Adoptees' right to discover their biological parents and heritage

Adoption - Discovering Birth Parents Introduction
People who adopt children all have their own unique reasons for doing so, but the bottom line for most adoptees is the harsh reality that they feel unwanted and unneeded by their birth parents, feelings that can devastate even the most mature adults. Given that there are more than one million children adopted in the United States each year, the question quickly emerges concerning the rights of these young people to learn more about their biological heritage. This question has assumed greater importance and relevance in recent years due to innovations in deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) testing that provides proof-positive evidence about parentage. Moreover, as the heated debate over the validity of same-sex marriages continues, increasing numbers of gay and lesbian couples are adopting children in the United States. Against this backdrop, the question concerning the rights of adopted children has been forced to the forefront of American politics and morality, but the issue remains largely unresolved when it comes to whether adoptees have a fundamental right to learn more about their biological parents. To determine the facts about this issue, this paper reviews the relevant literature concerning a case study of an adoptee as well as a background and overview of adoption in America as well as what adopted children can do to learn about their biological heritage. Finally, a summary of the research and key findings concerning the rights of adoptees are provided in the conclusion.
Review and Discussion Case Study of John Smith The letter in Appendix A was written in February 2018 to the biological parents of an adoptee, John Smith, born on July 7, 1970, to Mary and David Wilson in Alma, Georgia. The boy was adopted by his great aunt and great uncle (Kate and Ron Davis) on his biological mother’s side at the age of 4 years. The adoptee has no recall of the first 4 years of life (memories tend to only form and be remembered beginning around age 2 years)[footnoteRef:2] but therapy starting in his 40s has brought to light the fact that something must have happened to traumatize him, close him off to love, close him off to deep relationships, and opened the doors of addiction that have resulted in 2 DUIs in a short amount of time (when he was 39 years and 42 years old). The DUIs spurred a lot of self-discovery which led to the therapy mentioned earlier in life. [2: Howe, Mark and M. L. Courage. (1997). "The Emergence and Early Development of Autobiographical Memory." Psychological Review, Vol. 104, pp. 499.]

The only facts known are that Mary and David met in a mental hospital located in Milledgeville, Georgia where they were both being treated for mental problems. They knew each other for only 3 months before the married and a year later John was born. Their marriage fell apart a year later and sometime later, Mary went on another downward spiral and David eventually went off to prison for drug smuggling. Kate and Ron never had children but felt obligated to adopt John when they were in their 50s. A huge generation gap existed between them and no real love materialized. Kate and Ron are both dead now so it feels right to do more self discovery at this point in time.
Other adoptees have faced similar crossroads in their lives, including Clifton Crais, author of History Lessons. In this compelling book, Crais explains the overarching need to learn more about his biological parents, including most especially his mother who attempted suicide when he was young. In this regard, Crais writes, “So Mom, I want to know more about your life. What I want to say is, ‘I want to know what happened between us, you and me. And I want understand what I couldn’t then.”[footnoteRef:3] It is not surprising that many adoptees are reluctant to actually pursue a reunion with their biological parents given the powerful nature of the unknowns that are involved and the implications of the process for adoptive parents. In sum, the secrecy rule has created several generations of adoptees who are desperately interested in learning more about their biological parents but the picture is slowly changing as discussed below. [3: Crais, Clifton. (2014). History Lessons: A Memoir of Madness, Memory and the Brain, New York: Overlook Press, p. 30.] Background and Overview of Adoption in the United States According to the definition provided by Black’s Law Dictionary, adoption is “the legal process pursuant to state statute in which a child’s legal rights and duties towards his natural parents are terminated and similar rights and duties towards his adopted parents are substituted.”[footnoteRef:4] Interestingly, the adoption procedure is completely based on state statutes without any historical foundation in the common law. While the legal definition has remained unchanged, there have been some important trends in adoptions in recent years that have created significant controversy concerning these legal rights and duties. [4: Black’s Law Dictionary. (1999). St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Company, p. 49.]

Until fairly recently, family practitioners in the United States maintained the complete severance of adopted children’s biological ties with their birth parents was essential to achieve successful adoption outcomes.[footnoteRef:5] In the past, the normal procedure for adoptions included sealing original birth records and only providing adoptees with limited information concerning their biological backgrounds and generations of adoptees have been raised under this strict secrecy rule.[footnoteRef:6] This procedure was based in part on the social status of unwed women who gave birth and the need to establish some degree of “legitimacy” for their children.[footnoteRef:7] [5: March, Karen. (1997, April). “The Dilemma of Adoption Reunion: Establishing Open Communication between Adoptees and Their Birth Mothers.” Family Relations, Vol. 46, No. 2, p. 99.] [6: March, p. 100.] [7: Chippindale-Bakker, Victoria. (1996, July/August). “Adoption in the 1990s: Sociodemographic Determinants of Biological Parents Choosing Adoption.” Child Welfare, Vol. 75, No. 4, p. 337.]

