- This is a guest post (of sorts) by Stephen Hinkle, National Speaker and Disability Rights Advocate. He can be reached at: stephen@stephen-hinkle.com
I received a very interesting email from Stephen Hinkle in regard to a previous post on my family law roundup blog. Mr. Hinkle’s insight was so good, that I asked him if I could use his post on this blog.
Mr. Hinkle’s email to me related to my post about the dangers that Facebook and other social media sites present when biological parents start contacting the children they gave up for adoption later in the child’s life. Mr. Hinkle’s comments resonated with me and I wanted to share them. They relate directly to Minnesota adoptions, but also adoption throughout the United States.
Below are his comments to me:
Dear Joseph,
I think that the books by Helen Oakwater, Eileen Fursland, and Adam Pertman give very good insight in to this.
First of all, on the legal arguments, part of the problem is that Facebook, MySpace, and many of the other social networking sites have a minimum age of only 13 to create a profile. Often to obtain adoption records and unseal them, usually the child has to be 18 or 21 to do so at the state level. This age gap essentially creates a dilemma in which one can legally search using a home computer using their Facebook account, yet they are not old enough for a state assisted search, and the post-adoption counseling they would normally get prior to a search through the proper state protocol. Searches on Google, Yahoo, Bing, et al can be done at any age, and even these results can often locate someone’s e-mail or where they work, or a contact phone number for them. Since the web is graphical, and many people upload photos of themselves, this makes a birth parent or a child easy to recognize. Sometimes, birth parents even upload letterbox photos for the children to find their parents easier to these sites.
The next challenge for adoption courts is that Facebook, MySpace, et al are privately owned, and they display user-created content, meaning that they are under very different rules when it comes to releasing information and removal of information compared to social services and public adoption agencies.
I am not an attorney but I believe that they are under the laws as web hosting sites which means to remove content, there has to be an injunction or a court order which would mean the damage already happened or the revealing of information already happened.
Photographs posted online are often owned by the person who took the picture, which means that if a birth parent uploads a photo of their adopted child from when they were in custody, this is not breaking copyright law. Anyone with a digital camera or scanner can easily upload a photo online.
With regard to the perspective of the child, I read many adopted children using these tools to trace their birth parents or siblings do it in private without support and sometimes do it in secret because they are afraid CPS or the adoption agency will file charges against the birth parents, or cause their adopted or foster care family to be in trouble if they find out. If it were me, I would eliminate this fear by only ordering arrests in cases of abuse, neglect, or other abusive treatment post-adoption contact, and instead let the kids know that “if contact with a sibling or former parent is important to you and you are under 18, we can work to accommodate this wish by working with your adoptive family and birth family to connect or meet in a safe way”. I also do not think that rubberstamping “no contact” or “letterbox only till 18” is the right policy for every child, and that children where a higher level of contact Is desired they need to understand the benefits and risks of contact, and those could include the adopted child losing his/her secret identity, or a higher risks of abuse if the criminal record of the person they want to keep in touch with is less than stellar. Please note that this contact does not give the birth parents custody, and instead it will be more like a friend or distant relative to the child.
With regards to contact made prior to age 18, social workers, adoption agencies, and CPS needs to accept this reality and be prepared if this does happen. A suggestion for them is to look at the benefits and risks of the contact if they find out after it happened. If the birth family has been abusive and rejecting, they should suggest that future contact be postponed. If on the other hand, a reunion or visits becomes very positive for the adopted child, and that relative doesn’t want to kidnap them, the social workers should allow the relationship to continue regardless of the childs age. The adoption courts should use the least restrictive level of gag orders too at the time of adoption. Reunions and visits should be given the benefits of the doubt when they are attempted.
I hope you enjoyed and learned from Mr. Hinkle’s comments. I know I did. For further information about Mr. Hinkle, I suggest contact him directly.
-This post was written by Joseph M. Flanders of Flanders Law Firm, LLC – a Minnesota adoption lawyer.
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