OREGON ADOPTEE RIGHTS MEASURE GOES INTO EFFECT

May 30, 2000

 

Bastard Nation and adoptee rights supporters across the country are cheering as Oregon’s Measure 58 finally goes into effect, well over a year after it was passed by a majority vote of Oregon’s citizens in November, 1998.

Measure 58 restores adult adoptees’ access to their original birth certificates, a right abrogated by the state of Oregon in 1957.  The measure was upheld at every step in a series of court challenges brought by an adoption attorney on behalf of six anonymous birthmothers who claimed they had been promised permanent anonymity under Oregon’s sealed records law. 

Advocates for the preservation of secrecy in adoption affiliated with longtime open records foes, the National Council for Adoption,  petitioned the United States Supreme Court to hear the case.  Justice Sandra Day O’Connor refused today to issue another stay, effectively handing victory to adopted citizens born in the state of Oregon.

Bastard Nation, which has been involved in the fight for Measure 58 ever since it was proposed at the group’s first conference in July of 1997, congratulates and expresses profound thanks first and foremost to Chief Petitioner Helen Hill for her dedication and generosity in getting Measure 58 onto the ballot and seeing it to victory. We also acknowledge the efforts and support of others in the adoption reform community, notably the Oregon Adoption Rights Association. There would have been no victory in the courts without the diligence of attorneys Thomas McDermott, an adoptive father, and Roy Pulvers. Thanks go as well to the Legislative Counsel of the American Adoption Congress, Fred Greenman, for his advice.

The measure went into effect at 5:01 pm PDT on May 30, 2000, and requests for original birth certificates began to be mailed out on Wednesday, May 31st.  To date over 2500 Oregon-born adopted citizens have applied for a copy of their original birth certificate under the law.  A law upholding Measure 58 and signed by Governor Kitzhaber in 1998 allows for a Contact Preference Form to be attached to the original birth certificate so that a birth parent may make it known to the adoptee whether she or he would like contact, and to what degree.

Along with this year’s successful restoration of adoptee rights in the state of Alabama, the movement towards adoptee rights and dignity in adoption is gaining steam. Bastard Nation will continue to work to restore and uphold  the rights of adopted citizens across North America.