Adoptions and the right to an original birth cert

TaurenDruid

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119242896#Comment_119242896

Are you trolling? I think you are.

If someone 100% doesn't want to hear from, or have any contact with, the child that they gave up for adoption, then they are hardly going to go for a cup of tea and a chat over family medical history now are they?

No, they wouldn't. So why bring it up, then? If they 100% don't want to hear from the now-adult child they placed for adoption, then they're fairly likely to register a preference no-contact, wouldn't you say? At which point, a social worker will request medical and background info that can be passed on should the now-adult adopted person seek it.

Adoption is a legal process. After it is complete, the adopting parents are the parents of the child. The suppliers of genetic material are no longer parents of the child.

Adoption is - in Ireland - a permanent legal solution to what was often a temporary human problem. The only option available in law, even currently, is closed, "secret" adoption. Even with the new law.

In the real world, though, closed, secret adoption does not work, for many adopted people and natural parents (or, as you call them, "suppliers of genetic material" 🙄). So we - natural parents, adoptive parents, adopted people, siblings, relatives of all of the above, lobby groups, and even adoption agencies and the Adoption Authority - living in the real world, just got on with things. We've all been doing searches, reunions, contact preference registers, and latterly, commercial DNA tests, and so on. For years now. Like other jurisdictions. The sky hasn't fallen in. Nobody turns up to doorstep anyone or seek "revenge" (seriously, da ****?) The new act simply recognises that, and makes a start at legislating for it.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119242935#Comment_119242935

Which is fine for you if you don't care about those other people. But others might want to look at the bigger picture and advise to go back to the drawing board and try to come up with something which will work for you without having those adverse consequences for others.

Yup, legal adoption in Ireland was a ****-show. The same mistakes should be avoided in IVF and surrogacy. We know what the consequences of lack of regulation and enforcement are - illegal adoptions/surrogacy arrangements, exploitation of vulnerable people, children who grow up not knowing they're adopted/donor-conceived, adults who then give a "wrong" medical history to medics... We also know that surrogates, donors, and now-adult children conceived by donor/surrogate will want medical and background information, and possibly contact/reunion.

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119243230#Comment_119243230

Well they can't stop you now if they don't want you and that's the issue. The women that gave up their babies did so on the basis that the information that they provided would be kept confidential. The legislation overrides that right to privacy.

The legislation requires that the AA hand over the information in all cases. There is the fig leaf of the sham conciliation whose only purpose is to convince the birth mother to relent, as many will I suspect, since this is a fait accomplis. Oh and there's the voluntary no contact register, something completely toothless, with unenforceability built right in.

The right way to have done this is that if both sides were not willing to agree after conciliation, then the information should not be passed until the mother has died or changed her mind. The AA could've sat as an intermediary to relay questions about medical or other pertinent information if required. That would have respected both parties rights as best as possible while acknowledging the difficult nature of this. Instead there was no meaningful compromise.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119243327#Comment_119243327

If a parent gives up their child for adoption, it would have to be assumed that the default position is that they do not want to be contacted. Because the very nature of adoption means severing all ties and the adopting parents become parents the same as if they had given birth to the child. To do otherwise would lessen adopting parents vs. natural parents. The biological supplier of material should not have to register a preference that they don't want to be contacted. They could however be give the option to register a preference that they are open to being contacted. It should be an opt-in rather than an opt-out.

Adoption is a one-way process. It actually has two stages. The person adopting can withdraw their consent before the second stage (but that withdrawal is not absolute in the sense that it can be over-ridden or ignored). There have been some cases where an adoption has been reversed, but that is rare. Once the adoption is ordered, the "biological" is no longer that child's parent and the relationship between the child and that person is the same as the relationship between that child and any other random person. If you were adopted, the legal relationship between you and the person who gave birth to you is same as the legal relationship between you and me. In the same way that you cannot expect to be entitled to be arbitrarily provided with my medical history, you cannot expect to be entitled to be arbitrarily entitled to the medical history of the "biological". I can volunteer my information to you if you want. The "biological" can also volunteer their information. But you cannot demand it.

starkid

I am adopted and if you aren't, making such claims as the OP does, makes you wilfully ignorant.

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119243415#Comment_119243415

What claims have I made?

notAMember

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119243385#Comment_119243385

"If a parent gives up their child for adoption, it would have to be assumed that the default position is that they do not want to be contacted."

That's not how it is in any of the adoption cases I know. In most of the cases I know, the mother has given up the child for adoption for financial or personal circumstances. It's because they want the child to thrive and do well, and don't have the means to support the child themselves. But I've never met a birth mother who didn't think about their child and wonder how they were. Letters, photos, checking in.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119243556#Comment_119243556

If the natural mother wants to retain contact with the child they can have the child fostered.

If I want to adopt a child - I'll adopt a child. If I want to be a foster parent, I'll foster a child. I wouldn't adopt a child and then have to deal with the sh1te of the natural parent hanging around and contacting the child whenever they felt like it.

