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If a birth mother chooses a closed adoption and the adopting family contacts her before the child turns 18 due to the fact that papers were not sealed correctly and full name was presented on papers to the adopted parents, is there any legal recourse for the birth mother?
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There is no 'legal recourse'.Almost every state seals records - regardless of 'open adoption' or not (open records and open adoption are two different things)...Also - the age of the adoptee has nothing to do with it...the magic age of 18 only relates to the age in which the adoptee has to be in order to obtain any information, available by law, from the state involved in the adoption.So, in short - beyond being respectful of her decision, should she tell you not to contact her after you've made contact, there is no other recourse. The same goes for adoptive families as well - just FYI.
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There is no promise/guarantee of confidentiality in any of the surrender documents that I have read. I also checked my adoption court documents (the sealed ones) and there is nothing there but that was a long time ago. But with all the fights by adoptees to change the laws in a specific state - not one of the opponents has been able to prove any guarantee of confidentialty was made to mothers in the adoption law or the court documents. If you look at statistics of states who have opened records it is much less that 5% of mothers who are opposed to contact. Having said that I would be very discreet as some mothers did and still keep that part of their life secret. And like everything else in life if she wants no contact I am not sure what you can do about it. Kind regards,Dickons