History

• Only a handful of U.S. states allow adoptees access to their birth certificates and other information from their adoption and agency files. Most states permanently seal the original birth certificates and adoption records once the adoption is final. To obtain access, adoptees are required to have a court order. An amended birth certificate is issued with the adoptive parents' name listed as the parents.
  
  

Misconceptions

• Opponents of original birth certificate access argue that birth mothers have a right to privacy and, if records were left open, more people would forgo adoption in favor of abortion or other alternatives. However, the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute published a study that revealed that in states that do allow adoptees' access to their records there have been no negative consequences in the adoptees' or their birth parents' lives.
  
  

Considerations

• Advocates for adoptees' rights argue that denying access to their original birth certificates and records is a violation of a basic human and civil right. Adoptees are the only class of Americans prohibited from accessing their original birth certificates. In addition, adult adoptees could be severely and dangerously disadvantaged without their medical history.
  
  

Search for Birth Parents

• Adoptees' wish to have access to their birth records is more a fight for a constitutional right rather than a way to be privy to their birth parents' identity. Most adoptees who want to meet their birth parents conduct their own searches. However, research conducted by the Evan B. Donaldson Institute has shown that access to birth-record information can have positive consequences for those adoptees who do use it to seek out their birth parents. The Institute found that a birth mother's grief is greatly resolved by discovering what happened to her child.
  
  

Open Record Movement

• An abundance of organizations have grown out of the open record movement. The Adoptee Council for Adoption Reform Education, The Adoptee Rights' Demonstration, and the Green Ribbon Campaign for Open Records are but a few of the organizations that work to promote awareness and education, effect policy, and change legislation.