/bq/contact.htm. 138 Grimm, “Why Contact Vetoes are Not an Acceptable Compromise.” 139 “Senate Plays Dirty to Put Squeeze on Abortion Clinics.” 2013. The Columbus Dispatch. Accessed November 10. http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2013/06/15/senate-plays-dirty-to-put- squeeze-on-abortion-clinics.html. 140 “Kasich Signs Budget, Keeps Abortion Restrictions, Leaves Door Open for Medicaid Expansion.” 2013. The Plain Dealer - Cleveland.com. Accessed November 8. http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2013/06/kasich_signs_budget_keeps_abor.html 141 Although sometimes referred to as open records campaigns, these initiatives have not sought to reinstate public access to adoption records. Most so-called open records legislation focuses exclusively on securing adoptees’ rights of access to their own original birth certificates. 142 In this article, I refer to women and men who have voluntarily elected, been coerced or forced to legally terminate their parental rights through adoption as ‘birthparents’. 143 Interview with Betsie Norris, 2009; Brad Norris, letter to Representative Kate Walsh, January 15, 1992. 144 Ohio House Journal Vol. 130 1963 KFO 18 (1963): 1385 145 Ohio House of Representatives, Meeting Minutes of Public Welfare Committee, February 3, 1963. 146 H.B 202 created an interesting paradox within Norris’ own family. His son Todd and daughter Betsie, both adopted before 1964, had legal access to their original birth certificates under H.B. 202. Bob, born in April 1963, was adopted by Norris in August of 1963. However, Bob’s adoption was not finalized in Ohio 1964 and he was barred access to his original birth certificate under his father’s legislation. 147 quoted in Cincinnati Magazine, August 1987.

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148 See Mark Curnutte, “Dr Willke Stands By His Beliefs” The Cincinnati Enquirer, July 2, 2000. 149 First published as book in 1964 (8 editions between 1964-67) and as an LP in 1966, Dr. Willke asserts that The Wonder of Sex “sold a quarter of a million copies without a single paid ad over the next 10 years.” Interview with Dr. Willke, 12 Mar 2010. 150 Sex-Should We Wait?, A teaching manual published in conjunction with the Sex- Should We Wait? LP, pg. 8. 151 J.C. Willkes, The Wonder of Sex: How to Teach Children (Cincinnati, OH: Hiltz Publishing, 1965): 44. 152 The Willkes also strongly support heterosexual marriage as a solution to out-of- wedlock pregnancy, however, they strongly assert that young couples should only marry if their union would be otherwise advisable- that is, they should not marry simply because there are pregnant. See J.C. Willkes, The Wonder of Sex: How to Teach Children (Cincinnati, OH: Hiltz Publishing, 1965): 67. 153 My grandmother, Barbara Chellis unsuccessfully campaigned in the late 1960’s against the Willkes to keep sex education out of public school curricula in Columbus, Ohio. Barbara Chellis, Conversation with the Author, April 27, 2010. 154 See Mark Curnutte, “Dr. Willke Stands By His Beliefs,” The Cincinnati Enquirer, July 2, 2000. 155 See Jack Willke and Barbara Willke, Abortion: Questions & Answers. (Cincinnati, OH: Hayes Press 1985). 156 See Jack Willke, Interview with the Author, March 12, 2010. 157 See Jack Willke, Interview with the Author, March 12, 2010; ‘National Right to Life Committee Today’ factsheet, Not Dated. http://www.nrlc.org/Factsheets/index.html 158 See Jack Willke and Barbara Willke, Handbook on Abortion (Cincinnati, OH: Hiltz Press, 1971): 49. 159 See Jack Willke, Interview with the Author, March 12, 2010. 160 American Adoption Congress is a national adoption organization that supports progressive adoption reform, including open adoption and adoptee access to original birth certificates. While the article did not list Betsie’s phone number, it did list Betsie as a registered nurse at the Cleveland Clinic; people called the Clinic specifically to get in touch with Betsie. Betsie Norris, Interview with Author, October 13, 2009. 161 Adoption Network Cleveland is a non-profit adoption education, support and advocacy organization that offers programming, support groups and training for all persons affected by adoption and foster care. 162See Betsie Norris, Interview with Author, October 13, 2009; Easterday, Senate Health and Human Services Committee minutes, August 22, 1990. 163 Joan Fox, “The Searchers,” Cincinnati Magazine, Aug 1987: 141. 164 Betsie Norris, Interview with Author, October 13, 2009; Ohio Capitol Connection, Bill History for H.B. 256. 165 According to notes taken by a unnamed supporter of HB 256 at the Senate Committee Hearing, Dr. Willke also testified earlier in the decade against requiring birthparents to fill out Social and Medical history forms when they place a child for adoption, a

