Don’t Lift the Curtain of Privacy : * State Bill to Mandate Access to Adoption Records Is Misconceived

Imagine answering a knock at your door one night and finding a son or daughter you gave up for adoption decades ago or a biological parent you’ve never met--or maybe didn’t know existed.

For some these reunions are joyous and cathartic. For others the sudden appearance of smiling progeny (or beaming parents) dredges up the decades-old feelings of shame once associated with a secret or illicit pregnancy. The doorstep scenario is far-fetched, but it is one of the reasons adoptions have traditionally been confidential for all involved.

The California Senate will soon consider a bill that would give individuals involved in adoptions between 1938 and 1984 access to records containing the identities of their previously nameless kin.

The idea is to help adoptees and their birth parents who want to be reunited, an estimated 5% of those concerned. The bill has engendered so little public debate that it seems unlikely more than a handful of those affected know that traditional arrangements are now under challenge. A state office registers people seeking their biological parents or relinquished children but does not contact the party being sought. Information is released only if both parties independently ask for a meeting. Courts intervene if there is a medical or other emergency need for identification.

The present policy of keeping adoption records sealed should remain, although the state should improve the registry system by notifying parents or children when their biological relatives want to meet them.

But simply opening all records retroactively violates California’s constitutional guarantee of privacy and the state’s implied contract with adopted children and birth parents who chose adoption on the assumption that they could remain anonymous.

The bill before the Senate would only raise myriad moral and legal questions that would be argued in the court system for years.