Oregon is by far, the gold standard for adoptee equal rights in US. The Oregon adopted automatically expect to be treated with dignity and respect.
This record is now in danger with the introduction of HB 2901, a bill to legalize the use of Safe Haven Baby Boxes sanitized as “newborn safety devices”. A previous bill went nowhere. This bill has legs, and it is moving fast–reportedly a bi-partisan priority.
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Over 25 years ago, our Ballot Measure 58 restored the right of all Oregon-born adopted persons the right to obtain their OBCs without restrictions or conditions. Thousands of Oregon adoptees and their biological families have benefited from that measure. Since then Oregon had led the nation by passing further legislation to secure openness and transparency in its adoption system, access for the adopted and their biological parents to adoption files and courts records, and to dispel overall adoption shame and hypocrisy of the past and into the future. Oregon is by far, the gold standard for adoptee equal rights in US. The Oregon adopted automatically expect to be treated with dignity and respect.
It is with great alarm then that legislators are proposing—and apparently making it a priority– to take a backward step and promote the secretization of adoptees, their records and histories with the introduction HB2901. This bill authorizes the use of “newborn safety device,”popularly known as “Safe Haven Baby Boxes” that allow parents—that is, overwhelmingly
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Current Virginia law severely limits adopted people from obtaining their OBCs and other adoption information. Adoptees must petition a court for release of the information for “good cause” or a state agency can release it, again for “good cause.” “Good cause,” however, is not defined by law and is left up to individual interpretation. Both processes are humiliating, time-consuming, infantilizing, and rarely successful. They can also be expensive. The Not Adopted, of course, do not have to stand bureaucratic scrutiny to receive their birth certificates
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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