Bruce M. Rappaport, a trailblazer in the open-adoption movement who pushed for the right of birth and adoptive parents to choose and know each other decades before it became the norm, has died. He was 64.

Rappaport died Oct. 27 after a brief illness at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Walnut Creek, Calif., said Kathleen Silber, associate executive director of the Independent Adoption Center in Pleasant Hill, Calif., which Rappaport founded in 1982.

"He was very passionate about adoptions occurring with truth and not with secrecy,"... more

I saw an interesting article a few weeks back. Did you know that during the 19th century almost all adoptions were handled informally? The example used in the article was that if a woman was pregnant and wanted to place her child she did with whomever she wanted. Generally the child was placed with a family member or someone from her local town. There were no agencies, counselors, attorneys or facilitators. There were no legal papers, and the government was not involved.

It was late in the 19th century that closed adoption came about. Children... more