Are there statistics available for how many adoptees request their OBC per year?

MamaKate

Dear Gaia,

AWESOME QUESTION!!!

I looked, but I can't find anywhere public that keeps total records on those stats. I bet agencies have some kind of information about this but they would NEVER let it be publicized! (It would be bad publicity!)

Here is what I DID find:

"Since new laws have allowed adult adoptees access to their birth certificates, 13,104 adoptees have received their original birth certificates from Alabama, Delaware, Oregon, New Hampshire and Tennessee with no harm shown to anyone including birthparents."
-AAC
http://www.americanadoptioncongress.org/reform_adoption_data.php

"In the first year that records were opened in Oregon 5,318 requests were made by adoptees for records. Only 58 birth parents did not want contact. In Delaware there were 414 requests for records by adoptees and only 14 birth parents did not want contact. We are waiting for statistics from Tennessee and Alabama. Most birth parents do not want confidentiality. Those who do not want contact always have the option of saying "no". Search and reunion are accepted in American society as normal events. Yet the law that seals records is slow to catch up to that norm."
-NYSAR
http://www.unsealedinitiative.org/index.html

And stumbled across this!
http://www.peoplefindernow.com/3adofals.htm

and this!
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/9883/adoption_records_becoming_more_open.html?cat=17
WOW!!!

This stuff just blows my mind!!

ETA: Deeper digging found some more information:

http://www.amfor.net/statistics.html#SEARCH

"At least 19,000 adoptees have asked for their birth certificates in Alabama, Delaware, New Hampshire, Oregon and Tennessee."
-USA Today 2/12/2008
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-02-12-adoption_N.htm
(A lot of good comments on this article!)

"As of Tuesday, the state's vital statistics division had logged 2,036 requests from adoptees for birth certificates, said acting registrar Carol Sanders. "
-The Oregonian, March 22, 2000 ;)
http://www.oregonlive.com/special/adoption/index.ssf?/news/oregonian/00/03/lc_41adopt22.frame

ETA2: My pleasure! You always give me something good to research and think about!

Heather B

There are only statistics held in those States that give adoptees equal access to their birth records. Those figures may increase over the years as people become aware that the secrecy laws have changed.

No statistics are held on how many adoptees attempt or request their records in those States that remain sealed.

The number of adoptees wanting to know the truth of their origins is wildly underestimated, as evidenced by the numbers on search registries etc.

60 people? pppfffft Consider the sources of that figure Gaia, (I can guess which 'factbook' that came from!

There are over 1,000 members of just ONE small New York search group that I'm a member of and there are thousands of search groups country-wide!

Larger search groups with over 100,000 annual registrants could not exist unless as larger pool of searching adoptees exists.

Romany

The Official Report from Oregon

http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/ph/chs/58update.shtml

Just in case someone thinks our sources make up numbers.

Oregon law only allows for five years of tracking.

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