What adoption records belong to whom?

Jane

Adoption records are spread all over adoptionland--at the offices of adoption facilitators, adoption agencies, attorneys, hospitals, state departments of children's services. And that's just domestic adoptions.

Some adoptees contend that, as the epicenter of all this paper and electronic bits, they are entitled to access all of these records. We at FMF disagree. Many of these documents contain details about the private lives of the natural parents and the adoptive parents. Some of it is likely to be subjective interpretations of the social workers who took the information from a distraught woman.

But it is not just the name and last known address of the adoptee--it is the personal data of another person, or persons--and thus should not be shared

Why should adoptees' original birth certificates be unsealed? A first mother's perspective

Lorraine

At the end of the month, the Health Committee of the New York State Assembly will be holding a hearing on proposed legislation that would give adoptees the right to their original birth certificates. Along with other members of Unsealed Initiative, I will be testifying.

The below is a working draft, and I would appreciate comments. 

“If I had known that someday I could meet my daughter it would have been so much easier to sign those papers. My social worker and I went over this point again and again and again. Never, never, could I see her, not ever, time heals all wounds, she would say. It does not heal this one….”

Opening court records to adoptees and first parents

Oregon Capitol Building, Salem

While legislators elsewhere debate whether to allow adoptees access to their original birth certificates (OBC), Oregon is moving ahead with legislation which would allow adult adoptees to learn the details of their adoption and make it easier for first parents to learn the adoptive name of their child and the names of the adoptive parents.

This is a first in the country. While Washington State, New York, Ohio consider bills to give adoptees their original birth certificates, this goes farther in giving both adoptees and birth parents information about one of the most pivotal and life-altering events, information that the state previously deemed off-limits, even though it was about one's self.