Should birth records of adopted children be unsealed?

Answer 1

There is a great deal of debate on this issue, and whether I answer yes or no, there will be people who don't agree. On the one hand, a mother who gives up a baby for adoption deserves to have her privacy protected. She has chosen not to take on the role of motherhood and should not have it forced upon her against her will. Let us remember, she might have had an abortion instead, so she has already been generous toward the child that she did not wish to raise. On the other hand, children should be able to know who their parents are, and in some cases they need to know for medical reasons, since the medical history of a parent is often relevant to diagnosis of a person's medical state. It is also good to have some idea of what your family background is. People feel very rootless without such knowledge. Furthermore, even if a woman didn't want to raise her own child, that doesn't mean that it would a burden to meet that child years later, when he or she has grown up and become an adult. The whole task of feeding, clothing, and generally caring for the child has already been done. Now you can just have him or her over for tea. But then, it is still embarrassing. It is a kind of failure to be unable or unwilling to raise your own children, and the children in question may resent having been given up for adoption, so some social awkwardness can result. So what is the answer? In this case, there is no definitive answer.