Bastard Nation News and Notes

MISSOURI: Bastard Nation Testimony HB 1137--Oppose

2012-01-26T22:25:00.000-05:00

HB 1137:

access to identifying information for adoptions original birthcertificate

Missouri HouseJudiciary Committee

January 25, 2012

OPPOSE

Privilege is theopposite of rights

BastardNation: the Adoptee Rights Organization is the largest Adoptee civilrights organization in the United States. We support full access forall adopted persons to their original birth certificates (OBC)without restriction.. HB 1137 is not an unrestricted bill and weoppose it.

Under currentMissouri law, the original birth certificates of all MissouriAdoptees are sealed and cannot be released to the adoptee without acourt order.

Missouri's current “identifyinginformation access” law is a confusing, convoluted labyrinth thatserves only a handful of adoptees who successfully navigate itsbureaucracy. Those few who do succeed receive only “identifyinginformation” without the release of the OBC. .

HB 1157 makes no substantial changesin that law. It simply substitutes OBC release for the currentinformal identifying information forwarded to the adoptee, keepingthe rest of the bureaucracy in place. It,fact, this bill actuallyincreases the bureaucracy by adding the Department of Social Servicesto the list of agencies that can be involved in the release.

HB 1137 reinforces outdatedadoption secrecy present in the current law. It includes themisnamed “contact preference form”which enables biologicalparents, upon request, to prohibit the state from releasing to theOBC. A genuine “contact preference form”as Oregon, Alabama, NewHampshire, Maine, and Rhode Island have enacted permits abiological parent to state a preference regarding contact,with the adoptee, with no legal ramifications. The “contractpreference form “in HB1137, is simply a softer name for the“affidavit of nondisclosure form” in current law, and continuesto let third parties legally bar the adoptee from receiving the OBC—aprivilege or “special right” that no third party, not even aparent, can evoke against the not-adopted.

Furthermore, the submission of a medical history form, mandated for biological parents who file aveto, is invasive and may be in violation of the federal HIPAA. Law. While family medical histories are desirable for everyone, no onehas a right to anyone else s, and adoptees should not be theexception. The entire impetus for adoptee rights, in fact, is thatadopted people need to be treated the same as everyone else, nothingmore and nothing less.

Sooner or later Missouri, and everyother state that has not opened OBC’s unconditionally to adoptees,are going to be forced to d so. The issue isn't going away. This isnot a matter of if, but when.

Adopted adults, especially since9/11, are increasingly denied passports, driver’s licenses,pensions, Social Security benefits, professional certifications,security clearances and other entitlements due to discrepancies ontheir amended birth certificates, and their inability to produce anoriginal birth certificate to answer the problems.

Adopteeswithout a genuine original birth record could soon be barred fromrunning for public office. At least 10 states, including Missouri(HB 283; ss Lyle Rowland, Mike Kelly) haveintroduced legislation requiring presidential and vice-presidentialcandidates to present their original birth certificates toappropriate authorities to prove citizenship eligibility for office.Some of these bills go farther, mandating anyone running for officeto prove citizenship through an original birth certificate. It is nostretch to think that someday soon adoptees could be barred fromvoting due to lack of “legal” identity over problematical amendedbirth certificates, and the perpetual sealing of theoriginals.

Kansas and Alaska have never sealed original birthcertificates. Since 1999 five states have restored to adoptees theunrestricted right to records and identity access: Oregon throughballot initiative, and Alabama, New Hampshire, Maine, and RhodeIsland through legislation. No statistics are available for Kansasand Alaska, but approximately 17,000 OBCs in the former states havebeen released with no reported consequences. (Rhode Island won'topen until July 1, 2012)

Rights are for all citizens, notfavors doled out to some. Missouri does not segregate rights byreligion, ethnicity, age, or gender. It should not segregate rightsby birth, adoptive status, or third party “preference.”

HB 1137, as it is currently written does nothing to restore the rightof all Missouri adoptees to their own original birth certificates. Unless this bill is amended –basically re-written to restore therights of all, we urge you to vote DO NOT PASS. All Missouri Adopteesmust enjoy equal protection, due process, and dignity. MissouriAdoptees deserve better than HB 1137!

Submitted by MarleyGreiner
Executive Chair
Bastard Nation: the Adoptee rightsorganization
January 25, 2012

Bastard Nation is dedicated to therecognition of the full human and civil rights of adult Adoptees.Toward that end, we advocate the opening to Adoptees, upon request atage of majority, of those government documents which pertain to theAdoptee's historical, genetic, and legal identity, including theunaltered original birth certificate and adoption decree. BastardNation asserts that it is the right of people everywhere to havetheir official original birth records unaltered and free fromfalsification, and that the adoptive status of any person should notprohibit him or her from choosing to exercise that right. We havereclaimed the badge of bastardy placed on us by those who wouldattempt to shame us; we see nothing shameful in having been born outof wedlock or in being adopted. Bastard Nation does not supportmandated mutual consent registries or intermediary systems in placeof unconditional open records, nor any other system that is less thanaccess on demand to the adult Adoptee, without condition, and withoutqualification.

Washington State: Bastard Nation Testimony in Opposition to HB 2211/suggested amendments

2012-01-16T23:34:00.001-05:00

TESTIMONY

HB2 2211

Adoptee access to theirown original birth certificates

Washington HouseCommittee on the Judiciary

January 16, 2011

OPPOSE

Privilege is theopposite of rights

OurWashington representative cannot attend the hearing today so we aresubmitting this testimony via email.

Bastard Nation's roots are inWashington State, and we would like nothing more than to support HB2211. Unfortunately we cannot.

The sticking point is HB 2211's “affidavit of non-disclosure,” otherwise known as a disclosureveto. This veto creates a special third party privilege forbirthparents that no one, parent or otherwise, possesses: tobypass state law and to personally bar release of another person'sbirth certificate to the person to whom it pertains.

Already in place for adoptionsfinalized on and after October 1 1993, HB 2022 would expand thisonerous and discriminatory veto privilege to cover all adoptions;thus expanding the pool of segregated adoptees unable to accesstheir OBCs, even when the vast majority of the state's adopteescould..

Interestingly, HB 2211 expires on July1, 2012, all current vetoes on file. Those birthparents wishing toremain on the veto books would be required to file a new disclosureveto limited to two years duration, and subject to continued filingsevery two years.

It appears that the sponsors of thebill have it half right. They are willing to permit the state'sadopted class OBC access—unless a third part objects—but limitthat third party objection to two year increments. That is, thesponsors appear to find something inherently wrong with vetoes, butfeel some sort of obligation to the keep them going .Such an attitudemay justify past bad legislation but does not justify denying theadoptees of Washington State the restoration of their civil rights. There is no middle way when it comes to rights: a right exists or itdoesn't, and it is not contingent on third party approval.

Sooner or later Washington and everyother state that has not opened OBCs unconditionally to adoptees aregoing to be forced to. The issue isn't going away. This is not amatter of if, but when.

Adopted adults, especially since 911,are increasingly denied passports, drivers licenses, pensions, SocialSecurity benefits, professional certifications, and securityclearances due to discrepancies on their amended birth certificates,and their inability to produce an original birth certificate toanswer the problems. Proposed changes in passport applicationregulations will make it literally impossible for some adoptees toever receive a passport without an accessible paper trial to the OBC.

Adoptees without a genuine original birth record could soonbe barred from running for public office.‭ ‬Last year, at least‭‬10‭ ‬states, introduced legislation requiring presidential andvice-presidential candidates to present their original birthcertificates to appropriate authorities to prove citizenshipeligibility for office.‭ ‬Some of these bills go farther,‭‬mandating anyone running for office to prove citizenship throughan original birth certificate.‭ ‬It is no stretch to think thatsomeday soon adoptees could be barred from voting due to lack of‭“‬legal.‭”birth certificates.

Should these rights and entitlements beabrogated for adoptaees because OBC access might make some people“uncomfortable?”

As I said in the beginning, were it notfor the disclosure veto in all it;'s forms,, including modified, weand our members would happy to support HB 2211.

We recommend that Washington State makehistory, and simply expire permanently all vetoes currently in place. Amend HB 2211 with the following:

remove the expansion of the disclosure veto
vacate all disclosure veto language from the current law
unilaterally expire all vetoes currently on file on the effective date of HB 2211

Kansas and Alaska have never sealedoriginal birth certificates. Since 1999 six states have restored toadoptees the unrestricted right to records and identity access:Oregon through ballot initiative, and Alabama, New Hampshire, Maine,and Rhode Island through legislation. No statistics are available forKansas and Alaska, and Rhode Island's records won't be opened untilJuly 1, 2012, but approximately 17,000 OBCs in the latter five stateshave been released with no reported ill consequences.

Rightsare for all citizens, not favors doled out to some. Washington doesnot segregate rights by religion, ethnicity, age, or gender. Itshould not segregate rights by birth, adoptive status, or third partypreference.

Unless you amend HB 2211 to aclean bill to recognize the right of all of the state's adoptedpeople to their own OBC without restriction, then vote DO NOT PASS. Washington adoptees must enjoy equal protection, due process, anddignity, not favors.

Submitted by Marley Greiner
ExecutiveChair
Bastard Nation: the adoptee rights organization
January16, 2011

BastardNation is dedicated to the recognition of the full human and civilrights of adult adoptees. Toward that end, we advocate the opening toadoptees, upon request at age of majority, of those governmentdocuments which pertain to the adoptee's historical, genetic, andlegal identity, including the unaltered original birth certificateand adoption decree. Bastard Nation asserts that it is the right ofpeople everywhere to have their official original birth recordsunaltered and free from falsification, and that the adoptive statusof any person should not prohibit him or her from choosing toexercise that right. We have reclaimed the badge of bastardy placedon us by those who would attempt to shame us; we see nothing shamefulin having been born out of wedlock or in being adopted. BastardNation does not support mandated mutual consent registries orintermediary systems in place of unconditional open records, nor anyother system that is less than access on demand to the adult adoptee,without condition, and without qualification.

2012-01-10T10:51:00.001-05:00

Yippie! Bastard Nation got a nice and extensive plug yesterday in Slate:: Luke Marci and Me: After 34 years the Internet gave me a sister I'd never known. in which writer Luke O'Neil recounts the discovery of his sister, he knew about, but had remained illusive.

Luke discusses BN and sealed records about mid-way through the first page.

Comments are mainly good, but contain a number of expected snarks in two categories.

(1) It's a Pandora's box. You're better off not knowing

(2) Searching betrays adoptive parents.

I'll be commenting there later today.

Thanks, Luke!

Rhode Island #7: Governor Signs Law! Another Brick Falls

2011-07-01T13:16:00.013-04:00

It's been a long 67 years!

Around noon today, Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee, without ceremony, signed S478 Sub AA into law. The bill restores the right of all Rhode Island adoptees, abrogated in 1944, to claim their original birth certificates, without restrictions or conditions, upon request. The law will go into effect July 1, 2012.

It has been a pleasure to work in an advisory and support capacity with Access Rhode Island: the Little Engine That Could. Through sheer perseverance, clarity of purpose, and a refusal to back down from its core principle of access for all without restriction, Access Rhode Island defeated incredibly strong opposition in the Senate. I don't personally know all the people involved in this victorious campaign, but in alphabetically order, these are some of the who who led the way: Kara Foley, Nancy Horgan, Christine Lachapelle-Miller, and Paul Schibbelhute.

A former activist once told me that states like Rhode Island didn't really count. He wanted the key states. Of course, we all want them, but I argued that all states count. All are important. Small states can bring down key states in the end. Rhode Island just knocked another brick out of the wall!

Kansas: never sealed

Alaska: never sealed

Oregon: unsealed

Alabama: unsealed

New Hampshire: unsealed

Maine: unsealed

Rhode Island: unsealed

Who's Next?

I want to reiterate that a campaign is already in progress to lower the age of access from 25 to the age of majority. It may take a couple years, but this unacceptable barrier will fall.

Rhode Island: S 478 Sub AA Passes House!

2011-06-29T17:26:00.000-04:00

A few minutes ago, Kara Foley with Access Rhode Island, posted on her FB page that S 478 Sub AA passed the House.

Now on to the governor.

No details yet.

Rhode Island S478 Sub AA: Support Letter to Full House

2011-06-29T13:29:00.004-04:00

We, however, reject the age qualification of 25, set by the Senate,. The House earlier had voted 66-0 for H5443 Sub A which authorized the access age at 18, the state's age of majority. with which we agree.

That said, lawmakers in both Houses have already decided that all Rhode Island adoptees, without condition and restriction, have a right, as they did until 1944, to their original birth certificates. It is, therefore, imperative to restore that right now, and get a clean law on the books and working.

We believe that in the near future, the access age set out in S478 Sub AA should be and can be reduced to the age of majority in order for the adopted and not-adopted to be treated the same under law and policy regarding public document access. The age discrepancy sets a bad precedent, and treats the adopted and no adopted differently.

We are grateful for the support Rhode Island House Members have shown in the past for adoptees and our rights. We trust this support will continue, even with a flawed bill.

We urge you to vote DO PASS on S478 Sub AA. It's passage will put Rhode Island in the forefront of adoption reform in the United States today.

Yours truly,
Marley E. Greiner
Executive Chair,
Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization

rep-mccauley@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-blazejewski@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-ajello@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-fox@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-desimone@rilin.state.ri.us,
ep-hull@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-cimini@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-tarro@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-williams@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-slater@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-diaz@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-medina@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-carnevale@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-lima@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-mattiello@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-palumbo@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-jacquard@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-handy@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-mcnamara@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-bennett@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-naughton@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-ferri@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-flaherty@rilin.state.ri.us,
reptrillo@aol.com,
rep-nunes@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-morgan@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-serpa@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-guthrie@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-tomasso@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-watson@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-costa@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-ehrhardt@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-lally@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-tanzi@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-dickinson@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-walsh@rilin.state.ri.us,
ep-azzinaro@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-kennedy@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-valencia@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-chippendale@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-marcello@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-ucci@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-fellela@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-petrarca@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-menard@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-ogrady@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-keable@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-newberry@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-baldellihunt@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-brien@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-phillips@rilin.state.ri.us,
ep-macbeth@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-winfield@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-schadone@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-corvese@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-silva@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-mclaughlin@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-sanbento@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-oneill@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-ecoderre@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-johnston@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-messier@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-dasilva@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-melo@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-savage@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-hearn@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-malik@rilin.state.ri.us,
ep-morrison@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-gallison@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-edwards@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-gordon@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-reilly@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-jackson@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-ruggiero@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-martin@rilin.state.ri.us

Rhode Island: S 478 Sub AA Passes Committee!

2011-06-27T18:52:00.003-04:00

No details, but Kara Foley, from Access Rhode Island reports on her FB page that S478 Sub AA passed the House HEW Committee today. A full floor vote is scheduled for Wednesday.

Rhode Island: Bastard Nation Letter to Rhode Island House: Support S478 Sub AA

2011-06-26T19:02:00.011-04:00

Bastard Nation, the Adoptee Rights Organization, the largest adoptee civil rights organization in North America, urges the passage of Rhode Island S478 Sub AA, which restores the right of all Rhode Island adoptees to access their original birth certificates without restriction, upon request.

We are, however, disappointed by the age qualification of 25, set by the Senate, since the House earlier had voted 66-0 for H5443 Sub A which authorized the access age at 18, the state's age of majority.

That said, lawmakers in both Houses have already decided that Rhode Island adoptees have a right, as they did until 1944, to their original birth certificates, so it is imperative to restore that right now, and get a clean law on the books and working.

We believe that in the near future, the access age set out in S478 Sub A should be and can be reduced to the age of majority in order for the adopted and not-adopted to be treated the same under law and policy regarding public document access. The age discrepancy sets a bad precedent.

We are grateful for the support Rhode Island House Members have shown in the past for adoptees and our rights. We trust this support will continue, even with a somewhat flawed bill.

We urge you to vote DO PASS on S478 Sub AA. It's passage will put Rhode Island in the forefront of adoption reform in the United States today.

Yours truly,

Marley E Greiner

Executive Chair

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization

www.bastards.org

Office: PO Box 1469, Edmond, OK 73083-1469

Bastard Nation is dedicated to the recognition of the full human and civil rights of adult adoptees. Toward that end, we advocate the opening to adoptees, upon request at age of majority, of those government documents which pertain to the adoptee's historical, genetic, and legal identity, including the unaltered original birth certificate and adoption decree. Bastard Nation asserts that it is the right of people everywhere to have their official original birth records unaltered and free from falsification, and that the adoptive status of any person should not prohibit him or her from choosing to exercise that right. We have reclaimed the badge of bastardy placed on us by those who would attempt to shame us; we see nothing shameful in having been born out of wedlock or in being adopted. Bastard Nation does not support mandated mutual consent registries or intermediary systems in place of unconditional open records, nor any other system that is less than access on demand to the adult adoptee, without condition, and without qualification.

Good News from Rhode Island - YES!

2011-06-22T18:52:00.001-04:00

No details yet, but the Rhode Island Senate this afternoon passed S478 Sub A, reportedly 36-0, with a amendment to lower the age of access from 30 to 25. No sunset provision unfortunately.

The bill now goes to the House. I doubt the House will balk since a few days ago it passed the similar H5453 Sub A with the access age of 18.

Obviously, we are not happy that access age remains above the age of majority. We also urged a sunset to the higher age be added. That said, lowering the age will be a much easier than getting rid of a prospective only access, a disclosure veto or any other measure that codifies less than full disclosure,which Rhode Islanders were facing only a few days ago.

Access Rhode Island, Bastard Nation (who has been working in an advisory capacity with ARI) and other Rhode Island activists have made it clear that this law will not be "complete" until every Ocean State adoptee can get their OBC at the age of majority.

We'll update you when we are.

New Jersey Update: Christie Will Conditionally Veto; Will Offer "Compromise"

2011-06-22T18:12:00.006-04:00

According to New Jersey ACLU Director Deborah Jacobs, Gov. Chris Christie is conditionally vetoing He reportedly has created a hybrid bill that is somewhere between the bad deform S799/A1399(Vitale) bill and the badder adoptoin indusry A3672 (Quigley) bill. Contents of Christie's compromise won't be known until tomorrow.

This was just what I was afraid of.

The nightmare continues. I believe everyone in involved in this battle just want it over with It won't be.

More information when released.

Rhode Island: Bastard Nation Letter to RI Senate in support of S478 Sub A

2011-06-21T01:27:00.004-04:00

Dear Senator:

Bastard Nation, the Adoptee Rights Organization, the largest adoptee civil rights organization in North America, conditionally supports Rhode Island S 478 Sub A.

Bastard Nation is happy that S 478 Sub A is clean, bill that makes the OBC available to all Rhode Island adoptees without restrictions. We do not, however , support the age qualification, which limits access to adoptees 30 years of age and older. We believe that adopted adults should be treated the same under law as the not-adopted. We, therefore, urge the Senate to extend access to all adoptees when they reach the age of majority.

The age of majority is defined as "adulthood in the eyes of the law." After reaching majority, a person is permitted to vote, make a valid will, enter into binding contracts, marry, enlist in the military, and purchase alcohol. Also, parents may stop making child support payments when a child reaches the age of majority. In most states, including Rhode Island, the age of majority is 18, but this varies depending on the activity. In no state does age of majority exceed the age of 21.

Rhode Island Code: § 15-12-1: Persons of full age. – (a) Notwithstanding any general or public law or provision of the common law to the contrary, all persons who have attained the age of eighteen (18) years shall be deemed to be persons of full legal age.

The not-adopted of Rhode Island (or any other state) are not required by statute to be 30 years of age to access their own birth certificates. Likewise, in states where adoptee rights are in force, the age of majority holds. We believe that the 30 year qualification in S 478 Sub A is discriminatory and unnecessary. Since the Rhode Island House passed a similar bill, H 5453 Sub A, 3 66-0, a few days ago, (which will not now receive a Senate hearing) with the age of access set at 18, and with all arguments against access refuted in the Senate through the Do Pass recommendation of Health and Human Services sub bill, this burden makes no sense.

We urge the Senate to reconsider the age qualification, and amend S 478 Sub A to match Rhode Island's age of majority statute, 18. If the bill cannot be amended this session due to time constraints with end-of-session voting, we urge the legislature to pass the bill as currently written, but to return next session to amend the age qualification to align not only with the Rhode Island code, but with states across the country where OBCs are open unconditionally. While we prefer to see the bill amended to majority now, a sunset, which would lower the age of access within a reasonable time, which we understand will be proposed by Sen. Rhoda Perry during the floor vote, is acceptable, but regrettable. Without knowing the specifics of that amendment, we can only qualify our support of it and defer comment.

If the age qualification is not changed to conform with age of majority, a bad precedent will have been set, segregating OBC access qualification well into adulthood. No one should be forced to wait until the age of 30 to acquire the public documentation of his or her birth.

Please vote DO PASS on S478 Sub A. We also urge you to support an amendment to lower the age of access to conform with Rhode Island age of majority statute, sunset or not. Make Rhode Island a pioneer voice in the restoration of adoptee civil rights! It's the right thing to do!

Marley E. Greiner
Executive Chair,
Bastard Nation, the Adoptee Rights Organization
www.bastards.org

Rhode Island S 478 Sub A: Bastard Nation Statement of Support

2011-06-18T02:01:00.000-04:00

Bastard Nation, the Adoptee Rights Organization conditionally supports Rhode Island S 478 Sub A. This bill is an amended version of the earlier S 478, which included a disclosure veto. The bill also had provisions that limited original birth certificate (OBC) access to adult adoptees born after Jan. 1, 2012, or to those who are 40 years or older after the effective date of the bill. None of those provisions restored the right of OBC access guaranteed until 1944, for all Rhode Island adoptees. Senate Majority Whip Maryellen Goodwin, whose sister has two adopted children, and supported this bad bill, took a lot of heat after she told the Providence Journal she wanted to limit OBC access to older adoptees because "I want them to be able to find their records in an appropriate and meaningful kind of way, not because they want to get back at their adoptive parents."

