Law Professor: Give Adoptees Access to Their Birth Records
June 26, 2014
Contact: University Relations
Phone: 410.837.5739
University of Baltimore School of Law Professor Elizabeth J. Samuels appeared twice in recent coverage by The New York Times of an ongoing effort to change New York state law so that adoptees can access their birth records.
Samuels, an expert on child and family law and adoption, was quoted in a June 15 article about the efforts to amend the state's law. On June 23, she contributed a letter to the editor on the same topic.
"While opponents of the bill say it would violate the privacy of biological mothers, the evidence is that almost all birth mothers are open to being contacted," Samuels wrote. "Rather, it is the adoptive parents whose anonymity was being protected. In more than a third of the documents I examined, the birth mother promises not to seek knowledge about or contact with the child."
Learn more about Prof. Samuels.