Tag Archives: HB7

I attended the Sub HB 7 hearing today before the Ohio House Health Committee. I’ll write about it tomorrow. Being an academic by training, Bastardette loves footnotes. Unfortunately, Blogger does funky things with footnotes so I just cut and pasted their text at the end. I have not included the attachments since they were in chart form which Blogger definitely doesn’t like. BEA BUCKEYES FOR EQUAL [email protected]/beaohioIDENTITY RIGHTS FOR ALL OHIO ADOPTEES SUBMITTED TESTIMONYAPRIL 30, 2008HOUSE HEALTH COMMITTEESUB HB 7 IN SUPPORT OF RESTORATION OF LANGUAGE FROM ORIGINAL HB 7: UNRESTRICTED ORIGINAL BIRTH CERTIFICATE ACCESS FOR ALL OHIO ADOPTEES Buckeye for Equal Access (BEA) is a voluntary group of adopted adults, birthparents, adoptive parents, and others connected to Ohio through adoption. We advocate unrestricted access to the unfalsified and unredacted original birth certificates (obc) upon request, for all Ohio adoptees. No exceptions. Our membership includes people from Akron, Columbus, Cleveland, Youngstown, Heath, Fostoria, Marion, Lakemore, Toledo, Concord and all points in between. BEA is extremely disappointed that unrestricted access to the obc included in HB 7 has been deleted from the sub bill. We ask the committee to amend the sub bill to restore records access with the exact language Continue Reading →

I testified before the Ohio House Health Committee yesterday morning on HB 7. Below is my testimony. I had to keep it sort so much of what I wanted to say has been left out I included a legislative packet with my presentation which I hope the leggies read. A few comments first: This was the second hearing for HB7 [pdf] (analysis here. The first hearing, last week, was the sponsor hearing where Rep. Brinkman spoke on behalf of his bill. Yesterday’s hearing was rather short notice. Six proponents spoke and others sat in support. Betsie Norris, director of Adoption Network Cleveland presented the case for unrestricted access and answered several questions about veto “protection” and reunion registeries. She was great! First mother, Jean Hood, also from Cleveland, spoke of her experience as first mom and reunion. Jake Teschler, longtime Columbus adoptee rights advocate also spoke on behalf of the bill. Amom in a very open adoption and This Woman’s Work blogger Dawn Friedman (Columbus) addressed the importance of maintaining links between biological and adoptive families and that sealed records have no place in healty adoption practice. John Adams addressed medical issues. Chris Ryan had to leave for work before Continue Reading →