After heavy public and private criticism from the Rhode Island adoption community and reformers, Goodwin backtracked, the prospective provision and vetoes were removed and the age limit reduced to 30. On Wednesday the bill passed the Senate Health and Human Services Committee unanimously with a Do Pass recommendation to the full Senate. Committee members also showed support for a floor amendment to lower the age of access. Sen. Rhoda Perry says she will introduce an amendment to sunset the age qualification and lower the age to 25. The floor vote is scheduled for Wednesday, June 23.

Bastard Nation is happy that S 478 Sub A is clean, but does not support the current age mandate. We believe that adopted adults should be treated the same under law as the not-adopted.

The Age of Majority
The age of majority is defined as "adulthood in the eyes of the law." After reaching majority, a person is permitted to vote, make a valid will, enter into binding contracts, marry, enlist in the military, and purchase alcohol. Also, parents may stop making child support payments when a child reaches the age of majority. In most states the age of majority is 18, but this varies depending on the activity. In no state does age of majority exceed the age of 21.

Rhode Island Code: § 15-12-1: Persons of full age. – (a) Notwithstanding any general or public law or provision of the common law to the contrary, all persons who have attained the age of eighteen (18) years shall be deemed to be persons of full legal age.

The not-adopted of Rhode Island (or any other state) are not required by statute to be 30 years of age to access their own birth certificates. Likewise, in states in where adoptee rights are in force, the age of majority holds. We believe that the 30 year mandate in S 478 Sub A is discriminatory and unnecessary. Since the Rhode Island House passed a similar bill, H 5453 Sub A, 3 66-0, a few days ago, (which will not now receive a Senate hearing) with the age of access set at 18, and with all arguments against access refuted in the Senate, this burden makes no sense.

We urge the Senate to reconsider the age qualification, and amend S 478 Sub A to match Rhode Island's age of majority statute, 18. If the bill cannot be amended this session due to time constraints, (the session closes in a few days), we urge the legislature to pass the bill as currently written, but to return next session to amend the age qualification to align not only with the Rhode Island code, but with states across the country where OBCs are open unconditionally. While we prefer to see the bill amended to majority now, a sunset within a reasonable time frame is not a deal breaker. Otherwise, a bad precedent has been set, segregating OBC access qualification well into adulthood. No one should be forced to wait until the age of 30 to acquire the public documentation of his or her birth.

Bastard Nation has worked in an advisory capacity with Access Rhode Island throughout this campaign. We commend the organization for holding the line during this very complicated negotiation and for deconstructing all opposition arguments in such a sweeping and swift manner. Unlike other "adoptee rights organizations" that toss away the actual right of access "to get something passed" Access Rhode Island has stood firm to restore the right to all of its state's adoptees, not just some. If the age is not amended down this session, Access Rhode Island, Bastard Nation and other Rhode Island activists will work until it is.

Bastard Nation is waiting for information from Access Rhode Island and will issue an action alert very shortly. In the meantime, please go to Adoptee access to birth certificates passes hurdle published in the June 16 edition of the ProJo and voice your opinion. Rhode Island legislators are reading and paying attention to comments.

Bastard Nation's Letter to Missouri Governor Jay Nixon: Please Veto SB 351. This is not an adoptee rights bill!

2011-05-22T20:08:00.009-04:00

Dear Governor Nixon:

Under current Missouri law, the original birth certificates/identities of all Missouri adoptees are sealed and generally cannot be released to the adoptee except by court order and only with the consent of both the biological and adoptive parents. This 4-signature consent is the most restrictive OBC/identity access law in the United States. For as long as we can remember, Missouri adoption reform advocates have been attempting to free the state's adoptees from these onerous restrictions.

Unfortunately, SB 351 is not the bill to overturn the current law. SB 351 makes superficial changes to access structure, removing adoptive parent sign-offs, while maintaining retrospectively and prospectively the other restrictions which keep Missouri adoptee birth records and identity a state secret. The bill also allows adoptees under certain conditions to access identifying information about siblings, and permits adoptees' lineal descendants, under certain conditions, to access identifying information if the adoptee is deceased. The bill, in fact, does not even mention the term "original birth certificate" nor does it clarify what "identifying information" or "record" could be released and in what form. A letter from the court? An original birth certificate? What?

SB 351 is misleading and inimical to the rights of all Missouri adoptees. The measure is promoted as an “adoptee rights” bill. It is not. SB 351 reinforces out-dated adoption secrecy through the disclosure affidavit for “birthparents.” SB 351 does not restore the right to the original birth certificate access once enjoyed by all Missouri adoptees. Instead, it makes adoptee access to identifying information a state/third party-conditioned privilege separate and unequal from the right enjoyed by Missouri's not adopted who can receive their birth certificates with no conditions and questions.

Adopted adults, especially since 9/11, are increasingly denied passports, drivers licenses, pensions, Social Security benefits, professional certifications, and security clearances due to discrepancies on their amended birth certificates, and their inability to produce an original birth certificate to answer the problems.

Adoptees without a genuine original birth record could soon be barred from running for public office.‭ ‬At least‭ ‬10‭ ‬states, including Missouri (HB 283; sp Lyle Rowland, Mike Kelly) have introduced legislation requiring presidential and vice-presidential candidates to present their original birth certificates to appropriate authorities to prove citizenship eligibility for office.‭ Bills in some other states go‬ further,‭ ‬mandating anyone running for office to prove citizenship through an original birth certificate.‭ ‬It is no stretch to think that someday soon adoptees could be barred from voting due to lack of‭ “‬legal‭” ‬identity over problematic amended birth certificates,‭ ‬and the perpetual sealing of the originals.‭

Kansas and Alaska have never sealed original birth certificates. Since 1999 four states have restored to adoptees the unrestricted right to records and identity access: Oregon through ballot initiative, and Alabama, New Hampshire, and Maine through legislation. No statistics are available for Kansas and Alaska, but approximately 17,000 OBCs in the latter four states have been released with no reported ill consequences.

Rights are for all citizens, not privileges doled out to some. Missouri does not segregate rights by religion, ethnicity, age, or gender. It should not segregate rights by birth, adoptive status, or third party preference.

Please veto SB 351. All of Missouri adoptees must enjoy equal protection, due process, and dignity. Missouri adoptees deserve better than SB 351!

Yours truly,

Marley Greiner
Executive Chair

Bastard Nation is dedicated to the recognition of the full human and civil rights of adult adoptees. Toward that end, we advocate the opening to adoptees, upon request at age of majority, of those government documents which pertain to the adoptee's historical, genetic, and legal identity, including the unaltered original birth certificate and adoption decree. Bastard Nation asserts that it is the right of people everywhere to have their official original birth records unaltered and free from falsification, and that the adoptive status of any person should not prohibit him or her from choosing to exercise that right. We have reclaimed the badge of bastardy placed on us by those who would attempt to shame us; we see nothing shameful in having been born out of wedlock or in being adopted. Bastard Nation does not support mandated mutual consent registries or intermediary systems in place of unconditional open records, nor any other system that is less than access on demand to the adult adoptee, without condition, and without qualification.

Sad Day for New Jersey Bastards: A1406/1399/S799 Passes. Adoptees Sold Down the River

2011-05-09T16:33:00.003-04:00

A few minutes ago, the New Jersey General Assembly, as expected, passed A1406/1399/S799:

44 Yay
26 Nay
2 Abstain

The Speaker chastised NJ Care proponents for applauding.

Shame on NJCare for selling out the rights of those it claims to represent.

Shame on NJ Care for creating new classes of anonymized adoptees: those wiped clean by third party vetoes and state-pimped "safe haven" victims.

Shame on NJ Care for protecting the state's adoption industry from liability for illegal and unethical practices.

We do not begrudge anyone who accesses their Original Birth Certificate under this abomination, but they need to remember that their privilege is built on the continued disenfranchisement and erasure of their fellow Bastards.

We have no idea what Governor Christie will do when the bill hits his desk. Bastard Nation will be in contact with his office again. We urge those who object to the legislative quarantine of non-qualifying bastards to contact him as well. More information shortly.

Bastard Nation thanks everyone who saw this through with us and wrote and called the NJ General Assembly with our objections.

Read about the bill here and here.

Bastard Nation's Letter to the New Jersey General Assembly - May 7, 2011 - VOTE NO on A1406

2011-05-07T19:03:00.005-04:00

RE: Please vote NO on A1406/S700: Adoptees' Birthright Bill

Privilege is the opposite of right

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization is the largest adoptee civil rights organization in the United States. We support full, unrestricted access for all adopted persons, upon request, of their own true, unaltered original birth certificates (OBC). We oppose A1406/S799: the Adoptees' Birthright Bill.

A1406/S799 permits some New Jersey adopted adults to receive their true and accurate original birth certificates. Others, through the compromise language of the birthparent disclosure veto, will receive only a false and mutilated government document with the name and address of the parent(s) bureaucratically excised by the Department of Health and Senior Services by order of the birthparent(s).

Bastard Nation rejects this special veto privilege of “birthparents” to remove their names from the birth certificates of their own adult offspring. No other parent has that right. Why should “birthparents,” whose parental rights were terminated decades ago, have different rights,privileges, and rules?

A1406/S799 is promoted as an “adoptees' birthright” and OBC “access bill.” Unfortunately, it is neither. The bill reinforces out-dated adoption secrecy through the disclosure veto. It also seals by default, the OBCs of babies surrendered under the state’s “safe haven” program (apparently whether they are adopted later or not) even though a good number of these children are born to identified parents. What name and “official” state identity papers those never adopted will have is not addressed in the bill.

A1406/S799 requires "birthparents," under specific circumstances, to submit a medical and health history to the state, a requirement that may be illegal under HIPAA and other privacy laws. No one has a right to anyone’s medical history. Medical histories have nothing to do with birth certificates and have no connection to the right of all adopted persons to their own OBC.

Finally, A1406/S799 includes a fiscal bill of $90,000 to advertise the law if it is passed. At a time when Governor Christie is proposing massive cuts in education and social welfare programs and instituting wage caps, this advertising campaign is an unconscionable waste of taxpayer money.

For nearly three decades we have heard the claim that biological parents have been promised anonymity from their own offspring who were placed for adoption, yet not one document has ever been presented in New Jersey or any other state to show that so-called promise.

In fact, courts have found that “birthparents do not have any legal expectation of anonymity.” (Doe v Sundquist, 943 F. Supp. 886, 893-94 (M.D. Tenn. 1996)) (06 F.3d 703, 705 (6th Cir. 1997)) (Does v Oregon, Summary Judgment Oregon State Court of Appeals) (Does v. State of Oregon, 164 Or.App. 543, 993 P.2d 833, 834 (1999)). Moreover, OBCs are sealed at the time of adoption finalization not surrender, and the birth certificate of any child not adopted is left unsealed and available to him or her. If an adoption is disrupted, the birth certificate is unsealed.

Kansas and Alaska have never sealed original birth certificates. Since 1999 four states have restored to adoptees the unrestricted right to records and identity access: Oregon through ballot initiative, and Alabama, New Hampshire, and Maine through legislation. Of the four states that have repealed sealed records laws, approximately 17,000 OBCs have been released with no ill consequences. Why should New Jersey buck the tide and pass a bill that continues to treat adoptee access to their own birth certificates as a privilege not a right--a right that the non-adopted enjoy without a second thought?

Rights are for all citizens, not privileges doled out to some by government and special interest groups. A1406/S799 does not restore the right to the OBC once enjoyed by all New Jersey adoptees.

Please vote DO NOT PASS on A1406/S799. New Jersey does not segregate rights by religion, ethnicity, age, or gender. It should not segregate rights by birth, adoptive status, or parental preference All of the New Jersey's adoptees must enjoy equal protection, due process, and dignity. New Jersey adoptees deserve better than this current legislation. The all deserve their original birth certificates without restriction.

For the record, Bastard Nation does not support an alternative bill, S2586/A3672, bills introduced in January which also restrict OBC access.

Yours truly,

Marley E. Greiner
Executive Chair, Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization

614-571-2999 (cell)

Bastard Nation is dedicated to the recognition of the full human and civil rights of adult adoptees. Toward that end, we advocate the opening to adoptees, upon request at age of majority, of those government documents which pertain to the adoptee's historical, genetic, and legal identity, including the unaltered original birth certificate and adoption decree. Bastard Nation asserts that it is the right of people everywhere to have their official original birth records unaltered and free from falsification, and that the adoptive status of any person should not prohibit him or her from choosing to exercise that right. We have reclaimed the badge of bastardy placed on us by those who would attempt to shame us; we see nothing shameful in having been born out of wedlock or in being adopted. Bastard Nation does not support mandated mutual consent registries or intermediary systems in place of unconditional open records, nor any other system that is less than access on demand to the adult adoptee, without condition, and without qualification.

Rhode Island: Bastard Nation Testimony in Support of H5453

2011-04-08T10:48:00.005-04:00

TESTIMONY

SB 5453
an act to permit adoptees to obtain
a non-certified copy of their original birth certificates

Rhode Island House Judiciary Committee

April 12, 2011

SUPPORT

Privilege is the opposite of rights

******

Bastard Nation is delighted to endorse and support SB 5453, a bill that restores the right of all Rhode Island adopted persons, without restrictions or conditions, to access their original birth certificates upon request.

SB 5453 is inclusive. The bill, as written, is a simple-to-understand measure that recognizes the presumed right of all Rhode Island adults--adopted and not adopted-- to unrestricted access and ownership of their true birth certificates.

SB 5453 is about rights not reunion. It is about the relation of adoptees to the state. Search and reunion are personal matters outside of government control and mediation.

SB 5453 maintains the current level of adoption "confidentiality"" and practice. Adoption records are sealed upon finalization, not relinquishment. If an adoption petition is rejected by the courts, or the petition is withdrawn, the birth certificate remains unsealed. If an adoption is overturned or disrupted, the birth certificate is unsealed. Even in traditional closed adoptions first parent identities are often recorded on court documents given to adoptive parents without first parent consent. Similarly, legal advertisements with identifying information are often published, and courts may open adoption records for “good cause” without first parent consent. Most significantly, if a child is never adopted the birth certificate is never sealed. Thus, if sealing birth certificates was meant to hide parental identities absolutely, records would be sealed upon relinquishment, not finalization

SB 5453 does not open original birth certificates to the public. Original birth certificates are unsealed only to the adoptees and designated persons, not the public.

Access Access to original birth certificates guarantees that adopted persons can prove their citizenship status and "legal identity." Adopted adults, especially since 9/11, are increasingly denied passports, drivers licenses, pensions, Social Security benefits, professional certifications, and security clearances due discrepancies on their amended birth certificates, and their inability to produce an original birth certificate to answer the problems.

Adoptees without a genuine original birth record could soon be barred from running for public office. At least 10 states have introduced legislation requiring presidential and vice-presidential candidates to present their original birth certificates to appropriate authorities to prove citizenship eligibility for office. Some of these bills go farther, mandating anyone running for office to prove citizenship through an original birth certificate. It is no stretch to think that someday soon adoptees could be barred from voting due to lack of “legal” identity over problematic amended birth certificates, and the perpetual sealing of the originals.

Rights are for all citizens, not favors or privileges for some. Rhode Island does not privilege rights by race, religion, ethnicity, age, or gender. It should not privilege rights by adoptive status.

SB 5453 gives Rhode Island lawmakers the opportunity to lead the country in positive adoption reform by restoring adoptee civil rights in the state. The bill will harm no one, but will restore equality, dignity, and fairness to adopted persons and their biological and adopted families Please vote YES on SB 5453. It's the right thing to do!

Bastard Nation is dedicated to the recognition of the full human and civil rights of adult adoptees. Toward that end, we advocate the opening to adoptees, upon request at age of majority, of those government documents which pertain to the adoptee's historical, genetic, and legal identity, including the unaltered original birth certificate and adoption decree. Bastard Nation asserts that it is the right of people everywhere to have their official original birth records unaltered and free from falsification, and that the adoptive status of any person should not prohibit him or her from choosing to exercise that right. We have reclaimed the badge of bastardy placed on us by those who would attempt to shame us; we see nothing shameful in having been born out of wedlock or in being adopted. Bastard Nation does not support mandated mutual consent registries or intermediary systems in place of unconditional open records, nor any other system that is less than access on demand to the adult adoptee, without condition, and without qualification.

Missouri SB 351: Passes Senate; Bastard Subservience in the Name of Protection and Shame Continues

2011-04-07T23:33:00.002-04:00

Really bad SB 351 passed the Senate yesterday. I don't have the count right now. While the passage of this bill is enough bad news for one day, new language has been added to the perfected bill to make the day even darker:

If the biological parents have consented to the release of identifying information under subsection [11] 10 of this section, the court shall disclose such identifying information to the adopted adult or the adopted adult's lineal descendants if the adopted adult is deceased. If the biological parents were married to each other at the time of the request for identifying information or at the time of death of one of the biological parents, the information shall not be released until the death of the surviving biological parent, unless the surviving biological parent consents to such release.

In other words: more restrictions, more red tape, and more third party consents to keep bastards subservient to the state and our birth records locked up.

It's worth noting that SB 351 and its companion HB 427 are supported by Missouri Catholic Charities. Below is a comment we received on Bastard Nation's testimony entry posted on the Daily Bastardette:

Yes, SB 351 and the HB 427 companion bill are both search-based not rights bills crafted by MO's Catholic Conference and MO paid searcher, Laura Long, and sponsored by lawmakers who, no surprise here, happen to be Catholic.

Laura Long is a court CI and has her own search business on the side with a different email addy from her court business with a "pay now" link. She's announced at her blog if law is passed it will be like winning the lottery. For her, of course.

At the Senate hearing this week the sponsor, an adoptive father of 3 kids all adopted from abroad, stated while the bill referred to us as adult adoptees he wanted us to be known as "adult orphans". (Honestly, you can't make this stuff up). He began by saying we want information about our adoptive parents LOL then later changed it to bpars.

For the past decade MO's CWLA agencies have done nothing to help change MO law, and one in particular has supported keeping the vetoes. On OBC bills, I no longer think CWLA has any credibility.

Signing out as a MO Adult Orphan though I wasn't.

SB 351 has moved to the House where it received it's first reading on April 7.

For more about about SB 351 read Bastard Nation's testimony.

Rhode Island: Providence Journal Supports Clean Bill S0361/H5453!

2011-04-03T15:53:00.002-04:00

From the editorial page of today's Providence Journal:

People in the Senate have been blocking change on a number of fronts. For instance, the Senate leadership last year absurdly wanted to change the bill to allow access to original birth certificates only to those 18 or over and born after Jan. 1, 2011! That largely defeats the purpose of the clean bill above...

We implore the Senate to stop holding up this legislation. It should promptly pass Senate Bill 0361 (the sister House version is H 5453) and let adoptees know this vital information about themselves.

Read the entire editorial and voice your support at the link above!

H5453 will be heard in RI House Judiciary on April 12. Bastard Nation will submit our support testimony this week and later post it on Daily Bastardette and the Bastard Nation blog page.

For more information on submitting your own written testimony for H5453 contact:

Roberta Di Mezza

Committee Secretary

401-222-2258

Also contact Judiciary Committee members. Go here now for our action alert and committee contact information.

Make Rhode Island #7!

ADDENDA: I was in a hurry yesterday and forgot the add the caveat that the editorial stresses medical history--again. It is imperative that medical history never be used in any argument for records access. It has no relation to our right to our own OBCs. No one has a right to someone else's medical history. Stressing this potential "benefit" of OBC access dilutes the rights message, and can end in laws that create anonymous registries and other anti-rights legislation.

Medical history arguments are as specious as opposition claims that adoptees will "track down" parents and harm them. All rights have consequences, but cannot be restored, "granted" or denied on grounds of potential reactions.

Missouri HB 351: Bastard Nation Submitted Testimony - OPPOSE

2011-03-30T22:17:00.001-04:00

Tuesday, the Missouri Senate Health, Mental Health, Seniors, and Families Committee held a hearing on it's greatly flawed SB 351. (text, status/history) Bastard Nation, through our long-time member Carla McBrine as able to submit our opposition testimony in person. Unfortunately, the committee voted the bill out of committee (I haven't been able to find the roll call vote) and the bill is headed for the Senate. At this time, we don't know if it will be scheduled for a vote. The session ends May 13.

TESTIMONY

SB 351:
access to identifying information for adoptions original birth certificate

Missouri Senate Health, Mental Health, Seniors and Families Committee

March 29, 2011

OPPOSE

Privilege is the opposite of rights

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization is the largest adoptee civil rights organization in the United States. We support full, unrestricted access for all adopted persons, SB 351.

Under current Missouri law, the original birth certificates of all Missouri adoptees are sealed and cannot be released to the adoptee except by court order and only with the consent of both the biological and adoptive parents. This 4-signature consent represents the most restrictive OBC access law in the United States. For as long as we can remember, Missouri adoption reform advocates have been attempting to free the state's adoptees from these onerous restrictions.

Unfortunately, SB 351 is not the bill to overturn the current law. SB 351makes superficial changes to the OBC access structure, removing adoptive parent sign-offs, while maintaining retrospectively and prospectively the other restrictions which keep Missouri adoptee birth records and identity a state secret.

SB 351 is misleading and inimical to the rights of all Missouri adoptees. The measure is promoted as an “adoptee rights” and OBC “access bill.” It is not. SB 351 reinforces out-dated adoption secrecy through the disclosure affidavit for “birthparents” The bill even authorizes a natural parent to not only order the state to withhold the OBC from the adoptee, but to override the wishes of the other parent that it be released! SB 351 does not restore the right to the OBC once enjoyed by all Missouri adoptees. Instead, it makes adoptee access to their own birth certificates a state/”birth family” conditioned privilege separate and unequal from the right enjoyed by Missouri's not adopted.

Sooner or later Missouri and every other state that has not opened OBCs unconditionally to adoptees are going to be forced to. The issue isn't going away. This is not a matter of if, but when.

Adopted adults, especially since 9/11, are increasingly denied passports, drivers licenses, pensions, Social Security benefits, professional certifications, and security clearances due to discrepancies on their amended birth certificates, and their inability to produce an original birth certificate to answer the problems.

