February 11, 1997
         American Adoption Congress News Release
         Contact: L. Anne Babb
      President, American Adoption Congress
  V/F 405-329-9294
U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals Upholds Open Adoption Records
Today the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a 1996 Tennessee adoption 
records law giving adult adoptees access to their original birth and adoption 
records. In actions at the district court level, two birth mothers, Promise 
Doe and Jane Roe, an adoptive couple, Kimberly C. and Russ C., and a 
nonprofit adoption agency, Small World Ministries,attempted to block the new 
Tennessee law allowing the disclosure of adoption records. The district court 
denied a preliminary injunction,and the plaintiffs appealed to the 6th 
Circuit Court of Appeals.
The 6th Circuit Court affirmed the lower district court's denial of the 
motion. The Court also dismissed the plaintiffs' federal claims, vacated the 
stay of the Tennessee law pending appeal, and remanded the case to the 
district court for dismissal of the complaint.
Adoption records in Tennessee were sealed from 1951 to 1996, available only 
upon court order that disclosure was in the best interest of the child or of 
the public. The new law, which was to take effect July 1,1996, gave access to 
all adoption records to adoptees age 21 or older,their legal representative, 
or their parents, siblings, descendants or ancestors with the written 
permission of the adult adoptee. The law provided for a contact veto, by 
which the parent, sibling, spouse,ancestor or descendant of the adoptee could 
register to prevent contact by the adopted person.
The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals found that any contest of the 
constitutionality of the open records law "will almost certainly fail," being 
"so remote as to make the issuance of preliminary injunctive relief wholly 
inappropriate."
The plaintiffs' arguments against the law were that open adoption records 
violate their right of privacy under the U.S. and Tennessee constitutions 
because the new Tennessee law violates their familial privacy, reproductive 
privacy, and privacy against disclosure of confidential information.
In their response, the 6th Circuit Court rejected these arguments,noting 
first their "skepticism that information concerning a birth might be 
protected from disclosure by the Constitution." The Court said that birth is 
both an intimate occasion and a public event, and that the long history of 
government-kept records of babies' births further "the interest of children 
in knowing the circumstances of their birth." The Court found that the 
Tennessee legislature had resolved the conflicts between the interest of 
children in knowing the circumstances of their birth and the competing 
interest of some parents in concealing the circumstances of a birth, stating 
that they "are powerless to disturb this resolution unless the Constitution 
elevates the right to avoid disclosure of adoption records above the right to 
know the identity of one's parents."
The Court answered the plaintiffs' claims that the Tennessee law violated 
their right to reproductive privacy by pointing out that nothing in the law 
infringes on the right of Tennessee residents to marry, raise children, adopt 
children, or give children up for adoption,and that the law does nothing to 
limit adoptions. The Court found that "if there is a federal constitutional 
right of familial privacy, it does not extend as far as the plaintiffs would 
like."
The plaintiffs claimed that the law violated their right to privacy against 
disclosure of confidential information. The appeals court,however, said that 
"the Constitution does not encompass a general right to nondisclosure of 
private information."
In an amended complaint, the plaintiffs also claimed that the open records 
law violated their right to equal protection under the U.S. and Tennessee 
constitutions, their right to freedom of conscience under the Tennessee 
constitution, and constitutes a breach of contract by the state of Tennessee. 
The court of appeals answered that the plaintiffs might obtain some 
"comfort... from Tennessee courts on the Tennessee claims, ... the 
plaintiffs' likelihood of success on the merits of their federal 
constitutional claims is so remote as to make the issuance of preliminary 
injunctive relief wholly inappropriate."
The 6th Circuit Court regarded the Tennessee law as a "serious attempt to 
weigh and balance two frequently conflicting interests: the interest of a 
child adopted at an early age to know who that child's birth parents were, an 
interest entitled to a good deal of respect and sympathy, and the interest of 
birth parents in the protection of the integrity of a sound adoption system." 
The Court rejected the federal constitutional claims of the plaintiffs but 
chose not to rule on the merits of the state claims, deeming it "prudent to 
allow the Tennessee courts to decide the purely state law issues."
=================================
The full text of the decision will be available at the AAC web site by 
2/13/97 at: http://pages.prodigy.com/adoptreform/tncomp.htm 
--
L. Anne Babb
aacr76a@prodigy.com
--- Maximus/2 3.01
1:153/920)
---------------