New York: S5964: Bastard Nation Letter to Acting Rules Chair Sen. John J Flanagan. Do not take up and consider.
S5964/H2901A is not a matter of clean- up language or simple additions or subtractions. Instead it strips the original bill and adoptees of their right of OBC access, replacing it with a highly bureaucratized system of court orders, permission slips, and fiscal irresponsibility that infantilizes and restricts the rights of New York’s adopted adults. Incredibility, it mandates that judges take into consideration the “feelings” of an adopted adult’s adoptive parents when deciding to release the OBC!
Another section mandates that the state track down the birthparents of adoptees who apply for their OBC, in order to get consent for their for release. According to the bill, even birthparents whose rights were terminated by the courts for abuse and neglect would have the authority to stop the release of the OBC.
Since no fiscal note is attached to pay for these searches, which we estimate at today’s going search rate would cost over $7 million the first year alone, either NYS taxpayers are expected to pony up or adopted adults will be forced to pay the state hundreds of dollars each to get permission to receive their own birth certificates—a right every not-adopted New York-born possesses free and clear without anyone’s permission. Continue Reading →