NOVEMBER: NATIONAL ADOPTION AWARENESS MONTH; ADULT ADOPTEES STILL DENIED THEIR RIGHTS

November is National Adoption Awareness Month, and Bastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organization wishes to express its extreme concern about the continued denial of basic information to adult adoptees in the United States. In 46 states, adult adoptees still cannot obtain their own original birth certificates on par with other citizens. The American adoption system will not be fully honorable until this injustice is corrected.

For Immediate Release
For more information, contact
Voice/Fax: 415-704-3166
Bn@bastards.org
www.bastards.org

November is National Adoption Awareness Month, a time set aside by our President and Congress to honor and promote the adoption system in our country. During this month Bastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organization would like to raise awareness about a problem that faces six million adopted adults in the United States today.

Currently, adopted adults in 46 states in the United States must still get permission from their parents or from a judge before they can obtain their original birth records. We adult adoptees are angry because our records remain sealed away from us. We are not ashamed of being adopted and we resent being made to feel ashamed by the secret records system.

The best interests of the children of adoption - no matter the age of the "children" - must always come first. Adopted children grow up, and as adults must be able to exercise the rights all others have. As adult tax-paying citizens, we can serve our country, buy property and vote. We are educators, doctors, scientists, business people and police officers. We are parents, and in some cases, grandparents. Adult adoptees aren't asking for "special " rights. We ask only that the state stop treating adult adoptees as perpetual children who need to be protected from ourselves and release our records to us.

Bastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organization is the largest and most influential adoptee rights organization in the United States. Our mission is to see adult adoptees in all fifty states be able to request and receive, unconditionally, their original birth certificates and adoption records.

We believe that if adoption is to be considered a normal and healthy family-building institution, those who are adopted should be allowed to access their own records. Anything else sends the message that adopted persons
are second class citizens, unable to handle their own personal information regarding their own histories, and that adoption is abnormal and shameful. What better time than National Adoption Awareness Month to shed the veil of secrecy that surrounds adoption.