Action Alert March 11, 2024

Idaho HB544: Emergency Action Alert – Hearing on Monday, March 11, 2024

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Legislation January 30, 2024

Virginia: House of Delegates Passes HB550. On to the Senate!

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Action Alert January 25, 2024

Bastard Nation Action Alert: West Virginia HB4815 and SB153. DO NOT PASS. Reactionary and Dangerous

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November 13, 2023

Michigan: On the Winning Track

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Featured Articles

Bastard Nation Statement in Solidarity with Black Lives Matter

June 8, 2020

The Bastard Nation Executive Committee expresses our solidarity with Black Lives Matter and with those in the US and around the world protesting police violence and systemic racism. We support all peaceful protest. We support free expression and the right to address and demand redress from the government. We support self-determination, self- ownership, and autonomy. We support human dignity and civil and human rights. Bastard Nation condemns racism, the abrogation of free speech, civil rights, police repression, police brutality, state secrets, and state-based violence.

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Put Yourself in History! Times Change–Except for Bastards:  Bastard Nation’s Sealed Records State-by State Timeline

April 24, 2020

Use our timeline for amusement and education.  Imagine the fun you’ll have telling your state legislators that your records were sealed before Pearl Harbor was bombed; Babe Ruth retired and Jackie Robinson broke the color line; school segregation was illegal; Social Security and the CIA existed; Watergate, Elizabeth was Queen;  Malcolm X and Martin Luther King were assassinated….and before most of those lawmakers were born.

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News

Bastard Nation Action Alert: West Virginia HB4815 and SB153. DO NOT PASS. Reactionary and Dangerous

January 25, 2024

HB4815 is a confusing bill that requires adult adoptees to apply UNSUCCESSFULLY to the West Virginia Mutual Consent Registry for their identifying information BEFORE they can apply for their OBC.SB153 is another nonsensical bill that redacts by default, all identifying information on the OBC unless a biological parent specifically authorizes, via a Department of Health consent form, the release of the genuine unredacted document. The bill restricts OBC access and will set a reactionary legal precedent: no other state redacts OBCs by default.

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Michigan: On the Winning Track

November 13, 2023

On November 8, less than a month after the bills were introduced, both bills were voted favorable out of the Committee on Families, Children, and Seniors. The next day, the House passed both bills, 99-8, and it was transmitted to the Senate. The Michigan legislature, for all intents and purposes, is now in recess so we will have to wait until next year to seal the deal.

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Michigan: Bastard Nation Letter of Support For HB 5148 and HB 5149

November 12, 2023

We support HB5148 a “clean bill” that allows all Michigan-born adoptees, their descendants or legal representatives to obtain the adoptee’s original birth certificate without restrictions or conditions upon request at the age of 18, The bill contains a voluntarily optional Contact Preference Form which allows biological parents to record if the would like contact, but does not control the release of the OBC.

We support HB5149 which eliminates current court and Central Adoption Registry control over the release of the OBC. It retains biological parent denial of identifying information requests already on file, BUT that request does not restrict OBC access. No release vetoes can be filed after July 1, 2024.

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How to Say Nobody Cares About Adoptee Rights Without Saying They Don’t

November 8, 2023

Yesterday I did a few legislative updates, and it really struck me while doing them–as if I didn’t already know this–that hardly anyone cares about adult adoptees or adoptee civil rights–especially those who have the “authority” to fix things legally such as policy and lawmakers. When compared to the speed which Safe Haven Baby Box legislation passes, records access for adults, even with the successes of the last couple of years, runs a very poor second.

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