BILL REQ. #:  S-0197.2 

Read first time 01/18/13.   Referred to Committee on Human Services & Corrections.

     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,)) 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.
     (4) A birth parent who has filed an affidavit of nondisclosure may subsequently file an affidavit indicating their consent to disclosure. The most recent affidavit shall control.