I’m not doubting that all legal rights are terminated by the birthparents. I’m just pointing out that colleges don’t care about legal parental rights. For the most part, they’re not obligated to follow legal rules about parental rights, so they don’t. It’s why step-parents who have not adopted their step-children — and therefore have virtually non-existant parental rights — are still required by the school to contribute to their step-child’s education. IF they don’t pay, the kid can’t pay the bill — and therefore, they can’t attend.

I think Adam Pertman of the Evan B. Donaldson institute said it best at a conference this past summer.

My wife and I have been through extensive testing. Yet on our childrens birth certificate, there is our name, as if we gave birth.

We both know we can’t yet they actually give us credit for doing so.

If anything the birthparents do not have to worry about anything legally, only if they want to….

Tell that to the colleges.

I should clarify. You’re right — in a strictly legal sense, no parent’s required to pay. (Unless it’s incorporated into a divorce decree.) However, all colleges and universities that I’m aware of do require parental contributions. If the parents don’t pay and refuse to cosign expensive private loans, the kids can’t go to school.

If I remember correctly, it’s the single biggest reason why students drop out of college.

And for the individual who doesn’t believe this is a step in any direction. Should this pass both the senate and the house, individuals will no longer have to pay hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to pursue medical history petitions through the court and to a choice few private investigators in this state. O’ HAPPY DAY FOR SOME!

Additionally, there will be identifying information that can be shared immediately as I am aware of many birth parents and adoptees passing letters to one another via the adoption agency that handled my adoption. The agency will no longer be directed, by law, to black out and white out identifying information! O HAPPY DAY FOR SOME MORE!

We, the North Carolina Coalition for Adoption Reform, the adoption agencies that support open access to OBC and the legislators, have already formed our next step in 2008. We are damn lucky we fought against an adoption registry and WON! More good will come with this compromise than an adoption registry any day.

lauriedb, where were you in all of this? Sitting on the sidelines, watching, waiting, letting someone else do all the work. You chime in after the fact, only to criticize SOMETHING YOU WEREN’T EVEN FIGHTING FOR IN THE FIRST PLACE. The nerve of some people!

The reason for the age rise is that the fight is NOT OVER. The members of the NC Coalition for Adoption Reform WILL be back at the beginning of the Short session. I have to ask if either of you were involved in this legislative effort? If not, then really I don’t believe you have any place to speak on what happened.

The choices which were made were made by the people who WERE INVOLVED and CARED about what was happening. They chose to go this way to get SOMETHING in a state which currently has absolutely NOTHING!!!! It has been this way since 1987. NO other bill has even made it out of committee let alone coming out of it with a unanimous vote.

To the second person, if you are TRULY thinking this is a step backward then all I can tell you is GET INVOLVED… MAKE A DIFFERFENCE!!!

Anyway, as far as the NC bill goes, I see it as a step away from a true adoptee rights, equal access bill, not a step forward. I don’t even call it a step backward, because it’s not going backward. It’s going into a different realm altogether. By allowing a bill to be based, in part, on the concept of birthparent anonymity being a reality, we who are fighting for equal access are in effect saying that such a right now exists, when it never did before. It’s a dangerous “compromise” to make, because we’re just adding one more thing against us.

I wonder about this as well. My hunch is that it was probably an attempt to compromise with adoption agencies, who want as many restrictions on it as possible. Then again, I’m a bit of a cynic.

The only upshot I can think of is that it protects relinquishing parents from having to foot their relinquished children’s college bills. Many colleges require non-legal parental figures (i.e., step-parents and domestic partners who have not formally adopted their partners’ children) to pay for a student’s education. The vague language many schools use — including mine — may be construed to include birth parents who relinquished legal custody decades ago.

That said, I doubt that was the purpose behind the provision. If it were the reason, then they would have made the age 18 or 24. 18 because that is the age when most students start college, and 24 is the age at which the Department of Education automatically declares financial independence, thereby automatically precluding relinquishing parents from fiscal responsibility for their child’s education. Adding a provision that birth parents would not be responsible for their child’s education would only apply to in-state schools, and therefore not be terribly helpful for people whose kids attend schools out-of-state.