Open adoption records
States urged to open adoption records - CNN.com
NEW YORK (AP) — It is among the most divisive questions in the realm of adoption: Should adult adoptees have access to their birth records, and thus be able to learn the identity of their birth parents?
In a comprehensive report being released Monday, a leading U.S. adoption institute says the answer is “Yes” and urges the rest of America to follow the path of the eight states that allow such access to all adults who were adopted.
“States’ experiences in providing this information make clear that there are minimal, if any, negative repercussions,” said the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. “Outcomes appear to have been overwhelmingly positive for adult adopted persons and birthparents alike.”
Opponents of open access argue that unsealing birth records violates the privacy that birthmothers expected when they opted to give up their babies. They raise the specter of birthparents forced into unwanted relationships with grown children who have tracked them down.
I agree that the records should be open. Believe me when I tell you that no birthmother in the last 20 years has had the belief that their records would stay private from the adoptee for eternity. I understand there is a perceived stigma attached to being a birthmother but it is perceived. We do live our lives and those around us know about the adoption because there is no way for them not to. It is such a huge part of who a birthparent is that the idea of keeping it secret from everyone would be beyond possibility. Adoption isn’t an event that can be ignored once the courts close it. Birthparents around country haven’t forgotten about their children, birthdays come and the years go by and the child is not erased from your psyche. It is of course possible that some birthparents are not interested in relationships with their children but the same can be said of any parent and adoption reunion is a very personal and unique thing to each adoption triad so there are no hard and fast rules. Only that an adult adoptee should have the option for reunion if they want it.
The idea that a woman would choose abortion because some day they might have a knock on the door from their birthchild is absurd. Most birthparents wait patiently and expectantly for that knock and find closure to the open wound that an adoption leaves when it comes. It certainly isn’t an easy thing but it is a good thing.
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Filed under: adoption
If you are interested in learning about the birth mother’s point of view on open adoption records, please view the short video I made that goes with a song I wrote to my birth daughter when she was only 15 (and before I met her). It has been sent to State Senators by others in the pursuit of open adoption records. http://www.AdoptionRecords.com/Child_I_Cannot_Claim.wmv
Feel free to use this short video however you may want to. It takes a minute to open (at least on my computer), but it will load.
I am a reunited birth mom for 22 years now. Our reunion gave my daughter a sense of herself and where she came from. She gained self-confidence in who she was and learned her medical and genealogical history. Her roots.
I am also the sister to an adoptee and I know the fear my mother felt that the birth mother would try to take my sister away. In fact, the woman did show up when my sister was about 4. She was under the impression that she could get her back. I understand the adoption relationships from many points of view and have lived around it my whole life.
I want to add that my daughter and I have had our ups and downs and hotly disagreed from time-to-time, but most parents have those same types of arguments and ups and downs with the children they raise, so it was no more nor less than any family complications in life. We worked through it.
Teri Brown
Birthmother