Adoption/Debate Guide
Contact registers
As debate over privacy concerns with regard to searching continued, one solution which neatly sidestepped the issue was the introduction of adoption contact registers. Such registers allow those who are interested in contact and/or reunion to register that interest. Should a match occur between, e.g., a natural mother and a now-adult son that she placed for adoption, then the organisation running the register will put them in contact.
Some contact registers are run by government or state bodies, whilst others are run by adopted peoples' or natural parents' organisations. While some organisations, such as Bastard Nation, reject the provision of state registers in the absence of full access to adoption records, contact registers have been successful in bringing about many reunions. Many contact registers now exist. One of the oldest such registers (and one of the most successful) is the International Soundex Reunion Registry (ISRR), founded in 1975.[1] The ISRR run an annual, highly publicised "Regday", or International Registration Day.[2]
Registers depend on publicity for success. The more people who hear about a register, the more people use it, leading to more reunions. In general, government or state-run registers have tended to be poorly advertised. For example, in the UK, the state register has been less successful than the private register, run by the National Organisation for Counselling Adoptees and Parents (NORCAP). An exception was the National Adoption Contact Preference Register (NACPR), launched by the Adoption Board in Ireland in April 2005. The launch was accompanied by both radio and press advertising, combined with a leaflet and application form being posted to every household in the country. The result was over 6,000 registrations in the first year of operation (out of 42,000 registered legal adoptions).[3] While most registers allow registrants to only state that they are willing to be contacted (or, in some cases, to file a "contact veto", forbidding contact), the NACPR allows for a choice of options, ranging from "willing to meet" to "willing to share background and/or medical information", to "no contact at this time."
The debate on open records
While there has been more and more recognition and acceptance of the idea of search and reunion, corresponding changes to legislation to allow access to records has been less forthcoming. Proponents of open records regard it as a fundamental human right, whether or not a person accessing such records has any desire to trace or not.[4] Opponents of open records maintain that the privacy inherent in adoption is akin to confidentiality between doctors, lawyers or clergy and their clients, and that removing the option of privacy harms adoption.[5]
One aspect of the debate has centred on the effects of open records vis a vis adoption and abortion rates. Research indicates that in jurisdictions with open records, there is a higher rate of adoptions (and a slower decline in the number of adoptions) and a lower rate of abortions, compared to jurisdictions with closed records.[6]
The debate on open adoption
Where once all adoptions were closed, meaning that the adopted person would have no further contact with the natural family unless, in adulthood, they began a trace, this began to change in the 1980s with the introduction of open adoptions. Such adoptions allowed for a range of openness - the possibilty of natural parent(s) having a say in who the child would be placed with, to periodic sending of letters and/or photographs via an intermediary such as the adoption agency, up to complete openness, where the adoptive and natural parent(s) know each others' identities and addresses and may meet regularly.
Opposition to open adoption comes from both adoptive parents' organisations - who say it removes choice from them; and from natural parents' organisations, who say that promise of an open adoption can be used to unduly influence the decision to place a child for adoption, and in any case are often not legally binding.
The debate on international adoption
With increasing rates of infertility in the west, combined with growing acceptance and reduced stigma attached to single parenthood, both combining to make less children available for adoption, the trend towards international adoption has grown. First beginning after World War II, significant numbers of children from Europe and Asia were adopted to the United States. The trend continued especially, after the Korean War; and the controversial Operation Babylift, which saw the evacuation of children from Saigon immediately prior to the American withdrawal from the Vietnam War, subsequently placed for adoption.[7][8]
The trend towards international adoption has continued to grow. As former "source" countries for international adoption become stronger economically, they have tended to cease being source countries and instead become destination countries themselves for international adoption. An example of this is Ireland, which saw over 4,000 children adopted to the United States and elsewhere in the 1950s and 1960s, but now sources children itself from China, Russia and elsewhere.
While widespread corruption, exploitation and coercion in the area of international adoption led to the introduction of the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption and the introduction of tougher regulation in many jurisdictions, concerns continue to be expressed over the ongoing existence of corruption in international adoption. Ethica (an organisation promoting ethical adoption practices) points out that 43% of the 40 most common countries for U.S. citizens to adopt from are now closed to international adoption, and that "Virtually all of these countries closed due to concerns about rampant corruption or child trafficking and abduction."[9]
The debate on who can adopt
Traditionally, adoption was available only to married couples. With changes in society, this is no longer the case in many jurisdictions. Debate on the question of who should be eligible to adopt centres on two main areas - marital status, and adoption by gays.
Marital status
Most western jurisdictions now allow adoption by unmarried, co-habiting couples and by single people. This development was seen as the supreme irony by many natural parents' organisations, whose members claim that they had been put under pressure to place their children for adoption precisely because they were unmarried.
Gay adoption
Some western jurisdictions allow adoption by gays and lesbians. In some cases, adoption by a same-sex couple is not allowed, but one of the members of the partnership may adopt. To date, 22 U.S. states and the district of Columbia have granted adoptions to gay individuals or couples.[10] Organisations opposed to the expansion of gay rights generally have opposed such adoptions.
- ↑ International Soundex Reunion Registry (ISRR)- History. Available: http://www.isrr.net/history.shtml Accessed: 3rd January, 2007.
- ↑ Regday - International Registration Day. Available: http://www.regday.org Accessed: 3rd January, 2007.
- ↑ National Adoption Contact Preference Register: Report on Launch and Operation of the Register, April 2005 – March 2007. Available (PDF format): http://www.adoptionboard.ie/booklets/NACPR_final.pdf Accessed: 3rd January, 2007.
- ↑ Bastard Nation: "Open Records: Why It's an Issue." Available: http://bastards.org/bb/1.WhyIts.html Accessed: 6th January, 2008.
- ↑ National Coalition for Adoption: "Consent or coercion? How Mandatory Open Records Harm Adoption." Available: http://www.ncfa-usa.org/resources/documents/ConsentorCoercion-AFBIV.pdf (PDF format). Accessed: 6th January, 2008.
- ↑ Bastard Nation: "Open Records Does Not Equal Higher Abortion or Lower Adoption Rates" Available: http://bastards.org/bb/10.Abortion.html Accessed: 6th January, 2008.
- ↑ Gloria Emerson, “Operation Babylift,” 1975. Available: http://www.uoregon.edu/~adoption/archive/EmersonOB.htm Accessed: 20th January, 2008.
- ↑ Statement on the Immorality of Bringing South Vietnamese Orphans to the United States, April 4, 1975. Available: http://www.uoregon.edu/~adoption/archive/SIBSVOUS.htm Accessed: 20th January, 2008.
- ↑ Ethica: The Statistics Tell the Story! Available: http://www.ethicanet.org/item.php?recordid=statistics Accessed: 20th January, 2008.
- ↑ Human Rights Campaign: Where Have Adoptions by Gay and Lesbian Parents Been Permitted Under Law? Available: http://www.hrc.org/issues/parenting/adoptions/2394.htm Accessed: 19th January, 2008.