A CITIZEN’S ANALYSIS OF OBAMA’S LONG-FORM “BIRTH CERTIFICATE”
(May 14, 2011) — To be accurate, what we
call a Long Form Birth Certificate should probably be referred to as
“the top portion” of a long form birth certificate. The Center for Disease Control website
informs us: “Federal law mandates national collection and publication
of births.” So because the Federal government mandates that information
to be collected, they also create a standard form
for the states to use. In viewing the standard form, we see there is a
great deal of information the hospital collects (parent’s race,
details on the delivery, APGAR scores, abnormal conditions of the
newborn, etc.) that we never get to see when requesting a copy of our
birth certificate.
Once every 10 to 15 years, the standard form
undergoes a revision, and to date there have been 11 such revisions of
the standard birth certificate, with the most recent occurring in 2003.
The 2003 model is the one in use today and it replaced the 1989
standard form. This citizen researcher tried to figure out what
revision might have been in use in Hawaii in 1961 but couldn’t find
that information, although perhaps someone else can. It’s complicated by
the fact that when there is another revision, it takes the states a
few years to completely switch over to the new form. They have to
print and distribute them to the hospitals, and while some states seem
to be quicker at it than others, others take a few years.
The records are used to compile
statistics that provide indicators of growing social problems (for
example, broken families and births to unwed mothers), so the form
changes according to the statistics which the The Centers for Disease
Control (CDC) and National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) need. In
previous decades, whether children were born in an urban area or a
remote, sparsely populated area may have been a major factor in infant
death rates. So they ask detailed questions about that. But in latter
years the CDC and NCHS might decide the highest education levels
attained by the parents is a major indicator of problems so they gather
that information. Just as a side note, according to the Revised Standards for Classification of Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity
issued by the Office of Management and Budget in 1997, mothers were to
be offered the option of selecting one or more racial designations. I
had wondered why later birth certificates seen posted on the internet
sometimes had an entire sentence of race classification where earlier
ones had one word.
More information on revisions is found here : http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vital_certificate_revisions.htm
While my research hasn’t completely
answered all the questions I have concerning the long form birth
certificate in use in 1961, I can draw some conclusions of what might
be true with the latest edition to the growing “Obama Collection of
Birth Certificates.” For example, to the right of –#9 Race of Father–
there’s a marking that appears to be a penciled-in– handwritten number
9. Could it be a residual notation left over from when someone added a
little note to remind himself (or someone else) of what exactly to type
in that space? On the 2003 Revision under Father’s Race, I count 14
different classifications plus *Other (Specify), making a total of 15.
But in 1961 could there have been fewer with *Other (Specify), making
number nine (9)? I think it’s quite possible because behind “Stanley
Ann Dunham, Race of Mother –Caucasian” there appears to be a little
penciled-in one (1) and I’m fairly certain White or Caucasian has
always in any American era been the first classification. In checking
with the images of the Nordyke twins’ birth certificates, there also is
what appears to be a number (1) penciled in behind “Caucasian.”
Another possibility that occurred to me
is that the little pencil notes might be an internal coding system
indicating which information needed further verification or guidance,
perhaps something on a scale of 1 to 9 meaning a 1 or 2 is fairly
certain, practically self-evident, but a 9 is raising red flags or
uncertainties and needs more proof.
I also have concluded by carefully
looking at the Standard Form that all the discussion after the 2008
release of the Obama COLB about “Africa” is a continent and not a
racial classification, while true, probably doesn’t apply because the
form states that the information taker is to check whichever box
indicates what the father or mother considers themselves to be. Besides,
the racial classifications apply to Americans filling out American
documents (and have been abused in the past to racially label people),
but would they apply to a foreign national here on a student visa? If
you’ve had a chance to look at Obama Senior’s immigration files you
probably noticed his race is listed as Africa or Kenya there too. If
someone asks “what race are you?” and the respondent answers “Africa”
–does the person taking the information have the legal right to
determine something else? Not really! Maybe change the answer “Africa”
to “African” as seems to be the case with the latest Obama BC, but
probably nothing more.
The more I look at Obama’s latest birth
certificate, the more I am inclined to think it retains items from a
Standard Long Form Certificate of Live Birth signed by his mother at
the time of his birth. In other words, it’s partially abstracted from
an original source document. But if it couldn’t be stamped with the
straightforward “an exact and true copy” stamp, but instead required
the “this is a true copy or an abstract” stamp, it probably means –IT
IS AN ABSTRACT. Plain and simple, pieces taken from one original source
document married to bits and pieces from another original source
document to create a hybrid document reflecting what is true now.
Just beneath the surface it shows his
mother’s signature being pasted together in two parts. It’s “(Stanley)
Ann D” and then in a separate layer… unham Obama. Is it possible the
Hawaii Department of Health had to piece that signature together to
make it comply with the new law effective April 1, 2011?
Beginning April 1,
2011, the U.S. Department of State will require the full names of the
applicant’s parent(s) to be listed on all certified birth certificates
to be considered as primary evidence of U.S. citizenship for all
passport applicants, regardless of age. Certified birth certificates
missing this information will not be acceptable as evidence of
citizenship. This will not affect applications already in-process that
have been submitted or accepted before the effective date.
Did his mother sign the standard birth
form (Stanley) Ann D. Obama, adding the Stanley as an after-thought? Is
it possible that in order to comply with the above requirement and be
able to certify it, HDOH could leave the (Stanley) Ann D part; that was
fine, but it had to have “Dunham,” not just “D,” so they pulled the
“unham Obama” from a later document?
On the internet Obama has quite the
collection of birth certificates. I wonder if he has an equal number of
source documents in the secret hiding place in which Hawaii keeps his
records? Maybe instead of calling him “The One,” his supporters should
call him “The Re-born One”? Just a Suggestion.
