Debate on adoption will once again bring hope, fear and pain

"If I was a politician I would run a mile from it!" As chairwoman of the Irish Birth Mothers' Association, Mary Scully is keenly…

"If I was a politician I would run a mile from it!" As chairwoman of the Irish Birth Mothers' Association, Mary Scully is keenly aware of the complexities which face the Minister of State for Children, Mr Frank Fahey, in framing legislation to give adoptees a right to their birth records.

"A lot of us are in favour of giving adoptees their original birth certificates," she said. "But there are some who would find that very threatening."

However, while Mr Fahey raised the possibility of requiring the consent of the birth mother before the certificate is handed over, Ms Scully is not convinced that the information can, in fact, be denied to adoptees.

"I don't know how a veto would work," she said. "There are adopted people and birth mothers going into Joyce House [the registry of births, marriages and deaths] pulling records and tracing."

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The original birth certificates of adopted people are not locked away. Any person can look at the records for any day. The problem for adoptees is that they are not entitled to be told which are their particular records out of all those for the day of their birth.

So if, say, 12 children were born "illegitimately" on the day of an adoptee's birth it is probable that his or her original birth certificate is that of one of these children because it is likely that the adoptee was born outside wedlock. It is then a matter of narrowing down the search, perhaps on the basis of information they already have about where their mothers are from.

It is often forgotten that similar searches are being made by birth mothers anxious for news or their children, about whose adoption they were often given no real choice at all. Adoption certificates, too, are open to inspection by the public. Once the woman knows the date on which the adoption was finalised, she can get the records for every child adopted on that day.

"Then you can get a third party such as a private detective to trawl the families and `suss' out which is your child. Private detectives are charging a fortune. There are desperate people out there and private detectives who are willing to take their money," said Ms Scully.

Sometimes the birth mother just wants to know where the child is and that he or she is alive and in good health. "One woman I know whose son is 14 knows where the house is and has walked up and down the road outside." Neither the adoptive parents nor her son are aware of this.

The danger of people using their birth certificates to get private detectives to trace their birth parents against the wishes of these parents is one that is uppermost in the mind of Mr Fahey in his approach to the issue. But one person working in the adoption field told The Irish Times that providing original birth records to adopted people as a right would reduce rather than increase the number of unexpected approaches being made to parents.

Currently, as adoptees trawl through birth certificates which might or might not be theirs, some approach a number of people before they get to their own birth parents. This brings a great deal of pain to them and to the women they approach because it can mean reopening old wounds without warning.

Denying birth certificates to adoptees whose mothers have said that they don't want to be contacted would "continue the pain of the wrong people being approached," she said.

The Council of Irish Adoption Agencies has been pressing for some time for adoptees to be given their original birth certificates at the age of 18 as is done in Britain.

But, said Ms Maria Hayes of the CIAA, the Supreme Court judgment seems to suggest that the views of the birth mother must be taken into account before the birth certificate is released. She stresses that neither the council nor the other parties interested in adoption issues have had an opportunity to study the judgment in detail and to work out what exactly is required.

In her experience most mothers will agree to contact with their children. Some, however, will not, out of fear for the consequences if their spouse or neighbours find out they had a child outside marriage. Others are very afraid of the anger of the adopted child who may not understand the immense pressures society put on single women to have their babies adopted, even into the 1970s.

Ms Scully believes that, where women are afraid of contact with their children, counselling and support can often help them to cope with that fear. "Sometimes if a mother is contacted she will say `No way, I just can't cope', but six months later with guidance and counselling she will have changed her mind."

Such guidance and counselling, she said, should not come from the adoption agencies. "A lot of women don't want to go back into the same agency they were in 20 years ago."

For that reason she is keen to see a post-adoption centre where people affected by adoption could get counselling, information and help.

That counselling is needed, she is in no doubt. She gave birth to her daughter in 1974. The baby she gave up for adoption was in her early 20s when she met her again. "The last time I had seen her she was six days old. I found when I met her that I had to go through grieving over the loss of my baby, which I had blocked."

The idea of an independent post-adoption centre has also been proposed by the Adopted People's Association. It has suggested a body to gather and centralise the storage of records of adoption and fostering.

That the provision of counselling, of an officially recognised tracing service as suggested by Mr Fahey and of a post-adoption centre would cost a considerable amount of money is clear. Mr Fahey has suggested that adoptees might be asked to pay this or to pay part of it.

The suggestion was met with outrage by the Adopted People's Association. Barnardos, which has been tracing children since the 1970s, believes that adoption and fostering were carried out under the aegis of the State and that the State should pay whatever costs are now involved.

Since 1953 more than 35,000 people have been adopted in Ireland. That was the year the Adoption Act came into force. Many people were adopted informally before that time. Others, then and since, have been fostered or grew up in care and lost contact with their family origins.

For many of them the coming debate on adoption information will bring hope, fear and pain as it did in the past when the issue periodically became the subject of controversy. Then, however, nothing was done, and the fact that the matter was before the Supreme Court provided a readymade excuse for continuing to do nothing.

In effect, the Supreme Court has now told the legislators that it is up to them to legislate on adoption information and sort out the balance of rights between adoptees and birth mothers.

It is an opportunity which groups concerned with adoption are determined will not be missed.

Barnardos and the Council of Irish Adoption Agencies have produced a series of five booklets for people seeking their families of origin. The series, Search & Renunion, is available free from Barnardos, Christchurch Square, Dublin 8, or from adoption agencies.