IL HB 5428 DO NOT PASS

URGENT ACTION ALERT – ILLINOIS HB 5428
PLEASE FORWARD FREELY

Illinois HB 5428, the bill that is supposed to help adoptees get their obcs, but doesn’t - is on the move again. It was rushed through the House and passed on the House floor by a vote of 74 – 67. Now it’s going quickly through the Senate. It must be stopped right now in the Judiciary Committee.

The Illinois Judiciary Committee has scheduled a public hearing for HB 5428. It will be held on Tuesday, April 13, at 2:30 pm in Capitol 400, Springfield, IL. We hope that some of you will be able to attend and speak to the committee. This will be our opportunity to speak out and talk directly to these senators.

If public speaking isn’t your thing, then please consider coming anyways because we really need to have the committee members look out into the audience and see a lot of people who object to this bill. Your very presence in that room is extremely important!

We are also asking everyone to write and/or call the committee members before the hearing on the 13th. (Contact Information below)

The only way for Illinois to be a truly open state some day is to stop conditional legislation such as HB 5428 from getting a foot in the door now. We want a state where every single adoptee is free to request his obc, with no restrictions or alterations. We want a state where adoptees will be equal among themselves as well as with all other non-adopted citizens.

We need an unconditional bill to accomplish this goal. HB 5428 won’t help. It is a conditional bill (see specifics below) which will keep some adoptees locked out of the system for good.

The legislators will not revisit adoptee problems any time soon if they can get HB 5428 in the law now. History has proven this to be true.
The legislators do not care about the percentage of adoptees whose birth mothers will file a disclosure veto and keep them from getting a birth certificate. If the law makers really cared, they would change this bill right now so that 100% of Illinois adoptees could get their obcs. The legislators have absolutely no incentive to come back again another year – and they won’t.

Here is the law from Oregon. It is simple, to the point, and does the job. This is the kind of law we want but we will NEVER get it if HB 5428 passes.

“Upon receipt of a written application to the Illinois Dept. of Public Health, any adopted person 21 years of age and older born in the State of Illinois shall be issued a certified copy of his/her unaltered, original and unamended certificate of birth in the custody of the Dept. of Public Health, with procedures, filing fees, and waiting periods identical to those imposed upon non-adopted citizens of the State of Illinois.”

The State of Illinois must no longer be allowed to honor an archaic sealed records law enacted in 1946 that took away from 100% of the adoptees their right to access their original birth certificate without restrictions or falsifications. Now, in 2010, we want the State of Illinois to restore that right to 100% of the adoptees in the state. We want all adoptees to be equal to all other adoptees and to all of the non-adopted citizens when it comes to accessing their birth certificate.

WHAT ARE SOME SPECIFIC OBJECTIONS TO HB 5428?

1. HB 5428 would give birth parents a right to stop an obc (original birth certificate) from being issued to their adoptee. Any birth parent would have an entire year to file a Denial Form. The bill details several ways in which the state will advertise the new bill to try to reach as many birth mothers as possible and let them know about their new option to file a denial form. And remember, these are the very same birth mothers who irrevocably relinquished all legal rights to their children decades ago.

2. The state will allow birth parents to legally veto an obc. Therefore, it follows that the state is actually transferring to birth parents a part of its statutory authority to issue official birth certificates. Birth parents have no legal standing in the law and must not be given any such standing.

3. This bill would permit the state to white-out historical birth information from either a copy or an original document that the state officially issues – both unacceptable.

4. The bill would divide adoptees into two arbitrary categories: those born before January 1, 1946, and those born after. The adoptees born before this date would be allowed to get their obcs without any restrictions or falsifications. Those born after Jan. 1, 1946 will comprise the pool of all adoptees who will be eligible for a birth parent veto.

5. This bill will cost the state a lot of money and the state is nearly broke; it’s laying off teachers and closing public schools right now.

6. HB 5428 is a search and reunion bill – not an adoptee civil and human rights bill. If adoptees want help from the state in search and reunion matters – then let the social workers and the searchers write a separate bill. Search and reunion issues do not belong in a bill to own one’s birth certificate.

7. HB 5428 is a birth mother- rights bill – not an adoptee civil and human rights bill. Birth parents have no standing in the law and should not be given standing in an adoptee bill. If birth mothers want the state to protect their anonymity, then let them write their own bill.

