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It amazes me the NJ-ACLU has chosen on the one hand to champion Open Public Records, and on the other hand to oppose the right of Adult Adoptees to have access to their original birth records. If 95% of birth mothers wanted confidentiality, I might understand this logic. However, DYFS has shown when they do searches that 95% of birth mothers are open to sharing their name and other information, including having contact, with the child they placed for adoption. Most persons who are parents would understand the desire to know what happened to the child that was placed for adoption. The pain of separation is not just for the adoptee, but also for the birth parent. Most birth parents find it difficult to get on with their life (as they were led to believe they could) without knowing what happened to their child. Today, adoption agencies can rarely convince a birth parent to place a child for adoption, unless they give the birth parents assurance that their will be some kind of openness in the adoption process. Birth parents were never promised confidentiality from the child they placed for adoption. Most birth parents were teenagers, and were forced to place the child against their will by their parents, by their church, or by the larger social norms. If NJ-ACLU did their job, as they should, they would know that they are on the wrong side of this issue. S799, the bill recently passed in the NJ Senate, and now waiting for a hearing in the Assembly, gives the minority of birth parents who placed a child for adoption, and who want confidentiality the right to have their personal information removed from the original birth certificate. That would seem to provide the protection that the NJ-ACLU deems necessary. At the least the NJ-ACLU should remain neutral. But if they really wanted to advocate for the vast majority of birth parents who placed children for adoption, they would strongly support the Adoption Birthright bill that is now before the Assembly. Mary L Mild