SHOULD ADOPTION RECORDS BE OPENED? YES.

by Ken Watson, MSSS

Assistant Director, Chicago Child Care Society

Member, AAC Board of Directors

(published in _DECREE_, summer 1994, reprinted with permission of Allyn & Bacon, publishers of _Controversial Issues in Child Welfare_, a 1994 publication edited by Eileen Gambrill and Theodore Stein, ("Debate 16" pp. 223-229).

DECREE Editor's note: This article is included as an insert in the DECREE for anyone seriously interested in understanding the need for open records. Please duplicate it freely giving proper credit. It will be useful with State Legislators.

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Adoption records should be open at the request of any of the parties involved in an adoption, once the person adopted has reached the age of majority. Currently, only Kansas and Alaska have this policy. While the laws in the other states are not consistent, all restrict access in some manner. In most, once the judge sings the decree, the court impounds the adoption records and the child's original birth certificate. The state then issues a falsified birth certificate in the child's new name. This certificate names the adoptive parents as the child's parents. It generally omits pertinent facts, such as the name of the hospital at which the birth occurred and the attending physician's name. To obtain a court order to open the record in order to get accurate information about the birth and adoption, one must show good cause. "Good cause" is, of course, a matter of judicial discretion. When state laws seal the court adoption records, adoption agencies and others who may have records pertaining to an adoption are prohibited from sharing identifying information with any persons involved. As a result, none of the participants in an adoption has ready access to information about the other participants. Adults adopted as infants cannot even get accurate, factual information about their own births -- information that all other citizens obtain as a matter of course.

The basic reason for the practice of closing records lies in the way in which adoption services have been conceptualized and structured in this nation. In a 1979 article defending confidential adoptions, Foster wrote:

...the American pattern [of adoption] is based on a daring legal fiction: our laws mean for the adopted child to become both in law and fact a complete member of the family with precisely the same rights and privilages that would entail to a natural child, with the clear implication that this membership extends to all social, cultural, and emotional facets of that child's life. The American procedure makes the child a member of this family and of no other (p. 35).

This statement goes to the root of the problem, which is the denial of the reality of adoption. An adopted child can be a member of the adopted family and no other. When children move into an adoption, they bring their genes, ancestors, uterine and birth experiences, and, for those adopted after infancy, experiences and memories of an earlier life. Such a myth relieved parents unable to rear their children of that responsibility, granted the wish of infertile adults to become parents, and offered loving families to children who would otherwise become wards of the state. Sealing the records became an essential element in the conspiracy to maintain a romantic fantasy that adoption could be pain free.

Fifteen years before Foster's article, Kirk (1984) first published his seminal study, _Shared Fate_, and documented that denying the differences that adoption makes does not serve adoptive families well (pp. 89-91). Also before the Foster article, Fisher's popular account (1973) of her search for her birth parents had alerted the general public to the problems of denial in adoption, and Sorosky, Baran, and Pannor (1978) summarized their professional arguments for open records in _The Adoption Triangle: The Effects of the Sealed Record on Adoptees, Birth Parents, and Adoptive Parents_.

The tenacity of the "legal fiction" myth is evidenced not only by the fact that Foster's article found supporters in 1979, but that opening records is still viewed as controversial despite what has happened over the years since its publication. During this time, the number of adoption search-and-support groups has increased dramatically, many agencies have developed services to help triangle members who have approached them for information about and for help in finding the other principals in their adoption, and a number of states have established adoption reunion registries. Adoption professionals have described the continuuing impact that adoption makes upon its participants, and researchers have documented the short comings of the confidential adoption process (Winkler & Van Keppel, 1984; Schechter & Betocci, 1990). Many triangle members have appeared on television or written books to describe the pain of their adoptions, and clinicians have written about techniques for assisting with that pain.

In view of the experiences in other countries, it is surprising that the issue of open records continues to be a controversial one in the United States. For some time, Dr. John Triseliotis has been studying the impact of open records world-wide. Recently he wrote, "A policy of open records has been operating in Scotland since 1930 and in England from 1976 onwards . There has been no evidence so far of adopted people misusing or abusing this facility. The experience of countries such as Finland, Israel, and New Zealand, where open records operate has been similar" (Triseliotis, 1992).

It is time to move ahead in the United States. Reitz and Watson (1992) have proposed a definition of adoption, based upon the reality of the adopted child's dual family status:

We define "adoption" as a means of providing some children with security and meeting their developmental needs by legally transferring ongoing parental responsibilities from their birth parents to their adoptive parents; recognizing that in so doing we have created a new kinship network that forever links those two families together through the child, who is shared by both. In adoption, as in marriage, the new legal family relationship does not signal the absolute end of one family and the begining of another, nor does it sever the psychological tie to an earlier family. Rather, it expands the family boundaries of all those who are involved (p. 11).

