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'Finder' is accused of stealing adoption records

Sealing adoption records for a hundred years doesn't make any sense at all. These are archaic laws written in archaic times and serve no purpose now than to protect adoption agency's from wrong doing. Every adopted child has the right to seek their paternal parents whenever they choose to find them. And it should only require the desire of the adopted child to do a search. It is illogical that it require both parties when neither party knows who or where the other is. It is a costly law to enforce and very costly for a person to do a search, even without the assistance of a search specialist. It would be beneficial to their mental state and medical history as well as their ancestrial background. With archaic laws about adoption it would better serve the people if they changed the laws than prosecute a person serving to find lost family. Before the prosecutor starts making a big deal about fees perhaps he should investigate the absolute fraud in hospitals, $50 for an aspirin? As for the records, what has been altered in the files? A witch hunt in progress to save face.

Court records are public for those who have been arrested, which I find alot more damaging to a family than an adoptee who finds their biological parents. Why are the adoption records sealed, what is it protecting?

I have the answer to your investigation on the 50 dollar aspirin. The problem is double-headed. As a paramedic and the son of an ER physician, I've had some exposure to both. For example when I go on an ambulance call, protocol almost always dictates the administration of oxygen, via non-rebreather mask which has a cost to the provider of about 7 dollars. The ambulance service charges the patient 28 dollars for the mask, which is a one-time use disposable mask. The reason for this is that on average, 1 in 4 people end up actually paying. The same goes for hospitals. Giving everyone health insurance is not necessarily the answer when insurance companies are no longer a pool for people to pay when someone needs it, but are merely for-profit businesses with a bottom line. Also, blame the rise in litigation for undesirable outcomes (not mistakes) made by greedy trial lawyers. Even if the defendant wins the case, HIS insurance company still has to pay legal defenses. Average cost of malpractice insurance: $130,000 per year per provider, passed on to the consumer.

As a woman who gave a child up for adoption 22 years ago, I can tell you who could be damaged, ME! I have the right to keep that part of my past in my past and not have it change my life as it is now. I chose to carry him to full term rather than aborting him. I chose to give him up for adoption to fulfil someone elses dream of a family. It is my right to choose to release my information to allow him to find me and not someone elses. I don't feel that anyone has the right to "out" me for something I did 22 years ago that wasn't against the law, didn't harm anyone, and had a positive effect on someone else's life.

How about your little Mormon neighbor, who got pregnant and didn't want anyone to know? She gave the baby away, and the records are sealed. She went on to raise a family, after she married.

I know a family who was shocked to find out that their mother had given birth "out of wedlock", and it was quite a scandal. And...the child who found her mother? Like most other adopted children, she always dreamed that she'd find a rich family at the other end...or a happier one. She didn't. She nearly broke up her birth mother's family, and after a few meetings with her mother, decided she wasn't interested in pursuing a relationship. How painful is that - to be abandoned by the very child you felt guilty for "abandoning" but couldn't talk to anyone about?

Does your "right to privacy" not mean anything to you?

Well said! That is the exact reason this law is in place. I have not given up a child, but I have been adopted. Of course I have had the "what if" thoughts, but I belong to a wonderful loving family, and can only hope that my birth parents have the same.

A woman gives up a baby for adoption, then never has ANY obligation to that child ever, ever again, because it might possibly interfere with her "now perfect" life?

Our son is adopted, and he has diabetes. We nearly lost him on the day we discovered this. We could have been alerted and more aware of what to do, if only we had been given THOROUGH medical information.

I'm so sorry if this inconveniences his birth mother.

"How do I put a value on somebody's privacy?" deputy Davis County attorney Rick Westmoreland said Tuesday. "There's a reason those records are sealed."

How do you put a value of somebody's life? Isn't knowing your accurate medical history, who you come from, and what your roots are just as important as some girl's "right to privacy."

Especially in today's society, where giving up a child is no longer seen as a scandal. I'd cast my vote for the child's right to know over the mother's right to privacy.

And why does it have to be either/or? If adoption agencies would work with both clients, as a part of their contractual obligation, re-uniting or asking questions COULD be done very privately, without requiring the adopted person to search everywhere and ask multiple people for information that the agencies already have.

It's about time we step into the 21st century and CHANGE A FEW LAWS!!!

If only adoption agencies were more open and willing to work with adoptive families, many of these hassles could be totally avoided.

Because of the urgency of our son's personal situation we begged the agency to help us locate his birth mother, but they were bound by their rigid rules.

Jill helped us find his mother, who was actually happy and anxious to be found. Without Jill's help we would have had to make many, many more phone calls, and stir the pot a whole lot more, in order to locate her.

If legitimate agencies would be more helpful, perhaps Jill's services would be less necessary.

