Guide to Adoption Search & Reunion

Should I Really Search, and What Are My Reasons?

· Curiosity

Searching is about relinquishment and who we were before we were adopted; it is not about adoption. Seeking information about our beginnings and our origins through our biological relatives is a valid reason for searching. Curiosity about whom we came from as a physical person is widely acknowledged as a "psychological need to know". Most adoptees grow up in warm, loving homes and are not trying to find their birth relatives in order to replace their adoptive relatives.

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· Medical information

It is an impossible task for adoptees to fill out their biological medical history at the Dr.'s office. This lack of information impacts the adoptee and any children of the adoptee. Genetically inherited medical conditions account for 25% of all medical problems. Almost all adoptees lack current medical information about their birth relatives since any information in the adoption file is generally only through the date of relinquishment.

Generally, the only way to obtain this information for the time period between relinquishment and today is to search for birth relatives and request family medical history. It's very important for adoptees to have this information for their family physician for preventive care related to genetic medical conditions.

· Information about biological relatives and the reason for relinquishment

An adoptee can generally request a report from their adoption file with non-identifying background information about the birth parents. Some adoptees are satisfied with this information and don't feel the need to actually locate their birth parents. However, often this information only strengthens the need to search and locate the birth parents.

· To meet birth relatives

The majority of non-adopted people know what their biological relatives look like and how they resemble each other in physical traits and personality traits. Many adoptees express a strong desire to meet people who look like them. They wonder what talents and personality traits they share with their biological relatives. The natural conclusion for many adoptees to finding the birth parents, siblings and other relatives is to meet them in person.

· Moral and legal right to search

Historically, adoptees have not had the same civil rights as non-adoptees the right to know their biological relatives. Some states are changing their laws and allowing the adoptee to have their original birth certificate and identifying information about their birth relatives. It's always been a question of the adoptee's right to know and the birth parents possible need for confidentiality. A moral and legal ruling by a judge in South Carolina addresses this dilemma.

Ruling on approving an adoptee's petition to gain access to adoption records by Judge Wade S. Weatherford, Jr. Resident Judge, Seventh Judicial Circuit Court, South Carolina. Bradey v. Children's Bureau of South Carolina, (Spartanburg County, S.C., Ct. C.P., Apr. 9, 1979), rev'd, 275 S.C. 622, 174 S.E. 2nd 418 (1981).:

" The law must be consonant with life. It cannot and should not ignore broad historical currents of history. Mankind is possessed of no greater urge than to try to understand the age-old
questions: "Who am I" "Why am I?" Even now the sands and ashes of the continents are being sifted to find where we made our first step as man. Religions of mankind often include ancestor worship in one way or another. For many the future is blind without a sight of the past. Those emotions and anxieties that generate our thirst to know the past are not superficial and whimsical. They are real and they are "good cause" under the law of man and God."

The petition is conditionally granted.
IT IS SO ORDERED

April 9, 1979

[Signed]
WADE S. WEATHERFORD, JR.
Resident Judge, Seventh Judicial

Circuit Court, South Carolina