Adoptive Parents have the right to annual the adoption, so why don’t Adult Adoptees have the same right?
Gregory Luce @adopteerights is the author of the article below that made me start musing on the subject:
Adoptee Rights And Adoption Annulment
Since I read that article I’ve been pondering on this subject, although I can’t see myself doing so, I do believe it should be something an Adult Adoptee should have the ability to choose for themselves. If they did have that right, there’d be many tangles to work through, specifically the OBC (original birth certificate) would likely replace the ABC (amended birth certificate).
I also firmly believe it would be healing for some Adult Adoptees.
From the Child Welfare Information Gateway:
Ethical Issues in Adoption
Discontinuity and Disruption in Adoptions and Guardianships
What do you think about Adult Adoptees being able to annul their adoption?
The adopted ones blog 
Jill Daviau
December 18, 2022 at 4:27 pm
I do believe adoptees universally should have a no-fault legal mechanism at adulthood by which they can annul their adoptions. We, after all, did not sign or consent to the adoption contract.
My bio father wasn’t told about me, hence never consented to my adoption. I am his only child. My adoption was horrible. I was kicked out at 17. He and I wanted to be legal father and daughter, and restore our filiation, but this is impossible because of a contract neither of us signed. How is this fair or ethical?
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TAO
December 18, 2022 at 5:02 pm
It isn’t either Jill. I’m sorry.
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beth62
December 18, 2022 at 6:38 pm
It’s neither fair nor ethical in my opinion. I’m sorry too. Adoption laws should permit that filiation for the adoptee as an adult. And to the father who never had the opportunity to consent either, if the adoptee agrees to it.
My father wasn’t told about me. Well, he was told of the pregnancy by my mother, and soon after told by my mother (with no real choice, that it was a “false alarm”) The false alarm story was invented by the professionals and was expected to be told by my mother, so I could be adopted and not kept by my father and his family. Which I would have been, and it would have outed me, my mother and her parents with being/having an illegitimate child. My mother’s parents refused marriage of their daughter to my father, he offered. She was 19. He was named in the paperwork my mother provided, he was not listed on my birth certificate.
Anulling my adoption isn’t something I am interested in for me, but I know many where annulment is absolutely the right thing to have happen. I see no reason for that not to happen within the law, and happen very soon.
My father wants to be listed as my father on my original record of birth, and I want the same. Which in my opinion is a document that is not nul and void, and never will be. It is simply still sealed, still a vital document of “mine” being held by my state of birth. I’m just not allowed to legally see it. (&^%$ !#$% *^#%$* $#@%^& #%&!%)
Even still, we want it to be correct and complete. I’m an adult and I have the information and dna proof. My mother named him in the documents. He requests the update too. I’ve seen plenty of “delayed birth records” while doing Ancestry.
I’m not certain of all states, but I believe a non adopted person can add newly found info to their record of birth with dna proof?
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Lara/Trace
December 18, 2022 at 11:36 pm
I have a friend Ben who said he planned to annul his adoption, which was years ago (2012ish) but never heard back if he succeeded. I thought it was genius, then and now.
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beth62
December 19, 2022 at 2:20 pm
After thinking on it, I keep thinking…
If an adult can be legaly adopted, they should also be permitted to be un-adopted. It only makes sense. Adults should have an option of an Adoption Annulment. Their age when they were adopted should make little or no difference in the annulment. If anything an adult adopted as a minor, with no legal consent to it, should have even more of a standing or whatever you call it.
It seems very similar to a Marriage anullment or even Divorce to me.
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TAO
December 19, 2022 at 5:41 pm
I had to mull on it too, I’m also slow to change my mind.
Agree with your assessment.
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Gregory Luce
December 19, 2022 at 7:44 pm
It’s typically super easy as an adult to be adopted by another adult, and in most states it does not require anything but the consent of the proposed adopted person. If that’s the case (i.e., you can end your current adoption simply and easily through your own consent) then why not extend that to vacating the adoption you no longer wish to be bound by? I’ve started to add “adult adoption” to my list of resources on each state page on Adoptee Rights Law Center, for that very reason.
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TAO
December 19, 2022 at 8:15 pm
So thankful for your voice and wisdom.
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Gregory Luce
December 19, 2022 at 7:39 pm
I’m so glad you wrote about this and also included my thoughts on adoption annulment. Since I published that article I’ve received a lot of interest in developing this area of law—and how we can establish a right of annulment or vacation if it is in the best interest of the adopted person (which will almost always be present for an adult adopted person). I’ve gotten enough interest that, after the first of the year in 2023, I hope to create a group called the Annulment Project to explore the issue in more detail and to engage adoptees who are interested in establishing it as a legal right and coming up with sample bills. I hope to announce the project within the first two weeks of January 2023.
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TAO
December 19, 2022 at 8:19 pm
I look forward to seeing the wisdom pour forth on that, I’m sure any team you compile would be well-suited to the task of sorting it out.
The more I sat with the concept of an adult adoptee being able to do that, the more appealing on my many fronts came to mind.
Thank you for all the work you do for so many of us. Cheers
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Paul Brian Tovey .
