No More Closed Adoption

PLEASE READ AND GIVE YOUR THOUGHTSThanks SLCC Students An ongoing issues surrounding adoption is that of closed adoption. The concern is the secrecy behind it, and the question is that of how closed should it really be? Is there a time when it becomes unfair to the adopted child or to either of the parents? Closed adoption presents many problems for all parties participating in the adoption process. Will the child one day want to know who her or his birth parents are? And then theres the ever-popular question, where did I come from? Who are my REAL grandparents? What is my Ancestry? Will the birth parents grow to regret giving up the opportunity to one day find out how their child turned out? Another difficulty posed by this, is the lack of medical information that is very difficult to access in many closed adoptions, and that can create a major dilemma in the future for the adopted child. Closed adoptions limit the ability for the adopted child and the birth parents to keep track of one another or the ability to get in touch later in the childҒs life at which point she/he may want to know who her/his birth parents are. Having a closed adoption is wrong and in many cases could be an infringement on ones constitutional rights. Doing away with closed adoptions is the only way to reach an agreement on the closed, partially closed, and open adoption debate. Closed adoption can create anger in the child not knowing why or by whom they were placed for adoption.To remedy the problems so prevalent with closed adoption we have proposed that the state of Utah would no longer have closed adoption, but instead have a system that would mirror the semi-open adoption alternative. What we would like to do is create a database throughout the state that will hold the most current information on both the adopted child and the birth parents. The information will be sealed from either party until the appropriate time. Currently in Utah the legal age when an adoptee can register in order to launch an investigation as to who their birth parents are is 21 years of age. Because the age at which most people begin to be considered adults and start to make life long decisions we propose that the current age of 21 be lowered to a standard 18 years of age. Sure there are accusations and papers saying that open adoption drastically decreases the number of adoptions but we have evidence that makes those statements false. There exist reports on adoptions between 1960 and 1984 show that the number of adoptions declined from a high of 14, 641 in 1968 to 2,910 in 1984 a decline of almost eighty-percent. When looking at the decline in relation to open records, however, it is vital to bear in mind that the records were opened in 1975. When looking at the data from 1968-1976 one sees a decline of sixty-seven percent (from 14,641 to 4,777). Thus, adoptions were declining precipitously even before the records were opened. In fact, a look at the data from 1976-1984 shows that adoption dropped from 4,777 to 2,910, a decline of only thirty-nine percent. "Eric Stern, Birth Mothers, Adopted Children Back Measure to Make Records Accessible, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 30, 2000, at B2."

What about the infringement on the birth parents rights you ask? Well we do ask for information about the birth parents, but we do not make it available to the adopted child till the legal adult age of 18 and then at that point the birth parent will be contacted not directly by the adoptee but by a state agency that has all of the information. Conducting the adoption this way will allow the birth parents to stay anonymous as well as the adopted child. Having an adoption process like this will help with the adoptee trying to find them selves in todayҒs society as well.Were fortunate enough to have someone with first hand experience to give us an idea of how an adopted individual might think under these circumstances, "Let's see. I don't remember when my parents told me I was adopted but I was really young. My friends asked me questions about it but I was too young to really understand. When I got older, say teens, I started thinking about it more. Eventually I came to the realization, ґHey, I don't know who I am. My adoption was closed. I don't know who my birth parents are, not even their names. It doesn't occupy my mind all the time, but every once in a while I think about that. I don't know my own background, you know, ancestry. People ask me and I say, ґwell, by blood, I don't know. But my adoptive family is British and Scandinavian, mostly. But that isn't MY ancestry. It's kind of hard not knowing where you come from, not being able to answer questions about my own ancestry. Don't get me wrong, I love my parents and I'm happy but it would be nice to know these things. I have a right to know who my parents are and who I'm related to. I hear people talk about their family and ancestry and I think, ґWow, it would be nice to know all that about myself. I am the type of person who is big on being your own person and being proud of who you are. So, for me, not really knowing who I am is a big issue." We donҒt know if our system will eliminate all of the problems surrounding open and closed adoptions, but what we hope to do is create a way for birth parents to help the adopting parents care for their child, through medical history, and allow the adoptee to know who they are and were they come from during their life. Most importantly is the ability to at least make an effort to contact each other when the time is right for both parties. Below is the web address to a forum where you can express your thought and opinions on the situation please feel free to comment on the article as well.