Dian
03-07-2004, 09:03 AM
Adoptive father speaks for all adoptees and nmothers. No surprise here
of course.
http://www.regent.edu/acad/schgov/alumni/newsletter/alumninews.html
Consent versus Coercion:
How SB335 Harms Adoption
Thomas C. Atwood
President and CEO
National Council For Adoption
February 3, 2004
National Council For Adoption
225 N. Washington Street, Alexandria, VA 22314-2520
Telephone 703-299-6633, Fax 703-299-6004
www.adoptioncouncil.org
Consent versus Coercion:
How SB335 Harms Adoption
If enacted, SB335 would harm the institution of adoption in New
Hampshire and unjustly and unnecessarily disrupt and harm the lives of
many innocent people involved in adoption.
Adoption is a highly successful social institution that has
wonderfully served needy children and birthparents who are unable or
unready to parent. Yet without any findings to justify the change,
SB335 would radically depart from current practice, by eliminating
even the option of confidentiality in adoption in New Hampshire.
Unfortunately, the loudest voices the legislature and the general
public are likely to hear regarding SB335 are the vocal few who desire
to identify and contact their birthparents, with or without their
consent. This vocal few may feel that they have nothing to lose by
persevering in their advocacy year after year. But birthparents who
desire to maintain their privacy must either remain mute while their
rights are being taken away or lose their privacy in the very act of
defending it.
The National Council For Adoption (NCFA) speaks in their defense, and
in defense of the institution of adoption and of the children,
families, and birthparents it serves.
There are several ways that SB335's elimination of birthparents' right
to choose a private adoption would harm adoption, children, families,
and birthparents:
• First, SB335 would violate birthparents' basic human right to
privacy. SB335 would completely eliminate birthparents' right to
choose a confidential adoption, both retroactively and prospectively.
To open records retroactively without the approval of a birthmother
who was promised privacy is a particularly egregious violation of
trust and common decency.
For the typical birthmother, making an adoption plan for her child is
a supremely loving act, committed in the best interests of her child.
The State of New Hampshire should honor birthmothers for this act of
love, not punish them by stripping them of their basic human right to
privacy.
Under SB335, no future birthmother in New Hampshire would be allowed
to choose a private adoption, no matter what the circumstances of
pregnancy or birth. Without the right to choose a confidential
adoption, the birthmother who felt she must have privacy would have no
choice but abortion. As stated by Jeremiah Gutman, director of the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and former chair of the ACLU's
Privacy Committee, a woman facing an unplanned pregnancy could
maintain her privacy only if she had an abortion.1
Would the State of New Hampshire grant a woman with an unplanned
pregnancy a right to private abortion but not to private adoption?
We ask the Senate Public Institutions, Health and Human Services
Committee to recognize that there are any number of legitimate and
understandable reasons that birthparents may desire privacy – perhaps,
the birthmother does not want to relive the experience of rape or
incest that caused the pregnancy; perhaps the birthparent does not
want to upset his or her spouse, family, and friends with a never
shared revelation; perhaps the birthparent would be psychologically or
emotionally unable or unready to handle the stress of renewed contact;
or perhaps the birthparent simply believes that the healthiest
approach for all parties is not to have an ongoing relationship. Does
the State of New Hampshire truly believe that one-size fits-all,
mandatory open records is a superior policy to respecting
birthparents' loving discernment and their right to privacy?
• Second, SB335 would increase the number of unwanted, unilaterally
imposed contacts and wreak havoc in people's lives. Thousands of New
Hampshire birthparents, around the country and world, would be unaware
that their privacy had been eliminated by this law, until being sent a
contact preference form on behalf of the adult adopted child.
Providing adult adopted persons identifying birthparent information
without birthparent approval would, obviously, increase the number of
unwanted, unilaterally imposed contacts.
Moreover, birthparents who do not wish to be in contact with the adult
adopted child, and who so indicate on the contact preference form,
will then live in fear that the person, now knowing their identity,
will disregard these wishes and attempt to make contact. Unwanted
reunions between adult adopted persons and birthparents are often
highly disruptive and unsatisfactory for everyone involved, despite
the rosy scenarios sometimes portrayed in the media. Even when adopted
persons and birthparents mutually consent to contact, their
satisfaction with reunions and ongoing relationships is quite
unpredictable.
