Actions Speak Louder than Words: The Evan B. Donaldson Strikes Out on HuffPo

Wednesday (January 12) the Huffington Post published a blog, A Civil Right: Adoptees Have a Right to Access Their Own Birth Certificates by Adam Pertman, director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. In it, Mr. Pertman calls for the restoration of the right of adoptees to their own original birth certificates.

Or does he?

Only after 3 1/2 paragraphs, in which Mr. Pertman discusses slavery, suffrage and DADT, does he get around to adoptees (not bastards) and our obcs. To the casual reader, with little or no background on deformist history, the piece may make a good read. Unfortunately it isn't.

Mr. Pertman simply continues the Donaldson's spurious claim to support obc access for all, while it happily works for passage of bills that restrict access for some, leaving classes of bastards behind to float in a black hole. For instance, last year Mr. Pertman delivered eloquent testimony before a New Jersey House committee hearing declaring the right of all adoptees, without restriction, to their original birth certificates Unfortunately, he was testifying in support of A1406, a deform bill that contains disclosure and contact vetoes (even worse, used interchangeably; that is, a poor bastard with a contact veto slapped on her will be unable to obtain her obc). That bill also seals by default the records of all individuals dumped under the state's "safe haven" law, despite the fact that most of them were babies born in hospitals to identified parents and are what quaintly used to be called "boarder babies," left behind at hospitals for any number of reasons, often related to serious health problems.

While Mr. Pertman in his original HuffPo blog is unclear if he supports compromise, he unfuzzies his beliefs in later comments after being taken to task by a brigade of Bastard Nationals and friends including BN co-founder Shea Grimm, Ron Morgan, Sabina Kneisly, Lori Jeske, Deni Castellucci, Erik Smith, Maureen Flatley and myself who are quite familiar with the Donaldson's questionable actions regarding adoptee rights. Mr. Pertman writes (my emphasis):

Alas. Shoul­d we always fight to get what's right for everyone? Unequivoca­lly -- and with all our might. When proponents of the status quo will only accede to language giving 95 percent what they deserve, however, the question is this: Should we accept the compromise as progress and then stand united to get the rest or, instead, should we reject it in the name of purity and expend our energy criticizin­g each other as sellouts?”

and in a clear attempt to co-opt an earlier comment by Flatley, who didn't say what he claims she said:

I'd like to start today by thanking those of you who questioned my "something or nothing" explanatio­n of compromise access legislatio­n when it comes to a vote (we obviously should fight mightily for "clean" bills until that point); my intent came through to most readers, but obviously not to everyone, so clearly my wording could have been better. Maureen Flatley's "now or later" constructi­on is more accurate and on-point, and I'm grateful for it. We should take the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" now as an important step, for instance, and we should work hard to get full equality later -- though not much later, please. That was the reality (and still is) in the quest for full equality for people of color in our country, too, and it likely will be ours in the adoption realm -- though, again, it's incumbent on us to go back and finish the job everywhere there have been compromise­s that left anyone behind. We all share the same dream. I hope, today, we can acknowledg­e that much.

One more of those clarifications and Mr. Pertman will find himself in a deeper hole than the Left Behinds. Let's hope he doesn't run into them down there.

As of this writing, over 850 comments have been posted to Mr. Pertman's blog. I've posted over 50 comments myself, and others have posted more.

My first post was written quickly and divided in 2 parts due to space limitations. Part 2 posted within a few minutes. Part 1 was deep-sixed upon receipt. Cully Ray found it, but to the best of my knowledge, no one else did, and it does not appear on my personal HuffPo Activity page. Likewise, Joanne Wolf Small's comment appeared momentarily (I saw it!) and has disappeared into Arianna's ether.

At the moment I don't intend to blog much more about Mr. Pertman's blog here, but I wanted you to read the comments HuffPo doesn't want you to read. The whole of my half-dropped comments are here, followed by Joanne's lost post, published here with her consent.

