AdoptionCouncil.org
(703) 299-6633
National Council For Adoption
225 North Washington Street
Alexandria, Virginia 22314
NOVEMBER 2021
•
ISSUE NO. 161
Adoption Advocate
Adult Adoptee Access to Adoption and Birth
Records: History, Controversy, Legislation,
and Societal Change
BY ABIGAIL LINDNER
National Council For Adoption | Adoption Advocate No. 161 2
T
he issue of adult adoptee access
to adoption and birth records
in the United States has a long
history of controversy and
associated legislation. One reason for this is
that diering perspectives on the topic have
continued to emerge over the years. At the
heart of the controversy is the convergence
of ethics, privacy, condentiality, and an
adopted individual’s rights. In considering
this as a policy issue, it is important to take
into account prior case law, the privacy
rights aorded to birth parents, and our
current understanding of the importance of
these records to many adopted individuals
across the lifespan.
Adoption Records Terminology
Adoption records contain a mix of non-
identifying and identifying information.
Disclosure of non-identifying information
would not positively reveal the identities of
the birth family while disclosure of identifying
information might positively reveal the
identities of the birth family. For instance,
non-identifying information may include
1
Access to adoption records: state statutes current through December 2019. (2019). Child Welfare Information Gateway, https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubPDFs/
infoaccessap.pdf.
2
Hughes, S. (2007). The only Americans legally prohibited from knowing who their birth parents are: rejection of privacy rights as bar to adult adoptees' access to
original birth and adoption records. Cleveland State Law Review, 55(3), 429-462, https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.
google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1189&context=clevstlrev.
3
Samuels, E. (2001). The strange history of adult adoptee access to original birth records. Adoption Quarterly 5(2), 63-74, https://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/cgi/
viewcontent.cgi?article=1477&context=all_fac.
the adoptee’s place and date of birth, the ages
and general descriptions of the birth parents,
the education levels and occupations of the
birth parents, the reason for the adoptee’s
placement, or the existence of half-siblings.
Identifying information may include
current or past names of the birth parents,
employment records, or addresses.
1
When
discussing birth records, the focus is often
on original birth certicates (OBC), which fall
into the category of identifying information.
In the United States, the practice of sealing
adoption records upon the completion of a
child’s adoption dates back to 1917, when
Minnesota passed the first statute in the
country to protect the records from public
inspection. The statute did not, however,
restrict members of the three adoption
parties—often called the adoption triad or
triangle and consisting of the birth parents,
the adoptive parents, and the adopted
individual—from accessing the documents.
From the 1930s to the 1980s, other states
passed more restrictive statutory prohibitions
on access to court and birth records for birth
and adoptive parents and minor adoptees,
2
and eventually adult adoptees.
3
NOVEMBER 2021
•
ADOPTION ADVOCATE ISSUE NO. 161
Adult Adoptee Access to Adoption and Birth
Records: History, Controversy, Legislation,
and Societal Change
BY ABIGAIL LINDNER
Adoption Advocate No. 161 | National Council For Adoption 3
“Age of majority” is the legal age at
which a person is considered an adult.
States designate the age of majority.
4
In the past three or four decades, a movement
within the adoption community has pushed
for the liberalization of access to adoption and
birth records for adult adoptees. In almost all
states and territories, an adopted individual,
once they reach the age of majority, may
access the non-identifying information
in adoption records.
5
Access to identifying
information, and birth records specically,
is more complicated. The American Adoption
Congress maintains an online resource of state
and D.C. legislation on OBC access for adult
adoptees, ranging from “Unrestricted Access”
to “Sealed.” As of this writing, 10 states grant
unrestricted access to adult adoptees, 19 states
and the District of Columbia seal the records,
which often require a court order to open, and
the remainder allow access in full or in part
with restrictions.
6,7
Background of the Movement
Speaking in general terms, it is our view
that only a truly extraordinary claim can
constitute good cause sufcient to trump
the condentiality and privacy rights
of the other parties to the adoption
triangle. While we are not without
4
Child Welfare Information Gateway. (2021). Adopting an Adult. https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/adoption/adoptive/choices/adult/
5
Ibid.
6
Povich, E. (2021). Adoptees press states for access to original birth certicates. PewTrusts, https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/
stateline/2021/04/26/adoptees-press-states-for-access-to-original-birth-certicates.
