With extremely short notice, the Arizona Senate, called back to session due to failure to pass a budget bill for the coming FY, scheduled a meeting today in Senate Rules to approve the introduction of an OBC access bill. No, this is NOT good news. The bill would no doubt be identical to the odious HB 2070 that Governor Doug Doucy vetoed a couple of weeks ago.
Bastard Nation sent an email to the Rules Committee this morning asking members to reject this insulting re-hash. Below is that email:
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TO: The Honorable Members of the Arizona Senate Rules Committee
FROM: Marley Greiner, Executive Chair, Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization
RE: Late introduction of “adoption; original birth certificate release” scheduled for consideration today; Vote NO
DATE: June 11, 2021
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 have just learned that the Senate Rules Committee will hear a request to introduce new legislation regarding the release of original birth certificates to adult adoptees.
The issue was settled when Gov. Doug Ducey vetoed HB 2070, a horrible bill this session that ignored the vast majority of Arizona-born adoptees already living (born between 1968-2021) barring them from their own OBCs. The bill only pertained to those not yet born—those born on or after January 1, 2022. In practical terms, the law could not even have been used until 2040!
HB 2070 was an insult not only to Arizona adoptees but to adoptees throughout the United States fighting for the right to obtain their own state-held birth records, upon request, without restriction. Just days after Gov. Ducey vetoed, HB 2070, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamar signed a bill that restores the right of all Connecticut-born adoptees to their OBCs.
Gov. Ducey wrote in his veto letter that he would not sign any more bills until the legislature passed a budget for the upcoming FY. The budget should be the first and only priority for this extended session. Dismissing the rights of the state’s adoptees by re-hashing an earlier bad bill should never end up on a priority list.
Arizona needs to fix its long history of eccentric OBC access regulation. Since 1945 the law has changed SIX times in its designation of who and when its adopted citizens can obtain their OBCs. A jumble of Yes, No, and Maybe. This whack-a-mole must be fixed and settled once and for all in favor of the state’s adopted class.
It is doubtful that if a new bill were introduced now that it would be inclusive as it should be. Instead, it will be identical to the grossly discriminatory HB 2070.
HB 2070 and its likely clone are not what Arizona adoptees want. The legislature needs to come up with a bill next term that restores the right of all Arizona-born adoptees to obtain their OBCs—not a bill that ignores and trivializes their lives and rights that is rushed through in an extended session, and certainly not an irresponsible bill that rejects their input.
Please vote NO on the late introduction of adoption original birth certificate release.
Thank you.
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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 adoptee’s historical, genetic, and legal identity, including the unaltered original birthcertificate 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.
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Links
Thanks to eagle-eyed Jean Ulrich from CalOpen for finding this meeting!
New York Adoptee Rights Coalition
