In the past I have blasted the Director of New York States Adoption Registry, Peter Carucci, for doing such a slip shod job of reunited adoptees and birth parents that have both registered.
Guy Warner The New NY Adoption King
I was thrilled to hear that Mr. Carucci has left his post as the Director of NYS Vital Records and we have a new Director, Mr. Guy Warner in his place. I’m not sure if he gets any of the credit, but today the news was released that New York State has expanded their Registry to include those Born in New York and adopted in other states and those Born in other states and adopted in New York!
New NYS Adoption Registry Bill Expansion
While the NYS Adoption registry page has not been updated yet to reflect the new law yet, the bill A80307 clearly shows a slight thaw in New York’s strong hold on adoption:
Section 1.
Section 4138-c of the public health law is amended by adding a new subdivision 1-a to read as follows:
1-A. FOR THE PURPOSES OF THIS SECTION, “ADOPTEE” SHALL INCLUDE:
THOSE PERSONS BORN IN THIS STATE, AND THOSE PERSONS BORN IN ANY OTHER STATE WITHIN THE UNITED STATES OR IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA WHOSE ADOPTION OCCURRED WITHIN THIS STATE.
2. Subdivisions 2 and 4 of section 4138-c of the public health law,’as amended by chapter 181 of the laws of 2010, are amended to read as follows:
2. UPON APPLICATION FOR REGISTRATION BY AN ADOPTEE NOT BORN IN THIS STATE, OR BY A BIRTH PARENT OR SIBLING OF SUCH AN ADOPTEE, THE DEPARTMENT SHALL SEARCH THE RECORDS OF THE DEPARTMENT TO DETERMINE WHETHER THE ADOPTEE’S ADOPTION OCCURRED WITHIN THIS STATE. IF THE DEPARTMENT DETERMINES THAT THE ADOPTION OCCURRED WITHIN THIS STATE, IT SHALL REGISTER THE APPLICANT IF HE OR SHE IS OTHERWISE QUALIFIED AND MAKE APPROPRIATE NOTIFICATIONS PURSUANT TO SUBDIVISION FOUR OF THIS SECTION.
Why this Adoption Bill? Why Not the Bill for Adoptee Rights?
Now what kind of pisses me off is that they entered this bill on June 13, 2011 and it got signed into law on 10/3/12. That’s a little bit longer than a year to get introduced and passed. Yet, the Adoptee Rights Bill (S7286 and A8910A) in some form or another and with great support due to the lobby efforts of Unsealed Imitative, still CANNOT GET CALLED for a VOTE! If they passed the Adoptee Rights Bill then they wouldn’t NEED to have amended the registry!
Not for nothing, but NYS managed to get the Marriage Equality bill passed. AND they even got a bill for Stillbirth to get issued Birth Certificates. I don’t begrudge either of those two bills, BUT WHY CAN”T ADOPTEE RIGHTS HAPPEN ALREADY! After all, New York State adoptees have had to deal with a sealed OBC law since 1938!
Want to know why NY needs to open their secret adoption records? Here’s more than you’ll ever want to know.
New York Registry Information: Numbers of Failure
Now in searching for information about Mr. Guy Warner, I found very little. Like Mr Carucci, he seems to keep a low internet profile. I did happen to find an interesting PDF about the New York State Adoption Registry that apparently Mr. Warner gave to some group called NAPHSIS.org. Most of it is just s PowerPoint Slide show with the same information that is on the NYS registry page, but what I find interesting are the statistics he provided:
New York State Adoption Registry Success Statistics – May 21, 2012
- 28,131 adoptees registered
- 6,919 birth parents registered
- 1,427 biological siblings
- 1,413 adoptee/birth parent matches
- 212 adoptee with biological sibling raised by birth parent matches
- 432 adoptee with adoptee matches
- 5% adoptees who register are matched with a registered birth parent
- 20% biological parents who register are matched with their registered biological child
To save you the math.. that’s 36,477 people listed in the adoption registry. And some sort of match made for 2,057. It is slightly over 5%, but I am also guessing that that of those matches fall into more than one group.
It also says to me that a great number of parents who relinquished to NY state adoptions, don’t know they CAN register or feel as if they don’t have a right too.
In any case, there are 34,420 adoption related family members in New York State that are STILL waiting and COULD be helped by passing S7286 and A8910A.
And that is pretty sad.
