McManus' column misleading about adoption

EDITOR: I would like to respond to a column by Mike McManus. ("Adoption growing option, thanks to Bill Pierce," April 21, Religion & Ethics)

Mr. McManus has made some rather confusing statements regarding open adoption and open records that need to be set straight.

In open adoption, the birth parent and adoptive parents know and keep in touch with each other as the adopted child grows up. Open records allow adopted adults to have access to their own government-held documents including their original birth certificates, upon reaching legal age. His statement, "...adoptive parents would not want a child they are rearing to meet its 'real mother' which can only be confusing," is very misleading because in open records, only adult adoptees can access their birth records.

McManus states that birth mothers were promised anonymity, when truthfully, this may not happen. If their children are not adopted, they stay within the state system, i.e. foster care, and records are not sealed. Even if their children are adopted, a judge, upon being shown good cause, can open the records at any time. There has never been a law that guaranteed birth mothers perpetual anonymity from their offspring, a fact that the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in 1997, upheld in a ruling in Tennessee: Doe v. Sundquist.

McManus has included in his article statistics that he says show how open records will increase abortion and decrease adoption. If he will look to Alaska and Kansas - both open records states - it can be shown that, statistically, these two states show a lower rate of abortions than the United States as a whole, (Alan Guttmacher Institute) and higher adoption rates than their surrounding states. (National Center for Court Statistics, "How Many Children Were Adopted in 1992")

Great Britain's decline in adoptions was not related to allowing adopted adults access to their original birth documents in 1975 as McManus indicated. In fact, the opposite is true.

The rate of decline in adoption was much more severe until the opening of records, which slowed the decline of adoption in Great Britain significantly. (United Kingdom Registrar General and the United Kingdom Office of Populations Censuses and Surveys). If open records had any effect on Great Britain, it was to increase the incidence of adoptions.

Bill Pierce and the National Council For Adoption (NCFA) have spread their fear of open records far and wide. Why is the NCFA (a well-funded political lobby) "really" afraid?

The only effect open records will have on adoption is to bring transparency and accountability to a heretofore unregulated multibillion dollar industry.

It will also give adopted adult citizens the same rights as all other citizens of this country, the right to access their original birth certificate. It's about time.

- PATRICIA MARLER
Oklahoma State Director, Bastard Nation