For the first time in the history of Adoptee Rights in NY – an Adoptee Rights Bill will be heard in the Senate Health Committee
Continue readingNew York: S3419 scheduled for Senate Health Committee Hearing!
Month: May 2019
Texas: TXARC Statement and Action Alert on HB2725
The Texas Adoptee Rights Coalition continues to advocate for passage of HB2725 as it is currently written and as reported favorably from the Public Health committee, without discriminatory amendments. Our work is difficult because of amendments that have already been drafted and presented to legislative staff and legislators. We will not throw up our hands and accept a legislative outcome that may include inequality. Discriminatory amendments are intentional and planned, and our focus is, has, and will always be equality for all Texas adult adopted people.
Continue readingBastard Nation Letter to Texas House. HB 2725 – Restore right of Original Birth Certificates to Adoptees—Please Vote Do Pass AS WRITTEN
HB2725, an inclusive bill. It restores the right of all Texas-born adoptees (and other qualified and designated family if the adoptee is deceased), at age 18, to obtain non-certified copies of their own original birth certificates upon request. It also contains a genuine contact preference form (CPF) that allows birthparents to voluntarily submit a statement of preference regarding contact, but does not veto the release of the OBC or permit redaction or other clerical changes or alterations to the OBC
Continue readingTexas HB2725 and Sub Bill are dead
We are happy to say that HB2725, the good- bill-gone-bad, is dead. Officially dead. Our sources in the Texas Statehouse informed us late last week that a deformed substitute HB2725 was being prepared to be …
Continue readingGood News from New York
Monday (April 30) the New York House Health Committee voted A5497/S3419, the Weprin/Montgomery bill, out of committee with a Do Pass recommendation 24-2 with two absences. The bill has over 100 sponsors with more signing on weekly. This is a huge first step in the decades-long campaign to restore OBC rights in New York. The bill now goes to Codes.
Continue readingBastard Nation Press Release, April 30, 2019: Bastard Nation supports the restoration of adoptee civil rights in New York with A5494/S3419
For over 80 years New York’s adoptees have endured a humiliating, frustrating, costly, and rarely successful process when they request their Original Birth Certificates (OBC). The state’s access system, established when Franklin D Roosevelt was president, is clearly antiquated, illogical, and discriminatory, and keeps nearly all adoptees unable to acquire their own OBC. The law sends a message that adoption and adoptees are shameful secrets.A5494/S3419 recognizes the absurdity of this practice and archaic social ideology It restores the right of OBC access without restriction that all New York adoptees once enjoyed, The bill is simple, inclusive, transparent. It follows the process that nine states have successfully implemented.
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