Date of Award
Winter 12-5-2024
Degree Type
Honors Thesis
Major
Politics
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Political Science
First Advisor
Elisabeth Jay Friedman
Abstract
The United States has fifty-one different laws pertaining to adult adoptee access to their original birth certificates and adoption court records, with only fifteen states being unrestricted. These states give adult adoptees access to their documents upon request. Fifteen states are restricted, meaning they require a court order to obtain documents, which involves proving “good cause” to a judge. This requirement of “good cause” has no standard definition. The remaining twenty-one states are compromised, meaning they have complex requirements to obtain documentation. My research uses case studies of the restricted laws of California, the unrestricted laws of Louisiana, and the compromised laws of Ohio as examples of the three types of state statutes. My thesis aims to understand why these laws deprive adoptees of the right to their documentation and what influenced a change or lack thereof.
Recommended Citation
Traina, Alyssa, "Whose Information is Whose? Adult Adoptees and the Silent Struggle to Access Records" (2024). Undergraduate Honors Theses. 81.
https://repository.usfca.edu/honors/81
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