Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization
PO Box 4607
New Windsor, New York 12553-7845
614-795-6819
bastards.org bastards3@gmail.com @BastardsUnite
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Honorable Sara Gelser Blouin
Chair, Senate Committee on Human Services
Oregon State House
900 Court Street, NE
Salem, OR 97301
January 29, 2023
RE: Support for SB573: addition of bio parent to adoptee original birth certificate
Dear Chair Blouin and Committee Members:
Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization is the largest adoptee civil rights organization in the United States. We support only full unrestricted access for all adopted persons to their original birth certificates (OBC) and related documents.
We learned about this bill too late to submit testimony to your committee, but…
We are absolutely delighted to endorse SB573. This bill allows the Oregon Department of Health Statistics,upon the request of Oregon-born adoptees with sufficient evidence, (usually DNA testing), of their parentage, to add the name of their missing biological parent to their original (pre-adoptive) birth certificate. Under current law, this procedure is legal for individuals who are not adopted and can prove parentage.
Oregon is THE pioneer in the restoration of adoptee rights in the United States. Bastard Nation along with Portland adoptee activist Helen Hill were behind the 1998 Ballot Initiative 58 that restored the right of all Oregon-born adoptees to their original birth certificates.
Since then the state has continued to support its adopted citizens and their civil rights by opening their adoption files and other records to them—leaving other states in the dust. While the majority of states still lag behind, Oregon shows the rest of the country how adoptees should be treated under law.
At least once a week I hear either in personal correspondence with adoptees or on social media how they are disappointed and frustrated that their “missing parent”—termed a ‘legal stranger” by law– who is neither missing or a stranger at all, cannot be designated legally on their OBC.
This bill simply allows for a correction/amendment to a state-generated document. It should not be controversial.
Oregon can continue to be that adoptee civil rights pioneer by passing SB 573.
Thank you!
Yours truly,
/s/
Marley Greiner
Executive Chair
Bastard Nation is dedicated to the recognition of the full human and civil rights of adult adoptees. Toward that end, we advocate the opening to adoptees, upon request at age of majority, of those government documents which pertain to the adopter’s historical, genetic, and legal identity, including the unaltered original birth certificate and adoption decree. Bastard Nation asserts that it is the right of people everywhere to have their official original birth records unaltered and free from falsification, and that the adoptive status of any person should not prohibit him or her from choosing to exercise that right. We have reclaimed the badge of bastardy placed on us by those who would attempt to shame us; we see nothing shameful in having been born out of wedlock or in being adopted. Bastard Nation does not support mandated mutual consent registries or intermediary systems in place of unconditional open records, nor any other system that is less than access on demand to the adult adoptee, without condition, and without qualification.
