Starting today, birth parents of adopted children previously barred from obtaining birth records can decide whether to redact their name or include contact information in records available to adoptees beginning next year.
A new law allows adoptees born in Ohio between 1964 and 1996 to learn their birth parents’ names and how to contact them, so long as the birth parents have not indicated otherwise. Ohio lawmakers closed adoption records after 1964 and legislation in the 1990s gave parents the option to seal records beginning in 1996.
The laws left a 32-year gap of adoptees who could not obtain information about their birth families through the Ohio Department of Health.
A law enacted late last year would allow an estimated 400,000 adoptees to request their records from the Ohio Department of Health beginning in March 2015. Birth parents have until then to complete a “birth parent packet” to share their preferences for sharing information with adoptees.
Birth parents can learn more information and download the birth parent packet on the Health Department website.
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