Editing Adoption (section)

==Official records==
Adoption practices have changed significantly over the course of the 20th century, with each new movement labeled, in some way, as reform.<ref>Adoption History Project (University of Oregon), "[http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~adoption/topics/adoptionhistbrief.htm Adoption History in Brief]".</ref> Beginning in the 1970s, efforts to improve adoption became associated with opening records and encouraging family preservation. These ideas arose from suggestions that the secrecy inherent in modern adoption may influence the process of forming an [[identity (social science)|identity]],<ref name="primal-page.com">{{Cite web |last=Speyrer |first=John A. |title=Book Review - The Primal Wound by Nancy N. Verrier |url=http://primal-page.com/verrier.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240303211811/http://primal-page.com/verrier.htm |archive-date=Mar 3, 2024 |website=The Primal Psychotherapy Page}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url-status=dead |last1=Miles |first1=Jadrian  |date=2003 |title=Does Adoption Affect the Adolescent Eriksonian Task of Identity Formation? |url= http://www.cs.brown.edu/~jadrian/docs/papers/old/20030212%20Miles%20-%20Adoptive%20Identity.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080216051039/http://www.cs.brown.edu/~jadrian/docs/papers/old/20030212%20Miles%20-%20Adoptive%20Identity.pdf |archive-date=16 February 2008 |access-date=30 January 2008}}</ref> create confusion regarding [[genealogy]],<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bastards.org/activism/support.htm |title=ADOPTING -Why adoptive parents support open records for adult adoptees |website=Bastard Nation |access-date=2006-03-12 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060219012941/http://www.bastards.org/activism/support.htm |archive-date=19 February 2006}}</ref> and provide little in the way of medical history.

'''Open records:''' After a legal adoption in the United States, an adopted person's original birth certificate is usually amended and replaced with a new post-adoption birth certificate. The names of any birth parents listed on the original birth certificate are replaced on an amended certificate with the names of the adoptive parents, making it appear that the child was born to the adoptive parents.<ref>{{Citation|title=Access to Adoption Records|pages=5|url=https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/systemwide/laws-policies/statutes/infoaccessap/|year=2020|publisher=Child Welfare Information Gateway, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Children's Bureau}}</ref> Beginning in the late 1930s and continuing through the 1970s, state laws allowed for the sealing of original birth certificates after an adoption and, except in Alaska and Kansas, made the original birth certificate unavailable to the adopted person even at the age of majority.<ref name=":2">{{Citation|title=The Strange History of Adult Adoptee Access to Original Birth Records|last=Samuels|first=Elizabeth|volume=5|pages=64–65|url=https://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1477&context=all_fac|year=2001|periodical=Adoption Quarterly}}</ref>

Adopted people have long sought to undo these laws so that they can obtain their own original birth certificates. Movements to unseal original birth certificates and other adoption records for adopted people proliferated in the 1970s along with increased acceptance of [[illegitimacy]]. In the United States, [[Jean M. Paton|Jean Paton]] founded Orphan Voyage in 1954, and [[Florence Anna Fisher|Florence Fisher]] founded the Adoptees' Liberty Movement Association (ALMA) in 1971, calling sealed records "an affront to human dignity".<ref>Adoption History Project [http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~adoption/topics/confidentiality.htm Topic Confidentiality]</ref> While in 1975, Emma May Vilardi created the first mutual-consent registry, the [[International Soundex Reunion Registry]] (ISRR), allowing those separated by adoption to locate one another.<ref>ISRR&nbsp;– International Soundex Reunion Registry [http://www.isrr.net/history.html Reunion Registry]{{dead link|date=December 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> and Lee Campbell and other birthmothers established CUB ([[Concerned United Birthparents]]). Similar ideas were taking hold globally with grass-roots organizations like Parent Finders in Canada and Jigsaw in Australia. In 1975, England and Wales opened records on moral grounds.<ref>R. Rushbrooke, The proportion of adoptees who have received their birth records in England and Wales, Population Trends (104), Summer 2001, pp 26–34."</ref>

By 1979, representatives of 32 organizations from 33 states, Canada and Mexico gathered in Washington, DC, to establish the [[American Adoption Congress]] (AAC) passing a unanimous resolution: "Open Records complete with all identifying information for all members of the adoption triad, birthparents, adoptive parents and adoptee at the adoptee's [[age of majority]] (18 or 19, depending on state) or earlier if all members of the triad agree."<ref>TRIADOPTION Archives [http://www.triadoption.com/Misc/AAC%201979%20Resolution.pdf TRIADOPTION Archives] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110430001657/http://www.triadoption.com/Misc/AAC%201979%20Resolution.pdf |date=30 April 2011 }}</ref> Later years saw the evolution of more militant organizations such as [[Bastard Nation]] (founded in 1996), groups that helped overturn sealed records in Alabama, Delaware, New Hampshire, Oregon, Tennessee, Maine, and Vermont.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gass-Poore |first=Jordan |title=Most American adoptees can't access their birth certificates. That could soon change. |url=https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/03/most-american-adoptees-cant-access-their-birth-certificates-that-could-be-about-to-change/ |access-date=2022-04-29 |website=Mother Jones |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>USA Today, [https://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20080213/1a_adoptionxx.art.htm As adoptees seek roots, states unsealing records], 13 February 2008."</ref> A coalition of New York and national adoptee rights activists successfully worked to overturn a restrictive 83-year-old law in 2019, and adult adopted people born in New York, as well as their descendants, today have the right to request and obtain their own original birth certificates.<ref>{{Citation|title=Today is Truly Historic|date=15 January 2020|url=https://nyadopteerights.org/today-is-truly-historic/|access-date=2020-09-25}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|title=Governor Cuomo Announces New Law Allowing Adoptees to Obtain a Certified Birth Certificate at Age 18 Goes into Effect January 15|date=January 13, 2020|url=https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-announces-new-law-allowing-adoptees-obtain-certified-birth-certificate-age-18|access-date=25 September 2020|archive-date=17 October 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201017192035/https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-announces-new-law-allowing-adoptees-obtain-certified-birth-certificate-age-18|url-status=dead}}</ref> As of 2024, fifteen states in the United States recognize the right of adult adopted people to obtain their own original birth certificates, including Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and Vermont.<ref>{{Citation|title=Signed and Unsealed, New York Delivers on Its Promise for Open Birth Records|url=http://nycitylens.com/blog/2020/03/04/adoption-law-history/|date=March 4, 2020|access-date=25 September 2020|archive-date=12 September 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200912030042/https://nycitylens.com/blog/2020/03/04/adoption-law-history/|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date= |title=Interactive Maps: The Right to Obtain Your Own Original Birth Certificate |url=https://adopteerightslaw.com/maps/ |access-date=October 26, 2024 |website=Adoptee Rights Law}}</ref> In July, 2024, Minnesota became the 13th state to restore an adopted person's right to obtain their original birth certificates, and the 15th state to ensure adopted people have the legal right to obtain their original birth certificate.<ref>{{Cite news |last1=Murphy |first1=Esme |last2=Christy |first2=Liz |date=June 19, 2024 |title=Adoptees share what life-changing Minnesota bill unsealing birth records means to them |url=https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/lifechanging-bill-for-adoptees-takes-effect-july-1-2024/ |access-date=October 26, 2024 |work=CBS News}}</ref><ref name=":2" />