Adoptees without a genuine original birth record could soon be barred from running for public office.‭ ‬At least‭ ‬10‭ ‬states, including Missouri (HB 283; sp Lyle Rowland, Mike Kelly) have introduced legislation requiring presidential and vice-presidential candidates to present their original birth certificates to appropriate authorities to prove citizenship eligibility for office.‭ ‬Some of these bills go farther,‭ ‬mandating anyone running for office to prove citizenship through an original birth certificate.‭ ‬It is no stretch to think that someday soon adoptees could be barred from voting due to lack of‭ “‬legal‭” ‬identity over problematic amended birth certificates,‭ ‬and the perpetual sealing of the originals.‭

Kansas and Alaska have never sealed original birth certificates. Since 1999 four states have restored to adoptees the unrestricted right to records and identity access: Oregon through ballot initiative, and Alabama, New Hampshire, and Maine through legislation. No statistics are available for Kansas and Alaska, but approximately 17,000 OBCs in the latter four states have been released with no reported ill consequences.

Rights are for all citizens, not favors doled out to some Missouri does not segregate rights by religion, ethnicity, age, or gender. It should not segregate rights by birth, adoptive status, or third party preference.
Vote DO NOT PASS on SB 351. All of Missouri adoptees must enjoy equal protection, due process, and dignity. Missouri adoptees deserve better than SB 351!

Submitted by Marley Greiner
Executive Chair
Bastard Nation: the adoptee rights organization
March 27, 2011

Bastard Nation is dedicated to the recognition of the full human and civil rights of adult adoptees. Toward that end, we advocate the opening to adoptees, upon request at age of majority, of those government documents which pertain to the adoptee's historical, genetic, and legal identity, including the unaltered original birth certificate and adoption decree. Bastard Nation asserts that it is the right of people everywhere to have their official original birth records unaltered and free from falsification, and that the adoptive status of any person should not prohibit him or her from choosing to exercise that right. We have reclaimed the badge of bastardy placed on us by those who would attempt to shame us; we see nothing shameful in having been born out of wedlock or in being adopted. Bastard Nation does not support mandated mutual consent registries or intermediary systems in place of unconditional open records, nor any other system that is less than access on demand to the adult adoptee, without condition, and without qualification.

Texas: Bastard Nation Testimony in Opposition to SB 287

2011-03-21T22:49:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow the Texas Senate Jurisprudence Committee will hold a hearing on SB 287, the newest attempt by legislators to torture that state's Class Bastard. There are more things wrong with this bill than the special effects in Spiderman. Below is the 3-minute testimony Bastard Nation submitted to the committee.

Texas Senate Jurisprudence Committee, March 22, 2011

SUBMITTED TESTIMONY
SB 287 access to identifying information for adoptions original birth certificate access

OPPOSE

Clean bills, unlike SB 287 with its conditions and restrictions, provides equal OBC access to all adoptees retrospectively and prospectively, with no conditions or exceptions.
Clean bills, unlike SB 287, contain no third party disclosure and contact vetoes.
Clean bills, unlike SB 287, contain no mandatory counseling, registries, confidential state intermediaries, and other conditions that limit the free flow of information and treat the adopted differently from the not-adopted.
Clean bills, unlike SB 287, have nothing to do with search and reunion, matters best left to individuals to act on without state mediation and control.

Clean bills unlike, unlike SB 287 with it's "anonymous" medical registry, have nothing to do with adoptee/parent medical histories. The OBC, in fact, contains no medical information. A state demand for natural parent medical history, as included in SB 287, may be in violation of federal HIPAA provisions.

Clean bills, unlike SB 287 simply let the adopted person receive their own birth certificate with no government intervention, like the not-adopted. A clean bill in Texas, unlike SB 287 would restore the right of OBC access that all Texas adoptees enjoyed until the mid-1970s.

When adoptees are denied the right to their own birth certificates our other rights can be endangered. Since‭ ‬9/11,‭ ‬especially,‭ ‬we are increasingly denied passports,‭ ‬drivers‭’ ‬licenses,‭ ‬pensions,‭ ‬Social Security benefits,‭ ‬professional certification and licenses,‭ ‬and security clearances due to discrepancies on our falsified government-created amended birth certificates,‭ ‬and inability to present true documents sealed by the state to remedy the problems.

Adoptees without a genuine original birth record could soon be barred from running for public office.‭ ‬At least‭ ‬10‭ ‬states, including Texas (HB 295) have introduced legislation requiring presidential and vice-presidential candidates to present their original birth certificates to appropriate authorities to prove citizenship eligibility for office.‭ ‬Some of these bills go farther,‭ ‬mandating anyone running for office to prove citizenship through an original birth certificate.‭ ‬It is no stretch to think that someday soon adoptees could be barred from voting due to lack of‭ “‬legal‭” ‬identity over problematic amended birth certificates,‭ ‬and the perpetual sealing of the originals.‭

‭If passed, ‬SB 287 with its restrictions and exclusionary rules, will guarantee that Texas adoptees will never be treated on an equal plane with the not-adopted. If passed, the damage done by SB 287 will take decades--if ever-- to untangle.

‭The Texas legislature should take action now to assure that its adopted population is not subjected to public and private scrutiny and discrimination due to birth certificate irregularities and seals; that all Texas adoptees receive equal treatment, protection, and due process ‬Vote DO NOT PASS on SB 287. Kill this bill. Then come back with a clean bill that guarantees that all Texas adoptees will enjoy equal protection, due process, and dignity.

Submitted by Marley Greiner
Executive Chair
Bastard Nation: the adoptee rights organization

March 21, 2011

Bastard Nation is dedicated to the recognition of the full human and civil rights of adult adoptees. Toward that end, we advocate the opening to adoptees, upon request at age of majority, of those government documents which pertain to the adoptee's historical, genetic, and legal identity, including the unaltered original birth certificate and adoption decree. Bastard Nation asserts that it is the right of people everywhere to have their official original birth records unaltered and free from falsification, and that the adoptive status of any person should not prohibit him or her from choosing to exercise that right. We have reclaimed the badge of bastardy placed on us by those who would attempt to shame us; we see nothing shameful in having been born out of wedlock or in being adopted. Bastard Nation does not support mandated mutual consent registries or intermediary systems in place of unconditional open records, nor any other system that is less than access on demand to the adult adoptee, without condition, and without qualification.

A Modest Proposal: Guest Blogger Maryanne Cohen

2011-03-17T09:28:00.000-04:00

Long-time activist Maryanne Cohen was with Bastard Nation at the Hard Rock last week (see below).After the event, she sent A "Modest Proposal" to Adam Pertman, director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute and posted the same on a couple lists. Her proposal is simple: clean up the mess you've made with your bad bills that leave people behind before you lecture the rest of us about the uselessness of working on good bills that don't. As she reminds them, "In contrast to the fact of some clean bills being passed, no bad adoption legislation has ever been successfully revisited and "fixed" to make it unconditional access legislation."

I liked what Maryanne wrote and asked if I could post it here. Maryanne agreed, but first expanded her thoughts, which you'll find below. Please feel free to forward.

I recently attended an "Adoptee Rights" event where it was said over and over that while we would really rather support clean adoptee rights legislation, clean bills cannot get passed so we must support compromised bills. Never fear though, we will go back and fix those bad bills soon so it's all good. Smiley faces and applause all around.

My challenge to those who feel this way is to stop introducing compromised bills of various sorts in states where no adoptee access legislation has been passed yet, and go back and put all your efforts into fixing one of the several states that have already been compromised so that not all adoptees there can get their OBC by asking. You have several to choose from, Ohio and MA with black hole legislation, IL which is too complicated to figure out, DE, CO. all come to mind.There are a few others. Pick one. Ohio's black hole law has been in place for decades, that might be a place to start. Go to work on it. Report back when it is repaired. I'll buy you a beer!

The fact is that clean legislation HAS passed in several states, New Hampshire, Maine, Alabama. Was it easy? No. Will it be harder in some states than others? Sure! is it nearly impossible to pass anything in some states like NJ where I live? Yes. Is legislative reform frustrating, exhausting, cynic-making, sometimes disgusting, sometimes fruitless work? Yes, absolutely. But it has been done and can be done again. We have to be in this for the long haul, not quick dirty Band Aid patches.

In contrast to the fact of some clean bills being passed, no bad adoption legislation has ever been successfully revisited and "fixed" to make it unconditional access legislation. I do not think it honest to promise something nobody has yet delivered as a condition to pass something/anything on your watch. It is more difficult to go back and fix flawed legislation than to hold out for a clean bill. One reason is that many veto bills give birthmothers a right under law to request confidentiality that they never had before. Another is that our cause is not important to politicians, and their attitude is "we already dealt with that little issue" when we try to come back and amend existing laws.

Veto, black hole, compulsory intermediary legislation is not adoptee RIGHTS legislation, and should not be called such. It is an admission that adoptees have no rights, which would be across the board, no exceptions, but can only ask permission from Mom and the state to please see their OBC. It may be search and reunions legislation, which some would support as their main goal, and I can understand that, but do not say it is about rights when it is not. A "Right" applies to all in a named group. Blacks, Gays, Women, Adoptees. If it does not apply to all it should not be called a right. Clear enough? Some laws for various groups pass that help some of that group, and may be a good thing for some, but they are not "rights" laws. "Rights" either apply to all in a class or it is not a right but a privilege granted by the state and Mom. A right stands on its own. A privilege can be taken away. You HAVE a right. Someone GIVES you a privilege or favor.

I would be a little less upset about badly compromised adoptee access legislation if those supporting it were honest and did not refer to it as "adoptee rights" or "adoptee birthright" legislation, because it is not. Such legislation admits this is not about civil or human rights for all adoptees, but about granting a favor to some. Call it "search and reunion" legislation, or "something is better than nothing legislation" but don't say it is about rights. There are no "Rights Lite".

The point has been made that "99%" of adoptees will still be able to get their OBC because only 1% mothers will file vetoes, so what's the harm?

Another point also made is that "adoptees are dying" in large numbers without being reunited or getting their medical history because mean people like BN insist on only clean bills. There is also a lot of sentimentality about senior citizen adoptees, as if they mattered more than the rest or deserved more.

These assertions are distortions and exaggerations. Even if your point of view is about reunions, not rights, certainly more than 1% of birthmothers do not welcome contact, based on the experience of search results for many years, Yes, a majority want to be found, but nothing in
the real world indicates that high a majority. Self-selected surveys are skewed, always. And surrendering mothers gave up all rights over the adoptee, why give us rights we never had and mostly do not want with veto laws?

As far as search and reunion go, something I totally favor as a personal choice, there are so many ways to search and reunite now that do not depend on legally obtaining an OBC that very few adoptees who want to search actually die without finding. The OBC is not the one golden key to reunion. Sadly some of those who do have the OBC or all the information on it, never find their families either, because the information was all false at the time of surrender so is
useless for searching. Many adoptees who have already reunited still would like the right to their OBC, as would some who have no intention of searching. Search, reunion, medical and agency records access just further cloud and obscure the issue of adoptee rights to their own original birth certificate, to do with as they please.

I would ask the proponents of various kinds of compromised legislation to stop calling it adoptee rights, and stop promising to go and fix laws that you cannot or will not fix. Tell people up front, what you see with a compromised bill is what you get, for decades to come, and some adoptees will be left out. You don't know how many, but be upfront if what you care about is even a few adoptees getting their OBC now, not adoptee rights. If you think that legislation that cuts out some adoptees is ok because other adoptees get their OBC, say so, don't be crying crocodile tears about how you would really rather have clean legislation, BUT.......

Some of this is of course my opinion. But keep in mind two facts, not opinions. Several states HAVE passed clean legislation, despite the heavy obstacles. No compromised adoptee access legislation has ever been revisited and fixed to be a true adoptee rights law. Make what you will of that, but remember it when you decide what to do legislatively and what to support.

Hard Rock "Event:" Bastard Nation's Four Points on NJ A1406

2011-03-16T13:24:00.002-04:00

On March 10, the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute held a 3-hour "event," Learning the RIGHT Lessons about Adoption: What the Oprah Winfrey Reunion Story Teaches Us" Seven Bastard National and friends attended the "event"--witnesses to the truth as it turned out, in a room full of adoption deformist contortionists weaned on NewSpeak.

I am publishing Bastard Nation documents, commentary, and video from the Hard Rock on the BN blog and the Daily Bastardette. I will also post the documented words and actions of deformers at the event backslapping and trading off the rights of Class Bastard for permission and privilege for some. You know, the vetoed, the 'safe havened," the tiered--maybe YOU--tossed in the black hole.

Below is the Bastard Nation flyer we distributed before the "event." We wanted to document the "event" and hold the feet of the sheep to the fire, so flyer distribution was limited. We did, however, manage to give out a larger number of buttons and stickers.

During the Q&A with the "panel of experts," (no promised scholar showed up) two of us brought up points from the flyer. The "experts" denied and dismissed our questions as someplace not to go. Below our flyer are portions of the New Jersey A1406 bill and the state's current "safe haven" law that provide more or less footnotes to our four flyer points. They are not a legal analysis, but we can read. After all, we've actually passed clean bills."

(Click on image for enlargement or go here for an even larger copy.)

1. Flyer text: "Seal the records of all children passing through the state’s legalized child abandonment (“safe haven”) scheme"

Bill: page 5. This is all new language. 7 e. Notwithstanding the requirements of this section to the 8 contrary, in the case of a child who was surrendered pursuant to 9 P.L.2000, c.58 (C.30:4C-15.5 et seq.) and upon receipt of 10 notification from the Division of Youth and Family Services in the 11 Department of Children and Families pursuant to subsection f. of 12 this section, the State Registrar shall deem that the birth parent of 13 the child has requested nondisclosure and shall not provide the birth 14 parent's name or home address, if the name or address is recorded 15 on the child's birth certificate, upon receipt of a written, notarized 16 request for an uncertified, long-form copy of the adopted person's 17 original certificate of birth pursuant to R.S.26:8-40.1. 18 f. The Division of Youth and Family Services in the 19 Department of Children and Families shall notify the State Registrar 20 when a child is surrendered pursuant to P.L.2000, c.58 (C.30:4C- 21 15.5 et seq.) to enable the Registrar to identify the certificate of 22 birth of the child who was so surrendered and deem that the birth 23 parent of the child has requested nondisclosure, as provided in 24 subsection e. of this section. This is in a part marked "New section" and this language does not appear in the current law. Note that "surrendered pursuant to " is a determination of surrender under safe haven law and is assumed that the parent requested nondisclosure.

===

2. Flyer text: "Segregate out a new class of adoptees locked behind vetoes and other restrictions, barred from gaining access to their state confiscated OriginalBirth Certificates (OBCs)"

Bill page 4, veto prohibiting the state to provide parent name and address: 13 2. (New section) a. During the 12-month period beginning on 14 the date of adoption of regulations by the Department of Health and 15 Senior Services to carry out the purposes of this act, a birth parent 16 of a person adopted prior to the date of enactment of this act may 17 submit to the State Registrar a written, notarized request for 18 nondisclosure or may make such a request to the State Registrar in 19 person. The request for nondisclosure shall prohibit the State 20 Registrar from providing the birth parent's name and home address, 21 as recorded on the adopted person's birth certificate, upon receipt of 22 a written, notarized request for an uncertified, long-form copy of 23 the adopted person's original certificate of birth pursuant to 24 subsection b. of R.S.26:8-40.1 from an adopted person, direct 25 descendant or adoptive parent or guardian authorized by that statute 26 to make such a request. also from page 5: 35 b. If the birth parent of the adopted person has submitted a 36 request for nondisclosure pursuant to section 2 of this act, the State 37 Registrar shall delete the identifying information of the birth parent 38 from the uncertified, long form copy of the original certificate of 39 birth and the family history form submitted by the birth parent with 40 the certificate of birth, and thereafter provide both to the requester. also from page 7, this regards the adoption file as opposed to OBC: 17 Prior to providing any identifying information about a birth 18 parent or the parent's family, the agency or intermediary, as 19 applicable, shall contact the State Registrar to receive written 20 notification if the birth parent has submitted a request for 21 nondisclosure. If such a request has been submitted, the agency or 22 intermediary shall not disclose any identifying information about 23 the birth parent or the parent's family. note that this bill has both a nondisclosure veto, *and* a contact preference, submission of either requires medical/family history form completion.

===

3. Flyer text: "Create an adoption industry liability shield, stripping adopted people and their families of their ability to sue agencies"

Bill page 8: 10 7. (New section) a. A person, firm, partnership, corporation, 11 association or agency that has placed a child for adoption shall not 12 be liable in any civil or criminal action for damages resulting from 13 information provided by the State Registrar pursuant to this act. 14 b. An employee, agent or officer of the Department of Health 15 and Senior Services who is authorized by the Commissioner of 16 Health and Senior Services to disclose information relating to the 17 certification of birth pursuant to this act, shall not be liable for: 18 (1) disclosing information based on a written, notarized request 19 submitted in accordance with this act; and 20 (2) any error or inaccuracy in the information that is disclosed 21 after receipt of a written, notarized request submitted in accordance with this act, and any consequence of that error or inaccuracy.

===

4. Flyer text: " Coerce some mothers into handing over their medical histories to the government, a gross violation of women’s medical privacy"

Bill, in the part explaining the disclosure veto process, page 4: 27 b. The State Registrar shall acknowledge, by mail, or if the 28 request is made in person, at the time the request is made, receipt of 29 the request for nondisclosure and shall enclose with the receipt a 30 family history form requesting medical, cultural, and social history 31 regarding the birth parent, which the State Registrar shall require 32 the birth parent to complete to the best of the parent's knowledge 33 and return to the State Registrar within 60 days. The birth parent 34 may update the family history form, as necessary. Failure of a birth 35 parent to complete the form and return it within 60 days, upon 36 requesting nondisclosure, shall nullify the birth parent's request for 37 nondisclosure. Bill, in the part explaining the contact preference, page 6: 8 c. The State Registrar shall require a birth parent who submits 9 a document of contact preference pursuant to this section to 10 complete a form providing updated family history information, 11 which includes medical, cultural and social history information 12 regarding the birth parent. all the bolding in above text is mine.

====

"Safe Haven" Current law: http://goo.gl/FNuqb and http://goo.gl/BRcQL

This is the "C.30:4C-21 15.5 et seq." that is referenced in the bill I quote above, aka "P.L.2000, c.58." while the word "confidentiality" is used twice, there is nothing in the law enforcing it. The Division of Youth and Family Services is not required to search for parents or relatives, but is not prohibited from doing so. quote: "The division, after assuming the care, custody and control of a child from a licensed general hospital pursuant to section 4 of P.L.2000, c.58 (C.30:4C-15.7), shall not be required to attempt to reunify the child with the child's parents. Additionally, the division shall not be required to search for relatives of the child as a placement or permanency option, or to implement other placement requirements that give preference to relatives if the division does not have information as to the identity of the child, the child's mother or the child's father. The division shall place the child with potential adoptive parents as soon as possible. "

We can only wonder if NJCare (and its best friend, the EBD) has read their own bill as well as current NJ laws which it is trying to affect. In case you think I'm exagerating, documentation to verify these tete a tetes will be posted in a a few days.

RHODE ISLAND: Good News! Clean OBC Bill Introduced

2011-02-19T01:35:00.000-05:00

While Indiana piddles along the road to adoptee serfdom (apologies to Friedrich Hayek!) Rhode Island activists tread the road to liberty. On February 16, Representatives Carnevale, Mattiello, Hearn,Ucci, and Marcello introduced H5453, a short and sweet bill to restore OBC access to all Rhode Island's adoptees with no restriction. The bill is backed by long-time Rhode Island activists, Rhode Island Access. RIA is not to be confused with the amateur muck-abouts who created last year's deformist debaclethat ended in the passage of the fox in the hen house H7877 which took the veto where no man has gone before, and consideration of S2759 which took man even further. Don't remember the details? Here's a refresher from my May 13 2010 blog:

The bill (H7877), framed in deformer NewSpeak as a records access and adoptee rights measure, creates a " do not release" option (a nice name for disclosure veto) for families of origin--in this case not only a parent, but a parent or sibling of a deceased parent-- to keep their Family Bastard de-identied and at bay. The Senate's close companion SB2759 extends the veto to the parent or sibling of a "permanently disabled " parent (no mention of proof or definition of "permanently disabled"). That is, to people who may have pressured the parent to surrender their shameful secret into the secret adoption mill to start with. Hen meet Fox.

Fortunately, the legislature ended before any more harm could be done.

You can read more about last year's clusterfuck here and here.

Longtime Rhode Island Access activist Nancy Horgan is optimistic about the H5453 passage. She wrote on Facebook:

We are very optimistic for 2011 House support. The 75 member RI House passed an unrestricted access bill in 2009 and we'll be seeking their continued support on this issue. Positive letters to our sponsor Rep-Carnevale@rilin.state.

The organization is currently looking for Senate sponsors.

In a legislative season overrun with compromise, mendacity, and gutlessness, we are delighted to find this gem of a bill that has a fighting chance to restore the Free State of Rhode Island.

Cross posted to Bastard Nation blog

INDIANA: SB 469 More Compromise

2011-02-17T22:38:00.000-05:00

Currently, Indiana has two access bills in the hopper. HB 1201 is a convoluted, incomprehensible eye-burning mess that must have been written by a random bill generator. It seems to have something to do with access, but the several of us who have read it are not sure what. SB 469 is a different story. The bill seeks to expand backwards the state's OBC access law to cover pre-1994 adoptees. The only problem is that (1) the current law, although it allows many adoptees to access their OBCs, contains a disclosure veto, and (2) the new bill expands that veto backwards; thus, creating a significant pool of potential unworthies to be blacklisted by the state.

HB 469 is backed by the American Adoption Congress and other compromisers. Pam Kroskie, AAC Midwest Director wrote a glowing report on "our legislation," (HB 469) in the January 29, 2011 Bloomington Adoptive Families Examiner. She thanked deformers Adam Pertman (director, Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute), Mary Mason, Donnie Davis, Wendy Rowney (all AAC) and Judy Foster (president NJCares and AAC NJ State Rep) for their "terrific help." The February 2 Indiana Daily Student (Indiana University) included Kroskie and the AAC. AAC North Carolina State Rep Roberta McDonald, writing in the comments section, urged passage. Bastard Nation's Maya Lama, Toff Phillipo, and I urged defeat in the same section. On February 17, WTHR-TV (Indianapolis) broadcast a virtual commercial for adoption lawyer Steve Kirsch, who opposes HB 469, because it's not fair to "ruin one life." Kirsch, however, supports HB 1201 because is offers better "protection for all the parties"--though he doesnt explain how or why adoptees are protected from their their own information. For poor bastards unable to divvy up the $700 state CI fee, Kirsh generously offers to work pro bono and charge only the $140 court costs.

