On November 8, less than a month after the bills were introduced, both bills were voted favorable out of the Committee on Families, Children, and Seniors. The next day, the House passed both bills, 99-8, and it was transmitted to the Senate. The Michigan legislature, for all intents and purposes, is now in recess so we will have to wait until next year to seal the deal.
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We support HB5148 a “clean bill” that allows all Michigan-born adoptees, their descendants or legal representatives to obtain the adoptee’s original birth certificate without restrictions or conditions upon request at the age of 18, The bill contains a voluntarily optional Contact Preference Form which allows biological parents to record if the would like contact, but does not control the release of the OBC.
We support HB5149 which eliminates current court and Central Adoption Registry control over the release of the OBC. It retains biological parent denial of identifying information requests already on file, BUT that request does not restrict OBC access. No release vetoes can be filed after July 1, 2024.
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Yesterday I did a few legislative updates, and it really struck me while doing them–as if I didn’t already know this–that hardly anyone cares about adult adoptees or adoptee civil rights–especially those who have the “authority” to fix things legally such as policy and lawmakers. When compared to the speed which Safe Haven Baby Box legislation passes, records access for adults, even with the successes of the last couple of years, runs a very poor second.
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The outrage is that we must respect the righs of the adoptive parents and the birth parents. What about the rights of the adut adoptee being conditional on the whims of other people?
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On July 1, 2023, Vermont and South Dakota became the latest states to unseal without condition or restriction, the Original Birth Certificates of their state-born adoptees. And there’s more to come!
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Minnesota’s long history of sealed records and complicated, confusing, convoluted “rules,” including an incomprehensible intermediary system that made it nearly impossible for adoptees to obtain their Original Birth Certificates, ended Wednesday when Minnesota Governor Tim Waltz signed SF2995 an omnibus health bill that contained OBC access provisions. Those provisions came from the earlier stand-alone SF279 stuck in the Senate Health and Human Services Committee for carryover to the next session. The Minnesota Coalition for Adoption Reform (MCAR) and the Adoptee Rights Law Center directed by Minneapolis attorney Gregory Luce, negotiated with legislative leaders to get the provisions added and onto the floor of both Houses which passed the bill on May 22, 2023, the last day of the session. (Senate: 34-32; House 69-64)
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AB1302 is clearly adopteephobic, discriminatory, and frankly bigoted– and it clearly was written with no adoptee input. It has no support from any adoptee rights, adoption reform, or child welfare organization in the country. If this bill were about any other marginalized group and written without any input from them–African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, Asians, women, queers, trans, Jews, Muslims, disabled, it would never see the light of day.
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AB 1302 would create a clumsy, cumbersome, and unduly burdensome TRIPLE notification procedure in the hands of the Department of Health. While no fiscal note is yet attached to the bill, I can imagine the cost in millions will fall on adoptees and other voters in California.
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SB64 should have passed the House. The bill was a shoo-in. It had no organized opposition. Even traditional opponents agreed to remain neutral. The bill zipped through the Senate and the House Judiciary Committee unanimously. But then something happened. A small group of politicians found the right of their own state’s adopted people to obtain their own Original Birth Certificates “troublesome.” and “problematic,” or something worse. I don’t know their objections (I can guess) or who they are, though it is likely that House Speaker Jon Burns was among them. Did at least some of them have “a little something” to hide? Whatever was going on, they decided to keep Class Bastard Georgia in line. If SB64 isn’t heard and doesn’t exist on the agenda then adoptees don’t.
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I really have no idea what the purpose of this bill is or why it has been brought forward, but it is clearly adopteephobic, discriminatory, and frankly bigoted– and it clearly was written with no adoptee input. It has no support from any adoptee rights, adoption reform, or child welfare organization in the country. If this bill were about any other marginalized group and written without any input from them–African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, Asians, women, queers, trans, Jews, Muslims, disabled, it would never see the light of day.
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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