Breaking News: Oregon Leads the Way Again-- Passes SH623--opens adoption files

Good news from Oregon!

While Washington state lawmakers continue to sweep its state’s bastards under the rug like pesky little dust bunnies dirting up the Statehouse. the Oregon House today unanimously passed SB623. Enacted in the spirit of Bastard Nation and Helen Hill’s Ballot Measure 58, the bill expands the right of all Oregon adoptees to acquire, upon request, the contents of their adoption file-– a right that no other state (so far!) recognizes. In other words, Oregon has swept away statutory adoption secrecy by opening the files and trusting the parities involved to leave their axes at home.

Adoptees:

the age of OBC access will be lowered from 21 to 18.
the entire adoption file, except for the Home Study, will be made available to the adoptee upon request at the age of 18 without a court order.
the Home Study may be released by court order for “good cause”.

Birthparents:

original parties to the adoption may view and copy documents in the court adoption file to which they were signatories. Under existing law birth parents must petition the courts to gain access to documents they were required to sign, and often are rejected by courts under the onerous and undefined “good cause” doctrine. The new law would provide these documents upon request.

SB623 had NO opposition.

Governor John Kitzhaber, who was governor during the M58 campaign,. says he will sign the bill.

You can hear the floor debate and vote here. It starts about 50 minutes in.

Details on how the law will be implemented should be released sometime this summer.

I have to go to work in the middle of the night so I’m closing for now I plan to write more about this later.

In the meantime, Bastard Nation congratulates Oregon–its adoptees, its first and adoptive families, the legislature–and Bastard God Ron Morgan– for standing up and leading the way for the rest of the country. If Oregon, why not the rest of the country Use Oregon as an example!