tailieunhanh - Gale Encyclopedia Of American Law 3Rd Edition Volume 1 P16

Gale Encyclopedia of American Law Volume 1 P16 fully illuminates today's leading cases, major statutes, legal terms and concepts, notable persons involved with the law, important documents and more. Legal issues are fully discussed in easy-to-understand language, including such high-profile topics as the Americans with Disabilities Act, capital punishment, domestic violence, gay and lesbian rights, physician-assisted suicide and thousands more. | 138 ADOPTION A majority of the state statutes provide for the release of identifying information when the birth parents have consented to such release. One method that states use to organize such consents is a mutual consent registry which is a system whereby individuals involved in the adoptions can indicate whether they will allow for their identifying information to be disclosed. Approximately 29 states have devised some type of registry. Other states have in place a type of search-and-consent system which allows for the adoption agency to assist a party in locating birth family members if the birth family members consent to the release of the information. Most state statutes deny adoptees access to records that disclose identifying information about the natural parents in situations where the consent of the birth parents is not on record. The natural parents often make their consent to the adoption contingent upon the condition that no information about them ever be revealed. Yet many states now have instituted procedures for which a party to an adoption may obtain nonidentifying information. Non-identifying information may include but is not limited to the following the date and place of the adopted person s birth and the birth parents age physical description race ethnicity religion and medical history. Some states are more restrictive than others regarding the release of information from the adoption records. For example New York Oklahoma and Rhode Island require that any person seeking non-identifying information must first register with the state adoption registry prior to receiving such information. Because of a growing public interest in tracing ethnic and family backgrounds many adoptees as adults have been calling for the right to obtain access to sealed adoption records which includes identifying information. The adult adoptees recognize that a disclosure of this kind of information could be traumatic to minor adoptees but they contend that lack of .