TRENTON – A bill sponsored by Senator Joseph F. Vitale which would give adoptees and certain others access to the adoptee’s original birth certificates and other related family information was approved by the Senate today by a vote of 23-14.
“So much of one’s identity is defined by answering one key question — where did I come from?” said Senator Vitale, D-Middlesex, the Chairman of the Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee. “Family history is a living tapestry that many of us take for granted, but for adoptees and their descendants, there’s a gap there that, even though they may have been brought up by the best family in the world, cannot be filled. With this bill, we’re giving adoptees the right to know where they came from, and opening the door of history to those that thought it permanently sealed.”