Bastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organization | Phone 614-641-0294 /614-372-5535
www.bastards.org @bastardsunite
Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization
Submitted Testimony on H3775
DO PASS: original bill
DO NOT PASS: restrictive amendment(s)/Section 3
Hearing: March 20, 2018
House Committee on Medical, Military Public and Municipal Affairs
Submitted by Marley E. Greiner, Executive Chair
Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization is the largest adoptee civil rights organization in the United States. We support only full unrestricted and unconditional access for all adopted persons to their original birth certificates (OBC).
Last April we testified in support of this bill because it was “clean:” an inclusive bill, that when passed would restore original birth certificate access to all South Carolina-born adoptees upon request without restriction or condition. We urged passage in both committee and chambers.
The bill went nowhere but was carried over to the 2018 session. Late last week we learned it had been revived and scheduled for this hearing.
While we were happy to see this revival, we are gravely concerned because an amendment, that is scheduled to be introduced during the hearing, will gut the intention of the bill. (see attached):
Section 3 of the amendment will make OBC access prospective; that is, will allow those whose adoptions are finalized after the effective date of the law, to access their OBCs. Nothing will change for the thousands of South Carolina adopters for whom this bill was created, and whose records are already sealed and will remain sealed. Ironically, 55 years ago the state sealed these same records retrospectively.
The original bill, was intended to restore the right of OBC access to all South Carolina adoptees past, present, and future. The proposed amendment continues to deny that right, Instead, It creates a discriminatory two-tired system of access based on the date of adoption finalization. It denies the older class of adoptees due process and equal treatment under law while granting it to the other class.
We ask you to vote DO PASS on the original/as written unconditional bill and DO NOT PASS on the amendment or any other scheme that would deny access to any of the state’s adoptees.
Below is our revised testimony on H3775.
Privacy/Confidentiality v anonymity in Records Access
Unrestricted OBC access is not a “privacy” or “birthparent confidentiality” issue. In fact, “privacy.” “confidentiality,” and” anonymity” are not synonymous either legally or linguistically.
There is no evidence in any state that records were sealed to “protect” the reputation or “privacy” of biological parents who relinquished children for adoption. On the contrary, records were sealed to protect the reputations of “bastard children” and to protect adoptive families from birthparent interference.
Family Courts can and do grant the opening of OBCs and other adoption records requests without notice to or input from the birthparent(s). Moreover, courts have ruled that adoption anonymity does not exist. (Doe v Sundquist, et. al., 943 F. Supp. 886, 893-94 (M.D. Tenn. 1996).and Does v. State of Oregon, 164 Or. App. 543, 993 P.2d 833, 834 (1999)). Laws change constantly, and the state, lawyers, social workers, and others were never in a position to promise anonymity in adoption. In fact, in the almost 50 years of the adoptee equality battle, not one document has been submitted anywhere that promises or guarantees sealed records and an anonymity “right” to birthparents.
Identifying information about surrendering parents often appears in court documents given to adoptive parents who can at any point give that information to the adopted person. (In some states adoptive parents, at the time of adoption finalization, can petition the court to keep the record open.) The names of surrendering parents are published in legal ads. Courts can open “sealed records” for “good cause.” Critically, the OBC is sealed at the time of adoption finalization, not surrender. If a child is not adopted, the record is never sealed. If a child is adopted, but the adoption is overturned or disrupted, the OBC is unsealed.
Legislation needs to catch up with technological reality. We are well into the 21st century. The information superhighway grows wider and longer each day, and adoptees and their birth and adoptive families are riding it, utilizing the Internet, social media, inexpensive and accessible DNA testing services, and a large network of volunteer “search angels” to locate the government-sealed personal information of adoptees.. Thousands of successful adoption searches happen each year—hundreds in South Carolina alone—making adoption secrecy virtually impossible. The minuscule number of birthparents or so-called “professional experts” who believe that restricted OBC or records access or no access equals adoption “anonymity” are greatly mistaken. The fact is, nearly all successful searches are done without the OBC and other court documents.
The Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorneys Join Adoptee Rights Advocates in Support of Records Access
For decades the highly influential Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorney has been one of the strongest opponents of OBC access. Earlier this year, the organization reversed its policy. In a statement published on January 13, 2018, the AAARA announced that it supports and promotes “the inherent rights of adult adopted persons to their personal family information: and to have access to (1) original birth certificates, (2) agency records which relate to them and their biological family; and (2) court records of their adoption. http://www.adoptionattorneys.org/aaaa/academy-info/resolutions
Conclusion
There is no state interest in keeping original birth certificates sealed from the adult adoptees to which they pertain. Nor does the state have a right or duty to mediate and oversee the personal relationships of adults. Those who claim a statutory right to parental anonymity through sealed records or through restricted access to them promote statutory privilege and state favoritism. South Carolina’s current statutes do not reflect current adoption best practice and culture. As we’ve noted above, the reality of technology and social media has been embraced eagerly by adoptees and their families in search of information.
The original H3775 gets it right. The bill creates equal birth certificate access for all South Carolina-born adoptees treating them as equal with the not-adopted, who unlike the adopted are not forced to undergo an onerous legal and often expensive process simply to get their own birth certificates. H3775 reflects the simple inclusive, unrestricted access process that nine states have on the books (Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Maine, New Hampshire, Oregon, and Rhode Island.)
The amendment to H3775 (or any another restricted scheme) gets it wrong. It keeps current South Carolina adoptees in a black hole and creates two classes of adoptees–have nots and haves–those with no right to their state-held birth records, based on an arbitrary time frame and those not yet conceived, born, and adopted who will have that right based on that same time frame.
Records access is the keystone of adoption reform in the United States today. Support South Carolina in becoming a forward-thinking leader in adoptee equality and adoption reform in the country. Please take the first step in returning unrestricted and unconditional OBC access to all South Carolina adoptees. Please vote DO PASS on the original H 3775 as written with no restrictive or conditional language. Vote DO NOT PASS on amendments that gut the bill and the rights of the state’s adoptees. It’s the right thing to do.
Thank you!
New York Adoptee Rights Coalition
