BASTARD NATION ACTION ALERT
Please forward freely
STOP DISCLOSURE VETO/WHITE OUT LEGISLATION IN NEW JERSEY!!!
ASK THE NEW JERSEY SENATE HEALTH, HUMAN SERVICES & SENIOR CITIZENS COMMITTEE TO VOTE NO ON S799
S799 , (formerlyA752) is scheduled for a hearing in the New Jersey Senate Health, Human Services, and Senior Citizens Committee on March 4.
Please contact committee members immediately and urge them to VOTE NO ON S799. See contact information below.If you are from or in New Jersey or have a New Jersey connection, be sure to mention it in your communication.
Be sure to put: “S799 Adoptee Birthright Bill – Please Vote NO” in the header
The bill:
* contains a white-out disclosure veto that replaces the original birth certificate with a mutilated copy of the obc with all identifying information, including the address of the parent(s) at the time of birth (if it appears on the cert) deleted.
*requires birthparents who file a disclosure veto to submit an intrusive and probably illegal medical and family history form to activate the veto.
*requires birthparents who file a “contact preference form” to fill out the same intrusive and probably illegal medical and family history form.
*seals by default all “safe haven” birth certificates, even though most “safe haven” babies are born in hospitals to identified mothers.
*requires adoption agencies and adoption lawyers to receive a written veto status report from the state before they can release identifying information to adoptees
*requires the state to mount an “information” campaign to inform birthparents of their “protection” options
S799 IS NOT ABOUT RIGHTS.
S799 IS ABOUT PRIVILEGE
Bastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organization opposes legislation that denies any adult adoptees access to their own original birth records on par with all other citizens. Please let the Health, Human Services, and Senior Citizen Committee know that this issue is not about relationships between adoptees and their birthparents. It is about basic human and civil rights and the relationship between adoptees and the STATE of NEW JERSEY.
The New Jersey state government should not be in the business of denying adult adoptees access to their own birth certificates in a misguided attempt to appease a mythical adversarial standoff between adoptees and birthparents.
Inclusion of a disclosure veto in this bill perpetuates the violation of adoptee rights by making unaltered birth certificate access a privilege not a right.
Forcing, birthparents, under certain circumstances, to submit mandatory health and family history information to the state is intrusive and probably illegal.
Passage of bad legislation is New Jersey could easily undermine efforts of dedicated reformers who are holding the line for adoptee rights in other states.
New Jersey’s S799 is an abomination in light of the restoration of the right of original birth certificate access to all persons adopted in Oregon, Alabama, and New Hampshire, and Maine. Adult adoptees and all who support adoptee rights should stand united for unrestricted access laws and not sell out just to get a bill passed! Disclosure veto legislation is unethical and unjust!
Please e-mail committee members and urge them to VOTE NO ON S799
READ THE FULL TEXT AT: http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2010/Bills/S1000/799_I1.PDF
CONTACT INFORMATION: HEALTH, HUMAN SERVICES AND SENIOR CITIZENS COMMITTEE (NOTE: Sen Vitale and Allen are the main sponsor of the bill.)
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization, the largest adoptee civil rights organization in North America, opposes S799. We recommend that you vote NO on this bill and that it be left to die in committee
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 family 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 support 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. No state that has enacted a law that gives access to some has ever returned to restore the right to all. If this bill passes it will kill any chance that all of the New Jersey’s adoptees can 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
etc.
Thank you for this, Marley. The NJ
bill is a “dirty” bill that will cover the arses of the industry and placate those who adopted, but will tie the hands of adopted adults and mothers with no recourse or protection for themselves. If the industry and (sorry but this is true) their customers (adopters) would butt out, I think we could make our preferences known to each other on our own.
BN Writes:”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?”
Why, also, should the state and adopters have the right to remove our names from our children’s original birth certificates and alter them to state that the adopter gave birth? Once again, we are being given some kind of specious “right” that we didn’t ask for. We don’t want different rules. We just want to be treated with the same respect as every other participant in this melange.
It is the state and the agencies and attorneys and, yes, adopters, that want to make it seem that we would want or engage in such a thing. They are the ones who would do the altering. We natural mothers would, as usual, get the blame. We are getting increasingly tired of that.
If I had any message for our adult children, it would be to not listen to those who would put their words in our mouths. Ask US! The majority of us are not asking for anything of this convoluted nature.
Right, Robin. I got my obc in 1980. A year or so later, after I did a lot of (pre-internet) research, I attempted to make contact. I got no reply. I took that as a no, so I didn’t pursue it. Isn’t that how civil people behave? 15-16 years later I located her 2 kids, who were interestingly enough, adopted. After a couple years they decided I should try again, and it worked, through their support.
Rights and reunion are two different things. There are plenty of reunions from searches made by adoptees, first parents and adoptive parents without a right to an obc in place or the obc at all. My obc was never sealed, but even if it had been, I could have done a successful search.
We must always remember that these deform bills come from “our” side. So-called adoption reformers who will take whatever they can get. At no point to my knowledge have vetoes and other restrictions originated from the adoption industry, though it may support them. Restrictions are the bright idea of individuals and groups who want to get their name on a law and claim a “victory.” If the restrictions are not suggested directly by them, they come as tbill sponsors to make the bill easier to pass, and they accept those restrictions on “practical” terms. Something, for them, is better than nothing–even when their own people get nothing.
Deformers have only mucked up things. I honesty don’t know how any state with a disclosure or contact veto in place can ever go back and change the law, at least until everyone under those restrictions dies off. That’s the legacy of “baby steps” do-gooders. They need to be called out, named, and ridiculed for the traitors they are.
Deformers, huh? I like that. I do think they are playing into the hands of the industry and probably with a bit of under-the-table prodding from the NCFA and EBDI. I don’t take anything at face value, anymore, when it comes to American politics and bureauocracy.
In an effort to get every ‘i’ dotted and every ‘t’ crossed, these people are losing the passion and the drive in a muddle of correctness. When my babies started walking, they fell down a lot. Maybe there need to be some adult steps.
Hi Robin and Marley, I find it almost unbelievable that the most progressive country in the world is still denying people their O B C.
Here in Australia we have been able to get our identifying information and our O B C.s for two decasdes and no one has been charged with stalking or harrasing the other party except one poor mentaly ill boy and thousands of us have had reunions.The ony hicup we had was here in Queensland where a group of adopters who were associated with the N C F A in the U S A lobbied the then Government to allow adoptees the right to object ot their info being given to their natural parent.This held up some reunions for 19 years and resulted in a number of adoptees suicide. Fortunatly we now have passed into law the right to everyone to their original information about their natural family and their stolen child.Linda
I encourage you to reed my concerns with this bill, as a mother, which are bit different than yours:
http://familypreservation.blogspot.com/2010/03/reviewing-nj-adoptee-records.html
http://familypreservation.blogspot.com/2010/03/nj-bill-adoptee-access-passes-senate.html
Unlike you, I am not proposing opposition, but rather asking those working to craft the legislation here our concerns and work with us.
Question for adoptees: If you could get your OBC would that satisfy you, or do you also feel you deserve to have agency records?
I’m incurably nosy, but ultimately, no. Agency records are not my records.I wasn’t the agency client.