The Indiana Senate Judiciary Committee, on February 9, heard testimony on SB 469. Bastard Nation submitted testimony opposed to the bill, posted below. I decided not to post it until after the hearing because I did not want proponents to see what we had submitted before the hearing. According to Indiana Legislative Update, the bill is on hold until HB 1201 comes over from the House for a hearing.

Indiana Senate Judiciary Committee, February 9, 2011

SUBMITTED TESTIMONY
SB 469: access to identifying information
for adoptees original birth certificate access

OPPOSE

Privilege is the opposite of right

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization is the largest adoptee civil rights organization in the United States. We support full, unrestricted access for all adopted persons, upon request, of their own true, unaltered original birth certificates (OBC). We oppose HB 469.

Under current Indiana law, the original birth certificates* of those adopted before January 1, 1994 are sealed and cannot be released to the adoptee without a court order. Those adopted after that date can receive their OBCs without a court order-- unless a birthparent files a disclosure veto with the state. This disclosure veto carves out a special "right" for birthparents that no other parent has-- the "right" to bar the state from releasing the birth certificate to his or her own offspring.

This veto provision gives those birthparents who choose to use it, a vested right in state-guaranteed anonymity where none existed before and makes them immune from future changes in the law that would unseal all the state's OBCs.

This vested right for the few does not exist for pre-1994 birthparents. Unfortunately, HB 469 expands this onerous veto provision to cover pre-1994 adoptees whose records could be otherwise unsealed if this law passes. The bill does nothing to restore the absolute right of OBC access that Indiana adoptees, once enjoyed. Instead, the bill will continue to make adoptee access to their own birth certificates a state/birthparent conditioned privilege separate and unequal from the right enjoyed by Indiana's not adopted to receive their birth certificates without restriction. As long as a veto provision exists in Indiana law, Indiana adoptees will only receive favors, not rights.

For decades individuals and special interest groups opposed to adoptee OBC access have claimed that biological parents have been promised anonymity from their own offspring who were placed for adoption. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Courts have found that “birthparents do not have any legal expectation of anonymity.” (Doe v Sundquist, 943 F. Supp. 886, 893-94 (M.D. Tenn. 1996)) (06 F.3d 703, 705 (6th Cir. 1997)) (Does v Oregon, Summary Judgment Oregon State Court of Appeals) (Does v. State of Oregon, 164 Or.App. 543, 993 P.2d 833, 834 (1999)). Moreover, OBCs are sealed at the time of adoption finalization not surrender, and the birth certificate of any child not adopted is left unsealed and available to him or her. If an adoption is disrupted or overturned, the birth certificate is unsealed.

Adopted adults, especially since 9/11, are increasingly denied passports, drivers licenses, pensions, Social Security benefits, professional certifications, and security clearances due discrepancies on their amended birth certificates, and their inability to produce an original birth certificate to answer the problems. Indiana is one of 11 states currently considering a law to require presidential and vice-presidential candidates to present proof of citizenship through birth certificates. Indiana's proposal, SB 114, sponsored by Sen. Mike Delph and currently in the Elections Committee, requires that "a certified copy of each nominee's birth certificate, including any other documentation necessary to establish that the nominee meets qualifications" to appear on the ballot.

Kansas and Alaska have never sealed original birth certificates. Since 1999 four states have restored to adoptees the unrestricted right to records and identity access: Oregon through ballot initiative, and Alabama, New Hampshire, and Maine through legislation. No statistics are available for Kansas and Alaska, but approximately 17,000 OBCs in the latter four states have been released with no reported ill consequences.

Rights are for all citizens, not favors doled out to some Indiana does not segregate rights by religion, ethnicity, age, or gender. It should not segregate rights by birth, adoptive status, or parental preference.

Vote DO NOT PASS on SB 469. All of Indiana's adoptees must enjoy equal protection, due process, and dignity. Indiana adoptees deserve better than SB 469!

Submitted by Marley Greiner
Submitted February 8, 2011
Executive Chair
Bastard Nation: the adoptee rights organization

*We are unclear about the meaning of "adoption record" listed in SB 469. Bastard Nation supports to release of the OBC, adoption decree, and other court-held documents pertaining to the adoptee.

Bastard Nation is dedicated to the recognition of the full human and civil rights of adult adoptees. Toward that end, we advocate the opening to adoptees, upon request at age of majority, of those government documents which pertain to the adoptee's historical, genetic, and legal identity, including the unaltered original birth certificate and adoption decree. Bastard Nation asserts that it is the right of people everywhere to have their official original birth records unaltered and free from falsification, and that the adoptive status of any person should not prohibit him or her from choosing to exercise that right. We have reclaimed the badge of bastardy placed on us by those who would attempt to shame us; we see nothing shameful in having been born out of wedlock or in being adopted. Bastard Nation does not support mandated mutual consent registries or intermediary systems in place of unconditional open records, nor any other system that is less than access on demand to the adult adoptee, without condition, and without qualification.

Cross-posted from the Daily Bastardette

Oregon HB 2843: Great News from Oregon!

2011-02-14T18:17:00.002-05:00

The best valentine ever!

Please spread the word!

Helen Hill posted this news about 5 minutes ago on Facebook:

UPDATE UPDATE! HUNTS OFFICE DROPPED THE BILL! IT"S OVER!

I just got a call from the LA McGlone who told me they are NOT pursuing this bill. They did their research and are DROPPING THIS BILL! They are circling around to the Judiciary Committee to give them the heads up. The JC will NOT proceed without prompting from Hunt's office. McGLone said he was VERY GRATEFUL they didn't get slammed with emails, he sensed we were telling folks to hold off. He said thank you thank you thank you. They just wanted a little breathing room to see what this bill really meant, ramifications, etc. the info I brought in did that. They don't want to touch a hair on the head of this excellent piece of legislation!!!

In the last couple minutes Helen has added two more posts, which I'm including here:

THANKS EVERYONE FOR YOUR VIGILANCE AND FERVOR! Thanks especially to Ron Morgan who broke the story!!!

Back to your wonderful lives!
GODSPEED!

Sincerely
Helen Hill

In the last couple minutes Helen posted two new entries , which I'm including here.

It was great to know there was an army of excellent, schooled foot soldiers out there ready to go if we needed it! Thanks to all of you for letting this play out relatively peacefully.

and

If any of you wish, you can send position papers, stats, opinions of judges, legal precedence history, editorials, anything you wish for the file. Mark clearly: Information in favor of leaving Oregon's 1998 Measure 58 unchanged, or something like that. (There was a new M58 about a year ago, so be sure and specify the 1998 M58).

******

Thank you, Helen! Thank you, Ron! And thank you, all our wonderful Bastards and friends who were willing to fight for Measure 58. Thank you all for your positive work in this momentary"crisis." In a year of horrible compromise legislation our rights prevail!

Important New Update on Oregon HB 2843: Clarification from Helen Hill.

2011-02-12T11:03:00.001-05:00

Helen Hill has clarified what went down in Salem yesterday about HB 2843. (see blog directly below this). I'm quoting her entire post here so there are no questions:

TO BE CLEAR! I did not meet with Rep. Hunt... I had a very brief meeting with the outer office people, who told me Hunt (who is Speaker of the House, by the way) was floating this bill at the request of a constituent. Two of the office people said "you don't have to worry about this. it's not going anywhere" or something to that effect. I left some written info. I have a meeting at 1:45 this coming Tuesday with the legislative aid that is running with this. Ron Morgan is going to be there too, (YAY RON!) and any of you who are in the area and would like to come and discuss why this bill should be dropped, please do stop by Rep Hunt's office next Tuesday.

This is not the time for conspiracy theory. There is internet chatter that HB 2843 was induced by any number of factions: adoption agencies, intermediaries, searchers, churches, and money interests. Helen has been very clear that the bill, as far as she knows, came at the request, as do many bills, of a constituent.

Helen is the Measure 58 petitioner. Ron Morgan worked tirelessly on the ground during the M58 campaign. They know the political landscape well. Both are on the ground now to preserve our rights.

If you are an Oregon adoptee or have direct tie to Oregon feel free to contact Rep. Hunt and tell him how M58 has been good for you, your family, and for Oregon.

Rep.davehunt@state.or.us

You can make comments on the bill here:

Read the Oregon Adoptee Rights Blog and join the list

Mary Hunt Peret's blog on the history original birth certificates is here.

The history of the M58 campaign is here.

Photo: by Bastardette taken in Portland, March 31, 2008, when I ran into her on the train.

Connecticut: Bastard Nation's Letter in Opposition to HB 890

2011-02-07T22:38:00.003-05:00

Connecticut currently has two OBC access bills in the hopper. The first, HB 65 is a placeholder which has yet to be written. The second is HB 890 which would open OBCs prospectively for adoptees 21 years old and older adopted after January 2, 2012 contains a disclosure veto. HB 890 is scheduled for a hearing tomorrow before the legislature's Select Committee on Children. We sent this letter opposing the bill to committee members this afternoon:

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization, is the largest adoptee civil rights organization in the United States. We support full, unrestricted access for all adopted persons, upon request, of their own true, unaltered original birth certificates (OBC). We oppose HB 890, a bill that would prospectively the OBC to adoptees, with disclosure veto restrictions, to persons 21 years of age or older, whose adoptions were finalized on or after October 12, 2012.

This bill is scheduled to be heard tomorrow, February 8, 2011 by the Select Committee on Children.

Bastard Nation. opposes HB 890, and urges you to vote Do Not Pass.

HB 890 creates a nonsensical tiered discriminatory system of OBC access for Connecticut adoptees based on their date of birth, date of their adoption finalization,and their birthparent consent.

HB 890 ignores thousands of the state's adopted population who will still be unable to acquire their OBC, while at the same time creates a new class of adoptees not even born yet, who can acquire their OBCs unless their birthparent(s) object.

HB 890 creates a prospective new special "right" for birthparents that enables them to bar their adult offspring from acquiring their own birth certificates, a right that no other parent has.

In sum, HB 890 reinforces out-dated adoption secrecy. It does nothing to restore the right of unrestricted OBC access that all Connecticut adoptees enjoyed until 1974. It makes adoptee access to their own birth certificates a state/birthparent conditioned privilege separate and unequal from the right enjoyed by Connecticut's not adopted who can acquire their own birth certificates unhindered.

Please vote DO NOT PASS on HB 890, and support a bill that mandates equal OBC access, without conditions, to all Connecticut adoptees, past, present, and future.

Sincerely yours,

Marley E. Greiner

Executive Chair

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization

New Jersey A1406/S799: Letter to NJ Assembly to Oppose Bill

2011-01-01T19:27:00.016-05:00

Dear __________:

Privilege is the opposite of right

Kansas and Alaska have never sealed original birth certificates. Since 1999 four states have restored to adoptees the unrestricted right to records and identity access: Oregon through ballot initiative, and Alabama, New Hampshire, and Maine through legislation. Of the four states that have repealed sealed records laws, approximately 17,000 OBCs have been released with no ill consequences. Why should New Jersey buck the tide and pass a bill that continues to treat adoptee access to their own birth certificates as a privilege not a right--a right that the non-adopted enjoy without a second thought?

Rights are for all citizens, not favors doled out to some by government and special interest groups. A1406/S799 does not restore the right to the OBC once enjoyed by all New Jersey adoptees.

Please vote DO NOT PASS on A1406/S799. New Jersey does not segregate rights by religion, ethnicity, age, or gender. It should not segregate rights by birth, adoptive status, or parental preference All of the New Jersey's adoptees must enjoy equal protection, due process, and dignity. New Jersey adoptees deserve better than this current legislation. The all deserve their original birth certificates without restriction.

For the record, Bastard Nation does not support an alternative bill, introduced on December2010 (no number issued as of this writing) which also restricts the right of OBC access.

Yours truly,

Marley E. Greiner
Executive Chair, Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization

Bastard Nation is dedicated to the recognition of the full human and civil rights of adult adoptees. Toward that end, we advocate the opening to adoptees, upon request at age of majority, of those government documents which pertain to the adoptee's historical, genetic, and legal identity, including the unaltered original birth certificate and adoption decree. Bastard Nation asserts that it is the right of people everywhere to have their official original birth records unaltered and free from falsification, and that the adoptive status of any person should not prohibit him or her from choosing to exercise that right. We have reclaimed the badge of bastardy placed on us by those who would attempt to shame us; we see nothing shameful in having been born out of wedlock or in being adopted. Bastard Nation does not support mandated mutual consent registries or intermediary systems in place of unconditional open records, nor any other system that is less than access on demand to the adult adoptee, without condition, and without qualification.

Bastard Nation Letter to NJ Gov. Chris Christie - Please Veto S799/A1399

2010-12-27T20:28:00.001-05:00

I'll be blogging on the current situation in New Jersey in a couple days, as well as posting a Bastard Nation Action alert regarding S799/A1399. In the meantime, here is the letter BN sent to Gov. Chris Christie asking him to veto the bill if it's hits his desk.

Governor Chris Christie

Office of the Governor

PO Box 001

Trenton, NJ 08625

PLEASE VETO S799/A1399: the Adoptees' Birthright Bill

Dear Governor Christie:

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization, the largest adoptee civil rights organization in North America, opposes S799/A1399: The Adoptees' Birthright bill. We ask you to veto it if it comes to your desk. The bill is currently awaiting a vote on the House Floor on January 6 or 20, 2011.

If passed, this bill will permit some of New Jersey's adopted adults to receive their true and accurate original birth certificates. Others, through the compromise language of this bill, will receive only a false and mutilated certificate with the name and address of the parent(s) bureaucratically excised by the Department of Health and Senior Services by order of the birthparent(s).

Bastard Nation rejects this newly created special right of birthparents to remove their names from the birth certificates--the public record-- of their own adult offspring. No other parent has that right. Why should birthparents have different rules?

Since 1999 four states have restored to adoptees the unrestricted right to records and identity access: Oregon through ballot initiative, and Alabama. New Hampshire, and Maine through legislation. Kansas and Alaska never sealed records. New Jersey should not buck the tide. New Jersey should not pass a bill that continues to treat adoptee access to their own birth certificates as a favor, not a right--a right that the not-adopted enjoy without a second thought.

S799/A1399 is not an Adoptees' Birthright bill. It does not restore the right of unrestricted birth certificate access to New Jersey's adoptees. Instead it encodes "special rights" for some into state law where it did not exist before. Please veto this discriminatory legislation.

For the record, Bastard Nation also opposes an alternate bill (no number assigned as of this writing) introduced in the House and supported by the New Jersey ACLU, New Jersey Right to Life and other organizations opposed to the restoration of adoptee rights, which offers a favor-based system of birth certificate access.

Yours truly,

Marley Greiner

Executive Chair

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization

We Lose Another One: B J Lifton

2010-11-20T02:40:00.001-05:00

At 11:45 tonight B J Lifton died. I don't have the details but I know she had been hospitalized with pneumonia for the past week. I haven't seen any details yet, but I'm sure some will be forthcoming tomorrow.

I first read BJ's books in 1980, right after I got I got my obc. I took Lost & Found out of the Ohio State University Library. It was old and beat up having undergone numerous readings. I was stunned that somebody was actually writing about adoptees from an "us" POV. " Although I didn't agree with everything she said, I was hooked. For the longest time I was convinced that nobody else would ever write about adoption, at least not that way. In a way I was right.

I didn't meet BJ until about 17 years later during the AAC Seattle conference. She had joined Bastard Nation. And boy, were we excited to have such a prominent member. Alfie and I were in the hospitality suite. Alfie was dressed as a cow and I was wearing a big red devil's tail. Shea was with the band. BJ took my hand. I didn't know what to say. All I could think of was, "I'm sitting next to BJ Lifton in this silly costume and she's holding my hand"

Over the years I recovered and we became friends. She was convinced that someday I'd come around and get interested in the psychological problems of adoptees. I never did.

Every time I saw BJ the first thing she'd say was, "And how are the Bastards?"

The last time I heard that familiar question was at the ASAC conference at MIT this summer. She'd had health problems for some time. She seemed better, but looked frail. (Bobbi Beavers, BJ, Maryanne Cohen, MIT)

BJ brought so manly of us into the movement. She was exasperating sometimes, but never dull, and she always cared.

We'll miss you, BJ!

I should have some old pictures. If I do, I'll post them later.

Belated Tribute to Annette Baran

2010-08-18T22:44:00.001-04:00

Pioneer adoption reform pioneer and adoptee rights advocate Annette Baran died on July 11. Due to my unplanned writing hiatus, I am only posting our Bastard National Memorial today.

Annette Baran was one of those rare people in adoption: she listened to bastards and learned. She abhorred adoption secrets and lies. Going against her social work training, she worked for decades, with much opposition from "professionals," lobbyists, and adoption bagmen, to undo the damage caused by the adoption industry. She may have been a traitor to them, but she is a hero to us.

No one enjoyed kicking Annette around more than Bill Pierce, founding president of the National Council for Adoption. His NCFA Factbook 3 (no longer online) is full of attacks on Annette's "junk science" of adoption openess and honestly. Annette was, in fact, one of the most radical thinkers in AdoptionLand I have ever known. In her lifetime she moved from being the keeper of adoption secrets, to advocating open adoption--and records--to promoting guardianship and simple adoption over the closed secret system. Annette believed in adoptee dignity, integrity and identity. She believed that each of us have a right to our own identity, history, and documents. She believed the industry must take responsibility for the damage it has caused and continues to cause.

Since I knew Annette mainly by reputation I can't speak to any deep personal relationship. We emailed occasionally, and I met her only once: at the 2004 Kansas City AAC conference. During her opening keynote address, Annette, much to my surprise, took a few moments to acknowledge and celebrate Bastard Nation and our leadership in the struggle to regain our rights.

Longtime adoption reform activist and poet Maryanne Cohen knew Annette well and wrote the following memorial, posted with Maryanne's permission, below.

Annttte's obit from the LA Times is here. A memorial page for Annette is here.

Annette

A small bright bird
Filled with life
she graced the space she filled
Always moving, never still
except to listen to a friend
which she did with full heart
Her kind eyes saw you
her silence let you fill the cup
Her words were milk and honey
on any hurt or fear

I knew her as grey but never old
Her spirit ever young, eager
for the next adventure, the next laugh
the next delicious shopping trip

Annette knew what to buy, and where to find it
What to read, I loved every book
she led me to, her wisdom
carried on, oblique, in other's words.
She showed me the lipstick that won't wear off
said, "it will change your life"
Her sense of style impeccable, unique
A joy to see
A joy to follow

My Yiddishe Mama, witty, wise
down to earth, a true friend
Annette stood before a crowd
at an adoption conference once,
and said "I am sorry
for what my profession has done,
for what I have done"
That's all, no excuses, no justifications,
No Big Buts......

Just courage, integrity, intelligence and class
She laughed at fools, the pompous, the self-righteous
She cried with those who truly grieved

Now we grieve her, her valor, her light gone from this world
But she shines on
In blessed memory
In her work we take up
In the quest for truth and justice
Still undone

She shines on.......

Mary Anne Cohen
July 2010
Rest in Peace, Dear Annette
The good race is run.

PENNSYLVANIA: Bastard Nation Letter to Rep. Oliver: Please schedule hearings for HB1978

2010-08-16T17:02:00.001-04:00

Dear Chairman Oliver:

I write today to urge you to schedule hearings for HB 1978, a bill that if passed would restore the right that all Pennsylvania adoptees once enjoyed: the right to his or her own original birth certificate (obc) with no conditions or restrictions. That is, to authorize the state to treat the adopted on the same legal level as those who are not adopted.

HB 1978 is an important bill. It is being watched by adoption advocacy and reform groups and individuals across the country.

The sealing of birth records is an archaic hold-over from an age when adoption was held shameful. That day has passed.

The restoration of the right of adoptees to their obcs is the keystone of ethical adoption practice not only in Pennsylvania but throughout the country. . As someone whose birth and adoptive families have deep Pennsylvania roots (Pittsburgh, Greenville and Bucks County), I would love to see Pennsylvania join the ranks of states that believe that the adopted and not-adopted should be treated equal under law. As an adoptee rights advocate, I am happy to see legislators in Pennsylvania come to the forefront to achieve that equality.

Please join us . Please schedule hearings for this most important bill.

Thank you.

Sincerely yours,

Marley Greiner
Executive Chair
Bastard Nation: the adoptee rights organization

Bastard Nation is dedicated to the recognition of the full human and civil rights of adult adoptees. Toward that end, we advocate the opening to adoptees, upon request at age of majority, of those government documents which pertain to the adoptee's historical, genetic, and legal identity, including the unaltered original birth certificate and adoption decree. Bastard Nation asserts that it is the right of people everywhere to have their official original birth records unaltered and free from falsification, and that the adoptive status of any person should not prohibit him or her from choosing to exercise that right. We have reclaimed the badge of bastardy placed on us by those who would attempt to shame us; we see nothing shameful in having been born out of wedlock or in being adopted. Bastard Nation does not support mandated mutual consent registries or intermediary systems in place of unconditional open records, nor any other system that is less than access on demand to the adult adoptee, without condition, and without qualification.

BASTARD NATION: New Jersey A1406/S799 - Submitted Testimony in Opposition

2010-06-15T07:10:00.001-04:00

This is yesterday's submitted testimony in opposition to H1406/S799. I did not post this until this morning because I didn't want our testimony to be read by NJCare and supporters
beforehand. Unfortunately, the bill passed out of committee. More on that later.

New Jersey House Human Services Committee

SUBMITTED TESTIMONY
A1406/S799: Adoptees Birthright Bill

OPPOSE

Privilege is the opposite of right

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization is the largest adoptee civil rights organization in the United States. We support full, unrestricted access for all adopted persons, upon request, of their own true, unaltered original birth certificates (OBC). We oppose A1406 and its companion bill S799 already passed in the Senate.