7
State adoption legislation. (2021). American Adoption Congress, https://americanadoptioncongress.org/state.php.
8
The full opinion for Philip S. et al. can be read here.
9
Samuels, E. (2001). The strange history of adult adoptee access to original birth records. Adoption Quarterly 5(2), 63-74.
10
Hughes, S. (2007). The only Americans legally prohibited from knowing who their birth parents are: rejection of privacy rights as bar to adult adoptees' access to
original birth and adoption records. Cleveland State Law Review, 55(3), 429-462. https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.
google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1189&context=clevstlrev.
sympathy for those who seek to learn
about their “roots”, we must not allow
the good cause requirement to become a
nullity.
Opinion for Philip S. et al. - 881 A.2d 931
(R.I. 2005)
The quote above comes from a case begun
in 2001 in the Rhode Island Family Court
that was appealed to the Supreme Court of
Rhode Island in 2005. The case considered
the request of Philip S., a man born in 1971
and adopted through the Sophia Little Home,
for a court order that would allow him access
to adoption records with the identities of his
birth parents. The Supreme Court of Rhode
Island armed the ruling of the Family Court
that Philip S. provided insucient good cause
for receipt of this information and upheld the
Family Court’s decision to deny the request
out of regard for the birth mother’s right to
privacy.
8
The reasons for the initial shift to greater
secrecy regarding adoption records are
unclear, though Samuels
9
and Hughes
10
both
suspect some relation to the perceptions of
family following the dislocations of World
War II. Namely, the destruction of millions of
lives during the war spurred a “postwar family
imperative” that promoted the biologically
related nuclear family, and in adoption the
goal was to blur the lines between adoptive
National Council For Adoption | Adoption Advocate No. 161 4
parents and adopted children so that the
family appeared to be the product of nature
rather than design.
11,12
Moreover, Samuels
and Hughes propose that statutes sealing
any records from anybody both reflected
social attitudes and, in time, inuenced them,
prompting the establishment of additional
statutes with wider impact until this secrecy
became a facet of U.S. domestic adoption.
Another motivation behind sealing adoption
and birth records was sparing adopted
individuals the stigma that, through the
rst half of the 20th century, surrounded
birth to unmarried mothers—a main driver
of child relinquishment before the 1960s—
and encouraging the development of the
bond between the adoptee and the adoptive
parent(s).
13
Julia Ryan McGue, a woman adopted in 1959
who spent ve years and employed several
agencies in search of information on her roots,
explains, “Closed adoption was born out of
society’s desire to hide the shame of children
born to unwed mothers. It was also intended
to protect the privacy of birth parents while
preserving the rights of adoptive parents to
raise their child without the distraction or
interference from birth parents.”
14
A 1979
New York Times article adds, “The theory that
justies the sealing of original birth records...
is that it protects the ‘integrity’ of the adoptive
11
Samuels, E. (2001). The strange history of adult adoptee access to original birth records. Adoption Quarterly 5(2), 63-74. https://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/cgi/
viewcontent.cgi?article=1477&context=all_fac.
12
DeLuzio, C. (2016). The personal and political postwar American family. American Studies 54(4), 119-132, https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/162640907.pdf.
13
Silverman, B. (2001). The winds of change in adoption laws: should adoptees have access to adoption records? Family Court Review 39(1), 85-103,
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.174-1617.2001.tb00596.x.
14
McGue, J. (2021). Closed adoption: A legal magic eraser. The Imprint, https://imprintnews.org/opinion/closed-adoption-a-legal-magic-eraser/55546.
15
Bird, M. (1979, Nov 23). Issue and debate: closed adoption records: new challenges to established tenets. The New York Times, p. B16.
16
Samuels, E. (2001). The strange history of adult adoptee access to original birth records. Adoption Quarterly 5(2), 63-74. https://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/cgi/
viewcontent.cgi?article=1477&context=all_fac.
17
Anderson, C. (1977). The sealed record in adoption controversy. Social Service Review 51(1), 141-154, https://www.jstor.org/stable/30015462.
18
Ibid.
process and [ensures] that nothing from the
past will disturb the relationship between the
child and adoptive parents.”
