The General Assembly returns tomorrow, Tuesday, April 29, after taking last week off.

HB 4623, which has been amended to the Adoption Act will change privacy rules for birth parents, requiring that the original birth certificate be available to adult adoptees. A number of the folks who work with crisis pregnancy centers have expressed concern. Girls who are not planning to keep their babies are already on the fragile edge, trying to decide whether to give the baby up for adoption, or to have an abortion. This could possibly scare these pregnant teens into having an abortion instead of an adoption.

It is likely that HB 4623 will come up for a vote soon. The deadline for bills to be out of the House was Friday, April 18. The deadline for this bill has now been extended to Friday, May 9.

The roll call on this bill is very close. With a few more emails and calls to legislators, I believe we have the opportunity to stop this legislation. Please contact your legislators and ask them to vote NO on HB 4623.

Thank you for making your wishes known to your legislators. For the contact information for your state representative, go to the following website:

http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/...

The message for them:
 

        Please vote NO on HB 4623 because of our concerns that the bill may move young pregnant girls to choose abortion over adoption since HB 4623 changes the rules to alter the privacy rights of birth parents.

Thank you for your willingness to met your responsibilities in our representative form of government.

Rev. Bob