A1406/S799 permits some New Jersey adopted adults to receive their true and accurate original birth certificates. Others, through the compromise language of the birthparent disclosure veto, will receive only a false and mutilated government document with the name and address of the parent(s) bureaucratically excised by the Department of Health and Senior Services by order of the birthparent(s).

Bastard Nation rejects this special veto right of “birthparents” to remove their names from the birth certificates of their own adult offspring. No other parent has that right. Why should “birthparents” have different rights and rules?

A1399/S799 is promoted as an “adoptee birthright” and OBC “access bill.” Unfortunately, it is neither. The bill reinforces out-dated adoption secrecy through the disclosure veto. It also seals by default, the OBCs of babies surrendered under the state’s “safe haven” program (apparently whether they are adopted later or not) even though a good number of these children are born to identified parents. What name and “official” state identity papers those never adopted will have is not addressed in the bill.

A1406/S799 requires birthparents, under specific circumstances, to submit a medical and health history to the state, a requirement that is most likely illegal under HIPAA and other privacy laws. No one has a right to anyone’s medical history. Medical histories have nothing to do with birth certificates and have no connection to right of all adopted persons to their own OBC.

Finally, A1406/S799 includes a fiscal bill of $90,000 to advertise the law if it is passed. At a time when Governor Christie is proposing massive cuts in education and social welfare programs and instituting wage caps, this advertising campaign is an unconscionable waste of taxpayer money.

For nearly three decades we have heard the claim that biological parents have been promised anonymity from their own offspring who were placed for adoption, yet not one document has ever been presented in New Jersey or any other state to show that so-called promise.
In fact, courts have found that “birthparents do not have any legal expectation of anonymity.” (Doe v Sundquist, 943 F. Supp. 886, 893-94 (M.D. Tenn. 1996)) (06 F.3d 703, 705 (6th Cir. 1997)) (Does v Oregon, Summary Judgment Oregon State Court of Appeals) (Does v. State of Oregon, 164 Or.App. 543, 993 P.2d 833, 834 (1999)). Moreover, OBCs are sealed at the time of adoption finalization not surrender, and the birth certificate of any child not adopted is left unsealed and available not only to him or her but to the public at large. If an adoption is disrupted, the birth certificate is unsealed.

Kansas and Alaska have never sealed original birth certificates. Since 1999 four states have restored to adoptees the unrestricted right to records and identity access: Oregon through ballot initiative, and Alabama, New Hampshire, and Maine through legislation. No statistics are available for Kansas and Alaska, but approximately 17,000 OBCs in the latter four states have been released with no reported ill consequences. Why should New Jersey buck the tide and pass a bill that continues to treat adoptee access to their own birth certificates as a privilege not a right--a right that the non-adopted enjoy without a second thought?

Rights are for all citizens, not favors doled out to some by government and special interest groups. A11406/799 does not restore the right to the OBC once enjoyed by all New Jersey adoptees.

Please go back and create a clean bill that restores the rights of all adoptees to full citizenship or kill this discriminatory bill that does nothing but grant privileges to some and blacklists others. New Jersey does not segregate rights by religion, ethnicity, age, or gender. It should not segregate rights by birth, adoptive status, or parental preference.

Vote DO NOT PASS on A1406/S799. All of the New Jersey's adoptees must enjoy equal protection, due process, and dignity. New Jersey adoptees deserve better than this!

Submitted by Marley Greiner
June 2, 2010
Executive Chair
Bastard Nation: the adoptee rights organization

Bastard Nation is dedicated to the recognition of the full human and civil rights of adult adoptees. Toward that end, we advocate the opening to adoptees, upon request at age of majority, of those government documents which pertain to the adoptee's historical, genetic, and legal identity, including the unaltered original birth certificate and adoption decree. Bastard Nation asserts that it is the right of people everywhere to have their official original birth records unaltered and free from falsification, and that the adoptive status of any person should not prohibit him or her from choosing to exercise that right. We have reclaimed the badge of bastardy placed on us by those who would attempt to shame us; we see nothing shameful in having been born out of wedlock or in being adopted. Bastard Nation does not support mandated mutual consent registries or intermediary systems in place of unconditional open records, nor any other system that is less than access on demand to the adult adoptee, without condition, and without qualification.

BASTARD NATION: RHODE ISLAND SUBMITED TESTIMONY, S2759

2010-05-18T13:28:00.004-04:00

Rhode Island Health & Human Services Committee

SUBMITTED TESTIMONY
S2759
OPPOSE

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization is the largest adoptee civil rights organization in the United States. We support full, unrestricted access for all adopted persons, upon request, of their own true, unaltered original birth certificates (OBC). We oppose S2759 and its companion bill H7877 already passed in the House.

S2759 is misleading and inimical to the right of all Rhode Island adoptees to access their own original birth certificates. The measure is promoted as an “adoptee rights” and OBC “access bill.” It is not. The bill reinforces out-dated adoption secrecy through the “do not release” disclosure veto option for “birthparents” and other biological family members. S2759 does not restore the right to the OBC once enjoyed by all Rhode adoptees. Instead, it makes adoptee access to their own birth certificates a state/”birth family” conditioned privilege separate and unequal from the right enjoyed by Rhode Island’s not adopted.

S2759:
1. denies equal protection to the state’s adopted adults by (a) maintaining different rules for birth certificate access for the adopted and not-adopted and (b) creating new and different rules for access between the adopted themselves through the use of disclosure vetoes.

2. rescinds Rhode Island General Law § 15-7-7: Termination of parental rights. – (a) The court shall, upon a petition duly filed by a governmental child placement agency or licensed child placement agency after notice to the parent and a hearing on the petition, terminate any and all legal rights of the parent to the child, including the right to notice of any subsequent adoption proceedings involving the child) and replaces it with a new state-constructed “special right” for “birthparents” that no other parent has: barring their own offspring from the state-held document of their birth.

3. extends that new special veto “right” to the parents and siblings of deceased or permanently disabled/incompetent “birthparents,” some of the very people who may have forced the adoptee to be surrendered for adoption to start with and who have never held any rights over the adoptee at any time.

4. assumes that the legal right to access a birth certificate equates with the interpersonal decision of search and “reunion” for adopted person

5. denies the right of free association and autonomy of adopted adult by creating an intrusive parens patriae relationship between the state and adults where none is needed or desired.
For nearly three decades we have heard the claim that biological parents have been promised anonymity from their own offspring who were placed for adoption, yet not one document has ever been presented in Rhode Island or any other state to show that so-called promise. In fact, courts have found that “birthparents do not have any legal expectation of anonymity.” (Doe v Sundquist, 943 F. Supp. 886, 893-94 (M.D. Tenn. 1996)) (06 F.3d 703, 705 (6th Cir. 1997)) (Does v Oregon, Summary Judgment Oregon State Court of Appeals) (Does v. State of Oregon, 164 Or.App. 543, 993 P.2d 833, 834 (1999)). Moreover, OBCs are sealed at the time of adoption finalization not surrender, and the birth certificate of any child not adopted is left unsealed and available not only to him or her but to the public at large. If an adoption is disrupted, the birth certificate is unsealed.

Under normal circumstances, competitive rights and their balancing is a problem only when there is a conflict of rights. Since there is a presumed right for all adults to access their birth certificate, and there no “right” to anonymity from one’s own offspring, there is nothing that needs balanced. S2759 and H7877 in their current restricted form are pointless.

Kansas and Alaska have never sealed birth certificates. In the last 10 years, Oregon, Alabama, New Hampshire and Maine have restored the right of all its adopted adults—without restriction-- to access their own original birth certificates. Approximately 17,000 birth certificates. Other states are moving in the direction. S2759 and H7877 not only maintain the status quo but create new roadblocks to the restoration of the civil rights of all adoptees in Rhode Island and the US.

US and Rhode Island law does not privilege rights by race, religion, ethnicity, age, or gender. The law should not privilege rights by adoption. A true records access bill in Rhode Island would not harm anyone. It would instead restore legal equality, dignity, and fairness to adopted persons. Bastard Nation, therefore, cannot support S2759 and H7877 with their continued and additional harm to Rhode Island’s adopted citizens.

Don’t leave anyone behind. Please reject S2759 (and H7877) and replace it with a clean OBC access bill that treats Rhode Island’s entire adopted population equal to its not-adopted. A clean bill will have universal support from adoptee rights advocates and adoption reformers across the country. Please vote DO NOT PASS on S2759.

Bastard Nation is dedicated to the recognition of the full human and civil rights of adult adoptees. Toward that end, we advocate the opening to adoptees, upon request at age of majority, of those government documents which pertain to the adoptee's historical, genetic, and legal identity, including the unaltered original birth certificate and adoption decree. Bastard Nation asserts that it is the right of people everywhere to have their official original birth records unaltered and free from falsification, and that the adoptive status of any person should not prohibit him or her from choosing to exercise that right. We have reclaimed the badge of bastardy placed on us by those who would attempt to shame us; we see nothing shameful in having been born out of wedlock or in being adopted. Bastard Nation does not support mandated mutual consent registries or intermediary systems in place of unconditional open records, nor any other system that is less than access on demand to the adult adoptee, without condition, and without qualification.

Bastard Nation Letter to Illinois Governor Pat Quinn: Please Veto HB 5428

2010-04-24T13:40:00.001-04:00

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization urges you to veto HB 5428, a so-called “adoptee rights” bill promoted as a progressive piece of legislation to correct Illinois’ long-standing Draconian treatment of its adoptees and their families of origin. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The bill’s stated purpose and its final product are diametrically opposed.

The introduction to the bill reads: The General Assembly recognizes that it is the basic right of all persons to access their birth records, and, to this end, supports public policy that allows an adult adoptee to access his or her original birth certificate. The rest of the bill guts the “recognition of that “basic right,” putting unreasonable and outrageous restrictions on that “basic right:”

HB 5428 separates adoptees into two classes by date of birth and then into numerous subclasses of “access” and “contact” eligibility dependent on parental and state “consent.”

HB 5428 “grants” rights to some at the expense of others.

HB 5428 criminalizes adoptees that use information from the Illinois Adoption Reunion and Medical Exchange to locate and contact families of origin.

HB 5428 dictates relationships between adults.

.HB 5428 is a bill that adopted persons and their families of origin did not ask for and do not want. It has virtually no support from adoptee rights and adoption reform organizations in Illinois and throughout the country.

HB 5428 is NOT an original birth certificate access bill. HB 5428 is NOT an adoptee rights bill. HB 5428 is NOT an adoption reform bill.

Instead HB 5428 is an abomination that stalls genuine adoption reform in the state for decades.

Please veto HB 5428 and ask the legislature to come back with a clean bill that treats all Illinois adoptees as fully equal to non-adopted Illinoisans.

Yours truly

Marley Elizabeth Greiner
Executive Chair

Bastard Nation's Letter to Illinois Senators: Vote NO on HB 5428

2010-04-19T15:51:00.001-04:00

Below is Bastard Nation's edited-down-from-testimony letter to the Illinois Senate asking members to VOTE NO. Please contact Senators and tell them to stop this travesty. Go to the BN Action Alert for more information, including contact information.

HB 5428 is misleading. The bill’s stated purpose and its final product are diametrically opposed. The bill simply beefs up the current confidential intermediary/registry system that controls adoptee access to their own public records and adds penalties for so-called “misuse” of information from the registry.

1. conflates rights with reunion. It confuses OBC access with contact with a parent. It retains the Illinois Adoption Registry and Medical Exchange (IARME), and currently outsources the registry process to the privately owned Midwest Adoption Center as the OBC gateway; thus, keeping the vital records of the state’s adoptees at the mercy and whim of “confidential intermediaries” and paid “searchers” in an inherently arbitrary system accountable to no one.

2. vacates, though parental disclosure veto power (see #4) 750 ILCS 50/10) (from Ch. 40, par. 1512) FINAL AND IRREVOCABLE CONSENT TO ADOPTION

3. divides Illinois’ adopted citizens into two arbitrary classes based solely on date of birth: worthy and unworthy. Worthies are born before January 1, 1946. Their OBC is released upon request--like the not-adopted. Unworthies are born after that date. Their OBC release is subject to a lengthy menu of regulations, restrictions and other people’s decisions about access, none of which are under the adult adoptee’s control.

4.subjects Unworthies to five subcategories of parental permission. These categories are no based in a public or civil rights /equal protection and treatment paradigmn. but on state-granted privilege. The bill predicates release on a “special right” for parents whose rights were terminated decades ago, which no other parent or adult has: a special right to deny another adult his or her own birth certificate.

5, forces adopted persons who have been denied their birth certificates, to wait FIVE years before they can appeal the decision.

6. levies a minimum $10,000 punitive damage claim, payable to the “sought- after relative against any individual—a CI, state employee, even the adopted person-- who uses information allegedly received from the IARME to identify the relative who has requested “anonymity.” How the source of information is to be determined is anybody’s guess.

7. includes a provision for a massive taxpayer funded public information This cost does not include the cost of retention of separate birth, adoption and registry records, general maintenance of IARME, and outsourced searches which the state has no legal or fiscal responsibility to pursue.

Under normal circumstances, competitive rights and their balancing is a problem only when there is a conflict of rights. Since there is also a presumed right to own one’s birth certificate, and no “right” to anonymity from one’s own offspring, there is nothing that needs balanced.

The Illinois legislature needs to put its money where its mouth is. The introduction of HB 5428 reads: The General Assembly recognizes that it is the basic right of all persons to access their birth records, and, to this end, supports public policy that allows an adult adoptee to access his or her original birth certificate. The rest of the bill guts that “recognition of that “basic right.”

Please make that that “basic right” a reality and come back with a real OBC access bill that treats all of Illinois’ adopted equal to its not-adopted. Please vote NO.

Bastard Nation Testimony HB 5428- OPPOSE

2010-04-15T00:27:00.004-04:00

The Illinois Senate Judiciary Committee voted 6-3 to pass HB 5428 on to the Floor. This is one of the saddest days in adoption rights history Apparently proponents believe that something is better than nothing--and this sure is nothing. If the bill becomes law, Illinois is a dead state. Below is Bastard Nation's submitted testimony. It's full of facts. And we know, facts don't count.

SUBMITTED TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION TO HB 5428
ACCESS TO BIRTH CERTIFICATES FOR ADULT ADOPTEES
Illinois Senate Judiciary Committee
April 13, 2010

Bastard Nation: the adoptee rights organization is the largest adoptee rights advocacy organization in the United States. We support full, unrestricted access for all adopted persons, upon request, of their own true, unaltered original birth certificates (OBC). We oppose HB 5428 as we have opposed similar bills introduced in the Illinois legislature over the past 15 years.

HB 5428 is misleading. The bill’s stated purpose and its final product are diametrically opposed. The bill simply beefs up the current confidential intermediary/registry system that controls adoptee access to their own public records and adds penalties for so-called “misuse” of information from the registry. According to the bill’s introduction:

The General Assembly recognizes that it is the basic right of all persons to access their birth records, and, to this end, supports public policy that allows an adult adoptee to access his or her original birth certificate

Then, the second sentence immediately voids the “basic right” claim of the first, turning OBC access into a state-granted privilege:

The General Assembly further recognizes that there are circumstances under which a birth parent may have compelling reasons for wishing to remain anonymous to a child he or she surrendered for adoption.

The introduction ends with a mishmash of language that falsely equates “interests” with “rights. It then turns around and creates “special rights,” ungrounded in law, for biological parents based on the age of the adult adopted person, biological parent comfort, and a multi-level bureaucracy to control and restrict the outcome of what the bill claims is a “basic right.”

In an effort to balance these interests, the General Assembly supports public policy that releases a non-certified copy of the original birth certificate to an adult adopted person upon request unless a specific request for anonymity has been filed with the Registry by a birth parent upon request unless a specific request for anonymity has been filed with the Registry by a birth parent named on the original birth certificate.”

The bill’s introduction is followed by 80 pages (pdf) of convoluted, confusing definitions, rules, and regulations that only the politically astute and experienced I adoption legislation can understand. The bill offers a bureaucratic cornucopia of original OBC “permissions” “information exchanges” and controls reflecting the individual personal “preferences” and desires of “birthparents,” and collateral “birth family” members—all with appropriate state forms to fill out--and bureaucrats, geared to override the “basic right” the General Assembly claims adopted people have.

Parts of this bill have already been enacted into law; some are new sections. Although there is much to object to, we limit ourselves to a brief overview with comments on eight egregious points. The term “parent” throughout the testimony refers to the biological parent HB 5428:

1. conflates rights with reunion. It confuses OBC access with contact with a parent. It retains the Illinois Adoption Registry and Medical Exchange (IARME), and currently outsources the registry process to the privately owned Midwest Adoption Center as the OBC gateway; thus, keeping the vital records of the state’s adoptees at the mercy and whim of “confidential intermediaries” and paid “searchers” in an inherently arbitrary system accountable to no one.

2. vacates, though parental disclosure veto power (see #4) 750 ILCS 50/10) (from Ch. 40, par. 1512) FINAL AND IRREVOCABLE CONSENT TO ADOPTION which states in part:
That I do hereby consent and agree to the adoption of such child. That I wish to and understand that by signing this consent I do irrevocably and permanently give up all custody and other parental rights I have to such child. That I understand such child will be placed for adoption and that I cannot under any circumstances, after signing this document, change my mind and revoke or cancel this consent or obtain or recover custody or any other rights over such child.

It also contradicts its own language:
“Surrendered person” means a person whose parents’ rights have been surrendered or terminated but who has not been adopted.” (p 11)

3. divides Illinois’ adopted citizens into two arbitrary classes based solely on date of birth: worthy and unworthy. Worthies are born before January 1, 1946. Their OBC is released upon request--like the not-adopted. Unworthies are born after that date. Their OBC release is subject to a lengthy menu of regulations, restrictions and other people’s decisions about access, none of which are under the adult adoptee’s control.

4. subjects Unworthies to five subcategories of parental permission. These categories are not based in a public or civil rights /equal protection and treatment paradigmn. but on state-granted privilege. The bill predicates release on a “special right” for parents whose rights were terminated decades ago, which no other parent or adult has: a special right to deny another adult his or her own birth certificate.

5. Parents (referred to as “birthparents in the bill) are given five “preferences” to choose from:
a. Agree to full release; parent prefers direct contact
b. Agree to full release; parent prefers contact through a personally designated third party
c. Agree to full release; parent prefers contact through IARME
d. Agree to full release; parent prefers no contact
e. Prohibit release of the OBC or certain designated information on the OBC. Depending on the parent’s “preference” the prohibited adoptee may receive the OBC with specific information deleted. In other words, the State of Illinois will deliberately mutilate its own public record at the request of a private individual—in most cases a virtual stranger to the requester--to abrogate the right the “basic right” state says the adoptee has.

6. forces adopted persons who have been denied their birth certificates, to wait FIVE years before they can appeal the decision. At that time, IARME, upon petition, can search for the parent to request an updated medical history and/or confirm the continuance of the prohibition.

7. levies a minimum $10,000 punitive damage claim, payable to the “sought-after relative” against any individual—a CI, state employee, even the adopted person-- who uses information allegedly received from the IARME to identify the relative who has requested “anonymity.” How the source of information is to be determined is anybody’s guess.

8. includes a provision for a massive taxpayer funded public information campaign including a website, press releases, and printed notices about the law enclosed with drivers license and vehicle renewal applications. This cost does not include the cost of retention of separate birth, adoption and registry records, general maintenance of IARME, and outsourced searches which the state has no legal or fiscal responsibility to pursue. We have seen no fiscal note at this time, but under the current state government budget slashes, such expenditures are irresponsible and wasteful.

For nearly three decades, we have heard the claim that biological parents have been promised anonymity from their own offspring who were placed for adoption, yet not one document has ever been presented to show that promise. In fact, some parents say they were promised reunions when their surrendered child became an adult—reunions that never materialized. If anything, courts have found that parents do not have any legal expectation of anonymity. (Doe v Sundquist, 943 F. Supp. 886, 893-94 (M.D. Tenn. 1996)) (06 F.3d 703, 705 (6th Cir. 1997)) (Does v Oregon, Summary Judgment Oregon State Court of Appeals) (Does v. State of Oregon, 164 Or.App. 543, 993 P.2d 833, 834 (1999)).

Under normal circumstances, competitive rights and their balancing is a problem only when there is a conflict of rights. Since there is also a presumed right to own one’s birth certificate, and no “right” to anonymity from one’s own offspring, there is nothing that needs balanced. HB 5428 is pointless. It needs to die in committee now.

Kansas and Alaska have never sealed birth certificates. In the last 10 years, Oregon, Alabama, New Hampshire and Maine have restored the right of all its adopted adults—without restriction-- to access their own original birth certificates. Those bills were short and sweet. Approximately 17,000 birth certificates have been unsealed, with no “social unrest” that opponents claimed. Other states are moving in the same direction. Yet, here we are in Springfield arguing an 80 page monstrosity that does nothing but create an even thicker—and more expensive--bureaucracy than already exists. We’ve been at this for 15 years now, and I doubt if anybody here wants to do it another 15 years or 20 years, or 50 years. But if that’s what it takes, we will.

The Illinois legislature needs to put its money where its mouth is: The General Assembly recognizes that it is the basic right of all persons to access their birth records, and, to this end, supports public policy that allows an adult adoptee to access his or her original birth certificate.

Please make that public policy a reality and come back with a real OBC access bill that treats all of Illinois’ adopted equal to its not-adopted. Please vote DO NOT PASS.

Marley E. Greiner
Executive Chair
Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization

ILLINOIS: MORE BAD NEWS

2010-04-07T22:57:00.000-04:00

Sneaky Sara Feigenholtz's HB 5428, the Illinois Adoption CI/Registry Cash Cow Protection Act, has been assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

This is very bad.

Of the 11 members of the Judiciary Committee, two are Senate sponsors: Judiciary Committee Chair AJ Wilhelmi and Ira Silverstein.

Other powerful members of the committee are Majority Caucus Whips Terry Link and Don Harmon. Harmon is also the Assistant Majority Leader.

And don't forget, Sara Feigenholtz's mentor, John Cullerton, is president of the Senate.

HB 5428 could be a slam dunk for Sneaky Sara and her adoptee-soaking special interests unless its stopped now. If passed, while other states continue to unseal our original birth certificates and free them from pinch-nosed bureaucrats and politicians without controls and restrictions, Illinois adoptees will be tied up in a ball of red tape for decades. All to fill somebody's pockets.