15
The national movement for right to access for
adult adoptees was spurred by the publication
of books like Jean M. Paton’s Orphan Voyage
(1968), Florence Fisher’s The Search for
Anna Fisher (1973), and Betty Jean Lifton’s
Twice Born: Memoirs of an Adopted Daughter.
16
Paton, an adoptee, found her birth mother
and started Orphan Voyage in 1953 as the
rst advocacy group in the U.S. for unsealing
records.
17
Another catalyst in the adoptee
access movement was In Search of Origins: The
Experience of Adopted People (1975), by John
Triseliotis, which evaluated the psychological
impact of adoption and unknown heritage
on 70 of the 98 Scottish-adopted individuals
who in 1970 requested information on their
birth parents.
18
In light of the gradual de-stigmatization of
out-of-wedlock birth and single parenthood in
the United States since the mid-20th century,
obscuration of a child’s “illegitimacy” fell
away as a reason for sealed records. What
began as protection of the birth parents and
the children they placed for adoption against
discovery by families and communities of an
unwed pregnancy morphed into protection of
the birth parents from the adoptive family,
including the birth parents’ adopted children,
Adoption Advocate No. 161 | National Council For Adoption 5
and vice versa.
19
Anonymity provides nality
for birth parents and enables them to try
for a fresh start while adoptive parents may
raise their children without worries about
birth parents “taking them away.”
20
In either
situation, the emphasis was on preservation
of privacy.
Reasons Adopted Individuals
Request Access
While the reasons that adopted individuals
request access to original records are
often as unique as the adopted individuals
themselves, historically there have been
some common reasons, often centered on
mental health, psychological distress, and/
or medical conditions. Yet as long as adoption
and birth records have had some degree of
confidentiality, adopted individuals who
have wanted to access them in the aected
states have been required to present “good
cause” for their admission; mere curiosity
is generally deemed insucient by courts.
21
What constitutes good cause is not clearly
established by law, and judicial interpretation
and guidance have been limited.
22
Practical
considerations,
23
like meeting psychological or
medical needs and facilitation of inheritance,
are cited as good causes, though researchers
have observed that past attempts to gain
19
Samuels, E. (2001). The strange history of adult adoptee access to original birth records. Adoption Quarterly 5(2), 63-74. https://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/cgi/
viewcontent.cgi?article=1477&context=all_fac.
20
Silverman, B. (2001). The winds of change in adoption laws: should adoptees have access to adoption records? Family Court Review 39(1), 85-103,
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.174-1617.2001.tb00596.x.
21
Ibid.
22
Anderson, C. (1977). The sealed record in adoption controversy. Social Service Review 51(1), 141-154, https://www.jstor.org/stable/30015462.
23
Ibid.
24
Hughes, S. (2007). The only Americans legally prohibited from knowing who their birth parents are: rejection of privacy rights as bar to adult adoptees' access to
original birth and adoption records. Cleveland State Law Review, 55(3), 429-462, https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.
google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1189&context=clevstlrev.
25
Application of George, 625 S.W.2d 151 (M.O. 1981).
access to records on such bases have often
not met the standards of the court.
Hughes,
24
for instance, presents the case
of Carolyn Dixon, a wife and mother who
experienced emotional deprivation as a
child, had suffered severe depression for
several years because of the distress from not
knowing her birth parents, and whose request
for access in 1982 was still rejected through
the interpretation that Dixon’s curiosity to
meet her birth parents was greater than her
psychological need. The previous year, James
G. George, a 33-year-old man who suered
from chronic myelocytic leukemia, a blood
cell cancer that begins in the bone marrow,
requested information on his birth family on
the basis that a blood relative would likely
have the same genetic markers and so serve
as a good bone marrow donor, if amenable.
25
Among arguments on constitutional rights,
George’s request was denied because medical
evidence suggested that his birth mother
would likely be unable to donate bone marrow,
so disclosure would not aid him.
Aside from these cases, the broader
reasons
for seeking access encompass
the idea that adopted individuals who do
not know their birth families often lack the
“psychohistorical dimension of identity
creation” as described by Arthur Sorosky in
The Adoption Triangle, and through eorts
to obtain adoption and birth records they
National Council For Adoption | Adoption Advocate No. 161 6
aspire to ll that dimension.
