Other Clips

Before making ADOPTED: for the life of me, Jean Strauss made a number of short films, including Vital Records: the debate about adoptee access, which is featured below in its entirety.  The other clips provide a more indepth view of some aspects of the need for adoption reform.

Vital Records (22:00) This film frames the debate of adoptee access, providing both sides of the issue, with compelling comments from the US Surgeon General, the head of the Human Genome Project, as well as activists who’ve been successful in access legislation, and comments from the opposition.
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Pam Hasegawa: Testimony on Adoptees’ Birthright Bill in NJ. (3:11) This excerpt from Pam’s testimony to the NJ Assembly on June 14, 2010, addresses the issue expressed by the opposition that birth parents were guaranteed privacy, either statutorily or by expectation, from the children they gave birth to and the adoptive parents. As Pam poignantly articulates in her testimony, it is clear upon examination of the law that a birth parent’s right to life-long anonymity from their son or daughter was never a part of New Jersey policy. This clip is a must see for anyone trying to understand what current state policies are and why they were enacted in the first place.