There’s been some talk on the ‘net that Michigan’s HB 4896 is a clean bill. IT IS NOT. Here is an informal message from Anita Field about the Michigan situation. We will have more information this later, but in the meantime please distribute this information freely.
Bastardette
Hi guys,
Here is an update of Michigan HB 4896. You won’t be jumping for joy when you read this.
Please forward all over.
The original Michigan HB 4896 was really a good bill. It passed the Children and Family Services Committee by a vote of 8-5. But somehow on its way to the floor of the House, someone decided to split it into two bills.
Consequently, HB 4896 was amended beyond recognition. The amended HB 4896 (4897) is now a very short bill. It seems to have 3 sections.
1. The bill will establish a Central Adoption Registry which must approve clearance to any adopted individual who requests an obc. Clearance will come after the adoptee has fulfilled the requirements of the Dept. of Human Services.
2. A CI may request the obc of an official client but the record shall be clearly marked “sealed record only.”
3. HB 4897 shall not go into effect unless and until HB 6287 is passed into law.**
**See the tie-in?
Now, they filed a second half of the bill, HB 6287,** which is the guiding light for HB 4826. These two bills are joined at the waist. Can’t have one without the other.
HB 6287 does the dirty work. It contains a disclosure veto, which they are calling a “revised contact preference form.” Any “former parent” may file this new form at any time. One option for the “former parent” is that he/she does not want any contact and does not want the adoptee to receive an original record of live birth.
There is also a section where an adoptee may receive a redacted copy of he/her obc if the “former parent” so wishes.
The amended HB 4896 was passed by the House on June 27th.
HB 6287 is now making its way through the corridors of the House and is expected to get to the floor very soon.
I’ll write a more complete explanation in a blog very soon. But I wanted everyone to be aware that the passage of the amended HB 4896 is nothing to cheer about! It’s a complete betrayal of the original access bill.
Anita
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www.grannieannie.org
Addenda: Robin Westbrook has also written about Michigan: Oh Give Me a Break!
“The bill will establish a Central Adoption Registry which must approve clearance to any adopted individual who requests an obc. Clearance will come after the adoptee has fulfilled the requirements of the Dept. of Human Services”.
What the helll does that mean? Fufill the requirements of Human Services? And why the hell do people call it Human Serivces anyway? Inhuman Services would be a better term-I am SO sick of having to bow down to these blood line sucking vampires that my barf bucket runneth over…are they expecting us to take psych tests now to make sure we are sane enough to know our own mommy’s and daddy’s? I hope hell is big enough for all the game playing scum involved in adoption..
And for the record (excuse the pun) I am not barking at Marley or Anita sbout this Michigan Bill Post, I’m just spewing out the backwash from the bad taste left in my mouth from the Adoption Profession..
Oh I know! We’re the messengers! I believe will have an action alert out at some point. This started as a clean bill. I just don’t understand why “reformers” keep throwing it all away. We’ve proven we can win. What are they afraid of? Actually fighting for what they claim they want? But then there’s a reason they’re called deformers.
Lets see first it was the “former”
parents confidentiality that was held as the reason that adoptee’s couldn’t have their obc’s.
Now this bill contains a disclosure veto, which they are calling a “revised contact preference form.” Any “former parent” may file this new form at any time.
Dam, what power we hold…seems the power should be given to those who adopt..as they have had it for years..especially when it comes to protecting themselves..from being discovered and the “former” parent interfering with “their” rights..to hell with the adoptee’s its always been about the secret the state created,,,and then saying the secret must be upheld for all the former “parents” can’t say mothers..it would offend adopters!
I spent almost a whole year waiting for identifying information on my son. Which is a joke I don’t care what his adopter’s heritage was or is…I don’t care if she had green eyes or even what she weighed.
I wanted to find my son NOT HER!
Then after an adoptee helped me find him within days..after she had been escorted by police from Alma meeting for working outside Alma perameters.
I did spend another year waiting for that infamous obc. I knew what was there..I bore him I am the “former” lets say it…
MOTHER….
Adopters are afraid and when the state fights that hard and inposes “requirements” that adoptee’s have to fulfill there are things that have been hidden and could possibly call the illegal baby theft that came after Georgia Tann.
