From an AP article published today (full article link below):
“There are so many adoptees who want to know who they are,” she said. “Can you imagine being denied your identity?”
“Secrecy was the way it was done at the time — it was not a choice or a preference on the part of the mothers,” McQuade said of the 1960s, when she placed a daughter for adoption. “We treat adoptees as if they’re forever children — it’s absurd.”
Giving them full access “is a matter of legal equality, ethical practice and, on a human level, basic fairness,” the report said. “It is an essential step toward placing adoptive families, families of origin, everyone connected to them and, indeed, adoption itself on a level playing field within society, without the stigma, shame and inequitable treatment they have experienced in the past.”
“The mythology around adoption is based on the notion that you should be protecting someone from something,” said the institute’s executive director, Adam Pertman. “But that’s not the reality,” he said. “Adoptees are not behaving poorly, they’re behaving very respectfully, and birthparents do not appear to be a frightened class that wants to hide.”
The full article:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/personal/11/12/adoption.birthrecords.ap/index.html