Adoptees Have Rights Too
Adoptees gaining access to their birth records continues to remain a politically charged issue. For well over thirty years adoptees have battled to gain access to information that rightfully belongs to them. The government should find a way to concentrate on opening records while respecting the rights of all parties involved. Adoptees should have access to all information pertaining to their adoptions and birth certificates like all other people born into families do.
Years ago adoption records got sealed not only from the public so the families, both adoptive and birth parents, would not face the scrutiny of adoption, but also from those listed on the birth certificate itself. Keeping in mind that sealing adoption records initially tried to protect the adoptive families so they would not seem different from the families formed by birth.
Adoptees continue to face legal issues when trying to find out information about their adoption and birth. The article, “Open vs. Sealed Record: Adoptee Rights” in The Transracial Korean Adoptee Nexus argues, “This culture of shame and secrecy about adoption that is perpetuated by the sealed records is presented as protecting the adoptive triad and now needs to be eradicated.”(2). Adoption should revolve around a situation that both parties work towards the best interests of the child or children involved.
Adoptees need this information to complete their lives and to fill their desires of knowing the unknown. Information pertaining to the adoption is kept from them as if they have no rights to find out to about their biological parents, or other pertinent information. As Kristi Gray, the writer of a blog, “Rights of Adoptees” points out, “Adoptees are the onl...
... middle of paper ...
...ss to their birth records just as someone being born into a family. To keep them from these records clearly violates their civil rights. Giving them access while keeping in mind the best interests of all parties involved would give adoptees the chance to gain the information that they deserve. Adoptees have the right to their birth information without fighting the battles to discover information that they should already be entitled to, information that if born into the adoptive family would freely available to them.
Work Cited
“Adoptee rights/Open the records.” press of Atlantic City. 26 March 2010:13 June 2010 www.pressofatlanticcity.com
Gray, Kristi. “Rights of Adoptees.” eHow. 13June 2010 www.ehow.com
“Open vs. Sealed Records: Adoptee Rights.” 28 March 2008 The Transracial Korean Adoptee Nexus. Word Press. 13 June 2010
According to ABC News, in August of 2002, a law passed concerning Florida birthfather’s rights regarding notification of their child’s placement for adoption. ...
Adoption is a process where by a person assumes the parenting for another and, in so doing, permanently transfers all rights and responsibilities from the biological parent or parents. Unlike guardianship or other systems designed for the care of the young, adoption is intended to effect a permanent change in status and as such requires societal recognition, either through legal or religious sanction. Adoption has changed considerably over the centuries with its focus shifting from adult adoption and inheritance issues toward children and family creation; its structure moving from recognition of continuity between the adopted and kin toward allowing relationships of lessened intensity. In modern times, adoption is a primary vehicle serving the needs of homeless, neglected, abused and runaway children (Wikipedia, “Adoption”).
First, social-work and mental-health experts have reached a consensus during the last decade that greater openness offers an array of benefits for adoptees—from ongoing information about family medical issues to fulfillment of their innate desire to know about their genetic histories—even if the expanded relationships prove difficult or uncomfortable for some of the participants (Verbrugge). An open adoption is when the natural mother and the adoptive family know the identity of each other and could obtain background or medical history from the biological parent. In an open adoption the parental rights of biological parents are terminated, as it is in a closed adoption, but an open adoptio...
...cy “we” give “birth mother” and agencies being exposed because of what we might find in adoptees records is just a way to keep stuff away from the people who rightfully deserve the right to know. (The Baltimore Sun ).
Fleming, Caroline B. "The open-records debate: balancing the interests of birth parents and adult adoptees." William & Mary Journal of Women and the Law Spring (2005): 461-480. Academic OneFile. Web. 17 Feb. 2012.
The topic of child welfare is quite a broad one. There are numerous programs and policies that have been put in place to protect children. One of these policies is that of Adoption. Adoption was put into place to provide alternate care for children who cannot live with their biological families for various reasons. One of the more controversial issues surrounding adoption is that of Transracial adoption. Transracial Adoption is the joining of racially different parents and children (Silverman, 1993).