The archaic 1946 law should be repealed. In its place a new and simple law can then be enacted, one similar to the states of Oregon, Alabama, New Hampshire, and Maine. Kansas and Alaska never sealed their records and adopted adults in those states have always been able to freely access their birth certificate. Unsealing obcs for all adoptees can be done very easily. Just ask anyone from these 6 states. They have been no litigation, no birth parent uprisings, no citizens coming back to the legislature demanding that the law be changed, and no social upheaval, as some had predicted.

You can read the full text at: http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/fulltext.asp?DocName=&SessionId=76&GA=96&DocTypeId=HB&DocNum=5428&GAID=10&LegID=50466&SpecSess=&Session=

Status of the bill : http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?DocNum=5428&GAID=10&DocTypeID=HB&LegId=50466&SessionID=76&GA=96

IllinoisOpen Organization
www.ilopen.org

Bastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organization
www.bastards.org

Questions? Please write to anita5000@comcast. net or obc@ilopen.org


CONTACT INFORMATION

We are very much aware that some of these email addresses may not be correct. It is extremely difficult to get any senate email addresses. They “don’t want them to be given out.” So please do the best you can and try and get through to as many as possible.
A short phone call to the senator’s office is an excellent alternative. FAX’s are good too.

ILLINOIS SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
REPUBLICANS
KIRK DILLARD
Phone 217-782-8148 FAX (630)-969-1007
http://dillard.senategop.org/index.php/contact-us-mainmenu-3
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RANDALL M. HULTGREN
Phone 217-782-8022 FAX (217)-782-9586
senatorrandyhultgren@gmail.com.This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
MATT MURPHY

Phone 217-782-4471 FAX (847) 776-1494
http://www.murphy2010.com/connect.aspx
DALE A. RIGHTER
217 – 782-6674 FAX (217)-235-6052
template on personal page
http://www.dalerighter.com/index.php?option=com_contact&view=contact&id=1&Itemid=3


DEMOCRATS

WILLIAM R. HAINE
217-782-5247 FAX (217) 782-5340
whaine@senatedem.state.ilga.gov

TERRY LINK
217-782-8181 FAX (847-735-8184)
senator@link30.org or
tlink@senatedem.state.ilga.gov

MICHAEL NOLAND
217-782-7746 FAX (217) 782-2115
mnoland@senatedem.state.ilga.gov
KWAME RAOUL
217-782-5338 FAX (773) 681-7166
raoulstaff@gmail.com or
kraoul@senatedem.state.ilga.gov

IRA SILVERSTEIN Co-Sponsor of bill
217-782-5500 FAX (217-782-5340)
isilverstein@senatedem.state.ilga.gov

DON HARMON
217-782-8176 FAX ( 708) 848-2022
dharmon@senatedem.state.ilga.gov.
A.J.WILHELMI Chief Sponsor of the bill
217-782-8800 FAX (815) 207-4446

http://ajwilhelmi.com/ajwilhelmi/?page_id=42
campaign page template or
awilhelmi@senatedem.state.ilga.gov

Representative Sara Feigenholtz (D-Chgo) is the main sponsor of the bill in the House of Representatives.

2009 THE YEAR OF THE VELCRO

The 2009 Legislative Session is upon us. I’m unhappy to report that there have been 5 new bills introduced already which contain conditional provisions. Imagine! Right off the bat, five (5) brand new bills contain sections that will prohibit some adoptees from having any access to their original birth certificate.

There is a new brand of deformers afoot, folks. I call them the Velcro deformers. Their official motto is: STICK IT TO ME!

The Velcro deformers have decided to start right out by adding conditions up front which they think the legislators will accept.

Velcro Deformers don’t care about helping 100% of the adoptees in their states. They never did and they never will. They’re just off and running to see if they can pass a bill. And in order to do this, they have decided to “fool” the legislators. They build restrictions right into their original bill. Then they carefully wrap up their entire bill in a shiny silver Velcro-covered package. They stick their fancy conditions and restrictions right onto the top of the Velcro bill, so the legislators will be sure to see how accommodating they are.

What these deformers don’t see is that by handing over a Velcro package to the legislators, they are issuing an open invitation to the lawmakers to stick even more amendments and restrictions onto the bill. The legislator’s motto is “Right Back Atcha.” It will become an open season for amendments.

It will be much easier for our opponents to throw on more conditions and restrictions to a Velcro-wrapped bill instead of a pure bill. After all, the sponsors of the Velcro bill have already given in once at the very beginning. Right? It will be like playing darts blindfolded down at the local pub. No matter your aim; wherever the restriction dart lands, it is going to stick and it will become yet one more obstacle to equal rights for all adopted adults.

