Openness Is The Norm In Adoption Today
- “Closed” infant adoptions have shrunk to a tiny minority (about 5 percent), with 40 percent “mediated” and 55 percent “open.” In addition, 95 percent of agencies now offer open adoptions.
- In the overwhelming majority of infant adoptions, adoptive parents and expectant parents considering adoption meet, and the expectant parents pick the new family for their baby.
- Adoptive parents, like most participants in open adoptions, report positive experiences; more openness is also associated with greater satisfaction with the adoption process.
- Women who have placed their infants for adoption – and then have ongoing contact with their children – report less grief, regret and worry, as well as more peace of mind.
- The primary beneficiaries of openness are the adopted persons – as children and later in life – because of access to birth relatives, as well as to their own family and medical histories
Openness In Adoption: From Secrecy and Stigma To Knowledge and Connections, Practice Perspective, March 2012, Deborah H. Siegel, Ph.D., & Susan Livingston Smith, LCSW
“In summary, the majority of adoptive parents thought that New York State law should allow an adult adopdtee to obtain a copy of their original birth certificate, and that this access should be retroactive (access should be given regardless of when the child was adopted).”
“It’s Time To Speak For Ourselves” Adoptive Parents Attitudes Towards Openness in Adoption Records: Summary of A Study of NYS Adoptive Parents Conducted in 1994-1995
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