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September 5, 2007
His
Massachusetts Statehouse
Room 360
RE: Senate Bill 63: An Act Further Regulating Access to Birth Certificates—Please Veto
Dear Governor Patrick:
Bastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organization, the largest adoptee civil rights organization in
(1) Adopted persons 18 years of age or older born in the commonwealth on or before July 17, 1974 or on or after January 1, 2008 or an adoptive parent of an adopted person under 18 years of age and born in the commonwealth on or after January 1, 2008 will be “allowed” unrestricted access to the original birth certificate.
(2) Adopted persons born in
(3) The bill also establishes a “subject to appropriations” voluntary state-operated “contact information registry”–an apparent scrap thrown to the blacklisted, who will be forced to enroll in a government program with the hope that an original birth certificate might be forthcoming if a birthparent consents to its release.
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.
*SB 63 grossly discriminates against adoptees. The bill creates an arbitrary state-constructed blacklist, based solely on date of birth, prohibiting certain adopted persons from accessing their own original birth certificates. Those born before or after specified dates are permitted unrestricted access. Those born between those dates are blacklisted and required to seek a court order to receive their birth certificates.
*SB 63 revives and legitimizes debunked spurious claims of “implied promises of confidentiality” to birthparents. Such promises are an urban myth and have been disproved repeatedly by activists, legal scholars, historians, and by court rulings. In 30 years of birth record access legislation, no document has been presented to support “promises of confidentiality,” “privacy” or “anonymity”– implied or otherwise.
*SB 63 turns back the clock. In the last eight years
*SB 63 stigmatizes the blacklisted. It forces them to seek a court order for what is rightly theirs: their own original birth certificates.
Adult adoptee access to their original birth certificates is a basic human and civil right, not a privilege.
Please veto SB63 so that in the next session adopted adults and legislators can work together to fashion a bill that will treat all adoptees equally. Selective “rights” are not acceptable.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Executive Committee, Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization
Anita Walker Field
Patricia Marler
Natalie Proctor Servant
Marley Elizabeth Greiner, Executive Chair
ATT: Statistical Fact Sheet: Original Birth Certificate Access Statistics from Open States
Bastard Nation is the largest adoptee civil rights organization in