Partisans on both sides are adamant, sometimes even bombastic, in the language they use to describe the debate over opening adoption records. Currently, the main battlefield is in Tennessee, where a law that would open adoption records going back several decades is being held up by a federal court challenge. Traditionally, adoption has been a highly confidential matter. The concept is simply that a person's life should proceed as if she or he was born to the adoptive parents, that it is healthiest and wisest for all concerned to let the physical origins of this person's life disappear into locked files. The adoptive family should be a family and the biological mother, having gone through an episode that is almost inevitably sad and traumatic, should get on with her life.
Openness is healthier in the long run and reduces the sense of shame around adoptions.
Families in which there have been adoptions can still be strong and genuine. In addition, unofficial channels for adopted people and their biological parents to find each other are flourishing. In Kansas and Alaska, open records have been the law for years. About half the states have systems in which adults who were adopted and biological parents can register their willingness to meet and, if there is a match, information is provided to each. Since 1982, Wisconsin has been among about 10 states where, if an adult who was adopted requests it, biological parents will be contacted to see if they consent to having their identity made known.