This post has three parts:

• My introduction
• Some links towards context & historical perspective on the situation in New Jersey
• The Bastard Nation Action Alert- Stop New Jersey A1406/S799 Today!

New Jersey’s A1406/S799 is NOT an adoptee rights bill.

It is yet another fake/conditional access for a lucky few at the direct cost of the human/civil/identity rights of others bill. Like so many other states this year, New Jersey’s legislative disaster is once again, disingenuously cloaked in the language of “adoptee rights.” (See my recent post Adoptee Rights 101: Class Bastard and how to recognize a genuine adoptee rights bill for a field guide towards determining the real from the fake.)

Among the bill’s many fatal flaws, if A1406/S799 were to pass:

• New Jersey will carve out a new state granted veto privilege that can be used against adopted people’s original birth certificate access.
• Those who would be granted the newly constructed veto privilege, Parents, will not have their rights come out unscathed either, as they would have to submit an intrusive and likely illegal medical and family history form to activate the contact veto or file a “contact preference form.” The state essentially extorting personal medical information under these conditions in order to enact this newly constructed veto or express a personal contact preference constitutes nothing less than a potential HIPAA violation. In states such as Oregon, where “contract preference forms” originated, not only do they not have the force of law behind them,  the states does not use such as a tool with with to extract a parent’s personal medical history. Real adoptee rights activists understand inherent to the toll adoption already extracts from our families must never be their genuine personal medical privacy, these are interpersonal and family matters best left to individuals, not new state bureaucracies.
• A1406/S799 also stands to reclassify all infants who pass through New Jersey’s baby dump/ “safe haven” program as automatically having their birth certificates sealed as a default setting. Not only are most kids who endure the state’s baby dump system born in hospitals to identified mothers, as I documented, New Jersey is one of the states where Boarder Babies are routinely being folded into “Safe Haven” the state’s statistics/are being classified as “safe haven” babies. Thus Boarder Babies, those born in hospitals to indentified Mothers and abandoned post birth at the hospitals would have their identities stripped from them as a routine matter.

This means that in New Jersey under this legislation deceptively being sold as a means by which “adoptee rights” would be restored, New Jersey’s boarder babies and baby dump babies will now have their records sealed as default.

So called “Adoptee Rights”cannot be “won” at the direct expense of abandoned children.

Unsealing some original birth certificates while simultaneously using alleged “open records” legislation seal the original birth certificates of others is no victory. It changes the very meaning of this so called “adoptee rights” legislation to that of merely another tool to seal yet more records. But as they are the records of those with some of the least voice politically, certain individuals and organizations are apparently more than willing to “trade them away.”

A1406/S799 stands to gut the existing human/civil/identity rights of a number of kids who stand to eventually enter the state’s foster care or adoption systems.

What access it could grant to some New Jersey adoptees is a price that will be paid by the state’s abandoned, and later fostered or adopted kids.

To anyone who cares about the rights and access of anyone other than themselves, A1406/S799 cannot be considered any form of progress. It stands to do lasting damage to some of New Jersey’s most vulnerable populations.

The bill is not merely short sighted, it’s a classic example of bait and switch; it promises increased access to original birth certificates for one set of people, yet takes that same access from, those “safe havened” or boarder babies and  a next generation of New Jersey’s most vulnerable and voiceless.

It harnesses the desperation of one set of adopted people and their families and in a genuinely cynical political twist, utilizes that desperation back as a tool against yet another set of kids.

It’s both tragic and sad to see some adoptees fall for it.

Only those either unwilling to see the damage it will do, or who simply do not care about the damage it will do could support such a bill.

For more context on New Jersey, readers may want to revisit several of my earlier pieces:

• Action Alert- Stop New Jersey S799, NJ Senate Vote scheduled for Monday
• New Jersey- let A752 die: the conflation of family medical history with authentic restored access, white outs, and preemptive restraining orders among other nightmare senarios (on the earlier bill)
• Catholic Charities offers up another lifetime’s worth of lies and false “reunion”

As well as some of Bastardette’s NJ related posts:

• S799: ANOTHER NEW JERSEY UPDATE
• NEW JERSEY UPDATE – S799 PASSES SENATE. ADOPTEES JILTED
• NEW JERSEY S799: THE JERSEY FOLLIES–DESIRE OVER RIGHTS
• NEW JERSEY PIECE-A-CRAP IS BAAACCCKKK!: S799
• GOOD NEWS: CAL AND JERSEY BAD BILLS DIE (from back in Jan. on the earlier bill)
• NEW JERSEY: ANYTHING TO GET A BILL PASSED. WE LEAVE EVERYBODY BEHIND! (about the earlier bill)
• BE CAREFUL OF WHAT YOU ASK FOR! NEW JERSEY CATHOLIC CONFERENCE WANTS TO HEAR FIRST MOTHER STORIES!
• MOTHER MAY I? GRANNIE ANNIE NAILS IT! (from 2006)
• DIMWITS: IN THE WORDS OF 9 NEW JERSEY ADOPTEE HATERS (also from 2006 on NJ S1087.)
• SOME-ADOPTEES-ARE-MORE-EQUAL-THAN-OTHERS BILL PASSES NEW JERSEY SENATE
• SETTLING FOR LESS THAN YOU DESERVE: WHY BASTARD NATION REJECTS ALL ARGUMENTS FOR AND AGAINST NEW JERSEY’S S1087
• IS ADOPTION ANTI-FAMILY?
• ACLU SLAGS ADOPTEES AGAIN (2005)

