OPEN VS. CLOSED ADOPTION Social Work and Jewish Law Perspectives
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OPEN VS. CLOSED ADOPTION Social Work and Jewish Law Perspectives MOSHE A. BLEICH, MSW, CSW Social Worker, Madeleine Borg Community Services, Jewish Board of Family and Childrens Services, New York Adoption involves a process of severing ties with a biological family and creating new ones with an adopting family. Closed adoption is designed to eradicate those ties completely and to allow a child to live as if he or she were the natural child of the adoptive parent Open adoption prevents that suppression of the original ties. Adopted children are increasingly seeking access to their genealogical history. Jewish tradition does not sanction the suppression of parental identity. The result is a strong bias in favor of open adoption. Religious teaching governing conduct between men and women underscores the distinction between natural and adoptive families. For purposes of effective therapy, those cultural factors must be recognized in assessing problems and may also be harnessed in effecting a positive therapeutic outcome. OPEN VERSUS CLOSED ADOPTION legal rights equal to those of natural children. As a corollary, adoptive parents felt that they T^he institution of adoption, of voluntarily should exercise total control over the welfare A raising a child of other parents as one's of the adopted child and that the child's ties own, has existed since antiquity. In relatively to his biological parents should be severed. modern times, in the late nineteenth and early This line of argument complements Ryburn's twentieth centuries as adoption procedures analysis (1990, p. 21) that adoption legisla were developed in the United States, it be tion was designed to achieve a legal fiction, came common practice to seal adoption an attempt to extinguish all ties to birth records. It is difBcult to determine with families in order to create an illusion that the exactitude how and why a policy of closed child adoption was universally accepted. Rybum (1990) has pointed out that all theories re was a child of its adoptive family as if by birth. garding this development "can at best be The development ofthe whole process, wliich speculative" (p. 21). Yet, as the adoption was called "matching," where every effort process became a matter that was increas was made to eliminate the differences of he ingly enshrined in secrecy, it was widely redity, is probably also witness to a desire believed that secrecy helped secure the per to treat adoptive kinship as if it were birth manency of the adoption relationship kinship instead. (Dukette, 1975). Several other factors that influenced this The illusion that an adoptive child was to be development have been discussed in the lit considered as birth kin allowed the parent to erature. Some writers have argued that legal insist that legal rights be vested in the adopted considerations surrounding inheritance law child as if the child were a blood relative. influenced the trend toward closed adoption. Other writers have noted that the move Baran and colleagues (1974) note that in ment toward closed adoption was at times most traditional societies adopted children do prompted by a genuine concern for the social not have rights equivalent to those of natural and psychological welfare of the adopted children and that irtiieritance is reserved for child. Gonyo and Watson (1988) observe that blood relatives alone. In contrast, in Ameri a 1917 Miimesota law required sealing of can society, adopted chtidren usually attained 308 Open versus Closed Adoption I 309 adoption records "to protect adopted ciiildren tion was seen as an opportunity to fulfill a from tlie stigma of illegitimacy or 'bad blood' childless couple's lives and to conceal their by removing such information from open infertility; accordingly, it was deemed neces court records" (p. 14). Although other states sary to deny the existence of another set of did not hasten to followthe Minnesota model, parents. As Baran and co-workers fiirther many social workers supported the policy of emphasize, "What was originally seen as a sealing adoption records, contending that it great need for the child is now viewed, per was beneficial for the child to be distanced haps, as a greater need for the parents" (p. 97). from a negative background. During that era As competition for perfect babies grew practitioners reasoned that adoptees would among childless couples, the rewards for bond more effectively with adoptive parents if being perfect adoptive parents increased. they would cease to have contact with their Among these rewards were increased guar biological family. It was presumed that if antees of anonymity and confidentiality. 