• Third, SB335 would undermine the strength of the adoptive family, by
establishing as the legal norm and the cultural expectation that
adopted persons and their birthparents will, and should, "reunite"
when the child reaches the age of majority. A chief reason adoption
has been so successful is because society and law have respected the
adoptive family as the child's "forever" family. But SB335 would
promote the view of the adoptive family as essentially long-term
foster care, until the adopted child grows up and can be reunited with
her or his "real" family. Such a view is harmful to children and
families. Adoptive parenting has provided untold social and familial
blessings to children throughout the years. Law and society must
continue to respect the adoptive family's status as the adopted
person's true and permanent family, in order for those blessings to
continue.
• Fourth, SB335 would reduce the number of adoptions and increase the
number of abortions. Open-records advocates' argument that eliminating
the option of privacy in adoption would have no effect on the number
of abortions defies common sense. Obviously, some number of women with
unplanned pregnancies, who would otherwise choose adoption, would
choose abortion if they could not choose adoption with the assurance
of privacy. What that number would be is impossible to tell, but what
does it need to be? The loss of human potential from even one abortion
that would have been an adoption is unknowable. And the ratio of
adoptions to abortions in New Hampshire is already extremely low. In
1996, New Hampshire had only 43 domestic infant adoptions placements
for every 1,000 abortions.2
• Fifth, SB335 would reduce the number of adoptions and increase the
number of children in foster care. Eliminating privacy in adoption
would mean that women with unplanned, out-of-wedlock births, who would
only choose adoption if it was confidential, would have no choice but
to single-parent. Social science data clearly reveal that the more
single parents there are, the more children languish in foster care.
Additionally, fewer couples would be willing to adopt, because of the
promotion of the view of adoption as longterm foster care, and because
of heightened fear over birthparents' ability to disrupt the adoptive
family. With fewer families willing to adopt, more children would be
stuck in foster care for longer periods of time.
• Sixth, SB335 would perpetuate the myth that adopted persons face
debilitating identity problems that can only be resolved by open
records and reunions with birthparents. The erroneous assumption of
open-records advocates is the false and demeaning notion that in order
to be psychologically healthy, all adopted persons must fulfill a
deep-seated need to have identifying information about, and contact
with, their biological parents. The truth is, however, that the vast
majority of persons adopted at a young age accept their adoption
readily, and grow up to be successful, happy, stable adults at the
same rate as people raised in their biological families. While many
adopted persons indicate a curiosity about their biological parents,
very few profess anything approaching a need for identifying
information or contact, fewer still would favor having the right to
impose themselves on birthparents against their will, and only a small
percentage actually search.
• Seventh, SB335 would add nothing to the adopted person's ability to
obtain medical information. New Hampshire law already allows for
adopted persons to obtain birthparent health history. Agencies and
attorneys alike willingly facilitate this process confidentially.
But genetic testing available today already makes this issue moot. One
can obtain far more information about one's genetic predispositions
from such tests than from any medical history of biological parents.
A Fair and Effective Policy -- Mutual Consent
Birthparents and adult adopted persons who desire to exchange
identifying information and/or have contact with each other should be
allowed to do so. New Hampshire's existing Chapter 170-B:19 does just
that. By allowing birthparents to sign, at the time of relinquishment
or consent to adoption, a release authorizing the adult adopted child
to obtain birthparent identifying information, and also allowing the
birthparent the right to revoke or amend the permission at any time,
New Hampshire is facilitating mutually desired contact, all the while
allowing birthparents to safeguard their privacy, if they so choose.
Though one may sympathize with the adopted person who desires to know
his or her birthparents personally, mutual consent is the only fair
standard for the sharing of identifying information and for contacts
between adopted persons and their birthparents.
Opponents of the principle of mutual consent often justify their
opposition by stating that the low frequency of reunions is evidence
of the policy's ineffectiveness. The more likely explanation is that
those who do not consent to contact simply have chosen not to share
identifying information or have contact. People who so choose should
be allowed to keep their privacy. Existing law that allows
birthparents to authorize, as part of the adoption approval process,
release of their identifying information to the adult adopted child,
has the effect of making birthparents aware of the option to forego
privacy.
