Last week the Utah Senate joined the House in passing HB345, a restrictive OBC access bill that does little to change the state’s current law. It passed with little fanfare or care from the legislature.
The only chance to stop this bill from going into effect is to convince Governor Gary Herbert to veto it. Please contact him today!
Contact information:
Governor Gary Herbert
Office of the Governor
350 N. State Street
Phone: 801-538-1000
Toll Free: 800-705-2464
Twitter:@GovHerbert
Email template
You can read more information about the bill here and on the BN legislative page. Below is our letter to Governor Herbert.
-
-
-
PO Box 4607New Windsor, New York 12553-7845
bastards.org 614-795-6819 @BastardsUnite
March 20, 2020
-
-
-
RE: Please Veto HB345: Personal Records Amendment Bill
Dear Governor Herbert:
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) and related documents.
We oppose HB345 and ask you veto it.
The bill hitting your desk shortly is as bad as the current law it pretends to replace. It changes little. HB 345 requires birthparent(s) permission for adoptees to receive a copy of their own state-held birth records. Current Utah law requires access through court order only; those whose adoptions are finalized on or after January 1, 2016, require the written consent of a birthparent. None recognize the right of all Utah-born adoptees to access and possess a copy of their own original birth certificates, a right that the not adopted enjoy without legal restriction.
The history and outcome, of HB 345 trivialize Utah adoptees and their civil rights. Originally introduced as a hoop-jumping bill that continued to restrict birth certificate access for most adoptees through various conditions that are difficult to meet, it was suddenly amended to full access to all adoptees without condition or restriction.. Then just as suddenly, it was amended back to restricted access. Hearings were superficial and ignored by the press. No one appeared to testify one way or the other, and incurious committee members waved it through no matter what the bill said –like they were swatting away a fly.
That mischievous fly is the Utah-born adoptee population.
Not only were adoptees and their rights trivialized, but their hope of equal treatment under law, due process, and right to “personal records” (words from the bill) were played with. HB345 is no only bad politics, but cruel politics. Due to HB 345, real people, with real faces, real names, real families, real records, and real hopes were hung out to dry apparently to get “something passed” at the end of the session that legislators didn’t even care enough about to discuss in public. The outcome of HB345 suggests that the purpose of records access is personal reunion rather than political rights. The result will be the increased use of “outing” mechanisms such as social media and online DNA tests, which often involve public exposure of the names and other private information of adoptee and birthparents, rather than the quiet release of a state-held document to adoptees.
The state of Utah should not be erasing the identity and civil rights of thousands of its citizens. Instead, the State should be erasing sealed adoption records from its law books
Please stand by Utah adoptees. Veto HB345, and send it back to the legislature with a strong message that Utah’ adoptees deserve equal treatment, not condensation., under law. It’s the right thing to do. Thank you.
Yours truly,
Marley E. Greiner
Executive Chair
New York Adoptee Rights Coalition
