Heritage for Adoptees

When you don't know where your ancestors come from, you have a lack of heritage. "Where in the world do I come from?" becomes a burning question. If you are an adoptee and you have no contact with any of your blood relatives, you often fall into this unfortunate state of mystery. We Americans usually descend from from citizens of other countries, and it is part of how we self-identify to know where those ancestors come from. Adopted Americans have no access to this information. I have to pose this question: Why not? To do so would require filling in an extra blank or two for the birth parents, and that is simple enough. It seems there is not downside to having this information. Knowing what part of the world your ancestors came from is still non-identifying to the birth parents, so having this information would not compromise anyone's anonymity. Yet having this knowledge would give adoptees the right to have information about themselves, whereas now they receive none or very little. This would give the adoptee so much, while costing the birth parents nothing.
   Our heritage is important to us. It is large part of who we are now and who we will become. It is comforting in so many ways to know where your ancestors originated. Adoptees in the country, save for adoptees born in Kansas, are not legally entitled to this information. The impact is not just on the adoptee, but on their families. They do not know their heritage, and they will never know the heritage of their children, or their grandchildren. 
   My hope is to give every American adoptee the right to know where they come from, and to know their heritage. It should be the right of every person to know that.