A recent editorial in the Minneapolis StarTribune addressed proposed legislation that would change Minnesota’s state laws concerning adoptees’ access to their birth records, without the birth parents’ consent. The point is moot for those adopted after 1982, as laws enacted in that year gave birth parents the choice of whether or not to allow the records to be made available to their children after they turned 18. (And, if I understand the poorly-worded sentence from the article correctly, 90% of birth mothers, given the choice, have wanted to allow access under those circumstances.)

As it happens, I have a particular interest in this matter, as I was adopted in the state of Minnesota, before 1982. Read more »