Hand up who knows why adoption records are sealed?

Question

This is a test. Birthmother privacy is the WRONG answer

The genuine reasons please preferably

Answer 1

It is to cover the tracks and the money an adoption agency gets.  You just have to read The Baby Thief to understand that one.

Answer 2

I can't cite sources on this one because I haven't done research on it.  However, are you referring to "adoption records" as in the finalization of adoption and the adoptive parent paperwork or the "birth records" prior to the adoption?

I believe you are probably referring to birth records.  Again, while I cannot cite any sources, my own personal opinion on this is that it is one of those laws that was started many years ago before anyone thought out the ramifications.  I do believe that when it was started it was to protect first families from the stigma of having a child placed for adoption.  I don't think it is right - but I believe many years ago things were different and it has just stayed that way ever since.

Now, if you are referring to adoption records and the adoptive family, they are sealed to protect the child's identity and to insure his/her safety.  Although I have no sources that I can "cite" for my response, I can speak from experience as my son's first family "sold" his original social security number for purposes of identity theft.  We were lucky to find out about it so that we could take steps to protect him from that.  There are also concerns about abuse by some first parents and in those cases, a child should be protected from "being found".  

What a great thought-provoking question!

Answer 3

If you did NOT have the option for sealed adoption records, many babies would merely be abandoned under the "Baby Moses" law....  or aborted.  How is that any better?  At least this way the records exist SOMEWHERE.

Answer 4

To decrease the stigma of illegitimacy.  See the Adoption History Project:

http://www.uoregon.edu/~adoption/topics/...

Answer 5

the reason they were sealed years ago they wanted things kept quiet. you were not suppose to find out about your parents or just maybe girl firend boy firend stuff. it was sealed for those reason and no one wold every come knock on your door. but this time and age all the kids are going to find their parents or whatever and they want their records so its now coming out. it was suppose to be sealed forever and not find out what you were given up or whatever. that was it.

Answer 6

I won't claim knowledge I don't have...  

But I am struck by something in my own experience...  I have been reunited with my first mother this past year.  She has been very open with me.  My adoptive mother is very happy for me.  Both of them would be happy for me to have my adoption records, including my original birth certificate.  Neither of them want my information sealed.

So if it is protect either the adoptive parents or the first family, shouldn't they be able to okay the release of my records?  (My first father is not on my original birth certificate because the state crossed it off when my first mother wrote it on there.  So he doesn't have a stake in this.)

When I asked the social worker at the agency where I was adopted, who had a letter from my first mother releasing all information to me, she said she still couldn't show me my file.  In order to get my birth certificate, I still have to petition the courts and go through a long wait (plus expense).

If every member of the triad is on board with me getting my information, who is left to want it sealed?  The only participant that could want it sealed is the agency who facilitated my adoption.  

Why do they want it sealed?  I don't know.  I don't know what they're hiding, so I don't know why they are hiding it.

Answer 7

I think it's because the adopted parents want these children for their own and don't want to explain to everyone that see the birth record .i know some religious adoption agency would like just to take the birth parents out of every paper so that the child is sealed to the couple. And most couples really don't want their adopted kids whating to know their birth parents since the raised them.

Answer 8

This is likely a hold over from a time when the idea of an 'open adoption' was strange.  The concept of open adoptions is something that grew out of the 60s and 70s.  Before then, the child was little more than a commodity, and the feelings of the adult adoptees and the birth mother were viewed with less compassion than they are now.  For example, many children adopted prior to the 70's were never told they were adopted, or were told only when they were older (parent's death bed confession, etc).  

I have no sources, but, I have met several older adopted people who were not told until very late in life.  It is clear that the attitude toward adoption has changed in the last 50 years.

Answer 9

Why are they still sealed today?

I think it's to protect the agencies.

Answer 10

To make the adoptive parents feel secure.  

First mothers never had special privacy rights above and beyond those of other citizens.  And if it were about protecting the children from the stigma of illegitimacy, records would be open now because that stigma is gone.

Answer 11

So that adoptive parents can pretend easier,  and agencies can hide questionable practices without fear of accountability.

Answer 12

protection for the birth of the child and the adoptive parents

Answer 13

To protect the agency from any unscrupulous acts they may have committed in procuring a child.

Answer 14

In the beginning? Partly for birthmother privacy and to protect the child from the stigma of adoption and adoptive parents from all the accompanying stigma ("2nd best", "illegitimate", "infetile", and so on). Of course that didn't start until about the 1930s (when infant adoption really began because before that it was pretty much impossible-no formula!). Behaving in an "as if begotten" manner today is no longer the accepted method, but many adoptees continue to suffer from the effects of being reared under these edicts from adoption agencies. Indeed, those who weren't told to not tell their adopted children they were adopted were often told to tell their adopted children that their birthmothers were dead.  As to why the records are NOW sealed, status quo pretty much. It takes a long time to change such things unfortunately and adoption just doesn't have enough "umpfh" to really get the ball rolling. The people with the power ($) are usually the adoptive parents and they are just starting to understand that sealed records are wrong.