Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization
PO Box 4607
New Windsor, New York 12553-7845
bastards.org 614-795-6819 @BastardsUnite bastardnation3@gmail.com
To: Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee
Members of the Senate Rules Committee
FROM: Marley Greiner, Executive Chair
RE: SB 1147, 1329, 1464: Original Birth Certificates for Arizona-born Adoptees
Date: February 13, 2023
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.
Currently SB1147, SB1329, and SB1464 are before the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Rules Committee. Three identical bills in the same chamber. There is no indication that any of them will receive hearings before the cross-over deadline of February 17. We, nonetheless, send our support for all of these inclusive bills; that is, they cover all Arizona-born adoptees 18 years of age and over equally and hold no restrictions or conditions to access. Now for some history:
Arizona has a long, curious and confusing history of Original Birth Certificate and adoptee records access and rights. As an historian by training, I have reconstructed timelines for historical events on a routine basis. I have to say that the Arizona Adoptee Rights timeline is a doozy,especially considering its relatively small impact on the state. Without the ability to dig around legislative archives in Phoenix, this is the best I can come up with:
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Before 1945 OBCs were open to the adoptee and the general public.
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In 1952 OBCs were closed to the public but still open to the adoptee.
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In 1967 OBCs were sealed to all adoptees.
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In 1997 OBCs were unsealed for a select few adoptees whose adoptions had been finalized 75 years ago or longer(!)
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In 2004 OBCs were again sealed to all adoptees
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In 2021, the OBCs for those adopted before June 20, 1968 through September 28, 2021were sealed. Those adopted after September 28, 2021 can obtain, without restrictions, their OBCs at the age of 18.
What is going on here?
This jumble of yes, no, maybe, and no again and today’s potential “yes” makes no sense, especially now in the era of openness and transparency in adoption and the unsealing of adoption records around the country
Unrestricted OBC access is not a “privacy” or “birthparent confidentiality” issue. In fact, “privacy” “confidentiality,” and” anonymity” are not synonymous either legally or linguistically.
There is no evidence in any state that records were sealed to “protect” the reputation or “privacy” of biological parents who relinquished children for adoption. On the contrary, records were sealed to protect the reputations of “bastard children” and to protect adoptive families from birthparent interference.
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Courts have ruled that adoption anonymity does not exist. (Doe v Sundquist, et. al., 943 F. Supp. 886, 893-94 (M.D. Tenn. 1996) and Does v. State of Oregon, 164 Or. App. 543, 993 P.2d 833, 834 (1999).
Laws change constantly, and the state, lawyers, social workers, and others were never in a position to promise anonymity in adoption. In fact, in the over 50 years of the adoptee equality battle, not one document has been submitted anywhere that promises or guarantees sealed records and an anonymity “right” to birthparents.
Identifying information about surrendering parents often appears in court documents given to adoptive parents who can at any point give that information to the adopted person. (In some states adoptive parents, at the time of the adoption order, can petition the court to keep the record open.) The names of surrendering parents are published in legal ads. Courts can open “sealed records” for “good cause” without birthparent consent or even knowledge. Critically, the OBC is sealed at the time of adoption finalization, not surrender. If a child is not adopted, the record is never sealed. If a child is adopted, but the adoption is overturned or disrupted, the OBC is unsealed.
The influential American Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorneys in 2018 passed a monumental resolution in support of adoptees’ right to full access to our OBC, court, and agency records.
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Today, inexpensive and accessible DNA testing services, and a large network of volunteer “search angels” that locate adoptee government-hidden information, histories, and biological families, has made the traditional “privacy” argument obsolete. Nearly all successful searches are done without the OBC and other court documents.
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OBC access is not about search and reunion. It is about the right to one’s own state-held birth record. Rights are for all, not some. Clearly, Arizona’s strange set of OBC access laws over the years has discriminated against generations of the state’s adoptees and their families.
There is no state interest in keeping original birth certificates sealed from adult adoptees to which they pertain. Nor does the state have a right or duty to mediate and oversee the personal relationships of adults.
These three bills now in committee, create OBC access for all Arizona adoptees. Personally, we don’t care which bill is enacted, as long as it remains inclusive and free of restrictions, and and treats the state’s adoptees the same as the not-adopted, just as it did more than 70 years ago.
Since Arizona’s last OBC go’round, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Louisiana, have restored total OBC rights, and Vermont’s new law will go into effect on July 1, 2023. Arizona can do the same.
Please stop this insidious whack-a-mole. This Game of Adoptee Rights has got to stop. Adopted people aren’t bit players in a legislative Ground Hog Day.
Please put Arizona adoptees out of their misery. Turn that yes, no, maybe, no, around to a permanent yes for everyone. If these bills go nowhere this term, as will no doubt happen, we are happy to work with supportive legislators in both houses to create a bill for next session that can win.
Thank you!
Bastard Nation Mission Statement:
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 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.
