Category Archives: Adoption legislation

HAWAI’I” Clean HB 2082 records access bill passes out of committee

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While Indiana and Missouri continue to fail, flail and founder on the Sea of Deform, the Hawai’i legislature took the first step yesterday to restore adoption records access with no restrictions to all Hawai’i-born adoptees. In a vote of 13-o-1 (absent) the House Judiciary Committee voted Do Pass on clean HB 2082. All testimony supported the bill with no opposition either submitted or addressed in person. The bill is sponsored by Hawaii adoptee Chris Lee (D-51). It now goes to the House Floor for a vote. A companion Senate bill may be introduced as early as next week. Continue Reading →

Baby Drop Boxes for Illinois? We hope not!

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Speaking of babydrop boxes, the long awaited baby box bill, SB 3271, has been dropped in the Illinois Senate. The bill won’t legislate baby boxes or determine specs, but it would basicaly set up a study group to investigate the feasibility of boxes–hygienically referred to as “newborn safety incubators”– in Illinois. It’s attached to a short bill to amend the state’s safe haven law.

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What Would Orwell Do? Who’s confused in Missouri? (HB 1599 and HB 1822)

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The idea that bills are some kind of state secret–or should be– is silly. Bills are public information, posted on webpages, and open for discussion and lobbying by anyone. Any attempt to tamp down discussion, especially of opposition efforts, makes MARM, especially among serious OBC activists, look politicaly naive. The general public could care less about our issue. Catholic Charities and Lutheran Family Services does care. A lot. And they make sure that the people they need to support their vile, reactionary bill know about it. Trying to make the bill invisible makes no sense. I’m betting a lot of people who would have opposed it didn’t know about it until it was too late. If there was no need to publicly dennounce the Bad Bill, then how did it pass? Continue Reading →

Repost from Access Connecticut: Action Alert – Support introduction and hearing of OBC access bill

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We have received the following Action Alert from Access Connecticut. Bastard Nation is not involved in this legislative action and has no relationship with the organiztion, but we support its effort to equalize unrestricted OBC access for all Connecticut adoptees. The bill in question will be a clean bill to close the current gap in Connecticut law that deprives those adopted before October 1, 1983 from unrestricted OBC access. It deserves a hearing. Access Connecticut 2016 Position Statement

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I urge all of you contact your legislators IMMEDIATELY and ask them to contact the Co-Chairs of the Public Health Committee and urge them to RAISE our proposed bill.

The bill must be introduced by the Public Health Committee or it will not be considered in the 2016 legislative session. We have received feedback that the bill may not be introduced. (In short sessions like this one only Committees can raise bills, not individual legislators.)

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Bastard Nation: Testimony in support of Missouri HB 1599

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Missouri’s current OBC access laws do not reflect current adoption best practice and culture, and as we’ve noted above, the reality of technology and social media which has been eagerly embraced by adoptees and their families in search of information that is rightfully theirs, denied them by the state.

Consequently, over the years the Missouri legislature has heard many bills regarding OBC access. Some have gone nowhere and others have further complicated the already complicated access process. This time, however, HB 1599, its sponsor Rep. Don Phillips and its nearly 40 sponsors got it right. HB 1599 creates not only equal access for all Missouri-born adoptees but treats the state’s adoptees as equal with the not-adopted, who unlike the adopted are not forced to undergo an onerous legal process simply to get their own birth certificates. HB 1599 reflects the simple inclusive OBC access process that five states have enacted. (Oregon, Alabama, New Hampshire, Maine, and Rhode Island.) Kansas and Alaksa never sealed records. Continue Reading →

Bastard Nation Action Alert: Missouri HB 1599: Write today to support unrestricted OBC access

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Please submit your written testimony (especially if you are connected to Missouri) or letter of support for HB 1599 as written without restriction to bill sponsor Rep. Don Phillips and to committee members now. Your message need not be long. Let them know that the era of sealed birth certificates is over and that Missouri adoptees should be treated the same as the not adopted. Ask them to vote YES for HB 1599. Continue Reading →

Bastard Nation Testimony on Indiana SB 91 – Vote No

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SB 91 is not an adoptee rights bill. It is a flawed bill that does nothing to address the right of all Indiana-born adoptees to access their own original birth certificates, without restriction or condition upon request. Instead of offering a simple non-bureaucratic access procedure, the bill expands an already over sized bureaucracy placing burdensome “legal” obligations and requirements on adoptees, birthparents and adoptive parents. (Under current law, these obligations and requirements are mandated for only some) The bill, in fact, doesn’t even allow for OBC release, only release of information taken from the certificate Continue Reading →

Bastard Nation Action Alert: Indiana SB 91 – Oppose

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All Indiana-born adoptees, over the age of 21 will be required to join the Indiana Adoption Medical History Registry to access “identifying information,” but no OBC would be released.. Those under 21, are required to have their adoptive parents join the registry. All biological parents listed on the obc must join the registry and submit proof that they are who is listed on the obc. Once joined, the biological parent has the option to sign a DV thatcan extend past death. Neither the DV nor the CPF/DV distinguishes between “identifying information” released. That means either the biological parent releases ALL of the “identifying information” (including being able to “inspect” the obc) or they release none. The CPF/DV is effective even if pre-adoptive siblings indicated, upon registration, that they want contact with each other and not with the biological parent. If either biological parent indicates that information may not be released, the State Registrar will not release any information. Continue Reading →

My Letter to the Pennsylvania Senate: Vote NO on PA HB 162

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HB 162, in fact, does not meet the standard of OBC access practiced in other states. The bill does not authorize the release the OBC to the person to whom it obtains, but instead creates a “birth summary” of selected pieces of information from the certificate to be sent off to the adoptee. It also authorizes birthparents, upon request, to have their names redacted from the summary, Moreover, HB 162 demands that adoptees be high school graduates or the holders of a GED to access this parsed summary! Ironically, there may already a good number of pre-1985 adoptees with in-tact OBCs in their possession, legally obtained Continue Reading →

Bastard Nation Action Alert: PA HB 162 – Continues to deny OBC access for all. VOTE NO!

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The amended version violates adult adoptees’ rights to due process and the equal protection of the law by allowing a birth parent to redact their name from the original birth certificate record. Adults should not be required to get permission from our birthparents to obtain our unaltered birth record.

The amended version mandates that in order to receive the birth record information, one must be at least age 18 AND be either a high school graduate, have their GED, or be able to prove they have “legally withdrawn” from school. The subjects of school dropouts and birth certificate access are not related. Continue Reading →