MINNEAPOLIS — A busy 2023 legislative session has ushered in 77 new Minnesota laws this, but it will take nearly a year before one landmark law change impacts adoptees and their birth parents.
On July 1, 2024, adopted people born in Minnesota who are 18 or older will be able to request copies of their original birth records.
The state is delaying the rollout in order to give time for birth parents to indicate whether they would like to be contacted, and how.
For a group of Minnesota adoptees who have spent years fighting for that access, it's worth the wait.
"Adoptees have never had an option," said Joe Duea, who has fought to change that ever since joining the Minnesota Coalition for Adoption Reform in 2016.
Growing up, Duea says he never knew who his birth mother was, but he always knew he was adopted.
Joe Duea: "Yeah, I knew all along. My parents always told me that I was adopted. I was adopted at 3 months old. I knew my birth mother was young. She gave me up because she couldn't really take care of me — wanted me to go to a better home kind of thing."
Kent Erdahl: "When did you realize that you wanted to know more?"
Duea: "Really young. I think I was probably a teenager. I always was under the assumption that when I turned 18 I could go and ask for the information and find it out."
Erdahl: "You thought that was the case back then, but it clearly wasn't."
Duea: "Correct."
Erdahl: "It will be."
Duea: "It will be starting next year."
Erdahl: "Will you be requesting a copy (of your original birth record)?"
Duea: "Yes, immediately."
When the new law takes effect next July, he says it will be the culmination of more than 20 years of advocacy by adoptees.
"We made it very clear that this is a rights issue for adoptees because I don't think that's been really thought about," he said. "We're always kind of an afterthought when it comes to being able to access that information. The impetus was always on the birth parents' choice and control regardless if that birth parent really agreed with that stance."
The current Minnesota Law, which will remain for the next few months, does give birth parents the sole choice to disclose birth records or not. According to the Minnesota Department of Health, only about 17,000 birth parents have filed that legal paperwork. Of those who have, 91 percent have chosen to disclose the birth records, while just 9 percent have chosen to keep them secret.
But the vast majority have never taken action.
"I've met many, many birth mothers who, in that situation, were definitely open to meeting their birth kids," Duea said, pointing out that many said they weren't aware of their options.
In response to the law change, a new form released this week by MDH, does give birth parents a chance to indicate their preferences before the access law changes.
They include:
- I would like to be contacted.
- I would prefer to be contacted only through an intermediary.
- I prefer not to be contacted at this time.
The form also gives birth parents a space to provide information they think is important for the adopted person to know.
But those preferences will not prevent the adoptee from knowing who they are.
"DNA completely changed the landscape with regards to that, so anonymity is not there anymore," Duea said. "You can't hide that anymore."
Duea says he used DNA and Ancestry.com to track down his own birth mother several years ago.
Duea: "It took me a year and a half," he said. "The drive I had was insane. I wanted to know. I had to know. It was important to me. It was important to me for me and my kids, and my adoptive parents as well. They were interested because they didn't know either."
Erdahl: "Did you try to reach out? Did you make any connections?"
Duea: "I did. She, unfortunately, by the time I met her had been 10 years into dementia, so our conversations are little bit varied now."
Erdahl: "I'm sorry to hear that."
Duea: "That's okay."
Erdahl: "At the time, if you had gotten a form back and it said, 'I wish not to be contacted?'"
Duea: "I would have respected her wishes and not reached out to her, but I still would have known who she was, and where I came from.
Everybody has their own, unique story so everybody has sort of got their own individual path. I have many people who I went to high school with who also were adopted who aren't interested in pursuing it. That's their choice, completely their choice. We just didn't want the law to say you couldn't have that choice."
When the law changes next year, Minnesota will become the 15th state to give unrestricted access to birth records. According to MDH, there's an average of 2,000 adoptions in Minnesota every year. By next July, nearly 150,000 birth records will instantly become eligible.
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