News release from Mayor Bill Finch:
Today (Tuesday) at 1:00 p.m., Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch will be joining legislators–including Representative David Alexander (D-58)–and advocates in Hartford’s Legislative Office Building, urging members to pass legislation that would give adults who were adopted as children access to birth certificates that include the names of their birth parents. The legislation–House Bill 5144–overwhelmingly passed in the House (106-29) last week, but has yet to be approved by the Senate.
“As an adoptee, I know first-hand what it’s like to lack access to your birth records,” said Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch. “It’s crucial that the state passes this bill, which allows adopted children to access their birth records. This will help ensure that adoptees not only have a fair shot at knowing their medical history, but also at finding their identity.”
In 2006, then State Senator Finch was the sponsor of similar legislation that passed through both chambers of the General Assembly. However, then-Governor Jodi Rell vetoed the bill. Since, the bill has failed to make it through both the House and Senate. In order for H.B. 5144 to become law, it must be passed by the Senate by Wednesday, May 7, 2014, and signed by Governor Dannel P. Malloy.
“Now is the time to give adoptees the basic human rights that we have been barred from for far too long,” said Finch.
I have been trying to pay attention to what Bill Finch says and when he says it, but his message is too often carried by others. The consequences not knowing your birth parent(s) and growing up in one or more institutional, foster or adoptive settings can all be serious factors in the adult formed along the way.
But Bill has put his finger on an important issue when he talks about “the basic human rights that we have been barred from for far too long.” If Bill has been searching for this info for his entire life then he understands the frustration of taxpayers and citizens of Bridgeport searching for the facts and figure, finances and processes that include the governance of Bridgeport. If he wants an open door in his pursuit, perhaps he can relate it to the fight people have to make in Bridgeport for OATs whereas people in other communities have access to similar info just by asking.
The basic details Finch is seeking seem reasonable to me, though if you were a birth parent leading a double life at the time of the birth (or with some other complication), you might be arguing your right to privacy. So Mayor Finch, how about some sympathy for us?
It’s just as reasonable for a taxpayer to know what the revaluation showed, isn’t it? And it seems equally right to expect hundreds of thousands of revenues paid to Lighthouse program show up in their Department revenue budget even if it is grants money (because it offsets the full appropriation approved by the City Council and otherwise would create a double revenue flow–with no accountability). And it would be really right for Bill Finch to own up to where he really, truly stands about education funding for the youth of Bridgeport. Find the cash … it’s in your unfunded positions at any moment … and even in your funded positions when you provide positions and compensation that are not necessary or comparable in the real world. Time will tell.
John Marshall Lee, you make some good points in trying to connect things together with family.
When you come from a “Dysfunctional family,” JML, what you wrote comes in to play, “The consequences not knowing your birth parent(s) and growing up in one or more institutional, foster or adoptive settings can all be serious factors in the adult formed along the way.” Bill Finch has no problem in telling a lie and expects you to believe his lie because he feels he can fool you all the time.
This is a slippery topic. What about the rights of the parents who gave the children up? From a medical point of view, I can see passage of this bill would be the humane thing to do especially in terms of information for purposes of preventative medicine. There is, however, two sides to this coin. Tricky, tricky, tricky.