ANOTHER LETTER TO THE INDY LEGISLATORS

have enclosed documentation from Ohio's HB 7 and Maine's adoptee access laws. I am also including information on Oregon's law. With a contact preference form, it gives the relinquishing parents a say in how they want to be contacted. It does not deny the adoptee access to their own original birth certificate. Adoptees in this country and state are having more and more issues with getting passports, other forms of identification, and even being allowed to vote. Why? Their amended birth certificates look suspect. We as a group need to be able to prove our American citizenship. If you look at Roe vs. Wade, Griswold vs. Connecticut, and even the Eisenstandt case, you will see that these cases represent the right to privacy as the right to be free from governmental interference. This includes state and federal interference. Another case to look at is Brown vs. Board of Education. This case stated that separate is not equal. Adoptees and their families are being treated unequally by the separate laws in the state of Texas. Any one who is not adopted has access to their birth certificates and other documents with their names on them. Adoptees and their families do not have that same access. Currently relinquishing parents do not have a say at all. They do not get a copy of the original birth certificate. If you look at the laws, the records are sealed at finalization of the adoption, not at relinquishment. If a child is never adopted, then their records are never sealed. Keep in mind we are discussing adult adoptees. I am lucky in the sense that my adoptive mother has not only supportive but has encouraged me to take this road. She helped in creating the fighter that I am. Once an adoptee becomes an adult, just like the non adopted, neither set of parents should have any say over the original birth certificate. Look at it this way. Do your parents control your birth certificate? No they don't. The same laws should apply to adoptees. Truthfully it is not that hard to find in Texas. I have done it five times in the last six months. Its been both relinquishing parents and adoptees. I have even had an adoptive parent wanting to open the adoption of their child. All it takes is someone finding someone like me to help them look.

The state can earn money by just providing copies of the original birth certificate. Here is a video about Oregon's Measure 58. It also shows how New Hampshire handled their financial report on it.

This is Oregon's official website on the statistical information on the records issued:

http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/ph/chs/order/58update.shtml

Here is what the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute said about both relinquishing mothers and adoptee rights. They quoted 90% of relinquishing mothers wanting contact.

http://www.adoptioninstitute.org/publications/2006_11_Birthparent_Study_All.pdf
http://www.adoptioninstitute.org/publications/2007_11_For_Records.pdf

Here is the information for the New Hampshire debate and subsequent passage of their law.
Its all on You tube but its very informative. Janet Allen was essentially in the passing of this bill. You will see that it did not cost the state any extra money. This state has not had any issues with stalking adoptees or relinquishing parents.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHB0mCSnRE4 part one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDv4EBe9wcE part two
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfBMiKGUDLs part three

Here is my rough raw data that I gathered on the Oregon and New Hampshire Laws.

OREGON STATISTICAL INFORMATION
ADOPTEE ACCESS LAWS
# OF RECORDS # OF RECORDS # OF NO CONTACT # OF CONTACT
YEAR REQUESTED PROCESSED PREFERENCE THRU CI
2001 5832 5565 79 (1.4%) 27 (0.4%)
2002 6722 6439 80 (1.2%) 28 (0.4%)
2003 7459 7296 81 (1.1%) 29 (0.4%)
2004 8021 7811 81 (1.0%) 28 (0.4%)
2005 8486 8190 83 (1.0%) 29(0.4%)

OREGON STATISTICAL INFORMATION
ON ADOPTION

YEAR # OF ADOPTIONS
1998 849
1999 922
2000 831
2001 1071
2002 1118
2003 854
2004 943
2005 1033

The law went into effect in May 2001. Adoptions have not gone back down to the level of 1998.


NEW HAMPSHIRE STATISTICAL INFORMATION
ADOPTEE ACCESS LAWS
# OF RECORDS # OF CONTACT # OF NO CONTACT
YEAR PROCESSED THRU CI PREFERENCE
2005 778 6 (0.7%) 11 (1.4%)
2006 137 1 (0.7%) 1 (0.7%)
2007 139 0 (0.0%) 0 (0.0%)
2008 91 0 (0.0%) 0 (0.0%)

It was in 2005 that the law allowed adoptee access to their records in New Hampshire.

You can check their statistics with the following link.

http://www.sos.nh.gov/vitalrecords/Preadoption%20birth%20records.html#progress
http://www.sos.nh.gov/vitalrecords/Publications/Contact%20Preference%20Form.pdf contact preference form

http://www.sos.nh.gov/vitalrecords/Publications/Medical%20History.pdf birth history form

This is how I would like our bill to look like:

http://gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2004/SB0335.html (New Hampshire)

It gives the adoptees their OBC. Relinquishing parents have their say on the contact portion of it. Contact is already legislated in the law in the form of stalking and harassment laws. This will increase adoptions in our state and it will decrease abortions. Our abortion is second highest in the nation. This is even more obvious in Oregon where none of the federal regulations that have been passed did not affect the statistics in Oregon.

If you need to ask me any further questions, please contact me.