From the editorial page of today’s Providence Journal:
People in the Senate have been blocking change on a number of fronts. For instance, the Senate leadership last year absurdly wanted to change the bill to allow access to original birth certificates only to those 18 or over and born after Jan. 1, 2011! That largely defeats the purpose of the clean bill above…
We implore the Senate to stop holding up this legislation. It should promptly pass Senate Bill 0361 (the sister House version is H 5453) and let adoptees know this vital information about themselves.
Read the entire editorial and voice your support at the link above!
H5453 will be heard in RI House Judiciary on April 12. Bastard Nation will submit our support testimony this week and later post it on Daily Bastardette and the Bastard Nation blog page.
For more information on submitting your own written testimony for H5453 contact:
Roberta Di Mezza
Committee Secretary
401-222-2258
Also contact Judiciary Committee members. Go here now for our action alert and committee contact information.
Make Rhode Island #7!
ADDENDA: I was in a hurry yesterday and forgot the add the caveat that the editorial stresses medical history–again. It is imperative that medical history never be used in any argument for records access. It has no relation to our right to our own OBCs. No one has a right to someone else’s medical history. Stressing this potential “benefit” of OBC access dilutes the rights message, and can end in laws that create anonymous registries and other anti-rights legislation.
Medical history arguments are as specious as opposition claims that adoptees will “track down” parents and harm them. All rights have consequences, but cannot be restored, “granted” or denied on grounds of potential reactions.