Adoptees closer to OBC access in MA and HI--Write right now!

Lorraine 

Good news to report on two clean bills restoring the right of adopted individuals to their original birth certificates (OBC), and thus the right to know and claim their original identities, ancestors and true histories. 

In Massachusetts, a clean bill (no veto, no inane restrictive amendments) passed out of the legislature's Joint Committee on Public Health the other day. Now it goes to the full Senate and House for a vote (2 different bills, same result), at a date yet to be designated before the end of the session, July 31st. This legislation will close the gap that exists between the OBC haves--adoptees born before July 17, 1974 (when access closed) and after January 1, 2008--and the have-nots--those born between July 17, 1974 and 2008. Thus this new bill would cover those adoptees between ages 42 and 8, those caught in the squeeze when the legislature partially opened their records. Sounds good to us!

Do adoptees have a right to their birth certificates? VOTE NOW.

UPDATE: LINK TO VIDEO

Bill of Rights for adoptees pushed in Albany

Lorraine at public hearing on adoptee bill

Do you believe adopted individuals should have the right to access their original birth certificates at age 18? A controversial bill in New York would allow just that.  (Several other states are trying to also do the right thing.) Vote here!

The question 160 years ago would have been: Do you believe that people brought here from Africa should be freed from slavery? A controversial bill in Washington would allow just that. Vote here!

The battle is on again in New York to allow adopted people the same rights as the rest of us who are not adopted--the right to know who we were when we were born, who our real* parents are.

Powerful testimony for adoptee OBC access at NY hearing

From left: Carla Rupp, Mike Schoer, Joyce Bahr, Marsha Raffloer and Dennis Sumlin

“If I had known that someday I could meet my daughter it would have been so much easier to sign those papers. My social worker and I went over this point again and again and again. Never, never, could I see her, not ever, time heals all wounds, she would say. It does not heal this one….” So began my testimony yesterday at a New York state assembly hearing on the Adoptee Rights Bill, A909. As I wrote here before, my opening few lines quoted from a transcript of testimony I gave in 1976 at a similar hearing in Albany 38  years ago.

Do birth mothers have the right to know who their children became?

Lorraine

It's legislation time in all of the states and provinces where there is any activity regarding changing the laws. A partial list includes Rhode Island, Missouri, Montana, and of course New Jersey and New York, two states were we've been involved in the process.

But as an adoptee (Robert Wilson) wrote to me recently, why aren't we working for access to the new name and identity