Bastard Nation Action Alert: Pennsylvania HB162. Write to Senate today. Do Not Pass!

BASTARD NATION ACTION ALERT

October 4, 2016

Pennsylvania HB 162

Pennsylvania adoptees need your help today!

Please contact all members of the Pennsylvania Senate today

and tell them to vote DO NOT PASS on HB 162.

Last week the Pennsylvania Senate Public Health & Welfare Committee passed HB 162 out of committee. The once clean bill was deformed last year with anti-adoptee amendments, (Bastard Nation Action Alert) backed by Pennsylvania Catholic Council, the ACLU, the Montgomery County Orphans Court, Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, and professional searchers. (Scroll down to “Pennsylvania” and click on opposition links).

The bill passed last week deforms the bill even more, tightening already proposed tight OBC restrictions. It includes an ambiguously-worded zombie veto which in practical terms creates a perpetual Disclosure Veto that bars release of the original birth certificate by continuing the DV after the death of a parent who has requested it. The bill now goes to the Appropriations committee and then to the Senate floor.

Bastard Nation believes that HB 162 is unsalvageable and needs to be killed. Please contact the full Senate today and ask members to vote DO NOT PASS.

Pennsylvania Adoptee Rights is not a Bastard Nation Partner, but has consistently held the line against compromise legislation in the state. It continues to oppose HB 162 and has issued the following action alert, which we are posting below.

Pennsylvania Adoptee Rights Action Alert:

On Tuesday, September 28, 2016 the PA Senate Public Health & Welfare Committee passed a bill that would allow adult adoptees to access their original birth certificates with restrictions. The bill, HB162, has been amended from its original form. It is now headed to the Senate for a full vote.

Page 4, Section C is of particular concern:

Prior to today’s vote, Section C:

1) Allowed birth parents a six-month window after the bill became law to redact their names from their relinquished son or daughter’s original birth certificate. Once the six-month period was over, there would have been no further opportunity for birth parents to make redactions, and all original birth certificates would have been provided upon request to adult adoptees age 18 and over.

2) Every five years, adoptees subjected to redactions could request that the PA Department of Health contact their birth parent(s) to see if the redaction status changed. If the department was not be able to make contact with a birth parent or found (s)he is deceased, the original birth certificate would have been provided to the adoptee without redaction. A birth parent could at any time can request that their redaction be taken away. All adoptees with adoptions finalized after the legislation took effect would have been able to access their original birth certificates at age 18 without redactions.

Today, the following changes were made to Section C:

1) The six-month redaction window was removed, meaning birth parents (for past and future adoptions) will be able to file a redaction form at any time.

2) The language allowing adoptees subject to redactions to contact the Department of Health every 5 years and request that the Department contact the birth parent regarding redaction status has been removed. This means the Department would not be required to search for and contact birth parents on the adoptee’s behalf after the birth parent has filed a redaction.

3) The section regarding deceased birth parents has also changed to read, “If the birth parent dies after submitting a name redaction form, a noncertified copy of original birth record shall MAY be provided to the adoptee without redaction of the deceased birth parent’s name.” Of course, an adoptee subject to a redaction would have no way of knowing a birth parent is deceased due to the changes outlined in the previous paragraph. The change of language from “shall” to “may” is also troubling, as it implies this would be at the Health Department’s or a judge’s discretion.

We encourage anyone concerned about adoptee rights in Pennsylvania to write or call members of the PA Senate. Express that you do NOT support HB 162 in its current form, and request that Section C be removed entirely from the bill. (This can be done on 2nd consideration on the Senate floor.)

Contact information for Senators can be found here:http://www.legis.state.pa.us/…/member_informat…/mbrList.cfm…

The full language of the bill can be found here:http://www.legis.state.pa.us/CFDOCS/…/PN/Public/btCheck.cfm…

Key Points:

Promises of anonymity are/were inappropriate. The alleged promise of anonymity was never made in relinquishment documents, nor does it hold the adopted person in equal regard under the law when accessing a vital record. It also defies Children’s Rights frameworks and holds adoptees to an alleged agreement regarding their own government record, to which they were too young to consent.
Even with Section C intact, it is impossible to promise anonymity. With the advent of DNA testing and the Internet, birth parents can be found regardless of removing their names from the birth certificate. It is irresponsible for the State to imply that redacting a birth parent’s name from a birth certificate ensures their relinquished son or daughter will never know their name.
Allowing redactions undermines the point of HB162, which is equality. This amendment allows for the personal preferences of one adult citizen to supersede the legal right of another adult citizen to access an accurate record of their birth.
Equal access to original birth certificates is not about reunion. HB162 seeks to assuage the conflation of reunion with the access to information as separate needs. Adult adoptees have a right to access information about themselves that any other citizen can access, regardless of their desire to reunite or whether or not they may be welcomed should they find their family.

Additional talking points and updates can be found on the Pennsylvania Adoptee Rights website at https://pennsylvaniaadopteerights.org/.

