Many pieces go into making us who we are as people.

There’s the environment in which we live, the people who share their lives with us, the choices we make and the biology of whom we come from. All of that input – and much more – is part of the stew of our personalities.

For adoptees, Maine allows part of the broth to be strained away, censored. Current law does not allow an adult, who was adopted, access to an original birth certificate which names the biological parents.

A bill, L.D. 1805, pending in the Legislature would give adult adoptees the same access to their original birth certificate as any other person in the state. The proposal is carefully crafted to protect the privacy rights of birth parents, while meeting the desire of adoptees to know more about their origins.

Well-intentioned people sometimes construct elaborate lies to protect their families, and especially their children. But denying the truth is a hurtful road to take, wrought with emotional pitfalls that can be difficult to overcome.

Opponents of the bill are concerned that people would be less willing to place children up for adoption if their identity could one day be exposed. The decision to offer a child for adoption must be heart-wrenching, but no more so than the alternative of abortion.

In the handful of other states that have passed similar laws, there has been no appreciable decline in the number of adoptions or increase in the number of abortions that can be attributed to the change.

The bill allows birth parents to attach a directive to the birth certificate that defines the terms of any future contact with the child. The parents maintain exclusive power over the relationship.

Time was when adoption carried a certain social stigma. Adopted children often had the truth hidden from them, their past censored. The intentions were good and the argument noble: It doesn’t matter who your birth parents are as long as you grow up in a loving and supportive home.

The truth does matter.

It’s tough to imagine another scenario where people would be denied access to their own history or where society would allow the creation of misleading or fake “official” documents meant to obscure facts.

L.D. 1805 strikes a careful balance between the rights of an adult adoptee and the rights of the birth parents. It does not impose some Oprah-esque reunion, or demand a changed relationship between adoptive parents and child.

The truth yearns to be spoken. Will lawmakers continue to censor it?