Adoption-record secrecy benefits only agencies

Monday, February 6, 2006

Lester Markel, an American editor, once wrote: "What you see is news, what you know is background, what you feel is opinion." At least the editor placed this unsubstantiated statement on the right page. "We agree ... that long-standing pledges of confidentiality that adoption agencies have made to birth mothers should be preserved. The state should not change the rules -- and undo promises -- in the middle of the game."

This opinion is often trotted out by adoption agencies that place a high premium on maintaining the status quo. Yet no agency has ever produced a signed document that guarantees secrecy. If such promises were made, they were extralegal. Neither could any agency guarantee that children relinquished to the agency's guardianship would be adopted. Unadopted, the child wouldn't receive a new birth certificate and would, therefore, always know at least one of the parents' names.

It's self-serving for agencies that defend secrecy vehemently when they used coercive tactics to get the birth mother to sign on the dotted line and who sometimes threatened legal action against birth mothers if they ever searched for the children they relinquished. Some agencies have much to fear from adoptees being allowed to become a party to the agreement that changed their lives forever when they were too young to speak on their own behalf.

While many a mother put a baby up for adoption expecting her offspring would never know her name, there's little to suggest that is what the mother wanted.

Ann Wilmer

National Coordinator

Green Ribbon Campaign for Open Records

Salisbury, Md.