BASTARD NATION’S LETTER TO NJ HOUSE SPEAKER JOSEPH ROBERTS, JR–PLEASE OPPOSE A 752. ADOPTEE DESERVE RIGHTS NOT FAVORS!

December 10, 2009

Dear Speaker Roberts:

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization, the largest adoptee civil rights organization in North America opposes A752. We ask that this bill be left to die in committee at the end of this term, without a hearing. If it is heard and passed out of committee, we ask that the bill be voted down on the floor.

If passed, this bill will permit some New Jersey 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 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?

Since 1999 four states have restored to adoptees the unrestricted right to records and identity access: OregonAlabama, 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.

If New Jersey’s adoptees deserve better than this. through state-wide ballot initiative, and

Yours truly,

Marley E. Greiner

for the Executive Committee:

Anita Walker Field, secretary

Patricia Marler, treasurer

Nina Greeley

Peter Mose

Marla Paul

NOTE: Go to the entry below for more on A762 and how you can contact Speaker Roberts.