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: Honorable Members of the West Virginia House of Representatives
FROM: Marley Greiner, Executive Chair
RE: SB470 – Adoptee Original Birth Certificates: Letter of Opposition
DATE: March 5, 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.
We urge you to reject SB470 a bill that seriously restricts the right of West Virginia-born adoptees to obtain their Original Birth Certificates. The bill appears to have been written without the input of adopted persons and passed in the Senate without at least one public hearing.
The bill, pertains only to OBCs and not adoption files. It redacts by default, all identifying information on the birth record, unless a biological parent specifically authorizes the release of the document with that information via submission of consent forms to the Department of Health.
In effect, this means that barely anyone would qualify for a true copy of their OBC. Dead people won’t submit consent forms. Those unaware of the law won’t submit consent forms. To make this proposal more ludicrous, these fake disclosure vetoes, which bio parents had nothing to do with, apply to them after they die. Zombie vetos! None of this makes any sense. It’s kinda like West Virginia lawmakers want to prove a negative.
At a time in history when states are restoring the right for their adopted citizens to obtain their OBCs without restriction or condition, West Virginia lawmakers have inexplicably decided to take several steps backward and enact a bill that even 50 years ago would not have been acceptable. A bill that restricts access more than the current law. A bill that, to the best of my knowledge, sets historical precedent. In no other state, have all OBCs of adoptees been redacted by default,
Currently, 12 states have restored OBC access to all. Last year Massachusetts, Louisiana, and Vermont (effective July 1, 2023), signed on to OBC equality. Just last week the South Dakota legislature passed a bill (unanimously in the Senate and with only 4 dissents in the House) restoring unrestricted OBC rights in the state. Governor Kristi Noem is expected to sign it in a few days. Yet West Virginia lawmakers decided that same week that their state’s own adoptees do not deserve equal access under law to their own birth certificates.
Why?
And whats with the “educational requirement” that an adopted person must be a high school graduate, earn a GED, or officially drop out of school to obtain their redacted or redacted OBC?
Why?
I can only surmise that lawmakers in West Virginia don’t actually understand how adoption works and have been unduly influenced by Hollywood, since their HS470 bears no resemblance to fact and reality.. This is 2023, not 1941 when records appear to have been sealed in West Virginia. Perhaps that explains it.
Now, I want to take a minute to clear up what I believe is the chief problem with lawmakers and OBCs: “adoption privacy.”
Adoption Privacy Overview
Privacy” “confidentiality,” and” anonymity” are not synonymous either legally or linguistically. “Anonymity “is a myth perpetuated by special interests that for decades have profited off of economic distress and society-induced shame and family crisis. In many cases, adoption is a permanent solution to a temporary problem that has not only individual but generational consequences.
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 cover coercive child acquisition practices by adoption agencies, black and gray market baby dealers, exploitative assembly-line maternity homes, and other corrupt systems. Numerous historical and legal researchers and writers have shown that OBCs were never intended to be sealed in perpetuity from individual adoptees as adults. At “best” sealed OBCs were billed as a way to protect the reputations of “bastard children” (not adults) and to protect adoptive families from birthparent and stranger interference. These documents were first sealed from the public, then the parties to the adoption, and eventually to adopted people themselves. What was once an outlier practice has now been normalized through a mix of myth and “tradition” and treated like ”the way it’s always been.”
Courts , however, 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 the over 60 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. he e OBCs of persons with established relationships with biological parents as in stepparent and foster adoptions are also sealed.
The American Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorneys agrees with this assessment. In a major about face, in 2018 it passed a monumental resolution in support of adoptees’ right to full access to our OBCs court, and agency records.
On a related note: under West Virginia law an adopted person, upon reaching 18 years of age, can file a “dissent” to the adoption in the circuit court that granted the adoption. If filed within one year of turning 18, the”adoption shall be vacated.”
Privacy and Technology
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.
Conclusion
Absolutely no adoptee rights organization in the US today supports SB470. The howls, sneers, and catcalls this bill evoked, as word of it got out on social media. is a resounding NO.
SB470 needs to be tossed into the Kanawha River. West Virginia can easily and gracefully rescind this mistake-of-a-bill by studying what other states are doing and presenting a informed clean bill free of restrictions, next session. Adoptee rights activists in West Virginia and national organizations will be happy to work with you,explain the misunderstanding around the lack of adoptee equality, and why OBCs are important. No bill pertaining to adopted people and their rights should even be considered without our input and approval..
In the meantime please do not support SB470. Kill this horrible bill through a Do Not Pass or Sine Die. Please! Thank you.
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 adopter’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. 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
New York Adoptee Rights Coalition
Definitely sent in my emails of opposition! This bill is nearly the worst I have seen!
Thanks for the emails. Did you get any response? The WV legislative session is over on March 11 so let’s hope they let this one go. I can’t imagine where this stupid bill came from.