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Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization
Bastard Nation Letter/Testimony in Opposition to HB 1822
Missouri House Committee on Children and Families, February 16, 2016
Submitted by Marley E. Greiner, Executive Chair
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). We do not support any restrictions such as the Affidavit of Non-Disclosure/Disclosure Vetoes (DV), Contact Vetoes (CV), white-outs, or any other form of redaction or restricted access to a true copy of the original birth certificate.
First we congratulate the committee for its passage of HB , sponsored by Rep. Don Phillips. HB 1599 is a genuine adoptee rights bill that would restore OBC access to all Missouri adoptees without condition or restriction and reflects current best practice standards in adoption. By supporting this bill, the committee supports adoptees and adoption reform at the highest level in the US today.
Unfortunately with the success and interest in HB 1599, HB 1822 has been introduced as a blocker bill to gut the reforms and restoration presented in HB 1599. Unlike HB 1599 which has nearly 50 sponsors, some of whom sit on this committee, HB 1822 has, according to the bill’s webpage, only one sponsor Rep Joe Don McGaugh. We are disturbed that such an unsupported bill has the potential to derail OBC access and adoption reform in Missouri.
HB 1822 is regressive, anti-adoptee, anti-adoption, and anti-family sending the message that adoption is and needs to remain a shameful and secret process. It tells Missouri adoptees, their families and the public at large that the state’s adult adoptees cannot be trusted with their birth records, genealogy, social histories, and relationships
HB 1822 maintains and solidifies state-control and interference in the lives of the Missouri’s adopted adults, maintains a clumsy court-order release system, and contains a disclosure veto option for birthparents to block release of the OBC decades after their parental rights were terminated—a special “right” that no other parent much less adult has over another person’s birth certificate.
There is no state interest in keeping original birth certificates sealed from the adoptees to which they pertain. Nor does the state have a right or duty to mediate and oversee the personal relationships of adults. Those who claim a statutory right to parental anonymity through sealed records or though restricted access to them promote statutory privilege and state favoritism
On February 9, 2016 The House Committee on Children and Families passed HB 1599 out of committee; thus, demonstrating its support of restoration of OBC access to all Missouri adoptees. That message should stand and not be contradicted by passage of HB 1822—the exact opposite of HB 1599.
We oppose passage of HB 1822 and urge the House Committee on Children and Families to reject it during its Executive Session. Please vote Do Not Pass.
New York Adoptee Rights Coalition