If one accepts this definition, then it follows that a critical task for adopted children at every developmental stage is the psychological integration of their two families. That this task is made more difficult by the lack of information about their birth parents has been well documented (Triseliotis, 1973; Sorosky, Baran, & Pannor, 1978; and Brinich & Brinich, 1982). The task of both families is to assist in this integration. To do this each must accept, at least conceptually, the other as part of a common kinship concept has led to the burgeoning agency practice of open adoptions -- those in which the idea of the child's having membership in two families is established clearly at placement and in which the two families explore the meaning of this to them and negotiate the nature of any subsequent contact.

In spite of this change in current practice, resistance to opening the closed records of past adoptions continues. Descriptions of the experiences in countries where records are open (Iwanek, 1989; Triseliotis, 1992) and documentation that searching is in the best interests of those involved (Schechter & Bertocci, 1990, pp. 70-71) suggest that this resistance is based more on lingering myths than on actual problems.

Concerns about opening records focus on the possible impact of the hidden information and on the uses to which such information might be put. The fear of the information itself relates to the wish to deny the reality of the adoption or to protect an adopted person from learning early history that might be upsetting. Now agencies disclose to prospective adoptive families all the known information about children whom the families may be considering adopting. In the past, however, agencies sometimes withheld information that they thought might be harmful to the adopted child or to the acceptance of that child by the adopting parents. They did not always share such things as conception by rape, familial mental illness, or possible incestuous origins. In addition, they often fictionalized the "reasons" for the surrender of the child, especially if they did not know the details or viewed them as unpleasant. It is true, therefore, that some adopted persons may learn upsetting information from perusing their records. An accpeted mental-health principle, however, is that a person can cope better with a known reality, no matter how harsh, than with unbridled fantasy.

Most concerns about open records relate to the assumption that possession of information will lead inevitably to search and reunion, and that reunions are inherently dangerous. Again, the evidence contradicts the assumptions. Triseliotis's studies (1984) in Great Britain indicate less than 1 percent of eligible adoptees has sought information in any given year, and he estimates the proportion who will search in the course of their lifetime to be 15 percent. One should be skeptical of such estimates, however, in view of a different history of adoption in this country and the recent increase in search activity. More significant than data on the number of searches are data on the impact of the reunions. Of twelve studies published between 1973 and 1987, those that reported reunion data "...all emphasized the postive results expressed by the adoptees" (Schechter & Bertocci, 1990, pp. 70-71).

A popular myth is that birth parents do not wish to be found. In 1985, Garber prepared a report for the Government of Ontario, Canada. He reviewed studies of birth mothers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. He concluded, "Birth parents who have been participants in the several studies represent a view that challenges the earlier assumption about their need for secrecy and, more pertinently, any continued belief in those assumptions" (Garber, 1985, pp. 17-18). More adopted persons search than do birth parents. Sachdev notes that many researcers agree that birth mothers are reluctant to initiate search because of their fear of being intrusive or of upsetting the adopted person or his or her parents, not because they do not desire reunion (Sachdev, 1989, p. 4). In 1989, the Main Department of Human Resources decided to gather data to assist in revising its adoption law. As part of this process, an adoption task force sent an opinion questionnaire to 1,900 Maine members of adoption triangles. Of the 548 who responded, 130 were birth parents. A finding that startled task force members was that although 17 percent of the birth parents stated that they had reservations about search and reunion, noe of the 130 birth parents indicated a wish not to be found (Maine Adoption Task Force, 1989, p. 17).

A related concern is that if we open records now, we violate the privacy of the birth parents and an earlier contract to keep their adoption confidential. Many birth parents who surrendered their parental rights to their children state that they have no recollection of such a contract, and some argue that any such idea originated with social workers who assumed the birth parents wanted anonymity (Sachdev, 1989, p. 10). Agency assurances or not, any promise of privacy seems illusory when the 90 million names in 4,000 United States phone books have been computerized, so anyone in the country with a listed phone can be located, and when merchants all over the country are able to obtain detailed information about most Americans in a matter of seconds from available data bases. Many adoption- triangle members have availed themselves of these resources and have successfully searched on their own or with the help of search groups or professional searchers.

Adoption registries have helped some adoption-triangle members find each other, but their design limits their usefulness. Because more than one triangle member must register to make a match, reunions may not occur if all the parties do not know of the registry, or if only one party is actively searching, or if the registry is limited geographically, or if the person sought is deceased or incapacitated. Some state registries also impose additional requirements, such as counseling, fees for registration, or requiring the consent of adoptive parents for an adopted person to search. An additional factor discouraging searchers is the relatively low rate of matches achieved.

