Michigan 4896 & 6287 = Contact Veto

This feels wierd right? Putting up a post against a bill in which people who I consider online friends have been working so hard for. So I want to clarify that this is not in any way shape or form “against” them. This is about people, in the same community, who believe in different routes to achieving a common goal of access to birth certificates for adopted people.

There are some people who believe that any step towards access to OBC’s is a good step. Michigan OBC has been working tirelessly towards achieving unconditional access to their records in Michigan. They have an incredible searching group where some activist members seemed to gather at one point when the bill was first starting and it evolved into its own list due to so much action and response. Dee Lindeman has sent me update after update, she has worked so hard along with many others and I really want that to be known. I also want people to understand that this was once, a clean bill, it was submitted a clean bill. This is when the politics of adoptee rights get icky. Some groups around the net, say less is more when it comes to the wording in bills, I actually agree.

Oregon’s measure 58 was so simple, it was clear and to the point. What I’ve noticed with other bills is if they’re long and lengthy it gives the house room to edit, change and chop it up. I believe that is exactly what happened here. Two bills became one and it was then amended to include a Veto yet it continues to be called a contact preference.

Now there are some in the Adoptee Rights Community which will support vetos. They see this as a step forward for adoptee rights, and they’re willing to take the compromise which does leave some behind and gives surrendering parents more rights than they have upon surrender. Me personally, and as respectfully as I can be at the same time, I disagree that vetos are the correct route to take.

I don’t think access to records should be about reunion. That seems to be when vetos get introduced. This isn’t about reunion, this is about equality. This is about ending the discrimination against adoptees by unsealing all of our birth certificates. There is no room to leave anyone behind with that approach and to me that approach is so right. We don’t have a right to a relationship with anyone, nor do we have a right to reunion. It doesn’t mean we can’t search I did and I’d do it again in a heartbeat but, reunions happen without our birth certificates. This can’t be about searching, because then it gives room for the state to get involved more than they already are with mandating our personal relationships. Frankly that freaks me out quite a bit.

I wish that Michigan would pull the bill. They as a group, the group who worked so hard on it, the ones who put the sweat, the blood, the time and effort into it oh I hope they pull it. Its such an incredibly hard place to be in. Birth certificates dangling before them like carrots to a rabbit, yet possibly still so far away.

Nobody has ever amended another law after a Veto has been enacted. History shows that only the states who passed the clean bills, have the clean bills (other than alaska and kansas who never sealed their records to adoptees.) So what does that mean for the adoptee who has a veto enacted up against him/her. They’re just shit out of luck? I can’t support leaving them behind. Its discrimination. Its rejection. Its abandonment. Its unjustifiable to me.

I will be writing Michigan State Legislation tomorrow and expressing my concerns that I have listed above. This needs to be about “righting” a “wrong” and the wrong being discrimination via sealed records on adopted people. We deserve equality, we are equal, and anything other than unconditional access for all adopted people is unacceptable.

Again I don’t want MiOBC to feel unappreciated for all of the hard work they have put into this, or rejected by people who ultimately want the same thing as them, I want them to know how much I honor and respect the hard work they have put into this bill and fight for the adoptees in their state. I think they’re doing an incredible job and I hope that their effort pays off so that all adoptees in their state can one day enjoy equality through OBC access.