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Adoptee Rights
Adoptee rights are the legal and social rights of adopted people relating to their adoption and identity. These rights frequently center on access to information which is kept record sealing, sealed within closed adoptions, but also include issues relating to intercultural or international adoption, interracial adoption, and coercion of birthparents. Adoption reform efforts are often led by adoptee rights activists. History The adoptee rights movement in the United States and other Western countries gained popularity following the increased adoption rates of the Baby Scoop Era, beginning with the end of World War II and ending in the early 1970s. United States In the United States, original birth certificates were frequently available to adult adoptees until the mid-twentieth century, when many states passed laws closing birth records. Jean M. Paton, an early adoptee rights activist, established Orphan Voyage in 1953. Orphan Voyage was a support and search network for adoptees ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Record Sealing
Record sealing is the process of making public records inaccessible to the public. In many cases, a person with a sealed record gains the legal right to deny or not acknowledge anything to do with the arrest and the legal proceedings from the case itself. Records are commonly sealed in a number of situations: * Sealed birth records (typically after adoption or determination of paternity) *Juvenile criminal records may be sealed *Other types of cases involving juveniles may be sealed, anonymized, or pseudonymized ("impounded"); e.g., child sex offense or custody cases *Cases using witness protection information may be partly sealed *Cases involving trade secrets *Cases involving state secrets Filing under seal in US court Normally, records should not be filed under seal without a court permission. However, FRCP 5.2 requires that sensitive text – like Social Security number, Taxpayer Identification Number, birthday, bank accounts, and children’s names – should be redac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Adoption Congress
The American Adoption Congress (AAC) was an international adoption-reform organization created in the late 1970s as an umbrella organization for adoption search, support, and reform groups. Initiated by Orphan Voyage founder Jean Paton, people representing many groups gathered in regions around the United States and began planning the incorporation. The first AAC Conference was held in Washington, DC in May 1979. The second was in Anaheim, CA in 1980, and the third at the TWA Training facility outside Kansas City in 1981, where the AAC was reincorporated and gained 501(c)3 tax exempt status. AAC conferences were held annually around the United States from 1979 until 2020, when the conference, its last, was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The American Adoption Congress represented the interests of individuals who identified as adopted people, birth parents, and adoptive parents, as well as individuals, families, and organizations committed to adoption reform. While it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reproductive Rights
Reproductive rights are legal rights and freedoms relating to human reproduction, reproduction and reproductive health that vary amongst countries around the world. The World Health Organization defines reproductive rights: Reproductive rights rest on the recognition of the basic right of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children and to have the information and means to do so, and the right to attain the highest standard of sexual and reproductive health. They also include the right of all to make decisions concerning reproduction free of discrimination, coercion and violence. Reproductive rights may include some or all of: right to abortion; birth control; freedom from compulsory sterilization, coerced sterilization and contraception; the right to reproduce and start a family, the right to access good-quality reproductive healthcare; and the right to family planning in order to make free and informed reproducti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adoptee Rights Law Center
Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from the biological parents to the adoptive parents. Unlike guardianship or other systems designed for the care of the young, adoption is intended to effect a permanent change in status and as such requires societal recognition, either through legal or religious sanction. Historically, some societies have enacted specific laws governing adoption, while others used less formal means (notably contracts that specified inheritance rights and parental responsibility (access and custody), parental responsibilities without an accompanying transfer of filiation). Modern systems of adoption, arising in the 20th century, tend to be governed by comprehensive statutes and regulations. History Antiquity Adoption for the well-born While the modern form of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baby Hatch
A baby hatch or baby box is a place where people (typically mothers) can leave babies, usually newborn, anonymously in a safe place to be found and cared for. This was common from the Middle Ages to the 18th and 19th centuries, when the device was known as a foundling wheel. Foundling wheels were abandoned in the late 19th century, but a modern form, the baby hatch, was reintroduced from 1952 and since 2000 has been adopted in many countries, most notably in Pakistan where there are more than 300. They can also be found in Germany (100), the United States of America, United States (150), The 'baby box' returns to Europe BBC News, 26 June 2012 Czech Republic (88) and Poland (67). The hatches are usually in hospitals, social centres, or churches, and consist of a door or flap in an outside wall whic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Child Citizenship Act Of 2000
