The compromised New Jersey “open records” bill S1087.A2557 (go here and type in bill number to read it) is scheduled for a floor vote in the Senate on Monday, December 4, 2006. Bastard Nation opposes this bill. Below is our letter to NJ senators. Our action alert will be posted here shortly with information on how you can voice your opposition, too.
*********
Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization opposes S1087/A2557 and asks you to oppose it, too.
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 this 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 three states have restored to adoptees the unrestricted right to records and identity access: Oregon through state-wide ballot initiative, and Alabama and New Hampshire 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.
Are the adopted of New Jersey so dangerous that they cannot be trusted to know the names of their own parents or own their own heritage, genealogies and birth documents?
If New Jersey is truly interested in supporting the right of identity and records for its adopted citizens it should reject compromising those rights with reactionary and anti-adoptee legislation such as S1087/A2557. The New Jersey Senate should reject S1087/ A2557 and come back with a clean bill that guarantees the right of records to all New Jersey adopted adults, not just some. Until such a bill is presented, no half-measures are acceptable. New Jersey’s adoptees deserve better than this.
Please vote NO on S1087/A2557. It’s the right thing to do!
Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization
Executive Committee:
David Ansardi
Anita Field
Patricia Marler
Natalie Proctor Servant
Marley Greiner, Executive Chair
.