NPR Adds Context to Abigail McKinnon's Story

NPR has made significant changes to its article 'Colorado is making it a little easier to prove you exist' by adding context to Abigail McKinnon's story. The revised article now includes quotes from McKinnon, who was born in Colorado without a birth certificate and has since faced difficulties due to her lack of identification. The added text explains that McKinnon had to give birth at home in Georgia because she couldn't get health insurance, and that she was 27 years old when she first entered a hospital. The revised article also mentions that McKinnon couldn't get a job, legally marry her husband, or enroll in school due to her lack of a Social Security number. These additions provide a more nuanced understanding of the challenges faced by individuals without identification. The changes matter to readers as they offer a deeper look into the human impact of the issue, making the story more relatable and impactful.

Related Changes

Colorado is making it a little easier to prove you exist +1293 -1042
− Accessibility links Skip to main content Keyboard shortcuts for audio player Open Navigation Menu --> Newsletters NPR Shop Close Navigation Menu Home News Expand/collapse submenu for News National World Politics Business Health Science Climate Race Culture Expand/collapse submenu for Culture Books Movies Television Pop Culture Food Art & Design Performing Arts Life Kit Gaming Music Expand/collapse submenu for Music The Best Music of 2025 All Songs Considered Tiny Desk Music Features Live Sessions Podcasts & Shows Expand/collapse submenu for Podcasts & Shows Daily Morning Edition Weekend Edition Saturday Weekend Edition Sunday All Things Considered Up First Here & Now NPR Politics Podcast Featured Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!
+ By Dan Boyce A newborn has its footprint taken.
− Fresh Air Wild Card with Rachel Martin It's Been a Minute Planet Money Get NPR+ More Podcasts & Shows Search Newsletters NPR Shop The Best Music of 2025 All Songs Considered Tiny Desk Music Features Live Sessions About NPR Diversity Support Careers Press Ethics Colorado is making it a little easier to prove you exist A woman born in Colorado has never had a birth certificate; her parents rejected such things.
+ While it is not needed to issue a birth certificate, footprints are used by hospitals to identify newborns in the nursery.
− She's never gone to school, had a job or been on a plane.
+ Getty Images/Getty Images hide caption Abigail McKinnon was 27 years old the first time she entered a hospital.
− Revised rules mean she'll soon officially exist.
+ She had just given birth to her daughter at home in Georgia and needed stitches. McKinnon gave birth at home because she could not get health insurance to see an OB-GYN as her pregnancy progressed.
− National Colorado is making it a little easier to prove you exist February 27, 20264:57 PM ET Heard on All Things Considered From By Dan Boyce Colorado is making it a little easier to prove you exist Listen &middot; 3:42 3:42 Transcript Toggle more options Download Embed Embed "> <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/nx-s1-5721097/nx-s1-9667482" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript A woman born in Colorado has never had a birth certificate; her parents rejected such things.
+ She could not get a job to help her husband support their child.
− She's never gone to school, had a job or been on a plane.
+ She could not even legally marry her husband. McKinnon could not do any of these things because, despite being born in the United States, she didn't have a Social Security number.
− Revised rules mean she'll soon officially exist.
+ To get one of those, she would need a birth certificate.
− Sponsor Message AILSA CHANG, HOST: Without a valid ID, you cannot enroll in school or work legally or drive a car or get on a plane.
+ And in her case, she would need it from a state where she could not even remember living: Colorado. When McKinnon was born, her parents believed registering their children for any form of government identification was a form of slavery.
− And to get that identification, you often need a birth certificate. So what if you never had one of those? Colorado Public Radio's Dan Boyce reports.
+ A Social Security number was the "mark of the beast," McKinnon recalled them saying.
− DAN BOYCE, BYLINE: Abigail McKinnon says she was born on December 8, 1994.
+ She has been trying, unsuccessfully, to rectify her parents' decision for half her life.
− ABIGAIL MCKINNON: I was born in Woodland Park, Colorado.