Pennsylvania Senate Contact Sheet

Name	District	Party	Email	Phone	Leadership
Alloway, Richard L. (R)	33	R	alloway@pasen.gov	(717) 787-4651	Majority Caucus Secretary
Argall, David G. (R)	29	R	dargall@pasen.gov	(717) 787-2637	Policy Committee Chair
Aument, Ryan P. (R)	36	R	aument@pasen.gov	(717) 787-4420
Baker, Lisa (R)	20	R	lbaker@pasen.gov	(717) 787-7428
Bartolotta, Camera (R)	46	R	bartolatta@pasen.gov	(717) 787-1463
Blake, John P. (D)	22	D	senatorblake@pasenate.com	(717) 787-6481	Appropriations Committee Vice Chair
Boscola, Lisa M. (D)	18	D	boscola@pasenate.com	(717) 787-4236	Policy Committee Chair
Brewster, James R. (D)	45	D	brewster@pasenate.com	(717) 787-5580
Brooks, Michele (R)	50	R	brooks@pasen.gov	(717) 787-1322
Browne, Patrick M. (R)	16	R	pbrowne@pasenate.gov	(717) 787-1349	Majority Appropriations Committee Chair
Corman, Jake (R)	34	R	jcorman@pasen.gov	(717) 787-1377	Majority Floor Leader
Costa, Jay (D)	43	D	costa@pasenate.com	(717) 787-7683	Floor Leader
Dinniman, Andrew E.(D)	19	D	adinniman@pasenate.com	(717) 787-5709
Eichelberger, John H.(R)	30	R	jeichelberger@pasen.gov	(717) 787-5490
Farnese, Lawrence M.(D)	1	D	lfarnese@pasenate.com	(717) 787-5662	Minority Caucus Secretary
Folmer, Mike (R)	48	R	mfolmer@pasen.gov	(717) 787-5708
Fontana, Wayne D. (D)	42	D	fontana@pasenate.com	(717) 787-5300	Minority Caucus Chair
Gordner, John R. (R)	27	R	jgordner@pasen.gov	(717) 787-8928	Majority Whip
Greenleaf, Stewart J.(R)	12	R	sgreenleaf@pasen.gov	(717) 787-6599
Haywood, Art (D)	4	D	haywood@pasenate.com	(717) 787-1427
Hughes, Vincent J. (D)	7	D	hughes@pasenate.com	(717) 787-7112	Minority Appropriations Committee Chair
Hutchinson, Scott E.(R)	21	R	shutchison@pasen.gov	(717) 787-9684
Kitchen, Shirley M. (D)	3	D	kitchen@pasenate.com	(717) 787-6735
Leach, Daylin (D)	17	D	dleach@pasenate.com	(717) 787-5544
McGarrigle, Thomas J.(R)	26	R	mcgarrigle@pasen.gov	(717) 787-1350
McIlhinney, Charles T.(R)	10	R	cmciihinney@pasen.gov	(717) 787-7305	Caucus Administrator
Mensch, Bob (R)	24	R	bmensch@pasen.gov	(717) 787-3110	Majority Caucus Chair
Pileggi, Dominic (R)	9	R	dpileggi@pasen.gov	(717) 787-4712
Rafferty, John C. (R)	44	R	jrafferty@pasen.gov	(717) 787-1398
Sabatina, John P. (D)	5	D	jscarnati@pasen.gov	(717) 787-7084
Scarnati, Joseph B. (R)	25	R	senatorschwank@pasenate.com	(717) 787-8925	President Pro Tempore
Scavello, Mario M. (R)	40	R	msmith@pasenate.com	(717) 787-5839
Schwank, Judith L. (D)	11	D	lsmucker@pasen.gov	(717) 787-6535
Smucker, Lloyd K. (R)	13	R	stefano@pasen.gov	(717) 787-7175
Stefano, Patrick J. (R)	32	R	tartaglione@pasenate.com	(717) 787-1141
Tartaglione, Christine M. (D)	2	D	senatorteplitz@pasenate.com	(717) 787-6801
Teplitz, Rob (D)	15	D	rtomlinson@pasen.gov	(717) 787-5072
Tomlinson, Robert M.(R)	6	R	pvance@pasen.gov	(717) 787-8524
Vance, Patricia H. (R)	31	R	evogel@pasen.gov	(717) 787-3076
Vogel, Elder A. (R)	47	R	rvulakovich@pasen.gov	(717) 787-6538
Vulakovich, Randy (R)	38	R	wagner@pasen.gov	(717) 787-3817
Wagner, Scott (R)	28	R	kward@pasen.gov	(717) 787-6063
Ward, Kim L. (R)	39	R	washington@pasenate.com	(717) 787-1427
White, Donald C. (R)	41	R	dwhite@pasen.gov	(717) 787-8724
Wiley, Sean (D)	49	D	wiley@pasenate.com	(717) 787-8927
Williams, Anthony H.(D)	8	D	williams@pasenate.com	(717) 787-5970	Minority Whip
Wozniak, John N. (D)	35	D	wozniak@pasenate.com	(717) 787-5400
Yaw, Gene (R)	23	R	eyaw@pasen.gov	(717) 787-3280
Yudichak, John T. (D)	14	D	yudichak@pasenate.com	(717) 787-7105