The alternative to that compromise is to ask people to suffer the consequences of a promise made within the knowledge and beliefs of another time, even though current knowledge holds that such a promise is not in their best interests. The moral dilemma of a worker in such a position has been likened to that of an asbestos sales person. If such a sales person in good conscience sold and installed asbestos twenty five years ago, content that a service was being provided to customers, would his or her only obligation be to stop selling asbestos in the light of today's knowledge? Or would such a sales person also have a responsibility to acknowledge the error of earlier ways and do whatever possible to overcome the newly discovered hazards of the product? (Watson, 1988, p. 28).

Adoptive parents sometimes express the fear that if records are opened, they may lose their child to the birth parents. The fear reflects both the recognition by the adoptive parents of the power of the birth bond and the concern about the issue of loss that undergirds adoption. Actual studies, however, confirm that the opposite is true. Both adopted persons and adoptive parents have reported that the relationship between them is closer following reunions of the adopted persons and their birth parents (Garber, 1985, p. 18).

Opening records by request will generate some problems of course. For instance, should siblings or grandparents have access to information? In situations in which children were placed to protect them from parental violence, should access to records be granted automatically to the violent parent when the children reach majority? If a sibling group were adopted, should the records be opened when the oldest one reaches majority, or at what other point in time? There are other legitimate concerns. Once adoption-triangle members have the right to access by request, however, many problems become exceptions that may need special handling.

Perhaps the most common objection to opening records is that one never knows what one will stir up by so doing; and it is therefore better to leave well enough alone. This is another manififestation of denial. Parties to an adoption cannot live their lives and be completely unaffected by the adoption experience. There may be hazards in searching. There may be greater hazards in avoiding a search. Search provides an opportunity for searchers to clarify some of the confusion and relieve some of the pain of the original adoption plan. Of course, such relief is not guaranteed. Reunions can take many paths. Adopted persons may find themselves criticized by birth parents, or their adopted children them unfavorably to the birth parents. Some parties may try to exploit or hurt others.

No one knows what they may uncover when they begin a search. After almost fourty years of searching, I asked an adopted person who had just located his birth mother if he wasn't afraid when he began his search that he was going to open a Pandora's box: He replied, "Hell, man, *life* is a Pandora's box and I open that sucker every morning." At the very least, open records provide opportunities for adoption- triangle members to know themselves more fully by knowing more about the members of their kinship network and how that network came to be. Adoption reunions provide a base of reality from which adoption- triangle members may be able to reaffirm meaningful old relationships and negotiate new ones.

REFERENCES

Baran, A., Pannor, R., & Sorosky, A. (1976). Open Adoptions. _Social Work_, 21(2),97-100.

Brinich, P. M., & Brinich, E. B. (1982). Adoption and Adaptation. _Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease_, 170(8), 489-493.

Fisher, F. (1973). _The Search for Anna Fisher_. New York: Fawcet Crest.

Foster, A. (1979). Who has the "Right" to Know. _Public Welfare_. 37(3) 34-37.

Garber, R (1985). _Disclosure of Adoption Information_. Toronto, Ontario: Ministry of Community and Social Services, Government of Ontario.

Iwanek, M. (1989). Access to Adult Adoption Information. In _Accessing Adoption Information_. Sidney, Australia: Standing Committee on Social Issues, Parliament of New South Wales, Legislative Council.

Kirk, H. D. (1984). _Shared Fate: A Theory and Method of Adoptive Relationships_, (revised ed.). Port Angeles, WA: Ben-Simon Publications.

Maine Adoption Task Force. (1989). _Adoption: A Life Long Process_. Augusta, ME: Maine Department of Human Services.

Reitz, M., & Watson, K. (1992). _Adoption and the Family System: Strategies for Treatment_. New York: Guilford Press.

Sachdev, P. (1989). _Unlocking the Adoption Files_. Lexington, MA:D.C. Heath.

Schechter, M., & Bertocci, D. (1990). The Meaning of Search. In D. Brodzinsky & M. Schechter (Eds.). _The Psychology of Adoption_, New York: Oxford.

Sorosky, A., Baran, A., & Pannor, R. (1978). _The Adoption Triangle: The Effects of the Sealed Record on Adoptees, Birth Parents, and Adoptive Parents_. Garden City, Nw: Anchor Press/Doubleday.

Triseliotis, J. (1973). _In Search of Origins_. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul

Triseliotis, J. (1984). Obtaining Birth Certificates. In P. Bean (Ed.). _Adoption_. London England: Tavistock.

Triseliotis, J. (1992, June 12). Letter. To Members of the Senate and General Assembley of the State of New Jersey.

Watson, K. (1988). Open Adoption: Defining the Terms and Psychological Issues. The Case for Open Adoptions. _Public Welfare_, 46(4),24-28.

Winkler, R., & Van Keppel, M. (1994). Relinquishing Mothers in Adoption: Their Long-Term Adjustment. Melbourne, Australia: Institute of Family Studies.