New York Adoptee Denied Petition to Unseal Adoption File

“A judge has denied a petition to unseal the adoption file of a woman with the “heartfelt and sincere desire” to find out if her birth mother was Jewish, but disclosed the mother was Protestant.

Nassau County Surrogate Court Judge Edward McCarty said that the anonymous 59-year old woman had not provided a sufficiently compelling reason to unseal the decades-old file. According to the Nov. 15 ruling, the woman had requested the information because, under Jewish law, a person’s religion is determined by the mother’s faith. The ruling did not indicate why the woman wanted to learn whether she was Jewish.

While he denied the woman’s petition, McCarty said in the ruling that the woman’s mother was Protestant.

The religion of birth parents is listed in New York Public Health Law 4138-c(3) among the non-identifying information that can be provided to adoptees, without requiring the file to be formally unsealed.

Under New York state law, adoptees must establish “good cause” before a court can order an adoption file to be unsealed. It is “unusual,” but not unprecedented, for courts to unseal these records for non-medical reasons, McCarty wrote.

The judge cited a 2009 Nassau County case in which a man adopted as a child who wanted to become a Hungarian citizen petitioned to unseal his file to find out if his parents were Hungarian. Even under those “notably unique circumstances,” the petitioner was only granted access to copies of his original birth certificate, not his entire adoption file, McCarty wrote.

In contrast, McCarty pointed to a 2010 case from Kings County Surrogate’s Court, in which an adopted man sought to unseal his adoption records so he could find out if he was of Puerto Rican descent, in order to participate in a basketball draft in Puerto Rico. That request was denied, McCarty wrote.

The case is In the Matter of the Application of Alice, Surrogate’s Court of the State of New York, Nassau County, No. 5916.”

Adoption file stays sealed, but judge reveals birth mother’s religion

[Thompson Reuters News & Insight 12/7/12 by Jessica Dye]

REFORM Puzzle Piece

Injustice continues…read specifics about NY law and the needed changes at Claudia Corrigan D’arcy’s site here.