Tag: sealed records

News

Louisiana HB 450: A giant step for Louisiana. Passed out of Civil Law and Procedure Committee

March 21, 2022

This morning, (March 21) the Louisiana House Committee On Civil Law and Procedure voted DO Pass on HB 450, a bill to restore the right of all Louisiana adoptees, at the age of 24, to obtain their original birth certificates upon request without restrictions or conditions.  Due to the state’s “forced heir” law, peculiar to Louisiana, we are stuck with the age 24 timeframe, but all adoptees are covered. An attempt to amend the bill with restrictions was not accepted. We want to thank our friends Kenny Tucker  (who btw, hosted BN’s 2002 conference in NOLA) and Elise Lewis for their hard work on this bill, and the bill’s sponsor Rep. Charles Owens…Below is our submitted testimony.

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Legislation, News

Idaho SB 1320: Bastard Nation Letter to House Judiciary, Rules and Administration Committee–Vote No

March 17, 2022

Bastard Nation and its members oppose SB1320 due to its discriminatory treatment of Idaho-born adoptees and its eccentric attempt to include the OBCs of intercountry adoptees whose records are maintained by the federal government.

As a prospective-only bill, SB1320 affects no adopted people living today; only those not yet born or even conceived. The law would go into effect technically around the year 2040 and leave everyone born and adopted before then locked and stuffed into the same black hole and Adoption Registry file cabinet that they are now.

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News

Vermont HB629: Bastard Nation Testimony in Opposition, February 16, 2022 REVISED

February 17, 2022

Bastard Nation and its members oppose HB629 as written due to its discriminatory treatment of Vermont-born adoptees. While the bill does away with its date-based “permission slip” (birthparent consent for release) it retrains the substance of that restriction by allowing birthparents to veto the release of the document. The bill, therefore, does not restore the right of Vermont adoptees to obtain their own birth certificates without restriction or condition. The bill, in fact, codifies favors for some over inclusive rights for all. It maintains the current sealed and secret adoption system established 75 years ago by the Vermont legislature at a time when adoption and adoptees were considered shameful—or at best, something to not be discussed in public.

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Legislation, News

Iowa: Welcome to the Comfort Zone. The Fix was Always In

June 2, 2021

On May 13, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed HF 855* a bill that restores the right of Iowa-born adoptees to their Original Birth Certificates. Only it doesn’t. The bill contains a redaction provision, cleverly and erroneously called a Contact Preference Form. This corrupt CPF ignores the “preference” part of its title, and acts as a Disclosure Veto that can allow biological parents to order the state to black out their names and other identifying information—possibly including the adoptee’s original name–on the document before it is released to “their” pesky bastard. In other words, the state is mandated to mutilate its own generated and held record to ease the comfort zone of a small subset of biological parents who just aren’t up to owning their parenthood.

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Announcements, Featured

Put Yourself in History! Times Change–Except for Bastards:  Bastard Nation’s Sealed Records State-by State Timeline

April 24, 2020

Use our timeline for amusement and education.  Imagine the fun you’ll have telling your state legislators that your records were sealed before Pearl Harbor was bombed; Babe Ruth retired and Jackie Robinson broke the color line; school segregation was illegal; Social Security and the CIA existed; Watergate, Elizabeth was Queen;  Malcolm X and Martin Luther King were assassinated….and before most of those lawmakers were born.

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