HB2006. sponsored by Rep Cody Harris, is nearly identical to 2021’s HB1386 That bill passed the House with flying colors. Despite overwhelming support in the Senate, it did not receive a hearing because…well, because it’s Texas.
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Speech at Rally for Adoptee Equality, Texas Statehouse, by Marley Greiner, Exe. Chair of Bastard Nation,May 20, 2021
The State of Texas must stop keeping adopted people secret and hidden. Free our birth certificates. Normalize bastardy. Make Texas a pioneer in the restoration of our rights. When Texas cracks its locked adoption vault open, states will crack, too.
Continue readingAction Alert: Rally for Adoptee Equality, Austin, Texas, May 21, Noon
Rally for Adoptee Equality Join Texas Adoptee Rights Coalition as well as representatives of Support Texas Adoptee Rights and the American Adoption Congress for a Rally for Adoptee Equality, Friday, May 21, 2021, at 12:00pm. We are …
Continue readingACTION ALERT: Texas HB1386/SB1877! URGENT: Contact Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick
The 87th Texas legislative session ends soon and HB1386/SB1877 has not yet been scheduled for hearing in the Jurisprudence Committee. It is urgent that we all call Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and request that he bring the bill out of committee and to the Senate floor for a vote.
Office of Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick
Phone Number: (512) 463-0001
Dallas Morning News Editorial Board Endorses HB1386/SB1877, April 30, 2021
In recent years, lawmakers in several states have made birth certificates more accessible. Texas should do the same this session.
Continue readingTexas HB 1386: Bastard Nation Oral Testimony in Support–Clean OBC Bill
Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization PO Box 4607 New Windsor, New York 12553-7845 614-795-6819 bastards.org bastardnation3@gmail.com @BastardsUnite ____________ HB 1386: Restoration of the Right of Adoptees to Obtain Their Original Birth Certificates House Public …
Continue readingTexas HB 683 Seeks to Expand Baby Moses Abandonment Age to 1-year. Why we oppose
HB 683 posits that anonymously and legally abandoning into the Baby Moses system, an older child up to the age of 1 year–a child with an established identity, family, personal relationships, social and medical history, and ties to the community is necessary, much less ethical. While family counseling, respite care, temporary foster care, and even adoption can be solutions to parental child-rearing problems, anonymously dumping a child of any age—especially an older child–should never be seen and urged as a solution, particularly by the state.
Continue readingBastard Nation Testimony in Support of Texas HB 1386, March 17, 2021
Currently, Texas-born adoptees are subjected to serious discriminatory practices hindering their ability to obtain their Original Birth Certificates. Since 2005 the state has released OBCs upon request only to adoptees, who know the name(s) of the parent(s) listed on the document. These OBCs are released without the knowledge or consent of those parents.
The vast majority of everyone else is forced to navigate a cumbersome, difficult, humiliating, and insulting gauntlet of restrictions, arbitrary legal procedures, and naysayers,. and are almost always unsuccessful in their quest. The result of this discrimination is that adoptees are left to their own devices to obtain their own information through inexpensive DNA testing, social media, volunteer search angels, paid searchers. or their own sheer perseverance. I have known adoptees who have spent 30 years or more digging up information and spent over $50,000 in the process
Continue readingTexas: TXARC Statement and Action Alert on HB2725
The Texas Adoptee Rights Coalition continues to advocate for passage of HB2725 as it is currently written and as reported favorably from the Public Health committee, without discriminatory amendments. Our work is difficult because of amendments that have already been drafted and presented to legislative staff and legislators. We will not throw up our hands and accept a legislative outcome that may include inequality. Discriminatory amendments are intentional and planned, and our focus is, has, and will always be equality for all Texas adult adopted people.
Continue readingBastard Nation Letter to Texas House. HB 2725 – Restore right of Original Birth Certificates to Adoptees—Please Vote Do Pass AS WRITTEN
HB2725, an inclusive bill. It restores the right of all Texas-born adoptees (and other qualified and designated family if the adoptee is deceased), at age 18, to obtain non-certified copies of their own original birth certificates upon request. It also contains a genuine contact preference form (CPF) that allows birthparents to voluntarily submit a statement of preference regarding contact, but does not veto the release of the OBC or permit redaction or other clerical changes or alterations to the OBC
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