Washington HB1525 passed the Senate and is on its way to the governor’s desk.  If signed, it will promote and continue the state’s sealed records system and deny the right of all Washington adoptees to their original birth certificates.  As other state’s  restore adoptee rights and open our OBCs,  some Washington adoptees will find the right to their OBC subject to the whim of third party approval and comfort and will have no chance of ever getting it.   Don’t let this happen! Write directly to Governor Jay Inslee and tell him why HB1525 is bad for adoptees, their families and the State of Washington.  Contact information for him is here.  (a template for email)  There is also information for phone and fax contact at that link. Phone:  360-902-4111 TTY/TDD users should contact the Washington Relay Service at 711 or 1-800-833-6388. Fax:   360-753-4110 Email a copy of your note to  Insle’s senior polilcy adviser Andi Smith at [email protected] We have only a couple days to get this message to the Governor’s Office. Below is a copy of Bastard Nation’s letter to Governor  Inslee sent on April 17.  Send us a copy of your letter  to comments below, and  we’ll  post it here. Kill HB1525! Continue Reading →

BASTARD NATION ACTION ALERT STOP WASHINGTON HB1525 AND SB5118  SAY NO TO CONTINUED AND EXPANDED DISCLOSURE VETOESDISTRIBUTE FREELY! The State of Washington currently has two bills running, one in the House and the other the Senate, promoted by politicians as OBC access bills. They are not! It is true that both bills, “open” OBC  access  to the majority of  pre-1994 adoptees, who are currently barred, except by court order from access.    Importantly, however   the bills  continue to maintain the current sealed records system  (1) with an expanded Affidavit of Disclosure procedure (Disclosure Veto)  and (2) a misnamed  “contact preference form” which acts as a DV on top of the Affidavits that covers all adoptees, no matter when they were born or adopted.  Both authorize third parties to bar the state from releasing  the birth certificate of adoptees to whom they pertain.  Only four (4) Affidavits of Disclosure have been filed  in Washington since 1993, and those were filed in June 2012 in what appears to be an attempt by opponents to derail enactment of a similar bill last session. Legislators prefer to hold the  rights of thousands of the state’s adoptees hostage to “protect” the vague  “interests”  and comfort zone of  four anonymous persons. Washington legislators have made it clear that Continue Reading →

Below is Bastard Nation’s testimony in opposition to SB5118 submitted to the House Judiciary Committee for the March 26, hearing.  It it somewhat different from last week’s  SB 1525. Both bills are bad, each in their own way! SB 5118 TestimonyAdoptee access to their own original birth certificates Washington State House of RepresentativesJudiciary Committee March 26 2013 OPPOSE Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization is the largest adoptee civil rights organization in the United States. We support only full unrestricted access for all adopted persons, to their original birth certificates (OBC). We do not support any restrictions such as the Affidavit of Non-Disclosure, Disclosure Vetoes (DV), Contact Vetoes (CV), white-outs, or any other form of restricted access to a true copy of the original birth certificate. SB 5118 does not support the civil and human right of adult citizens who were adopted to unconditional and unrestricted access to their original birth certificate. The Senate Human Services & Corrections Committee did at one point propose a substitute bill* that citizens throughout Washington State, this entire nation and Bastard Nation would have, and did support. That substitute version has since been amended and the bill now continues the State of Washington’s discriminatory Continue Reading →