Facts Regarding Open Record Adoption Laws

The Following is True for Any Open Records Law Allowing Access to Original Birth Certificates

**	Adult adopted persons should have the same birth right as every other US citizen - namely, the right to access his/her original birth certificate. The Open Records Movement would give adoptees at age 18 or 21 (depending on state majority statutes) access to their original birth certificates only, not access to adoption agency records. The aim is to allow access without any caveats, provisions or obstacles. The right of U.S. citizens to obtain copies of vital statistics, birth certificates and court files about themselves is already set in precedent.
**	Since the Emancipation Proclamation it has been unconstitutional to have contractual agreements concerning the ownership of human beings. We can not make contracts which limit or deny individual rights without the consent of all parties to the contract. Yet, in adoption, an adoptee is expected to adhere for a lifetime to a verbal or implied adoption contract to which he/she was not a participant.
**	It is estimated that a minimum 3% of the general population are adopted persons. Thus, over half a million Texans will have their rights restored by this law.
**	In any given year, about 2% of all adopted adults search for biological family or information. If 2% of 552,000 different adoptees in Texas were to search each year for 20 years, the number would total 220,800. Given a life expectancy of 76 years, it's quite likely that any given adoptee will want to access his/her birth records at some point.
**	An Open Record law would not decrease the overall rate of adoptions. Both Alaska and Kansas give adult adoptees their original birth certificates. During the 1990s, Alaska has had over twice the per capita rate of adoptions as Texas, and the Kansas' per capita adoption rate has been over 55% higher than Texas'.
**	This law would not increase abortions. One study showed the longer a country has allowed adoptees access to their birth certificates, the lower a country's abortion rate. In the U.S., there are about 335 abortions per 1,000 live births. Kansas, which gives adoptees at age 18 their birth certificates, had a reported abortion ratio of 164.5 abortions per 1,000 live births in 1992. The Texas abortion ratio was 284 abortions per 1,000 live births in 1992.
**	This law will not violate the privacy of relinquishing mothers. In February, 1997, the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the plaintiff's claim that Tennessee's new law violates privacy against disclosure of confidential information. The court said: "...birth is both an intimate occasion and a public event, and the long history of government-kept records of babies' birth further 'the interest of children in knowing the circumstances of their birth."
**	Adoption relinquishment documents provided by birthmothers show that no lifetime "confidentiality" was ever offered to relinquishing mothers. When a relinquishing mother chose (and sometimes were coerced to choose) adoption for her infant, privacy was not an option. A relinquishing mother, by signing away her parental rights, had to accept a non-negotiable condition of confidentiality because it was assumed that confidentiality was needed.

The following quote from Alex Haley sums up the need for open adoption records:

"In all of us there is a hunger, marrow deep, to know our heritage, to know who we are, and where we have come from. Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning; no matter what our attainments in life, there is the most disquieting loneliness."

Note: This information was compiled from various sources by the Texas Coalition for Adoption Reform & Education (TxCARE). For further information, contact:

Alicia Lanier, State Coordinator
TxCARE
P.O. Box 832161
Richardson, Tx 75083