NCFA News : Archived News

New Hampshire Eliminates Confidentiality in Adoption: Mandatory “Open Records” Law a Harmful Aberration

On May 11th, a conflicted New Hampshire Governor Craig Benson allowed SB335 to become law without his signature. This harmful legislation allows adult adopted persons unconditional access to identifying birthparent information, without birthparents’ knowledge and against their wishes, even when they were previously promised confidentiality. It eliminates confidentiality for all New Hampshire birthparents – past, present, and future.

“The failure of New Hampshire’s legislature and governor to keep the promises made to birthparents and to preserve and protect adoption is an egregious violation of trust and common decency,” said National Council For Adoption (NCFA) President and CEO Thomas Atwood.

NCFA’s statement, “Adoption First Principles” says, “Birthparents and adult adopted persons who desire to identify each other and have contact should be able to do so, when both agree. Otherwise, both should be able to control the release of their identifying information and whether and when contacts are to occur.” Atwood further observed, “Adoption policy should not empower one party to adoption to force openness or contact on another. New Hampshire’s new law violates this basic human right.”

Very few states have adopted this one-size-fits-all, mandatory openness policy. Prior to New Hampshire’s policy reversal, 44 (now 43) states allowed birthparents to control whether their identifying information would be released. Since 2001, at least 11 other states had considered more than 25 pieces of similar legislation. Not one had been approved. 

Many adopted persons are curious about their birthparents, but the National Adoption Information Clearinghouse reports sources indicating that 85 to 99 percent of adopted persons do not search. Whether they search or not, they know who their “real” parents are, the ones who raised them. Only a small, vocal minority demands the absolute right to force themselves on their birthparents.

 “This policy will cause all sorts of harm,” continued Atwood. “It will violate birthparents’ privacy, cause emotional traumas through increased unilaterally imposed contacts between adopted persons and birthparents, and deny all women and teens with crisis pregnancies the perfectly valid option of confidential adoption.” The only private option future women with crisis pregnancies will be allowed to consider in New Hampshire is abortion.

Advocates of this legislation deceived some legislators with the disingenuous argument that adopted persons needed the policy, in order to obtain medical and health information. The truth is that New Hampshire law, as is the case in all 50 states, already provided for them to acquire this information while respecting birthparent privacy. Moreover, the point is moot, because one can receive far more complete information about one’s genetic predispositions from a DNA test than from medical histories of biological parents.

With the enactment of this policy, the state of New Hampshire is no longer neutral on the issue of reunions. According to Atwood, “This policy sends the false, demeaning, and corrosive messages that adopted persons cannot be whole unless they ‘reunite’ with their birthparents, and that the adoptive family is inadequate to provide for the adopted person’s psychological well-being. These messages are simply untrue, and undermine a fundamental principle of adoption – that, through adoption, the adoptive family becomes the adopted person’s true and permanent family.”

About NCFA

Since 1980, NCFA has been a leading voice among national adoption and child welfare organizations. NCFA is a research, education, and advocacy nonprofit that provides adoption information, promotes ethical adoption practices, informs public policy and opinion about adoption issues, and serves as a resource to women with unplanned pregnancies, adoptive families, those seeking to adopt, and adoption professionals.