After painstaking work with legislators and legislative staff that began in the fall, we now have a solid draft of a clean adoptee rights bill in Texas. The draft bill does the following:
- Restores the right of all Texas-born adoptees, at age 18, to obtain noncertified copies of their own original birth certificates upon request;
- If the adoptee is deceased, allows the adoptee’s descendant, adult sibling, surviving spouse, or adoptive parent to request and obtain the adoptee’s original birth certificate;
- Creates an optional and genuine contact preference form that a birthparent may complete, which expresses that parent’s preference for contact with the adoptee;
- For parents who do not prefer contact, requires the filing of a supplemental medical history form that would nevertheless provide additional information to the adoptee;
- Goes into effect on January 1, 2020, for all provisions.
It is a necessarily simple and straightforward bill that does what all clean bills must do: recognize and restore to adult adopted persons the equal right to request and obtain their own vital records.
Next Steps
We will continue to work with legislators and legislative staff to secure sponsors of the bill. We will also be visiting with past supporters and co-sponsors to assure that the overwhelming support on this issue in the past continues this session.
In the end, we cannot succeed without you. As the bill moves forward in the coming months, we will need your strong support to convince Texas legislators that restoring adoptee rights is the right thing to do. Make sure you join our efforts so that we can count on you during the current Texas legislative session.
As an adult adoptee, I am absolutely for this legislation to pass! I would like to be counted as a supporter of this bill and kept alerted to its progress.
Thank you!
Katherine,
Thank you for your support! Please sign up for email updates and we will contact you soon about advocacy opportunities and events.
I am a Texas-born adult adoptee, but my adoption was finalized in Wyoming and I now live in Washington state. Would I still be allowed access to my birth records upon request?
Under a clean bill in Texas, and under the draft bill I have worked on with TXARC’s advocates, the answer is yes. The OBC would be available upon request to any Texas-born adoptee, no matter where they were adopted.
Do you have a bill number?
is there a bill number?
Any update on filing this bill? Do you have a bill number?
I think this is very reasonable and it eliminates their worn-out excuse for bio parents privacy.