Ever wonder how difficult it is for adoptees in the rest of the world to access their adoption records or original birth certificates? In most countries, it is much easier than in the United States. If you live in another country, do you know the laws in your country on adoption access?

This link discusses access to adoption records in some other countries. Even many countries less developed than the United States have open records laws for adoptees in place.

Records have been opened to both parties in Australia, the U.K., and two other provinces in Canada. In France, Finland, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Norway, and Israel, adoption records have never been closed.

Natural mother, Bryony Lake's article about open records discusses the open records' issue including the quote above.

Many people assume that confidential records were nearly always the case in the U.S. However, this article addresses the issues of when records first began to become confidential.

The United States is so progressive, and recognized as a whole leader in so many respects. Although, some of the events of the last few years has tinged our reputation considerably. All in all though, the United States is still way ahead of the rest of the world in many ways. As far as open adoption records, however, our country is still in the dark ages in most states. Records were closed during the prudish times when the child of an unmarried woman might be ridiculed and called a derogatory name that begins with a "b." Women who gave birth "out of wedlock" were branded as loose and immoral bad seeds.

Elaborate measures were taken to hide pregnancies, the babies resulting from said pregnancies and all records that involved said pregnancy and/or child. To "spare" the child, covering all evidence of the child's dubious past was thought necessary. It was thought to be necessary to restore the wayward mother's reputation by covering up all the details of the birth and adoption. Then her reputation would be saved and she might have a chance to get put it all in the past and pretend that it never happened.

Records were also secreted away to prevent the deviant mother from ever discovering where her baby had gone. After all, she might decide to reclaim her child - someday. Even today, some adoptive parents fear those unstable birth parents might pop back up some day and wanting their child back.

There were a multitude of reasons that records were originally sealed and secreted away. Now, with our understanding of the affects of trying to just "cover it all up" and pretend, there are a plethora of reasons why adoption records should not be sealed.