Bastard Nation 2023 Legislative Page is Finally Up

Well, the Bastard Nation 2023 Legislative Page is FINALLY up. I apologize for the lateness. I got a little behind and then a lot behind, and then a lot a lot a lot behind. This year is a legislative nightmare, in fact. As of tonight—and it can change tomorrow—we have fourteen OBC and OBC-related bills to follow; seven traditional Safe Haven bills; and twelve Safe Haven Baby Box bills. A few dropped off already but were replaced by others. No doubt the whack-a-mole will continue.

Since Covid, legislatures have gone mad. Where before it could be occasionally difficult to figure out what was going on, now it’s impossible some days. Some states allow remote testimony; others don’t. Some list instructions on how to submit testimony to committees; others won’t take any. Instead, we need to send a letter to each individual member, but you have to call the statehouse to find out. Does that letter serve as submitted testimony? Who knows? A few states have an online system on which to drop comments on individual bills. In some states one chamber has one set of rules for testimony; the other chamber has another. And as usual, we are getting last-minute notices of hearings that leave little or no time to do much of anything including sending out Action Alerts. We try. The speed by which bills are being introduced and moved on is unprecedented in my memory. It’s been pretty seat-of-our-pants so far.

Don’t get me started on Arizona! The ink was hardly dry on its latest restrictive law, (the state’s 5th or 6th change) when politicians introduced new clean legislation. And by “they” I don’t mean to use bad grammar; “they” means as in three lawmakers—all in the Senate—filing separate and same (or close to the same) bills as I can tell. What is going on in Phoenix?

Virginia looked good until it didn’t. SB1969 passed the House Health, Welfare, and Institutions Committee last week and was ready for a House floor vote today. It had little lawmaker and no organized opposition. This morning (Monday) it was removed suddenly from the floor and re-referred back to HHW, which is not scheduled to meet. This means that the bill missed the deadline to cross over to the Senate this session, and it is dead. We are trying to dig out what happened. In the meantime, you can read Bastard Nation’s submitted testimony here.

Besides Arizona and Virginia, other states have dropped bills.  Florida (same bill as usual), Minnesota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin (another same-as-usual) all have clean bills. West Virginia still insists that bastards hold a high school diploma or a GED to obtain their OBCs! Georgia just dropped a clean bill, and Texas is scheduled to drop one shortly. So there is a good crop. Let’s harvest it!

On a related front, Oregon and Iowa have bills that allow an adoptee to place, with specified evidence, a missing parent (usually father) on their OBC. Oregon’s bill ran into trouble due to legal procedures written in the bill that the court can’t provide, and is being reworked. You can read BN’s letter to the Oregon Senate Human Services Committee here. Iowa’s bill seems on the path to passage. Too bad Iowa is not a fully unrestricted state.

Safe Haven and Safe Haven Baby Box bills are replicating fast. Traditional bills mostly increase the age an infant can be “surrendered” under state law—or to turn over care and adoption placement to private adoption agencies and NOT the state. Indiana’s SB345 is a real mess. It  gives boxed baby receiving locations—mainly fire stations in Indiana—the option to forgo contacting DFS and instead to send the infant directly to an adoption agency blackhole and into “permanency.” Proponents argue that this is for the baby’s “own good” since it will be hard and confusing on them to be moved around and around and around until they find their “forever homes.” (Seriously!) It also abolishes due diligence and lacks instructions and safeguards for the proposed adoption process. One other really weird thing: the bill only covers baby box cases, not traditional SH cases! As I said, the bill is a mess and is being re-worked. Greg Luce (Adoptee Rights Laws Center) and I submitted testimony. Greg was able to present his remote, but I had technical problems.

• Bastard Nation, written testimony in opposition to SB345, dated January 31, 2023
• Adoptee Rights Law Center, written testimony in opposition to SB345, dated January 31, 2023.

Please go over to the Stop Safe Haven Baby Boxes Now 2023 Legislative page for more bill information on boxes. And look around. You will be horrified about what is happening with boxes.

That’s it for now. I check nearly every day, and things change all the time, so do come back.

…Marley Greiner, Executive Chair, Bastard Nation.