“Throw on the disclosure vetoes! Stick on the contact vetoes. Try for some white-outs too.” This is the message that Velcro deformers send to the legislators when they file a conditional bill. “We started you off with a bad bill. See what else you can do to make it worse.”

Velcro Deformers, I think that you must be incredibly naïve or very power hungry or some of each. What are you thinking of when you write your bill, knowing ahead of time that you will be selling some of your fellow brother and sister adoptees down the river? Grannie Annie believes that Velcro deformers are found at the very bottom of this river and she hopes some great big fish will gobble them all up.

Granny Annie thinks that Velcro Deformers are calculating, controlling, power hungry, and most of all - extremely selfish. What they are doing is worse than introducing a bill, supporting it for awhile, and then changing their minds, like the regular deformers do. Velcro Deformers are throwing away some adopted men and women before the opening bell sounds. “Go straight to jail. Do no pass Go. Do not collect $200.”

GRANNIE ANNIE’S QUESTIONS FOR VELCRO DEFORMERS

How will you explain to the left-out adoptees that you never tried to get a bill passed for ALL adoptees?

Will you tell the left-out adoptees that leaving them out in the cold from the get go was the politically expedient thing to do?

Will you pin a badge onto the left-out adoptees and thank them for being martyrs to the cause?

Will you tell the left-out adoptees that you'll come back in five years to revisit the law and then you will support changing it to include all adopted adults in the state at that time?

And what will you say to the left-out adoptee whose birth mother passed away two years after your bill was passed?

Will you tell the left-behinds that with all political issues there have to be some scapegoats?

Are you considering an insanity defense?

Will you tell them you’re sorry?

Currently, the five states with Velcro bills are Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, and Texas.

California, South Dakota, Rhode Island, and Missouri have filed clean bills. In the clean bills, the needs of 100% of the adoptees in their states have been respected.

ADOPTEES AND THEIR ORIGINAL BIRTH CERTIFICTES- FAQs

Join Grannie Annie’s Brainy Bastards Brigade

Forget Your ABC’s

Learn Your FAQ’s

January has brought the opening of many legislative sessions throughout the country.

Little birds are telling Grannie Annie that many states are considering adoptee rights bills this session. Grannie has heard birds chirping from Texas, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Rhode Island, Connecticut, California, Illinois, AZ, and South Dakota. Grannie is sure there are more to come. Some are good bills and some are very bad bills. Many bills start out as good and as they go through the legislative process, they take on restrictions and amendments that turn them into disastrous bills.

Lately, I feel as if I’m only preaching to the choir. However, I can’t help thinking about all the newbies and most especially the silent adoptees. How to reach the silent adoptees? Maybe, I thought, they would speak out and join us if they knew how to better articulate our goals. So I have written this FAQ primer for them as well as for all of us as succinct list of “bullet points.”

Please feel free to forward these FAQ’s anywhere on planet Earth. Print them out (comes to 3 and ½ pages) and use them to spread the word.

Definitions & shortcuts first.

Adoptee Rights Bill: A bill in which adopted adults are issued their original birth certificates, upon request, unconditionally, and without any falsification. The adoptee rights bill puts adopted men and women back on a par with all non-adopted citizens with regards to birth certificates. Adoptee rights bills are also called “open records bills,” “equal access bills,” and “adoptee access bills.” What makes them all similarly unique is they are bills that will restore to all adopted adults their right to access, unconditionally and with no falsifications, their original birth certificates. I am going to use the term “Adoptee Rights Bill” throughout this blog.

Confidential Intermediary - CI

Original Birth Certificate – OBC

Q. Why should adult adoptee’s obc’s be released to them?

1. The state must not withhold identity records from any group of citizens.

2. All adult adoptees should be able to discover the answers to questions regarding medical history, ethnicity, and family heritage. This is a human right that everyone should own.

3. Sealed records perpetuate the culture of shame which stigmatized infertility, out-of-wedlock birth, and adoption.

4. Adopted adults are no longer “children who need homes.” Therefore, when adoptees reach the age of maturity, the state must give up its control of adoptee’s personal affairs.

5. The state must not discriminate against any group of individuals based solely on the circumstances surrounding their birth.

6. We do not want pity, sympathy, or special favors. Our OBC uniquely belongs to us. It was created by the state to record our history, a right that all non-adopted citizens are given under clear statutory procedure.

