The Case for Open Adoption Records
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I have always felt that in moist cases, open adoption records are a good idea. My opinion is mostly based on the need to have access to medial information. I have a very good friend who was adopted and she is now a mother. Although she never felt the need to know who her birth parents are, she would love to have more medical background information to pass along to her daughter.
She is going through IVF right now and I asked her if she and her husband would place left over embryos up for legal adoption. She is all for it, but her husband says he does not like the idea that he might have biological children running around he does not know about. He also joked that it would be awkward if his daughter were to one day meet and fall in love with her own brother.
We had a good laugh about that one.
Well, just now I read an article about two biological twins in England who were adopted out to different families. They only learned they were related after they had fallen in love and gotten married. So, here they are husband and wife and they have had to endure one of the most disturbing shocks anyone could ever face.
The marriage has been annulled.
Adoption groups say this proves that during the adoption process, there needs to be full transparency. Most people would agree, but what about fertility treatment? England is dealing with some laws surrounding multiple issues involving donor issues. I think that here in the United States, with more and more cou0les seeking fertility treatment that this is an issue that absolutely needs to be legislated. Nobody involved is going to want to come out from behind a clock on anonymity unless there are firm protections in place. Parents will not want a donor coming along and staking claims on their baby. Donors will not want to be asked to contribute to the financial support of a child they never knew.
We need to protect against the above mentioned situations and still leave room for enough transparency to avoid things like what happened in England with the twins from occurring. Nobody should ever have to be at risk for unwittingly falling into incest. By no fault of their own, these siblings are probably now dealing with shame and confusion.
NOTE: The names of the sibling has not been released. In fact, there are no details available about when they married, how long they were married, or when the marriage was annulled. There is nothing at all to accurately source this story, but it is compelling food for thought nonetheless.
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