by William L. Pierce

About the author: William L. Pierce is the founder and past president of the National Council for Adoption, an adoption advocacy and child welfare organization.

On June 11, 1998, a Member of Congress, Representative Jim Oberstar (DMN), the House Democratic Co-Chair of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption, said in a statement for the Subcommittee on Human Resources of the Committee on Ways and Means that “After Great Britain changed its adoption laws in 1975 to allow adopted individuals to view their unamended birth certificates, a significant decline took place in the number of children placed for adoption.”

The Congressman’s statement reflects the heated policy debate that has been taking place in the United States for at least 25 years about removing privacy from adoption...