I really like this speech. It sums-up exactly how I feel. I found it on a web page and just had to copy it here.

Good morning, Ms. Chairman. I wish to thank the Committee and Representative Lindner for inviting me to speak today.

My name is Steve White. I am a physician and I teach medicine at the University of Chicago. My wife and I adopted our daughter when she was but several days old about four years ago. I am here today to speak against the confidentiality provisions of the Uniform Adoption Act and to speak strongly in favor of openness and open records in adoption.

Let me say first that I believe strongly in adoption. When done properly it is a situation in which each party benefits greatly. Adoption can be the best solution sometimes to a difficult problem. It is good, and things that are good in society are things that we should be able to defend openly.

It is sometimes said that adoptive parents don't want open records. I am an adoptive parent, and I believe that open records for all parties in adoption is not only a good idea but an idea that is overdue.

You see, the issue is shame. Shame and stigma. And the question is, should our law codify shame?

Closed records are mandated in the Uniform Adoption Act. Article 6 of the Act requires that adoption records be kept secret for 99 years. Identifying information may be disclosed only if both an adoptee and a parent consent and then only with a court order. In fact, people who seek identifying information outside such an order would be subject to criminal sanction. Now that is a drastic measure, and we should consider why information must be kept secret before making it so.

Not until the first part of this century was secrecy mandated in adoption. When records were closed back in the 1930's in most states, it was thought proper to shield children from the stigma of bastardry, to shield birth parents from the stigma of having borne a bastard, and to shield adoptive parents from the public shame of infertility. It is proper that we consider these stigmas in light of our society today. We as a people say that we value truthfulness. Our law upholds the principle that where we came from is not important - it is who we are. Secrecy in adoption not only isn't needed, but indeed is harmful to the very people the law has sought to protect.

Adoptees no longer suffer the public shame of being known as a bastard. There are many children who live today with divorced and single parents in many different lifestyles. Why would anyone single out a child who has been adopted? Secrecy in adoption no longer serves adoptees.

Consider birth parents. The number of out-of-wedlock births in this country has increased enormously. How many of us know of a family member or a friend who has been in this situation? We all want to make out-of-wedlock births less common in our society and for good reason. But society has rightly relaxed its stigma towards those who have borne a child outside of marriage. Secrecy in adoption no longer serves birth parents.

Adoptive parents too have benefited from a gentler understanding today. Infertility is still the major reason why many people consider adopting a child. Our society has learned that infertility is a medical condition, just as cancer is a medical condition. I am a physician, and I understand medical conditions very well. Do we require in our law that people with cancer conceal their illness? Do we blame people for being ill? We know that having a medical condition is not shameful. It is simply a fact of life. It is something that everyone at some point has to deal with. Secrecy in adoption no longer serves adoptive parents, birth parents, and adoptees.

Secrecy, in fact, harms us all in adoption. It creates doubt about a process that is good for society. Secrecy communicates to adoptive parents that somehow their children are not truly a part of their family. Their children aren't quite equal to all the other children out there. Secrecy prevents birth parents from knowing with certainty that they did the right thing. Every birth parent I've ever talked to has asked herself if she was right to surrender her child. While society can always provide reassurance, as the saying goes, "seeing is believing."

Secrecy prevents adoptees from knowing their origins. The longing people have to know their roots is near universal. My sister has an interest in genealogy, and she tells me that we are somehow related distantly to Daniel Boone. That's nice to know, and it provides us with a sense of connection to the past. Now imagine the adoptee who has no knowledge of his or her origin. That an adoptee has a new family doesn't erase the longing to answer the oldest questions known to men and women: "who am I? From where did I come?" Adoptees are the only people forbidden by law from knowing the truth of their origin.

There are those who say that, and I understand this, that some in adoption want or need privacy. Privacy is something we can have whenever we want it. Privacy is something we can enforce. Open records does not negate privacy. Open records simply acknowledges a fact of life. What person can forget that he or she bore a child? What adoptive parent can forget that their child came to their family by way of adoption? What adoptee can pretend that their adoption never occurred.

Adoption is indeed a fact of life. It is good and certainly not a reason for shame. If adoption is good, then it can withstand the light of truth. And so, on that basis I urge you to consider the need for open records, and I ask you to remove from any new law the stigma of secrecy from adoption.

Thank you.