New Jersey Right to Life

Smart compromise on adoption

Published: Monday, June 27, 2011, 5:59 AM

Robert Sciarrino/The Star-LedgerMorris Plains resident Bill Trignano, second from the right, talks about growing up as an adopted child while he passes around photos of his biological mother with the brothers he did not grow up with. He was meeting with an adoption support group made up of birth mothers, parents who have adopted and people who were adopted.

Unless she's assured of confidentiality, a woman may be afraid to put her child up for adoption. So we must guard that privacy.

At the same time, adoptees want access to their birth certificates. They say they have the right to know their family medical histories, and the truth.

It's a tough call, but Gov. Chris Christie has struck the right balance on this one. His recent conditional veto of a flawed but well-intentioned adoption bill will allow birth records to be released, while still insisting on preserving the anonymity of a woman who surrendered her child to adoption.

Currently, birth records, which include the names of biological parents, are sealed and can only be released by court order. But now there will be broader options for adopted adults researching their births. They'll be allowed to seek a confidential intermediary from an adoption agency to search for their natural parents. If a diligent, year-long search fails to locate the parents, then the original birth certificate would be released.

If the biological parents are found and want no contact with a child they surrendered long ago, they would be asked - but not mandated - to provide a complete medical history to share with the adopted person.

That's fair. All adoptions in New Jersey since 1979 require parents to provide medical histories, which can be vital to an adopted person's own health care. Adults adopted before that year will now still have ways of seeking their medical information, without violating their biological parents' legal right to privacy.

If a parent is found but that person refuses to give up medical information, the adoptee could still show cause for a court order, or get DNA testing.

Without Christie's necessary changes, this bill would not have respected the wishes of a birth mother who wanted to remain anonymous. It would have turned over her identity without her knowledge, which could be traumatic for a mother who was the victim of rape or incest, or whose family has no idea she has another child.

Birth parents should be the ones to decide whether to have contact with a child placed for adoption. Otherwise, we put our adoption system in peril.

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- Gov. Chris Christie sent an adoption records bill back to the Legislature Thursday, creating a new hurdle in a 30-year push by advocates to give adoptees access to their birth parents' identities.

Christie's conditional veto stakes out his position against the most contentious aspect of the bill, which would allow adoptees to find out the identities of their birth parents against the wishes of those parents. The veto came 45 days after the Legislature passed the bill - the deadline or Christie to take action.

"The decision of any biological parent to seek adoptive parents for a child is an enormously complicated choice, and the protections of anonymity can be a significant consideration when choosing adoption," Christie said in a statement.

As passed by the Legislature, the bill would have given future adoptees access to their original birth certificate - with the names of their birth parents - once they turn 18. Although birth parents could list their preference not to be contacted by the child they surrendered, adoptees wouldn't have been required to respect the preference.

Parents who gave children up for adoption prior to passage of the bill would have had one year to opt out and have their names redacted from the certificate.

"I am disappointed, because I think the changes he wants treat adult children like they were little kids," Sen. Joseph Vitale, one of the bill's sponsors, told The Associated Press. "The conditional veto places roadblocks to the identification that shouldn't be in their way."

Christie's changes are twofold:

- People put up for adoption years ago would be able to use agency-provided intermediaries to search for parents and request their consent to share their information with the adoptees. If the intermediaries can't locate the birth parents in one year, adoptees would be given access to their original birth certificates, with the names of their parents included.

But if parents are located and say no, adoptees would be denied access. In that situation, parents would still be required to provide family medical histories, which health advocates say are important for screening for genetic illnesses.

- For future adoptions, parents would be required to state their contact preferences at the time of adoption, and adoptees would be required to respect them.

The adoption records bill, which meandered back and forth between the state Senate and General Assembly in various forms for more than 30 years, finally passed on May 9. It had been fought by an unlikely alliance between legal groups who say it violates privacy concerns and anti-abortion advocates who fear it will encourage women facing unplanned pregnancies to choose abortion instead of adoption.

"This appears to be a win-win compromise that takes into account the rights and desires of all parties in adoptions," said Marie Tasy, executive director of New Jersey Right to Life.

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Reach Josh Lederman at http://www.twitter.com/joshledermanAP .