I’m close to announcing the finished Adoptee Rights Law website as well as the overall opening of the “Center.” I still need to move a few pieces into place, primarily on the homepage, but I also need to suss out a bit more detail about what I will actually be doing for clients and for adoptee-rights advocates.
One thing I have done in the last few weeks is review all 50 states (plus the District of Columbia) to get a better idea about the state of OBC access in the US. The review, however, was not just for my benefit—I also wanted to provide a resource to lawyers and adoptees and anyone else who needs to find the law in their state fairly quickly and easily. While there are other resources out there, I found some of them out of date and also fairly hard to use and understand, especially for non-lawyers.
As part of my review process, I also created a Google map to illustrate OBC access laws and where access is unrestricted, conditionally restricted, or completely restricted (by court order). You can jump to that map here.
As with nearly everything I do on the site and with Adoptee Rights Law, I depend on feedback to make it better. If you notice something that is off or doesn’t quite jibe with your own experiences, let me know. The map will change over time to reflect any changes in the law, as well as improvements in design.
Jana Carr says
March 26, 2017 at 8:57 amWhat are your thoughts on biological and genetic restitution? [Link]
Gregory D. Luce says
March 26, 2017 at 9:59 amTo be honest, I know very little about that issue or even about that term, unless I’m misunderstanding what is meant by “biological/genetic restitution.” Do you have a copy of the article you link to (it does not appear to be available)? I would be interested in reading more.
Rich Uhrlaub says
March 26, 2017 at 9:21 amDouble check AR, MT, and WA. They fit under your definition of conditional access.
Gregory D. Luce says
March 26, 2017 at 9:28 amYep, we’ve got those wrong with the icons on the map but should have them correct on our summaries: Montana | Washington | Arkansas.
Arkansas, however, just passed new legislation (in the last few weeks) that won’t go into effect until July 2018, at the earliest. Pretty sure we already have that info on the summary page for Arkansas but I’m not yet ready for some reason to list it as “Conditional.” Just too new I guess.
Thanks for pointing these out! We’ve fixed the icons on the current map to reflect these states.
BT says
March 26, 2017 at 2:18 pmYes, I would like to know more about the meaning-extent of biological and genetic restitution?
Valerie says
March 26, 2017 at 7:10 pmCan you explain what you mean by “corrupt” contact preference form?
Gregory D. Luce says
March 26, 2017 at 7:42 pmSure. This is how we define it here: “A corrupt CPF is a contact preference form that in reality may be used to prohibit the release of an OBC or to redact identifying information on an OBC. It is not a true contact preference form.” What we mean is that, though the law indicates a birth parent may complete a “contact preference form,” the actual form may be used to prohibit disclosure or to redact information.
A true contact preference form only lists the preference a parent may have for contact, typically whether it is direct contact, contact through an intermediary, or no contact. From our review, four states use corrupt contact preference forms, while six states use true contact preference forms.