Sir, – I wish to support Grainne Mason's case (February 6th)for entitling adult adopted people to have access to information from their adoption files regarding identity and background.
When I worked in a psychiatric hospital some 20 years ago among my clients were birthmothers and adopted adults whose health had suffered due to the legal lack of access to information. Most importantly they had a long-standing unmet emotional need to know what happened their birth families, or painfully relinquished babies. Some progressive adoption agencies were active in mediating reunion searches, but others were working on outdated policies complying with the original one-sided contracts at the time of adoption, despite changes in social values since. In a few cases a shortage of staff in the health boards placed adoption searches at the end of a long list of priorities. To me it seemed the ultimate experience of disempowerment to be denied access to the basic human right to personal and medical history – knowing that your file lay in an impersonal office somewhere.
It seems unjust that help with information should depend which agency was originally used. It was my privilege to have helped those clients through the barriers by mediating on their behalf and I shared the profound impact of resolution when reunions took place.
Regarding the concern that some birthmothers might fear contact in later life: this fear could be faced by using third-party mediation which would allow Ms Mason’s proposal of privacy with openness, to respect the rights of both birthmothers and adult adopted people. In Iater life it can be more beneficial to resolve unfinished business than to avoid it, and to find that any residual shame from an earlier era can be healed by a different society.
I feel it is time for the rights of adopted people to be respected as a matter of entitlement, nearly 40 years after they were granted in the UK. – Yours, etc,
AIDEEN O’KEEFFE,
Glenomena Park,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.