The California House Judiciary Committee is set to hold a hearing on AB1302 on March 21.. This is a terrible reactionary bill,that includes biological parent redactions and maintains a complicated court procedure to obtain OBCs. California is the crown jewel. Passage of this bill would not only mean a defeat for the adopted people and the adoptee rights movement but probably make access worse in the state than it is now. It would be impossible to revisit for years.
BN’s long-time partner CalOpen Partner’s will post an action alert shortly, that we will repost here for heavy redistribution. It is absolutely essential to organize now and get your opposition on record.
CalOpen’s Letter of Opposition is posted on its Facebook page.
In the meantime, below is Bastard Nation’s Letter of Opposition that we submitted on March 14.
- For more California information go to:
CalOpen Partners Facebook)
Bastard Nation California State page
Bastard Nation 2023 Legislative page
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Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization
P.O. Box 4607
New Windsor, New York 12553-7845
bastards.org 614-795-6819 @BastardsUnite
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TO: Honorable Members of the House Judiciary Committee
FROM Marley Greiner Executive Chair
RE: AB1302 Original Birth Certificates. For Adoptees
POSITION: OPPOSE
DATE: March 14, 2023
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 have worked for the restoration of the right of California-born adoptees to obtain their original birth certificates without restriction or condition since the late 1990s
We appreciate Assm. Lackey’s attempt to support OBC access, but we unequivocally oppose AB 1302. The bill is discriminatory and treats the adopted differently from the not-adopted in the way they can obtain their birth certificates.
AB1302 creates the right of birthparents to file a “disclosure preference form” with two choices: 1) disclose personal identifying information on the original certificate of birth; or 2) redact personal identifying information on the original certificate of birth. The bill also retains a complicated court procedure to obtain the document that is not required of the not- adopted
AB1302 does not represent a true OBC access bill. These provisions make the bill unacceptable not only to Bastard Nation but every reputable adoptee rights organization in
the United States. Even the American Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorneys supports unfettered access OBCs.
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 economic distress and society-induced shame and family crisis. In many cases, adoption is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
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 birth parent 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. The OBCs of persons with established relationships with biological parents as in step-parent and foster adoptions are also sealed. Today, inexpensive and accessible DNA testing services, have made the traditional “privacy” argument obsolete.
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 ventually from 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.
Adoptee access to OBCs is becoming normalized. Adopted people in 13 states have unrestricted access to their OBCs. Last year alone Louisiana, Massachusetts and Vermont (as of July 1, 2023) unsealed OBCs. His year South Dakota passed a bill to unseal that is on the governor’s desk. Georgia is moving close to victory. OBC has been normalized.
Please VOTE NO on AB1302 Thank you.
New York Adoptee Rights Coalition
