Distribute Freely Nova Scotia is one of two Canadian provinces that still maintain a totally sealed records system. No province is totally unrestricted.. The NS Assembly will soon be considering changing its access law …
Continue reading
We have been given limited information from our DOH contacts—as others may have received—that the state and city are both “diligently” working on the application forms but such forms are not yet available or fully developed. We have been advised that there will be a webinar with all applicable agencies sometime during the week of 1/6/20 to help make the process more efficient.
Continue reading
If passed, instead of receiving their Original Birth Certificates upon request, Lucky Bastards will receive a court -generated document– a copy of their Report of Adoption.form, The form is routinely sent by the court to the Wisconsin Office of Vital Statistics after an adoption is finalized, to request the Amended Birth Certificate be issued–if the adoptive parents have requested a new certificate. It includes the names of the child, birth and adoptive parents and other OBC information.
Continue reading
Kate was an adoptee rights pioneer. She served as the president of the American Adoption Congress in the late 1980s and early ’90s when it was.one of the few rights organizations around.. In 1999 she founded the Consortium for Children in San Rafael. California. to provide support and technical assistance to both public and private child welfare agencies.to create. positive outcomes for children and their families. thrown into “the system.”
Continue reading
Since then Maine, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Colorado, and New York, (one of the tightest sealed states in the US) have unsealed OBC s, and in some cases related records to their adoptees wthout restriction. With the overturning of sealed records laws, changed social and cultural mores, inexpensive DNA tests, social, media, and a large corps of “search angels,” the days of secret and sealed adoption are over, Massachusetts has no state interest in keeping its adoptees and their records segregated and divided by age and adoption date.
Continue reading
H1892 and S1267 are currently in the Joint Committee on Public Health. These companion bills are clean and probably the shortest OBC access bill in history. When enacted the gap between the haves and have nots, the worthies and the unworthies, will be closed, and the right of all Massachusetts adoptees, without restriction, to their own OBCs will be restored.
Bastard Nation has supported these bills and similar bills for years. Unfortunately, they are a low priority and are left to die at the end of each 2-year session. This discrimination has got to stop.
Continue reading
Get involved with Bastard Nation's national and state-level advocacy efforts. Sign up or update your contact information here. We'll be in touch.
Bastard Nation is a proud partner organization in the New York Adoptee Rights Coalition, along with the Adoptee Rights Law Center and the Adoptive and Foster Family Coalition of New York. Plus strategic partner Reclaim the Records
Bastard Nation is a proud partner in the Texas Adoptee Rights Coalition, along with Equality for Adoption, Gladney Adoptees for Rights and Equality, and the Adoptee Rights Law Center. Plus strategic partner Reclaim the Records