An ACLU Perspective from New Jersey

TOPIC OF THE DAY Adoption recordsRESPOND: yourviews@app.comLet them hear from us TODAY! from EVERYWHERE! :-)Published in the Asbury Park Press 04/21/05 Registry best for reunitingIn response to the March 29 letter "ACLU view conflicting," concerning theAmerican Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey's position on retroactivelyopening adoption records, the ACLU-NJ and its partners believe mutualconsent registries are the best way to unite birth parents and adoptedchildren.State law over decades has allowed birth parents to make a choice ofconfidential adoption. The law also allows adopted people access to adoptionrecords under certain circumstances, including medical need. The proposedlegislation would unilaterally and retroactively reveal the identities ofbirth parents who placed their children for adoption, thus violating theprivacy rights of the birth parents, many of whom may have hinged theirdecisions to participate in adoption on an understanding of continuedconfidentiality.A well-established mutual consent registry allows parties to come togetheron a voluntary basis, without coercion. Although registries may not resolvethe issue in every case, since either party may no longer be living, theycreate a vehicle for reunions in countless instances.Birth parents who do not desire contact from the children they gave up foradoption are unable to speak out against laws that would reveal their namesbecause doing so jeopardizes the very confidentiality they wish to preserve.The ACLU-NJ often has to conduct balancing tests of competing rights. Inthis case, based on privacy and due process concerns, it is the rights ofbirth parents that we seek to protect.Although the letter accuses the ACLU-NJ of failing to "serve thevulnerable," in this case our defense of civil liberties principles allowsus to speak for those birth parents who must remain silent to maintain theconfidentiality promised to them when they placed their children foradoption. Deborah Jacobs EXECUTIVE DIRECTORAMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNIONOF NEW JERSEY