LITTLETON — It’s something many of us may take for granted, knowing your medical history or being able to get a copy of your birth certificate. But many adopted Coloradans whose adoption records are sealed don’t have access to this information that could be life-changing, even life-saving.
A Colorado Court of Appeals decision made in April will change this reality for thousands.
According to the decision, people whose adoptions were finalized between July 1951 and July 1967 can find out the names of their birth parents and have access to all court records and papers regarding their adoption.
Littleton’s Deborah Bort is among those who will benefit from this ruling.
Bort was adopted when she was 6 weeks old. During the 47 years since, she’s known nothing about her birth parents.
Bort has spent a lot of time trying to get more than just the handful of adoption papers her parents saved. It’s more than just curiosity. She and her youngest son, Cody, have osteogenesis imperfecta. The disease is caused by a mutation on a gene that affects the body’s production of the collagen found in bones and other tissues. Bort wonders whether her adoption documents would reveal anything else.
“This is huge for me because now I know that I have access to my records and I can find out if there is any medical history there for me and for my children, and for their children,” she said.
In recent years, some of this information has been available through court-appointed third parties, but adoptees like Bort had to pay for the service.
This ruling, supporters say, makes the process a lot easier.
“We’re the product of two streams of love, one from adoptive families and one from birth families. We need to know both,” said Richard Uhrlaub, co-director of Adoptee in Search/- Colorado’s Triad Connection. “For people during that time period, it was a different age, adoptions weren’t open like they are now. This is very significant both in terms of family connection and in terms of recognition of adoptees as adults.”
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment keeps the birth certificates. A spokeswoman told 9NEWS they’re working on a specific procedure for adoptees to apply for their birth certificates.
Since 1999, adoption records in Colorado have been open. State law says adoptions between 1967 and 1999 remain sealed unless the adoptee works with a court-appointed third party or gets a court order.
This article has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, due to incorrect information supplied to 9News by a source, the cause of osteogenesis imperfecta was misstated. The disease is caused by a mutation on a gene that affects the body’s production of the collagen found in bones and other tissues.
