Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization
PO Box 4607
New Windsor, New York 12553-7845
bastards.org 614-795-6819 @BastardsUnite
July 29, 2020
RE: H1892/S1267: Equal access for all adoptees to their original birth certificates. Support and vote DO PASS!
Dear Senator:
Bastard Nation: 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). We do not support any restrictions to a true copy of the original birth certificate.
We support the passage of H1892/S1267 as written and urge the Senate to bring it to the floor and vote DO PASS.
Current Massachusetts law allows adoptees to access 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 adoptees their OBCs, without restriction, condition, redaction, or court order.
Nearly 15 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.
The State of Massachusetts has the opportunity now to right that grave wrong done to its adopted population. It has a chance to “level the playing field” and make the rights of all the state’s adopted citizens—not just some– equal to the not-adopted and equal within their own adoptive status.
On July 27, 2020, the Massachusetts House passed H1892 (identical to S1267). In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, lawmakers took time to see the rightness in correcting this wrong. We trust the Senate will agree.
Do the right thing! Support. H1892/S1267. Vote DO PASS and bring some light into these dark days.
Thank you.
Sincerely yours,
Marley Greiner
Executive Chair
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,