Conclusion
No other counseling relationship between client and professional
service provider is subject to State violation of client privacy. If
the State may remove a professionally guaranteed right to
confidentiality in adoption, what is to prevent the State from
attempting to remove that right in relationships with doctors,
lawyers, clergy, and others, as well? Eliminating privacy in adoption
resulted in the elimination of adoption as a social institution in
Great Britain.4 It would be tragic and devastating to the interests of
children to see that outcome in New Hampshire. But the same result
could well occur here if SB335 is enacted, to the detriment of
children, birthparents, and families.
In 1996, the State of New Hampshire had 121 domestic infant adoptions,
as compared with 3,400 non-marital live births and 2,771 abortions.5
If the Senate Public Institutions, Health and Human Services Committee
were to pass SB335, then it would be choosing to continue this trend.
If, on the other hand, the Committee defeats this harmful legislation,
it would be choosing to protect the loving option of adoption, with
all its proven benefits to children, families, and birthparents.
1 "Privacy and Adoption," by Jeremiah Gutman, Adoption Factbook III,
National Council For Adoption, 1999, page
197.
2 "National Adoption Data," Adoption Factbook III, page 40.
3 Growing Up Adopted: A Portrait of Adolescents and Their Families, by
Peter L. Benson, Ph.D., Anu R. Sharma,
Ph.D., L.P., and Eugene Roehlkepartain, Search Institute, Minneapolis,
MN, 1994.
4 "Removing Privacy and Its Impact on Adoption: An Analysis of Data
from England and Wales as Compared with
America," by William Pierce, Adoption Factbook III, 1999, pages
209-212.
5 "National Adoption Data," Adoption Factbook III, page 40.
Thomas C. Atwood is President and CEO of the National Council For
Adoption. The Alexandria, Virginia-based National Council For Adoption
is one of America's leading adoption and child welfare organizations.
Founded in 1980, the mission of the National Council For Adoption is
to promote the well-being of children, birthparents, and adoptive
families by advocating for the positive option of adoption.
of course.
http://www.regent.edu/acad/schgov/alumni/newsletter/alumninews.html
Consent versus Coercion:
How SB335 Harms Adoption
Thomas C. Atwood
President and CEO
National Council For Adoption
February 3, 2004
National Council For Adoption
225 N. Washington Street, Alexandria, VA 22314-2520
Telephone 703-299-6633, Fax 703-299-6004
www.adoptioncouncil.org
Consent versus Coercion:
How SB335 Harms Adoption
If enacted, SB335 would harm the institution of adoption in New
Hampshire and unjustly and unnecessarily disrupt and harm the lives of
many innocent people involved in adoption.
Adoption is a highly successful social institution that has
wonderfully served needy children and birthparents who are unable or
unready to parent. Yet without any findings to justify the change,
SB335 would radically depart from current practice, by eliminating
even the option of confidentiality in adoption in New Hampshire.
Unfortunately, the loudest voices the legislature and the general
public are likely to hear regarding SB335 are the vocal few who desire
to identify and contact their birthparents, with or without their
consent. This vocal few may feel that they have nothing to lose by
persevering in their advocacy year after year. But birthparents who
desire to maintain their privacy must either remain mute while their
rights are being taken away or lose their privacy in the very act of
defending it.
The National Council For Adoption (NCFA) speaks in their defense, and
in defense of the institution of adoption and of the children,
families, and birthparents it serves.
There are several ways that SB335's elimination of birthparents' right
to choose a private adoption would harm adoption, children, families,
and birthparents:
• First, SB335 would violate birthparents' basic human right to
privacy. SB335 would completely eliminate birthparents' right to
choose a confidential adoption, both retroactively and prospectively.
To open records retroactively without the approval of a birthmother
who was promised privacy is a particularly egregious violation of
trust and common decency.
For the typical birthmother, making an adoption plan for her child is
a supremely loving act, committed in the best interests of her child.
The State of New Hampshire should honor birthmothers for this act of
love, not punish them by stripping them of their basic human right to
privacy.