PART 1:

Actions speak louder than words. Mr. Pertman and the Donaldson, while they talk a good line, have repeatedly rejected the core principle of adoptee rights--original birth certificate (obc) access for all, by supporting, endorsing and testifying in favor of restrictive legislation that
"permits" some adopted people to receive theirs obcs while leaving others behind to be stigmatized and blacklisted by their own state governments and denying them full citizen
privilege vis a vis obc access. The EBD and their reformist ilk speak out of both sides of their mouths:

Left: adoptees deserve their own obcs.

Right: Except some don't.

Left: No harm can come from obc access.

Right: "Birthmothers" must be protected from their own offspring; we support disclosure and contact vetoes and other forms of government document censorship through redaction.

Left: No legal promise or guarantee of confidentiality//privacy/ anonymity"birthparents" do not exist.

Right: We must honor promises of confidentiality/privacy/anonymity made to "birthparents."

Left: no adult/ parent has the right to deny another adult/offspring their own obc.

Right: We support a newly created "special right" of adults/parents to do so.

PART 2
Reformists refuse to develop their own arguments and language. They validate the enemy and regurgitate­ opposition language in their own bad bills/laws (latest examples IL and NJ) that monitor personal relationsh­ips and continue to segregate the adopted from the not-adopte­d. They support government­, bureaucracy­y and interference in our lives, which not only promotes the myth of the dangerous, angry adoptee, but rejects the idea of the autonomous adoptee and self-owner­ship and responsibility.

Worst of all, reformists refuse to ask for what they really want, take what they can get, and screw everybody else. See. Mr. Pertman's "giving women who placed their children for adoption the ability to officially declare if they do not want to be contacted" which in effect in many bills is a disclosure veto no matter what reformists argue to the contrary. So, while reformists claim they really want everybody to have their obc, we're willing to let a few slide into the government­'s backhole. That, folks, guts the entire reformist claim of adoptee rights, exposing their game as nothing more than political farce.

The real adoptee rights movement has its own voice and is led by adopted persons, bastardize­d by the state. This is OUR fight. We have nothing to do with policy wonks and do-gooders who make money off of adoption, are interested only in their own organization building. have nothing to lose, and get in the way of the real rights restoration­.”

Joanne Wolf Small:

Mr. Pertman, I say you cannot have it both ways. Either you are for equal rights or you are not. Arguments against adopted adult citizens having direct access to their original birth record are nothing more than rationalizations in defense of discrimination. Needed now is legislation restoring the rights of all adopted people to direct access to a copy of their original birth record. Nothing more, nothing less! Let us not forget beginning in the 1930’s many states abrogated adopted people’s rights. It is 2011. Now those rights are theirs to reclaim. If you cannot or will not support them fully, please step aside.

Actions speak louder than words. Thus far, the mushy words of the Donaldson and associated groups have done little to restore, but done much to hinder the restoration of the RIGHT of obc access. Thanks to these groups, the work begun over ten years ago in Oregon by Bastard Nation and others, has been co-opted, distorted, and turned on its head with a confusing array of deformer sponsored or supported compromises that place these groups smack in the middle of the enemy's camp. When deformists agree to and promote legislation that acquiesce to enemy claims of "birthparent" anonymity, applaud special made-up "rights" for "birthparents," legitimize legalized baby dumps they claim to oppose, and kowtow to adoption industry and special interest lobbies, they have more in common with the National Council for Adoption and the ACLU than Bastard Nation, CalOpen, IllinoisOpen and other "purists" who hold the line, reject compromise, and pull bad bills rather than sell out Class Bastard. Once the compromise is in, the game is over and some Bastards are forever abandoned.

Here is Shea Grimm response on HuffPo to a New Jersey deformer claiming "they" can come back and pick up the Left Behinds:

.... States that pass vetoes bills never then later pass unconditio­nal bills, and in fact they'd be unlikely to survive a court challenge even if they did. In the Oregon 'Doe' case, the state had no veto provisions prior to Measure 58 (unconditi­onal access). Therefore the court could and did determine that there was no establishe­d 'right to privacy' or anonymity for birthparen­ts in the law in that state. But once you enact vetoes, you're essentiall­y codifying that theretofor­e non-existe­nt right with the disclosure veto law itself. People who actually have been working on this issue for years understand this. In states like Ohio, for example, which has a multi-tier­ed veto/acces­s system, reformers understand and are coping with the reality that the only unconditio­nal bill that will likely ever pass judicial muster is a propspecti­ve one, precisely because of the previous veto legislatio­n. Moreover the more veto legislatio­n that passes, the more it's seen as the desireable status quo. If people would simply reunite around adoptee rights concept after Oregon and Alabama instead of continuing to flog the same veto bills they'd been peddling for decades, we wouldn't be in this mess.

