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Breathing and birth certificates

When was the last time you really thought about air? Not air in the abstract, like the part of the Earth’s atmosphere that humans may be warming and polluting.

But the concrete. The air that you’re breathing right now. The air that’s in your bedroom, bathroom, kitchen. The air in your Jeep, Honda, Chevy. The air on the bus, at your office, in the gym. The air in the grocery store, at Costco, surrounding the baseball field (oh, that’s right. Only Colorado and 2 other teams are still playing baseball. Ha Ha!).

You haven’t thought about the air you breathe in the last day, week, month? That’s because YOU HAVE IT.

If all the air were to be sucked out of your home, your Honda, your Costco, then would you think about it? You bet your sweet bippy. You wouldn’t be able to think of anything else. Thoughts of air would consume you.

Now. When was the last time you thought about your birth certificate? That tired and rumpled old document that says the date, time and location where you were born. That shows your height and weight. That shows your parents, and thereby infers your very identity by virtue of the underlying ethnic background and health history.

What? You haven’t thought about your birth certificate since the last time you applied for a passport or driver’s license? And even then you didn’t really study it?

Then, you must not be an adopted person.

Adopted people in many parts of the United States are prevented from having access to their original birth certificates. I can have mine. You can have yours (unless you were adopted). But a class of citizens — through circumstance of birth — are denied the right to see and have the document that shows their identity on the day they were born.

Check out this video compiled to a Dashboard Confessional song and visit the site. Our country, founded on equal rights for all, should not tolerate the treatment of second-tier citizens. Support Open Records in your state.

0 Responses

  1. This seems so outrageous in a day and age when information on the Internet is so freely available. Thanks for raising awareness here…

  2. Wow, I didn’t know that! It’s terrible… something so taken for granted. But I do appreciate the ability to breathe anew, especially the last few weeks. Thanks for reminding me there is much more things we shouldn’t just take for granted.

  3. This seems so outrageous in a day and age when information on the Internet is so freely available. Thanks for raising awareness here…

  4. Wow, I didn’t know that! It’s terrible… something so taken for granted. But I do appreciate the ability to breathe anew, especially the last few weeks. Thanks for reminding me there is much more things we shouldn’t just take for granted.

  5. I have to admit that I think about the air that I breathe all the time – partly because I know I need to mitigate my house for radon.More importantly, that is awful in regards to adoptees learning about their history. When we were looking at anonymous donors anyone who didn’t check “Willing to meet adult age offspring” was off my list for these very reasons.Thanks for sharing.

  6. I always feel a little cognitive dissonance when looking at my husband’s birth certificate with his (adoptive) parents’ names on it. Because in the sense that it identifies his parentage, it’s certainly a true document, but in another sense, it’s not true, because they weren’t there at his birth. I suppose I think about it more than he does. He’s lucky that he does know his birth name, though.

  7. I have to admit that I think about the air that I breathe all the time – partly because I know I need to mitigate my house for radon.More importantly, that is awful in regards to adoptees learning about their history. When we were looking at anonymous donors anyone who didn’t check “Willing to meet adult age offspring” was off my list for these very reasons.Thanks for sharing.

  8. I always feel a little cognitive dissonance when looking at my husband’s birth certificate with his (adoptive) parents’ names on it. Because in the sense that it identifies his parentage, it’s certainly a true document, but in another sense, it’s not true, because they weren’t there at his birth. I suppose I think about it more than he does. He’s lucky that he does know his birth name, though.

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