Two basic options to the natural mother at that stage:

1) Put your child into a temporary arrangement

2) Put your child into a one-way arrangement which permanently severs your legal connection to them forever.

If you decide to choose 2, then it is fair to suggest that you accept, and want, the consequences.

There are inherent biases in your anecdotal evidence in any case

Hermy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119243343#Comment_119243343

Firstly, how do you know that the women that gave up their babies did so on the basis that the information that they provided would be kept confidential? Have you spoken to all of them?

Secondly, the right to privacy remains intact. What is being removed is the veil of secrecy that so many adoptions were shrouded in up till now.

notAMember

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119243626#Comment_119243626

Your reductive post is quite crude and even callous.

There are successful adoptions that work well for adoptees , birth parents and adoptive parents, where the arrangement informally keeps the communication open. That's how it works here for the trickle of adoptions still taking place, and that seems to be the best practice, not sure why anyone would wipe it off the table as an option in some totalitarian swipe.

Fostering is intended to be temporary, for a few months, not an indefinite "might actually be whole life" situation. Fosterers are paid to provide that temporary service. It's very different to adoption.

On a practical level, how do you forsee a fostering situation working between countries? And do you think foster carers are somehow readily available?

And on "dealing with the shite" of birth parents, when you adopt, or indeed have natural children, yes, you have to "deal" with all sorts of shite. It comes with the territory of being responsible for another human. The other "shite" you would have to deal with is a child who wants to find their birth parents and has huge pain from not being able to do so.

Hotblack Desiato

Many of these adoptions were far from voluntary.

TaurenDruid

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119243343#Comment_119243343

Such ignorance - wilful, at this stage - in these two posts.

The women that gave up their babies did so on the basis that the information that they provided would be kept confidential. The legislation overrides that right to privacy.

How many times do we need to explain to you that no such right to privacy existed - birth certs are public records - and that the vast majority of girls and women placing children for adoption never sought confidentiality. We know this from personal testimony, research, and records. Even if they had sought it, or were promised it, there was no basis for an adoption agency or the then Adoption Board to agree to it.

This has been explained to you multiple times before, but you don't seem to get it.

Oh and there's the voluntary no contact register, something completely toothless, with unenforceability built right in.

No, there isn't. There's a contact preference register. You can argue about "enforceability" but I, as an Irish citizen, have the right to contact absolutely anyone I want. So do you. Does the person I want to contact have to accept it? No. There are already laws around that. Why would this area be any different? More relevantly, why would this area be any different when there's absolutely no need for it to be different?! Natural parents and adopted people have known how to trace each for literally decades, and have been doing it. Generally, we do it ourselves better than the agencies or Adoption Authority or Túsla do! Does everything work out? No always, no. But usually it does. Nobody doorsteps the other party, there are no "revenge" attacks or whatever the hell it is DT thinks happens.

Now we can just do it more efficiently and quicker, and many of us will be happy just with whatever of our information is on our files.

The right way to have done this...

I've seen adoption files - such as they are. "Your mother was 23 when she had you and was working as a childminder at the time. She had met your father in college and they'd be going out 6 months when she got pregnant. She wasn't in a position to support you and decided adoption was the best option. She came from a small family from the midlands and had two brothers. He was from the same town. Both were healthy. She likes music and dancing and he was into films..." Yeah, really useful waiting 30 or 40 or 50 years to pass that sort of bland "information" on.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119243385#Comment_119243385

If a parent gives up their child for adoption, it would have to be assumed that the default position is that they do not want to be contacted. 

Hahahahaha! Why the **** would you assume that?! The thousands of reunions that have taken place in the last few decades - many of them initiated by natural parents - might be a clue you haven't a bull's notion what you're talking about. Considering the number of forced and illegal adoptions where consent was neither sought nor granted, you've some neck to make an ignorant statement like that.

Adoption is a one-way process.

Bullshit.

Adoption is a life-long process that's - lest you forget - supposed to be in the best interests of the child. Not the natural parents. And not the adoptive parents, either. The child. Life-long, because me being adopted however long ago was a legal decree back then that I have to live with for the rest of my life. It also impacts my kids' lives. And their kids. Yes, in the 1950s, the middle of the last century, we in Ireland thought it was a simple, one-off process and the child arrived with the new parents as a tabula rasa. Other places had already figured out back then that that wasn't the case, and had better systems including access to information, even back then. Almost a century later, that's finally being acknowledged in Ireland, too.

Where it's legislated for, btw, open adoptions often work extremely well, for all involved. But y'know, why bother with facts when you have your opinions.

The "biological" can also volunteer their information. But you cannot demand it.

Clap clap clap. Well done. You got something right. That's not in the legislation. For obvious reasons.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119244025#Comment_119244025

Emotional ranting does not equate to fact.

I am surprised that you do not understand some of the more basic concepts.