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requirement that ultimately passed in spite of Willke’s opposition and was implemented in 1985. 166 Coincidentally, Nancy Burley facilitated my son’s adoption in 2001. 167 Presently known as the National Council for Adoption, the Washington D.C.- based organization is an umbrella network of adoption agencies and facilitators that does political lobbying. The American Adoption Congress and National Council for Adoption represent what could be considered the ‘poles’ of adoption politics in the U.S.; AAC lobbies for open practices like open adoption and open records, while NCFA has historically lobbied for sealed records and closed practices. 168 See Easterday, Senate Health and Human Services Committee minutes, 22 Aug 1990 169 Jack Willke, Testimony to the Senate Health and Human Services Committee Hearings on H.B. 256, August 22, 1990. 170 Jack Willke, Testimony to the Senate Health and Human Services Committee Hearings on H.B. 256, August 22, 1990; See Easterday, Senate Health and Human Services Committee minutes, August 22, 1990. 171 Curiously, there is almost no discussion of birthfather privacy or birthfather rights. 172 H.B. 628 and H.B. 487 proposed to open access to OBCs to adopted adults age 21 or older and open access to amended birth certificates of adoptees to birthmothers once the adoptee turned 25. See Mark Lowery, “Unwed Mom is 100% for Access Bill,” The Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 27, 1992. 173 See Brad Norris, Testimony in support of H.B. 487, January 18, 1994. 174 See Suanne Gettings, Interview with Author, March 25, 2010. 175 See Betsie Norris, Interview with Author, October 13, 2009; Brad Norris, Letter to Representative Katherine Walsh, January 15, 1992; Representative Katherine Walsh, H.B. 628 Press Release, April 1, 1992. 176 Transcript of Right to Life legislative hotline recording regarding H.B. 628, March 1992; Betsie Norris, Interview with Author, October 13, 2009. 177 Transcript of Right to Life legislative hotline recording regarding H.B. 628, March 1992; Betsie Norris, Interview with Author, October 13, 2009. 178 Betsie Norris, email to proponents of H.B. 419, February 8, 1996; Capital Connection, Bill History for H.B. 628. 179 See Suanne Gettings, Interview with Author, March 25, 2010. 180 Depending on state law, non-identifying information can include ethnic background, education, general physical appearance, religion, medical and genetic history, sibling info, and birthparent first name. If one or both birthparents file a Disclosure Veto, the original birth certificate will not be released to the adoptee, even after the age of majority. Birthparents may change their preference at any time by submitting or rescinding their disclosure veto at the Ohio Department of Health Division of Vital Statistics. 181 For a continued discussion of Janet Folger Porter, see Chapter 5; Betsie Norris, Interview with Author, October 13, 2009. 182 Betsie Norris, email to proponents of H.B. 419, February 8, 1996. 183 Aside from Dr. Willke, Mark Lally is perhaps the only holdover from the 1980’s and 1990’s debates. See: Ohio Right to Life, Handout on Sub. S.B. 7, January 30, 2008.

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184 Paula Westwood, email message to Kara Joseph, January 16, 2008. 185 Dr. Willke, letter to Rep. Tom Brinkman, January 15, 2008. 186 I personally testified in support of the reinstatement of the open access provision on April 23, 2008 and my aunt, Nancy testified on April 30, 2008. 187 Capitol Connection, Bill History for H.B.7, 188 Founded by adoption agency representatives in 1980, National Council for Adoption (NCFA), was originally developed to oppose the ‘Model State Adoption Act, proposed federal legislation that includes ‘open records’ provisions (“National Council for Adoption: History” 2012). Accounts from ‘open records’ activists during this period trace Dr. Willke’s opposition to ‘open records’ to the influence of Bill Pierce of NCFA, a close friend and colleague in national politics. Some suggest that Dr. Willke’s support was recruited by Pierce to engender a base opposition among pro-life groups. Regardless of where Willke’s own opposition emerges, his influence in proliferating the alleged ‘open records’-abortion connection is important to account for. See Marley Greiner, Interview with Author, March, 8 2010. 189 Michael Warner, “Introduction: Fear of a Queer Planet,” Social Text 29 (1991): 9. 190 For feminist critiques that explore how ideologies of gender essentialism, compulsory heterosexuality and ‘natural’ families produce the behavioral expectations noted, see Regina Kunzel, Fallen Women, Problem Girls: Unmarried Mothers and the Professionalization of Social Work, 1890-1945 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993); Shelley Park, “Adoptive Maternal Bodies: A Queer Paradigm for Re-Thinking Mothering,” Hypatia 21.1 (2006): 201-226; Nicole Pietsch, “Good Mothers, Bad Mothers, Not Mothers: Privilege, Race and Gender and the Invention of the Birthmother,” in Adoption and Mothering, ed. Frances Latchford (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2012): 26-41. 191 Susan Douglas and Meredith Michaels, The Mommy Myth (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004); Pamela Stone,“The Rhetoric and Reality of Opting Out,” Contexts 6.4 (2007): 14-19; Mary Thompson, “Juno or Just Another Girl?: Young Breeders and a New Century of Racial Politics of Motherhood,” in Twenty-First Century Motherhood: Experience, Identity, Policy, Agency, ed. Andrea O’Reilly (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010): 158-169. 192 Dorothy Roberts, “Racism and Patriarchy in the Meaning of Motherhood,” American University Journal of Gender and the Law 1.1 (1992): 1-38. 193 See Dorothy Roberts, “Racism and Patriarchy in the Meaning of Motherhood,” American University Journal of Gender and the Law 1.1 (1992): 1-38; Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body, (New York: Pantheon, 1997); Nicole Pietsch, “Good Mothers, Bad Mothers, Not Mothers: Privilege, Race and Gender and the Invention of the Birthmother,” in Adoption and Mothering, ed. Frances Latchford (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2012): 26-41. 194 See Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body, (New York: Pantheon, 1997); Gwendolyn Mink, The Wages of Motherhood, 1917-1942 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995).

