An open adoption allows the birth mother or the biological parents to select the child’s adoptive parents. Under the adoption laws, even open adoption terminates the subsisting legal rights of guardianship with the natural parents and the adoptive parents become the legal parents. However, many state laws allow the natural parents, in an open adoption, visitation and contact rights with the child in the custody of the adoptive parents.
In open adoption the adopted child and adoptive parents may interact with the natural parents at agreed intervals. The frequency of such contacts can be negotiated by and between these parties through customized agreements and can vary from once in a specified number of years to many times in a month.
The openness and direct access to birth parents, in open adoption, readily answers identity questions of the child and lessens the scope of conjectures in this regard. However, there is no clear cut break or separation for assimilation of the child completely into the adopter family.
In contrast in closed adoptions, the adoption agencies, which arranges the adoption after the natural parents have completely abandoned all their claims over the child, does not provide the child or even the adoptive parents with identifying information on the natural parents. These are shrouded or closed in secrecy.
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