This isn't about being a purist. It's about whether you think adoptees are entitled to the due process and equal protection of the law. If you believe that, you simply cannot support a veto bill because the veto provisions themselves violate those rights.

I'll be writing more about the enemy within over the coming year.

My Unicorn by Guest Blogger Justin Mitchell Bennett

Another year draws to a close, and thankfully, another Christmas has passed. I have never been one to celebrate Christmas, and perhaps the most memorable, and darkest had been the one experienced, December 24th, 2006. I'd sat atop Twin Peaks, in San Francisco, California, the cold wind that night chilling me to the bone. As I'd ridden a motorcycle there, I couldn't just hop into a car and turn on the heater.

For many, Christmas may be a time to be among family, yet that evening. I'd never felt so isolated, and alone – as though the chill of death surrounded me. I had returned from an Iraq deployment earlier in the year, and though I would depart San Francisco shortly into 2007, during my time in San Francisco, I'd made progress, on a lifelong quest, which to an adoptee, may be referred to as “The Search.” Perhaps part of what made that Christmas so dark for me, I had reunited, via telephone, with one half of my biological family, an Uncle. Sadly, I'd been informed of my birth father passing away. Mourning the death of someone you'd never known, and whose passing had occurred years prior, coupled with understanding that any hope of ever meeting one of your natural parents had been permanently taken away, can be a devastating emotional combination. Beyond those feelings though, other events had also been set in motion; the culmination of which happened this year. On July 4, 2010, on a long distance phone call, from Iraq, back to California, to my adoptive father, I'd been read the contents of my Original Birth Certificate. Like an elusive unicorn, many adoptees continue to have a sealed birth record, and only after a very long battle, had I been able to obtain mine.

A friend of mine, “Wheelchair Tony,” from Santa Cruz, CA had told me once, in one of many a long walk up and down Pacific Ave, that the point of college happened to be developing oneself to the point of being able to get things done. Of the myriad of tools available to humanity, perhaps the greatest that I'd discovered, would have to be writing. For any who have read, Thomas Paine's Common Sense, writing can indeed create nations. Specific to the adoptee, perhaps the best work I've read, would have to be Shea Grimm's Search Series – The Definitive Guide to Self-Empowered Adoptee Search.

I followed many of the suggestions. When dealing with adoption, and search, one must cultivate a huge amount of patience, especially in dealing with bureaucracy.

In January, 2008, I'd requested my non-identifying information from San Francisco Human Services Agency (HSA), formerly San Francisco Department of Social Services, the agency that had handled my adoption. For those interested, California Form AD904. In August 2008, I still hadn't received anything, and after once a month follow-up phone calls, the social worker couldn't find me “on the list.” It's amazing what a polite and tactful, yet firm email to Mr. Trent Rhorer, Executive Director of SF HSA (and cc'd to the Deputy Directors), documenting one's dialogs with HSA can achieve. I had completed 6 years in the Air Force by this point in time, and the mantras of, “Resolve problems at the lowest possible level” and, “Have faith in the system” were both well ingrained in me. Knowing when and how to escalate can only be described as a fine art, which I'm still learning.

With my non-identifying information in hand, new situations arose. I discovered that I had another biological half-brother, sharing our common birth mother, born prior to me in the State of New York. New York State (NYS) has similar laws to California, in maintaining both sealed records, and offering a mutual consent registry. In December 2008, I felt the bitter shortcomings of mutual consent registry in dealing with Inter-state separated adoptees.

