Adopted child's rights.
Full Question:
Answer:
Recent decisions of the courts seem to favor that “an adoptee may have access to the names of his or her birth parents and to all court records and papers regarding the adoption.” Generally the records would be available to the adoptee only with a court order upon a showing of good cause.
The relevant statute of Colorado (C.R.S. 19-5-305 )reads a sfollows:
The state registrar makes a contact preference form available to any birth parent named on an original birth certificate in the records of the state registrar. In the form, the birth parent may state a preference regarding future contact by an adult adoptee, an adult descendant of an adoptee, or a legal representative of the adoptee or descendant.
When the state registrar receives a contact preference form or an updated medical history statement or both from a birth parent, the state registrar or the state registrar's authorized designee shall match the contact preference form and the updated medical history statement, if applicable, with the adoptee's sealed original birth certificate, and shall update its records to indicate that a birth parent has filed a contact preference form or an updated medical history statement or both with the state registrar. The state registrar is authorized to verify the submission of a contact preference form or an updated medical history statement and to provide a copy of a contact preference form to a confidential intermediary appointed pursuant to section 19-5-304 or to a designated employee of a child placement agency who is searching for the adoption records.
For adoptions finalized on or after September 1, 1999, a birth parent shall have access to adoption records and contact with the adoptee or the adoptive family as otherwise provided by law. If the birth parent is deceased, then the person seeking the information, whether he or she is the adult adoptee, the adoptive parent of a minor adoptee, or the legal representative of any such individual, shall be allowed access to the adoption records. If one of the birth parents is deceased and the other birth parent is living but is non consenting then access to the records shall be available only without the name of the nonconsenting birth parent.
