A lot has changed since we last spoke with Bryan Conti about being an adult who was adopted as a child. And a lot hasn’t.

When we spoke with Bryan several years ago, he was still looking to fill out the story of his life by finding and possibly meeting the people who conceived him so many years ago. He has learned more about his birth family, or as he prefers, his “original” parents.

“I made contact with a brother, my oldest brother, and disclosed my father’s name,” said Conti. “I’ve had full family reunions and if anyone doesn’t think that finding out who your original parents were is important, I suggest that they attend one of those kind of reunions.”

Conti describes the reunions as bittersweet but very essential for his coming to terms with what he considers one of the central questions of human existence, which is, “Who am I?”

While Conti has, by his own extraordinary determination, answered that question for himself, he continues to fight for the right of everybody to have access to their original birth records. As hard as it may be to imagine, adopted children still face significant roadblocks on their way to the city clerk’s records.

“Everybody else can go down to city hall and ask to see his or her original birth records, except adopted children,” he said. “What everyone else takes for granted is still a battle for us.”

After decades of lobbying efforts by national groups such as the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, there are still some states that do not allow adopted children access. Rhode Island is one of them.

“Last year, a bill for access passed the House of Representatives with flying colors,” said Conti, “but in the Senate, it never got out of committee, in spite of all the professed support for it.”

Conti and other supporters of the Senate bill who love to have the bill come up for a vote or even a debate but the Senate leadership appears to be reluctant to move on the measure. At least a debate, says Conti, would compel people to state the reasons they oppose the bill. He is convinced that there are compelling reasons to pass the legislation and most of the reasons given in the past to prevent access have become largely moot. Moral reputations are no longer based on the circumstances of your birth. Almost no one uses the term “bastard” in its original sense of being “illegitimate” any more. Being called a bastard these days is more likely to be a comment on your geniality more than your genealogy.

“People used to say denying access was a matter of protecting the mothers and their reputations,” said Conti, who suggests that, “The real reason was to protect the child from an original parent changing their mind and coming to take their child back.”

More importantly, most importantly to some, adopted children should have access for medical reasons. With so many diseases linked to heredity within the last few decades, it has become a medical necessity to know what “runs in the family.” What is the morality of preserving a mother’s reputation if her child dies because his or her doctor had no reason to expect it to get a certain sickness?

Such arguments have been made all over the country and abroad for full access and disclosure of birth records. In a policy brief published by the Adoption Institute last year, authors, Dr. Jeanne A. Howard, Susan Livingston Smith, and Georgia Deoudes, called “For the Records II: An Examination of the History and Impact of Adult Adoptee Access to Original Birth Certificates” is based on years of researching court and legislative documents and scholarly writing, including the experience of states and countries that have open access.

The report suggests that efforts to accelerate the trend have been impeded by misunderstandings and misconceptions about the impact of changing the status quo. Legislators often assume negative consequences will occur but, in fact, they do not:

“Barring adopted adults from access to their OBCs (original birth certificates) wrongly denies them a right enjoyed by all others in our country, and is not in their best interests for personal and medical reasons.”

They said alternatives, such as mutual consent registries are ineffective and do not meet adoptees' needs and that the vast majority of birthmothers don't want to be anonymous to their children.

They recommend every “closed” state should unseal OBCs for all adult adoptees or revise rules so that all adult adoptees will have access and that no adoption agencies or lawyers or other professional person involved in the adoption process should be able to promise women anonymity from the children they place for adoption.

Though support is clearly growing for “open records” there is no “slam dunk” in the future.

It is commonly argued, for instance, that OBCs are sealed to protect the anonymity that birthmothers were promised, and that changing the rules now would undermine their lives and be harmful in other ways, such as increasing the number of abortions. But open records advocates say those assertions are flawed or incorrect and more emotional than rational. What ever the arguments, there is no denying the emotional impact that the confusion surrounding adoptions has been painful for people in the past and will remain so in the future.

Barbara Baguchinsky’s story is by no means typical, but it does show how confused a child can become in the middle of all the obfuscation and well-intentioned deceit surrounding adoptions.

“I was six months old when I was originally adopted,” she said. “I went to live with a family in Bristol and when I was 9, my adopted father died and my adoptive mother couldn’t take care of me by herself and I was sent to the Doyle Avenue Home in Providence.”

That was when the confusion began for Baguchinsky. She stayed at the Doyle Avenue orphanage for several years before she was placed with another family at the age of 13.

“In my mind, I never felt like I fit in with the new family and we didn’t get along very well,” she said. “It was not until a friend of my new mother told that I learned I was originally adopted.”

What she learned was, not only was she adopted at the age of six months by the couple in Bristol, the mother who adopted her out of the Doyle Avenue Home at the age of 13 was her birth mother.

“She and I never got along very well,” said Baguchinsky. “I was a very troubled and rebellious person. I think she didn’t like me because I reminded her of her mistake.”

To make matters even worse, the man whose house she was adopted into at the age of 13, came to her when she was around 16 years old and told her he was her birth father, who ended up marrying her mother in the end. Needless to say, such knowledge would be challenging for any person to absorb, let alone a troubled, emotionally neglected teenager. Now 71 years old, Baguchinsky admits it hasn’t been easy for her, or typical, or easy to forget the emotional isolation and conflict she felt.

“I was not at her bedside when she died,” she said of her mother.

Nevertheless, while her history can’t be changed, Baguchinsky said she was pleased to learn of Bryan Conti’s support group for adults who were adopted children called the Rhode Island Adoptees Resource Group (RIARG), one of several groups advocating for open access. Baguchinsky said she has done much of her genealogical research herself and she has “it all in an envelope” but feels frustrated in that she can’t get her original birth certificate.

“Everyone involved in my adoption is gone,” she said. “My final search is for my original birth certificate.”

Rhode Island Senate Bill 0361 is still waiting to be brought to a vote. For more information about the bill and RIARG, visit www.riarg.org.