OPEN LETTER TO BILL BETZEN & TxCARE

From:Anita Walker FieldBastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights OrganizationRe: HB 770 and SB 364This letter is my personal reply to Bill Betzen's "Open Letter" post about the two Texas bills that he and TXCare are supporting. I strongly oppose these bills. I believe adult adoptees must be able to request and receive copies of their original birth documents, unconditionally. Your bills will not achieve this goal. In fact, they will take us giant steps backwards.Unconditional open records for adult adoptees CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED. Look to Oregon, 1998, Alabama, 2000, and New Hampshire, 2005.After New Hampshire, I would have hoped that TxCare would understand the successful separation of the concepts of the relationship between adoptees and the state (which is a state issue) versus the relationships between adoptees and birthparents (not state business).Some Texas birth parents say that they had a promise from the state to keep their identities confidential. You refer to these as "phantom promises." Do you realize that by describing such promises in your bill you actually give credence to them? If this bill should be passed, then a section will be written into the Texas adoption code which actually admits the possibility of the state promising confidentiality to birth parents. This bill sets an exceedingly dangerous precedent for all other states.You know that historically the #1 reason for keeping adoptees' records sealed has been the belief that it violates birth parent confidentiality. Yet in the past, legislators have never really cared about seeing actual documents. Proponents of open records have repeatedly called for legal contracts to be produced. None has surfaced. Yet that never stopped the legislators from continuing to believe and to act as if the state promised confidentiality to birth parents. I understand that you don't expect any birth parents to surface with relinquishment papers. At the eleventh hour you intend to leap out and announce that since birth parents cannot produce written, notarized evidence, all adoptees can have their original birth certificates. However, you do say that should such a document ever surface, you will honor it with a disclosure veto.This back-door maneuver sounds nice in theory but in real life it won't work. If you insist on something in writing, you will get it! You open the door for Texas legislators to come forward and create a new affidavit of non-disclosure for birth parents to sign - now! The Texas lawmakers may be stubborn old cusses, but they are not stupid.Adult adoptees should not be forced to register for a reunion and undergo forced counseling they may not seek in order to simply access their own original birth records. Yet you have just such an adoption registry procedure in your bill. This is another type of condition which you place upon adopted adults, impeding them from receiving their original birth certificates directly from the state in the same way as all other non-adopted citizens.Adoptee rights advocates need to recognize that disclosure of information and contact/reunion are separate events, and one does not necessarily lead to another. Finally, how can you use such loaded language as, "With HB770/SB364 birth parents will have more protection than they have ever had in Texas against an uninvited surprise contact by their birth child. "Your very unfortunate choice of words here sends a message to birth parents that they really do have something to be afraid of from their birth children. Your words add fuel to the fires of all the folks who are already afraid of the proverbial stalking and evil adoptee. Shame on you. Social change takes time and I know that you all in Texas have been working towards open records for many years. But to "fight the good fight" and then fall backwards on a piece of conditional legislation is unconscionable. It would be disastrous to every adopted man and woman in the United States today, and it will set exceedingly bad precedent for adoptees who are right now working for pure unconditional access in their states.Adoptees' identity information is being held by the state. We need a bill that will stop the state from discriminating against adopted adults in the manner in which they issue birth certificates. I urge you to revisit the restrictive conditions and potentially dangerous precedents in your bills. Erase them. Bring back your bill as true open records legislation. It's worth fighting for!! Sincerely,Anita Walker FieldExecutive CommitteeBastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organizationwww.Bastards.Org