Q. Who are the opponents of adoptee rights bills?

1. Various state chapters of ACLU and Right to Life.

2. NCFA (National Council for Adoption) and other adoption agency fronts.

3. Large constituency churches (including LDS)

4. Adoptive parents.

5. Some ultra-conservative think tanks

Q. What is a good adoptee rights bill?

A bill that will restore to all (100%) adopted adults their civil and human right to access their original birth certificates, upon request, with no conditions or falsifications.

Anything less than access for 100% of adopted adults in a state is absolutely unacceptable.

The fundamental right of adoptees to have access to their own government-held identity information is a separate issue from whether or not adoptees and birth parents should contact each other.

Q. Will the passage of an adoptee rights bill affect the adoptees’ relationship with the adoptive family?

A. No. The health of a family unit, adoptive or otherwise, and the relationships within it depend on long-standing patterns of parenting and open, honest communication skills, not on whether or not an adoptee, as an adult, is free to access the true facts of his/her birth.

Q. Was the obc sealed to protect the identity of the birth mother?

A. No. The obc is sealed upon decree of adoption, not upon the birth mother’s relinquishment. A child relinquished but never adopted has an unsealed obc. If protection of the birth mother was intended, the obc would be sealed upon the termination of her legal relationship, not at the beginning of the legal relationship of the adoptive family.

Q. Can a birth mother sign a legal contract with the state at any time whereby she may deny her child’s access to his or her obc for life?

A. No. A birth mother signs an irrevocable contract with the state called a Relinquishment of Parental Rights or a Document of Surrender. No contracts have ever been produced that give birth or adoptive parents the right to keep an adoptee’s obc sealed for life.

Q. Can an adoption agency, a social worker, an adoption facilitator or an adoption attorney make a promise to a birth mother that the state will honor and uphold her anonymity for life?

A. No. A promise is just that – only a promise. It is not a legal document and should not be recognized by the state government. States are not in the business of keeping promises made by private parties.

Q. Will the passage of an adoptee rights bill violate the privacy of the birth mother?

A. No. There is no violation of privacy because there is no public disclosure. Only the adult adoptee whose birth occasioned the creation of the obc, and whose true facts are contained within it, will have access.

Q. Would the passage of an adoptee rights bill also involve release of private records, documents, case-work histories or any other paperwork kept by private or state-run adoption agencies?

A. No. Only the obc is affected and it is the only document that will be released.

Q. What states have passed an adoptee rights bill?

A. Kansas and Alaska never sealed adoptee’s obcs. Oregon, New Hampshire, Alabama, and Maine all have adoptee rights laws. (not to be confused with states that have passed laws that put restrictions upon which adoptees can be issued an obc.)

Q. Will abortion rates rise or adoption rates decrease if adoptee rights bills are passed?

A. No & No. There is no evidence that granting adult adoptees access to their own identity information is detrimental to the process of adoption.

Q. Must the state uphold a law no matter how long it has been in existence?

A. No. A wrongful law is a wrongful law, no matter when it was passed.

Q. Will the passage of an adoptee rights bill allow adoptees to “harass” their birth mothers?

A. This statement is discriminatory and needlessly argumentative, yet it is still frequently asked. It is unconstitutional in the extreme to deny a right to a group of citizens based on what they “might” do if they were restored that right. Remember that the right to request and receive a copy of one’s obc is guaranteed all non-adopted citizens in clear statutory procedure.

Q. What is a real Contact Preference Form?

A. The true Oregon “Contact Preference Form” is a way for a birth parent to privately communicate his or her private and personal feelings about having communication with the adoptee. It is not legally binding. It is not a contact veto. The adoptee gets his or her original birth certificate along with the sealed contact preference form.

Q. Are open records the same as open adoption?

A. No. Open records refers to an adult adoptee having equal access to legal documents which pertain to him or her. An adoptee rights bill is an open records bill. An open adoption refers to an arrangement for raising an adopted child in which the birth parents, adoptive parents, and minor adopted child have some form of ongoing relationship. Even in an open adoption the adult adoptee cannot access his birth and adoption records.

[With help from and thanks to Oregon’s Adult Access to Original Birth Certificates and Bastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organization’s The Basic Bastard.

ADOPTEES: WHEN IS ENOUGH, ENOUGH?

Here are two letters that I wrote to the CHICAGO SUN TIMES and the CHICAGO TRIBUNE, just three short months apart. The first was published by the CHICAGO SUN TIMES on Thursday, May 29, 2003.

