OPINION The Bogus Adoption Argument Truth twisters concoct another anti-Measure 58 argument. An estimated 130,000 Oregonians are adopted."Oregon is fast overtaking California as the nation's most ditsy state...God spare us from the uncaring, forward-looking Oregonians." --Chicago Sun-Times, Jan. 5 January has not been a good month for supporters of Measure 58, the ground-breaking 1998 Oregon initiative that gives adult adoptees access to their birth records. Last week, the Oregon Supreme Court indefinitely delayed the measure's implementation. Separately, print journalists across the country have been engaging in a kind of Oregon bashing we haven't seen since, well, Tonya Harding. We have faith that the court will eventually exercise appropriate judgment, but we can't say the same for the Fourth Estate. In this new round of attacks on Measure 58, writers have abandoned the standard argument: that the measure violates a contract between the state and birth mothers to keep birth records sealed. (This reasoning ignores the conclusion of lower Oregon courts that no such contract exists and that birth parents have no absolute right to privacy from their offspring.) Instead, the most recent editorial harping hinges on a different argument--that the implementation of Measure 58 will cause abortion rates to skyrocket. "Pragmatism also argues against [Measure 58]," writes syndicated columnist Steve Chapman. "Without the option of confidentiality, many women are likely to decide it's better to abort than to have the baby and put it up for adoption." The St. Petersburg (Florida) Times writes that "open records policies will not only harm the women who have moved on with their lives but also drive pregnant women from the adoption choice." The Chicago Sun-Times went so far as to say that Measure 58 must be the handiwork of the pro-choice movement, because it will slow adoptions and speed up abortions. Pro-choicers, it says, see adoption as "a disincentive to a woman's right to 'choose.'" Everyone, of course, is welcome to an opinion. But available facts dispute such claims. A 1992 study by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, for example, says that Alaska and Kansas, the two states with fully open adoption records, have lower abortion rates than the rest of the country. Further, adoption rates in both of these states are higher than the national average. In reality, there is no proven causal relationship between adoption and abortion. That hasn't stopped opponents of this measure from claiming one. The biggest offender is the National Council for Adoption, which is behind the lawsuit against Measure 58. NCFA often cites a study that shows the number of infant adoptions dropping in England since that country opened its birth records--implying that more women choose to abort rather than face their children later. NCFA doesn't point out that adoption rates are in decline across much of the western world, even in America, an overwhelmingly closed-record country. The reason? Most likely a combination of the increased use of contraceptives, access to abortion and, perhaps most important, the destigmatization of single motherhood. It has nothing to do with open birth records. Oregon remains one of the few states in this country that is hospitable to change. Measure 58 continues this grand tradition, a tradition the Oregon Supreme Court will most likely uphold. So beware of editorial writers carrying phony arguments and attacking us simply because we challenge the status quo. If anything, they are the ones who are ditsy--whatever that means. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Willamette Week | originally published January 26, 2000