Adult adoptees in most
of the advanced, industrialized nations of the world have
unrestricted access to their original birth records as a
matter of right. In contract, adult adoptees in all
but a handful of states are forbidden access to their
original birth certificates, unlike non-adopted adult
citizens.
Archaic,
Depression-era laws created amended birth certificates,
which replace the names of the adoptee's biological parents
with those of the adoptive parents, and frequently falsify
other birth information as well. The original records
are permanently sealed in most states by laws passed during
the McCarthy era, a legacy of the culture of shame which
stigmatized infertility, out-of-wedlock birth, and adoption.
In Scotland, adoptee
records have been open since 1935, in England since 1975.
New Zealand, Norway, Finland, Israel, Mexico, Argentina, and
parts of Australia are only a few of the many nations which
do not prevent adult adoptees from accessing their own birth
records. Why are they still sealed in most of the
U.S.?
Well-funded lobbies
representing certain adoption agencies and lawyers have a
vested interest in keeping adoptee records closed. The
unfounded fear of some adoptive parents that their adult
children would reject them if they learned the identities of
their birth parents has made them want to keep records
sealed as well.
While many adoptees
search for their biological relatives to discover the
answers to questions regarding medical history, ethnicity,
and family heritage, the majority do not search, for one
reason or another. Nevertheless, all adoptees should
be able to exercise their right to obtain the original
government documents of their births. At issue is not
search and reunion, but the constitutional rights of
millions of American citizens. To continue to abrogate
these rights is to perpetuate the stigmatization of
illegitimacy and adoption, and the relegation of an entire
class of citizens to second-class status.