FAQ's - (this page is under construction)
1. How many adoptions in Ky between 1987-2001?
- According to the Child Welfare League for Kentucky:
1987 - 1473, 1989 - 1582, 1990 - 1585, 1991 - 1925, 1992 - 1874, 2000 - 2265, 2201- 2086
2. Why do adoptees need information about their origins?
- Ever since Alex Haley wrote Roots, genealogy has captured the fancy of the American culture. The desire to know the facts of one’s history is an attempt to understand the age-old questions: Who am I? Why am I?
- In 2004, the U.S. Surgeon General launched a Family History Initiative and declared Thanksgiving Day to be annual National Family History Day. He encouraged Americans to use their family gatherings as a time to collect important family health-history information that can benefit all family members.
- Current medical information, often missing in adoption, can be a life-threatening omission. Older adoptees are particularly vulnerable since over 3,000 known genetically inherited diseases exist, many of which emerge with age.
- Renown adoption researcher and author, David Brodzinsky, PhD, characterizes the interest in one’s origins as “…a health extension of the universal search for self that we all engage in… adoptees and non-adoptees alike...The need to know about these individuals, and perhaps meet them, is not only normal, but for many adoptees essential for their emotional well-being.”
- Mental health providers confirm the importance of accurate and truthful biological/genetic information for adopted persons to form healthy attachments and a strong sense of self, which is key to emotional maturity.
3. Does access to information discourage people from adopting?
- No. Since 1987, the number of adoptions annually has remained relatively constant, ranging from 118,000 to 127,000. (Source: Child Welfare Information Gateway)
- Alaska, a state with full access, has the highest adoption rate per capita of children under 18 (3.9%) compared with the national average of 2.5%. In Kansas, also a state with full access, the adoption rate is 3.0%. New Jersey is 2.3%. (Source: 2000 Census)
- Today, access to information - rather than secrecy - influences birth parents to choose adoption. Adoptions that permit information sharing have risen from 36% in 1987 to 80% today. (Source: Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute)
- Research conducted by Henney McRoy, Ayers-Lopez and Grotevant in a longitudinal study by the Universities of Minnesota and Texas could find no adoption agencies doing confidential adoptions among the agencies they researched. This shift in practice has occurred primarily because of birth parent demand for some degree of openness that ranges from mediated open to fully disclosed. The two Minnesota agencies that lead the state in the number of infant adoption placements do only “fully disclosed” adoptions in their infant programs while other Minnesota agencies are moving toward more disclosure.
In Great Britain and New Zealand, more adoptions took place after records were opened than before. Studies indicate that the rate of adoption is not adversely affected when original birth records are available to adults.
4. Will access to original birth certificates increase abortions by women who have unplanned pregnancies?
- No. Kansas, which always allowed access to adult adoptees, consistently has far lower abortion rates than the nation as a whole. From 2000–2005, the U.S. abortion rate declined 9%. Access legislation went into effect in Alabama and Oregon in 2000. Since that time their abortion rates declined 16% and 25%, respectively. (Source: Guttmacher Institute)
- Furthermore, Oregon Right to Life chose not to oppose adoption reform because they were satisfied that the abortion rate would not rise with the passage of the measure. This has proven to be true.
- If Alabama and Oregon’s trends following access legislation correlate with Kentucky, abortions will decrease following passage of such legislation.
Abortion is a decision not to be pregnant, while placing a child for adoption is a decision not to parent. When a woman is considering an abortion, accessible adoption records are the last thing on her mind.
5. What about Birth Parent Privacy?
- Birth parents who surrendered children for adoption were never legally guaranteed privacy or anonymity.
- Original birth certificates are and were sealed upon adoption - not relinquishment. For example, if a child was relinquished into foster care, but never adopted, their records would never be sealed.
- No parent could sign a document that would affect the human rights of their child into adulthood.
- Privacy does not equal secrecy. Privacy is about healthy boundaries; secrecy prevents another person from having information about their own identity.
- In the states where access has been granted, a very small percent of birth mothers have requested not to be contacted (less than .01% within a year of legislation passing). See Statistics.
