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Opening adoption records


By RON MURDOCK
Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - Page A22


Amsterdam, The Netherlands -- Adoptee Denbigh Patton (To Reunite Or Not? --
letter, Nov. 29) makes a basic mistake by assuming that release of information
includes an unwanted reunion.

As we who fight for open adoption records in Canada keep saying, the two are
separate. In all countries with open records, the person seeking has the human
right to know his or her own personal information while, at the same time, the
person being sought has the human right not to have contact. In that there is a
balance of rights for both parties.

No one in their right mind is campaigning for any "natural/biological/spiritual
imperative that birth parents and their offspring should have a relationship."

Such scare-mongering is simply ill informed and goes a long way to perpetuating
the secrecy, the fear, the shame that has for far too long been prevalent in
the adoption arena.




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A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown