In fact, in the states in which adult adoptees are granted access to adoption records, adoption rates are higher and abortion rates are lower than in sealed records states. The myth that open records threaten the institution of adoption and lead to more abortions has been perpetuated by anti-open records organizations and sold as a scare tactic to potential adoptive parents. These spurious claims are contradicted by the available evidence. The fact is that in states such as Kansas and Alaska, and in nations such as England, where adoption records have been open for decades, studies have shown that there has been no increase in abortion due to open records and if anything, rates have lowered.
Women are less likely to abort, and more likely to choose adoption, when records are open.
The national abortion rate was 25.8, while the rates for surrounding states were 21.9 for Colorado, 17.0 for Missouri, 13.9 for Nebraska, and 12.7 for Oklahoma. Barbara Flett, Registrar of the New South Wales Registry of Births Deaths and Marriages, issued a declaration which shows the numbers of adoptions in New South Wales by years, from 1970 through 1995. The data from the Registry of Births, Deaths and marriages set forth in Ms. Flett's letter show that adoptions peaked in 1972 and then began a decline which has continued steadily to the present day. The rate of decline after 1990 shows no significant change from the previous decline, and indicates that the opening of adoption records had no measurable effect on the number of adoptions. From the start of the decline in 1968 until 1976, when adoption records were unsealed, the relevant adoptions declined from 14,641 to 4,777, a decline of 67 percent in eight years, in the following eight years, after the records were unsealed, these adoptions declined to 2,910, a decline of only 39 percent.