Celebrating open adoptions

Toledo Blade: About 400,000 adult adoptees in Ohio are now able to gain access to their original birth certificates, enabling them to know more about their biological parents and their family’s medical history. The right to their adoption records was unfairly restricted; the new access should be celebrated.

This week, birth certificates and court decrees are available to Ohio adoptees or their direct descendants for the first time without a court order, for those who were adopted between 1964 and 1996. During the past year, birth parents have had the opportunity to request that their names be removed from the records before they were released.

Given the depth of Internet searches these days, it makes sense for the state to provide access to these records. The new policy rightly allows birth parents and adoptees to find, meet, and build a relationship, if all parties are open to doing so. On a practical level, it gives adoptees access to medical information that could be vital to their health.

UNIFORM APPROACH

Ohio long has needed a uniform approach to adoption records; all adoptees deserve to know at least the basics of their birth. At the same time, it remains proper to allow birth parents who want to be anonymous to request that the release of their information be prohibited.

The 1963 state law that sealed adoption records was based on the belief that women would be likelier to opt for adoption than abortion if they were promised confidentiality. Lawmakers’ thinking has progressed, at least on this issue.

Adoption should not be viewed as a dirty little secret that brings shame to birth parents.