The issue has drawn celebrity adoptees such as Darryl McDaniels of the hip-hop group Run-DMC to the state to lobby for reform. But powerful opponents, including the NJ-ACLU, the New Jersey Bar Association and the New Jersey Catholic Conference, hold influence, said state Sen. Diane Allen, a prime sponsor of the most recent bill to open records.
"There is a large group of people who are pushing it, but there are just as many groups pushing back," said Allen, a Burlington County Republican.
The latest bill, Allen said, passed in the Senate in March 2008, but like 2004 and 2006, failed to make it to the Assembly floor. That bill would allow birth mothers to remove their identifying information from birth certificates before turning them over - a caveat that adoptee-rights groups begrudgingly made to get the bill moving, Hasegawa said.
New Jersey currently requires a court order to open birth records.
Last month, numerous adoptee-rights groups and individuals from as far as Wyoming and Washington state contacted the Daily News responding to an article June 23 about an Atlantic City woman who is suing New Jersey for allegedly providing her personal information to the daughter she gave up for adoption 30 years ago after being raped.
That woman received a letter from New Jersey's Division of Youth and Family Services in August 2008, claiming that her daughter was seeking out her identifying information. The woman, who said she became distraught upon reading the letter, didn't respond. Her daughter showed up at her door months later.
Some who contacted the Daily News said the woman and her attorney were simply pawns for groups who support closed records. Others, like Hasegawa, said the woman had handled it the wrong way.
"All she had to do was go down to her police station and issue a restraining order," Hasegawa said.