What if the conception of the child results from an assault, but is carried full-term due to a belief in right to life? Must the mother be reminded of that dark period to satisfy the childs curiosity?
Change the adoption forms to full disclosure of medical information. Don't force an unwanted association that can be mentally and emotionally harmful to anyone.

I found my 3 children - I had been coerced into giving them up for adoption. One I do have her email and address. We keep in touch via email and have since she was 17 years old. We were reunited in 2004 and I met my grandson. I found her twin and my youngest child without the oldest daughters help
Closed adoptions are in place to protect the adopters not the natural parent. I too am an adoptee and it stinks.

the LDS church as a tendency of forcing young single mothers into giving their children up for adoption using the excuse - "You truly aren't repentant of the sin unless you give the child up." This is so not true. If you have learned from your actions and cease to continue commiting fornication then you have walked away from the sin. Keep your child - no one else has the right to raise it as their own. Adoption is a permanent fix to a temporary problem. Yes there are men out there who have no problem with marrying a single never married mother. I was an unmarried mom once and did marry someone who loved my son.

I agree with the majority of comments. So called "sealed records" are obselete.

They were never sealed to protect mothers who lost their children to adoption. They were - and remain - sealed to protect those who are the paying customer in adoption - the adopters. Those who want to pretend the child is theirs and only theirs.... a possession they paid for and own - free and clear with no interference from anyone else.

The most interesting thing in this article is the fact that altering a public record is a crime!

Well, every state is guilty of altering every birth certificate of every adopted person! The states commit FRAUD in falsifying these certificates sand FORCE people to become criminals ad t use criminals to help them find out what is their God-given right to know!

Speaking as an adoptee and a health care provider, I think you are overreacting. True some many conditions would be more easy to diagnose with a family health history, and a few are emergent. However with proper ongoing health care/screening problems can be found and treated in a proper timeframe.

I have primary hypertension (high blood pressure caused genetically) for which I am being treated and followed. My life is as anyone just a few years back with familial predispositions were not as well understood.

Yes it is a "hassle" to not have additional information, I would contend, however, that a hassle is what you accept as an adoptive family. Parenting is not easy for natral born children or adoptees.

I have not had the desire to break up my family by looking for my birth parents, nor have I been contacted. My Brother (who is also adopted) was contacted by a company such as this, they were very agressive when he stated he was not interested.

I do not think there is justification for procuring records by illegal means to make money, whatever the other intensions are. The right to privacy is foe me as well as "some Girl".

What part of the sealed records is "God-given"? What makes it our tight to know?

Who has the right ot privacy, the child, the adoptee parents, or the biological parents? Couldit be that all three deserve the same protection of privacy. The records are sealed to protect all from those who don't need to know unless there is consent.

Having adopted 4 children at various stages in life, there are a lot of reasons to have closed adoptions. First, you can get medical info from parents before adoption, so that is not a reason to have an open adoption. Second, a lot kids are from foster homes where parents have given them up, or had them taken away because of a long history of violence, drugs, abuse, etc. Closed adoptions protect the children more than anything. And families who adopt kids out of those situations don't want angry remorseful drugged up and possibly violent natural parents showing up at their door. When a child is an adult, if its their choice to track down a natural parent, don't have a problem with that. But before that, it is too much of a psychological difficulty for most kids to try to put together 2 families. They have a hard enough time as it is without dealing with that burden--speaking from lots of personal experience. And in a normal situation, how would a 5 or 8 or 12 year old deal with "natural mommy" and "adopted mommy."

My wife and I have adopted two of our five children. I myself was adopted as a baby. I get so very tired of others, most never adopted, complaining that the laws are to tight. I have no desire to find the woman who gave me up, and I hope the birth mothers of my two children feel the same way. My privacy is worth something to me. I would say, unless you are adopted, have adopted or given a child up for adoption, this is not your fight. Let us who have, work it out our way.

The truth is an adopted child HAS two mothers. Why can't we deal with the truth?

You are mixing the term mother with birth parent. The mother is the person there waiting up when you get home from that special date. THe mother is the person who go to bat for you when trouble arises. The mother is the person you cry on when the phone does not ring and your waiting for him to call. The mother is the one that cries at your wedding. The mother is the one that is there along with the your husband as you give birth. The title of Mother is earned over time. The other woman is a birth parent.
To time of truth - bet you are not adoptived, for those of us that are, have come to peace with it.

"the LDS church as a tendency of forcing young single mothers into giving their children up for adoption using the excuse - "You truly aren't repentant of the sin unless you give the child up.""

This couldn't be more false. I became pregnant when I wasn't married. When I first spoke with my bishop and told him I wanted to keep the baby, the subject of adoption was never brought up. I had full support from all my church leaders, ward members, and family. I am still a single mother and have since gone through the temple. The church does not try to coerce young women into giving up their baby, the Church provides an option for adoption if the young woman chooses to, and the church does not do so by threatening repentence either. If a woman decides to give her child up for adoption, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that!