BILL REQ. #:  S-1263.1 

READ FIRST TIME 02/12/13.   

     AN ACT Relating to access to original birth certificates after adoption finalization; and amending RCW 26.33.345.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

Sec. 1   RCW 26.33.345 and 1993 c 81 s 3 are each amended to read as follows:
     (1) The department of social and health services, adoption agencies, and independent adoption facilitators shall release the name and location of the court where a relinquishment of parental rights or finalization of an adoption took place to an adult adoptee, a birth parent of an adult adoptee, an adoptive parent, a birth or adoptive grandparent of an adult adoptee, or an adult sibling of an adult adoptee, or the legal guardian of any of these.
     (2) The department of health shall make available a noncertified copy of the original birth certificate of a child to the child's birth parents upon request.
     (3) ((For adoptions finalized after October 1, 1993,)) Upon written request, the department of health shall make available a noncertified copy of the original birth certificate to ((the adoptee after the adoptee's eighteenth birthday unless the birth parent has filed an affidavit of nondisclosure)) an adopted person eighteen years of age or older.
     (4) A birth parent may at any time complete a contact preference form stating his or her preference about personal contact with the adopted person, which, if available, must accompany a birth certificate issued under subsection (3) of this section. The contact preference form must include the following options:
     (a) I would like to be contacted;
     (b) I would like to be contacted only through a confidential intermediary as described in RCW 26.33.343; and
     (c) I prefer not to be contacted at this time and have also completed the birth parent updated medical history form.
     (5) Both a completed contact preference form and birth parent updated medical history form are confidential and must be placed in a secure file until a match with the adopted person's file is made. Once a match is made, the forms must be placed in the adopted person's sealed file.
     (6) If the contact preference form is filed within six months of the first time an adopted person requests a copy of his or her original birth certificate as provided in subsection (3) of this section, the department of health must forward the form to the address of the adopted person. If applicable, the department of health must also forward the birth parent updated medical history form to the address of the adopted person.
     (7) The department of health may charge a fee not to exceed twenty dollars for providing a noncertified copy of a birth certificate to an adoptee.