Under SB335, no future birthmother in New Hampshire would be allowed
to choose a private adoption, no matter what the circumstances of
pregnancy or birth. Without the right to choose a confidential
adoption, the birthmother who felt she must have privacy would have no
choice but abortion. As stated by Jeremiah Gutman, director of the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and former chair of the ACLU's
Privacy Committee, a woman facing an unplanned pregnancy could
maintain her privacy only if she had an abortion.1
Would the State of New Hampshire grant a woman with an unplanned
pregnancy a right to private abortion but not to private adoption?
We ask the Senate Public Institutions, Health and Human Services
Committee to recognize that there are any number of legitimate and
understandable reasons that birthparents may desire privacy – perhaps,
the birthmother does not want to relive the experience of rape or
incest that caused the pregnancy; perhaps the birthparent does not
want to upset his or her spouse, family, and friends with a never
shared revelation; perhaps the birthparent would be psychologically or
emotionally unable or unready to handle the stress of renewed contact;
or perhaps the birthparent simply believes that the healthiest
approach for all parties is not to have an ongoing relationship. Does
the State of New Hampshire truly believe that one-size fits-all,
mandatory open records is a superior policy to respecting
birthparents' loving discernment and their right to privacy?
• Second, SB335 would increase the number of unwanted, unilaterally
imposed contacts and wreak havoc in people's lives. Thousands of New
Hampshire birthparents, around the country and world, would be unaware
that their privacy had been eliminated by this law, until being sent a
contact preference form on behalf of the adult adopted child.
Providing adult adopted persons identifying birthparent information
without birthparent approval would, obviously, increase the number of
unwanted, unilaterally imposed contacts.
Moreover, birthparents who do not wish to be in contact with the adult
adopted child, and who so indicate on the contact preference form,
will then live in fear that the person, now knowing their identity,
will disregard these wishes and attempt to make contact. Unwanted
reunions between adult adopted persons and birthparents are often
highly disruptive and unsatisfactory for everyone involved, despite
the rosy scenarios sometimes portrayed in the media. Even when adopted
persons and birthparents mutually consent to contact, their
satisfaction with reunions and ongoing relationships is quite
unpredictable.
• Third, SB335 would undermine the strength of the adoptive family, by
establishing as the legal norm and the cultural expectation that
adopted persons and their birthparents will, and should, "reunite"
when the child reaches the age of majority. A chief reason adoption
has been so successful is because society and law have respected the
adoptive family as the child's "forever" family. But SB335 would
promote the view of the adoptive family as essentially long-term
foster care, until the adopted child grows up and can be reunited with
her or his "real" family. Such a view is harmful to children and
families. Adoptive parenting has provided untold social and familial
blessings to children throughout the years. Law and society must
continue to respect the adoptive family's status as the adopted
person's true and permanent family, in order for those blessings to
continue.
• Fourth, SB335 would reduce the number of adoptions and increase the
number of abortions. Open-records advocates' argument that eliminating
the option of privacy in adoption would have no effect on the number
of abortions defies common sense. Obviously, some number of women with
unplanned pregnancies, who would otherwise choose adoption, would
choose abortion if they could not choose adoption with the assurance
of privacy. What that number would be is impossible to tell, but what
does it need to be? The loss of human potential from even one abortion
that would have been an adoption is unknowable. And the ratio of
adoptions to abortions in New Hampshire is already extremely low. In
1996, New Hampshire had only 43 domestic infant adoptions placements
for every 1,000 abortions.2
• Fifth, SB335 would reduce the number of adoptions and increase the
number of children in foster care. Eliminating privacy in adoption
would mean that women with unplanned, out-of-wedlock births, who would
only choose adoption if it was confidential, would have no choice but
to single-parent. Social science data clearly reveal that the more
single parents there are, the more children languish in foster care.
Additionally, fewer couples would be willing to adopt, because of the
promotion of the view of adoption as longterm foster care, and because
of heightened fear over birthparents' ability to disrupt the adoptive
family. With fewer families willing to adopt, more children would be
stuck in foster care for longer periods of time.