So far, no Senate hearings have been announced, but then none in the House were announced either, though the bill in its earlier identical forms had huge opposition from adoptee rights advocates. This time around, without public announcement and airing, no one knew this travesty, introduced as a unctuous shell, even existed until it passed the House.

Sara Feigenholtz has kept HB 5428 as secret as a sealed birth certificate. She knows that adoptees, their friends, and families loudly oppose her scheme to shove the state's adoptees deeper into the infantilizing Illinois Adoption Registry and to accept, in some cases, legally mutilated state documents (redacted obcs) as the "real thing" She wants to gag us.

More information coming up!

In the meantime go to Bastard Grannie Annie's latest: How a bill becomes a law in Illinois

Also go to my Deja Vue All Over Again for comments on the bill. The second part of my blog, Sara Feigenholtz;'s Small Circle of Friends will up shortly.

Just because you are adopted, Sara, does not give you a pass to abuse your class.

BASTARD NATION LETTER TO NJ SENATE: VOTE NO ON S799

2010-03-21T13:29:00.000-04:00

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization, the largest adoptee civil rights organization in North America, opposes S799. We recommend that this bill be defeated on the Senate floor

S799 permits some New Jersey adopted adults to receive their true and accurate original birth certificates. Others, through the compromise language of the birthparent disclosure veto, will receive only a false and mutilated government document with the name and address of the parent(s) bureaucratically excised by the Department of Health and Senior Services by order of the birthparent(s).

Bastard Nation rejects the special right of birthparents to remove their names from the birth certificates of their own adult offspring. No other parent has that right. Why should birthparents have different rules?

We are also troubled that the bill requires birthparents, under specific circumstances, to submit a medical and health history to the state, a requirement that is most likely illegal under HIPAA and other privacy laws.

Since 1999 four states have restored to adoptees the unrestricted right to records and identity access: Oregon through ballot initiative, and Alabama, New Hampshire, and Maine through legislation. Why should New Jersey buck the tide and pass a bill that continues to treat adoptee access to their own birth certificates as a favor, not a right--a right that the non-adopted enjoy without a second thought?

Rights are for all citizens, not favors or privileges doled out by legislators and special interest groups. New Jersey does not segregate rights by religion, ethnicity, age, or gender. It should not segregate rights by birth, adoptive status, or parental preference.

Either go back and create a clean bill that restores the rights of all adoptees to full citizenship or kill this discriminatory bill that does nothing but grant favors to some and blacklists others.

All of the New Jersey's adoptees must enjoy equal protection, due process, and dignity. New Jersey adoptees deserve better than this.

Executive Committee
Bastard Nation: the adoptee rights organization

Anita Walker Field
Nina M. Greeley
Patricia Marler
Peter Mose
Marla Paul
Marley Greiner, Executive Chair

PO Box 1469
Edmond, OK 73083-1469
415-705-3166

CALIFORNIA AND NEW JERSEY BAD BILLS DIE!

2010-01-28T23:01:00.001-05:00

For once we have some good news!

California AB 372 is officially dead! The January 22 deadline for it to pass out of committee and on to the Senate floor went by with no action. Although nothing official has come from sponsor Sen Fiona Ma, her office told CalOpen that the bill would "will not be pursued."

Astoundingly, CARE (California Adoption Reform Effort) as of tonight, has not seen fit to announce the demise of their bill on its website. It's last update is dated May 28, 2009. That's what we've come to expect, though, from fake reformers who scrub their website of their own history and embarrassing documents, dismiss an ideology of rights. embracing instead "non-emotional" wishes and desires", (whatever that means), and posit that adoptees need to be "navigated by professionals" rather than ourselves. Veteran grassroots bastard activists who have actually gotten clean bills passed were ordered to take a hike by the dilettantes of CARE.

We're sure CARE, like herpes, will come back. Jean Strauss and CARE are all over the March 18-21 AAC conference in Sacramento.

CalOpen and Bastard Nation continue to hold the line in California. There is much work to be done there, and it needs to be done by real bastards, not those of the Benedict sort, who (sorry to be trite), throw the baby out with the bathwater. If you're from Cali and would like to help, drop CalOpen a line.

On the New Jersey front, the veto-laden S611/A752 never made it through the year end process. It's dead.

Unfortunately, it's risen from the dead in the form of S799 and A1406, similar if not identical to last session's throw-away-our-rights-for-favors-for-some. What is this: Year 29 trying to get this piece-a-crap passed? I feel bad for those people.I know some of them and like them. Really. But, as BB Church likes to remind us, if this were a job, they'd have been fired a long time ago. I fear the adoption-happy ACLU, crotch obsessed RTL Marie Tasy and her croaky bishops will just have to croak before rights are restored in Jersey.

There are some other bills pending, but at the moment reside in a state of confusion. Once they straighten up, well let you know.

BASTARD NATION STATEMENT ON HAITIAN ADOPTIONS AND "BABYLIFTS"

2010-01-19T14:03:00.001-05:00

Please distribute freely

For the last week, Bastard Nation, like the rest of the world, has been watching the devastation of Haiti. The images are frightening, sad, and heartrending, especially those of the children.

We have also watched with alarm the rush to rescue Haitian children by adoption. Within three days of the earthquake, Catholic Charities of Miami had set up a scheme modeled on Operation Pedro Pan, a joint State Department-CIA-Miami Diocese project in the early 1960s to separate children from their parents, creating young pawns in the US war against the Castro government. Although “Operation Pierre Pan” in Haiti is on hold, at least for now, numerous evangelical churches and ministries, adoption agencies, secular organizations, unfinalized adoptive parents and other individuals--many with conflicts of interest--have joined the rescue mission call to remove children immediately, no matter what their family status, to the US for the purpose of adoption.

Haiti is still under rubble. Aid is slow to arrive. Survivors are spread out in shelters and camps, or live in the streets. The dead are unnumbered, unknown, and unnamed. Family members continue to search for each for other, and it will take weeks or even months for final conciliation.

The rush to relocate orphans, quasi-orphans, and potential orphans internationally is ripe for coercion and fraud. Adoption agencies, church agencies, and ministries especially--along with fraudulent and predatory “child welfare” agents--have much to gain from fast removal. The trafficking of Haitian children for sex, servitude, and adoption operated in Haiti before the quake. It certainly operates now. The unethical and possibly unlawful mass transfer of traumatized children, many with family status unknown, to foreign shelters, foster care, and adoption agencies, removed from their culture and language, with little hope of family reunification cannot be allowed or tolerated. We urge US State Department and other US authorities in Haiti to (1) remove private special interests and those with conflicts of interest, such as adoption agencies and ministries, from the child welfare decision-making process and (2) halt the evacuation of children and their placement for adoption in the US.

We also urge the State Department to suspend pending adoptions. Haitian paperwork is lost or destroyed. Rock Cadet, the judge most responsible and knowledgeable about pipeline cases, died in the quake. Though the US Embassy survived, US paperwork is probably unavailable for some time, if it still exists. Without proof of Haitian court or Embassy status, any adoption removal from the country, without thorough background investigation and due process, is illegal and not in the best interest of the child

Needless to say, no new adoptions should be processed.

In the post-quake chaos, children need protection from predatory snatchers. Bastard Nation, therefore, supports the expedited removal of Haitian children, orphans or otherwise, to credible and documented parents or family members in the US for temporary or permanent placement depending on the circumstances. These children must not be assumed adoptable and scooped up for fast-track adoption. They should be a top priority. We urge the State Department or other government or credible private and disinterested agencies to assist Haitians in the US to locate child kin and bring them to the US.

We understand why people want to open their arms and hearts to the children of the Haitian earthquake, but adoption is not emergency or humanitarian aid or a solution to Haiti’s ongoing problems. The immediate rescue effort in Haiti should focus on emergency services, individual and family care and family reunification, not family, community, and cultural destruction and the strip-mining of children.

This statement has been faxed to the US State Department.

BASTARD NATION'S LETTER TO THE CAL ASSMB. APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: ADOPTEES ARE NOT PART OF A CALIFORNIA ECONOMIC STIMULUS PACKAGE

2009-05-13T02:43:00.001-04:00

Dear Honorable Assemblymember:

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization is the largest adoptee civil rights organization in North America. We advocate for the full human and civil rights of adult adoptees. We believe people everywhere have a right to their unaltered and unfalsifed birth records. This means opening government documents pertaining to the adoptee’s historical, genetic, and legal identity, including the unaltered original birth certificate (obc) and adoption decree. Our membership includes adopted adults and first and adoptive parents. We have substantial membership in California.

BN was behind the 1998 Oregon Ballot Measure 58 which restored the right of the state’s adult adoptees to access their original birth certificates. In 2000 Bastard Nation sponsored legislation in Alabama which restored access there. In 2004 we worked in a coalition of adoptee rights advocates in New Hampshire where adoptee civil rights were restored on January 1, 2005. We are currently working in other states to restore records access. Bastard Nation leaves no one behind. We do not support legislation that restricts even one adopted person from receiving his or her own information.

Bastard Nation does not support AB 372. Our submitted testimony is in the official Assembly Judiciary legislative analysis.

AB 372 is not a true equal access bill. It continues to treat adopted persons differently than the not-adopted, which effects costs and appropriations.

Instead of opening access to birth records, the proposal subjects California adoptees to egregious new restrictions on that access which do not exist under current law. AB 372 contains a disclosure veto which gives birthparents, whose parental rights were terminated years before, a new and special right that no other parent has: the right to stop release of the original birth certificate upon request, to her or his offspring. AB 372 creates a state bureaucracy to track down birthparents to inform them of that new and special right and to seek their written consent for release. AB 372 contains an opt-out clause that would permit one or both birthparents in the future the even newer and more special right to deny obc access to their adult offspring for reasons of “rape.” “incest,” “religion” or undefined “personal reasons.” AB 372 is about as far away from a real records access bill as California is from Bulgaria.

As if the bill weren’t bad enough, AB 372 has now been amended by the sponsor Assb. Fiona Ma with a proposed fiscal note/fiscal effect of $16,000,000 for the first two years and a projected $2,000,000 each year thereafter. This outrageous amount is allegedly for “start-up” costs--$8,000,000 for the first year: the creation of a new database and hiring of 34 staff to “man” the tech and administrative bureaucracy to track down birthparents (usually women) at a “best match address” (whatever that means), through certified or registered mail, to get consent for release.

How this snipe hunt is to be accomplished has not been revealed. Last known address of parents taken from records 30, 40, 50 years or older? Google? Intelius? Social Security records? Paid, privately operated databases? Will California access other states’ private governmental records if the search turns up empty at home? (We doubt it!) Does the state intend to contract out searches to secrecy-obsessed adoption agencies, for-profit adoption searchers, or private investigators? How about talking to snoopy neighbors and tracking down rumors?

Who is to foot millions for this murky state snooping project: already burdened taxpayers who are currently facing curtailment of crucial state services or adoptees who have committed no crime other than to have been born and sealed in California? Both are unacceptable.

The justification for this outrageous expense is based on a strange and erroneous extrapolation of data from Oregon where obcs were unsealed in 1999.

The Oregon law, passed by a 1998 ballot initiative, contains only a voluntary non-binding, contact preference form, no disclosure veto or other veto, and the state does not track down women to seek consent for release. If there were an initial cost involved in implementing Oregon’s law, it was because of the 18 month legal battle which went all the way to the US Supreme Court (denied cert) to keep records sealed and the ensuing backlog of thousands of uncompleted requests that accumulated during the time when the law was in abeyance.

The fact is, states that have unsealed obcs—Oregon, Alabama, New Hampshire, Maine—have not incurred any significant cost (if any) in re-opening and distributing obcs to adoptees upon request. They treat adoptee requests for their birth certificates just like they treat not-adopted requests. There is no extra cost. Neither taxpayers nor adoptees are dunned an extraordinary fee nor treated like potential criminals.

A true equal access bill is about the right of the adopted to own a simple piece of paper-- their own birth certificate-- not search and reunion. What any person, adopted or not adopted, does with that piece of paper is her or his business, not the state’s. Yet AB 372, by the mere fact that it mandates search for consent, is a reunion bill that makes the State of California and its taxpayers the broker of personal and family relationships. This kind of state intrusion has no business being part of civil rights discourse much less law.

Adoptees, their rights, and their records are not part of a California economic stimulus package. The best thing to do with AB 372 is deep six it. Fast.

California needs to clear this abomination out of the way to open the path for a real equal access bill that treats all California adoptees as full responsible citizens who are grown up enough to own their own birth certificates, Just give adoptees their obcs without state interference or extraordinary cost to anybody. The taxpayers will thank you. And adoptees will, too. Please vote DO NOT PASS on AB 372.

Yours truly,

Marley Greiner, Executive Chair, Bastard Nation

BASTARD NATION TESTIMONY AGAINST CALIFORNIA AB 372: LEAVE NO ONE BEHIND!

2009-04-27T14:37:00.004-04:00

Below is Bastard Nation's testimony in against AB 372. It was submitted last week for today's haering. You can read the official legislative analysis of the bill here. (It's not very good.) Note that CARE has no certified proponents except it\self and the bill has no co-sponsors.

WRITTEN TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION TO AB 372 ACCESS TO ORIGINAL BIRTH CERTIFICATES FOR ADULT ADOPTEES Assembly Judiciary Committee, April 28, 2008 Submitted April 21, 2009

POSITION: OPPOSE

Honorable Members of the Assembly Judiciary Committee:

Below is our submitted testimony on AB 372:

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization advocates for the full human and civil rights of adult adoptees. We believe people everywhere have a right to their unaltered and unfalsifed birth records. This means opening government documents pertaining to the adoptee’s historical, genetic, and legal identity, including the unaltered original birth certificate (obc) and adoption decree. Our membership includes adopted adults and first and adoptive parents. We have substantial membership in California.

BN was behind the 1998 Oregon Ballot Measure 58 which restored the right of the state’s adult adoptees to access their original birth certificates. In 2000 Bastard Nation sponsored legislation in Alabama which restored access there. In 2004 we worked in a coalition of adoptee rights advocates in New Hampshire where adoptee civil rights were restored on January 1, 2005. We are currently working in other states to restore records access. Bastard Nation leaves no one behind. We do not support legislation that restricts even one adopted person from receiving his or her own information.

Bastard Nation does not support AB 372. Although, as of the date of this submission, the bill is without conditions, except for age, Assb. Ma has issued a memo (April 15, 2009) outlining amendments she plans to introduce which would severely limit access and gut the alleged purpose of the bill. These amendments, according to her memo, include:
* An expansion forwards and backwards of the 1984 “birthparent” disclosure veto. This veto would seal all California obcs by default and would require unsealing only by individual “birthparent” consent. Such an amendment would take away the right that some California adoptees have enjoyed for decades to receive through the courts, without birthparent consent, their ob

* A state-run search system whereby state employees or contractors, at taxpayer expense, would track down individual “birthparents” at a “best match address” with a certified return receipt letter to seek consent for the release of the obc. If after 6 months the “birthparent” has not been located or does not return the state’s request, the obc will remain sealed.

* In the case of one “birthparent” consenting to release and the other one not (through default or request), the identifying information of the non-consenting parent would be redacted.

* For prospective adoptions starting January 1, 2010 an opt-out clause would permit one or both parents to deny obc access to their adult offspring for reasons of “rape.” “incest,” “religion” or undefined “personal reasons.”

These proposed amendments are egregious, insulting, and antithetical to the purported purpose of AB 372 and gut the entire bill of any meaning.

We also object to limiting access to the obc to adoptees 25 years and older. Access should be allowed at the age of majority. Anything else is the continued infantlization of adoptees as a class. The idea that one is old enough to fight for his or her country, buy a house, drink, and be married, but not capable of owning an original birth certificate is absurd.

WHY WE OPPOSE: BASTARD NATION’S POSITION ON AB 372 AND UNRESTRICTED ACCESS TO OBC ACCESS IN CALIFORNIA.
Unrestricted obc access in California is about rights not reunion. It is about the relation of adoptees to the state. It is about the absolute natural right of identity and the civil right to a true unfalsified birth certificate for all California adoptees not just a select few. The not-adopted need not justify why they want their vital records nor are they forced to ask their parents permission, appear before a judge, join a government-run registry, seek mental health counseling, or spend years getting a bill passed to get their birth record. The not-adopted have a presumed right to their birth certificates and can do with them what they please. All arguments for unrestricted access must then flow from the presumed right of all adults to unrestricted access and ownership of their true birth certificates, not just some. If adoptees are not equal legally to the not-adopted in terms of access, then the right of anyone to possess their own birth certificate is not a right but a state favor. The real question, then, is who owns your identity? You or the state?

Unfortunately, in California today, the birth and identity records of thousands of its citizen adoptees are owned and held hostage by the state. AB 372, which purports to loosen state ownership, in fact, tightens it with its massive restrictions and hoop jumping.

Unrestricted obc access in California should be inclusive and create birth record access equity between the adopted and not-adopted. Unrestricted access acknowledges and codifies a legally, morally, and ethically correct one-size-fits all standard of birth record access rights for all people born in California, not just the not adopted. Unlike AB 372, a genuine obc access bill would restore the right of ownership and access, legislatively rescinded in 1935, to all California adoptees.

Unrestricted obc access in California would abolish a nearly 75-year old state-constructed blacklist of worthy and unworthy citizens whose birth record access is based on a protectionist, paternalistic, discredited social system of adoption secrecy that died decades ago. Restrictions established legislatively in 1935 and expanded by the 1984 “birthparent” disclosure veto, grossly discriminate not only between the adopted and the not-adopted, but between vetoed and non-vetoed adoptees. For adoptees born in 1984 and beyond, (which AB 372 may expand to cover everyone) access is dependent on first parent permission, that gives people whose parental rights were terminated years ago, a special right that no other parent or adult has over another adult—the special right to block access to and ownership of a person’s vital and court records. If expanded back to cover pre-1984 adoptees, older adoptees will lose the right they now enjoy to receive their obc through the courts without “birthparent” consent.

Recognizes adoptee autonomy, rights, and responsibilities as full citizens who can be trusted to own their personal information. Adopted adults should not be denied their birth records to protect someone else’s comfort zone. With the growing demand for “proof of identity” through state and federal laws such as Real ID, it is imperative that all of us prove we are who we say we are. Adopted adults are routinely denied drivers licenses, passports, and security clearances because amended adoptive identities cannot be linked to original birth identities. AB 372 will do nothing to correct this.

Unrestricted obc access in California would not change adoption procedures. Adoption records are sealed upon finalization, not relinquishment. If the court denies an adoption petition or the petition is withdrawn, the birth record remains unsealed. If an adoption is overturned or disrupted, the birth record is unsealed. Most significantly, if a child is never adopted the birth record is never sealed. Thus, if sealing birth records was meant to hide parental identities absolutely, records would be sealed upon relinquishment, not finalization. Even in traditional closed adoptions first parent identities are often recorded on court documents given to adoptive parents without first parent consent. Similarly, legal advertisements with identifying information are often published, and courts may open adoption records for “good cause” without first parent consent. Moreover, California’s Birth Index, which includes the names of “birthmothers,” has been open and available to the public for decades. It was even sold on the Internet by the State of California and is routinely available on eBay. Though closed a few years ago, thousands of copies of the index remain available through legal sources.

Unrestricted access to obcs in California would unseal obcs only to the adopted persons to which they pertain. Allowing adoptees access to information about their origins is NOT a violation of anyone's privacy rights. Adoptee access to their own original birth certificates is not the same as public access or disclosure to the public. It is not "outing" anyone. The records would remain sealed from the public.

Unrestricted access to obcs in California would reflect best practice adoption standards. Unrestricted obc access is a priority of every genuine adoption reform organization, national, state, and local, in the US today. The Evan. B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, The Child Welfare League of America (which sets best practice standards), The National Association of Social Workers, and The North American Council on Adoptable Children, the National Adoption Center, and Ethica: A Voice for Ethical Adoption all support unrestricted access.

CONCLUSION
Rights are for all citizens, not favors or privileges for some. US and California law does not privilege rights by race, religion, ethnicity, age, or gender. The law should not privilege rights by adoption. Bastard Nation cannot think of any other judicial procedure where records are sealed from those to whom the procedure pertains. But in California adopted adults are discriminated against daily due to their adoptive status. AB 372 not only continues the gross discrimination, but threatens to expand it. It is, in fact, the worse “adoption reform” bill Bastard Nation has seen since its 1996 inception.

A true records access bill in California would not harm anyone. It would instead restore legal equality, dignity, and fairness to adopted persons and their biological and adoptive families. Bastard Nation, therefore, cannot support AB 372 with its continued and additional harm to California’s adopted citizens.

Bastard Nation recommends that the Judiciary Committee votes DO NOT PASS.

Don’t leave anyone behind!

MORE THOUGHTS ON THE COMING CALIFORNIA FIASCO

2009-02-12T03:35:00.001-05:00

There are a lot of problems with CARE's proposed access bill in California: elitism, compromise, rejection of rights and grassroots, and its decision to go for a bill in the midst of California's economic dissolution.

After several comments posted in my earlier blog entry regarding the so-called constitutionality issue in records access in California, I intended to a make relatively short comment, but decided that topic and some other thoughts really need a separate entry. Below I discuss the constitutionality issue and make a couple observations on the coming California Fiasco.

This is not meant to be a definitive response. My comments are mine only, and do not represent CalOpen, which is perfectly capable of taking care of business itself.

WHY DOES CARE BELIEVE THAT AN UNRESTRICTED ACCESS BILL WON'T FLY?
The California Adoption Reform Effort (CARE) has shown little inclination to learn the history of past California records access campaigns, organize California adoptees outside the Amen Corner, build long-term relationships with leggies, or learn the lay of the Cal legislature, even with their pricey navigator…er... I mean lobbyist... at the helm.

