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The Adoption Impact
… Adoptees always knew that they had a second background, too, the one that explained their appearance, that accounted for some of their talents and traits. They knew there were people out there from whom they inherited their strong chins or weak hearts, with whom they had shared at least nine months of early life and hundreds of years of history. Some adoptees cared deeply about all of this, while others seldom gave it a second thought. But they all knew (Pertman 78).
Adoptions have been steadily on the incline for decades now, but the general public passively ignores the impact these individuals have on society. Reported by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the total adoptions alone that occurred in the 2001 calendar year were 127,630 within the United States; California, New York, and Texas having the most adoptions that had taken place respectively (United States 6). That is, 127,630 people who were adopted within one year who do not have access to their own biological information. Interestingly enough, regardless of whether or not an adoptee wants to actually get in contact with their birth parents, once they become aware of the fact that they do not automatically have access to their original birth certificate, “their feelings converge along a high-voltage pathway.
… They’re livid that America’s laws single them out for treatment they consider demeaning; and they’re determined to overthrow the status quo” and gain the right to their original birth certificates for all adoptees, nationwide (Pertman 78).
Throughout this study, there will be a few excerpts and opinions from interviews of people who were adopted, some at birth and others as teenagers, and how they feel the current policy regarding adoption records affects them and how they would like to see it changed. Four adoptees were interviewed for this study, and all four believed that the adoption records retrieval process needs to be changed to allow all adoptees to receive their original birth certificate with very few limitations (Negri, Waickwicz, McGriff, & Walker).
Also, for purposes of this research, the term “right” and “access” may be interchanged. It is argued that adoptees should have access to their records currently this is not a right that is extended to them. In order to acquire their original birth certificate, the court must grant this access to them which demonstrates that they have no rights to them without a court order or a change of state policy.
The History of Adoption in the United States
Before there were laws regulating adoptions and when having illegitimate children was cause for social stigmatization, there was almost no confidentiality used in adoptions. Most women were so eager to give their children up for adoption that they were advertising their potential adoption in newspapers (Adamec & Pierce xxvi). This method of placing children up for adoption in the newspaper was clearly open to the public, and therefore allowed absolutely no privacy to the birth parents after the adoption took place or to the child. This created very unsafe situations for not only the biological parents but the child depending on what information was disclosed in the newspaper and who responds to the advertisement. One way that this was hazardous was that the birth parents would relinquish their children without properly investigating the people to whom they were giving their children. Some children were relinquished to people who had far too many children, who were financially unstable, and who were medically unfit, among other things (Breckinridge 412-413). As time passed on and the Progressive Era began, adoption agencies were created and began to be utilized as a safe means of adopting children as well as through private adoptions.
Around the 1970’s adoption was becoming a more acceptable and discussable topic to where adoptees began to speak out publically about their outrage with their sealed records, or as they like to call them secret records (Modell 27-28). Adoptees wrote books, some discussing the “Who am I?” questions, others detailing all the psychological issues associated with being adopted, and others arguing forcibly against the sealed record policy (Modell 28-29) as well as created organizations to support their cause within the adoption network.
Throughout the nineteenth century the demand for children was higher and thus the selection process of the adoptive parents became more rigorous. However, the process became even more grueling after the passage of Roe v. Wade. Roe v. Wade legalized abortion nationwide (Fessler 7), all of the sudden the already limited number of infants that were available to adopt became even more limited. The number of adoptions from inside the United States then shifted to international adoptions. However, these adoptions become even more complex and difficult for the prospective parents the legality of receiving the records of international adoptions is not discussed in the research. Although our Roe v. Wade society has seen a lot more adoptions as what one could identify as a “trend,” there has been little to no other historical occurrences other than the legislative movements in which adoptees have began to gain some rights to their adoption records (this will be discussed in further detail in the Current Record Retrieval section).
Adoption Policy
When adoptions became more widespread in the early 1900’s, especially of infants, the government took notice and implemented new regulations for adoption records. The adoption laws were believed to achieve the following:
…adoption is a means of creating the legal relation of parent and child between a child deprived of the care and protection of his own parents and the person wishing to take the child into his own home. It involves the severance of relationships existing between blood kindered and the voluntary assumption of parental obligation through a legal process… This has been embodied in the legislation of every State in the Union… (Breckinridge 357).
It is important to note that adoption laws are not federally regulated. The States have different laws governing adoption decisions, but the majority of States have very similar policies. Once an adoption is finalized, the original birth certificate which has the biological parents’ information goes into a sealed record and a new birth certificate with the adoptive parents’ information is issued (Adamec & Pierce 81), this process began in the 1930’s (Fessler). At some times, depending on the type of adoption chosen, only an intermediary is aware of the identities of all parties involved whether an adoption agency representative or attorney leaving that privileged information in their confidence and sealed for a lifetime (Cornick 319).