OPINION: Veto option ‘a must’

Opening adoptions records with veto option vs. opening adoption records without veto option

A crowd gathered with signs in support of opening P.E.I.’s adoption records during the Truth and Transparency for P.E.I. Mothers, Fathers, and Adoptees event in October in front of the Catholic Family Services building in Charlottetown. - Katherine Hunt/The Guardian

BY MARY CONDON

GUEST OPINION

Here’s a little story for you.

A birth mother, for whatever reason, gives birth to a baby girl that is placed in adoption services. As time passes, she has a longing to find her birth daughter. She spends many long hours agonizingly analyzing the situation. Should I search? Shouldn’t I? Will I find my “happily ever after?” Will she want to meet me? How will I react if I’m rejected?

The birth mother has had time to analyze her situation and how it will affect her and her own family. The birth mother then makes a voluntary, informed, conscious decision to search for their birth daughter, knowing that the end result could be a happy reunion, a devastating rejection, a daughter that has passed away, or that her daughter didn’t even know she was adopted.

Knowing that the search could have numerous outcomes, the birth mother decides to file the search papers. Remember, a conscious decision, made after much thought, well aware that the outcome is unknown, opening themselves up for disappointment is made.

Now let’s put this birth mother in the search process on P.E.I. -- both with and without the veto option.

Under legislation that does not contain a veto option, the daughter is contacted (either by government employee or directly by birth mother). The daughter is blindsided. Unlike the birth mother, who had had time to process the situation, the daughter has no idea this total life change was sneaking up on her. The daughter rejects the birth mothers request. The birth mother is devastated, but she knew that this could be a possible outcome when she made the decision to search.

The daughter is devastated as well at the upheaval that this unwanted, very personal intrusion has happened in her life. But the daughter had no way to protect herself from this life-changing blindside, because Prince Edward Island has no veto laws in their adoption policies.

Now, under legislation that does contain a veto option, the daughter, knowing that she does not want birth family contact, and after careful thought and consideration, registers herself on the veto list. ‘Do not contact’ is placed on her file.
The birth mother still files the search papers and, as a result of a veto option, is told that her daughter is on the veto list, her file is sealed.

In the end, the birth mother was going to be rejected either way, but it was an outcome she chose to bring into her life. Her decision alone. She had time to prepare herself for all possible outcomes.

The daughter, on the other hand, had her rights and privacy protected, because P.E.I. has a veto option.

I am this daughter.

I have rights.

I deserve privacy.

I deserve protection.

I deserve peace.

Yes, the Prince Edward Island government needs to open adoption records. But the government must include a veto option in their new open adoption policy.

-Mary Condon, Lower Montague, has discussed P.E.I.’s pending adoption records’ changes with Family and Human Services Minister Tina Mundy