• Sixth, SB335 would perpetuate the myth that adopted persons face
debilitating identity problems that can only be resolved by open
records and reunions with birthparents. The erroneous assumption of
open-records advocates is the false and demeaning notion that in order
to be psychologically healthy, all adopted persons must fulfill a
deep-seated need to have identifying information about, and contact
with, their biological parents. The truth is, however, that the vast
majority of persons adopted at a young age accept their adoption
readily, and grow up to be successful, happy, stable adults at the
same rate as people raised in their biological families. While many
adopted persons indicate a curiosity about their biological parents,
very few profess anything approaching a need for identifying
information or contact, fewer still would favor having the right to
impose themselves on birthparents against their will, and only a small
percentage actually search.
• Seventh, SB335 would add nothing to the adopted person's ability to
obtain medical information. New Hampshire law already allows for
adopted persons to obtain birthparent health history. Agencies and
attorneys alike willingly facilitate this process confidentially.
But genetic testing available today already makes this issue moot. One
can obtain far more information about one's genetic predispositions
from such tests than from any medical history of biological parents.
A Fair and Effective Policy -- Mutual Consent
Birthparents and adult adopted persons who desire to exchange
identifying information and/or have contact with each other should be
allowed to do so. New Hampshire's existing Chapter 170-B:19 does just
that. By allowing birthparents to sign, at the time of relinquishment
or consent to adoption, a release authorizing the adult adopted child
to obtain birthparent identifying information, and also allowing the
birthparent the right to revoke or amend the permission at any time,
New Hampshire is facilitating mutually desired contact, all the while
allowing birthparents to safeguard their privacy, if they so choose.
Though one may sympathize with the adopted person who desires to know
his or her birthparents personally, mutual consent is the only fair
standard for the sharing of identifying information and for contacts
between adopted persons and their birthparents.
Opponents of the principle of mutual consent often justify their
opposition by stating that the low frequency of reunions is evidence
of the policy's ineffectiveness. The more likely explanation is that
those who do not consent to contact simply have chosen not to share
identifying information or have contact. People who so choose should
be allowed to keep their privacy. Existing law that allows
birthparents to authorize, as part of the adoption approval process,
release of their identifying information to the adult adopted child,
has the effect of making birthparents aware of the option to forego
privacy.
Conclusion
No other counseling relationship between client and professional
service provider is subject to State violation of client privacy. If
the State may remove a professionally guaranteed right to
confidentiality in adoption, what is to prevent the State from
attempting to remove that right in relationships with doctors,
lawyers, clergy, and others, as well? Eliminating privacy in adoption
resulted in the elimination of adoption as a social institution in
Great Britain.4 It would be tragic and devastating to the interests of
children to see that outcome in New Hampshire. But the same result
could well occur here if SB335 is enacted, to the detriment of
children, birthparents, and families.
In 1996, the State of New Hampshire had 121 domestic infant adoptions,
as compared with 3,400 non-marital live births and 2,771 abortions.5
If the Senate Public Institutions, Health and Human Services Committee
were to pass SB335, then it would be choosing to continue this trend.
If, on the other hand, the Committee defeats this harmful legislation,
it would be choosing to protect the loving option of adoption, with
all its proven benefits to children, families, and birthparents.
1 "Privacy and Adoption," by Jeremiah Gutman, Adoption Factbook III,
National Council For Adoption, 1999, page
197.
2 "National Adoption Data," Adoption Factbook III, page 40.
3 Growing Up Adopted: A Portrait of Adolescents and Their Families, by
Peter L. Benson, Ph.D., Anu R. Sharma,
Ph.D., L.P., and Eugene Roehlkepartain, Search Institute, Minneapolis,
MN, 1994.
4 "Removing Privacy and Its Impact on Adoption: An Analysis of Data
from England and Wales as Compared with
America," by William Pierce, Adoption Factbook III, 1999, pages
209-212.
5 "National Adoption Data," Adoption Factbook III, page 40.
Thomas C. Atwood is President and CEO of the National Council For
Adoption. The Alexandria, Virginia-based National Council For Adoption
is one of America's leading adoption and child welfare organizations.
Founded in 1980, the mission of the National Council For Adoption is
to promote the well-being of children, birthparents, and adoptive
families by advocating for the positive option of adoption.
