Alma Society Inc. v. Mellon

OAKES, Circuit Judge:

This appeal presents the question whether adopted persons upon reaching adulthood (“adult adoptees”) are constitutionally entitled, irrespective of a showing of cause, to obtain their sealed adoption records, including the names of their natural parents. Appellants are adult adoptees and an association of such persons; and they urge that the New York statutes that require the sealing of adoption records1 are facially *1228invalid on Fourteenth Amendment Due Process and Equal Protection grounds and on the further basis that those statutes impose upon them badges or incidents of *1229…