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195 See Heather Hewitt, “Mothering Across Borders: Narratives of Immigrant Women in the United States,” Women’s Studies Quarterly 37.3 (2009): 121-140; Ann Crittenden, “The Mommy Tax,” in Women’s Lives: Multicultural Perspectives, ed. Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey (New York: McGraw Hill, 2010): 337-345; Rhacel Parrenas, “The Care Crisis in the Phillipines: Children and Transnational Families in the New Global Economy,” in Women’s Lives: Multicultural Perspectives, ed. Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey (New York: McGraw Hill, 2010): 401- 410. 196 See Regina Kunzel, Fallen Women, Problem Girls: Unmarried Mothers and the Professionalization of Social Work, 1890-1945 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993); Rickie Solinger, Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race before Roe vs. Wade (New York: Routledge, 2000); Shelley Park, “Adoptive Maternal Bodies: A Queer Paradigm for Re-Thinking Mothering,” Hypatia 21.1 (2006): 201-226; Nicole Pietsch, “Good Mothers, Bad Mothers, Not Mothers: Privilege, Race and Gender and the Invention of the Birthmother,” in Adoption and Mothering, ed. Frances Latchford (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2012): 26-41. 197 See Susan Douglas and Meredith Michaels, The Mommy Myth (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004). 198 See Mary Thompson, “Juno or Just Another Girl?: Young Breeders and a New Century of Racial Politics of Motherhood,” in Twenty-First Century Motherhood: Experience, Identity, Policy, Agency, ed. Andrea O’Reilly (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010): 158-169. 199 Ange-Marie Hancock, The Politics of Disgust,15. 200 I do not fully address in this analysis the inconsistency of Dr. Willke’s claim. 201 Jack Willke, Testimony to the Senate Health and Human Services Committee Hearings on open records H.B. 256, August 22, 1990. 202 J.C. Willke, The Wonder of Sex: How to Teach Children (Cincinnati, OH: Hiltz Publishing, 1965): ii. 203 M. Jacqui Alexander, Pedagogies of Crossing, (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005), 23. 204 M. Jacqui Alexander, Pedagogies of Crossing, 64. 205 J.C. Willke, The Wonder of Sex: How to Teach Children (Cincinnati, OH: Hiltz Publishing, 1965): 41. 206 J.C. Willke, The Wonder of Sex: How to Teach Children (Cincinnati, OH: Hiltz Publishing, 1965): 28. 207 See also, Willke’s discussion of baby dolls vs. Barbie dolls, J.C. Willkes, The Wonder of Sex: How to Teach Children (Cincinnati, OH: Hiltz Publishing, 1965): 72. 208 J.C. Willke, The Wonder of Sex: How to Teach Children (Cincinnati, OH: Hiltz Publishing, 1965): 22 209 J.C. Willke, The Wonder of Sex: How to Teach Children (Cincinnati, OH: Hiltz Publishing, 1965): 44. 210 J.C. Willke, The Wonder of Sex: How to Teach Children (Cincinnati, OH: Hiltz Publishing, 1965): 46.

