Adoption confidentiality: What should the policy be?

Yes, and I think that is the way things are going, I believe.


Here, relinquishing parents now KNOW that the child will have access to information about them etc (I don't know, any more, exactly what the laws are.)

There is a register for those wishing to connect.


I think the tough part is for people who relinquished when there was secrecy, and how that is handled.

Yes indeed. It is tough. When my state opened it's records I had two friends (sisters by adoption) who went in search. One was welcomed with open arms and the other was ignored. Both situations were hard on either girl and I'm sure they were hard on either "parent".

Donate sperm. Donate eggs. Relinquish a child. Whatever. Leave a cheek swab - with no details. The medical/sibling information is available without any identifying feautres. If the kid wants to know, the kid can find out. If the parent wants to meet, they register on a website that sets such things up.

Sometimes it is not that easy. Some biological parents are not fit to be
parents and the state has to intervene, as it was in our case. I would
not like for them to have the opportunity to see my daughter, nor find
out who we are and where we live.

Oh gosh - I completely agree and I hope I didn't sound otherwise.

Any and every search should be initiated by the then adult "child".

People who surrender their child for adoption are grown ups who don't get the luxury of second thoughts.

What do you mean by your last sentence? That the child can contact them if they wish and the bio parents have no choice in the matter?

That's the way I take it and the way I think it should be especially for adults. But I wonder if the child should have license to contact people who do not want to be contacted.

We have all probably read or heard of horror stories when the biological parent had a change of heart, tracked down the child they gave up for adoption, and won a court fight to have the child returned. I can't even imagine what anguish and suffering that would cause the adoptive parents. Or what damage it does to a child who has already bonded with his/her adoptive parents for months or years. Nor as Jane pointed out, should an unfit or dangerous person have any ability to locate a child that could actually be endangered

Then again, the mother who out of love gives life to a child and gives it up to have a better chance than what she can offer should not have to be at constant risk of that child showing up on her doorstep years on down the line. .

I am beginning to think closed and sealed adoption records are the way to go in almost all cases. Perhaps a clearing house to leave an inquiry would be a good thing. But maybe it would be good policy that even the clearing house should not notify anybody of the inquiry unless both parties had made inquiry.

If the mom doesn't want to be contacted, she should have that right. Period. She can provide family and medical info, but she should not have to provide her personal contact information, especially if she gave the baby up under a secrecy agreement. She can just tick "no" to that question. She has a right to her privacy.

Why should the child's rights supersede hers?

That's difficult to argue with.

I think birth parents have a right to privacy as far as names and contact goes - medical history isn't theirs alone though and they should be required to share what they know.

I think they should be able to register somewhere if they decide they want contact but they should not be allowed to initiate contact.

What I meant by "luxury" was that they have already made a decision: keep, abort or surrender the child. Any contact decisions that follow should be up to the child.

Our oldest son turned 26 yesterday. We adopted him when he was 4 months old from a county adoption agency.

A lot has changed in terms of the adoption experience in the past 26 years.

When we adopted our son, his adoption records were closed to us. We were not told who the biological parents were nor were they informed of us. At that time adoption records were not released to the adopted child without the permission of the biological parents.

We didn't struggle with the question of whether or not our son should be told of his adoption or when, although we knew adoptive parents that had decided not to tell their child until he or she was of an appropriate age. We knew one couple who had adopted ten years earlier than us and had decided not to tell their daughter. She eventually discovered the truth on her own when she was in her late teens.

We never actually told our son he was adopted in the sense that we sat him down and said "Son, there's something we have to tell you." Instead we decided to treat it as simply a matter of fact. We used the word "adopted" around him early on, but not in a forced way. When my wife became pregnant with our daughter, our son was two. He asked about his being in Mommy's belly and we explained that he was in another ladies belly but that when he was born we adopted him and loved and took care of him ever since then. By then he had heard the word and might have had some idea of what it meant, but I doubt he had much more of an understanding of it afterwards either.

Thus there was never a revelation nor any time which he could remember not knowing he was adopted. It was never a big deal.

It worked very well in our case.

He says it has never weighed on his mind or that he has ever had any real curiosity about his biological parents, and we have no reason to believe it ever was an issue for him. Once he started asking questions about it we answered them as honestly as we could. When he was about 13 we told him that if we was interested in learning more about his biological parents or even meeting them we would do whatever we could to help.

I think our way is the best way to go and would recommend it to all who adopt, but I recognize that each child is different and so each are liable to react differently to the same set of circumstances.

I'm very proud to say that our two biological children have never made a issue of it with their brother no matter how mad anyone got or how much someone would have liked to hurt the other. I'm still proud of them, but I do think the fact that it was never a big deal in our family kept them from ever thinking it was something they could use against him.

Only once in his whole life did he try the "You're not my real parents!" ploy. Actually he tried it with my wife who frankly had come to fear it when he reached his teens, but she responded something to the effect of "Maybe, but I'm the only mother you have and your going to do what I tell you." Apparently it worked because he never tried it again.

Who knows if somewhere in his deep psyche the fact that he's adopted is a festering boil. I only know that there has been no reason to believe it is something that has bothered him or occupied much of his thinking for the past 26 years.

My opinion on open adoption records varies

1) If the biological parents request closed records they should remain closed with the possible exception of a situation when it can be shown that opening them to the adopted child might have a significant medical benefit
2) Unless it is made a condition of giving the child up for adoption, the records should never be opened to the biological parents. I'm not keen on it being a condition either but I appreciate that there is such a shortage of babies for adoption that the biological mother gets to call some shots I don't think are ideal.
3) If the biological parents put no restrictions on the records they should be opened to the adopted child once they reach the age of majority and earlier if they have the permission of the adopted parents

The notion of forcing adoptive parents to tell the child of its adoptive status is ridiculous. Even if it is the best way to go (and I think it is), the state has no place in interfering with the parent/child relationship simply because there has been an adoption.