by Of course, it didn’t work!
Passed 11-0
We’ll have a legislative roundup in a couple of days.
Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization
P.O. Box 4607
New Windsor, New York 12553-7845
bastards.org 614-795-6819 @BastardsUnite
TO: The Honorable Jerry Torr and Honorable Members of the House Judiciary Committee
FROM Marley Greiner Executive Chair
RE: SB345
Date: March 14 2023
Position: Unequivocally Opposed (additional statement)
Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization is the largest adoptee civil rights organization in the United States. We support only full unrestricted access for all adopted persons to their original birth certificates (OBC) and related documents.
We oppose unequivocally SB 345, a bill to amend the current Safe Haven Baby Box law to allow receiving emergency service providers in Safe Haven and Safe Haven Baby cases to bypass DFS reporting and processing and instead transfer the infant directly to a private adoption agency.
We submitted opposition letters twice to the legislature (Senate:January 31) and your committee (March 7), and are writing one final time. Our letters outline in detail our concerns regarding lack of legal protection for infants and their biological parents normally afforded them in adoption procedures and the lack of accountability in the secret adoption transfer system. The outcome is trafficking.
Absolutely no adoptee rights or adoption reform organization in the United States today supports this unhealthy and unethical scheme that abrogates the rights of “legally abandoned” newborns, adoptees, and their biological parents and reeks of private industry privilege and profit. Yet our concerns go unanswered, and in fact ignored.
I am sure that bill supporters are well-intentioned, but it is important to know that SB345 is not about “baby saving.” If a baby is left with a SH/SHBB provider that so-called “saving “is done. SB345 is not about streamlining SH/SHBB procedures. SB345 is not about saving DFS money or time. Since 2013, I believe only 44 SH/SHBB cases have been reported by the state. DFS is hardly over-whelmed or over-burdened..
SB345 reflects the worst practice standards (if you could call them standards) in foster care and adoption placement, by excluding DFS involvement and benchmark protections for children in family crisis situations and their parents and turning the placement and adoption process over to opaque private industry (adoption agencies), with little accountability.
If SB345 becomes law Indiana will be the first state in the country to legalize newborn trafficking for adoption.
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