d.). Sealing the records has only made the three parties feel that they have something to be ashamed of, and if the records were opened, they would then realize that shame should by no means be associated with adoption.
In choosing this issue, I discovered that the closing of adoption records has become an extremely emotional controversy that is dividing the adoption community. A triangle has developed between biological parents, adoptive parents, and adoptees as to who has the right to have access to the records. The secrecy surrounding the records has provoked "curiosity, action, guilt, rumor, and panic. Secrets cause people to feel worthless. They demean and shame people. They haunt and obsess people. The impact of secrets is jolting and far reaching (Rosenberg, 1997)." The secrecy surrounding the closed records has caused adoptees to go against the wishes of the biological parents. Any attempt on their part to search for answers to their past appears as an invasion of privacy or infringement of confidentiality. The closed records also makes it appear that if adoptees try to search for answers, then they are trying to take away any exclusive parental roles the adoptive parents may have. However, this is not so. On the contrary, "searches for information on the biological background are now believed to be healthy for all parties involved (Powers, 1998)." The number of people involved in the adoption process totals thirty million people in America at present. Of those thirty million, about eight million are biological parents, sixteen million are adoptive parents, and six million are adoptees. Given that this issue affects millions of American's, I found it necessary to bring such a significant topic forward, so as to show that closed records are causing more harm than good. .
Another reason that this issue has significance to me is because I have family that has recently adopted.
