To the Editor:

As an adult adoptee lucky enough to have found my birth parents, I have compassion for those adoptees who have little chance of finding their biological roots because of the injustice of closed records (front page, March 18). It is telling that it is adoptive parents who are lobbying against opening records, not adoptees and birth parents.

My parents are those who reared me. This does not erase the fact that I wanted to know about my biological heritage, medical history, traits that "run in the family", and so on. Now that I know these things I am more at peace with myself and with starting a family of my own.

Regarding state registries, most require that both biological parents register as well as the adoptee and both adoptive parents before any information may be released. The likelihood that all five will register is slim, considering the requirement that the birth father participate. Adoptees and birth parents may be afraid of disrupting each other's lives, but this does not mean that they have no yearning to know what happened to the other.