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211 Jack Willke and Barbara Willke, Sex…Should We Wait? (Cincinnati, OH: Hiltz Press, 1969): 74. 212 Jack Willke and Barbara Willke, Sex…Should We Wait? (Cincinnati, OH: Hiltz Press, 1969): 34. 213 Jack Willke and Barbara Willke, Handbook on Abortion (Cincinnati, OH: Hiltz Press, 1971): 34. 214 Jack Willke and Barbara Willke, Sex…Should We Wait? (Cincinnati, OH: Hiltz Press, 1969): 58. 215 Jack Willke and Barbara Willke, Sex…Should We Wait? (Cincinnati, OH: Hiltz Press, 1969): 59. 216 Jack Willke and Barbara Willke, Sex…Should We Wait? (Cincinnati, OH: Hiltz Press, 1969): 47. 217 J.C. Willke, The Wonder of Sex: How to Teach Children (Cincinnati, OH: Hiltz Publishing, 1965): 67. 218 J.C. Willke, The Wonder of Sex: How to Teach Children (Cincinnati, OH: Hiltz Publishing, 1965): 65. 219 See Jack Willke, Interview with Author, March 12, 2010. 220 See Jack Willke, Interview with Author, March 12, 2010. 221 Jack Willke and Barbara Willke, Abortion: Questions & Answers. (Cincinnati, OH: Hayes Press 1985): 49. 222 Jack Willke and Barbara Willke, Abortion: Questions & Answers. (Cincinnati, OH: Hayes Press 1985): 49. 223 Arguably, this image of the prospective birthmother is connected to a larger construction of the woman contemplating abortion, both of whom are essentially the same simple character up to the point where they make their reproductive decision. 224 Jack Willke and Barbara Willke, Abortion: Questions & Answers. (Cincinnati, OH: Hayes Press 1985): 49. 225 J.C. Willkes, The Wonder of Sex: How to Teach Children (Cincinnati, OH: Hiltz Publishing, 1965): 19. 226 Jack Willke and Barbara Willke, Abortion: Questions & Answers. (Cincinnati, OH: Hayes Press 1985): 309; Willke, Sex Education in the Classroom pg.139. Willke prefers any kind of adoption, including single parent adoption to institutionalization. 227 Ibid., 308. 228 Ibid., 310. 229 Ibid., 311. 230 Ibid., 311. 231 Jack Willke, Interview with the Author, March 12, 2010. 232 Jack Willke, Testimony to the Senate Health and Human Services Committee Hearings on open records H.B. 256, August 22, 1990. 233 Jack Willke and Barbara Willke, Handbook on Abortion (Cincinnati, OH: Hiltz Press, 1971): 49.

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234 See Judge Robert Metcalf, Testimony in opposition to H.B. 256, August 22,1990; See Beth Easterday, Senate Health and Human Services Committee minutes, August 22, 1990. 235 It is not clear who produced this handout, but my suspicions are that it was produced by Ohio Right to Life. I rarely, if ever come across birthmother testimony (anonymous or otherwise) that explicitly states that they chose between adoption and abortion. This is not to say that birthmothers don’t consider the option, however, typically, birthmothers talk about how they ‘could’ have had an abortion, rather than that they definitely ‘would’ have had one. Peggy Hartshorn, the President and Founder of Heartbeat International, the world’s largest network of pro-life pregnancy help centers, counters Dr. Willke’s claim that women commonly directly ‘choose’ between abortion and adoption. She argues that in her experience, women almost categorically ‘choose’ between abortion and carrying a child to term, and then later, in a secondary decision-making process, consider adoption vs. parenting. See Interview with Dr. Peggy Hartshorn Apr 2010. 236 See Opposition Handout for H.B. 628 Hearings “ Retroactively Opening Adoption Records: People Speak Out in Fervent Opposition” 237 See Opposition Handout for H.B. 628 Hearings “ Retroactively Opening Adoption Records: People Speak Out in Fervent Opposition” 238 See Jack Willke, Interview with the Author, March 12, 2010.

239 See Right to Life of Greater Cincinnati, Newsletter, March 1992. 240 See Jack Willke, Interview with the Author, March 12, 2010. 241 See Jack Willke, Testimony to the Senate Health and Human Services Committee Hearings on open records H.B. 256, August 22, 1990. 242 see Jack Willke, Interview with the Author, March 12, 2010. 243 His opposition to contact between adoptees and birthfamilies is replicated in his position on open adoption, which he believes is problematic for children over age 10. With regard to open adoption, he asserts, “as far as I’m concerned, that openness has to close”. 244 See Jack Willke, Interview with the Author, March 12, 2010; Jack Willke, Testimony to the Senate Health and Human Services Committee Hearings on open records H.B. 256, August 22, 1990.; Right to Life of Greater Cincinnati, Newsletter, March 1992; Jack Willke, Letter to Jean Strauss, April 20, 2010; Life Issues transcripts 1577, 2260, 1601, 2028 etc. 245 Dr. Willke, Life Issues No. 1577, 1997 246 See Jack Willke, Letter to Jean Strauss, April 20, 2010. 247 See Jack Willke, Interview with the Author, March 12, 2010. 248 Mary Lyndon Shanley, Making Babies, Making Families: What Matters Most in an Age of Reproductive Technologies, Surrogacy, Adoption and Same-Sex and Unwed Parents (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001). 249 See Judge Robert Metcalf, Testimony in opposition to H.B. 256, August 22,1990; See Beth Easterday, Senate Health and Human Services Committee minutes, August 22, 1990.

