Could someone please rationalize what agencies call "confidential adoption" so it makes sense?

Question

By definition, a closed adoption or "confidential adoption," must first require taking away the rights of a child to know his/her identity in order to assure another person (a parent) that the child will not find out who they are until at least adulthood, if ever. I'm not talking about revealing parents' identities to the general public; I'm only talking about their son or daughter retaining their rights to their own heritage.

My question is How can this practice be ethically justified? Thank you for your thoughts.

Answer 1

I think it started way back when it was "bad" to have a child out of wed lock - I think the parents were embarassed, and possibly the b-mom as well.  The focus was on THAT portion of the family, and how it looks to society vs. the child him/her self.  I don't think anyone cared about or thought about the adoptee's feelings once they got older, or the ethics of it all.  

Now, legislatures are saying that we need to continue protecting these birth parents - again, no regard to the child.  (Thanks for making me feel like I am not human or worth anything!!!!).  What they are not taking into consideration is that there are very few birth mothers who actually want this information be held as confidential and who actually do not want to meet the child they gave birth to.  

I think it is ridiculous.  All I want is my original birth certificate.  Most people have their birth certificates - or at least have access to them - why can't adoptee's have theirs?  I don't appreciate or enjoy walking around with my "paper of lies" - which is what I call my BC - even to my A-mom.

Answer 2

I think you are trusting the adoptive parents with more than the kid's heritage. Birth Mother trusts these people to many other decisions in the interest of the child. Can it be wrong to trust them on this decision?

Answer 3

Essentially adoption in the United States has turned into a baby market for middle class and wealthy families.  For a woman to give up her own child is a painful and often shameful choice.  Agencies act like they are helping the natural mother out, but they work for and are compensated by the adoptive family.  I think that many agencies and adopting families like this choice (of closed adoption) because it keeps the natural mother from knowing anything as well.  These adoption agencies always stress that giving up a baby will usually give this child more economic advantages, but what good is that if the child feels abandoned?  Adoption is big business, with large fees going to agencies that can produce healthy infants, especially white babies from healthy mothers.  Legally, there is no such thing as open adoption, even if the adoptive parents swear it.  Once the baby is adopted, they can cut off the natural mother immeadiately.  Natural parents have no legal rights to their child once an adoption is finalized.  I find no ehtical justification for this process, but I am against what I view as a coercive adoption market anyway.  Frankly, too many children launguish in foster care, even after being eligible for adoption, because they are percieved as "damaged goods."  People want a baby, that they can mold and hopefully help shape into their own value system.  For childless people, their are many ways to have a satisfy relationship with a child or children without adoption.  I think social services should offer to pay the fees for children launguishing  in foster care to these agencies, so perhaps they can sell potential parents on the idea of an older child.

Answer 4

I realize I'm playing with fire here, but my understanding is the birthmother selects the level of openness in a private adoption. That's the way it was in all the agencies I've read about. Most of the time, too, as much of the medical history is given to the adoptive parents as possible. Sometimes the birthfather is unknown (or suspect) or uncooperative and therefore his "half" of the info is questionable. In regards to not having a totally closed adoption, I hope they are things of the past, but never having been a first/natural/birthmother, I guess I don't have the experience to really express myself on this matter from their perspective. My husband and I wanted AT LEAST the birthmother's info so WHEN our daughter decided to search she would have that to go on.

Answer 5

It can't be justified.  It can only be rationalized--by outdated ways of thinking, horror stories of stalking adoptees and women who demand their children back, and the invention of pseudo-"rights" to "protection" from one's own offspring.

We know better now.  Closed adoptions only exist to protect the agencies and help some a'parents feel secure.  Loving parents don't place their wants ahead of their children's needs.

Answer 6

I imagine that it is justified because there are scared young girls and women out there who love their babies, but want to do what's best for them by putting them up for adoption to couples who would be able to better provide for them, but the idea of a child of theirs being out there in the world that they don't raise is very painful to them, so they prefer a closed adoption.

I would guess that many of them feel that if they are going to let their babies go, they need to let them go completely in order to move on with their lives.  

It was probably more common years ago than it is today, and you have to wonder how many girls might have chosen abortion if closed adoption hadn't been an option for them back then (when having a baby out of wedlock was more scandalous than it is today).

I'm not saying it's right or wrong--I'm just saying I can see both sides of it, from the viewpoint of a frustrated adoptee who meets with a dead end when searching for their birth mother, and from the viewpoint of a scared teenaged birth mother.

Answer 7

I don't think that it can be ethically justified. It is cruel and unusual punishment for being conceived in the wrong womb.

It is so cruel to let a person go through their life not knowing where they came from. It is just cruel.

Answer 8

Its early so bare with me.....

It CAN'T be rationalized.

Who are the agencies to be "promising" this in the first palce?!?! Anyone can start a non profit agency why is the state allowing complete idiots to have the control of someones heritage and ancestry?!?!  Look at Seymour Kurtz ( had numerous agencies shut down for child trafficking, nevertheless he's still practicing. http://www.babybrokerwatch.com ) look at jennalee ryan ( kicked out of numerous states and lost her liscence in a couple of states for child trafficking and trying to sell "pre-made" embryos w/ "perfect" qualities ( eugenics ) yet she just moved states and is practicing again. The list goes on and on, yet the states DON'T CARE ABOUT OUR INFORMATION.

At least adoption agencies are required to keep it though there isn't a single law that I'm aware of that requires donor clincs to "keep" the vital records they're doing it on faith only.

There IS NO RIGHT TO PRIVACY UPON SURRENDER in the entire nation. That is in every state, in every city across the United States of America.

I don't know WHY my records are still sealed. Well, thats a lie, I do know why, i know that those who sealed them in the 30's in my state ( california ) were invovled w/ Georgia Tann, they had a black market baby. They wanted records sealed. They got records sealed. Its unfortunate that a few people have the power to unseal or seal them at their discretion.

A Closed adoption is all that happens these days. EVERY ADOPTEES RECORDS ARE SEALED. 6 states open them to the adoptees upon the age of majority. NONE of these states can legally promise any mother a right to privacy upon surrender. They have no ethical, legal or moral right to do this, yet they're doing it to thousands of children a year.

This is where my passion against agencies "birthed" from. Of course since then it has developed and grown for other, signifigant reasons, but for now, this needs to be addressed.

It will this July 2008 at the Annual State Legislatures Convention.

Answer 9

Some parents would just rather forget that the pregnancy happened at all.  They don't want to worry about someone showing up at their door eighteen years later announcing, "Hi.  I'm your kid."

While keeping the identify of the parents from the child might seem wrong, some parents of an unplanned pregnancy struggle between the choice of adoption or abortion.  And if assuring the parents that if they give their child up for adoption, they're identity can be confidential helps them decide to put the baby up for adoption rather than abort the pregnancy, then I think that confidential adoptions should be offered, if only to save lives.

Very thought-provoking question!  I never really saw it as denying a person of their heritage.  You make a good point.

Answer 10

It's not ethical at all.

In fact - it's completely cruel - and I can't understand why anyone could ever say it's a 'loving choice' to give up a baby under such circumstances.

To never allow that child to know who they were born from - their own identity.

Again - I say - it's completely cruel.

I'd even say it's selfish of the mother.