The Kentucky Legislature has been closed down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it is scheduled to re-open (as of this writing) on April 14, 2020. We don’t know if that will happen, but now …
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This week Utah Governor Gary R. Herbert signed two bills that continue to abrogate the rights of Utah–born adoptees.
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Not only were adoptees and their rights trivialized, but their hope of equal treatment under law, due process, and right to “personal records” (words from the bill) were played with. HB345 is no only bad politics, but cruel politics. Due to HB 345, real people, with real faces, real names, real families, real records, and real hopes were hung out to dry apparently to get “something passed” at the end of the session that legislators didn’t even care enough about to discuss in public. The outcome of HB345 suggests that the purpose of records access is personal reunion rather than political rights. The result will be the increased use of “outing” mechanisms such as social media and online DNA tests, which often involve public exposure of the names and other private information of adoptee and birthparents, rather than the quiet release of a state-held document to adoptees.
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Stuck at home with “nothing to do?” Don’t be a bored bastard. Here are some ideas.
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From Capitol Coalition for Adoptee Rights: Maryland’s HB1039 has passed the House, 130-8, with adoptee delegates stepping up to support the bill’s passage! On to the Senate. Keep up with efforts, join us, and …
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Please drop a line to Utah Senators and ask them to oppose HB 345. .There is no state 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. Those who claim a statutory right to parental anonymity through sealed records, as found in HB 345, promote statutory privilege and state favoritism. This is not a bill adoptees want or need. Only unrestricted, unconditional OBC access is acceptable.
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The New York Adoptee Rights Coalition For adoptees born outside of New York, but adopted in the state: We received an email from one of our contacts within the NYSDOH – New York …
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Arizona has a long,curious and confusing history of adoptee records access. Before 1945 OBCs were open to the adoptee and the general public. In 1952 OBCs were closed to the public but still open to the adoptee. In 1967 OBCs were sealed to all adoptees. In 1997 OBCs were unsealed to a select few adoptees whose adoptions had been finalized 75 years ago or longer(!) Then in 2004 OBCs were again sealed to all adoptees This jumble of yes, no maybe, and no again makes no sense, especially now in an era of openness and transparency in adoption and the unsealing of adoption records around the country
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Bastard Nation and its members in Maryland have worked in Maryland since the late 1990s to secure a change in OBC/adoption record access laws that restore the right of all the state’s adoptees ,not just the select few as under current law who are currently forced to navigate a cumbersome, difficult, and insulting gauntlet of restrictions, arbitrary procedures, and naysayers, to receive their own OBC,s which are rightfully theirs, without restriction.
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The passage in 2015 of Public Act 14-133 which restored the right of OBC access to Connecticut adopted persons whose adoptions were finalized after October 1, 1983, shows that the legislature understands the justice in OBC access. Unfortunately, 30,000 of the state’s adoptees were left behind in that limited law—their records remaining sealed and available only through a court order. SB 113 finishes the job making all Connecticut adoptees subject to the same right of access and due process.
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Bastard Nation is a proud partner organization in the New York Adoptee Rights Coalition, along with the Adoptee Rights Law Center and the Adoptive and Foster Family Coalition of New York. Plus strategic partner Reclaim the Records
Bastard Nation is a proud partner in the Texas Adoptee Rights Coalition, along with Equality for Adoption, Gladney Adoptees for Rights and Equality, and the Adoptee Rights Law Center. Plus strategic partner Reclaim the Records