The abortion rates for Alaska
and Kansas are both LESS than the rate than for the United States
as a whole -- 19.4 and 12.7 abortions respectively , by residents,
divided by numbers of women aged 15-44, in thousands. 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.
Data compiled by the Alan
Guttmacher Institute showing the number and rate of abortions in
England and Wales by years for 1961 through 1987, indicate a continuous
increase in abortions and abortion rates from 1961 through 1973.
In 1974 through 1976, when the opening of adoption records was discussed
in Parliament and put into effect, abortions and abortion rates
DECREASED.
ADOPTION RATES ARE HIGHER IN OPEN RECORDS STATES
The National Center for Court
Statistics reported that the 1992 rate of adoptions per thousand
live births were 31.2 nationally, 53.5 in Alaska and 48.4 in Kansas,
two open records states, but lower in surrounding states with sealed
records laws (CO, 26 .0; MO, 27.5; NE, 42.4; and OK 47.6). [Source:
Flango & Flango, National Center for Court Statistics, "How
Many Children Were Adopted in 1992," 74 Child Welfare 1018,
1021-22 (1995)].
Barbara Flett, Registrar
of the New South Wales Registry of Births Deaths and Marriages,
issued a declaration used recently in the TN case, which shows the
numbers of adoptions in New South Wales by years, from 1970 through
1995. New South Wales Adoption Information Act 1990, which became
fully effective on April 2, 1991, made original birth certificates
accessible as of right to adoptees. 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. Prior to the unsealing of
adoption records in 1991, adoptions had declined from 4,564 in 1972
to 688 in 1990, a decline of 85 percent. 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 numbers of adoptions.
Annual adoption figures for
England and Wales for the years 1960 through 1984, taken from official
publications of the United Kingdom Registrar General and the United
Kingdom Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, for non-parental
(i.e non-step parent or interfamilial) adoptions by couples in England
and Wales declined continuously from a peak of 14,641 in 1968 down
to 1984, which appears to be the last year for which these data
were published. 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. If the
unsealing of adoption records had any effect in England and Wales,
therefore, it was to reduce the decline in adoptions, i.e. to increase
adoptions over the numbers that otherwise would have obtained.
