I would like to congratulate your newspaper
on printing Heidi Ulrichsen's July 6 article in which Gail
Gilchrist, president of Parent Finders for Sudbury, was quoted.
I fully support her position regarding adoption
disclosure.
The importance of the opening of Ontario's
sealed adoption records, cannot be overestimated.
The Ontario legislature was thwarted in its
attempt to have Bill 183 passed into law, in this spring
session. Filibustering by the Conservatives, who chose to ally
themselves with the Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, had a
great deal to do with this fiasco.
Unfortunately the lobbying of this
commissioner and her stance on adoption disclosure, is only
from the point of view of mothers who have had to surrender
children for adoption. There is no consideration for the many
adoptees trying to access their own personal information.
Canada's International Obligations, by
ratifying, on Dec. 13, 1991, the Convention on the Rights of
the Child, binds our country to principles such as respecting
children's rights without discrimination.
This would indicate that childhood adoptees ,
who have now become adults, should continue to be afforded
these rights without having to weigh them against the rights of
mothers who were not promised confidentiality.
This stance is not considered an unqualified
right by Ontario's Privacy Commissioner.
I am one of those mothers who had to
surrender a child to adoption in 1961. I have no contact with
my 44-year-old son. I am also an adoptive mother of a
34-year-old son, whom I have watched struggle with a mental
illness, of an hereditary nature. His mother's sister provided
us with this information.
I am happy to have supported his reunion
which gave him the right to his own personal information. Both
of my sons were born in Ontario. Had adoption records in
Ontario not been sealed, my adoptive son could have had this
mental illness alleviated with the correct medication, at a
young age.
We, as the general public, need to educate
ourselves on these issues as the ramifications of them are far
reaching and often affect more than just the adoption
community.
Sharon A. Doerr
Langley, B.C.