Senate bill would increase access to adoption records

A bill that would give adopted Indiana residents easier access to their birth records is headed to the full Senate despite concerns about its potential impact on biological mothers.

Senate Bill 352 would allow those adopted from 1941 through 1993 to access their records unless their birth parents sign a form prohibiting it. Currently, those records are sealed, while adoptions completed since 1994 are open.

The bill passed the Senate Judiciary Committee 8-2 on Wednesday. Advocates supported the move, saying the law was designed to shield adopted children from the stigma of illegitimacy and not to protect birth parents. But some lawmakers urged caution, The Indianapolis Star and The Times in Munster reported.

"I feel like we made a promise (of confidentiality) to birth mothers," said Sen. Joe Zakas, R-Granger, who joined Sen. John Broden, D-South Bend, in voting against the bill. "To change that is pretty serious business.

"You could destroy a family," Zakas added.

Supporters of the measure say Indiana needs a uniform approach to adoption records. People adopted before 1994 must request access to their birth records through the Indiana Adoption Matching Registry, which initiates a process in which birth parents are located and asked for permission to release the records.

Hoosiers for Equal Access to Records notes that 14 other states have repealed laws sealing adoption records.

Indianapolis adoption attorney Steve Kirsh said some birth mothers don't want to be contacted.

His firm has handled 117 cases in which an employee tried to contact birth mothers and adoptees for consent to share information, and the mother was unable to be found in five cases. In five other instances, the birth mother refused to allow the information to be released, and in five or six others, the mother agreed to the release of information but refused direct contact.

The bill would give birth parents until June 30, 2016, to file a form that would prohibit the release of their information. Kirsh noted that there is no way to notify birth parents about the need to sign such a form.

Pam Kroskie, an adoptee and president of Hoosiers for Equal Access to Records, said birth records speak to who someone is and how he or she came into this world.

"It's like starting a book at chapter two or a missing piece of a puzzle," said Kroskie, who was adopted in 1967 when she was four days old. "No one likes either of those things. Something's missing."

A similar bill in 2011 failed to make it out of committee.