The South Dakota Senate yesterday defeated SB 152. This was a clean simple bill to restore the right to access original birth certificates to all South Dakota adoptees without restriction. The vote was 22-12. The roll call vote is here.
According to the South Dakota Seal Facebook page, the chief opponent was the South Dakota Eagle Forum. It’s argument: abortion
We haven’t heard from the Eagle Forum since it took a trouncing in the 1996 Doe v Sundquist case Back then, the Tennessee Eagle Forum signed on as an amicus to overturn that state’s partial-access bill, which resulted in the now famous Sundquist decision. Apparently the Eagle Forum hasn’t learned its lesson. Go here for BN’s short review of Sundquist
South Dakota seal writes:
UFFDA!! Senate Bill 152 failed on the Senate Floor today. 22 nays,12 yeas. HUGE turnaround from last year. The strong opponent this time was abortion and the young girl who may been pg and want to keep it a secret. When some of them were speaking, they were saying Adoptive Parent instead of Birthparent, and child instead of Adult, even the sponsor did that. Geeesh. Made me wonder if they were a bunch of kids running the session today. Embarrassing! The bill will be up for reconsideration tomorrow, so if you wouldn’t mind squeaking the wheel before 2pm CST on Wednesday Feb.17th. And you can throw in there for them to not listen to opponent lobbyist Rita Houglum http://www.eagleforum.org/misc/descript.
Please take a few minutes to write to South Dakota Senators again that this bill is about RESTORING the right of all South Dakota adoptees to access their original birth certificate. Nothing else.
Contact:
Go here to get started: http://legis.state.sd.us/email/LegislatorEmail.aspx?MemberID=30s:
Start out with first Senator on the list. Put SB 152 in your email subject line. Write your letter or attach it, click Send, and then in the Drop Down Box, choose next Senator in line and click Send, etc… It’s like an easy cut-&-paste arrangement. All you need is one letter.
Wow, Eagle Forum is interested in American Identity?
What hypocrisy. Eagle is not a friend of adopted adults, to put it mildly. Wonder what they’re afraid of. Sorry to end with a preposition.
Oh, you can join Eagle for $20 – $35. That’s alot considering we’re in a big recession.
Whereas Basterdette whose excellent and exhaustive reporting complete with sources is free.
Keep up the great work, Marley! I hope Eagle reads your blog. They might learn something.