Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization
bastards.org 614-372-5535 @BastardsUnite
April 6, 2019
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.
Bastard Nation is a founding member of the Texas Adoptee Rights Coalition. In fact, we have worked to secure equal OBC access in Texas for over 20 years. We fully support HB2725, as written, to restore the right of all Texas adoptees, without restriction or condition, to access a copy of their Original Birth Certificates upon request.
HB2725, an inclusive bill. It restores the right of all Texas-born adoptees (and other qualified and designated family if the adoptee is deceased), at age 18, to obtain non-certified copies of their own original birth certificates upon request. It also contains a genuine contact preference form (CPF) that allows birthparents to voluntarily submit a statement of preference regarding contact, but does not veto the release of the OBC or permit redaction or other clerical changes or alterations to the OBC.
Restrictive amendments
We understand that one or more amendments that would restrict OBC access might be introduced during floor debate. Restrictive amendments would ignore genuine access and gut the rights of an estimated half million Texas adoptees to their own OBCs. Restrictions would perpetuate the assumption that adult adoptees are untrustworthy and even dangerous and cannot be trusted to handle ownership of their own state-generated and held birth records or even their own histories. They would represent Big Government supervision over adoptees’own publicly-held legal records and their personal relationships.
In fact, in theory, Texas already recognizes the right of OBC access, but under limited circumstances. (1) Texas adoptees 18 years of age or over may receive non-certified copies of their OBCs by successfully petitioning a court of competent jurisdiction or (2) if they know the names of their birthparent(s) that appear on their OBC, they can receive the record without a court order,
We believe that any restrictive amendments offered for HB2725 can endanger even that small “right.”
Unrestricted OBC access is not a “privacy” or “birthparent confidentiality” issue.
“Privacy” “confidentiality,” and “anonymity” are not synonymous either legally or linguistically, nor in practice has it ever been possible.
HB2725 simply levels the playing field by granting all of the state’s adoptees the same access and due process as the small number of adoptees already OBC-eligible, and the entire population of the not-adopted enjoy.
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.” 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, which for years opposed access,agees with us. Last year it passed a monumental resolution in support of adoptees’ right to full access to our OBC, court, and agency records.
OBC access is not about search and reunion.
Rights are for all, not some. OBC Access is about the right to one’s own state-held birth record. Clearly, Texas law discriminates against the state’s adoptees with a nearly blanket restriction with exceptions for a privileged minority.
The state holds no tenable 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.
SB2725 as written, and its sponsors get it right. It treats the state’s adoptees equal to the not-adopted. It stops the humiliating onerous legal (and sometimes costly) process for adoptees simply to get their own birth certificates.
Let Texas be a leader in adoptee equality and adoption reform.
Please return unrestricted and unconditional OBC access to Texas adoptees. Do not accept restrictive amendments Please vote DO PASS a written It’s the right thing to do!
Yours truly,
Marley E Greiner
Executive Chair
New York Adoptee Rights Coalition
