Adoption in Australia

ABOUT ADOPTION

1.2 Closed vs Open Adoption.jpg

TOPIC 1.2 | Closed vs Open Adoption

Closed Adoption

From the 1920s, adoption practice in Australia reflected the concept of secrecy and the ideal of having a "clean break" from the birth parents. Closed adoption is where an adopted child's original birth certificate is sealed forever and an amended birth certificate issued that establishes the child's new identity and relationship with their adoptive family. Legislative changes in the 1960s tightened these secrecy provisions, ensuring that neither party saw each others' names.

The experience of closed adoption included people being subjected to unauthorised separation from their child, which then resulted in what was often called "forced adoption". From the 1940s, adoption advocates saw it as desirable to relinquish the child as soon as possible, preferably straight after birth.

From the 1970s, advocacy led to legislative reforms that overturned the blanket of secrecy surrounding adoption, though until further changes were made in the 1980s (or 1990s in some Australian jurisdictions), information on birth parents was not made available to adopted children/adults.

Beginning with NSW in 1976, registers were established for both birth parents and adopted children who wished to make contact. In 1984, Victoria implemented legislation granting adopted persons over the age of 18 the right to access their birth certificate (subject to mandatory counselling). Similar changes followed in other states (e.g., NSW introduced the Adoption Information Act in 1990).

Reunion services are now part of the ways in which governments and agencies are trying to address the negative impacts of separation on (birth) parents and children from these past adoption practices.

Open Adoption

The practice of closed adoption changed gradually across each of the states and territories in Australia from the late 1970s through the 80s and 90s.

With the implementation of these legislative changes, adoption practices shifted away from secrecy. Now, the vast majority (84% in 2010-11) of local adoptions (but not intercountry adoptions) are "open", where the identities of birth parent(s) are able to be known to adoptees and adoptive families. Among local adoptions, only 16% of birth parents in 2010-11 requested no contact or exchange of information with the adoptive family (AIHW, 2012).

Open adoption has led to a number of improvements in practices, such as:

more accountable processes for obtaining consent from (birth) parents;
a requirement for consent to be provided by both birth parents (or the need for a parent's consent to be dispensed with by a court for a child's adoption to proceed); and
higher quality assessments and benchmarks for assessing the suitability of prospective adopters.

The Council of the Single Mother and Her Children, set up in 1969, aimed to challenge the stigma of adoption and provide support to single and "relinquishing" mothers. The status of "illegitimacy" disappeared in the early 1970s, starting in 1974 with a Status of Children Act in both Victoria and Tasmania (in which the status of such births was changed to "ex-nuptial").

Abortion also became allowable under some circumstances in most states from the early 1970s; see the 1969 Menhennitt ruling (R v Davidson) in Victoria and the 1971 Levine ruling in NSW.

Women's magazines became fierce advocates for adoption, with waiting lists of prospective adoptive parents beginning to emerge in the 1940s and 1950s. As demand for babies outstripped supply (though not for babies with disabilities), the pressure to relinquish was particularly high in maternity homes, where matrons and social workers were often personally acquainted with the prospective adoptive parents (see Marshall & McDonald, 2001; Swain & Howe, 1995).