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250 Husted served in the Ohio from 2000-2008. He was elected to the Ohio Senate in 2008, where he served until being elected Ohio Secretary of State in 2010. John Husted, About Jon Husted, www.hustedforohio.com/about-jon-husted 251 Marley Greiner, email message to the author, January 15, 2008. 252 Ohio General Assembly Archives 1997-2004, Analysis- HB7-As Introduced, http://archives.legislature.state.oh.us/analysis.cfm?ID=127_HB_7&ACT=As%20Enrolle d&hf=analyses127/h0007-i-127.htm 253 Ohio’s law presented a direct barrier to ‘Michael’, born in Ohio in 1986. Although ‘Rose’ was adopted in Ohio, she was born in West Virginia and subject to that state’s closed records laws. That ‘Rose’ was subject to West Virginia law was not something I understood at the time. 254 See Chapter 2 for a discussion of Marley Greiner and Bastard Nation. 255 Greiner theorized his opposition as being related to the fact that Huffman’s brother was an adoption attorney. Marley Greiner, email message to the author, April 22, 2008. 256 Marley Greiner, email message to the author, April 22, 2008. 257 Email from the author to Betsie Norris, February 17, 2009. 258 No public opponent testimony was delivered at the hearings on HB 7/Sub HB 7. 259 Fred Greenman, Proponent Testimony for H.B. 61, http://www.adoptionnetwork.org/media/documents/document-gallery/roar/hb61- testimony-greenman-jr-frederick.pdf 260 Access to Records Legislative Planning Meeting Minutes, recorded by John Adams at the Mansfield, OH public library, January 21, 2009, 1. 261 Ibid, 1. 262 Ibid, 1. 263 Gigi Stone. “Adopted Maine Senator Finds Birthparents.” ABC News. February 29, 2008. http://abcnews.go.com/WN/story?id=4367187&page=1 264 Paula Benoit, email to Betsie Norris and Adam Pertman, October 2, 2009. 265 Betsie Norris, Email to Aaron Ockerman, Kate Livingston and Lisa Dickson, October 22, 2009. 266 Betsie Norris, emails to W. Carlton Weddington, October 26, 2009. 267 Aaron Ockerman, email to Betsie Norris, November 18, 2009. 268 Fred Greenman, Proponent Testimony for H.B. 61, http://www.adoptionnetwork.org/media/documents/document-gallery/roar/hb61- testimony-greenman-jr-frederick.pdf 269 Doe v. Sundquist, 2 S.W. 3d 919 (Tenn. 1999), 925. 270 Fred Greenman, Proponent Testimony for H.B. 61, http://www.adoptionnetwork.org/media/documents/document-gallery/roar/hb61- testimony-greenman-jr-frederick.pdf 271 Thomas Atwood, “Consent vs. Coercion: How HB 7’s Mandatory Openness Provision Harms Adoption.” (interested party testimony on HB 7 submitted to Ohio House Health Committee, Columbus, OH January 15, 2008).