December 20, 2022 at 4:13 pm
Certainly glad Gregory, to hear your thoughts and (2023) thrust to make things happen with Adoptee annulment rights … We Uk Adoptees have a tricky hill to climb in the UK over these matters but at least one promising avenue is Article 8 of the Human Rights Act : “The Right To A Private Life” …
It’s very clear that the UK State assumes it can confer an identity (in perpetuity) on an Adoptee but of course the Article 8 right to a private life also means the right to live as one’s own “Self identified identity” …. The curiousity too in law is the State “thinks” it can overrule other’s by what it does hence “permanence” of effect” … In doing so it cross the line from the “Law Of Persons” (rights based laws) into the “Law Of Things” (property based ownership” which of course is legally dubious beyond child care age when an Adult Adoptee gains full (personhood) and agency .. I will be exploring these matters further …. I wish you all well in your brave USA endeavours …
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Robyn C
January 24, 2023 at 1:19 am
Prior to turning 18, biological children have the right to become emancipated minors, so it seems that adopted children should be able to do the same.
I don’t know that an adult biological child can legally sever the relationship with their parents, though. If they can’t, then it tracks that adopted children can’t either.
Can adopted parents dissolve an adoption when the adopted child becomes an adopted adult? If so, then the adopted adult should be able to dissolve the adoption as well.
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Paul Brian Tovey
January 24, 2023 at 4:04 pm
An Adopted child is in fact not the child of the Adopters at all but in law the legal fiction of that is created … The Adopters are always (in the Adoption Order) told to act : “as if the child were born of the marriage” … This creates at least the notion that alternative child care becomes mixed up with “parentage” ..In Guardianship Orders which is an alternative child care provision, identity is not legally severed .. Adoption legally severs inheritance rights too from birth parents to child .. The artifice of Adoption is not purely created for alternative child care, it is created for parents without a child or for other reasons like bulking a family out ..
At the point of “identity alteration” the State confers a new identity in law as if the child is property … This in fact is very similar to articles of slavery since no-one else has a State conferred identity given them which they cannot resolve and leave … You are bound as an Adoptee by an artifice of law … You may even self identify once again as an Adoptee as your original “self senses” …Nothing wrong with that some of us were Adopted as children with knowledge of ourselves .. The state does not address this matter and thus leaves some Adoptees inside a curious lack of recognition …
In the end it is not for the State to stop people having legal recognition for having left the State of Adoption via personalised self identification. Adoption for some is felt and identified as an artifice ..The law has not caught up yet with a growing social reality of self identifying (un)Adoptees that feel they are properly recognised as their own original senses of Self etc
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Jill Daviau
January 25, 2023 at 4:00 pm
“I don’t know that an adult biological child can legally sever the relationship with their parents, though. If they can’t, then it tracks that adopted children can’t either.”
I’ve never understood this argument. It wasn’t a legal document (the adoption order) that created the parent-child relationship with biological children, the way it is with adopted children. If something was created with a legal document/contract, it should be able to be annulled/terminated, *especially* when one of the parties never consented.
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TAO
January 25, 2023 at 4:06 pm
Agree.
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Paul Brian Tovey
January 25, 2023 at 7:38 pm
Well it’s not legally true that UK children cannot annul the legal artifice which is the Adoption Order… There have been two UK teenage Adoptee annulments based on child abuse experience from Adopters on Adoptees.. Both Adoption Orders were revoked ..
It is a false equivalence that a biological child and Adopted child are the same – let me explain :
The Adoptee identity is “created” by law : “as if born of the marriage of the Adopters” – that’s the key case law phrase often used ….. “Identity” change is conferred across by the Adoption Order … This is not my opinion – it’s the function of the Adoption law ..Bio-kids though are created by their parents not by legal artifice and legal fictions.
Adoptees have something to go back to – namely biologically related identity status .. Mine is on my Court Order … I know who I am and always have done . I was not a baby at Adoption ..
Two UK Revocation cases are here : https://www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk/child-protection/392-children-protection-news/46980-high-court-judge-revokes-adoption-orders-after-acknowledging-exceptional-circumstances
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TAO
January 24, 2023 at 10:30 pm
According to this site, being adopted isn’t a factor, who knows though in real life.
https://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/can-a-adopted-minor-be-emancipated–3325925.html
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TAO
January 24, 2023 at 10:32 pm
From the NCFA – point 2 re AP’s.
https://adoptioncouncil.org/blog/when-adoptions-fail/#:~:text=There%20are%20existing%20legal%20provisions,and%20conduct%20the%20custody%20transfer.
I couldn’t find that adoptees can dissolve their adoption, but I didn’t search that hard.
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beth62
January 24, 2023 at 4:57 am
I know a non-adopted adult who recently got the father listed on their birth certificate changed with DNA test results.
I seem to have great doubts that an adoptee could accomplish that with an amended certificate. Even if the father field was blank on their original, or amended, but I do not know. Nor if they could complete the sealed original record with the correct information.
I also have no idea if a non-adoptee could have the mother changed on their record of birth with DNA test results. I’d like to think they would be able to file and win a case with proof of fraud by someone.
In the 1970’s I (an adoptee) was emacipated as a minor. So I do know that adoptees did have that same right, then, in one state at least.
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Adoptee Rights Law (@adopteelaw)
January 25, 2023 at 5:20 pm
There are two bills pending in the US that would allow amendment of the original to include a missing (or incorrectly listed) biological parent on the certificate. One in Oregon and one in Iowa. I see these bills as the first attempts to fix OBCs that are inaccurate, and I testified in favor of the Oregon bill (the Iowa bill has not yet been scheduled for a hearing, though that bill is a lot more complicated). Ann Weaver Melendey is an adoptee from Oregon who has been instrumental in pursuing the Oregon bill, and hats off to her for her persistence. — Greg
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TAO
January 25, 2023 at 7:32 pm
Thank you Greg – will do my best to amplify. Cheers
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