States: Maine

Maine

Sealed: 1959

Unsealed: 2009:

Access Status: unsealed

  • Adoptees 18 and older have unrestricted, unconditional access to OBC

Through a special arrangement with the Adoptee Rights Law Center, Bastard Nation is linking our individual state pages to ARLC state access law links and summaries. In addition. our state pages include information specific to Bastard Nation actions and activities in each state.ead about current OBC access.

Read about current OBC access legislation with links to current and past years bills at our”Keep Informed” legislative pages (middle sidebar.)

 

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AS MAINE GOES, SO GOES THE NATION

Lead sponsor in House, David Farrington

A news conference was held at the Statehouse in Maine on November 17, 2008, to introduce the new law that allows adopted adults access to their original birth certificates. Starting January 2, 2009, adults who were adopted in the state of Maine will have unconditional access to their original birth certificates at the state office of Vital Records.

Lead sponsor Senate Paula Bernoit

LD 1084, the adoptee rights bill, had an extremely strong sponsor, Rep. David Farrington, and the quiet personal lobbying of adoptee Sen. Paula Benoit to shepherd it through with non-partisan support. Benoit’s dignified presentation for records access is credited by friends and foes of access with keeping the debate from the bitterness and acrimony that marked last year’s circus.

Governor John Baldacci signed the bill into law on Monday, June, 25, 2008.

 

This July 2007 photo made available by Maine State Senator Paula Benoit, shows Sen. Benoit, center, who was adopted as an infant, and was the lead sponsor of a bill enacted in Maine allows all adults who were adopted to gain access to their birth certificates. Posing with her are Maine State Senator Bruce Bryant,(left), and Maine State Representative Mark Bryant, (righ)t. During her work on the bill, Benoit uncovered her own biological background and discovered the two brothers and fellow legislators are her nephews — their father is her oldest birth brother. (AP Photo/ provided by Paula Benoit)

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LINKS

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NH State Rep and BN Exxe Com member, Janet Alle;, Marley Greiner, Exe Chair; and Craig Hickman, Maine Statehouse, February 2, 2006. They sat through over 8 hours of hearings to testify in support of LD1506. Days later the bill was deformed and later pulled. Craig is currently a 3rd term member of the Maine House having been elected in 2012.

Updated August 22, 2021


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