Pennsylvania
Sealed: 1985
Access Status: Restricted
- No OBC released; only type-written summary of information from it
- Adoptees must be 18 years of age, a high school graduate/ hold GED./ have legally dropped out of school to receive identifying information from summary
- Birth parent redacation of information from summary
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 at our”Keep Informed” legislative pages (middle sidebar.)
- 2023 Legislation: SB736 (OBC)
- Access law and extended summary
- Pennsylvania General Assembly
- Sealing the Records in Pennsylvania by Cynthia Bertrand Holub
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This is what passes for adoptee equality and records access in Pennsylvania: Starting November 3, 2017 some Pennsylvania adoptees became eligible to receive a copy of their original birth certificates. Scratch that! Some adoptees became eligible to receive a quaint summary of information taken from their OBC. Here is what you get”
If we find a plain paper copy we ill post it here.
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LINKS
- Adoption Searches as Humanitarian Intervention: An adoption industry cash cow, Daily Bastardtette, November 3, 2015
- Bastard Nation Action Alert, September 15, 2015
- Bastard Nation Action Alert on amended bill. . June 27, 2015
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- Pennsylvania: Justice once more denied, Daily Bastardette, September 16, 2014
- Personal Testimony in Support by Marley Greiner, Exe.Chair, Bastard Nation, March 28, 2014
- Pennsylvania: “Creating another generation of victims is not the answer.” Letter to the PA Coalition AOrdergainst Rape from Kristi Lado, March 19, 2014
- PA NOW Joins Catholic Bishops; opposes OBC access, March 17, 2014
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- Audio: July 17, 2013 hearing in CYC
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- Pennsylvania: Bastard Nation Letter to Rep. Oliver: Please schedule hearings on HB1978, August 16, 2010
Updated July 4, 2023
I want my birthright! I was coerced into my adoption by my mother and stepfather!! This is the biggest bs ever!! I have even been with my biological family all my life. 2 years after this bs of an adoption I was assaulted by my stepfather who adopted me and I went to live with my parental grandparents!! I should not have to beg anyone for my GOD given rights!! I am an adult!!
I just got done writing a four page letter that will be sent out to every member of the Pennsylvania State Senate. I am advocating for every adoptee to have access to their original birth certificates. I have been trying to change my birth certificate back for the past two years. My biological father even signed the paperwork. I have my mother’s certificate of adoption and the Department of Health won’t accept that, they want the one in my sealed file. That is impossible to get! For that reason the Department of Health is denying me my changes on my birth certificate even though I had the help of my state representative as well. I’m so sick of the games. I am almost 56 years old and my mom and stepfather are not even the last two to have custody of me, it was my grandparents!! Why should the adoption have any weight in any of this now!!