Category: News

Legislation, News

Maine LD1688. Bastard Nation Testimony to House Judiciary Committee. Do Not Pass!

May 13, 2019

What adoptees want is the government held-copy of our birth. We want an us-centric birth certificate, not one that features other players. We do not want the names of adoptive parents who had nothing to do with the birth on the birth certificate. That doesn’t even make any sense. We do not want add-ons or amendments. We do not want a whackadoodle certificate that singles us out and might not even be legal by federal standards.We are not a footnote to our own births, We are not Comments.

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Action Alert, Legislation, News

New York S3419: NYARC Urgent 26 Hour Action Alert. Senate Health Committee

This should take about 15-20 minutes in total.We need to flood the Senate Health Committee phone lines with calls of support from Monday morning @9am through Tuesday morning at 11am.The following committee members are NOT co-sponsors of S3419. Please call and politely ask that they cast a “DO PASS” vote on Tuesday, May 14th in the Health Committee. The staff may ask for your zip code. If you are a constituent be sure to mention that. If you aren’t feel free to give themyour current zip code but let them know how this bill would directly impact you or someone you love.

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Action Alert, Legislation, News

New York: Action Alert. S3419 Senate Health Committee. Vote Do Pass!

May 10, 2019

We are on a roll and making history in our fight for the NY Legislature to #GetItRightand #MakeItEqual. We need to put some serious pressure on the Senate Health Committee. #S3419 is on the Senate Health Agenda for Tuesday, May 14th at 11:30. Can you take 3 minutes to email the members of the committee urging them to Pass S3419 out of their Committee? A sample text can be found below but we strongly urge you to personalize the message. If you are a constituent of one of these senators please be sure to indicate that in your email

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Action Alert, News

Texas: TXARC Statement and Action Alert on HB2725

May 8, 2019
Texas Adoptee Rights Coalition Logo

The Texas Adoptee Rights Coalition continues to advocate for passage of HB2725 as it is currently written and as reported favorably from the Public Health committee, without discriminatory amendments. Our work is difficult because of amendments that have already been drafted and presented to legislative staff and legislators. We will not throw up our hands and accept a legislative outcome that may include inequality. Discriminatory amendments are intentional and planned, and our focus is, has, and will always be equality for all Texas adult adopted people.

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Legislation, News

Bastard Nation Letter to Texas House. HB 2725 – Restore right of Original Birth Certificates to Adoptees—Please Vote Do Pass AS WRITTEN

May 7, 2019

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

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Legislation, News

Good News from New York

May 1, 2019

Monday (April 30) the New York House Health Committee voted A5497/S3419, the Weprin/Montgomery bill, out of committee with a Do Pass recommendation 24-2 with two absences. The bill has over 100 sponsors with more signing on weekly. This is a huge first step in the decades-long campaign to restore OBC rights in New York. The bill now goes to Codes.

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Legislation, News

Bastard Nation Press Release, April 30, 2019: Bastard Nation supports the restoration of adoptee civil rights in New York with A5494/S3419

For over 80 years New York’s adoptees have endured a humiliating, frustrating, costly, and rarely successful process when they request their Original Birth Certificates (OBC). The state’s access system, established when Franklin D Roosevelt was president, is clearly antiquated, illogical, and discriminatory, and keeps nearly all adoptees unable to acquire their own OBC. The law sends a message that adoption and adoptees are shameful secrets.A5494/S3419 recognizes the absurdity of this practice and archaic social ideology It restores the right of OBC access without restriction that all New York adoptees once enjoyed, The bill is simple, inclusive, transparent. It follows the process that nine states have successfully implemented.

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Legislation, News

Bastard Nation Letter: Texas: HB2725 Substitute Bill. Please kill it!–Restricted Original Birth Certificate access for adoptees

April 29, 2019

These amendments ignore genuine access and continue to gut the rights of an estimated half million Texas adoptees to their own OBCs. These numbers (the size of the population of Corpus Christi or Arlington) include newborn, older foster care, and step-parent adoptions. These supposed amendments are an insult to every Texas adoptee They 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. These amendments represent Big Government supervision over adoptees’ own publicly-held legal records and their personal relationships.

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