The Pros And Cons Of Privacy

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Moreover, the children of an adoptee are also victims to the secrecy. Just like an adoptee, their family history is also a void. Heaven forbid the child of an adoptee was to have a medical condition, not only is their health put at risk by the lack of family history and having to possibly endure otherwise unnecessary testing, but the parent is, once again, in the situation of being reminded that they are not entitled to answers. By no fault of their own, the shame that was bestowed upon the birth parents has now been passed down to the adoptee every time their child’s doctor asks about family history and it cannot be provided. As Charis Eng points out in his testimony, “Needless to say, the potential impact of sharing family history and thereby empowering its use to guide preventive care is tremendous for …show more content…

Many states still hold this information hostage from their adult adoptees and that needs to change. The number one argument from the opposition has been that the ramifications on the birth mothers rights to privacy and what potential problems it could create. While birth mothers were told that the records were sealed, this, by no means, was a promise of anonymity. Furthermore, as Elizabeth Samuels, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, points out in her testimony, “The evidence is that birth mothers who sought confidentiality were seeking to conceal their pregnancies from their parents, or from other members of their communities, rather than to conceal their identities forever from their children or to foreclose for themselves any chance of learning how their children fared in life.” Other long-standing opponents of the opening of the records such as the right-to-life groups and churches have changed their position in the recent years and testified as proponents in the passing of the Ohio

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