information for practice

Few questions are more heatedly debated in the world of adoption today than whether adult adopted persons should have routine access to their original birth certificates and other documents from their agency and court adoption files. In most states, they are legally prohibited from obtaining such information, except by petitioning a court for its permission. In only two states, Kansas and Alaska, have adopted persons – upon reaching the age of majority always had access to their original birth certificates. In the rest of the country, at various times over the past 70 years, statutes have sealed these records and prohibited access to the information.