Ohio Senator Bill Beagle
Creating Equity in Ohio’s Adoption System

On any given day, we’re asked to fill out forms that detail some of our personal information. As a patient in a doctor’s office, you may be asked to describe your family medical history, or as a student applying for a scholarship, you may be asked to select a nationality.

If you were adopted between January 1964 and September 1996, chances are you don’t know these answers and your original birth records that hold the answers, have been sealed away. It is estimated that there are over 400,000 Ohioans in this situation.

Senate Bill 23 aims to change this unfair system.

This bill will allow adult adoptees to have access to something many of us take for granted- their original birth certificate. It will open the opportunity for adoptees to access essential health information related to their family history by simply calling the Ohio Department of Health, just as those adopted before 1964 or after 1996 can do today.

The General Assembly heard the countless stories of adoptees, adoptive parents, and birth parents struggling with sealed records. No two stories are alike but all with the same underlying theme- the need to have access to records that would explain the very basic and first moments of an adoptees life. These records, which were originally sealed to protect those adopted from the negative stigma, have left adoptees not knowing who they are, their genetic makeup, or family history.

I am proud to be the primary sponsor of Senate Bill 23, which was passed out of both the Ohio Senate and the Ohio House of Representatives with overwhelming bipartisan support. This bill was signed by the Governor on December 19th. Birth parents will have one year to exercise an option to have their names redacted from the original birth certificates in exchange for filling out a medical history form.

During the holiday season, many of us will be spending time with friends and family celebrating traditions and customs that have been passed down from generation to generation. Soon Ohio’s adult adoptees can celebrate not only traditions they have grown up with, but having a better understanding of their own history that’s been restored to them.

Senator Bill Beagle serves the people of Ohio’s 5th Senate District, which includes Miami and Preble Counties as well as portions of Montgomery and Darke Counties. He presides as the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Workforce & Economic Development. Learn more at www.OhioSenate.gov/Beagle.