Have a read of this:

https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2010/act/21/enacted/en/html

There were some amendments in a 2017 Act post the introduction of Article 42A into the Constitution

This is a very good thing for adopted people, but it's understandably an emotive issue for them / us also. Why anyone would want to troll this is beyond me. Get a life lads, ffs. Plenty of other threads to spout your "just asking questions" sh*te on.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119244960#Comment_119244960

Nobody asking questions here. Just telling you basic facts.

But anyway, rant away with your emotional stuff if you want.

"The suppliers of genetic material" is what you literally typed. Go away.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119243920#Comment_119243920

If I adopt a child and I want to bring that child up as part of my family, possibly with other children, I don't want someone turning up on my doorstep threatening to tell that child that they are adopted. Similarly, if a woman gives birth to a child which was conceived with a donor egg, the donor of that egg should have no right to land on that woman's doorstep 10 years later to tell the child that the woman who has been taking care of her isn't her "real" mam.

The consequences of adoption have to be explained to the parent. See S.14 of the 2010 Act

https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2010/act/21/section/14/enacted/en/html#sec14

If you place your child for adoption, you waive your rights. Once the adoption is ordered, then the new parent is the parent of that child as if they had always been the parent. The biological parent is irrelevant in the eyes of the law.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, there have been rare cases when adoptions have been reversed so it is not impossible. If you want a case reference, let me know.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119245119#Comment_119245119

Should the supplier of genetic material have rights with respect to the resulting child purely because they are the source of that genetic material? That is a pretty basic, but fundamental question. My answer to that is "no". You can disagree if you want

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119245259#Comment_119245259

Fair enough. If you want to subject a 6 or 7 year old to having to deal with their classmates bullying them because they were adopted, that is your choice. But it should be your choice and not someone else's choice.

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119245259#Comment_119245259

Interesting standards you have for psychopathy there horse when you proclaim your sincere hope that another poster never becomes a parent.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119245340#Comment_119245340

If I was ever to become one, I could just put the child up for adoption I suppose.............

TaurenDruid

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119245340#Comment_119245340

If they're going to lie to their child about something so **** fundamental, I'd say that's pretty good evidence. Describing the person who bore the child you now have as a "supplier of genetic material and nothing more" would be more.

TaurenDruid

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119245305#Comment_119245305

WTF? How does not lying to a child about its origins somehow turn into a) everyone in their class knowing their origin, and b) bullying them because of it? And you're the one accusing me of emotional rants? 🙄

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119245376#Comment_119245376

If you ever adopt a child, you can make sure to tell that child, as soon as they can understand, that they are different from your own "real" children. That you aren't their real parent.

Be open about it. Make sure they know, and everyone else knows. Just keep telling them they are different. Children can be cruel, but sure that's their problem I suppose!

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119245367#Comment_119245367

In case you missed the point - you’re in a poor position to describe anyone’s position as psychopathic, while at the same time proclaiming your sincere hopes that they never become a parent.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119245305#Comment_119245305

It is important that an adopted child grows up knowing that they are. The best way I can describe it is that the child has no memory of being sat down and given such massive information, instead it's a knowledge they have had since... well since ever...

I can understand a parent's need to want to protect but sometimes that protection can do more harm than good. Kids can be cruel and latch on to any piece of perceived difference, if they are aware a classmate is adopted then perhaps they will be cruel, or not. Personally I would take my chances with the bullying and ensure the child is fully aware.

Do you know any adopted people Donald? Or birth parents?

Hermy

Funny thing but despite being bullied all throughout my school days my adoption was never used against me.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119245367#Comment_119245367

"Supplier of genetic material" is the most general expression and encompasses everyone.

You appear to attribute some overarching importance to genetic contribution. Medical history etc.

The person who supplies the genetic material does not have to be just the person who gave birth. In fact, the person who gives birth may have supplied a totality zero of the child's genetic makeup.

Is a woman who gives birth to a child that was conceived with a donor egg not her mother? She gives birth to the child, raises it, cares for it. I would call her the mother. If a woman adopts a 6 month old baby and raises it and cares for it, then she is the mother. I'm not going to be the person who tells her "yeah, but you're not actually that child's mother". You can if you want.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119245305#Comment_119245305

Again, you're posting from a point of no experience. I'm adopted, and I knew I was since I understood the meaning of the word. My mates in school knew it too. Jog on, DT. But it's instructive to see a pile on here for whatever reason. A few pages from Jack are surely in order now. Stay classy lads.

Or, you know, don't treat a thread about adoption as entertainment. Like a normal person.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119245407#Comment_119245407

Do I know any birth parents?

No, I've never met anyone who had a child 🙄

TaurenDruid

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119245436#Comment_119245436

Why the **** would I do that either? She is the child's mother.

You can stop the facile arguments about terminology, you're not in a junior cert debating team.

My mother is the person who raised me. She's not my adoptive mother, she's just my mother. My natural mother, on the other hand, is the one who carried me for nine months and gave birth to me. You may get off on calling her a "supplier of genetic material" but you're impressing nobody and just showing yourself up.