Call me MOTHER I have NEVER been a “former” anything that the state of California wanted me to be.
Lets take a look at those records that the wreckers, kept on us “former”
MOTHERS…lies..
and now they are trying to hang onto the lies to protect their asses again at adoptee’s expense.
What would be a redacted obc???
just curious..
Gale
Gale–You know now there’s an argument I saw coming out of NCFA a few years ago that natural parents need protection from adoptive parents who help adoptees search and support access rights. Apparently aparents are privacy wreckers, too! We all are! Everybody involved in adoption wants to “ruin” everybody else’s life. I’d say we’re all in danger from the adoption industry ruining our lives. We’re only a pawn in their game, as Dylan sang.
Definition from Merriam-Webster:
Main Entry:
re·dact
Pronunciation:
\ri-ˈdakt\
Function:
transitive verb
Etymology:
Middle English, from Latin redactus, past participle of redigere
Date: 15th century
1: to put in writing : frame
2: to select or adapt (as by obscuring or removing sensitive information) for publication or release; broadly : edit
3: to obscure or remove (text) from a document prior to publication or release
Meaning you could receive a piece of paper with no information on it.
what is interesting about the term “former parent” is that in the case of natural parents adopting-back their own children, the former adopters then become “former parents”.
when adopting back my son last year (he was 27), he could request that the adoption court file be sealed. Now, it took place in Alberta (and “open records province”), so his “former care-givers” can request a copy of his new birth certificate and they will be given a copy unless he files a disclosure veto, but not the court file.
… and interesting that even at age 27, you get a new birth certificate stating that someone else gave birth to you! that would be hilarious in any case but ours, where i actually *did* give birth to him!
it shows how stupid this whole idea of amending birth records is in the first place.
[i wonder: if one adopts-back a child, can this mean that their original records (and OBC) suddenly become available to them even in closed records states/provinces?]
Marley,
As you well know adoption records were NOT sealed in the past.
But due to adopter’s need to be protected against mother’s who most likely would have taken wanted a glimpse of their child they were sealed.
Thus, as it is said protecting the adoptive family.
I don’t believe one thing NFCA says just like I don’t believe Donaldson’s group…they talk out of both sides of their mouths.
Especially when they see any threats coming in the way of truths being told or records unsealed with the truth on it.
Gale
ps thanks for the dictionary definition..more than likely the redackked will be without vital information, like who mother and father were.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Cedar,..
“””and interesting that even at age 27, you get a new birth certificate stating that someone else gave birth to you! that would be hilarious in any case but ours, where i actually *did* give birth to him”””
This tells me one thing of course, I knew this..from day one….adoption of a baby pretending that one gave birth for what to make one look like the “the” parent..secrets and lies..
Gale
Am really sorry to hear this…that once again, another state has determined that adults should have no control over their own adult lives. Ya’know folks, this sealed record stuff is just a piece of the iceberg..in that we really don’t have many freedoms left in this country, especially as adults. The State makes no bones about it anymore…they are Big Daddy, and the state will tell us what we can and cannot do. And who in the hell are these little people sitting up in these state houses, who have also determined they are Gods and can play with adult lives at their whim and leisure??? These sad f**ks need to be voted out! And I bet they pick their noses and wipe their asses like the rest of us!
I still shake my head in wonder at the machinations of the industry. It’s a market and that market is being protected…hence all the “conditions” on this stupid bill. It keeps getting my goat that my daughter is a grandmother, for Pete’s sake, and she is still being treated like an eternal child. Aaaaaargh!
Improper, you have it right…it is INHUMAN Services. And I ain’t no dern “former parent.” I am a “clear and present parent!”
…all this paternalistic posturing, to hide their fear, and to keep the cash cow flowing! This “former parent” is sick to death of being used as an excuse, an example and someone to be sheltered/sheltered from.
And, you are right, whoever said it was the mothers they are afraid of. The fathers remain, as they were in the day, strangely silent and absent. One has to wonder if they are the “former parents” who are registering their dismay, afraid still that we who they abandoned (both mothers and children) will want something from them, or call them to account for not stepping up back then!