Adopted adults, especially since 9/11, have increasingly been denied passports, drivers licenses, pensions, Social Security benefits, professional certifications, and security clearances due to discrepancies on their fictive amended birth certificates produced by the state, and their inability to produce a true original birth certificate to respond to those discrepancies. Now, due to our lack of an OBC, we may not be allowed to run for president or vice president (or other offices) if some states have their way.
Currently, 11 state legislatures are looking at bills to force presidential/vp candidates to divvy up their birth certificates to prove citizenship and that they are who they say they are. If these measures pass, the birth certificate requirement will no doubt seep down to all elective offices from city council and county commission to state and federal legislatures and courts. 
Although voters are already required to show proof of citizenship when they register to vote, I don’t think it’s beyond reason that more stringent requirements will be mandated; thus potentially disenfranchising millions of the country’s adopted adults due to lack of their “real” birth certificates. The highly unpopular Real ID,which about two dozen states have refused to implement. and other Draconian “security measures” are just the beginning of how Class Bastard will be disenfranchised as our OBCs continue to be sealed.
ARIZONA
OBC Bill SB 1595. Allows an adult adoptee to obtain a copy of his or her certified OBC if the adoptee provides the name of the biological mother, the adoptee’s date and place of birth, and the applicable fee.
CONNECTICUT
OBC Bill: HB 890. Prospective bill that authorizes those 21 and older, whose adoption are finalized on or after October 1, 2012, to receive their OBC. All other OBCs remain sealed except through court order or written consent of the natural parent(s).
Birther Bill: SB 391 An Act Concerning Qualifications to Appear as a Candidate for President or Vice-President on a Ballot in this State. Requires “that candidates for president and vice-president provide their original birth certificates in order to be placed on the ballot,and to show that the candidate “is a natural born United States citizen, prior to certifying that the candidate is qualified to appear on the ballot.”
INDIANA
OBC Bill HB 469. Provides that beginning July 1, 2012, identifying adoption information may be released unless a “nonrelease form” (disclosure veto) is on file, regardless of when the adoption was filed. Retains vetoes for post-1994 adoptions already filed.
OBC Bill HB 1201. Long convoluted bill that includes: “Requires the department of child services, a county office of family and children, a licensed child placing agency, a professional health care provider, an attorney, and a court to send a copy of a written consent, any signed writing that withdraws or modifies a consent to the release of identifying information, and a written nonrelease form to the state registrar. Requires the department of child services to provide, at least one time each month, to the state department of health a list of names of all children who are less than 21 years of age and whose birth parent had the birth parent’s parental right terminated while a child in need of services proceeding concerning the child was pending. Prohibits the state registrar, the department of child services, a county office of family and children, a licensed child placing agency, a professional health care provider, an attorney, and a court from releasing identifying information if the request involves an adoptee who is less than 21 years of age and whose name is on the list provided to the state department of health from the department of child services. Repeals a provision that allows an individual who submits a request for the release of identifying information to request the state registrar to search the death certificates for an adoptee or birth parent.”
Birther Bill SB 114: Requires that a certified copy of each presidential and vice presidential nominee’s birth certificate, including any other documentation necessary to establish that the nominee meets the qualifications, accompany the state chairman’s certification. Provides that the election division may not certify the name of a nominee for president or vice president of the United States unless the election division has received a nominee’s certification and documentation.
MISSOURI
OBC Bill HB 427. Prospective bill that authorizes those 18 and older whose adoptions are finalized after August 28, 2011 to receive their OBC upon request unless a disclosure veto is on file. Parents will fill out form as part of relinquishment. (2) Authorizes those 18 or older whose adoptions are finalized on or before August 28, 2011 to receive their OBC upon request unless a disclosure veto is on file. In both cases, if a veto is filed the adoptee can, for a fee, request the state/placing agency/court to search out the “birthparent” to revoke the DV and sign consent. OBC remains sealed if parent(s) refuses to revoke. Lineal descendants can apply in cases of deceased adoptees.
Birther Bill: HB 283. Requires that certification for candidates “shall include proof of identity and proof of United States citizenship.”
TEXAS:
OBC Bill: SB 287. Permits an adoptee to obtain a copy of his/her original birth certificate, without court order, if he/she can produce the names of both “birthparents.”
Birther Bill: HB 295. Requires candidates’ documentation of citizenship; adds to the state election code the provision: “The secretary of state may not certify the name of a candidate for president or vice-president unless the candidate has presented the candidate’s original birth certificate indicating that the person is a natural-born United States citizen.”
PENNSYLVANIA:
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE 2
This documentary absurdity with the current spate of birther bills running counterpoint to bad OBC bills in state legislatures should be hammered to our advantage. Some legislators might even do irony. And do they really want to pass a bad OBC bill which could result in a political colleague being forced to ask his or her mother’s “permission” to run for office?
Nice match up of access bills to birther bills. Great article!
Do leggies understand irony? I don’t think so. Catch 22 is beyond them. Or else they don’t care.
Right now federal and state governments require obcs from adoptees for a variety of reasons (passport, school registration, driver’s license)yet in these same states obcs are withheld from Bastards by law.
The Nation Security State is only going to get worse. These “practical” arguments must be utilized.
Cognitive dissonance about sums it up. My other question for Arizona is…what do you do if you have a home birth? Not everyone is born in a hospital, duh.
It kinda makes me feel weird to know that, if Texas’s new OBC bill passed, I would be able to get mine but others wouldn’t. Why can’t people just come to their damn senses and have one birth certificate and one adoption decree? (You know, like most of the world that does adoption does…)
This made me LOL: “you gave up your right to that birth certificate when you agreed to be adopted”. So when can I un-agree to be adopted?
As a Missouri adoptee I’m not surprised that the MO bill being proposed still discriminates against adopted folk because it leaves intact the birth par veto.
So the bill allows those in power, the agencies and courts, to continue to pick and choose which adoptees get their legal OBCs based upon flawed law since 1986 impacting both past and future adoptees.
It leaves in the search provision intact whereby the adoption agencies get to collect money for their coffers through search fees paid by the adoptee.
And after the non-fundable search fees are paid by the adoptee the adoptee will be told “no” because there’s a bpar veto. Or else we cannot locate bpars.
When the adoptee asks to see legal evidence of a signature on the affidavit denying OBC, we’re told it’s a “secret”.
From my personal experience dealing with the juvenile officer at the MO court and adoption agency workers, it they avoid answering your questions, chances are your adoption was probably illegal.
Further Missouri irony is that present Missouri statute requires that if an adoption is later annulled, the AMENDED birth certificate is sealed and the OBC restored. With of course no veto from the natural parents…
Where/what did you hear about Pennsylvania’s OBC bill? I’m an adult adoptee living in Pittsburgh who’s been seeking my own Maryland records for some time, and I’m writing about Metcalfe’s bill – it is happening but doesn’t even have a number yet, just a name: the Commonwealth Citizenship Act. He’s currently looking for co-sponsors and is trying to push it through pretty quickly. I haven’t seen anything about an OBC bill though.
Hi Melissa–Thanks for commenting. Information about the bill comes from Amanda Transue-Woolson from Adoptee Rights PA. You can go to their webpage here
http://www.adopteerightspa.org/
They also have a FB page and a mail list which you can sign on to from that page. I haven’t seen that a bill has been introduced yet.
Thanks for the info!