This week, on the heels of the official opening of OBCs for all in Connecticut, Rhode Island lowered the age that its adopted class could receive their OBCs from 25 to 18
Now, this might not seem like a big deal to some, but it is.
Backstory: Rhode Island opened OBCs for all in 2012, but with one outlier caveat. Adoptees had to be 25 years old to get them! So, while Rhode Island adoptees were old enough to go and die in Iraq or Afghanistan (or any other place the US saw fit to send you) you weren’t old enough or mature enough to own your own birth certificate and the information on it. At least according to a small but influential gang of Rhode Island politicians.
Bastard Nation supported the law in general but objected to the weird age frame. It could have been worse–we suppose. At one point age 40 or 45 was floated. That was NOT acceptable! A truckload of arguments against this outrageous age restriction was presented by a truckload of adoptee advocates, but the law passed.
Everyone–the grassroots Access Rhode Island with national organizations assisting them–believed that in a year or two the state would realize its faux pas, dump this bad precedent, and quietly lower the age to 18 or 21.
It didn’t happen.
But this year it did!
Front story: On February 10, SB250 was introduced. It lowered the age to 18, added access to descendants of deceased adoptees, and importantly, prospectively stopped the sealing of all OBCs issued in the future, making Rhode Island a leader in a bigger battle.OBC availability at any age, though, was a very hard sell that nearly killed what should have been a very simple change in access that would put the state on the same level as every other state with unrestricted OBC access.
Hardcore opposition pushed back. Not the state’s adoption industry (which barely exists), but the Family Court that never actually said what the problem was outside of a loud NOPE! A confusing back-and-forth between legislative leaders began, including the introduction of amended bills. Descendant access and prospective unsealed OBCs were dropped–for this round. Still, things didn’t look good.
No one outside of the denizens of the smoke-filled rooms of Providence knows what exactly happened next, but on June 29 the Senate voted unanimously to lower the age to 18. Two days later, July 1, the House joined in a unanimous vote. Already, the bill sits on Governor Daniel J McKee’s, desk, and he is expected to sign it. It appears the law will go into effect immediately.
Access Rhode Island, like other successful campaigners with integrity in this movement, held the line. They didn’t give up, and they have not given up on adding the amended-out points in a new bill in a new session that will put Rhode Island ahead of the game.
I don’t know the names of everyone involved, this year, but special thanks go to Acess Rhode Island and its fighters: Kara Foley, Nancy Horgan, Christine Miller, Deborah Seigel. Also to Senators Gayle Goldin, and Mary Ellen Goodwin, and Representative Katherine Kazarian for making this important change happen.
New York Adoptee Rights Coalition