On December 12, 2008, Mr. Peter M. Carucci, Director, State of New York, Department of Health wrote me, “...As an 'Adoptee' born and adopted in another state, in order to register as a 'Sibling', you MUST furnish the Adoption Registry with a copy of your Original Birth Certificate (listing the names of your biological parents), your Amended Birth Certificate (listing the names of your adoptive parents), and a copy of the Order or Adoption from the Court that finalized your adoption.” (sic)

Alas, I needed my own unicorn, my Original Birth Certificate, in order to register against a long lost sibling from New York State.

Life has a funny way of intertwining itself sometimes, and my active engagement in searching took a back seat, with the arrival of my daughter, Rowan, born Jan 2009. I continued researching, in my space time, how to Petition the Court for Release of Adoption Records. Also in 2009, CA-CARE, California Adoption Reform Effort, Assembly Member Fiona Ma, and California Assembly Bill 372 came to my attention. In the end, CA-CARE succumbed to supporting a really bad piece of legislation, that I'm grateful didn't pass. CA-CARE came in with guns blazing, but didn't fully research the legal situation in California, nor co-ordinate with other groups' prior attempts to change CA's sealed record laws.

In February 2009, I did successfully petition Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco, Unified Family Court, for the Release of Adoption Records, obtaining the Honorable Donna J. Hitches's signature. Recall the aforementioned power in a signature. In my Adoption Records, I needed to obtain two items: First, my Order of Adoption, which Unified Family Court would have kept a record of, and secondly, my Original Birth Certificate, kept with California Department of Vital Records. Enter more dealings with bureaucracy.

May 1, 2009, I phoned Unified Family Court, in a follow up to my Order of Adoption. The clerk informed me, that my Order of Adoption had not been included in my Adoption Records. I puzzled over this, deducing that either someone had forgotten to include this rather important document back in 1979, when my adoption had been finalized, or that strange as it sounded, I entertained the notion that my adoption had not been finalized.

I proceeded to write a letter to both: San Francisco Human Services Agency, and California Department of Social Services, Adoptions Support Unit. As I'd had prior dealings with SF HSA, their response came back first, routed through Unified Family Court – a certified copy of my Order of Adoption.

The last piece of this puzzle remained, my Original Birth Certificate. I remember, sitting one day at my favorite coffee shop, Kinley's in El Paso, TX in spring, 2009. In my hand, I held the Order for Release of Adoption Records, signed, and with raised seal. I remember thinking, “It couldn't be that easy could it?” All I had left to do, was request a copy of my birth certificate, along with a copy of the order I held in my hand. 27 April, 2009, I sent a letter to California Office of Vital Records, for the last piece, my unicorn, my Original Birth Certificate. For some odd reason, I requested five copies.

I endured many hardships in my personal life, in waiting for my Original Birth Certificate. My wife, Rebecca, left me, July 2009, taking my then, six month old daughter with her, and thus far, that's been the last time I saw Rowan. My unit, with the Army (I'd switched branches in 2008), deployed to Iraq in November 2009, and all the while, California sat with my request. I kept with me, in going to Iraq, a postcard vital records had sent me, indicating that my request had been received 7 July 2009, with a tracking number, and a statement about the average wait time being 12 weeks.

12 May 2010, in an email to California Office of Vital Records, I inquired as to the status of my request. Over a year had passed since I'd sent my request, though in many ways, it felt like a lifetime ago. I'd had the sense to leave an alternate address with vital records in November, prior to deployment, using my adoptive father's California address.

CA Office of Vital Records wrote back on 13 May 2010, “I show that the request was mailed on 05/06/10 to your old address. I have updated the request to your new address in the event it gets returned to our office we will forward to the new address.”

Eventually, my Original Birth Certificate did end up at my adoptive father's house. I remember phoning him on 4 July 2010, and hearing him read it to me, hearing him read the name, my name, Justin Samuel Roland Chase, a name I'd not heard in over 30 years.

Sometime later, in August, during block leave, I rode my motorcycle, from El Paso, TX to San Francisco, CA to pick up my OBC. When I have inclination, I still need to follow up with NYS, but I'm in no hurry to do so. Divorce proceedings, and seeing my daughter again has taken precedence.

