On March 22, 2010, the New Jersey State Senate voted to approve Senate Bill 799 that permits adults who had been adopted as children, as well as the guardians or adoptive parents of a child who is currently a minor, to learn the identity of a birth parent. The New Jersey Catholic Conference opposed S-799. The retroactivity of this bill (it applies to those who have placed a child for adoption in the past, often many years in the past) is especially egregious and undermines the statutory assurances of privacy in effect at that time. The Bill will soon be considered by the Assembly as A-1406.
The New Jersey Catholic Conference does not oppose adoptees having full access to their birth parents’ medical histories. This information is currently fully available through the Court. We are opposed to requiring birth mothers to provide updates on their medical history every ten years until they are 40 years old and every five years thereafter. That requirement is punitive and grossly unfair.
We do not oppose revealing the identities of natural parents to adoptees in cases where the natural parents have consented to the release of such information. However, to do so without the birth parents’ actual consent is simply wrong and unfair.
ACTION: Call and/or email your State Assembly Members and tell them that you oppose A-1406. Ask your Assembly Member why the State wants to deny privacy to a mother who gives her child to a loving family that will nurture and raise the child when the State guarantees the privacy of a mother who abandons her child under the Safe Haven Act and guarantees privacy to a mother who aborts her child.
For your convenience, the Capwiz link is provided as a simplified way to express your opposition to A-1406
http://capwiz.com/njcathconf/home/
Thank You For Helping To Protect the Privacy of Birth Mothers.
New Jersey Catholic Conference
149 North Warren Street
Trenton, New Jersey 08608
www.njcathconf.com