+ But last month, McKinnon's case helped secure a change to Colorado's rules for obtaining a delayed birth certificate—rules that were, until now, among the most restrictive in the country.
− BOYCE: To deeply religious parents who didn't believe in registering their children with the government at all. MCKINNON: They believe that a Social Security number was the mark of the beast, so that's why I was never gotten a Social Security number. BOYCE: She and her siblings were homeschooled, never went to doctors or dentists.
+ Stateless in her own country Despite the informal nature of her marriage, McKinnon has taken her husband's last name.
− It wasn't until she was a teenager that she realized what not having a birth certificate meant.
+ She maintains she was born Abigail Colon in Woodland Park, Colo.
− She wanted to get a driver's license, join the military, take online classes.
+ on Dec.
− She couldn't do any of that.
+ 8, 1994.
− MCKINNON: I was denied because I didn't have any proof of identification. BOYCE: McKinnon's siblings were initially in her same position, but they were all able to eventually get birth certificates, social security numbers and education, regular jobs, move on with their lives. MCKINNON: All of them. BOYCE: That's because they were born in Tennessee, where regulations are less strict.
+ She has no official documentation of the birth or her early life, except a notation in the family Bible.
− Kelley Wright has been in the same boat.
+ Her family moved to Tennessee when she was about two years old.
− Her parents never fully explained why her birth in Loveland, Colorado, wasn't registered.
+ She says that she and her siblings were homeschooled to some degree. They did not go to doctors or dentists.
− KELLEY WRIGHT: When I was born, it was at home via midwife, and I've heard that maybe they didn't want to pay the midwife or that the midwife was mad.
+ McKinnon did not begin to comprehend the magnitude of her situation until she applied for a driver's license at age 16.
− So I guess she never signed the papers.
+ She hoped to start driving to high school for a more traditional education, to eventually join the military and go into medicine. However, she didn't have the needed identification to apply for a driver's license. As far as the government was concerned, there was no record of her existence at all.
− BOYCE: Immigration attorney Betsy Fisher says there's no reliable data on how many Americans find themselves in a similar situation.
+ Abigail McKinnon poses for a photo in North Carolina Abigail McKinnon/Abigail McKinnon hide caption "I didn't have my paperwork," McKinnon said.
− Fisher teaches law at the University of Michigan and writes about delayed birth certificate laws in the United States.
+ "I tried applying for online courses and I was denied because I didn't have any proof of identification.
− They vary state by state.
+ That really hindered me from being completely independent." As a result, McKinnon is essentially a stateless person: someone who is not recognized as a citizen of any nation.
− BETSY FISHER: So there's a huge range, but I do think Colorado has some unusually strict laws for kids who aren't registered in their first few years of life.
+ Immigration attorney Betsy Fisher has been researching and writing about statelessness for years, first in the Middle East before turning her attention to the United States.
− BOYCE: What makes Colorado stand out is it's the only state requiring an official government document created in the first 10 years of a child's life without exceptions.
+ In the U.S., her work often focuses on immigrants entering the country, who have no record of their original citizenship. But it has also involved Americans like McKinnon—people who came into the world here and who, through no fault of their own, did not have their birth or early life officially documented.
− FISHER: It's extremely harsh because if you just don't have that and - you know, no one's responsible for generating their own documentation when they're 10 years old.
+ It is possible for these individuals to obtain what's known as a "delayed birth certificate" long after their birth, but the rules for doing so vary widely by state.
− BOYCE: Abigail McKinnon is 31 now and has applied for a birth certificate multiple times for half of her life now.
+ Fisher, who teaches at the University of Michigan Law School, said Colorado's rules are not unusually difficult, so long as an attempt is made within the first few years of a child's life to get the documentation. In order for someone to register for a birth certificate in Colorado, after the child is greater than 1 year old, the applicant needs to submit a minimum of two independent documents proving the applicant's date and location of birth, full name, as well as the names of the parents.
− She's been denied every time.
+ These documents can come from census, hospital, military or school records.