Justin Mitchell Bennett, (born Justin Samuel Roland Chase), has been a member of the US Armed Forces for the past 10 years, specializing in Electronics, Computers and

Communications. In his spare time, Justin uses the Internet to conduct genealogical research, people searches, and legal research specific to adoption, in addition to reading blogs and posts of others touched by adoption.

Justin can be reached at http://www.facebook.com/justin.mitchell.bennett, where he keeps in touch with many of his friends.

Check out Once was Von: Interview with Joanne Wolf Small

Blogger Von has a nice interview with long-time bastard rights activist Joanne Wolf Little, Adoption Mystique, titled after Joanne's hard hitting book of the same name.

I was "introduced" to Joanne in 1980, via an article she'd written in a psych publication a few years earlier. She was the first person I ever "knew" who politicized the adoption experience and articulated how we'd been screwed and bastaradized by the state After I read Adoption Mystique, I thought, she's said it all! What can we add to it? Damn!

I really liked Joanne's answer to Von's question: Do you believe the stigma of adoption and of illegitimacy have changed" but I'll let you go over there and read her reply yourself.

Joanne is a long time member of Bastard Nation and a member of Bastard Nation's Legislative Committee.

In 2007 I wrote about Joanne here (scroll down).

Bastard Nation Action Alert: Write NJ Legislators Today; Vote NO on A1406/S799!

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BASTARD NATION ACTION ALERT!

STOP DISCLOSURE VETO/WHITE OUT LEGISLATION IN NEW JERSEY!!!

ASK THE NEW JERSEY ASSEMBLY: VOTE NO ON A1406/S799

Read full text of A1406 here.
Read full text of S799 here

A1406 (companion to S799 already passed in the NJ Senate) is scheduled for a floor vote sometime in the next few weeks. Proponents of this bad bill hoped to have it on the schedule for a January 6, 2011 vote, but it's not on the list.

Please contact Assembly members immediately and urge them to VOTE NO ON A1406/S799. (Contact information below.) If you are from or in New Jersey or have a New Jersey connection, mention it in your communication.

Be sure to put: "Vote No On Adoptee Birthright Bill "in the header

Bastard Nation's letter to the Assembly is here.

A1406/S799 is: restrictive, discriminatory, creates a new, special and temporary ”right” for "birthparents," and exempts the state's adopted adults from equal protection and treatment regarding the release of the government-generated public record of their births.

THE BILL

*includes a 12- month open enrollment period, starting after the Department of Health releases regs for A1406/S799 implementation, that allows "birthparents," to file disclosure vetoes (DV) before obcs, past and future, are unsealed

*authorizes the state to replace the original birth certificat, of those subjected to the DV with a mutilated copy of the obc with all identifying information, including the address of the parent(s) at the time of birth (if it appears on the cert) deleted.

*requires "birthparents" who file a disclosure veto to submit a family history and a possibly illegal intrusive medical form to activate the veto.

*requires "birthparents" who file a "contact preference form," which, in fact, acts as a disclosure veto, to fill out the same family history and possibly illegal intrusive medical history form to activiate the veto.

*seals by default all "safe haven" birth certificates, even though most "safe haven" babies are born in hospitals to identified mothers.

*requires adoption agencies and adoption lawyers to receive a written veto status report from the state before they can release identifying information to adoptees

*requires the state to mount an "information" campaign to inform "birthparents" of their "protection" options

A1406/S799 IS NOT AN OBC ACCESS BILL.
A1406/S799 IS NOT ABOUT RIGHTS.
A1406/S799 IS ABOUT PRIVILEGE

Bastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organization opposes legislation that denies any adult adoptee access to his or her own original birth records on par with all other citizens. Please let the Assembly know that this issue is not about relationships between adoptees and their "birthparents." It is about basic human and civil rights.

Passage of bad legislation is New Jersey could easily undermine efforts of dedicated reformers who are holding the line for adoptee rights in other states.

