Hell froze over in Ohio last Wednesday for the second time, when The Ohio Catholic Conference endorsed HB61, a bill  to restore the right of unrestricted OBC access to those person adopted in Ohio between January 1, 1964-September 17, 1996.  The access right of those adopted after that date is left high and dry due to the 1996 Disclosure Veto compromise which gives biological parents the special privilege  that no other person has, to bar the state from releasing the OBC.  Ohio Legislative Services  which nitpicks every bill  for legalities that crosses its path in  the Statehouse, won’t let that one go.Yet. Ohio Vital Statistics does not keep track of the number of DVs submitted  but it’s believed to be  a small number, perhaps less than 20.(I”ll be writing more about this later.)

You can read Tobin’s  testimony here, and  here’s a picture of the relevant testimony taken by Linda Niehaus, whom I sat with:

“…The Catholic Conference of Ohio is pleased to support HB 61.” (Posted with permission of Linda Niehaus)

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Hell froze over last Wednesday (March 6, 2013) when Ohio Right to Life, dropped its decades long opposition to OBC access and testified before the House Judiciary Committee  in support of HB61.  We knew earlier that ORTL had dropped its opposition, but its endorsement and testimony came as a surprise. You can read this historical  testimony on the Bastard Nation webpage.  The testimony begins:

Some of you may know that for decades, Ohio Right to opposed opening adoption records to adoptees born/adopted between 1964 and 1996. The concerns of privacy and the repercussions for adoptive families, however, are fading with time as cultural perceptions about adoption have changed. Historically, arguments to keep the records closed were based on the idea that it would protect adoptees from potential embarrassment about the circumstances of their birth, or to protect adoptees from unwanted contact from birth parents. Frankly, these are outdated concerns, but it is this rationale that keeps 1964 – 1996 adoptees from being able to access their original birth certificate. Ohio law keeps these records closed, yet when the laws were revisited in 1996, it was decided that all adoptions finalized after that point are open unless parents choose to close their records. Even so, most younger adoptees (born in 1996 and after) will have the ability to obtain their original birth certificate from the Office of Vital Statistics when they are 21 years old. Those born in the previous window do not have this option, creating a disparity based  simply on the year they happened to be born.

Ohio Right to Life is the flagship of the National Right to Life Committee. ORTL has guided policy and practice of National for as long as I can remember.  For many years OBC access was a divisive factor within NRTL with NRTL co-founder Dr. John Sonne supporting adoptees and Ohio’s anti-abortion powerhouse, former NRTL president, Dr. John Willke opposing.  Although NRTL does not have a national policy on adoptee rights and OBC access, individual states  have looked to Ohio traditionally  for policy guidance on many issues including adoption. ORTL’s refusal to support records access in the past, I believe has fueled state- RTL  opposition throughout the country. Now that the flagship has sailed into our harbor, we are hopeful that other states will drop opposition. Of course  the danger lays in states where compromise is popular. and deformers, as they like to d, will offer Disclosure Vetoes, Contact Vetoes, white-outs and other restrictions as bait for possible RTL  and Catholic Church support. It’s a two-edged sword.
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