CUT RED TAPE FOR ADULTS SEEKING ADOPTION FILES

“I am a retired Chicago school-teacher who was adopted in infancy. I was so happy to read about Steve Cochran’s reunion with his birth family in Robert Feder’s column (May 20) “Cochran’s adoption tale makes for poignant radio.” Whenever a well-known personality talks publicly about the issues surrounding his or her adoption, it helps other people to understand one unique problem that still faces nearly all adopted adults today: All of our adoption records are permanently sealed from us.

“Feder told us that Cochran began his search for his birth parents in early April “with the help of two lawyers and a private investigator.” Imagine: A 42-year old man needed to hire three professionals to find out what his origins were – something that every non-adopted adult can find out for $10 at any branch of the Public Health Department or at any currency exchange.

“In Illinois, adopted adults have to go to court and prove good cause in order to get their birth records – a procedure that is complicated, costly, time-consuming, and iffy at best.

“We adopted men and women do not want pity, sympathy or special favors. But we also do not want government management of our personal affairs.

“We want to be able to freely request and receive all government held documents about ourselves. It’s only fair.”

This is the other letter.I wrote it to the CHICAGO TRIBUNE which published it on Sunday,August 23, 2003 in the VOICE OF THE PEOPLE section.

WHY CAN’T ADOPTEES BE TREATED LIKE EVERYONE ELSE?

"The Aug.5 article, (“Adoptees get help to unlock the past: State Rep. Sara Feigenholtz struggled to find her birth mother, then fought for 10 years to increase adults’ access to their adoption records,” page 1.) The article extols the virtues of Illinois’ adoption registry and confidential intermediary system.

"It praises changes that proponents say will make it easier for adopted adults to reunite with their biological kin.

" I was extremely disappointed, however, that nowhere in the article did I find a mention of the most fundamental fact of all: In Illinois, adopted adults cannot get their original birth certificates without a court order.

" Adult adoptees are no closer to being able to get their original birth certificates today, with adoption registries and confidential intermediaries, than they were 50 years ago.

"Rep. Feigenholtz (D-Chicago) can make updates and improvements to the Illinois Confidential Intermediary Act ‘til the cows come home.

"Still, it doesn’t affect the bottom line: Adult adoptees in Illinois are the only group of citizens who cannot get their original birth certificates without first obtaining a court order.

"I am a 65 year-old adopted woman – a retired Chicago Public School teacher. I still cannot walk into any department of public health, office of vital records, or currency exchange, fill out a form, write a check for $10 and come away an hour later with my original birth certificate.

" That’s how all the other citizens in our state get copies of their birth certificates – the ones who weren’t adopted.

"The state doesn’t much care what these particular citizens do with their certificates. So long as they show the proper identification, it’s theirs for the asking.

" But it’s not ours for the asking.

" In 1994, I petitioned the county clerk for a confidential intermediary. This procedure cost me $220 in court filing fees, $40 to put my name into the Illinois Adoption Registry, and $550 upfront to a court-appointed confidential intermediary from an adoption agency.

" Two years later, I still had no original birth documents.

"Next step – go back to court.

"In 1997, I petitioned the Circuit Court of Cook County to release to me certified copies of my original birth certificate and all the documents contained in my adoption file, requiring another $220 filing fee.

"Prior to filing, I spent the summer at the Cook County Law Library, researching case law in an attempt to find “good cause.”

"In the fall of that year, my petition wended its way through the legal system.

"After my initial filing, I had to serve notice to the Cook County Clerk and to the state Department of Public Health – for another $150. Finally, I pleaded my case before a circuit court judge.

"Two weeks later, he ruled in my favor: On January 6, 1998, at the ripe old age of 60, I laid eyes on my own birth certificate for the first time. This feat cost $1,170 and took nearly three years.

"Feigenholtz says she is happy that she got to tell her birth mother, “Thank you.” She believes “everyone deserves that.”

" I’ll take equal treatment under the law instead."

AN INTERESTING OBSERVATION

In 2003, the same year that these two letters were published, the state of Georgia was considering a true open records bill for adopted adults. This bill had passed in the House and was up for a vote in the Senate. A Georgia Senator rose to advise his fellow senators that adoptees didn't need another way to get their birth certificates. "All they have to do is go to court," the Senator assured his colleagues. And guess what? The Georgia Senate voted down the good bill.