− While she was able to procure some documents from other states when she was in her teens and 20s, she doesn't have anything from the first decade of life. So McKinnon sued. Her lawyer is Casey Sherman with the nonprofit Colorado Legal Services.
+ At least one of the official records must come from the child's first 10 years of life.
− CASEY SHERMAN: Abigail can't participate in modern life.
+ (A handful of other states have similar early life requirements, but provide opportunities for exceptions, according to McKinnon's attorneys.) But in Colorado, in the rare case that the applicant has no documentation during the first decade of their life, it's not just burdensome to obtain a delayed birth certificate, it's impossible. "That is extremely unusual, and it's extremely harsh," Fisher said.
− She legally doesn't exist.
+ "If you just don't have that—and no one's responsible for generating their own documentation when they're 10 years old—then there is no pathway under Colorado law to get a birth certificate to be able to function normally." McKinnon is the only one of six siblings born in Colorado and is the only one who has not been able to obtain a delayed birth certificate.
− BOYCE: State officials stress rules for delayed birth certificates need to walk a fine line.
+ "It would have been a lot easier if I was born in Tennessee," she said.
− NED CALONGE: The best balance between risk of fraud versus assuring people who deserve a birth certificate get one.
+ The laws in that state were far more lenient for her younger siblings. They needed only sworn affidavits and two official documents from any time at least five years prior to the time of application, even if those documents dated well after the first 10 years of life. With documents such as baptism certificates from 2016 and their father's affidavit, her siblings obtained official identification within months.
− BOYCE: That's Colorado Chief Medical Officer Ned Calonge.
+ 'Less recourse than an undocumented person' McKinnon's applications to the Colorado Department for Public Health and Environment for a delayed birth certificate were denied multiple times over the course of years before the nonprofit Colorado Legal Services agreed to represent her in 2023.
− Nevertheless, McKinnon's lawsuit led Colorado to revise its regulations.
+ The firm specializes in delayed birth certificates and has helped 47 clients obtain them since 2020. Casey Sherman is a CLS attorney representing McKinnon in a lawsuit against the health department.
− New rules go into effect in March that will permit officials to accept more recent documents.
+ She argues not having a birth certificate prevents McKinnon from exercising fundamental rights guaranteed in the U.S.
− They should allow McKinnon to prove her citizenship and, after 31 years, to finally officially exist.
+ Constitution. "Ms.
− For NPR News, I'm Dan Boyce in Colorado Springs.
+ Colon cannot enjoy her constitutional guarantees of life, liberty and property, to exercise her fundamental rights to vote, travel freely, marry, parent, and own firearms," Sherman wrote in a Denver District Court filing from January 2024.
− (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Copyright &copy; 2026 NPR.
+ "She has even less recourse than an undocumented person," the filing states.
− All rights reserved.
+ "An undocumented person may have a path to lawful status and even citizenship through the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), but if the Department's denial stands, Ms.
− Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
+ Colon has no other opportunity whatsoever to document the rights granted by her citizenship.
− Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary.
+ She will be stateless for the rest of her life." In December, just before oral arguments were scheduled, the health department proposed changes to the delayed birth certificate rules. The health department's Chief Medical Officer Dr.
− Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio.
+ Ned Calonge said crafting those rules was tricky.
− Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication.
+ The state has to weigh the interest of recognizing people legally born against the state's interest in preventing fraud.
− The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
+ He said the state had been looking at adjusting the state's rules before the lawsuit and that McKinnon's case helped inform their proposal. "This individual situation brought up additional concerns that made us think that this might be a good time to look at other ways of approaching it, that would give us a good balance," Calonge said. Under the new rules, the Colorado Board of Health will remove the requirement of a person providing one document from their first 10 years of life and replace it with a requirement that they provide one document created at least 10 years prior to the date of application. "Which is a requirement that Abigail can satisfy," Sherman said.
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+ "We're pretty confident that Abigail will finally be able to get a birth certificate." The new rules go into effect on March 20. McKinnon can then apply for her delayed birth certificate, and very likely, finally officially exist. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor