An independent voice for ethical adoption
The Battle Over Open Records
In most states, adult adoptees are not allowed to see their original birth certificates. An adoptee who requests his or her birth certificate receives an amended document that lists the adoptive parents. Moves have been made in some states to provide more openness, but the issue is a contentious one. On one side are activist groups such as the adoptee advocacy group Bastard Nation, which view access to one’s birth records as a civil rights issue; on the other side are groups such as the National Council for Adoption, which view open records as a violation of birthparent and adoptee confidentiality.
The open records issue is often confused with search and reunion. While the two issues overlap, many adoptees who want access to birth and adoption records (especially medical records) do not necessarily seek contact with birth families.
Adoptee-rights groups argue that like all other adults, adult adoptees should have access to their birth records, and that birth parent privacy is not an open-records issue. In 1997, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, stating that “A birth is simultaneously an intimate occasion and a public event—the government has long kept records of when, where, and by whom babies are born. Such records have myriad purposes, such as furthering the interest of children in knowing the circumstances of their birth.” In refusing to overturn Tennessee’s open records law, the justices cited previous case law that had found that “the Constitution does not encompass a general right to nondisclosure of private information.” The court’s decision was upheld by the Tennessee Supreme Court, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case, making Tennessee one of the few states that allow adoptees to access their records.
Many states have attempted to compromise on the issue by providing either mutual consent registries or intermediary programs. In a mutual consent registry, the parties formally register their willingness to disclose their identities or meet at some point. The registries release identifying information only when both a birth parent and an adult adoptee (or in some cases, a birth sibling) have filed formal consents to having their identities disclosed. The drawback to such registries, adoptees say, is that it still makes an adoptee’s right to know contingent on a birth parent’s approval. And unless a registry is widely advertised, many people who would use it might not realize it exists.
States with intermediary programs authorize public or private agencies or designated individuals to act as confidential intermediaries for birth parents and/or adoptees (and sometimes siblings) seeking reunion. The intermediary determines if the “found” party is willing to disclose his or her identity or meet the person seeking contact.
In some states, registries or intermediaries are available only to adoptees, not birth families.
Still other states allow an adoptee to access records subject to a contact or disclosure veto—meaning the adoptee is given the records only if the other party involved does not formally object.
An excellent overview of the open records debate
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