Happy birthday Senator. I assume you knew your mother. She raised you with love and kindness. Bathing you, changing nappy, dressing, feeding, educating, playing games with you, showing her love of you in all the myriad forms a mother shows her daughter she is loved. Please indulge, me for a moment Senator and please attempt to imagine you had never met your mother, never knew one detail about …her or the circumstance of your birth, including who your father is. This is my fate, living in a modern, civilized Ireland. Not allowed to have a birth certificate, a basic building block of identity. Not allowed to know the name of my mother, or the name she would have wanted for me, another basic building block of identity. I and many others in this Christian society suffer this fate. The State disallows me my identity, my true identity, I am supposed to be happy with a false identity, a lie of a family, as none of us are related by blood. I am supposed to accept this discrimination against the very foundation of me as a person and get on with my false life. Knowing all the while that my details are on record only the State will not allow me access. Think of all your mother did for you, the smiles, the quiet moments shared in the simple knowledge that you are loved and you love your mother and father. Now please imagine never having any of this in your life. All your happy childhood, your schooling, teen years, all you ever shared with your mother gone, never existed, just a dream.
What would you imagine your life would be like if you had never been allowed to meet or identify your mother? Knowing my true mother is out there and powerless to find her. In my opinion, this is a barbaric treatment of one human being by the State of Ireland. As you are an elected representative of this State that denies me my identity, I feel I should wish you a happy birthday, something I have never known in my 55 years, as every birthday is a pain-filled experience, full of wishing, longing, yearning to know and even just once, see my mothers face. I can never be a whole citizen of this State as the State itself is against me. I have to accept now as we all get older, each passing year lessens the chance of ever seeing my true mother’s face. I have to hold you responsible, you and all politicians in this twisted and immoral Governmental system that denies me and all adoptees, the basic human right to the fundamental knowledge of my true identity. Enjoy your birthday Frances.
Taken from Adoption Rights Alliance