More recently, however, there have been growing calls by adoptees and their advocates to gain additional information about their biological backgrounds, including face-to-face meetings with biological parents in what has become known as “adoption reunions.”[footnoteRef:8] These trends are especially noteworthy given the significant numbers of adoptees and biological parents that are involved as noted below. [8: March, p. 100.] In 2001, there were 1.5 million adopted children in the United States, representing 2.5 percent of all U.S. children. The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute's 1997 public opinion benchmark survey found that 58 percent of Americans know someone who has been adopted, has adopted a child or has relinquished a child for adoption. Though U.S. citizens adopted nearly 13,000 children from 106 different countries in 2009, a little more than two-thirds of all children came from only five sending countries: China (23 percent), Ethiopia (18 percent), Russia (12 percent), South Korea (8 percent) and Guatemala (6 percent). South Korea has placed over 100,000 children in the United States since 1958. China has placed more than 70,000 children, 91 percent female, with families abroad, 70 percent of those American. While the exact number of U.S. children placed for adoption in other countries is not reliably reported, a decade ago adoption experts estimated the number at 500 annually. In 2006, the Chinese government proposed a new set of rules requiring that adoptive parents must meet certain educational and financial requirements, be married, be under 50, not be clinically obese, not have taken antidepressant or anti-anxiety medication in the previous two years and not have any facial deformities. The organization Families With Children from China provides a network of support for families who have adopted in China and to provide information to prospective parents. There are currently more than 100 chapters of the group throughout the United States. While intercountry adoption may be the most visible category, the majority of American adoptions actually involve children adopted out of foster care. About 135,000 children are adopted in the United States each year. Of non-stepparent adoptions, about 59 percent are from the child welfare (or foster) system, 26 percent are from other countries, and 15 percent are voluntarily relinquished, American babies. Domestically, the percentage of infants given up for adoption has declined from 9 percent of those born before 1973 to 1 percent of those born between 1996 and 2002. Adoptive mothers tend to be older than mothers who have not adopted children. Fifty-one percent of adoptive mothers are between 40 to 44 years of age compared with 27 percent of non-adoptived. Eighty-one percent of adoptive mothers are 35 to 44 years of age compared to 52 percent of non-adoptive mothers.[footnoteRef:9] [9: “Fact sheet on adoption.” (2018). Public Broadcasting System. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/pov/offandrunning/fact-sheet/.]
As can be seen from the foregoing trends, while the number of domestically adopted children in the United States has decreased substantially in recent years, the number of adoptions from other countries has continued to increase. These trends further underscore the need for some type of mechanism that can provide adoptees with their biological background information they will need in the future, especially preventive health care for genetically transmitted diseases and disorders. Moreover, far too many adoptees have experienced the adverse mental health effects of feeling abandoned and unwanted by their birth parents even if they enjoyed an otherwise perfect childhood. Part of this problem relates to the rights and feelings of adoptive parents and the sacrifices they made in adopting someone else’s child. In this regard, one adoptee advocacy group emphasizes that:
Eventually, when their child wants to search for their own roots, the adoptive parent may feel betrayed. Please know that from the adoptee’s perspective, searching for their truth is not a betrayal. They just want to know where they came from and somehow reconnect with their biological roots. They are not doing it to replace you. They are doing it because they just need to know. The secrecy about their own life is just too much for them to bear.[footnoteRef:10] [10: Andriola, Tom. (2017, August 11). “Four ways secrecy in adoption hurts your child.” Adoption.com. Retrieved from https://adoption.com/secrecy-in-adoption-hurts-child.]

These empirical observations are supported by a growing body of research that confirms many adoptees want to know more about their biological parents but may be hesitant to do so for fear of being perceived as betraying their support and love. Fortunately, there has been some movement towards eliminating the secrecy rule and allowing adoptees access to their original birth certificates. For example, Grossman reports that, “Under a newly enacted law, adult adoptees in Ohio can now seek access to their original birth certificates. With this change, Ohio joins a small number of states that have made an about-face in thinking about the role of secrecy in adoption, and have joined the gradual shift towards greater openness.”[footnoteRef:11] The Ohio law applies to all adults aged 18 years and over as well as their lineal descendants and affects more than 400,000 adults who were adopted after September 18, 1996, the effective date of the legislation. [11: Grossman, Joanna L. (2014, January 21). “Secrets and Lies: A New Ohio Law Opens the Adoption Closet.” Verdict: Legal Analysis and Commentary. Retrieved from https://verdict.justia.com/2014/01/21/secrets-lies-new-ohio-law-opens-adoption-closet.]

