Introduction to Adoption

Adoption is the legal process of a child being placed with new parents other than the biological birth parents. There are some instances where the adoptive parent is the biological parent, but this is rare. In most cases, the parental rights and responsibilities of the biological parents are terminated by the courts and they go to the new adoptive parents. After the adoption is complete, there is no legal difference, in most jurisdictions, between adopted children and children living with their birth parents.

The laws involving adoption differ depending on the state, country or jurisdiction where the adoption takes place. The same would apply to any questions arising after the adoption. Adoptions generally fall into two categories: open child adoption or closed child adoption. In a closed child adoption, the adoptive parents and birth parents are anonymous. Information may be shared between them and they may even meet, but personal information such as names or address is not exchanged. An adoption cannot be a closed child adoption if the child is old enough to where he already knows the parents.

In an open child adoption, all members involved in the adoption (adoptive parents, biological parents and adopted child) can all communicate freely and keep in contact. Names, addresses and personal information can be exchanged between them. Even though there may be open communication between all parties, the legal ties of the biological parents are still nonexistent. The adoptive parents are considered the legal parents. The parties involved in the adoption may set up a legal binding contract specifying the stipulations of the open adoption; however, some jurisdictions will not acknowledge this sort of contract. Approximately 22 states in the United States have statutes allowing and enforcing the contracts.

Another way to classify an adoption is by its geographical and administrative scope:

• Intrastate adoption - all adoption parties live in the same state.
• Interstate adoption - adoption parties live in different states.
• International adoption - all adoption parties involved live in different countries.

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