26
The questions
“Who am I?” and “Where did I come from?”
call for answers. Steve Inskeep, a co-host at
National Public Radio (NPR) who was adopted
in 1968, received his adoption records and
notes from Indiana and the Children’s Bureau
after a 2018 Indiana law opened access to
adult adoptees so long as someone involved
in the adoption had not objected before. In
an opinion piece for The New York Times, he
writes, “It’s been nearly two years since I
rst read those documents, and I’m still not
over it. Knowing that story has altered how I
think about myself, and the seemingly simple
question of where I’m from. It’s brought on
a feeling of revelation, and also of anger... I
am angry that for 50 years, my state denied
me the story of how I came to live on this
earth.”
27
“I was 46 years old and invested
time talking to my parents and
others who had experienced
adopting a child to ensure I
understood all sides of the
equation. I began looking more into
my adoption history and through
the help of others I am grateful
I had access to my birth records.
They were an important step in
my process—eventually leading
to connecting with and building a
great relationship with my birth
mom and siblings.”
- Mike Thorne, NCFA Board Chair-elect
26
Hughes, S. (2007). The only Americans legally prohibited from knowing who their birth parents are: rejection of privacy rights as bar to adult adoptees' access to
original birth and adoption records. Cleveland State Law Review, 55(3), 429-462, https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.
com/&httpsredir=1&article=1189&context=clevstlrev.
27
Inskeep, S. (2021, Mar 26). For 50 years, I was denied the story of my birth. The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/26/opinion/closed-adoption-laws.html.
28
New York Adoptee Right Coalition, (2021, Aug 13). Update: New York State Applications. https://nyadopteerights.org/nyarc-new-york-state-august-13-2021/.
A Practitioner’s Perspective
The New York Clean Bill of Adoptee Rights §3419 law,
which went into effect on January 15, 2020, permits
adoptees over 18 years old and their direct line descendants
unrestricted access to their sealed birth certificate.
Although the controversy over whether to pass this law
appeared to focus on whether the birth parent(s) had an
expectation of condentiality at the time of placement,
the State of New York ultimately provided thousands of
adoptees the same rights given to all people— to know
their full identity.
Prior to the passage of this bill, one would be required to
petition the Court to request the birth certicate based
on “good cause” pursuant to New York Domestic Relations
Law (DRL) §114. This was a challenge to get a Court to
open records and to nd good cause. Even in the case
of a 14-year-old with a rare genetic medical condition
that I led prior to the law going into effect, the Court
reviewed the adoption le in camera [in the judge’s private
chambers] from 50 years ago and communicated there
wasn’t any rare medical condition noted in the le. No
names, no opportunity to see if a family member could
provide information to the doctors treating this young man,
simply “sorry, that’s the best we can do.” Today, rather than
petition the Court, or spend countless hours untangling
DNA results, requests are made to NY Vital Records or
NYC Department of Health & Mental Hygiene, depending
on where the original birth certificate was filed. The
Clean Bill focuses on obtaining one’s pre-adoption birth
certicate; however if additional documents, including the
order of adoption, were led with the pre-adoption birth
certicate, the adoptee will receive related documents
as well.
This bill ended the treatment of adoptees as second-
class citizens whose story starts in the second chapter.
An adoptee can start at the beginning without
wondering what happened in the rst few pages that
set the scene for the rest of the story. As of August 18,
2021, the most updated statistics from NYS Bureau
of Vital Records reveals 12,796 orders have been
received. This doesn’t include the requests made to
NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene,
adoptions that were led in the boroughs of New York.
28
– Adoption Attorney Faith Getz Rousso, Esq.
Adoption Advocate No. 161 | National Council For Adoption 7
For some adopted people, just the knowledge that
their biological parent hasn’t forgotten about them
is enough.I was working with one adult adoptee
early on in our therapeutic relationship when he
decided to enter his information into a dual opt-
in adoption registry.He was unsure what type of
relationship (if any) he was looking for if he were
matched. I remember him expressing relief and joy
when he was matched with his biological mother
within just days; that it was amazing to know that
she entered her information in several years ago
and was hoping to be connected with him again.
- Pam Shepard, LCSW, Supervisor of Clinical Services Supervisor of Clinical Services
at Holt Internationalat Holt International
Changes and Considerations
for the Future
While a legal right to unhindered adoption
and birth record access has not been realized,
over the past couple of decades states have
enacted statutes and programs to provide
adopted individuals the opportunity to access
them and birth parents the opportunity to
maintain anonymity by disallowing contact
or withholding consent.