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272 Fred Greenman, Proponent Testimony for H.B. 61, http://www.adoptionnetwork.org/media/documents/document-gallery/roar/hb61- testimony-greenman-jr-frederick.pdf 273 Betsie Norris, email to Adam Pertman, Paula Benoit, Aaron Ockerman and the author, October 3, 2009. 274 Betsie Norris, “Confidential Adoptee Access to Birth Certificates.” (talking points memo presented to Representative Weddington during initial meeting on October 22, 2009). 275 Betsie Norris, email to Aaron Ockerman, Fred Greenman, Joe Bowman, John Adams, Kate Schneider, Linda Bellini, Maridah Ahmad, Mark Mecum, Mary Mason, Mike Martindale, Nicole Wilson and the author, October 26, 2009. 276 Betsie Norris, email to Aaron Ockerman, Fred Greenman, Dale Fellows, Paul Aiken, Joe Bowman, John Adams, Kate Schneider, Linda Bellini, Maridah Ahmad, Mark Mecum, Mary Mason, Mike Martindale, Nicole Wilson and the author, October 30, 2009. 277 American Adoption Congress, New Law Effects Maine Adoptees, http://www.americanadoptioncongress.org/pdf/Maine_Adoptees.pdf 278 Paula Benoit, LD 1084 :AN ACT TO PROVIDE ADULT ADOPTEES ACCESS TO THEIR ORIGINAL BIRTH CERTIFICATE, talking points memo, Email from Paula Benoit to Betsie Norris, on October 2, 2009. 279 Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Contact Preference form for Birthparents of Adopted Children Rev. 4/2014, https://www1.maine.gov/dhhs/mecdc/public-health-systems/data-research/vital- records/documents/pdf-files/Contact-Preference-form.pdf 280 Oregon Center for Health Statistics, Contact Preference Form for Birthparents of Adopted Children, https://public.health.oregon.gov/BirthDeathCertificates/Documents/contact.pdf 281 Betsie Norris. Email to W. Carlton Weddington, November 3, 2009. 282 Betsie Norris. Email to W. Carlton Weddington, November 3, 2009. 283 Aaron Ockerman. Email to the author, March 23, 2016. 284 John Adams. Email to the author, March 24, 2016. 285 John Adams. “Ohio House of Representatives Testimony” (interested party testimony on HB 7 presented to Ohio House Health Committee, Columbus, OH January 16, 2009). 286 Rita Price. “Push on to open up old birth certificates records.” The Columbus Dispatch, January 27, 2013. 287 Mike Martindale, email to Betsie Norris and the author. November 15, 2009. 288 Kate Livingston. Email to Mike Martindale and Betsie Norris. November 15, 2009. 289 Kate Livingston. Email to Mike Martindale, Betsie Norris, Aaron Ockerman and John Adams. December 6, 2009. 290 Kate Livingston. Email to Rachel Wurm. March 13, 2010. 291 Mark W. Weber. Email to Betsie Norris. November 29, 2009. 292 Betsie Norris. Email to Mike Martindale, Betsie Norris, Aaron Ockerman and John Adams. January 18, 2009.

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293 Betsie Norris. Email to W. Carlton Weddington, Aaron Ockerman, Lisa Dickson and the author. October 23, 2009. 294 Betsie Norris. Email to Mike Martindale, Betsie Norris, Aaron Ockerman and John Adams. January 18, 2009. 295 Aaron Ockerman. Timeline for Possible Passage of Access to Records Legislation. January 4, 2009. 296 W. Carlton Weddington. Email to Betsie Norris. February 3, 2010. 297 Betsie Norris. Email to Mike Martindale, Betsie Norris, Aaron Ockerman and John Adams and the author. February 13, 2010. 298 Betsie Norris. Email to Aaron Ockerman and the author. February 19, 2010. 299 Aaron Ockerman. Email to Betsie Norris and the author. February 15, 2010. 300 Kate Livingston. Email to Betsie Norris. February 22, 2010. 301 Betsie Norris. Email to Linda Bolon, W. Carlton Weddington, Aaron Ockerman and the author. March, 21, 2010. 302 Betsie Norris. Email to Kate Livingston and Aaron Ockerman. June, 1, 2010. 303 Jim Siegel “Man seeking audience says lawmakers group sought $2500 donation.” Columbus Dispatch, April 27, 2010. 304 Betsie Norris. Email to Linda Bolon. May 16, 2010. 305 Betsie Norris. Email to Aaron Ockerman and the author. June 1, 2010. 306 Jim Siegel. “FBI agent details downfall of 2 ex-legislators.” Columbus Dispatch, September 17, 2013. 307 Jim Siegel. “Former State Rep. Weddington Released from Prison.” Columbus Dispatch. October 31, 2014. 308 Jim Siegel. “State Rep. Weddington resigns, surrenders to FBI.” Columbus Dispatch. March 13, 2012. 309 Jim Siegel. “Ohio House Seats to Watch.” The Columbus Dispatch. October 27, 2010. 310 Jonathan Weisman. “GOP in lead in final lap.” Wall Street Journal. October 20, 2010. 311 Jim Provance. “GOP sweeps Ohio as Kasich outs Strickland as governor.” The Toledo Blade. November 3, 2010. http://www.toledoblade.com/Politics/2010/11/03/GOP- sweeps-Ohio-as-Kasich-ousts-Strickland-as-governor.html 312 For an example of permanent surrender forms used in Ohio pre-1996, see Department of Public Welfare, State of Ohio, Form CWS 302 (Rev 8/72). For an example of national surrender document studies, see Elizabeth Samuels, “The Strange History of Adult Adoptee Access to Original Birth Records,” Adoption Quarterly 5.2 (2001): 63-73. 313 ORC 3705.12, Sec. A1 314 ORC 3107.13 Sec. A 315 ORC 3107.17 316 Beth Brindo, Catholic Service Bureau of Lake County. Letter to Jim Tobin, Catholic Conference of Ohio. January 28, 1992. 317 Kathleen J. Ledesma, Oregon Department of Human Services. Letter to Pam Hasegawa, New Jersey Coalition for Adoption Reform. December 2, 2004.

