Assemblywoman’s passionate plea helps pass law to help adoptees find their birth parents

Assemblywoman Pamela Hunter will tell you that she has had a great life. Growing up in Lake Luzurne, she was athletic and passionate about participating in outdoor activity in the North Country.

She was accepted to culinary school, but her family was unable to pay for college, so she turned to the military.

What she really wanted to do was to be of service – a college elective solidified that, along with her upbringing. Her father was a Presbyterian minister and always about service, she said.

That philosophy would re-emerge in a way Hunter never imagined a couple of years later – after she got married, lived in Germany, came back to the United States, served on the city council in Syracuse and ran for the Assembly with the goal of bringing change and impacting the lives of others.

he got to do that in 2019 when she co-sponsored legislation to give New Yorkers who were adopted access to their birth records. An antiquated law preventing this had been around since the 1930s and both sides still held their positions. However, Hunter persevered.

What people didn’t know was that she also had a personal interest.

Learn about what that was by watching the video of Elaine Houston’s story.

MORE: Obtaining pre-adoption birth certificate for adoptees