Judging from CARE’s past disinterest in constitutional studies (see BB Church) and its recent lame de facto attempt to acquire a CalOpen-commissioned legal study (now in the possession of Bastard Nation) on state constitutional repercussions of a clean bill, suggests that it hasn’t commissioned research of its own, nor does it really care what research might say anyway. Seasoned rights-based activists working access bills know that CARE’s cry that pols have already evinced “privacy concerns” is a given. Pols hate controversy. “Privacy” is always “controversial.” (except when the government wants to snoop on us). It is always an issue when adoptee records access is concerned. Good research and preparation are what good activists do before they jump into the fire. CARE won’t win over everybody, but the hat they're holding in their hand won’t go up in smoke either, if they know what they're talking about.

CARE poobahs, however, just “know”that a clean records bill won’t pass state constitutional muster, a rather strange decision from an organization that claims its arguments are "non-emotional" and based on "statistical and empirical data.” Perhaps they’ve contracted Sylvia Brown to save them the trouble of actually paying for a study of their own (which may or may not back them up) and publishing the document for their supposed constituency to read and decide for themselves. Or maybe they're just lazy.

DEFORMER LOGIC
According to deformer logic, the way to pass a bill is to scissor out this and this and this until the bill is one big black hole in which to shove certain classes of unworthy adoptees. The bill has no value to anyone but the people who want their names on it. Those who fail to meet deformer criteria-- born the wrong year, lack parental consent, or some other arbitrary standard are, in the vernacular, shit outta luck.

If the bad bill fails, the same old deformers come back with the same old bad bill, with the same old "strategies" the next year and the next and the next and the next.

If the bad bill actually passes, riddled with exclusions (tiered access, disclosure vetoes, white-outs, mandated CIs, a registry, and whatever other sell-outs they can come up with), deformers claim victory, ignoring that they have eviscerated rights and created a vested interest in secrecy where none existed before, that most likely cannot be divested. In other words, certain classes of adoptees are screwed. If it saves just one....

How do deformers explain their logic to the shut-out and disenfranchised? They don’t.

A couple years ago the Massachusetts ABC group conveniently removed their names and contact information from their webpage, when, with their consent and support, their bill went south, excluding about 33 years of adoptees from access under their proud “access” law.

Records access is “non-partisan.” We would all love to support a clean bill in California, no matter who promotes it, as long as we know it is put forward by principled activists who know when to hold 'em and when to to fold ‘em. New Hampshire Senator Lou D’Alessandro knew. Sen. D demanded an up or down vote and got it. So did California Assembly Member Anthony Pescetti a few years ago, who pulled a bill. With CARE we know this won’t happen.

WHO IS TRYING TO MAKE A STATEMENT?
One of the most bothering declarations from CARE, outside of its claim that records access is not about rights, is its trivialization and marginalization of experienced, successful rights-based legislators and activists, articulated in its letter (see previous blogs below).

The Shut Up We Know What's Good For You Principle practiced alike by "friendly" deformers, the National Council for Adoption, the ACLU and anybody else who rejects adoptee autonomy is well articulated here:

There is going to be little room for debate on this if the time comes - we are being represented by a legislator who is in this to pass the legislation, not to make a statement.

Did Alabama Representative Jeff Dolabare fight a rights-based, no compromise campaign just to “make a statement”?

Did New Hampshire Senator Lou D’Allesandro and Representatives Janet Allen and Mike Whalley fight a rights-based, no compromise campaign just to “make a statement”?

Did Maine’s Representative David Farrington and Senator Paula Benoit fight a rights-based, no compromise campaign just to “make a statement”?

Did California Assembly Member Anthony Pescetti, sponsor of CalOpen’s AB 1349 (2001-2002) (and here) who had the integrity and moral fortitude to pull the bill rather than see it ruined, fight a rights-based, no compromise campaign just to “make a statement”?

Did Helen Hill in Oregon, Alabama AWARE , the New Hampshire coalition, and OBC for ME fight rights-based, no compromise campaigns just to "make a statement"?

Did CalOpen fight a rights based, no compromise campaign and give up its much-loved bill "just to make a statement"?

To say that the ideology of inclusion is merely a "statement" reduces the very real sacrifices of time, money, energy, family, friends and jobs that these pioneers and heroes made to nothing more than stunt status--a sideshow. I was at the statehouse in Sacramento the day that CalOpen decided to pull its bill. I saw the frustration, the anger, the open weeping of some who had worked so hard to get their bill as far as it had come. This was no stunt. This was courage.

CARE tells everybody outside of the anything-is-better-than-nothing crowd to go piss up a rope. We’re “professionals.” We know best.

CARE ignores both the historical successes in Oregon, Alabama, New Hampshire, and Maine and repeated deformist failures across the country including Minnesota, Connecticut, and bleeding New Jersey. It writes adoptees and bastards out of their scenario.

CARE has admitted that it will gut its clean bill to get something passed—hardly something that makes sense under a rights-for-all-based process (but then theirs is "wish based," anyway) or will gain the support of everyday bastards and adoptees.

This begs the question:

Who is really “making a statement’?

Why?

And what is it?

WE'VE SCREWED UP YOUR STATE, NOW WE'RE COMING TO SCREW UP YOURS: CALIFORNIA ADOPTION REFORM EFFORT--IF YOU DON'T LIKE COMPROMISE GO AWAY!---COMMENTS

2009-02-10T00:03:00.001-05:00

A few minutes ago I posted a long blog, We've screwed up your state, now we're coming to screw up yours--California Adoption Reform Effort: if you don't like compromise, go away. After it was up for a few minutes the entry seemed too long. I have gone back and divided it into two parts: (1`) The Letter and (2) Comments. I have now posted The Letter first, followed by this. I suggest you go below and read the The Letter First.

Zen fascists will control you

100% natural
You will jog for the master race
And always wear the happy face

...California Uber Allies. Jello Biafra, Dead Kennedys

For the past few weeks we've been watching the formation of a new "adoption reform" organization in California: California Adoption Reform Effort (CARE). CARE consists of a few Californians, lead by adoptee author/filmmaker Jean Strauss who lives in Washington State and Stephanie Williams, a pricey lobbyist formerly with the Cal Trucking Association. It's advisory committee is cattle car Who's Who of mostly deformers, industry hacks, and out-of-staters.

According to CARE's webpage, the organization is "dedicated to providing adult adopted citizens access to a non-certified copy of their original record of birth."

Unfortunately, for Cal Adoptees, the CARE webpage shows us that it is just the same old deformer hag prettied up in a prom dress and talking from a commitee-written script.

According to the CARE webpage (my emphasis):

California Adoption Reform Effort is united in opening as many birth records in California as politially feasible.

Nothing appears on its webpage about a rights-rooted campaign. Instead CARE refers to "wishes" and desires" which apparently the state has a duty to grant to the adopted and their "birthmothers." (QUESTION: has nobody told CARE that "birthmother" is considered "the N word" by a lot of people, especially mothers, effected by adoption?)

Not satisfied with modeling itself on the successful legislative Alabama, New Hampshire, and Maine campaigns (a ballot initiative as Oregon's is economically unfeasible in Cal), CARE promises to run a "different" campaign.

How different? It's all rather vague.

CARE says its arguments are "non-emotional" (bu, remember, are "wishful.") It's scheme is based on "statistical and empirical data," but CARE fails to elaborate on what this ""statistical and empirical data" may be. Its "non-emotional" arguments, though, seem to include pleas for medical information, which CARE claims is a "right" denied California adoptees, the protection of "birthmothers" and adoptees from "businesses and institutions who profit from the unconsented[(sic] representation of adults"...and protection from incest. (!)

The subheading on CARE's original webpage read: Striving to provide a bridge for adopted citizens and their families to information that could save lives.

It was recently updated to read: California's effort to compassionately open birth records for adult adoptees while respecting state privacy laws!

Inexplicably the graphic used to illustrate this bridge is that of the Brooklyn Bridge, not the Cal-iconic Golden Gate. Catch it while it's still up!

UPFRONT: CARE THROWS IT ALL AWAY!
Upfront: CARE tells us it will compromise-- will sell out the rights of all for favors for some. (It would be interesting to know just how many CAREists already have what most don't.) CARE says that two states have never sealed records. Kansas and Alaska, which is true. It says another seven unnamed states have unsealed their records which is untrue. Obviously Oregon, Alabama, New Hampshire and Maine have unsealed obcs for all adult adoptees upon request and without restriction. We assume that CARE is also including Delaware, which has a disclosure veto and Tennessee which has disclosure and contact vetoes. But, what is the 9th state? Whatever, it is clear that CARE considers states that give "birthparents" special rights over obc access and their adult offspring are "open" states. They are not.

Upfront: CARE declares the 1935 law that sealed California adoptee's birth certificates was "well-intentioned" and "seemed prudent at the time." Obviously somebody needs made aware of Georgia Tann's work in California.

Upfront: CARE infantalizes adult adoptees by confusing open adoption with adoptees' right to their obcs by saying that "CWLA and the Evan B. Donaldson Institute "advocate at least some degree of openness in adoption."

Upfront: in a letter (see text below) from CARE to a select group of potential members, CARE defines itself as "professional" not "grassroots" while claiming adoptees need to be heard. The just need "navigated" by professionals in suits who you pay to lead you around by your needy noses. CARE, in fact, tells non-compromisers to hit the road. BTW, membership in CARE costs $85 a pop.

Upfront: in this same correspondence, CARE claims that the opening of all obcs would violate the California State Constitution and bring on lawsuits, but fails to explain why. A "professional" organization, arguing rights, not reunion, would commission legal research to back up a rights argument before it started. CalOpen, in fact, did just that, but they refuse to give the document up to CARE.

Assemblywoman Fiona Ma has agreed to sponsor CARE's bill, which is being fast tracked. CARE is trolling for co-sponsors and endorsements. So far, CARE says it is a "clean bill" but virtually admits that it will be amended and watered down. The bill hasn't been printed yet. A hearing is scheduled for March, but no date has been set. I will write more about this bill in a separate blog soon.

ACTION
Jean Ulrich and a number of seasoned Cal acativists have revived California Open to hold the line on CARE and its "experiment" ( CARE's word for what they're doing.) In the early 2000's Cal Open's clean SB 1349 made its way up to Senate hearings. Under threat of the bill being compromised out of recognition, CalOpen and its sponsor took the high road and withdrew the bill. I was there when it happened. It was a sad day, but also an honorable day. We did the right thing.

CalOpen's new page went up over the weekend as well as a MySpace page. Facebook is forthcoming. Jean and CalOpen need help to stop this bill from being compromised, and if it is compromised to kill it. CalOpen will be partnering with other groups. It also need help from us--especially help from California adoptees, their families, friends and anyone with a California connection. We cannot let California bastards and adoptees be written out. We are not lab rats!

BB Church momentarily came out of retirement to blog on the upcoming California Fiasco. He also has posted the above letter. Go here to read his thoughts.

ADDENDA: 2/9/09, 3: 25 PM: BB Church has just published a stunning critique of CARE. Go to the link directory about this and read it.

WE'VE SCREWED UP YOUR STATE, NOW WE'RE COMING TO SCREW UP YOURS: CALIFORNIA ADOPTION REFORM EFFORT--IF YOU DON'T LIKE COMPROMISE GO AWAY!--THE LETTER

2009-02-09T08:24:00.005-05:00

A few minutes ago I posted a long blog, We've screwed up your state, now we're coming to screw up yours--California Adoption Reform Effort: if you don't like compromise, go away. After it was up for a few minutes the entry seemed too long. I have gone back and divided it into two parts: (1`) The Letter) and (2) Comments. I am posting the letter first. I suggest you it first; then read the comments posted in the entry above this.

*****

INTRODUCTION
For the past few weeks we've been watching the formation of a new "adoption reform" organization in California: California Adoption Reform Effor (CARE). CARE consists of a few Californians, lead by adoptee author/filmmaker Jean Strauss who lives in Washington State and Stephanie Williams, a pricey lobbyist formerly with the Cal Trucking Association. It's advisory committee is cattle car Who's Who of mostly deformers, industry hacks, and out-of-staters.

Bastard Nation has obtained a copy of an email sent by CARE "president Jean Strauss" to approximately 20 potential supporters. Theirvague but very real ideology of compromise is laidout, politically correct language ordered, "privacy" deified, compromise flogged, and experienced grassroots activists told to jump off the Santa Monica Pier.

THE LETTER
----- Original Message -----
From: Jean Strauss
Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 11:12 PM
Subject: C.A.R.E.'s strategy moving forward...

Dear Everyone,

First off, thank you to all of you who were able to attend the Sacramento meeting this past Saturday. My apologies for taking so long to correspond to the entire group about what transpired at that meeting, and in the time since, but this is the first day I have had any free time.

The meeting was highly productive and positive. As we were able to inform those in attendance, in the last three weeks of January, the California Adoption Reform Effort grew from a concept to a reality. We are now a licensed professional organization with bylaws, an executive board and council, and a general membership. As of February 1st, CARE became a dues paying membership organization. We now have the structure in place to actively welcome full members, seek funding and support, and move forward with our legislative work. I'll be sending out a general invitation to join via our website in just a few days (probably this weekend). Your support (and the support of many others) will be the only way to achieve our goal of providing access to original birth records for as many California adult adoptees 18 and older as possible.

Our bill was submitted the third week of January, and we have an enthusiastic and very distinguished author in Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, the Majority Whip of the Assembly. In the next two days, a co-author who will be announced. We are currently involved in daily work in preparation of our first hearing sometime in March. We have been pursuing endorsements, and have begun district meetings.

Our effort is a professional one, not a grassroots one. We are being guided through the labyrinth of the California legislature by Stephanie Williams, a lobbyist with over two decades of experience walking the halls in Sacramento. Our strategy, language, and any ultimate success, will be largely due to her expertise and hard work. We would not be where we are without her, and supporting her is an important aspect of our membership.

One of the first hurdles we have to overcome as a group is how to educate others within the adoption reform movement about the strategy we are undertaking in California. It will be crucial to our success that people understand that our strategy in the California Adoption Reform Effort is solely based upon the legislative process that exists and what will work within that process. Hence, this is not an effort to 'right a wrong' or a 'fight for our Constitutional rights'. Our approach is a non-emotional one based upon statistical and empirical data. Thus, ours is 'an effort to update an antiquated and outdated policy established in 1935 (the sealing of adoptee birth records) so as to be able to provide adult adoptees with information about their origins so that they will have the ability to know their ethnicity, their nationality, their exact date and time of birth, and their original name as a protection against potential incest.'

The difference in language (and emotion) will be necessary within the confines of the legislative process. The results will be what we want to achieve - even though we're not using the 'language' we're used to using to express our needs. This is not an easy thing to ask of all of you, and yet it will be an important contribution of each of you to this effort if you are able to master it. I realize the italicized text above doesn't verbally capture the emotional impact that sealed records have had upon adoptees who've faced a lifetime of secrets, nor does this language relay how those secrets have often eroded self esteem and contributed to a the feeling of 'second class citizenry'. I know many of you are interested in being involved in access legislation because you believe access to your original information (all of it) is your constitutional right, and the constitutional right of your children. I am with you. Yet I believe we must use tools that will help us get the job done. The language of 'constitutional and civil rights' commonly used in access legislation appeals stands in direct opposition to the California Constitution. If we use this approach, we will, I have become convinced, fail.

There are other, equally compelling reasons for adoptee access and they can be made from data and 'unintended outcomes' of the original code which sealed the records. It's less emotional, less sexy, less what we're all used to saying and feeling - but it's language that will work with legislators and their staff. After walking the halls of the Capital this week I am convinced of two things: we have a highly competent lobbyist representing our effort and her strategy for getting this legislation through this maze has the best potential for achieving legislative change to sealed records policy.

Many might say that this 'quieter' and very precise language and strategy was not needed in other states which have achieved openness, and many may wonder why Oregon, our neighbor, could succeed without having to play this 'game'. In Oregon, a single donor helped fund a statewide measure which was voted upon by citizens. To do that in California would cost between $3 and $30 million - and the result would most likely be the same as Oregon's: a lawsuit would be brought that the proposition is unenforcable because it would be unconstitutional. Oregon was able to prevail in their lawsuit, and much of the legal debate was elegant and helps our cause. But it does not address the very real difference between our two states constitutions. A similar legal battle in California would be far less likely to end in a positive outcome.

The first amendment of California's Constitution is all about privacy. Privacy is so important in our state that there are even privacy committees. We may be the only state in the Union with such a strict and overriding concern regarding privacy. To pass our bill, we will have to address the privacy obstacles that will be in our path.

We have submitted a clean bill (this means it has no amendments or compromises attached to it). We are asking for one thing and one thing only: that every adult adoptee over the age of 18 be allowed to have a non-certified copy of their original record of birth. It is a simple bill - but it is not an easy challenge. I know there are some for whom compromise represents a 'sellout'. You probably should not join C.A.R.E. We welcome your support, and we want a clean bill, but we are already facing very complicated maneuverings which will probably mean we are facing some compromise. There is going to be little room for debate on this if the time comes - we are being represented by a legislator who is in this to pass the legislation, not to make a statement. I say this after only one day of walking the halls. Privacy has already come up. It is not the concern of just one legislator, it's the concern of every legislator we've encountered.

I say all this not to be discouraging but to be honest and clear. Our author and lobbyist need our support for the path they see to success. They are interested in helping our group provide access to original birth records to as many adult adoptees as possible, and I believe we have a good shot at succeeding if we can achieve a broad understanding among triad members and friends for the need for this strategy, and for the nuances of language that will be necessary to succeed at our goal.

I know that many of you have taken the time to submit new language for our website and organization. Know we've been reviewing all of it and running it by the people who will be working this bill through the tricky seas ahead. What ends up on the website and in postings is going to be the result of legislative vetting.

I have often cited a quote of Thoreau's when trying to help people understand that triad members are the voices which should be listened to as adoption policy is revised. To highly paraphrase Thoreau,

To navigate an ocean we should seek the counsel of shipwrecked mariners rather than find our way based on the advice of those who've never been out of sight of land.

Our lobbyist and author are the mariners who must chart this course. They know, much better than any of us, how to navigate these waters. Only through their wise counsel and honesty will we arrive at our destination.

All that said, we also won't arrive there without the support of all of you, and many other friends. Please consider joining our effort and encouraging others to as well. We have an opportunity to do much good here. My apologies if much of this has sounded didactic and rather heavy. I'm just trying to relay what I have learned about the situation we face. I'm thrilled to be involved and honored to know each of you. I want us to succeed...

Many thanks to all of you for your time and patience and good wishes!

Sincerely,

Jean Strauss

MAINE UPDATE: A COLLECTION OF RECENT NEWS STORIES ON THE RESTORATION OF ADOPTEE RIGHTS IN MAINE

2009-01-26T15:13:00.000-05:00

Bobbi Beavers from OBC for ME tells us that the state's Vital Stats office has been overwhelmed with requests for original birth certificates. As of January 9, 274 requests have been handled and a lot more are waiting.

Dan Companion, who received his obc on January 2 and met his first family the following day has sent me a couple links I didn't have before and am posting here:

WCSH-TV, Portland
Restrictions lifted on original birth certificates featuring TV interviews with Dan who came up from Florida and other out-of-state-Day1ers.

Here is Dan's' slideshow of Opening Day events, pictures of the Statehouse in Augusta, and his reunion.

Congratulations Dan and all Maine adoptees!

BOOKS: LOST AND FOUND REISSUED!

2009-01-13T20:27:00.003-05:00

Yay! The University of Michigan Press has just released the 3rd ed. of Betty Jean Lifton's classic Lost and Found: the Adoption Experience, the book that launched the contemporary adoptee rights movement.

From the UMP webpage:

The first edition of Betty Jean Lifton's Lost and Found advanced the adoption rights movement in this country in 1979, challenging many states' policies of maintaining closed birth records...

This expanded and updated edition, with new material on the controversies concerning adoption, artificial insemination, and newer reproductive technologies, continues to add to the discussion on this important topic. A new preface and afterword by the author have been added, as well as a greatly expanded resources section that in addition to relevant organizations now lists useful Web sites.

The UMP site also includes a long list of online adoption resources--including Bastard Nation.

Congratulations BJ!

Here is BJ's webpage.

CONGRATULATIONS MAINE: ANOTHER FREE STATE!

2009-01-05T11:14:00.009-05:00

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization congratulates Maine adoptees on the restoration of their right to records and identity.

Maine joins, New Hampshire, Alabama, and Oregon in showing the adoption reformist community that compromise isn't needed for a successful rights restoration campaign, that includes every adoptee, not just some. Anything less than full access is antithetical to our rights and defeats us.

Welcome to the expanding list of free states that recognize the gross injustice and illegality of the sealed records system.

A collection of recent media coverage on Maine can be found on The Daily Bastardette

BOGUS BASTARD NATION ACTION ALERTS BEING SENT!

2008-11-29T15:43:00.001-05:00

This afternoon five phony Bastard Nation emails, under the subject Bastard Nation Action Alert were sent out.

Bastard Nation has sent no action alerts. These emails are empty and have no attachments.

Please delete them without opening them.

Appropriate abuse authorities have been notified.

Thanks.

Marley

LETTER TO NEBRASKA GOV. DAVE HEINEMAN: AGING DOWN DID NOTHING TO CHANGE MESSAGE IT'S OK TO DUMP YOUR CHILD

2008-11-24T19:17:00.002-05:00

Dear Governor Heineman:

Bastard Nation, the Adoptee Rights Organization, is deeply troubled by the decision of last week’s Special Session, to repeal LB 157 and replace it with the equally odious LB 1. By doing so, Nebraska, institutionalized child abandonment, making it just another normal choice for parents unable or unwilling to fulfill their responsibilities to their children.

Since their inception in Texas in 1999, Bastard Nation has opposed all so-called “safe haven” laws, which we call “baby dump laws.

The causes of child dumping are social isolation, fear, family dysfunction, mental illness, substance abuse, poverty, and lack of social services or ability to access those already in place. LB 1 and its previous bill, don’t address these deep-rooted social and economic problems. They just make them “go away,” out of sight out of mind. The problems of parents, whether they are a frightened 15-year old mom of a newborn or a 55-year old grandpa caring for a mentally ill grandson, are very real, and they cannot and should not be solved by a quick-fix, government facilitated and promoted child abandonment program.

