[smr67]

I encountered a situation with Pennsylvania's Vital Records office, and I want to warn and invite other PA international adoptive parents to join my fight.

The situation is that PA revised their law last summer regarding the "Recognition of a Foreign Adoption". Basically all counties courts must follow the same process and use the standard forms. You are then given a County court issued "Certificate of Adoption". This law states that this process means that the foreign adoption is recognized by PA as final and the be treated the same as an adoption completed in PA. The county court sends two forms (standard for all counties) to the State Vital Records office to issue the new birth certificate. We were given PA's standard application for a certified copy of our son's new PA birth cert. The only additional requirement stated on this app was a copy of a photo id which will be shredded once the parent's identity is verified.

Well, we got a letter requesting copies of our social security cards, our birth certificates and our driver's licenses! When I called, the explanation given was that it is a foreign birth so these additional docs are required based on their "procedures".

I fought back by contacting our state senator's office and by emailing the vital records office a link to the new law and told them based this law they had everything they needed to process the birth certificate and I would not be sending the additional docs asked for. They responded this new law applies to county law, but they will waive the requirements for our case and are processing our son's birth cert without these things. Even though our personal case was won, we want to ensure other parents with foreign adoptions do not encounter this same discrimination (I was told that if the child were born in the US these additional things are not required).

If you had this happen to you. Let me know. If you are asked for this in the future -- I encourage you to "fight back". Let them know you will not be treated differently than other parents in PA! Contact your state senator. Let's let our state government know that we will not tolerate being treated differently!

Suzanne