Oregon
Sealed: 1957
Unsealed: 1998 (2000 after legal challenge failed)
Access Status: unrestricted
- OBC access for all adoptees 18 years of age and older
- Most court files are available to adoptee upon request
- court records open to birthparents who voluntarily surrendered their child (that is, no state or Child Welfare action) can get copies of the adoption petition and decree which have the names of their child’s adoptive parents and their child’s adoptive name.
2023 Lelgislation: SB 573(OBC)
2022 Legislation: HB2663 (Safe Haven Baby Boxes)
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 and about current OBC access.
Read about current OBC access legislation with links to current and past years bills
On November 3, 1998, Oregon voters approved Measure 58 – The Adoptee Rights Initiative, which reversed the retroactive sealed records law of 1957 and restores original birth certificate access to adult adoptees born in Oregon. Read Oregon to allow first mothers easier access to child’s adoption records by Jane Edwards,
- Measure 58 Home Page
- State of Oregon – Official 1998 General Election Online Voters’ Guide – Measure 58
- Oregon’s adoptee rights initiative, 20 years on. Street Roots, November 17, 2017.
Bastard Goddesses: M58 petitioner Helen Hll and Bastard Nation co-founder Shea Grimm: They made history happen
Adoption Politics: Bastard Nation and Ballot Measure 58 by E. Wayne Carp
On the cover of Rolling Stone
The Bastard Chronicles, pt 1, January 15, 2001
The Bastard Chronicles, pt 2, March 1, 2001
by Randall Sullivan
Measurable Rights: the Fight for Open Records in Oregon, a full-length documentary video by Paul F. Fournier
2023
- Bastard Nation Letter in Support of HB573, January 29, 2023
Updated February 3, 2023