Adoption is governed individually by each state, Kansas and Alaska allow adult adoptees full and unconditional access to original birth records. There are many campaigns that support the right to find adoptees’ birth parents. One of these campaigns is the green ribbon campaign. This campaign fights for the opening of any and all birth records in every state. “A number of large adoption agencies are major supporters of the so-called Uniform Adoption Act of 1994 (UAA) that would reinforce and enlarge secrecy provisions of adoption law”(about.com, 2). Many courts including the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals have heard cases that pertain to the opening of birth records of adoptees’.
Samuels, E. (2001). The Strange History of Adult Adoptee Access to Original Birth Records. Adoption Quarterly, 5(2), 63-74.
As issues that affect children enthuse intense interest and emotion it is unsurprising that transracial adoption; the joining together of racially or ethnically different parents and children in an adoptive family, is a subject that is fraught with controversy. Transracial adoption not only raises the question of the how much power should the state have to affect individual choices with respect to family life it also questions the level of state assistance given to families in trouble before removing parents from their parents. It also highlights issue of race within the context of the family with advocates seeing trans-racial adoption as a harbinger of hope, believing that if different races can love each other as a family then there is hope for the relationship between different races in society (Moe, 2007; Perry, 1996). Whereas, radical opponents claim that white society is racist and that transracial adoption is a hostile manifestation of white power and believe that ethnic minority communities should have the right to decide the fate of ethnic minority children (Hayes, 1995).
...ould not adopted him”(McKinley). Many same-sex couples live in fear if they do not have adoption papers, because their parental rights might be questioned if they were to travel where same-sex adoption is not allowed. Or if the child was to be an accident the non-legal parent would not have a say in the child's medical health.
The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 changed the way we approach foster care and adoption. It was the first law that solely focused on children alone, not the entire family. The main objective of this law was to create timelines. These timelines determined the length of time a child could be in foster care before the parents’ loose custody of the child. After parental rights are terminated, the agency is to start searching for a family to adopt the child. In essence, this act took a process that could go on for years and condensed it. This law gives incentives for parents to clean up their act and prove they are changing for the better, through agencies allocated by the Adoption and Safe Families Act, but did not force a child to wait endlessly for their parents to either...
In the Unites States, the first adoption law was passed in Massachusetts in 1851. This law called the 1851 Adoption of Children Act based adoptions on child welfare rather than on the benefits for adoptive parents. This law ensured judicial discretion of “fit and proper” parents. Another milestone for adoption came in 1868 when the Massachusetts Board of Stat...
International adoption stunts the growth of domestic adoption in the United States. While many kids are available for adoption in the U.S, more kids are being adopted internationally. The reason for this may be because “many people choose to adopt internationally because there is a less chance that the biological parents will try to find their children later in life; whereas if adopted in America, there is a greater chance that the biological parents will search for the child” (Databasewise.n.d.pp 1-2). Not only do the adoptive parents want to be sure that the biological parents do not find their biological child, but they also want to avoid confrontations that can eventually have volatile results. Since there is a great need for domestic adoption in the United States, many American citizens believe that people should be banned from adopting children overseas (carp.1998.pp 135). For example, recent studies have shown that the USA is faced with a very serious problem. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, between “1999-2006,an average of 129,884 children are in public foster care every year waiting to be adopted” (adoption alternativ...
In my research, during the adoption process, it can take anywhere from three to six months and generally includes a personal history, health statements, a criminal background check, an income statement, personal references, and numerous interviews. Reasons for this is because the org...
The practice of adoption began over 4,000 years ago. All adoptions are arranged in 3 ways private, independent, and closed. Private adoptions are adoptions where you can place your child with anybody you choose with the courts approval. Independent adoptions are adoptions where a child’s placement is put arranged by a lawyer or doctor, in some cases the adoptive parents put in the expenses of the pregnancy and deliver of the couple their getting the child from. There are also black market groups that will illegally adopt your baby (with the birth mother’s permission) in some cases you will have nothing to do with your birth if and when the baby is handed over to the adopted parents. Closed adoption is where there is no information about either families, the birth parents or the adoptive parents, after the adopti...