New Jersey's A1406/S799 is an abomination in light of the restoration of the right of original birth certificate access to all persons adopted in Oregon, Alabama, and New Hampshire, and Maine. Adult adoptees and all who support adoptee rights should stand united for unrestricted access laws and not sell out just to get a bill passed! Disclosure veto legislation is unethical and unjust!

Please e-mail the New Jersey Assembly today and urge members to VOTE NO ON A1406/S799.

CONTACT INFORMATION
(write one letter, cut and past for all)

AsmAlbano@njleg.org, AsmMilam@njleg.org, ASmDeAngelo@njleg.org, AsmGusciora@njleg.org, AsmChivukula@njleg.org, AsmEgan@njleg.org, AsmBarnes@njleg.org, AsmDiegnan@njleg.org, AsmCoughlin@njleg.org, AsmWisniewski@njleg.org, AsmCryan@njleg.org, AsmGreen@njleg.org, AsmMcKeon@njleg.org, AsmCaputo@njleg.org, AsmCoutinho@njleg.org, AsmBurzichelli@njleg.org, AsmMainor@njleg.org, AsmODonnell@njleg.org, AsmPrieto@njleg.org, AsmRamos@njleg.org, AsmGiblin@njleg.org,

AsmSchaer@njleg.org, AsmJohnson@njleg.org, AsmMoriarty@njleg.org, AsmWilson@njleg.org,AsmGreenwald@njleg.org, AsmConaway@njleg.org, ASmConners@njleg.org, AsmHolzapfel@njleg.org, AsmWolfe@njleg.org, AsmRible@njleg.org,AsmOScanlon@njleg.org, AsmThompson@njleg.org, AsmBiondi@njleg.org, AsmAmodeo@njleg.org, AsmPolistina@njleg.org, asmbramnick@njleg.org, AsmDiMaio@njleg.org, AsmPeterson@njleg.org, AsmChiusano@njleg.org, AsmBucco@njleg.org, AsmCarroll@njleg.org, AsmDeCroce@njleg.org, AsmWebber@njleg.org, AsmDancer@njleg.org, AsmMalone@njleg.org, AsmSchroeder@njleg.org, AsmRumana@njleg.org, AsmRusso@njleg.org, AsmDelany@njleg.org, AsmRudder@njleg.org, AsmRumpf@njleg.org,

AsmFuentes@njleg.org, AsmDiCicco@njleg.org, AswWatsonColeman@njleg.org,

AswQuijano@njleg.org, AswStender@njleg.org, AswJasey@njleg.org, AswTucker@njleg.org, AswSpencer@njleg.org, AswRiley@njleg.org, AswQuigley@njleg.org, AswRodriguez@njleg.org, AswOliver@njleg.org, AswEvans@njleg.org,AswPou@njleg.org, AswVainieriHuttle@njleg.org,

AswVoss@njleg.org, AswWagner@njleg.org, AswLampitt@njleg.org,

AswAngelini@njleg.org, AswCasagrande@njleg.org , AswHandlin@njleg.org,

AswCoyle@njleg.org, AswMunoz@njleg.org, AswMcHose@njleg.org, AswVandervalk@njleg.org,

AswGove@njleg.org

ALSO WRITE TO GOVERNOR CHRISTIE

Drop a line to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie now and ask him to veto A1406/S799 if it hits his desk. Letters should be no more than 250 words. Use this template : http://www.state.nj.us/governor/contact/

or contact him at:

Office of the Governor
PO Box 001
Trenton, NJ 08625
609-292-6000

Bastard Nation's letter to Governor Christie is here.

Bastard Nation Letter to NJ Legislature: Vote No on A1406/S799

Dear __________:

Privilege is the opposite of right

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization is the largest adoptee civil rights organization in the United States. We support full, unrestricted access for all adopted persons, upon request, of their own true, unaltered original birth certificates (OBC). We oppose A1406/S799: the Adoptees' Birthright Bill.

A1406/S799 permits some New Jersey adopted adults to receive their true and accurate original birth certificates. Others, through the compromise language of the birthparent disclosure veto, will receive only a false and mutilated government document with the name and address of the parent(s) bureaucratically excised by the Department of Health and Senior Services by order of the birthparent(s).