This sea change in thinking about the rights of adoptees in the United States and the shift from closed to open adoptions represents a welcome shift from the formerly inviolate secrecy rule, but far more needs to be done to provide adoptees in closed adoptions with the information they need to make informed decisions about their health care needs as well as answering questions concerning the reasons behind their adoptive placement in the first place. Indeed, Ohio joined a growing number of states that have some type of open adoption laws on the books, including those listed at Appendix B. Some states such as Delaware and Tennessee offer biological parents the opportunity to invoke a no-contact veto which prevents adoptees from contacting them.[footnoteRef:12] [12: “States with open adoption records.” (2018). OmniTrace. Retrieved from http://www.omnitrace.com/states-open-adoption-records/.]

Proponents of open adoption cite a wide range of beneficial outcomes, depending on what level of contact between adoptees and biological parents is involved. For instance, Frasch and Brooks report that, “Open adoption typically refers to the maintenance of contact between adoptive and biological families following placement of adopted children. Contact can differ in terms of who initiates and is involved in the contact, including the adopted child, adoptive parents, biological parents, or other adoptive and biological relatives.”[footnoteRef:13] Contacts between adoptees and their biological parents in open adoptions can assume a number of different forms, including exchanging pictures, gifts, letters, telephone calls and in-person visitation. Although additional research is needed to determine the effects of open adoptions on adoptees and their adoptive and biological parents, there is a growing consensus that adoptees have a legal right to a limited amount of information regardless of state-specific laws to the contrary. [13: Frasch, Karie M. and Brooks, Devon. (2000, October). “Openness and Contact in Foster Care Adoptions: An Eight-Year Follow-Up.” Family Relations, Vol. 49, No. 4, p. 435.]

Conclusion
The research showed that millions of Americans have adopted children from the United States and foreign countries, most especially Asian countries such as China and South Korea. Until fairly recently, these adoptions were closed, meaning that all contact between adoptees and their biological parents was terminated, but there are signs that increasing numbers of states are recognizing the need for some level of information sharing by enacting open adoption laws. These trends are a direct reflection of the growing realization that the full range of benefits of innovations in health care technologies can only be achieved when relevant biological background information is known, as well as the negative effects that can result from adoption when the reasons remain unknown to the adoptee. Rather than representing a betrayal of adoptive parents, the quest by adoptees to learn more about their biological heritage is part of the human condition that demands meaningful answers.

References Andriola, Tom. (2017, August 11). “Four ways secrecy in adoption hurts your child.” Adoption.com. Retrieved from https://adoption.com/secrecy-in-adoption-hurts-child. Chippindale-Bakker, Victoria. (1996, July/August). “Adoption in the 1990s: Sociodemographic Determinants of Biological Parents Choosing Adoption.” Child Welfare, Vol. 75, No. 4, pp. 337-341. Crais, Clifton. (2014). History Lessons: A Memoir of Madness, Memory, and the Brain. New York: The Overlook Press. Fact sheet on adoption. (2018). Public Broadcasting System. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/pov/offandrunning/fact-sheet/. Frasch, Karie M. and Brooks, Devon. (2000, October). “Openness and Contact in Foster Care Adoptions: An Eight-Year Follow-Up.” Family Relations, Vol. 49, No. 4, pp. 435-439. Grossman, Joanna L. (2014, January 21). “Secrets and Lies: A New Ohio Law Opens the Adoption Closet.” Verdict: Legal Analysis and Commentary. Retrieved from https://verdict.justia.com/2014/01/21/secrets-lies-new-ohio-law-opens-adoption-closet. Handler, Jessica (2013). Braving the Fire: A Guide to Writing About Grief and Loss, New York: St. Martin's Griffin. Howe, Mark and M. L. Courage. (1997). "The Emergence and Early Development of Autobiographical Memory." Psychological Review, Vol. 104, pp. 499-523. March, Karen. (1997, April). “The Dilemma of Adoption Reunion: Establishing Open Communication between Adoptees and Their Birth Mothers.” Family Relations, Vol. 46, No. 2, pp. 99-103. “States with open adoption records.” (2018). OmniTrace. Retrieved from http://www.omnitrace. com/states-open-adoption-records/.
Appendix A Letter to Biological Parents Mary and David, I have never addressed you two together but I feel now is as good a time as any. Forty-seven years ago, your union brought me into this world and for that, I am forever grateful. This is not a letter asking you two to reconcile, this is simply me reaching out as the common bond you both have and a desire to be fully transparent with my intentions - the John from birth to age 4 has questions.

The demise of that union, the why, what, and how have always been a mystery to me.

I know that both of you did what you had to do and what was best for me at the time by giving me up to Kate and Ron.