It's unbelievable, but they do. Even if the further weakening of adoption isn't Bastard Nation's goal and they say it isn't this might be an unintended effect. Pierce, of the National Council for Adoption, points abroad as a warning of what could happen here. In 1975, England and Wales moved from confidential records to open records. Since then the annual number of adoptions of children under age one has plummeted from 4,548 to just 322 in 1995, a 93 percent decline.
Infant adoption is a relic in England and Wales.
It's hard to say. In England and Wales, the number of adoptions was already falling when records were unsealed. It's clear too that the number of adoptions is shaped by many factors, of which the law is just one. Yet it's hardly farfetched that ending confidentiality could lead fewer women to place babies for adoption. Within the next few years, we are likely to find out.