Bastard Nation rejects this special veto right of “birthparents” to remove their names from the birth certificates of their own adult offspring. No other parent has that right. Why should “birthparents,” whose parental rights were terminated decades ago, have different rights and rules?

A1406/S799 is promoted as an “adoptees' birthright” and OBC “access bill.” Unfortunately, it is neither. The bill reinforces out-dated adoption secrecy through the disclosure veto. It also seals by default, the OBCs of babies surrendered under the state’s “safe haven” program (apparently whether they are adopted later or not) even though a good number of these children are born to identified parents. What name and “official” state identity papers those never adopted will have is not addressed in the bill.

A1406/S799 requires "birthparents," under specific circumstances, to submit a medical and health history to the state, a requirement that may be illegal under HIPAA and other privacy laws. No one has a right to anyone’s medical history. Medical histories have nothing to do with birth certificates and have no connection to the right of all adopted persons to their own OBC.

Finally, A1406/S799 includes a fiscal bill of $90,000 to advertise the law if it is passed. At a time when Governor Christie is proposing massive cuts in education and social welfare programs and instituting wage caps, this advertising campaign is an unconscionable waste of taxpayer money.

For nearly three decades we have heard the claim that biological parents have been promised anonymity from their own offspring who were placed for adoption, yet not one document has ever been presented in New Jersey or any other state to show that so-called promise.
In fact, courts have found that “birthparents do not have any legal expectation of anonymity.” (Doe v Sundquist, 943 F. Supp. 886, 893-94 (M.D. Tenn. 1996)) (06 F.3d 703, 705 (6th Cir. 1997)) (Does v Oregon, Summary Judgment Oregon State Court of Appeals) (Does v. State of Oregon, 164 Or.App. 543, 993 P.2d 833, 834 (1999)). Moreover, OBCs are sealed at the time of adoption finalization not surrender, and the birth certificate of any child not adopted is left unsealed and available to him or her. If an adoption is disrupted, the birth certificate is unsealed.

Kansas and Alaska have never sealed original birth certificates. Since 1999 four states have restored to adoptees the unrestricted right to records and identity access: Oregon through ballot initiative, and Alabama, New Hampshire, and Maine through legislation. Of the four states that have repealed sealed records laws, approximately 17,000 OBCs have been released with no ill consequences. Why should New Jersey buck the tide and pass a bill that continues to treat adoptee access to their own birth certificates as a privilege not a right--a right that the non-adopted enjoy without a second thought?

Rights are for all citizens, not favors doled out to some by government and special interest groups. A1406/S799 does not restore the right to the OBC once enjoyed by all New Jersey adoptees.

Please vote DO NOT PASS on A1406/S799. New Jersey does not segregate rights by religion, ethnicity, age, or gender. It should not segregate rights by birth, adoptive status, or parental preference All of the New Jersey's adoptees must enjoy equal protection, due process, and dignity. New Jersey adoptees deserve better than this current legislation. The all deserve their original birth certificates without restriction.

For the record, Bastard Nation does not support an alternative bill, introduced on December2010 (no number issued as of this writing) which also restricts the right of OBC access.

Yours truly,

Marley E. Greiner
Executive Chair, Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization

Bastard Nation is dedicated to the recognition of the full human and civil rights of adult adoptees. Toward that end, we advocate the opening to adoptees, upon request at age of majority, of those government documents which pertain to the adoptee's historical, genetic, and legal identity, including the unaltered original birth certificate and adoption decree. Bastard Nation asserts that it is the right of people everywhere to have their official original birth records unaltered and free from falsification, and that the adoptive status of any person should not prohibit him or her from choosing to exercise that right. We have reclaimed the badge of bastardy placed on us by those who would attempt to shame us; we see nothing shameful in having been born out of wedlock or in being adopted. Bastard Nation does not support mandated mutual consent registries or intermediary systems in place of unconditional open records, nor any other system that is less than access on demand to the adult adoptee, without condition, and without qualification.