The Child Citizenship Act of 2000 (CCA) is a United States federal law that amended the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 regarding acquisition of citizenship by children of United States citizens. Under the CCA, certain children born outside the United States who did not obtain citizenship at birth may obtain citizenship automatically after being admitted to the United States as legal permanent residents (CCA § 101) or may be eligible for expeditious naturalization (CCA § 102). The act also added protections for non-citizens who had voted in federal elections on the reasonable but mistaken belief that they were United States citizens at the time they voted, or that they had falsely claimed to be United States citizens in the past because they reasonably believed they were United States citizens at the time of the false claim (CCA § 201). The Act is known as Public Law 106-395. CCA § 101 is implemented in INA § 320, codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1431. CCA § 102 is impleme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Attachment Theory
Attachment theory is a psychological and evolutionary framework, concerning the relationships between humans, particularly the importance of early bonds between infants and their primary caregivers. Developed by psychiatrist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby (1907–90), the theory posits that infants need to form a close relationship with at least one primary caregiver to ensure their survival, and to develop healthy social and emotional functioning. Pivotal aspects of attachment theory include the observation that infants seek proximity to attachment figures, especially during stressful situations. Secure attachments are formed when caregivers are sensitive and responsive in social interactions, and consistently present, particularly between the ages of six months and two years. As children grow, they use these attachment figures as a secure base from which to explore the world and return to for comfort. The interactions with caregivers form patterns of attachment, which in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bastard Nation
Bastard Nation is a North American adult adoptee political advocacy and support organization. It was founded in 1996 by denizens of the Usenet newsgroup alt.adoption Shea Grimm, Damsel Plum, Marley Greiner and Lainie Petersen. The original intent of the organization was to support adult adoptees in gaining access to their original birth certificates as a civil right, rather than as a vehicle for facilitating a search, which had been the aim of prior open records organizations. It is also distinguished from search-and-reconnection focused organizations in that it supports the full spectrum of the adult adoptee experience, including adoptees who do not wish to search and adoptees whose reconnections were a bad experience. Besides advocating adult adoptee access to original birth certificates, Bastard Nation also launches campaigns against negative stereotypes of adoption and adoptees. North American adoptee birth certificates were originally sealed only to non-family members in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Open Adoption
Open adoption is a form of adoption in which the biological and adoptive families have access to varying degrees of each other's personal information and have an option of contact. While open adoption is a relatively new phenomenon in the west, it has been a traditional practice in many Asian societies, especially in South Asia, for many centuries. In Hindu society, for example, it is relatively common for a childless couple to adopt the second or later son of the husband's brother when the childless couple has limited hope of producing their own child. In an open adoption, the adoptive parents hold all the rights as the legal parents, yet the individuals of the biological and adoptive families may exercise the option to open the contact in varying forms: from just sending mail and/or photos, to face-to-face visits between birth and adoptive families. History of openness in adoption Although open adoptions are thought to be a relatively new phenomenon, most adoptions in the Unite ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Florence Anna Fisher
Florence Anna Fisher was an American adoptee and author of ''The Search for Anna Fisher'', an autobiography that told of her experiences as an adopted person who set out to search for her biological roots and pre-adoption identity. She is considered one of the founders of the modern adoptee rights movement in the United States, having founded the Adoptees Liberty Movement Association in 1971. Fisher spoke out strongly against the sealed records of closed adoption, which became commonplace in the mid-twentieth century. In a 1974 ''Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...'' article, Fisher said, "People today are finding secrecy evil. They are more open and they want to know the truth." She maintained that whether an adoptive home was supportive or abusive is irrelevan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Closed Adoption
Closed adoption (also called "confidential" adoption and sometimes "secret" adoption) is a process by which an infant is adopted by another family, and the record of the biological parent(s) is kept sealed. Often, the biological father is not recorded—even on the original birth certificate. An adoption of an older child who already knows their biological parent(s) cannot be made closed or secret. This used to be the most traditional and popular type of adoption, peaking in the decades of the post-World War II Baby Scoop Era. It still exists today, but it exists alongside the practice of open adoption. The sealed records effectively prevent the adoptee and the biological parents from finding, or even knowing anything about each other (especially during times before the Internet). However, the emergence of non-profit organizations and private companies to assist individuals with their sealed records has been effective in helping people who want to connect with biological r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