One system in place is the mutual consent
registry, which at least 30 states have.
29,30
The
mutual consent registry works by allowing
those involved in the adoption to “register
their willingness to meet and exchange
information”; in the absence of consent from
either party, no information is released.
31
It
is passive in that registration by one does
not guarantee a responsive registration by
the other, as the supervising agency does
not search for the birth parents (or adopted
individual) who correspond to the adopted
individual (or birth parents).
An alternative that addresses the deciencies
of the mutual consent registry is a search-
and-consent procedure, such as a condential
intermediary system. In this system, at the
request of and with a fee from an adopted
individual, “specially trained ‘adoption
29
Williams-Mbengue, N. (2019). Adult adoptee access to original birth certicates. National Conference of State Legislatures, https://www.ncsl.org/research/human-
services/adult-adoptee-access-to-original-birth-certicates.aspx.
30
Access to adoption records: state statutes current through December 2019. (2019). Child Welfare Information Gateway, https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubPDFs/
infoaccessap.pdf.
31
Cahn, N. & Singer, J. (1999). Adoption, identity, and the Constitution: the case for opening closed records. Journal of Constitutional Law 2(1), 150-194,
https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1453&context=jcl.
32
Williams-Mbengue, N. (2019). Adult adoptee access to original birth certicates. National Conference of State Legislatures, https://www.ncsl.org/research/human-
services/adult-adoptee-access-to-original-birth-certicates.aspx.
33
Cahn, N. & Singer, J. (1999). Adoption, identity, and the Constitution: the case for opening closed records. Journal of Constitutional Law 2(1), 150-194,
https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1453&context=jcl.
34
Fleming, C. (2005). The open-records debate: balancing the interests of birth parents and adult adoptees. William & Mary Journal of Women & the Law 11(3), 461-480,
https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmjowl/vol11/iss3/6.
intermediaries’...search for biological
relatives” to inquire whether they would
consent to the release of their identifying
information and possibly to contact from the
adopted individual.
32
Being active, this method
has been more effective than the mutual
consent registries.
33
More than 10 states have
condential intermediary systems.
Allowing for openness in adoption by making
access, rather than concealment, the default
are the adavit and disclosure veto systems.
34
In both, the adopted individual may access
their adoption and birth records so long
as the birth parents have not submitted a
nondisclosure adavit or a disclosure veto.
In the 1990s, two legislative actions notably
broadened access to records for adopted
National Council For Adoption | Adoption Advocate No. 161 8
individuals: the Tennessee contact veto
registry and the 1998 Oregon Ballot Measure
58. The Tennessee adoption reform law
opened access to previously sealed adoption
and birth records for all adopted individuals
at least 21 years of age and, in an eort to
ensure birth parents’ privacy, instituted a
state contact veto registry whereby birth
parents are consulted about their willingness
to be contacted by the adopted individual
and, if unwilling, may file a contact veto
that forbids the adopted individual from
contacting the birth parents.
35
Measure 58
likewise granted adult adopted individuals,
upon written request to the state registrar, the
right to access birth records. Amendment HB
3194, added in 1999, allowed birth parents to
designate a contact preference that is similar
to the contact veto provision of Tennessee.
36
These two statues are especially signicant in
that both were challenged by birth mothers,
brought to court, and ultimately defended as
constitutional.
37
In addition to the many changes in formal
means for obtaining birth record information,
modern DNA technologies have eliminated
the possibility of complete birth parent
condentiality. In-home DNA testing linked
to national databanks of information provides
adopted individuals relatively easy to this
information, rendering restrictions on OBC
ineectual.
It should be noted that surveys by researchers
35
Deloney, W. (2007). Unsealing adoption records: The right to privacy versus the right of adult adoptees to nd their birthparents. Whittier Journal of Child and Family
Advocacy 7(1), 117-144, https://heinonline.org/HOL/P?h=hein.journals/wjcfad7&i=128.
36
Ibid.
37
See Fleming (2005) and Deloney (2007) for more information on these contentions.
38
In his study of the adoption triad in 1958, 1968, and 1978, Sachdev found that 88.5% of birth mothers supported the release of identifying birth information to
adopted individuals.
