Nine years ago, Ontario New Democrat MPP Marilyn Churley was reunited with the son she'd given up for adoption as a young mother in 1968. It's a nice story with a happy ending - or at least, it would be if Ms. Churley had limited the script to her personal life. Instead, it's morphed into what is almost certainly the most ill-advised legislation introduced in Ontario since Dalton McGuinty's Liberals took office in 2003.

Since finding her son, Ms. Churley has established herself as the province's leading advocate for opening up adoption records, repeatedly bringing forward private member's legislation to that end. Finally, in 2004, her crusade paid off: Prompted by her latest round of questioning, Mr. McGuinty announced in November that his government would move forward with a new adoption disclosure law. And this March, it did just that - introducing legislation to help adult children gain access to information about their birth parents, and vice versa.

There's no question that the initiative is well-intentioned, or that some of its end results - notably increased access to family medical history - would do considerable good. But those positives are overshadowed by the fact that, if implemented in its present form, the legislation threatens to shake Ontarians' trust in their province's government and system of law, spawn an array of personal heartbreaks and tragedies, and push prospective mothers toward ending their pregnancies rather than putting their children up for adoption.

That adopted children should have better opportunities to learn about their family history than allowed for by Ontario's antiquated Adoption Act, amended in 1927 to seal adoption records, is a sensible proposition. And there are defensible ways to do that - as in Alberta, for instance, where records were retroactively opened up only after both parents and adoptees were granted several months to file disclosure vetoes. But what Ontario proposes to do is to grossly and irresponsibly infringe upon privacy rights.

As the new legislation is currently drafted, the province will not offer any protections against previously sealed information pertaining to any adoptee 18 years or older being released, except in certain extreme cases. Instead, it will only allow parents and adoptees to put a "no-contact" notice in their files - one that is difficult to enforce.

Put yourself in the situation of an adult adoptee. You've spent most of your life wondering who your birth parents are - what they look like, what it would be like to talk to them, whether they often think about you. Suddenly, you have all the information you need to find them. What are the chances you're going to maintain a respectful distance for as long as those parents are on the planet because you could be slapped with a fine no higher than $50,000 for violating their no-contact request?

Some will find the monetary disincentive compelling, or merely decide that contacting parents who've explicitly asked them not to isn't worth it. But others won't. The same goes for birth parents tempted to start meddling in the lives of kids who want nothing to do with them. And while some reunions may ultimately prove as happy as Ms. Churley's, countless others will end in disappointment - or worse - for one or both parties.

Even if every single no-contact request is honoured, the legislation still represents a major violation of a good-faith agreement. Making the immensely difficult and painful decision to give up their children, most birth mothers of years past did so with the clear understanding that their identities would be protected. To expose them to scrutiny decades later not only breaches their trust, but also sets the precedent that agreements entered with the state on any number of fronts are meaningless.

Then there's the legislation's potential effect on the decisions of future would-be mothers considering their options. True, birth control and legalized abortion have already drastically reduced the number of Canadian-born children put up for adoption. But for, say, a pregnant 18-year-old otherwise inclined to carry her child to term and let someone else raise it, how much more tempting will it be to terminate the pregnancy if she's now faced with the possibility of her life being torn apart when she's 36 and the kid turns up on her doorstep?

Perhaps this array of concerns has started to sink in at Queen's Park. This week, under pressure from Ontario privacy commissioner Anne Cavoukian to significantly amend the legislation, the province announced it will delay a final vote until next fall. That leaves open the possibility that it will at least add non-disclosure provisions similar to those in Alberta.

Ms. Churley, not surprisingly, is furious - at the provincial Conservatives, who've been critical of the reforms and whom she accuses of "hiding behind the skirts of the privacy commissioner," and at Ms. Cavoukian and other jurisdictions' privacy commissioners backing her up, whom she claims are conducting an "extremely political campaign" that "gives an unfair advantage" to the legislation's opponents.

With all due respect to the NDP MPP, she's letting her emotions get the better of her. Noble though it may be to try to help other families achieve the same result she did, it can't be done against their will. People who have been assured privacy deserve it.