Open' and 'Closed' Adoptions

• Author: Jeffrey Kasky; Robert Andrew Kasky
• Pages: 29-31

29

CHAPTER

4

“Open” and “Closed”

Adoptions

We are often asked by prospective adoptive families and birth parents whether we do open adoptions,

closed adoptions, or both. We hear terms such as “semi-open,” “semi-closed,” and every permutation

you can imagine. The terms “open adoption” and “closed adoption” have different meanings to different

people and neither term exists in Florida’s adoption laws. But since the question is asked so frequently,

let’s try to explain at least our interpretation of the terms.

A “closed adoption” is one in which the biological parents and the prospective adoptive family don’t

meet, don’t know each other’s names, don’t know where each other lives, and have no contact. The rea-

soning behind this from the birth parent(s)’ perspective is that they want to close the chapter dealing with

what may be called an unplanned and or unwanted pregnancy and move forward with their lives. Being

assured of their anonymity goes a long way toward achieving that goal. Further, it enables the birth par-

ents to gain a level of assurance that their lives will be protected from an invasion of their privacy by the

child they placed for adoption and/or the child’s adoptive parents in the future.

An “open adoption” is one which includes the meeting of the birth parent(s) and the prospective

adoptive family before the child is born and involves contact at the time of delivery and even after the

adoption is finalized in court. It can include participation in birthday parties of the child and holiday cel-

ebrations as well as other fact-to-face visits and can range from one to many annual visits.

As times change, what used to be a closed adoption is now approaching a level of semi-open adoption

in which there is some level of communication between the birth parents and the prospective adoptive

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