'The adopted children would make a clean break shift toward closed adoption," write Baran from their biological family, both legally and and colleagues "occurred in a gradual, con emodonally, adopting parents would more tinuing pattern without critical evaluation of readily accept the children as their own. the changes" (1976, p. 97). Thus, although Adoption agencies promoted confidenti for a variety of reasons a policy of closed ality for practical considerations as well. adoption evolved in America, the validity of Historically, until the 1930s and 1940s adop that policy was seldom subjected to cmcial tion was facilitated by physicians, lawyers, scrutiny. and clergy. With the advent of independent In the latter part of the twentieth century adoption agencies, the agencies sought to an about-face has occurred, and a new trend obtain clients by claiming that they were has developed mihtating against sealing adop offering a unique service by providing total tion records. The movement to open adoption confidentiality. Thus, these agencies pro records was pioneered by two adoptees, Jean moted the virtue of confidentiality for self- M. Paton and Florence Ladden Fisher, who serving reasons. That confidentiality was were both convinced that adoptees feel a great indeed a value was—at the time—the "politi need to discover the truth about their biologi cally correct" form of thinking about adop cal parents. Paton believes that members of tion and became an almost sacrosanct prin the adoptive population have the right to ciple. As Fratter (1989) writes, 'The belief benefit from reunion and reconciliation with that the welfare of a deprived child was best their biological parents With much pathos, served by his being prevented from having Paton states, "In the soul of every orphan is an contact with his fantily—that their interests eternal flame of hope for reunion and recon were in conflict—remained largely unchal ciliation with those he has lost through pri lenged" (p. 4). vate or public disaster" (cited by Baran et al., Finally, some scholars have pointed out 1974, p. 531). that the closing of adoption records may also In 1953 Paton established an organization have been prompted more by a desire to meet known as Orphan Voyage designed to help the needs of the adopting parents than those adult adoptees secure information about their of the adopted children. As Baran and col birth family and to assist them in locating leagues (1976) have written, adoption serves their biological parents. A more activist a great variety of needs. Traditionally, adop adoptee organization called Adoptees Liberty tion was a process advocated in order to Movement Association established by Fisher enable orphaned or unwanted children to be is dedicated to changing current laws about nurtured in a caring environment. However, adoption. The latter organization also assists at a later time, adoption came to be promoted adoptees in searching for their natural par for the benefit of the adopting parents. Adop ents and seeks to give parents information SUMMER 1997 Journal of Jewish Communal Service / 310 about offspring whom they have relinquished take them away...such rights are inalien for adoption. Based on personal experience. able" (p. 38). Fisher feels that, without knowledge of their In recent years a wide array of choices and roots, adoptees feel as if they are "anonymous levels of open adoption have been negotiated. persons" and can never attain a comfortable In the opinion of O'NeiU (1993) the ideal feeling of identity. Gonyo and Watson (1988) situation is one in which the biological and note that both Paton's andFisher's organiza adoptive families, with the assistance of the tions were established essentially for the ben social worker, eventually learn to negotiate efit of adoptees; subsequently in 1974, adop for themselves the degree of sharing they tive parents who wished to effect changes in wish to establish. She compares the situation adoption laws united to form the North Ameri to that of a child of divorced parents in which can Council on Adoptable Children. Finally, the father and mother negotiate custody ar in 1976, birth parents who sought to lobby for rangements. a change in adoption laws established an In 1987 Chapman and coUeagues, in the organization called Concerned United concluding statement of a three-part article Birthparents, the first group to gain national on this topic, wrote that "open adoption is no recognition. longer a trend, but a reality with benefits for In 1979 the three constituent groups ofthe all members ofthe adoption triangle" (p. 90). triangle (adoptees, adoptive parents, and bio As further noted by Liptak (1993), 'Today the logical parents) united to form the American trend is toward telling children about their Adoptive Congress with the goal of acting in adoption; the question is not if they will be a concerted manner and creating a common told, but when and how to do so" (p. 110), forum. Gonyo and Watson chronicle the way Rompf (1993), in a cross-sectional sample of in which various registries were assembled adults, found that society at large seems to during the 1970s to facilitate contact among approve of open adoption. Eighty-six percent different members of the adoption triangle.