Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization
P.O. Box 4607
New Windsor, New York 12553-7845
bastards.org 614-795-6819 @BastardsUnite
FROM Marley Greiner Executive Chair
RE: SB64—Original Birth Certificates. Letter in SUPPORT. VOTE DO PASS TODAY!
Date: March 29, 2023
What’s the holdup?
Bastard Nation (BN): 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 are one of many organizations working with the Georgia Adoptee Alliance to restore adoptee rights in Georgia.
I am a former resident of Radium Springs and later Albany, and I hold close my memories of my time in Georgia. I want Georgia adoptees to win.
Bastard Nation supports SB64 as written; a “clean bill” with no restrictions that restores the right of all Georgia-born adoptees 18 years of age and older the right to obtain their OBCs
This bill flew through the Senate and the House Judiciary Committee, but remains ignored for days while the George Legislature moves to shut down for the year. We are on Day 40, with no action.
SB64 restores the civil right of all Georgia adoptees to obtain their own Original Birth Certificates without restrictions. It is a simple non-controversial bill. SB64 does away with the current discriminatory convoluted and archaic legal procedure to gain OBCs and replaces it with a clear, common-sense process. The document would be released upon request without court vetting to the requesting adoptee in the same manner that the Non-Adopted receive their birth certificates.
Failure to act on this measure and pass today will continue the abrogation of the civil rights of tens of thousands of Georgia-born adoptees and their families. Without passage, discrimination against adoptees, on the most intimate level will continue. The right to know where they come from and to obtain the public record of their own birth, which the Not-Adopted are granted without question, will remain denied. How can anyone believe that this is ethical or legal, and that the State of Georgia should mandate personal information from a state-generated document be sealed and denied from the people to whom it pertains?
Last year Louisiana, Vermont, and Massachusetts unsealed OBCs to the adopted people to which they belong. Last week South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem signed a bill similar to SB64. Please vote DO PASS on HB 64, and make it the 15th State to acknowledge and support the right of its adoptees to obtain their state-generated and held birth record. Thank you!
