Advocates Ask for Wisconsin Bill to Die

Five state and national adoptee rights organizations have requested that Wisconsin legislators set aside two bills that were recently heard in Senate and Assembly committees. The bills, analyzed here, seek release of a court adoption form, deliberately ignoring the issue of releasing an adopted person’s own original birth certificate.

Joining together to request the withdrawal of AB579 and SB521 were Adoptee Rights Law Center, American Adoption Congress, Bastard Nation, New York Adoptee Rights Coalition, and the Texas Adoptee Rights Coalition.

The joint letter, sent to legislators earlier this week, requests legislators:

to set the bills aside and not act upon them further. We would rather engage in a more honest discussion over the real issue: whether Wisconsin—like ten other states in the country, including New York just days ago—will restore a right of all people to obtain one’s own birth record, a right that all adult adopted people in Wisconsin and in the United States once had.

The full text of the letter is here.