Bastard Nation’s NJ related action alerts and letters:

• BASTARD NATION LETTER TO NJ SENATE: VOTE NO ON S799
• BASTARD NATION ACTION ALERT: STOP NEW JERSEY S799. SENATE VOTE SCHEDULED FOR MONDAY
• BASTARD NATION ACTION ALERT: NEW JERSEY S799 – VOTE NO!
• BASTARD NATION’S LETTER TO NJ HOUSE SPEAKER JOSEPH ROBERTS, JR–PLEASE OPPOSE A 752. ADOPTEE DESERVE RIGHTS NOT FAVORS! (about the earlier bill)
• BASTARD NATION ACTION ALERT: VOTE NO ON S1087/A2557–COMPROMISED OPEN RECORDS BILL (from 2006)
• BASTARD NATION’S LETTER TO THE NJ SENATE: VOTE NO ON S1087/A2557!

Also see NJ related baby dump posts, some by me, some by Bastardette:

• NEW JERSEY: THIS IS NOT A SAFE HAVEN….
• New Jersey- Boarder Babies being folded into “Safe Haven” statistics
• Still more Border Babies routinely relabeled “safe haven saves” in OH, NJ, MI, and KY

All of which is to say, this botched bill has been a long time coming. It’s merely the latest retread in a long lines of fake bills New Jersey has offered up year after agonizing year.

Bastards have tracked it as it developed through the years and have fought this crap down time and time again.

Please, read and act on the Bastard Nation action alert below, there is precious little time left to work to kill this fatally flawed bill. If passed, the damage will be lasting.

Keep in mind, no state that has ever passed conditional access legislation has ever revisited it or increased access to more adoptees later.

Those who settle for less than full equality and the full restoration of our human rights, on top of the damage they will do to their own rights, will sentence New Jersey’s abandoned kids to precisely the injustice they claim to be fighting.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

BASTARD NATION ACTION ALERT – STOP NEW JERSEY A1406/S799 TODAY!

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BASTARD NATION ACTION ALERT!

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

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

DON’T LET PASSAGE OF BAD LEGISLATION IN NEW JERSEY THREATEN EFFORTS IN OTHER STATES FOR TRUE EQUAL ACCESS FOR ADULT

IT’S BACK!

A1406 (companion to S799 already passed in the NJ Senate) is scheduled for a hearing in the Assembly Human Services Committee on June 14.

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

Be sure to put: “A1406 – opposition ” in the header

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 before obcs, past and future, are unsealed

*authorizes the state to replace the original birth certificate, 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 an intrusive and probably illegal medical and family history form to activate the veto.

*requires "birthparents" who file a "contact preference form" to fill out the same intrusive and probably illegal medical and family history form.

*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 adoptees access to their own original birth records on par with all other citizens. Please let the Health, Human Services, and Senior Citizen Committee know that this issue is not about relationships between adoptees and their "birthparents." It is about basic human and civil rights and the relationship between adoptees and the STATE of NEW JERSEY.

The New Jersey state government should not be in the business of denying adult adoptees access to their own birth certificates in a misguided attempt to appease a mythical adversarial standoff between adoptees and birthparents.

Inclusion of a disclosure veto in this bill, even within the 12-month "window of opportunity" perpetuates the violation of adoptee rights by making unaltered birth certificate access a privilege not a right.

Forcing "birthparents," under certain circumstances, to submit mandatory health and family history information to the state is intrusive and probably illegal.

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 Senate and urge them to VOTE NO ON A1406/S799

READ THE FULL TEXT AT: http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2010/Bills/A1500/1406_I1.PDF

CONTACT INFORMATION.
The New Jersey Leg page has no list of email addresses, You need to go to each individual Rep member page and use the template http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/members/abcroster.asp

Human Services Committee:

Vainieri Huttle, Valerie – Chair
Rodriguez, Caridad – Vice-Chair
Angelini, Mary Pat
Biondi, Peter J.
Coutinho, Albert
Fuentes, Angel
McHose, Alison Littell
O’Scanlon, Declan J.
Tucker, Cleopatra G.
Wagner, Connie

Also write to Gov. Chris Christie
Proponents of A1406/S799 have asked supporters to sent letters of support to Gov. Chris Christie now. We urge you to do sent letters of opposition. Send letters no more than 250 words at 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 has submitted opposition testimony to the Human Services Committee, but will ot post it until after the hearing. We have also sent a letter to Governor Christie.