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318 Joan P. Brooks, Alaska State Registrar of Vital Statistics. Letter to Suanne Gettings. February 13, 1992; Peggy Baker, State of Kansas Foster Care Specialist. Letter to Kate Burke, American Adoption Congress. February 20, 1990. 319 See Abortions- Number and Rate by State of Occurrence, 2000 and 2005, and State of Residence, 2005. Source: RK Jones et. Al. Abortion in the United States: Incidence and Access to Services, 2005. Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health 40:6, 2008. 320 Adoption Equity Ohio. “Frequently Asked Questions” 321For examples, see U.S. Surgeon General “My Family Health Portrait” https://familyhistory.hhs.gov/FHH/html/index.html ; National Human Genome Research Institute “ U.S. Surgeon General Urges Americans to Know their Family Health History.” https://www.genome.gov/17515539 322 http://www.heartbeatinternational.org/hbi-about-us/our-story 323 Peggy Hartshorn, Personal Interview, April 12, 2010.

324 Kate Livingston. Email to Peggy Hartshorne. April 14, 2010. 325 Peggy Hartshorn, Personal Interview, April 12, 2010. 326 Peggy Hartshorn. Email to the author. April 18, 2010. 327 See Chapter 3 for a discussion of Suanne Gettings and Ohio Right to Life. 328 Mary Beth Lane. “Right to Life lawyer dies at 63.” The Columbus Dispatch. November 28, 2010. 329 Kate Livingston. Email to Suanne Gettings. August 20, 2010. 330 Kathy Chellis. Email to the author. August 24, 2010. 331 Mark Lally. Letter to Dr. Peggy Hartshorn. August 20, 2010. 332 See Ohio ProLife Action,“The Facts on H.B. 125: The Heartbeat Bill” (2011). 333 See Julie Carr Smyth, “Anti-Abortion Activist Center Stage in Ohio Fight.” The News- Herald. 336 For examples of pro-choice opposition to the bill, see ACLU of Ohio, “Why Ohio’s Heartbeat Bill is Truly Heartless”, December 11, 2011. https://www.aclu.org/blog/why- ohios-heartbeat-bill-truly-heartless 337 See Alex Stuckey, “Heartbeat Bill Divides Anti-Abortion Leaders.” The Columbus Dispatch, September 27, 2011. 338 See Greater Cincinnati Right to Life, email update to constituents, December 1, 2011; Erik Eckholm, “Ohio Bill Splits Anti-Abortion Forces on Legal Tactics,” The New York Times, December 1, 2011.

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339 See Catherine Candisky, “House Passes ‘Heartbeat’ Anti-Abortion Bill.” The Columbus Dispatch, June 28, 2011. 340 See Faith2Action, “Governor Rick Perry Announces Support for Heartbeat Bill,” Press release, September 6, 2011; Faith2Action, “Three More Potential Candidates Add Their Support to the Heartbeat Bill,” Press release, May 2, 2011.; Brian Tashman, “Engle: God Has Something to Say to Us in Walmart Parking Lots,” Right Wing Watch, September 27, 2011. http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/engle-god-has-something- say-us-walmart-parking-lots 341 Tom Niehaus, “An Open Letter from Ohio Senate President Tom Niehaus,” May 12, 2012. http://blogs.dixcdn.com/capitalblog/wp- content/uploads/2012/05/Niehaus+Letter+HB+125.pdf 342 Mary Beth Lane. “Right to Life lawyer dies at 63.” The Columbus Dispatch. November 28, 2010. 343 Erik Eckholm, “Ohio Bill Splits Anti-Abortion Forces on Legal Tactics,” The New York Times, December 1, 2011. 344 Kate Livingston. Email to Mike Gonadakis. September 27, 2011. 345 Betsie Norris. Email to Aaron Ockerman and the author. June 1, 2010. 346 Birth year listed on Senator Dave Burke’s Official Facebook Page. https://www.facebook.com/BurkeforOhio/info?tab=page_info 347 Adoption Equity Ohio meeting minutes, July 21, 2011. 348 Adoption Equity Ohio meeting minutes, July 21, 2011. 349 Betsie Norris. Email to Aaron Ockerman and the author. September 27th, 2011. 350 Kate Livingston. Email to Camilla Hydzik, Aide to Senator Bill Beagle. February 16, 2012.