Child abandonment is child abandonment no matter at what age and what kind of a comforting name you slap on it. Just because a child can’t remember what was done to him or her, doesn’t lessen the act, the pain, the harm, or the questions those kids will endure throughout their lives. Nebraska’s new plan to divvy up children by age, into those worthy and those unworthy of abandonment protection is not acceptable nor is it best child welfare practice. Aging down to 30 days simply creates a new set of abandoned children and their families who will suffer the lifelong consequences of bad legislation.

Nebraska had it right the first time. It was the last state to pass a “safe haven” law. It could have been the first to repeal before more families are harmed or even destroyed.

Last week, Nebraska’s children needed an advocate—a friend. For those too young or unable to speak for themselves, they needed a voice. Up until the very vote on Friday morning, a bill could have been introduced to permanently repeal LB 157 with no amendments or new bills later. Nebraska could have initiated a child-centric, compassionate common sense approach and message that the state does not support any form child abandonment under any circumstance. The Unicam rejected that option and took the quick-fix out.

Nebraska’s kids got a law that continues to abuse them through legal baby dumping. They got a task force that will pat itself on the back and do nothing. The victims will remain voiceless.

Aging down LB 157 did nothing to change the message that it is OK to dump your child. As long as Nebraska condones the abandonment of any child, all children—and their families-- are in danger.

Marleyh Greiner
Executive Chair

2008-11-19T23:51:00.000-05:00

PRESS RELEASE
NOVEMBER 18, 2008

BASTARD NATION TO NEBRASKA:
REPEAL LB 157!
STOP CHILD DUMPING NOW!
AND DON’T BRING IT BACK!

CONTACT: Marley Greiner, 614-571-2999 or MEGreiner@gmail.com

Nebraska had it right the first time. It was the last state to pass a “safe haven” law. Nebraska can be the first to repeal this misbegotten law before any more families are harmed or even destroyed. Nebraska can lead the rest of the country in dragging itself out of this moral quagmire.
Bastard Nation Testimony, Nebraska Judiciary Committee,
November 17, 2009

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization yesterday called for the permanent repeal of Nebraska’s LB 157, which permits anyone to abandon any child of any age at a licensed hospital in the State of Nebraska. The special session of the Nebraska Unicameral was called this week to revise the age limit on children eligible for abandonment, is looking at two bills, LB 1 and LB 3.

Bastard Nation believes that dumping a child of any age is no solution to social isolation, fear, family dysfunction, and mental illness. The problems of parents, whether they are a frightened 15-year old mom of a newborn or a 55-year old grandpa caring for a mentally ill grandson, are very real, and they cannot and should not be solved by a quick fix, no-muss-no-fuss government–facilitated and promoted child dumping program.

In testimony submitted to the Judiciary Committee, urging repeal and renunciation of child dumping in Nebraska, Bastard Nation said:

Aging down LB 157 does nothing to change the message that it is OK to dump your child. By continuing to promote child abandonment at any age, the message will remain: it’s OK to dump your child.

Rejecting the idea that older child abandonment is traumatic, but newborn and infant abandonment harmless since newborns will have no memory or relationship with their families, Bastard Nation testified:

Apparently memory and articulation is what makes one class of dump “ethical” and “good” and the other not.

“Nine years ago, we warned that once these laws became institutionalized, they would be normalized,” says Bastard Nation executive chair, Marley Greiner. “Bad social policy for newborns and their families has now become bad social policy for all families. Nebraska is the culmination of bad practice.”

Greiner explains that the contemporary baby dump movement is a reaction to ongoing reforms in adoption, including the right of adopted persons to access their original birth records, putative fathers’ rights, and the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) which gives tribal rights under certain circumstances, to children being placed for adoption. The conservative adoption trade lobby, the National Council for Adoption, where the ‘safe haven” concept originated, has stated specifically that “safe havens” are a response to the restoration of the right of adoptees to access their original birth records and identities. State facilitated baby dumps,” Bastard Nation says, “are nothing more than a return to secret adoption and sealed records.”

The testimony continues:

In the last few years, baby dumping, encouraged by the government, has become “just another option,” for parents who might otherwise seek out services that would assist them to keep their children, place them in temporary fostercare while they worked out their problems, or place them for adoption in a traditional informed process. Baby dumping, they are told, is easier.

In some states, the age of children eligible for dumping has edged up and drop-off sites have increased to make the process more “convenient” How-to-abandon your baby units are mandated in the curriculum of several states. There has been a steady increase in “drive-by relinquishments” by parents who have no intention of ever harming their children, but are looking for an easy way out or simply don’t know better, while the rate of dangerous discard and neonaticide remain the same.

Testimony cited a 2005 study done by the adoption reform group, California Open, based on a survey of county coroners the group did through pubic records requests that indicated that since the passage of California’s “safe haven” law, the rate of neonaticide has remained a steady 13-15 per year.

Nebraska has no newborn abandonment “crisis” Greiner says. Since 1996, 5 discarded newborns have been found alive (2-3 in relatively safe locations) and 1 found dead from unknown causes

The real problem, she says, is the failure of the state to deliver mental health care and other services to Nebraska families. Although services seem to exist on paper, the parents and guardians of many of the children turned in under LB 157 are vocal about their inability to access them, and see the legal child dumping of LB 157, as the only way that they can get help. “The state is taking broken kids and breaking them some more by tossing them into a safe haven hole. Make them better with repeated abandonments. This absolutely must stop.”

No child should be abandoned. Nebraska’ plan to divvy up children by age, into those worthy and those unworthy of abandonment protection is not acceptable nor best practice. Aging down to 30 days or some other arbitrary age creates a new set of abandoned children and their families who will suffer lifelong consequences.

For more information see Bastard Nation’s testimony at: http://www.bastards.org/bn-nebraska-testimony.pdf

Also see Children of the Corn: Reporting, Theory, and Writing on Nebraska Child Dumping, a one-stop source of information regarding LB 157. http://cornkids.blogspot.com

Bastard Nation is dedicated to the recognition of the full human and civil rights of adult adoptees. Toward that end, we advocate the opening to adoptees, upon request at age of majority, of those government documents which pertain to the adoptee's historical, genetic, and legal identity, including the unaltered original birth certificate and adoption decree. Bastard Nation asserts that it is the right of people everywhere to have their official original birth records unaltered and free from falsification, and that the adoptive status of any person should not prohibit him or her from choosing to exercise that right. We have reclaimed the badge of bastardy placed on us by those who would attempt to shame us; we see nothing shameful in having been born out of wedlock or in being adopted. Bastard Nation does not support mandated mutual consent registries or intermediary systems in place of unconditional open records, nor any other system that is less than access on demand to the adult adoptee, without condition, and without qualification

2008-11-19T14:02:00.000-05:00

PRESS RELEASE
NOVEMBER 18, 2008

BASTARD NATION TO NEBRASKA:
REPEAL LB 157!
STOP CHILD DUMPING NOW!
AND DON’T BRING IT BACK!

CONTACT: Marley Greiner, 614-571-2999 or MEGreiner@gmail.com

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE EVAN B. DONALDSON ADOPTION INSTITUTE FROM BASTARD NATION

2008-06-30T22:51:00.002-04:00

In December 2007, members of Bastard Nation attended the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute's "For the Records--National Conclave" in New York City. At the end of the day, nearly everyone agreed that compromise legislation to restore the right of birth certificate access to some adoptees and not others, is unacceptable. Participants never heard back from the Donaldson-- until June 25, that is, when we received an email from Susan Hicks, recently hired project administrator of the Donaldson's open records project. Ms. Hicks, self-described as the lead advocate for the Massachusetts "access" bill, sold a generation of Massachusetts adoptees down the river to get access for some.

Below is our Open Letter to the Donaldson Institute that we faxed and emailed earlier today regarding the hire of Ms Hicks. If you agree with us that the appointment of Ms Hicks is a slap in the face of adopted persons and activists who have worked tirelessly for acess for all, and calls into question the Donaldson's commitment to us, please let the Donaldson know.

BASTARD NATION: THE ADOPTEE RIGHTS ORGANIZATION

P.O. Box 1469

Edmond, OK 73083-1469

Voice/Fax 415-704-3166

www.bastards.org

Mr. Adam Pertman, Executive Director

Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute

120 E. 38th Street

New York, New York 10016

June 30, 2008

Dear Mr. Pertman:

We are in receipt of an email dated June 25, 2008 from your new project administrator, Susan Hicks. The subject line of the email is: Re: EBD "For the Records" National Conclave - FOLLOW-UP!

We at Bastard Nation were stunned to read that Ms. Hicks is now the new project administrator for the EBD and that she apparently became qualified for the appointment through her work on the Massachusetts adoptee access bill. Some of us at BN dealt with Ms. Hicks during the legislative process of SB 959. During this time, we found Ms. Hicks to be extremely secretive and unwilling to share any knowledge of the bill whatsoever. She was the opposite of collegial.

Moreover, for her to state, "I was the lead advocate and played an instrumental role in changing the birth certificate access law in Massachusetts" is not something that we feel deserves congratulations, never mind a job offer. The bill is not an equal access law because it does not allow all adopted adults access to their original birth certificates. The law is a compromise that leaves more than a generation of adoptees behind without the same rights as all other non-adopted adults.

Your own 2007 EBD statement, "For the Records," clearly recommends that every state should restore to all adoptees unrestricted access to their records. This report also recommends that state laws that do create a "sandwich' situation" in which some adult adopted persons get access to their records and others do not, should be revisited within three years of enactment. In 2009 will Susan Hicks revisit the legislation that she herself supported?

If it is EBDs intention to bring all adoption reform groups together, then we must state up front that we do not understand the appointment of Susan Hicks to this position. Not only do we not understand the appointment, we are left to wonder at the future direction of the institute. Certainly Ms. Hick's background strongly suggests that the institute is headed in a direction that rewards compromises instead of genuine equal access for all.

We appreciate your time and hope that you will address our concerns.

Sincerely,

Marley Greiner, Chair

Bastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organization

Executive Committee

Marley Greiner

Anita Walker Field

Pat Marler

Legislative Advisor

Janet Allen, New Hampshire State Representative

The following blog was written on September 12, 2007, by Anita Walker Field. It was an open letter to Susan Hicks and the ABC Grounp. You can find it at www.grannieannie.org. It is copied here with permission.

OPEN LETTER TO SUSAN HICKS & ABC

WHAT WILL YOU TELL THE "BLACKLISTED ONES?"

The Massachusetts Committee of ABC was one of the prime supporters of SB 63. I have read over your webpage and discovered that something very important is totally missing from ABC's laundry list of superlatives about SB 63. The missing link is your feelings and attitudes toward the "Blacklisted Ones" – you know, the adopted men and women who happened to have been born on the politically incorrect dates between July 17, 1974 and December 31, 2007. What do you say to these adoptees who will still have to go to court to get their birth certificates?

Will you look them in the face and tell them how good SB 63 is?

Will you pat them on the back and thank them for being martyrs to the cause?

Will you tell them that you'll come back in a year or two to revisit the law and then you will support changing it to include the Blacklisted Ones?

Will you tell them that with all political issues there are bound to be scapegoats? And with SB 63, they are the scapegoats.

Will you look them in the eyes and tell them that this bill was the right thing to do?

Will you tell them that leaving them out in the cold was the politically expedient thing that you all had to do in order to get this bill passed into law?

Will you tell them you're sorry?

2008-06-01T22:59:00.000-04:00

To: Members, Bastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organization

Re: Withdrawal of Bastard Nation from A Day for Adoptee Rights

Bastards,

The Executive Committee of Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization announces with regret the withdrawal of our organizational co-sponsorship and official participation in A Day for Adoptee Rights, (DAR) scheduled for July 20-25 during the National Conference of State Legislature's annual meeting in New Orleans. We had planned to hold a "Bastard Boot Camp Teach-In" on July 20, participate in the protest on July 22, and help staff the DAR space inside the Mariol Convention Center July 23-25.

We sincerely regret any inconvenience or discouragement this decision may cause.

As of this writing the event itself has not been canceled, only Bastard Nation's co-sponsorship and participation. Please check the DAR website for updates on the status of the event. http://adopteerights.net/nulliusfilius/

Bastard Nation has been concerned for some time about the cost effectiveness of the project. While many people exhibited an interest in attending all or part of the event, the number of people who actually registered or made a serious commitment to attend was minimal. There were also hidden costs at the convention center, of which DAR and BN were not aware of until recently, which put our participation extremely over budget.

Bastard Nation believes that the Day for Adoptee Rights project is a sound idea. There is no dispute between BN and DAR. We have concluded that this is not the time or place for Bastard Nation to take part in a Day for Adoptee Rights. The cost of the event this year spiraled and did not balance with the number of participants coming forward to show our strength to the politicians who hold the keys to the records cabinets. Bastard Nation is an all volunteer organization that works on the foundational financial principle of bringing you the best bang for your buck. Spending several thousand dollars in member dues and donations on a project that at this point was sputtering is fiscally irresponsible, movement careless, and takes time and funds away from legislative and educational activities that can make a direct difference now.

Moreover, we are concerned with the participation of Abrazo Adoption Agency in San Antonio, Texas. Unknown to DAR and BN until just a few days ago, Abrazo has been raising funds for the event in DAR's name. http://apps.facebook.com/causes/85456?recruiter_id=15092383

These funds went and continue to go directly to the agency, raising huge ethical issues for Bastard Nation and the equal access movement. Records and identity access is about our rights and has no connection with the marketing schemes of adoption agencies. BN has a long-standing, hard-line policy of accepting no support from the adoption industry. Bastard Nation speficially,m and the adoptee rights movement in general, cannot and should not be co-opted or used by the adoption industry to promote its own agenda. We disavow all industry involvement in our work. Any entanglement with the adoption industry endangers the integrity and credibility of the adoptee rights movement.

Although BN solicited funds for our specific DAR activities, the only official fundraising site for DAR is on the DAR site. Do not send funds to any other solicitor.

Bastard Nation is in the process of working with the Country Inn and Suites by Carlson to release the rooms in our reserved block. We will personally contact everyone who registered under our agreement with the hotel about the procedure for you to cancel room reservations should you desire to do so.

We greatly appreciate the work that volunteers from Bastard Nation and A Day for Adoptee Rights have put into this event. Without them and you there is no movement. We applaud your enthusiasm, commitment and we look forward to future activities to restore our rights.

Please write to our Executive Chair, Marley Greiner (maddogmarley@worldnet.att.net) if you have any questions.

Yours in Bastardy,

The Bastard Nation Executive Committee

Anita Walker Field

Patricia Marler

Marley Greiner, Executive Chair

OHIO: Update on HB 7--Records Access Removed!

2008-04-18T02:22:00.000-04:00

On Wednesday April 16, HB 7 (as introduced) was replaced with Sub (stitute) HB 7 which removed records access altogether. (The sub bill is not posted yet on the Ohio Leg page but can be found here under LSC ). A vote on the sub bill was delayed a week to give interested parties and pols time to respond. The schedule for next week's hearing won't be released for a couple days. I'll post it here and send it elsewhere as soon as I have it. It will probably be on Wednesday.

BEAOhio and Bastard Nation are very concerned that even if access is returned to the sub-bill, the bill may end up compromised with a disclosure veto, beefed up CI/Registry scheme, etc. The Ohio Catholic Conference, for instance, recommended that the legislature create a new and improved active reunion registry (it is now passive) in which the state would have 18 months, after an adoptee requests his or her identifying information, to obtain birth parent approval or veto for release of the document. After that period, if there is no word from the parent(s) the obc would be released. Yeah, the under-staffed, under-funded and over-worked Vital Stats folks will really fly with that one! And if you don't think that what happens in other states stays in other states, the OCC notes that this recommendation was lifted from an adopted proposal from the Catholic Conference of New Jersey.

Adoption Network Cleveland, which has worked on this bill for more than a year, has offered the contact preference form to lighten the load, and we agree with that offer. But adoptee rights opposition, most of whom believe that records access = abortion, will want much more. (NOTE: This is not a BEAOhio or Bastard Nation bill. It is part of a larger adoption and fostercare reform package initiated by the legislature).

Even if unrestricted records access is returned to sub bill 7 we are greatly concerned that 1996 (to now) disclosure vetoes will be honored. A bill that honors those vetoes and permits future vetoes is not a clean bill. Passage of such a bill would permit the state to continue treating adopted persons as second rate citizens and continue to let a small number of individuals practice special rights.

I'll post the action alert as soon as possible. In the meantime go to My Space BEAOhio and Adoption Network Cleveland for more information about the bill.

I'll be at the hearing!

ILLINOIS; ASTOUNDING CLAIM--MOST ADOPTEES HAVE NAMES OF THEIR BIRTHPARENTS!

2008-04-04T03:42:00.000-04:00

Recently, an Illinois adoptee sent me an email from Melisha Mitchell regarding HB 4623's provision on deceased birth parents. In it Ms. Mitchell makes the astounding claim that 80-90% of Illinois adoptees already know the names of their birthparents, particularly the names of their first mothers! I am publishing this letter in full, with permission of the recepient, but am withholding the name upon request. I have highlighted the most egregious statements in yellow.

Dear XXX:

Thanks for all your (really good) questions regarding the pending Illinois legislation. I was in Springfield last week, and came home to dozens of emails on the bill...including yours...and shall do my utmost to answer your questions...

In a message dated xxx, XXX writes:

>Will birth parent "requests for anonymity" eventually expire under HB 4623?

Yes, under the proposed law, all birth parent requests for anonymity through
the Registry will expire upon the birth parent's death.

>How will the State of Illinois know when/if the birth parent has died? I can see if a death >certificate is issued in Illinois - what about anywhere else in the world?

As you point out, if the birth parent died in Illinois (or was born in Illinois, which would require Illinois to receive notice of the birth parent's death), there is no issue to proving that they are deceased. Many Illinois adoptees know their birth parents' names (80 to 90% of the adoption decrees issued in Illinois list the birth mother's full name...and adoption decrees are available to the adoptive parents upon request (as long as they're alive, obviously). As a result, most adoptees in this state do have their birth parent's names. One of the reasons why we added the provision that allows an adoptee who is the subject of a request for anonymity to search again, at no cost, once five or more years have elapsed since the request for anonymity was filed is that a state intermediary is authorized to obtain a death certificate from any state in the US (regardless of what that state's rules are about the release of an obc). If the state intermediary can confirm a birth parent's death and obtains a birth parent's death certificate, this info (death of birth parent) will be relayed to the adoptee who would then receive their obc. This is a tricky provision, though, as some states do place limitations on who can obtain a death certificate (although they have no way of verifying, for example, if someone who says they are the daughter/son of someone is indeed that person's daughter or son)...

Adoptees who find little or no information on their original birth certificates, as well as those who find very common names, may find it helpful to seek assistance through either the agency that handled the adoption, the state intermediary program, or a post-adoption program like that offered by the White Oak Foundation.

As I outlined (sort of) above, most Illinois adoptees will find their birth mother's name on their adoption decree. Although this legislation does not release the adoption decree (which is freely available to adoptive parents in this state--as long as they are alive) to adult adoptees, it is likely that this issue will be addressed in future legislation. Adopted persons who have no information at all (no last name or first name for the birth parent) and were born in Chicago before 1962 can find their birth names in the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin (and our organization helps adoptees born before 1962 to get this info at no charge). It is less likely that an original birth certificate issued in the 60s or 70s would be blank, but for those rare cases, the state intermediary program would probably be helpful as state intermediaries are able to obtain agency files, court files, relinquishment papers (which often include the birth mother's full name and date of birth) and other documents which should allow them to successfully locate the birth parent or surviving birth siblings if the birth parent is deceased.

>What recourse does an adoptee have if he or she receives an original birth >certificate that is >blank or lists an alias? Will the information that SHOULD have been on the birth certificate (i.e. >identifying information) be made available to the adoptee or is this considered a de facto >"disclosure veto"?

Wow. What a great idea (releasing the info that should have been on the obc to the adult adoptee)...but not one that was included in this bill. It is likely that the issue of the release of the adoption decree (which almost always includes the birth mother's last name, and includes her first name 80 to 90% of the time) to adult adoptees will be taken up in subsequent legislation...this bill only deals with the release of an original birth certificate to an adult adopted person and how birth parents can relay their wishes regarding contact or the release of their identity...

I am attaching to this email a chart that I've put together which shows how things are in Illinois under current statute and how they would be if the proposed law is signed by the Governor. If you have any additional questions after reading the chart, let me know and I'll do my best to answer them!!

Melisha Mitchell
Executive Director
The White Oak Foundation
www.whiteoakfoundation.org

ILLINOIS OPEN'S ANITA FIELD: "...FEIGENHOLTZ FOLLOWED HER OWN PATH--ONE OF COMPROMISE..."

2008-04-02T22:55:00.000-04:00

Here are some recent comments from Illinois Open's

Anita Field. "Curiously," we only learned of the impending March 12 introduction of Amendment 1 (aka a re-write of the bill) on Monday March 10 in an article in the Chicago Trib. Tuesday, March 11 Anita entered the hospital for scheduled surgery. We were told by Feigenholtz's office that the vote on Wednesday would be on the "new language only" not the bill itself. On Wednesday, the bill passed out of committee after a show hearing whlie Anita was in surgery.

See previous entry for Reform Coalition statement on HB 4623.

We aren't going away!

Dear Illinois Open Friends,

Thank you all for your support during the days when Representative Feigenholtz was preparing her bill. I tried my hardest to let her know that adoptees don't want restrictions put upon them by the state. She countered by saying I'm living in a dream world and don't understand the underbelly of politics.

I worked very hard to persuade Representative Feigenholtz that the time was right for a clean bill, one that would help all adoptees equally. I know many of you wrote to her not once, but several times, without ever receiving a reply. We tried to tell her we don't want to be tied to the state's apron strings any longer, but she didn't listen to us.

Instead Representative Feigenholtz followed her own path – one of "compromise," the very same path she chose to go down 13 years ago.

With HB 4623 Representative Feigenholtz has put some of us adoptees in a potentially divided position and that's too bad. If she had introduced a pure bill that would have given equal rights to every adopted citizen, we would all be moving forward and working together now.

But she didn't.

Personally, I am opposed to HB 4623. I will not support it under any circumstances and I will speak out against it whenever I can.

I'm stepping back from Illinois Open for awhile because I'm finding that I need more time to recuperate from my surgery.

One of these days soon I'll be back blogging. Stay tuned to www.grannieannie.orG