DO u think ADOPTION records should be sealed?

Question

DO u think ADOPTION records should be sealed?

Answer 1

DEFINITELY NOT!every person has a right to know about their heritage

Answer 2

Dear Mrz. Knowit@ll,

I personally can find no reason that they should have ever been sealed in the first place! Sealed records are a violation of an adoptee's basic human right to know his or her own identity. I consider it to be one of the blackest marks on what is supposed be a loving and noble gesture.

This was NOT always the practice and is actually relatively new in the lengthy history of adoption.

Most people consider Georgia Tann and her cohort Judge Camille Kelly the "mothers"(excuse the pun) of sealed records. They are infamous for their black market baby selling rings during the mid-1900's and came up with "sealed records" as a method for ensuring that their "product" was more desirable.

The practice at the time was to close the adoptee's OBC until the age of majority - unfortunately this is a problem for people who kidnap children and sell them. People like Ms. Tann and Judge Kelly. They NEEDED a way to hide the fact that many of the children they were adopting out were actually stolen. Their main arguement was that many adoptee's OBC's bore the big red stamp saying "b*****d" or "illegitimate" and was "embarrassing" to the adoptive family. (This could have been stopped by throwing out all the rubber stamps!)

Gov. Lehman enacted the first sealed records law in NY in 1935 at the bequests of the lovely Ms. Tann and Judge Kelly to help cover up their illegal actions. (The fine Governor was an adoptive father thanks to Ms. Tann's efforts. She was also the "facilitator"of Joan Crawford's adoption of Christina Crawford. Remember the movie "Mommie Dearest"?)

Consequently, Georgia Tann also is considered to be the inventor of the "blank slate" theory - that babies are "blank slates"which can be filled in by their caretakers. She was a classist and was once quoted as saying that a poor mother wasn't fit because "she doesn't perm her hair."!

Sealed records laws' origins are as shady and deceitful as the laws themselves and I am dismayed that they have been allowed to perpetuate the damage they do for so many decades. IMO, it will be a fine day indeed when honesty and openness are restored to all adoptees in regards to THEIR personal documents.

http://www.progressiveu.org/052437-an-ad...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Tan...

http://www.b******s.org/bb/2.SealedHistU...

Answer 3

NO NO NO

I like what Ontario is doing right now. All info is now public info. It is up to the birth parent or adult adoptee to put a note in the file saying "NO CONTACT". Even is they put this note on, the child/parent will still have all their information, medical and such. All of the info is available to both parties when the adoptee turns 18.

My worker called us when the law came into effect, and seemed to think we would be quite upset about it, but I felt sort of relieved that when and if my kids search, all the info will be right there for them.

Answer 4

NO !!

Look at it from the child's prospective....

I was lovingly carried for nine months by my mother, I was cared for, nurtured, and loved. At birth (or after) I was ripped away from the one voice that I got to know... taken to a new home, with new people who raised me. Maybe they gave me a great childhood, maybe they didn't.

But I never knew where I got my big brown doe shaped eyes from, or my blonde curly hair. I didn't know that woman in my family seem to get breast cancer in their twenties, nor did I know that my eyes carry the gene for macular degeneration, which will eventually leave me blind and unable to see my children.

I never even had a chance to thank this woman for giving me a life, in spite of what her options were and that I probably came along at a point in her life when she was the least prepared to be a mother.  

All because when I was a baby and unable to speak for myself and voice what I wanted ...I was adopted. The adults in my life made deecisions for me. And now that I'm an adult, the law says I'm still not allowed to know, such a basic thing as who my mother is.

Answer 5

NO, not EVER...a child should have EVERY right to obtain information about their OWN life.

Answer 6

nope

Answer 7

No

Answer 8

NO!

If not for open records in my state, my mom (and my siblings & I) would not know her birth mother or nine other siblings.

If not for open records my mom, sisters and I would not have valuable family medical history.

If not for open records my mom would have felt like a part of her was always missing.

NO ONE should be intentionally denied the right to know who they are and where they come from, ever.  It could save their life.