39
David, R. (2019). Adoption search diplomacy: why some birth parents don’t want to be found. Pursuit Mag, https://pursuitmag.com/adoption-search-diplomacy-why-
some-birth-parents-dont-want-to-be-found/.
40
Bird, M. (1979, Nov 23). Issue and debate: closed adoption records: new challenges to established tenets. The New York Times, p. B16.
like Paul Sachdev, author of Unlocking the
Adoption Files (1989),
38
indicate that the
majority of birth parents believe that adopted
individuals should have access. Though the
greater liberality of access today compared to
the mid-20th century has softened attitudes,
the contrary stance is not uncommon. Rachelé
Davis, a private investigator who specializes
in reconnecting biological family members,
explains that a birth mother may have a
variety of reasons for rejecting contact and
reunion. Among them are shock given the
assumption of eternal anonymity if a closed
adoption plan was created, regret over the
relinquishment, desire to keep the adopted
individual’s existence hidden from current
family, desire to protect the adopted individual
from unsavory elements of their conception
or birth, fear of the biological father, and
suspicion toward the adopted individual, who
is a practical stranger.
39
Conclusion
Speaking to The New York Times in the
late 1970s, Neil Hegarty, a director of
casework, said, “We can’t foresee what
social and legislative changes will occur
in the next 15 or 20 years. And that means
we can’t guarantee condentiality to the
[birth] parents anymore.”
40
Twenty years
after this statement, it is true that social
and legislative changes have altered the
dialogue about and activity around adoption
Adoption Advocate No. 161 | National Council For Adoption 9
and birth record access for adopted
individuals and privacy considerations for
birth parents. Legislators continue to seek
a balance between the interests and rights
of the two families, birth and adoptive, and
the adopted individual as they navigate the
arguments in favor of and in opposition
to more open access. Time will tell what
further developments will be made in the
next 15 or 20 years.
Additional Resources
Note: Additional information that may guide a particular adopted individual or birth parent
may be found in their state’s code as well as in specic agency regulations and case law, so
consulting with an adoption attorney may be helpful.
• Access to Adoption Records - State
statutes on adult adoptee access to
adoption and birth records, current as
of December 2019
• Searching for Birth Relatives -
Resources to prepare for a search,
access reunion registries and support
groups, conduct a search within the
United States, and conduct a search for
birth relatives in another country
• State Adoption Legislation - An online
resource of state and D.C. legislation on
original birth certicate (OBC) access
from the American Adoption Congress
• The United States of OBC - Summary of
any restrictions limiting adult adopted
individuals’ access to an original birth
certicate in all 50 states, plus the
District of Columbia, maintained by the
Adoptee Rights Law Center
• Steve Inskeep’s NY Times Opinion
Piece - Steve Inskeep, a co-host of
NPR’s “Morning Edition” and “Up
First,” an adoptee and an adoptive
father, writes about his personal story
and perspective on the importance of
adopted individuals having access to
their records.
• NCFA Search and Reunion Resources:
Birth Parents
• NCFA Search and Reunion Resources:
Adopted Individuals
• NCFA’s Member Directory: Find an
Attorney
This issue of the Adoption Advocate was edited by Ryan Hanlon and Elise Lowe.
National Council For Adoption | Adoption Advocate No. 161 10
NOVEMBER 2021
•
ADOPTION ADVOCATE ISSUE NO. 161
Adult Adoptee Access to Adoption and Birth
Records: History, Controversy, Legislation,
and Societal Change
BY ABIGAIL LINDNER
About the Author
Abigail Lindner is an adopted individual born in China and
raised on both coasts by her adoptive American family. In
middle school her family lived in Xi’an, the capital of China’s
Shaanxi Province, to serve foster children. Her own background
combined with that experience has grown in Abigail a love for
her home country and a passion for foster care and adoption
anywhere. Abigail was previously a summer research intern
at the National Council For Adoption, and now is a contract
researcher while she completes her studies in mathematics.
Abigail is a middle daughter in a family of six children, three
adopted other than herself and two biological. Her family lives
in Southern Massachusetts with their two bichon-poodle mixes
and seven backyard chickens. When not studying math, Abigail
enjoys writing stories, reading any book that she can nd (not
horror or thriller, though!), practicing yoga, and baking bread.
