The nation is watching this week as Oregon prepares to become only the third state to unseal all birth records. The voter-approved initiative, allowing adoptees access to the records identifying their birth parents, was to go into effect Thursday. A temporary injunction has been issued pending the filing of a suit challenging the measure. University of Oregon historian Ellen Herman, who studies adoption in contemporary America, says most states probably won’t follow the Oregon model even if the law withstands the court challenge. "The secrecy that surrounded adoption 20 or 30 years ago has decreased significantly. It’s becoming a more open procedure. Even in cases of closed adoption, birth mothers today are no longer given iron-clad legal assurances that their identity won’t be disclosed, and many states have established mutual consent adoption registries or search and consent laws," Herman says. She predicts that many policy makers–who see unsealing those old records as a breach of faith–will look for less morally wrenching procedures to allow adoptees and their birth parents to reunite. Adoption registration agencies, where both parents and adult adoptees can find one another voluntarily, are more in keeping with the national mood of respect for individual rights and privacy, according to Herman. SOURCE: Ellen Herman, assistant professor of history, (541) 346-3118; e-mail eherman@darkwing.uoregon.edu.

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