I know folks are searching for the current status of all these bills, I’ve been meaning to get to blog entries on all of ’em so here’s one big post for all of ’em plus by way of bonus, further blog reading on IL’s Confidential Intermediary disaster.

Let’s start by saying I oppose every single one of the 4 title pieces of legislation. I advise work to defeat them all.

Next, let’s begin by mapping out what this maze of bill numbers relate to.

IL HB 4623 (Adoption, psuedo records information access, etc a false substitute for a genuine records access bill, a new twist on the broken system that continues to lock bastards away from full unhindered access to our own information. Supportive of various industries, such as pro-searchers, not Bastards.)

OH substitute HB 7 / LSC 127 0671-3 (A mess of a bill, lousy legislation put forward by an abortion opponent who views his adoption work as some kind of zero-sum game to abortion. By way of one ever so temporary bright spot, it originally had full records access on it, but the records access was then yanked in the Health Committee, leaving it a bill about everything but the kitchen sink; from sticking ‘adoption education’, i.e. adoption marketing to young womyn or pregnant womyn, into pretty much any program they can think of on through to foster care restructuring, parental rights termination, and putting together a committee to make recommendations on moving kids out of foster care into permanent placements with no adoptee voices on it at all, plenty of industry voices though.)

And finally the paired OH HB 485 & OH SB 304 (the State House and Senate versions pushing the expansion of Ohio’s babydump/Baby Moses Law bill, They would both enlarge the potential dump period from up to 3 days after giving birth to as short as 6 days on up to 30. I know- I haven’t had time to blog these two bills yet either- but go search by “Ohio”, or “Safe Haven”, or the bill numbers on Bastardette, she’s got plenty, particularly her May16th piece “Ohio: State Secrets protect deadbeat dumpers“.)

In Ohio alone, there’s nothing like having to fight on essentially two adoption related fronts (both the original records access/and the horrible neutered of access bill it has devolved down into AND babydump expansion bills) at once. Unless of course, it’s having to fight on both fronts, in separate Committee hearings for both on the same day! Welcome to Bastard hell.

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So Current status? Let’s start with Ohio:

There is still time to write legislators to ask they kill Ohio substitute HB 7 (LSC 127 0671-3,) Ohio HB 485,(Ohio House of Representatives) and Ohio SB 304! (Ohio Senators)

On May 14th, the stripped of records access version of HB 7 (LSC 127 0671-3) was voted out of the Health Committee out to the full House floor. Despite all the contact legislators received and testimony in support of restoring Ohio adoptee’s access to our own birth certificates back onto the bill and the fact that no one came to publicly testify against such, the bill that originally had our access on it was passed out without us. Thus leaving Ohio Bastards behind to languish in the mess of Ohio’s existing arbitrary and discriminatory tri-tier black hole system yet again.

Our rights continue to be passed over, while the ongoing march to ‘make more’ continues unabated. Apparently ‘abstinence dis-education’ which is also on the bill far outweighs the rights of the people born as a result of such. (Yes folks, ‘abstinence education’ is a recipe for pregnancy- unwanted pregnancy, which only means more of us.)

It’s an otherwise disastrous bill that will still make for plenty of adoption related misery, far beyond our access no longer being on it.

Meanwhile, that same day (May 14th), the Ohio Senate Health, Human Services, and Aging Committee passed SB 304 out to the full Senate. (The Baby Moses Law/Babydump bill expansion that ups the dump time limit from 3 to 30 days.)

(see Bastardette’s Ohio: Bad News for Buckeyes for her recap on both of the Committee passings)

Buckeyes for Equal Access (BEA) who I’ve blogged about before is the Ohio based group working for records access and working against the Baby Moses Law/ Baby Dump expansion.

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Now, turning to Illinois, IL HB 4623 has received a third extension, extending work on it out to May 31rst. (The IL session is scheduled to adjourn Friday May 29th.) As of 5/22 a notation was added that two new sponsors had been added on the 21rst. (I’m still working to get the new sponsors names, sorry.)

So there’s still time to write IL legislators and work to stop the bill. You can use Bastard Nation’s IL HB 4623 Action Alert up on IL Open’s blog and Bastardette’s search tag on IL HB 4623 as a starting places to help you understand the background and the issues.

Illinois Open are the folks doing the work there.

73adoptee also has a brief piece up urging people, it’s “Not Too Late For Adoptees’ Rights! Write Illinois Legislators Opposing HB 4623”

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So, by way of that “& More” I promised, allow me to set the legislation aside for one moment.

To understand and learn more about how broken Illinois’ current Confidential Intermediary system is (which relates to CI systems more generally), but also to get up to speed about the state of the existing system, and how it treats Bastards I’ve got some further blog reading for you.

I’ve already pointed readers at Triona Guidry’s (73adoptee’s) incredible piece about her Kafka-esque experience with the Illinois Confidential Intermediary system, but I’ll do it again as it’s simply must read material. I’ll also point you at her previous entries, particularly Caveat Emptor On Confidential Intermediary Programs.

That said, Bastard Grannie Annie has another wonderful post out today on her experience with IL’s CI system here: The Cheese Stands Alone. She too, speaks eloquently about how IL’s current Confidential Intermediary system, passed in the name of ‘helping adoptees’ does anything but.

So go, read, feed your brain, but then ACT!

Because mere anguish is not enough.