Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization
PO Box 4607
New Windsor, New York 12553-7845
614-795-6819
bastards.org bastardnation3@gmail.com @BastardsUnite
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Bastard Nation Testimony
in support of H2294/S1440:
Restoration of the right of all Massachusetts-born adoptees to their
Original Birth Certificates without restriction
Presented by Marley Greiner, Executive Chair
Joint Committee on Public Health
May 10, 2021
Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization is the largest adoptee civil rights organization in the United States. We support only the full restoration of the right of all adopted people, without restriction or condition, to a copy of their Original Birth Certificate and related documents and records.
We support the passage of H2294/S1440 as written and urge the Joint Committee on Public Health to vote the bill favorably and to move it on to a floor vote. Last year an identical bill passed in the House but was not heard in the Senate. We believe that if not for the pandemic it would have been heard and passed in that chamber as well.
Current Massachusetts law allows Massachusetts-born adoptees to access obtain their original birth certificates without condition at age 18 if they were born on or before July 17, 1974, or on or after January 1, 2008. The OBCs of people born between these dates remain sealed, available only by court order.
Proposed H1892/S1267, possibly the shortest and easiest-to-understand adoptee access bill ever, reads as follows:
SECTION 1. Section 2B of chapter 46 of the General Laws, as appearing in the 2016 Official Edition, is hereby amended by striking out, in lines 3 and 4, the words “on or before July 17, 1974 or on or after January 1, 2008”.
SECTION 2. Said section 2B of chapter 46, as so appearing, is hereby further amended by striking out, in line 6, the words “on or after January 1, 2008
In other words, the legislation fills up the back hole and gives all adult Massachusetts-born adoptees their OBCs, without restriction, condition, redaction, or court order.
Fifteen years ago Bastard Nation was closely involved in the SB 959 campaign That bill would have restored the right of all Massachusetts-born adopted adults to unrestricted access to their own original birth certificates upon request. I personally came to Boston for a few days, walked the halls, and testified on behalf of that bill before the Joint Committee on Children and Families. Talking to legislators and their aides I was assured that it would pass out of the committee as a clean bill. “It’s a no-brainer” was a phrase I heard repeatedly. Judging from my discussions and the reaction of committee members during the hearing, I left Boston confident that that bill had a good chance of passing not only out of the committee but by the legislature. Massachusetts would join the list of states that returned its adoptees to equal legal status.
Yet, after months of delay, a compromise bill was passed that split Massachusetts adoptees into two classes The Haves: born on or before July 17, 1974, and on or after January 1, 2008, would share equal rights with the state’s not-adopted through unrestricted access to their original birth certificates. The Have Nots, born between those dates, could not. Illogically, simply through an accident of date-of-birth, the Have Nots found themselves and their publicly held birth certificates tossed into a black hole along with their right to equal treatment and due process.
Under current law, the State of Massachusetts clearly understands the principle that adopted people have a right to their own original birth certificates The State now has the opportunity to right that grave wrong done to its adopted population 15 years ago. It has a chance to “level the playing field” and make the rights of all adopted people born in Massachusetts—not just some– equal to the not-adopted and equal within their own adoptive status.
Do the right thing! Support. H2294/S1440. Vote DO PASS and bring some light into these dark days.
Thank you.
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Bastard Nation Mission Statement
Bastard Nation is dedicated to the recognition of the full human and civil rights of adult adoptees. Toward that end, we advocate the opening to adoptees, upon request at age of majority, of those government documents which pertain to the adoptee’s historical, genetic, and legal identity, including the unaltered original birth certificate and adoption decree. Bastard Nation asserts that it is the right of people everywhere to have their official original birth records unaltered and free from falsification and that the adoptive status of any person should not prohibit him or her from choosing to exercise that right. We have reclaimed the badge of bastardy placed on us by those who would attempt to shame us; we see nothing shameful in having been born out of wedlock or in being adopted. Bastard Nation does not support mandated mutual consent registries or intermediary systems in place of unconditional open records, nor any other system that is less than access on demand to the adult adoptee, without condition,