352 Mike Gonidakis. Email to Aaron Ockerman. April 10, 2012. 353 Franjlin County Board of Elections. “Payne Named Deputy Director at Board of Elections. Press release, April 6, 2015. https://vote.franklincountyohio.gov/assets/pdf/press-releases/2015-04-06-2.pdf 354 Judy Holle. Email to Kate Livingston and Betsie Norris. October 14, 2011. 355 Betsie Norris. Email to Kate Livingston. October 14, 2011. 356 Aaron Ockerman. Email to John Adams, Betsie Norris, Mike Martindale, Nicole Wilson and the author. June 26, 2012. 357 Betsie Norris. Email to Susan Anthony, Mike Martindale, Linda Bolon, Aaron Ockerman, Nicole Wilson, Betsie Smalley. September 20, 2012. 358 Betsie Norris. Email to Susan Anthony, Mike Martindale, Linda Bolon, Aaron Ockerman, Nicole Wilson, Betsie Smalley. November 1, 2012. 359 Adoption Equity Ohio meeting minutes, July 21, 2011. 360 Rita Price, “Push on to open up old birth certificates.” The Columbus Dispatch. January 27, 2013. 361 Betsie Norris. Email to Aaron Ockerman and the author. Feburary 15, 2013. 362 Betsie Norris. “Access to birth certificate legislation - Call to Action!” email newsletter to AEO constituents. February 1, 2013.

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363 Adoption Equity Ohio Registrant List; Adoption Equity Ohio Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/AdoptionEquityOhio/ 364 For complete Birthparent Testimony Guide, see ROAR 2013 archive at Adoption Network Cleveland http://www.adoptionnetwork.org/roar-update-7.aspx 365 Betsie Norris. Email to Aaron Ockerman, Sarah LaTourette Kayser and the author. February 22, 2013. 366 For complete proponent testimonies, see ROAR 2013 archive at Adoption Network Cleveland. http://www.adoptionnetwork.org/roar-2013.aspx 367 see ROAR 2013 archive at Adoption Network Cleveland http://www.adoptionnetwork.org/update-14.aspx 368 see ROAR 2013 archive at Adoption Network Cleveland http://www.adoptionnetwork.org/update-14.aspx 369 Aaron Ockerman. Email to Betsie Norris, John Adams and the author. April 25, 2013. 370 see ROAR 2013 archive at Adoption Network Cleveland http://www.adoptionnetwork.org/update-19-2-5-14.aspx http://www.adoptionnetwork.org/roar-update-15.aspx 371 Jim Siegel. “Ohio’s 62 Billion Dollar Budget Approved” The Columbus Dispatch June 28, 2013. 372 Aaron Ockerman, Email to Betsie Norris and the author. October 17, 2013. 373 Aaron Ockerman, Email to Betsie Norris and the author. September 3, 2013. 374 Rita Price. “Bill would help adoptees in ‘gap’ get birth records” The Columbus Dispatch. October 31, 2013. 375 Kate Livingston. Email to Betsie Norris, Aaron Ockerman and John Adams. November 14, 2013. 376 Adam Wright. Email to Aaron Ockerman. November 27th, 2013. 377 see ROAR 2013 archive at Adoption Network Cleveland 378 Rita Price. “ Birth Certificate Redaction Questions Unanswered.” The Columbus Dispatch September 14, 2015. 379 Rita Price. “A Year Later Opening of Birth records Still solving mysteries.” The Columbus Dispatch. March 15, 2016. 380 Rita Price. “ Birth Certificate Redaction Questions Unanswered.” The Columbus Dispatch September 14, 2015. 381 Ohio Right to Life. “Governor Kasich Signs Open Adoption Records Legislation” Email Newsletter to constituents. December 19, 2013. 382 Ohio Right to Life. “Governor Kasich Signs Open Adoption Records Legislation” Email Newsletter to constituents. December 19, 2013. 383 Ohio Right to Life “A Time to Save Lives” Email newsletter to constituents. December 18, 2012. 384 Tara Culp Ressler. “Anti-Abortion State legislator has never thought about why a woman would want an abortion.” Think Progress, September 12, 2012. http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/09/12/831151/state-rep-why-abortion/ 385 Dorothy Pelanda. “Proponent Testimony Sub HB 307” Ohio House Health & Aging Committee Hearing testimony for Sub HB 307. January 15, 2014.

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386 Legislative Services Commission. “Sub HB 307 Bill Analysis” http://www.lsc.ohio.gov/analyses130/h0307-rh-130.pdf 387 Denise St. Clair, “Comments on Substitute House Bill 307” January 14, 2014 388 Betsie Norris. Email to Aaron Ockerman and the Author. January 16, 2014. 389 Ohio Right to Life “Governor Kasich Signs ORTL Adoption Reform” Email newsletter to constituents. December 22, 2014. 390 Courts in Oregon and Tennessee have upheld the constitutionality of ‘open records’ and declined to find a fundamental privacy interest for birthparents in adoption.

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