State legislative efforts in the U.S. are pretty much dead—except maybe one thing: convincing Utah Governor Gary Herbert to veto HB345, a discriminatory and regressive bill that just passed the Utah legislature.
I wrote Governor Herbert today. I urge you to do so too. Here’s his address and contact information and the text of the letter I sent. More information about the bill is here.
Contact Information
The Office of Governor Gary R. Herbert
350 North State Street, Suite 200
PO Box 142220
Salt Lake City, Utah 84114-2220
Twitter: @GovHerbert
Please note that Governor Herbert is an adoptee. His step-father adopted him when he was a young child.
Letter to Governor Herbert
March 18, 2020
The Office of Governor Gary R. Herbert
350 North State Street, Suite 200
PO Box 142220
Salt Lake City, Utah 84114-2220
RE: Veto Request for HB345
Dear Governor Herbert:
I ask that you veto HB345, the Personal Records Amendments bill, when it is transmitted to your office for consideration.
I am an adoptee and the founder of Adoptee Rights Law Center, a law firm and nationally-recognized resource for adoptee rights, whether those rights involve identity, vital records, or US citizenship. I joined with the American Adoption Congress and other adoption reform organizations to oppose HB345 (as amended). The bill represents a regressive approach to adoption practices and denies a right all adults should have: the right to request and obtain your own vital record.
HB345, as passed by the legislature, does not reflect best practices in adoption, discriminates against adoptees who are adults, and operates to empower formerly abusive parents by giving them the ability to withhold the release of an adult adoptee’s own records.
HB345, as amended in the House and approved by both chambers, creates a new “power of permission” that birthparents can wield over their own grown adult children, namely release of the adult’s own vital record. For adoptees whose adoptions occurred after a parent’s rights were terminated for abuse or neglect, the bill perversely injects a significant legal and emotional right over former foster youth, creating a new right to deny adoptees’ requests to possess their own personal records. Moreover, the bill will ultimately incentivize the use of DNA registries and social media to “out” family members who deny consent, dispersing information about the adoption far more publicly than a simple and discreet disclosure of the records to the adult adoptee who requests them.
Legislation should reflect reality, not an outdated and impossible-to-enforce notion of secrecy in adoption. HB345, as passed, merely shifts the disclosure of personal information to the private sector and continues to treat human beings as government secrets.
We are not secrets. I urge you to veto HB345 when it arrives on your desk for consideration.
Best regards,
ADOPTEE RIGHTS LAW CENTER PLLC
Gregory D. Luce
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